Should Vice President Joe Biden flee to Phobos?

With unrelated news reports that scientists in several countries are preparing missions to Phobos, a moon of the planet Mars, and that U.S. Vice President Joe “Jabbering” Biden recommends his family avoid flying on commercial airplanes or riding in subway cars because of the risk of exposure to the swine flu virus H1N1, perhaps science fiction author Pamela Sargent should pen a story titled “Joey Flees to Phobos”, in which Biden and his family members flee to the Martian moon in order to escape the deadly wrath of the swine flu. Benefits of living on Phobos: there are no airplanes or subways, and no documented cases of the flu.

Pamela Sargent is the author of the award-winning novelette “Danny Goes to Mars” (1992), a satirical piece based on an ill-conceived comment about oxygen on Mars uttered by Vice President Dan Quayle, as quoted in Mother Jones magazine, January 1990. Sargent is also the author of the novelette “Hillary Orbits Venus” (1999).

Justice Dept. opens antitrust inquiry into $125 million Google Books Search settlement

Justice Dept. Opens Inquiry Into Google Books Deal
The New York Times, April 28, 2009
By Miguel Helft

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Justice Department has begun an inquiry into the antitrust implications of Google’s settlement with authors and publishers over its Google Book Search service, two people briefed on the matter said Tuesday.

Lawyers for the Justice Department have been in conversations in recent weeks with various groups opposed to the settlement, including the Internet Archive and Consumer Watchdog. More recently, Justice Department lawyers notified the parties to the settlement, including Google, and representatives for the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild, that they were looking into various antitrust issues related to the far-reaching agreement. [...]

Separately on Tuesday, Judge Denny Chin of Federal District Court in New York, who is overseeing the settlement, postponed by four months the May 5 deadline for authors to opt out of the settlement and for other parties to oppose it or file briefs. The decision follows requests by groups of authors and their heirs, who argued that authors needed more time to review the settlement. [...]

Read the entire article in The New York Times.

Penguin Books cover art: Philip K. Dick’s novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

Thanks to a recent post by Annalee Newitz of the SF blog io9, I just finished browsing a cool gallery of Penguin Books cover art. One of the covers is the 1973 paperback of The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965), a classic science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick about narcotics and religion on Mars.

"A Tulip for Lucretius”, a new short story by author Ken MacLeod

“A Tulip for Lucretius”, a new short story written by award-winning Scottish science fiction author Ken MacLeod, appears in the online Spring 2009 issue of Subterranean Press Magazine. The plot is set in a colony on Mars and revolves around an uprising of synthetic humans, who are treated as slaves. Here is the opening paragraph:

I was deep in a Californian orgy when the summons came, like the voice of conscience. In fact: the voice of Father Declan, and not meant for me. But I had not been idle in the two years of the Malacandra’s passage, nor in the even more dragging months of its inching across the Martian surface like one of the old, brave little rovers. I had the ship’s comms thoroughly tapped. ...

As MacLeod noted in a recent post on his blog, “Erudite critics may detect a subtle element of homage to Roger Zelazny's classic 1964 short story, "A Rose for Ecclesiastes". True, but mine has genomics! And total depravity!”

Thanks to Tinkoo of the blog Variety SF for the tip!

Philip K. Dick Trust joins call for more time to gubble through 334-page, $125 million Google Books Search settlement

Google Agrees to Settlement Delay
The Bookseller, April 28, 2009
By Philip Jones

Google, the US Author's Guild and the Association of American Publishers have acceded to a two-month delay to the resolution of the Google Settlement to allow those affected "more time to consider [their] rights and options". It follows a request made last week by a number of authors, including representatives of the estate of John Steinbeck, to the New York judge presiding over the Settlement to delay the agreement by four months. Google and the plaintiffs have asked the judge to deny the request for a four-month delay.

If the judge agrees to the delay the opt-out date could be be moved from 5th May 2009 to the 6th July, or even later, with the Fairness Hearing (at which the Settlement will be rejected or passed) postponed until the end of August, or even later. Any delay will be relief to many who are just coming to terms with the 300-page Settlement, which was agreed between Google and the US Author's Guild and the American Association of Publishers in October last year. [...]

Lawyers acting for seven authors and their heirs, including heirs to both the John Steinbeck and Philip K Dick estates, sent their letter to the New York judge Denny Chin on 24th April, saying that "more time [was] required simply to understand the complex terms of the agreement" and that "substantial defects in notice of the Settlement undermine authors' ability to assess their rights". [...]

Read the entire article in The Bookseller.

SF author Philip K. Dick wrote the novels Martian Time-Slip (1964) and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965), as well as the short story Martians Come in Clouds (1953). He died in 1982.

