Other Worlds Ink is excited to be curating the Explore Sci-Fi Worlds StoryBundle for the second year – this time we have 176 Sci-Fi Worlds for you to explore – that’s eleven sci-fi anthologies and collections showcasing 116 authors, but it’s available for a limited time only – from July 19th to August 10th. This StoryBundle offers a large selection of ebooks from independent and small press fantasy writers. You can grab it now here: https://storybundle.com/anthology.
This StoryBundle features a wide variety of themes – radiant futures, Frankenstein re-imaginings, space marines, powerful cyborgs and tiny aliens, climate change, augmented reality, and much more. With more than a hundred talented authors, chances are that you’ll find some new writers to love.
Yes, season 2 of Good Omens has appeared on the screens.
Kelly Woo at Tom’s Guide provides details:
The fantasy comedy created by Neil Gaiman finally returns after a four-year hiatus. Fans are at a fever pitch to see David Tennant as mercurial demon Crowley and Michael Sheen as fastidious angel Aziraphale revive their buddy banter.
Good Omens season 2 premiered Friday (July 28) at 12:01 a.m. ET on Prime Video.
Even better: Jon Hamm is reprising his role as the archangel Gabriel. And he shows up fully nude in the first episode!
Good Omens season 2 takes place some time after the two pals successfully thwarted the apocalypse. They’re peacefully living among humans until the day Gabriel arrives at Aziraphale’s bookshop with no memory of who he is or how he got there. Aziraphale wants to figure out the mystery, while Crowley is suspicious.
An interesting take on vampires on SBS: Count Abdulla
“Abdulla Khan, a young British-Pakistani junior doctor based in London, is bitten by a halal-hunting vampire, and he finds himself stuck in an identity crisis.” A very funny and interesting take on vampires, also dealing with delicacy over choosing mates and dealing with families…
For those of who who missed it first time around, SBS now has all five seasons of Being Human OnDemand.
Created by Doctor Who scribe Toby Whithouse, Being Human sets its scene in the suburb of Totterdam, Bristol, in the UK, where two old friends are setting up a new household. You wouldn’t think that John Mitchell (Aidan Turner) and George Sands (Russell Tovey) would be close, what with the former being a century-old vampire trying to kick the red stuff and the latter a recently-bitten werewolf trying to get a handle on his carnivorous lunar activities, but what they have in common is a desire to live a quiet life […]
But they’re surprised to find their new pad already occupied – but not by the living. Annie Sawyer (Lenora Critchlow), a previous tenant, died in the apartment and now haunts it as a ghost. Mitchell and George, being creatures of the night, can perceive her, which does a lot for her loneliness. And so, as they say, three’s company.
Best-selling author Max Barry is our guest on in July to tell us about his alternate worlds-sliding doors-trousers of time-alternate histories novel The 22 Murders of Madison May. Many will recall his excellent and popular novel Jennifer Government followed by Lexicon. Madison May was published during lockdown and hasn’t had quite the same media presence but is equally enjoyable and even more unputdownable – it’s a one-sitting book. And Max is an excellent public speaker as well as writer.
“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.’
“In Queens, New York, 22-year-old real estate agent Madison May is showing a house. The buyer, a man she’s never met, is friendly, engaging . . . and claims to be her soulmate from a parallel life. She’s in danger, he tells her. He’s come to save her.
“Later that day, newspaper journalist Felicity Staples is assigned to report on Madison May’s murder. Discontent with her own life, Felicity finds herself drawn into a shocking conspiracy involving a powerful group who have harnessed the ability to slip between lives – to move between one version of reality to another.
“On the run, turned into an imposter in her own life, Felicity is forced to seek the truth behind Madison May, the woman who is murdered over and over, in different ways, wherever she goes. For only by saving Madison May can Felicity reassemble the broken pieces of herself.”
Max Barry is the author of numerous novels, including Jennifer Government, Company, Machine Man, Lexicon and Providence. He is also the developer of the online nation simulation game NationStates. Prior to his writing career, Barry worked at tech giant HP. He lives in Melbourne, Australia, with his wife and two daughters.
This meeting will be zoom only
Max Barry and The 22 Murders of Madison May
Please share this invitation with like-minded friends and fans
You are invited to the July Critical Mass zoom meeting at 6:30pm July 19th (Adelaide)
By Zoom : Critical Mass Time: Jul 19, 2023 6:30 Adelaide, 7:00pm Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney Every month on the Third Wed
As several Critical Mass attendees will be interstate or overseas, this meeting will be Zoom only. Questions or comments typed into the Zoom chat will be discussed as the opportunity permits, and you’ll have the chance to discuss other matters after the main presentation.
Lee Harding, author of Displaced Person, passed away 19 April
Lee Harding, Australian SF and Children’s writer, photographer, and anthologist, passed away peacefully after an illness (1937-2023). Chandler, Ditmar, and Australia Children’s Book Award winner (for Displaced Person v.t. Misplaced Persons) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Harding_(writer). Condolences to family, friends, and fans.
The June Nova Mob will be a celebration of Lee Harding’s life. Please lock in June 7 in your diaries.
Wednesday June 7th:
7.30pm – 9.00pm Adelaide time 8.00pm – 9.30 pm Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney time
The 2023 Sir Julius Vogel Award winners were announced at ReConnect, a 2023 natcon in New Zealand on Sunday June 4th. The awards recognize excellence in science fiction, fantasy, or horror works created by New Zealanders and New Zealand residents.
“The machines we have now, they’re not conscious,” [Ted Chiang] says. “When one person teaches another person, that is an interaction between consciousnesses.” Meanwhile, AI models are trained by toggling so-called “weights” or the strength of connections between different variables in the model, in order to get a desired output. “It would be a real mistake to think that when you’re teaching a child, all you are doing is adjusting the weights in a network.”
Chiang’s main objection, a writerly one, is with the words we choose to describe all this. Anthropomorphic language such as “learn”, “understand”, “know” and personal pronouns such as “I” that AI engineers and journalists project on to chatbots such as ChatGPT create an illusion. This hasty shorthand pushes all of us, he says — even those intimately familiar with how these systems work — towards seeing sparks of sentience in AI tools, where there are none.
from a piece in File 770 quoting an interview in the Financial Times
Story has a beginning, middle and an end, with a resolution/catharsis
Suspension of disbelief: Story/world/characters must be believable and internally consistent
We care about the characters… either because they are likeable or a (macabre) curiosity as to who will survive
The world is viewed through the actions of the protagonist rather than (heavy) exposition
Do you think these elements guarantee a good SF/fantasy story? What would you add to this list? Are there SF/fantasy books you would recommend even though they don’t seem contain these elements?
Share your experiences with books that you don’t think pulled it off even though they seemed to have followed a good formula. Does a good story in fact need to follow any “formula”?
Have the requirements changed from the early days (say, 30s or 70s) SF/Fantasy?
This meeting will be zoom only
Zoom details:
Critical Mass Time: Jun 21, 2023 6:30pm Adelaide, 7:00pm Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney
The Adelaide Fan Review 
You must be logged in to post a comment.