fans of sf, fantasy, horror & whimsy
You’re cordially invited to join us in celebrating thirty years of this discussion group which meets once a month to critically discuss SF & Fantasy.
Traditionally, our last meeting of the year is an outing for food & drink.
This Wednesday, December 7th, we’re meeting at a cafe/bar called East of Norman, which is on Sturt Street, just east of Norman Street, adjacent to the Ergo Apartments.
Turn up at 6pm, and feel free to bring a friend to help celebrate!
The new SF film by Denis Villeneuve is an adaptation of Ted Chiang’s Award winning novella, Story of Your Life (winner of the Nebula and Sturgeon, shortlisted for the Tiptree).
It’s a First Contact situation, with Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner playing a linguist and a physicist whose specialties are called upon when aliens land all over Earth and we try to find a way to communicate with the visitors.
In the novella, the linguist, Louise Banks, describes the complexity of the alien (named Heptapods) written language:
The heptapods didn’t write a sentence one semagram at a time; they built it out of strokes irrespective of individual semagrams. I had seen a similarly high degree of integration before in calligraphic designs, particularly those employing the Arabic alphabet. But those designs had required careful planning by expert calligraphers. No one could lay out such an intricate design at the speed needed for holding a conversation. At least, no human could.
Here’s an excerpt from an interview with Ted Chiang by Meghan McCarron (full interview in the Electric lit site):
Film really is an alien language. Or at least it’s a language that I have some fluency in as a listener, but one that I don’t speak at all. I’ve always been aware of this at some level, but I was definitely reminded of it when I was first approached about the adaptation of “Story of Your Life,” because it’s not a story that I would have ever pitched to be made into a film. And this ties in with what we were saying about how deeply the written word is embedded in our consciousnesses. Because when a story idea crystallizes in my mind, what I’m thinking about are sentences. I assume that if I were a screenwriter, I’d be picturing scenes, and it makes me wonder about how deep are the differences between these two modes of storytelling.
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
A personal list of SF films worth watching!
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.
This old Ealing comedy features Alec Guinness as an eccentric inventor of a spotless fabric. Very, very funny.
I admit it, I just loved the gorgeous design of this Time Machine.
Kubrick captures the grandeur of space. Lots of fun watching the Star Wars generation puzzling over the apeman opening!
A very nice adaptation of the short story Flowers for Algernon
The clock is ticking as a bunch of scientists deal with an infestation from space.
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.
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.
Ridley Scott, and Sigourney Weaver as Ripley!
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.
Luc Besson’s glorious space opera romp, beautiful to behold and fun to watch.
Classic 1950s man into superman story. Filmed around Central Station in Sydney.
Spielberg film of another PK Dick story. Max von Sydow is excellent!
Richard Linklater doing SF! Based on the PK Dick story. Very interesting rotoscoping of the actors.
Intelligent SF commenting on Apartheid and racism.
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”.
Unlikely heroes save their block from alien invasion
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.
And to celebrate, there’s a new website criticalmassadelaide.com
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 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!
Our last discussion for the year (December is usually an expedition to a restaurant for food)! As usual, 7pm at kappys, 22Compton Street.
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.
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.
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