A Reading of Rebels of the Red Planet, a novel by Charles L. Fontenay

Thanks to a recent post by the blog QuasarDragon, I’ll be spending some time this weekend listening to voice actor Mark Nelson read Rebels of the Red Planet (1961), a classic SF novel written by Charles L. Fontenay and one that is in the public domain. The audio files of Nelson’s reading, which is about 5 hours, can be downloaded for free from LibriVox.

Here’s a description of Rebels of the Red Planet:

Dark Kensington had been dead for twenty-five years. It was a fact; everyone knew it. Then suddenly he reappeared, youthful, brilliant, ready to take over the Phoenix, the rebel group that worked to overthrow the tyranny that gripped the settlers on Mars.

The Phoenix had been destroyed not once, not twice, but three times! But this time the resurrected Dark had new plans, plans which involved dangerous experiments in mutation and psionics.

And now the rebels realized they were in double jeopardy. Not only from the government’s desperate hatred of their movement, but also from the growing possibility that the new breed of mutated monsters would get out of hand and bring terrors never before known to man.

Note the cool cover art by Ed Valigursky!

Heirs of author John Steinbeck seek to slow $125 million Google Books Search settlement

Steinbeck Heirs Seek To Slow Google Books Settlement
The New York Times, April 27, 2009
By Miguel Helft

A group of authors and the heirs of others, including representatives of the estate of John Steinbeck, and of the musician Arlo Guthrie, are asking a federal judge to delay by four months the deadline for authors to decide whether or not to participate in the class action settlement of landmark lawsuit against Google. [...]

Read the entire article in The New York Times.

How does John Steinbeck fit into Martian SF? Checkout "Steinbeck in Alfred Coppel's "Mars Is Ours" (1954)," which I posted on this blog in March 2008.

Proposed flags of Mars

Noting that the unofficial flag of Mars as adopted
by The Mars Society is a vertical tricolor banner representing the three phases of terraformation
as depicted in Kim Stanley Robinson’s three epic science fiction novels, Red Mars (1992), Green Mars (1993), Blue Mars (1996), the non-SF blog Abyssal’s Weblog argues that the Robinson-inspired tricolor is not “a satisfactory banner for the future inhabitants of the red planet. For one, the flag is ripped in a very literal way from fiction; its symbolism is therefore rather shallow. The ideas contained in its symbolism are also excessively rooted in what will one day be considered history and will lose a certain amount of resonance with the people who it is supposed to represent. Most people who will live on Mars will live long after terraforming is complete so why root the entirety of the flag’s meaning in that process.”

Therefore, Abyssal has proposed a new design for the flag for Mars, pictured above. Here’s a description of the proposed banner: “The black background represents space and the red circle represents planet Mars. The blue band represents the Earth’s water and the green represents its land. The bands sit in the background because they are humanity’s past, Mars standing up front represents the progress its inhabitants have made since settling a new world. In the center is a gold band representing the sun. It is in the middle because it is common to both Terrans and Martians. It is thinner than the blue and green bands because the sun itself has never nor will ever be a place of human habitation. The total sum of the bands is not as tall as the Martian circle because the past is not as important as the future.”

Here are some other proposed flags of Mars that I came across:

• Individual designs by Jared Croft, Digital T, and Doram (4 flags)

• Design by the website Mars Armada

• Design by Dr. Thomas O. Paine, former Administrator of NASA

• Design by Michael Orelove of Alaska, member of The Mars Society

• Design depicted in a Looney Tunes cartoon

Author Kim Stanley Robinson discusses the green in his Mars novels with Ozarks Public Radio

SF author and environmental advocate Kim Stanley Robinson discusses the role of the environment in
his three Mars novels, Red Mars (1992), Green Mars (1993), Blue Mars (1996), in an audio interview
with Jennifer Moore of KSMU, Ozarks Public Radio, Missouri State University. The interview is only six minutes, but it’s worth listening to.

Here’s a description of the interview, taken from KSMU's website:

Kim Stanley Robinson is the author of the Mars Trilogy, three science-fiction novels about the settlement of Mars. Robinson's passion for the environment and sociological issues like overpopulation are common themes in his books. KSMU's Jennifer Moore spoke with Robinson, who is in Springfield for MSU's annual Public Affairs Conference.

Robinson says he got interested in science-fiction writing as an undergraduate in college. In the 1970s, when scientists learned an abundance about Mars, he became particularly interested in the "Red Planet."

He looked at the geographical layout of Mars, and thought it was the best place imaginable for a backpacker. So, he created in his novels a civilization there.

He committed to a long story -- thus the trilogy -- beginning the work in the 1980s, and finishing it off in the 1990s.

Robinson says in setting up a fictional civilization on Mars, he reflected on history, and on various civilizations throughout humanity.

