Posts Tagged ‘Science Fiction’

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Jeff Millar, RIP

Saturday, December 1st, 2012

From Dwight comes the sad news that Tank McNamara creator and Houston Chronicle movie reviewer and columnist Jeff Millar has died at age 70. To have some idea of his stature in Houston in the 1970s and 1980s, imagine that Mike Royko and Roger Ebert were the same guy.

His regular humor column was really funny. I remember one about an IRS agents showing up on the doorstep of a nuclear war survivor’s doorstep to conduct an audit. “That whole ‘end of civilization as we know it’ excuse may pass muster with other government agencies, but not the IRS.”

Tank McNamara was one of my favorite comic strips as well. He had a hilarious sport trial series presided over by an English-barrister sounding Dennis Rodman. (“Mr. Sprewell, please be so kind as to remove your fingers from the panelist’s throat.”) And I loved the strips with the mad sports scientist Dr. Tszap, with his frizzed-out hair, coke-bottle glasses and hula girl tie.

I met him once, at CollegeCon at U of H, the first science fiction convention I went to in 1980. I have his signature on the back of the program book along with those of Harlan Ellison, Robert Sheckley and George Takei.

He also had a story in Damon Knight’s Orbit 17: “Toto, I Have a Feeling We’re Not in Kansas Anymore.” I haven’t read that, or his mystery novel Private Sector.

RIP.

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Posted in Science Fiction, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

Ruin: A Cool Looking (And Completely Stupid) SF Short Film

Saturday, November 17th, 2012

So I stumbled across this short, very professional looking CGI animated science fiction film on YouTube:

What a rich, zesty collection of illogical stupidity!

  1. You want to loot possibly valuable artifacts. What’s the best way to do that? Toss containers out of tall buildings!
  2. Why? To open them up? Why not just use the cuts anything electric sword you whip out later in the film?
  3. Why did you park your motorcycle out in the open where you had to run a long distance to it when the scary twin turbo fan hunting craft comes flying in? Shouldn’t you have tried to hide it nearby in the first place?
  4. If that thing just wants to kill you, why doesn’t it fire its machine gun or drones at you when it first sees you, rather than waiting until you get on your motorcycle?
  5. How come those futuristic seeker drones can’t travel any faster than a motorcycle?
  6. Why doesn’t a craft with expensive, ineffective drones not have cheaper, simpler, much faster and more-effective surface-to-ground missiles?
  7. If you’re flying along on your motorcycle at top speed, how come your gimme cap never flies off?
  8. You know that scene when you jump off your motorcycle and jab the craft with your electric sword? Unless you’ve got a cyborg body, you just broke a whole mess of bones. Momentum doesn’t just stop working so you can pull off a deeply improbable, cool-looking stunt.

    9. To quote the South Park episode with Michael Bay: “Those aren’t ideas, those are special effects!” “I can’t tell the difference.” “We know.”

    Hey Wes Ball: Your animation rocks, but you suck as a screenwriter. Maybe in addition to all those animation and sound guys you credit, you might want to hire an actual writer.

    They’re supposedly making this into a feature film. Hopefully they’ll remove some of the stupidity.

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Posted in Movies, Science Fiction, video | 1 Comment »

Armadillocon 2011 Pictures Redux

Friday, November 16th, 2012

Poking around some old posts, I noticed that some pictures from more than a year ago weren’t showing up. Turns out it’s because Facebook likes to completely change the name for pictures every now and then.

My process for putting up con pictures is:

  1. Take pictures.
  2. Upload to Mac.
  3. Do a quick edit in iPhoto.
  4. Bulk upload to Facebook.
  5. Copy URLs for JPEG’s from Facebook and reference them from the blog post.

This method is quick, easy, and hosts pics on Facebook’s dime. The downside is the Facebook rejiggering, and having to go back every now and then and redo the links.

Anyway, I’ve gone in and changed all the URLs for my Armadillocon 2011 pictures:

  • Friday
  • Saturday
  • Sunday

    • I’m sure there are some other blog posts with pics that need updating, and I’ll get to those in My Copious Free Time.

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    Posted in pics, Science Fiction | No Comments »

    John Picacio Launches 2013 Calendar Kickstarter

    Wednesday, November 14th, 2012

    Newly Hugo-minted artist and all-around good guy John Picacio has launched a Kickstarter for his 2013 art calendar. Actually, he launched it October 29, and it’s already met the initial goal, I’ve just been too backlogged with Other Stuff to put up a note until now.

