alchemy was once a cutting-edge science, one that well-respected men like Isaac Newton and Giordano Bruno thought would heal society’s political and religious rifts. Crowley’s new edition of the alchemical Wedding attempts to resituate it in these terms. Published during the year of the book’s 400th anniversary, with Gorey-like illustrations by Theo Fadel, The Chemical Wedding is living and breathing yet again, reopening a bizarre and understudied chapter in European history.
— Emily Nordling, The Alchemy of SciFi: John Crowley’s New Telling of The Chemical Wedding book review at Tor.com
SF films of note
A personal list of SF films worth watching!
- Metropolis (1927, as restored)
Fritz Lang & Thea von Harbou’s masterpiece. If you haven’t seen the most recent restoration, which restored broken or missing storylines, you need to see the movie again. This new, restored version is truely stunning to behold, and tells a complex and gripping tale.
- The Man in the White Suit (1951)
This old Ealing comedy features Alec Guinness as an eccentric inventor of a spotless fabric. Very, very funny.
- The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
Michael Rennie was ill, … - War of the Worlds (Geo. Pal, 1953)
The strange cross between flyng saucers and martian tripods works, and the story still works even transplanted to the US. - Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Who can forget the shot of the man, running down the road, trying to warn people? - Forbidden Planet (1956)
Robby the Robot! Shakespeare! Flying saucers! - The Time Machine (1960)
I admit it, I just loved the gorgeous design of this Time Machine.
- Alphaville (1965) une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution
Jean-Luc Godard film about a totalitarian city of the future. Very unsettling - 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Kubrick captures the grandeur of space. Lots of fun watching the Star Wars generation puzzling over the apeman opening!
- Charly (1968)
A very nice adaptation of the short story Flowers for Algernon
- A Clockwork Orange (1971)
- The Andromeda Strain (1971)
The clock is ticking as a bunch of scientists deal with an infestation from space.
- Dark Star (1975)
I first saw this at Aussiecon, then screened it the following year in Adelaide. A funny and clever film about the mental hazards of deep space with a small crew.
- Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
a beautifully filmed version of Roadside Picnic, and a meditation on the sadness in the Russian soul. Possibly a tad too slow for modern audiences, but there’s actually a lot happening.
- Alien (1979)
Ridley Scott, and Sigourney Weaver as Ripley!
- Blade Runner (1982)
Ridley Scott’s beautiful and intelligent adaptation of PK Dick’s Do Android’s dream of Electric Sheep? set a high standard for SF films.
- Fifth Element (1997)
Luc Besson’s glorious space opera romp, beautiful to behold and fun to watch.
- Dark City (1998)
Classic 1950s man into superman story. Filmed around Central Station in Sydney.
- Minority Report (2002)
Spielberg film of another PK Dick story. Max von Sydow is excellent!
- A Scanner Darkly (2006)
Richard Linklater doing SF! Based on the PK Dick story. Very interesting rotoscoping of the actors.
- District 9 (2009)
Intelligent SF commenting on Apartheid and racism.
- Inception (2010)
Entering people’s dreams to embed/steal ideas. The question is, how do you know when you’re awake? A nice caper involving layers of “reality”.
- Attack the Block (2011)
Unlikely heroes save their block from alien invasion
Vampire Bunnies
Welcome to the new Critical Mass
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.– WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM)
This site is designed for members of Critical Mass to share news, reviews, and talks about SF, Fantasy and related works.
Feel free to add a post, or comment on other posts.
If you’re new to wordpress, or blogging, you can have a look at this quick guide, or you might find this more detailed guide by Dona Fontenot useful.
Critical Mass turns 30
And to celebrate, there’s a new website criticalmassadelaide.com
Bradbury Award
I know it was announced months ago at the Nebula Awards ceremony, but I just wanted to point out the well deserved win by George Miller and his team.
Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation Winner: Mad Max: Fury Road, Written by George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, Nick Lathouris
Other nominees:
Ex Machina, Written by Alex Garland
Inside Out, Screenplay by Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley; Original Story by Pete Docter, Ronnie del Carmen
Jessica Jones: AKA Smile, Teleplay by Scott Reynolds & Melissa Rosenberg; Story by Jamie King & Scott Reynolds
The Martian, Screenplay by Drew Goddard
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Written by Lawrence Kasdan & J.J. Abrams and Michael Arndt
Details of the nominees and winners of the Nebulas at SFWA
Feet of Clay
Feet of Clay is the new production by the Unseen Theatre Company, another australian premiere of a Terry Pratchett Discworld story.