He says his novels contain characters who are trying to change the environment of Mars, and others fighting to keep it as it is.

Judge rejects Internet Archive’s motion to intervene in $125 million Google Book Search settlement

Publishers Weekly
April 24, 2009
By Andrew Albanese

A federal judge overseeing the approval process for the Google Book Search settlement has rejected an attempt by the Internet Archive (IA) to intervene in the action. In a short ruling released today, Judge Dennis Chin wrote that he construed the IA’s letter to the court, filed last week, as “a motion to intervene,” and denied it. “The proposed interveners are, however, free to file objections to the proposed settlement.” Objections and comments must be filed by May 5.

The IA had asked the court to alter the proposed settlement to give other companies that have scanned printed books the same protections regarding orphan works that would be granted to Google under the terms of the settlement. [...]

Read the entire article in Publishers Weekly.

After more than 100 years, H. G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds still captures our attention

Here are some neat signs which illustrate that more than 100 years after H. G. Wells’ seminal science fiction novel The War of the Worlds (1898) was first published as a serial in Britain's Pearson’s Magazine in 1897, it continues to capture our attention:

• Steve Mollmann, a graduate student and teaching assistant in literature at the University of Connecticut, is working on a paper about two unauthorized American serializations of The War of the Worlds that were printed in the New York Evening Journal and Boston Post newspapers in late 1897 and early 1898.

• British SF author Eric Brown takes science fiction horror to a new level of morbidity with his forthcoming novel, The War of the Worlds Plus Blood, Guts and Zombies (2009), in which he has "taken the regular narrative of H.G. Wells’s book and has blended his own thoughts on a zombie apocalypse into it seamlessly.” The novel, published by Coscom Entertainment, is scheduled to be released on April 30th.

• Grovers Mill Pond in New Jersey, which was the site of the Martian landing described in the famous 1938 Orson Welles radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds, has undergone an extensive restoration, making the pond inhabitable for fish again. Governor John Corzine attended a ceremony in which the pond was restocked with blue gills, pumpkin seed sunfish, largemouth bass, brown bullheads and catfish.

Pictured above: Cover of Eric Brown’s forthcoming novel, The War of the Worlds Plus Blood, Guts and Zombies (2009).

A Critique of “The Hole Man”, a classic short story by Larry Niven

The website of Locus, the magazine of the science fiction & fantasy field, has an interesting critique by Jonathan Strahan of “The Hole Man” (1974), a classic, hard science, short story set on Mars and written by Larry Niven. Originally published in the January 1974 issue of Analog magazine, Niven’s work won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1975. I read the story a year or two ago, but didn’t think much of it. You can purchase “The Hole Man” through Fictionwise for less than a dollar.

Shh! Amazon’s $359 Kindle 2 e-book reader costs only $185 to build

Shh! Don’t tell the anti-Amazon crowd that iSuppli has dissected Amazon’s Kindle 2 e-book reader and determined that the device, which has a retail price tag of $359, costs only $185 to build.

Ben Bova’s trilogy of Mars novels recorded as unabridged audiobooks

Blackstone Audio has recorded as unabridged audiobooks a trilogy of Mars novels written by six-time Hugo Award-winning science fiction author
Ben Bova. All of the works feature character Jamie Waterman, a geologist, and are read by voice actor Stefan Rudnicki.

Mars (1992/2009), the first audiobook in Bova's trilogy, is comprised of 15 CDs and is about 18 hours long. Here’s a detailed description, taken from the website of Blackstone Audio:

This grand epic adventure from six-time Hugo Award–winning author Ben Bova tells the irresistible story of man’s first mission to that great unconquered frontier, Mars. Technically plausible and compellingly human, Bova’s story explores the political, scientific, and social repercussions of our greatest quest yet: the search for evidence of life beyond Earth’s boundaries.

Half-Navajo geologist Jamie Waterman has been selected for the ground team of the first manned expedition to our mysterious neighbor planet. Joining an international team of astronauts and scientists, he endures the rigors of training, the dangers of traveling an incredible distance in space, the challenges of an alien landscape, and the personal and political conflicts that arise when the team must face the most shocking discovery of all.

Return to Mars (1999/2009), the second audiobook in Bova's trilogy, is comprised of 13 CDs and is about 16 hours long. Here’s a detailed description, taken from the website of Blackstone Audio:

Six years after the first manned Martian expedition, a second has been announced, one motivated purely by its profit potential. Jamie Waterman, half-Navajo, half-Anglo geologist, is commander of the new exploratory team and thus must contend with a bitter rivalry, a disturbing new emotional attraction, and deadly “accidents” that appear to be sabotage, all of which could doom the mission to failure. But there is more at stake than these concerns for there are still great secrets to be uncovered on this cruel and enigmatic world, not the least being something he glimpsed in the far distance during his first Martian excursion: an improbable structure perched high in the planet's carmine cliffs, a dwelling that only an intelligent being could have built.