    Anyway, I’m sure it will be a swell calendar, and you still have until November 28 to get in before the Kickstarter closes.

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    Posted in Fantasy, Science Fiction | No Comments »

    Book Acquisition: Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow

    Wednesday, November 7th, 2012

    Nineteen times out of twenty, when you put in a lowball “what the hell” bid at an auction, you don’t win. You keep doing it because of that twentieth time.

    This was one of those twentieth times.

    Robert W. Chambers. The King In Yellow. F. Tennyson Neely (as part of their Neely’s Prismatic Library series), 1895. First edition, first printing of green cloth with brown lettering, with lizard design on cover and review of In the Quarter at rear. Rubbing and soiling to cloth with front hinge cracked, top front corner and bottom rear binding soft, and lacking front free endpaper. The auction description said fair, but save the front free endpaper, the book looks intact, so I would grade this Good only. Jones & Newman, Horror: 100 Best Books, item 19 (appreciation by H. P. Lovecraft). Beliler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction, item 364. Bleiler, The Checklist of Science Fiction and Supernatural Fiction (1978), page 41. Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy, page 49. Barron, Horror Literature, item 2-12.

    Short story collection, roughly half of which are weird tales, most of which reference the play The King in Yellow, which drives people mad. (If memory serves, those stories also count as science fiction, being set in a future dictatorship.) One of the most important supernatural works of the late 19th century, and a huge influence on H.P. Lovecraft, who incorporated elements from it into the Cthulhu Mythos.

    Bought for just over $60 (including buyer’s premium and shipping) at auction. Earlier than the period I usual collect for, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to pick up a keystone work (even a considerably less than perfect copy) at a bargain price.

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    Posted in Books, Horror, Science Fiction | 3 Comments »

    Dinsey Buys LucasFilms for $4.05 Billion, Plans Star Wars VII in 2015

    Tuesday, October 30th, 2012

    “Disney is paying $4.05 billion to buy Lucasfilm Ltd., the production company behind Star Wars, from its chairman and founder, George Lucas. It’s also making a seventh movie in the Star Wars series.”

    Well, at least it will keep Lucas from tinkering with the original one for the rest of his life. Or, worse still, going back and “rebooting” it.

    How good will a seventh film be? Depends on whether Brad Bird or Michael Bay directs, doesn’t it?

    I do hope this means they’ll finally put out pristine Blu-rays of the unfarked with first three films….

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    Monster Monday: Attack of the Monster From the Id in Forbidden Planet

    Monday, October 15th, 2012

    Today I heard that some people are participating in “Monster Monday,” where they talk about some of the their favorite monsters.

    So here’s a quick glimpse of one of my favorite monsters in one of my favorite movies, the attack of the Monster from the Id in Forbidden Planet.

    The sound of the monster attacking is one of tracks I play out my windows on Halloween…

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    Posted in Horror, Movies, Science Fiction, video | No Comments »

    The Sound of Cylons

    Saturday, October 13th, 2012

    The only reason this isn’t perfect is that no one has the pure upper tenor Art Garfunkel has. But right now it’s only a 360 hits. By the end of the month I bet it’s over a million.

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    Posted in Music, Science Fiction, video | No Comments »

    Lawrence Person’s Library: Reference Books (Part 5: Magill’s Sets)

    Sunday, September 30th, 2012

    Back when I edited Nova Express, I tried to pick up all the important SF reference works I could afford that I could lay my hands on. Among those were two extensive Magill’s references sets: Survey of Science Fiction Literature and Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature. Each covers hundreds of key works, alphabetized by title, providing title, author, year of publication, type (novel, etc.), time, setting, key characters, a summary of the book that touches in some measure on its major themes, and a short secondary bibliography. Several notable science fiction writers, editors and critics contributed entries, including Brian Aldiss, John Clute, David Pringle, Brian Stableford and Jack Williamson.

    In some ways, the material in these books have been superseded by the aggregate knowledge contained in the Internet. But it’s still a useful reference source. If i want to know, say, what Harry E. Martinson’s Aniara is about, I can read the short entry here rather than the entire book-length poem and be reasonably sure that it’s accurate.

    I kept my eyes out for those sets, and picked them up off eBay when affordable copies appeared. I also picked up two more Magill’s sets at a library sale dirt cheap (I think $10 for each set) and those are on the same top shelf.