Runs at the Bakehouse, Wed to Sat at 7:30 until Nov 5th
Unlike the previous production, Wee Free Men, this is a more compact story, a who done it with murders and villainous plots— or more precisely, a how done it, as the head of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, Commander Sam Vimes (played by Mike Shaw), tries to figure out the connection between a puzzling series of murders and the attempted poisoning of the Patrician, ruler of the city. The familiar shape of the murder mystery setting makes for an exciting tale, even if you’re unfamiliar with the exotic setting in Discworld.
Along the way, we encounter the Dragon King of Arms in the heraldry shop (a nice performance as a haughty vampire by Belinda Spangenberg), with a suitable groan worth of puns in the coats of arms presented for our delight.
We also encounter a lost Golem, the Watch’s new dwarf Alchemist (someone’s got to do all the CSI forensic stuff, right?) — Cheery Littlebottom — played by Alycia Rabig in an awesome beard, with a fondness for sparkly earrings…
It turns out a lot is at stake, as Lord Vetinari (Danny Sag) is being slowly — but surely — poisoned, despite the best efforts of Vimes & the City Watch to protect him. If only they could figure out how the poison is being introduced…
Meanwhile, various guilds are plotting to reintroduce the monarchy to introduce stability in succession upon the patrician’s death.
Kahlia Tutty reprises her role as Angua, and Hugh O’Connor turns in a nice performance as Captain Carrot, to round out the capable City Watch team.
The set makes good use of the stage, with an elevated office for the Patrician (naturally) on one side, and a City Watch desk on the other side of the stage. Twin doors centre stage represent a couple of shop locations, and there’s room front stage for street scenes.
It’s a fun evening, running around 2 hours, including an intermission.
Worth a look!
Nov 2nd: Crit Mass: Who & What
Our last discussion for the year (December is usually an expedition to a restaurant for food)! As usual, 7pm at kappys, 22Compton Street.
The Who
No-one has offered a topic, so I’m going to suggest members visit the ABC and have a look at the first two episodes of the new Dr Who spinoff, Class.
Episode 1: For Tonight We Might Die:
http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/class/ZW0907A001S00
Episode 2: The Coach With The Dragon Tattoo :
http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/class/ZW0907A002S00
Coal Hill School has become Coal Hill Academy, and we follow the misadventures of some students and their teacher (appropriately named, as she is rude and spikey), Miss Quill.
The What
As we have noted elsewhere, attendance at Critical Mass has been down this year (though the author sessions provoked some interest). We basically want to find out what we can do to attract more people: do we need to change the venue? time? format? content?; and what can we do to attract more people?
Feel free to answer the quiz we have sent out, or post a comment to this post.
The Future of Critical Mass
While we’ve got a slowly growing mailing list (now up to 16 members), this hasn’t resulted in an increase in numbers attending the Critical Mass evenings.
We’ve been meeting regularly for over two decades, but it’s not at all clear that there’s enough interest to continue regular meetings. The irony is, there’s more SF on TV, film and published in Australia than ever before. Why aren’t we getting the numbers for Critical Mass?
Is it the venue? We moved from the SA Writers Centre because the shrinking membership didn’t justify the annual fees. Our current venue is near the market, cosy and opens specially for us. People seem to like the steampunk coffee roaster, and the balcony venue. Is it too hard to find? Does the monthly gallery opening just down the road divert possible attendees?
Is it the time? We’ve settled on the first Wednesday of the month, but would it be better earlier in the week? Or would you prefer weekends?
Is it the speakers? We haven’t had many volunteers to deliver talks in the last two years; the largest audiences came for the three talks by authors. Would members prefer us to programme a series of speakers a yer in advance? Is the idea of preparing a 40 minute critical talk too daunting for newcomers? Should we run a few workshops on critical talks? Or should we go for 2 or 3 short (10 min) presentations followed by general discussion?
Should we cater for more diverse talks on comics, film, radio and TV as well as written SF? (We’ve had a diverse range in the last year, but this hasn’t lead to bigger audiences.)
is it too old-fashioned to insist on in-person attendance? Should we allow people to connect to talks on G+ or skype? Or at the least, allow our guest speaker to connect remotely via the net?
Perhaps we should just publish the talks a fortnight beforehand, and then meet to discuss them?
Is the problem that we have too low a profile, and might we be better off joining a larger group en masse and forming a specialist subgroup?
October 5th: Critical Mass
For our penultimate meeting, a round-table discussion: who is your favourite author and why?
As usual, 7pm at Kappys, 22 Compton St in Adelaide.
The Adelaide Fan Review 
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