  • Magill, Frank N., Editor (series editor). Survey of Science Fiction Literature. Salem Press, 1979. First edition hardbacks, five volume set, Ex-Library copies, otherwise VG with interior library markings, etc.
  • Magill, Frank N., Editor (with bibliographies compiled by Marshall b. Tymn). Survey of Science Fiction Literature Bibliographic Supplement. Salem Press, 1979. First edition trade paperback original, a Fine- copy with slight edgewear. Additional secondary bibliographic material for 295 of the entries in the five volume work. Purchased separately.
  • Magill, Frank N., Editor (series editor). Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature. Salem Press, 1983. First edition hardbacks, five volume set, Ex-Library copies, otherwise VG with library markings, etc.
  • Magill, Frank N., Editor (with Stephen L. Hanson and Patricia King Hanson, Associate Editors). Magill’s Bibliography of Literary Criticism. Salem Press, 1979. First edition hardbacks, four volume set, Ex-Library copies, otherwise VG with library markings, etc. Covers some 2,500 works, listed alphabetically by author. Very little genre coverage.
  • Magill, Frank N., Editor. Materplots II: Juvenile and Young Adult Fiction Series. Salem Press, 1991. First edition hardbacks, four volume set, Ex-Library copies, otherwise VG with library markings, etc. Listed alphabetically by title. Includes some genre coverage, even of books I wouldn’t associate with YA (such as Babel-17, Dreamsnake, Dune, etc.).

    • On the end of the row in the picture is an Ex-Library copy of the first edition of Neil Barron’s Anatomy of Wonder.

    There are two other Magill SF/F reference sets I don’t own: Magill’s Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature from 1996, which culls and condenses the two five volume sets down to a single four volume set, and Classics of Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature from 2002, which condenses them down still further into a two volume set with still more additional material, including my own entry on Patrick O’Leary’s Door Number Three. I believe that Classics of Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature is the only thing I’m in for which I lack a contributor’s copy.

    In Anatomy of Wonder 4, Neil Barron calls Survey of Science Fiction Literature “an essential tool, although its price will limit it to larger libraries.” Well, I guess mine qualifies…

    Related Posts

  • Lawrence Person’s Library of Science Fiction First Editions
  • Lawrence Person’s Reference Books Part 1: Key Reference Works
  • Lawrence Person’s Reference Books Part 2: Oversized Books
  • Lawrence Person’s Reference Books Part 3: Contributor Copies
  • Lawrence Person’s Reference Books Part 4: H. P. Lovecraft

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    Posted in Books, Fantasy, pics, Science Fiction | No Comments »

    Lord Byron’s Autographed Copy of Frankenstein Up for Sale

    Tuesday, September 25th, 2012

    I have a number of interesting association copies in my library, but a first edition of Frankenstein inscribed to Lord Byron by the author blows away anything I have by a good measure. That’s what bookseller Peter Harrington is offering up for a mere £350,000 or so (which, at this particular moment, comes out to $566,985.26). I’ll check my recliner for spare change, but I think that’s more than I’m willing to spend right now. (Plus it’s only the first volume of the three volume set, and you can’t expect me to lower my standards and buy an incomplete set, can you?)

    I’ve refrained from putting up a post on it until now because I’m incredibly lazy I was waiting for the bookseller to put up a full prospectus, which he has now done. Here’s the relevant description:

    [SHELLEY, Mary.] Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. London: for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, 1818. First edition, presentation copy to Lord Byron, with the author’s autograph inscription to the front flyleaf: “To Lord Byron from the Author”. An unsurpassable association copy of the best known fiction of the Romantic era, perhaps the most evocative presentation copy conceivable in all nineteenth-century literature.

    Condition: Vol. 1 only (of 3), duodecimo (184 × 114 mm). Bound for presentation in contemporary calf, boards ruled in gilt with a double fillet enclosing a leaf-and-flower-head roll in blind with floral tools in blind at inside corners, marbled endpapers, green silk book mark. Inscribed by the author on the binder’s blank immediately preceding the half-title; complete with the half-title and final advert leaf. Spine perished (a small fragment with a single blind-tooled oriel preserved in archival paper tipped-in on the rear pastedown), inner hinges expertly repaired by James Brockman, boards rubbed and a little stained, tips just worn, a few faint spots and some light offsetting, a tall, well-margined copy.

    Worth that much? Probably. Though I would really want the second and third volumes…

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    Posted in Books, Horror, Science Fiction | 4 Comments »

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