Mars Life (2008/2009), the third audiobook in the Bova's trilogy, is comprised of 10 CDs and is about 12 hours long. Here’s a detailed description, taken from the website of Blackstone Audio:

Jamie Waterman has made an important discovery on Mars. A cliff dwelling reveals the fact that an intelligent race lived on the red planet sixty-five million years ago, only to be driven into extinction by the crash of a giant meteor. But now the exploration of Mars is itself under threat of extinction, as the ultraconservative New Morality movement gains control of the U.S. government and cuts off all funding for the Mars program.

Meanwhile, Carter Carleton, an anthropologist who was driven from his university post by unproven rape charges, has started to dig up the remains of a Martian village. Science and politics clash on two worlds as Jamie desperately tries to save the Mars program and uncover who the vanished Martians were.

You can listen to samples of all three audiobooks or purchase them from Blackstone Audio in other formats, such as tape or MP3-CD.

Thanks to the blog SFFaudio for the tip!

Queen of Mars, a novel by Al Sarrantonio

Queen of Mars (2006), a novel by Al Sarrantonio

At left: Paperback original (New York: Ace Books, 2006), 232 p., cover art by Matt Stawicki. Here’s the blurb from the back cover:

Young Princess Clara of Mars now wears the endangered crown once worn by her grandmother, Queen Haydn, and her father, King Sebastian -- both slain by the warrior-usurper Frane before her birth. As Clara uneasily holds her world together, Frane has resurfaced -- aged now, but wicked beyond her years -- for one last, climactic battle.

But more than just the freedom of her people is at stake. The Red Planet is dying, the atmosphere gradually leaking away. Unless Frane’s crazed army is defeated, Clara’s scientists will not be able to activate the oxygenation stations left behind by the mysterious Old Ones to replenish the air supply. Now Clara must lead the Second Republic to victory and unlock the long-lost secrets of the Old Ones -- or life on Mars will cease to exist ...

You can read a few pages of Queen of Mars through Amazon's "Look Inside" feature.

Queen of Mars is the third novel in Sarrantonio’s Martian science fiction trilogy and was preceded by Haydn of Mars (2004) and Sebastian of Mars (2005). All three novels were reprinted by the Science Fiction Book Club as a hardcover omnibus titled Masters of Mars (2006).

Author, reviewer, and longtime science fiction fan Don D’Ammassa reviewed Queen of Mars in 2006, concluding that the novel is “Not for every taste, but should appeal to readers who want something unusual.”

SF fan Fred Patten reviewed Queen of Mars in his fanzine Anthrozine #10, writing, in part, “There is plenty in Queen of Mars to satisfy readers who want lots of descriptions of bipedal cats in colorful costumes. And while it will help to have read the first two books, Queen of Mars stands nicely on its own, so those who have not read the previous volumes are not forced to read them first.”

Harvard Book Store to celebrate Earth Week with free Green Delivery service

The Harvard Book Store, an independent bookstore founded in 1932 and located in Cambridge, MA, is celebrating Earth Week by offering a green, carbon-free book delivery service to customers in the Boston area: By bicycle! In partnership with MetroPed, a pedal-driven delivery service, the book store's Green Delivery will be done free of charge for book-delivery orders placed between 9:00 a.m. on Monday, April 20th, and noon, Saturday, April 25th, 2009.

According to its online catalog, the book store has a paperback copy of Kim Stanley Robinson's novel Green Mars (1993) in stock.

Despite stars, the 1980 TV miniseries of The Martian Chronicles is a sad story

Despite a cast of big-name stars such as Rock Hudson, Roddy McDowall, and Bernadette Peters, the 1980 television miniseries of The Martian Chronicles, a six-hour serial based on the classic book of science fiction short stories written by Ray Bradbury, was a big disappointment. The following excerpts, taken from various issues of The New York Times, chronicle the sad story:

June 23, 1979: In addition to the drama presentations, NBC also announced its lineup of original movies and serial adaptations of books for next season [...] Among the serials will be a six-hour film adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, a science-fiction adventure published in 1939 [sic] [...] The cast for Martian Chronicles, which is to begin its run on Sept. 17, will include Rock Hudson, Fritz Weaver, Roddy McDowall, Barry Morse and Bernadette Peters.

August 30, 1979: NBC, meanwhile, having run third all summer, has made some alterations for its opening week [Sept. 17] in the hopes of getting off to a strong start. In place of The Martian Chronicles, a six-hour serial based on science-fiction stories by Ray Bradbury that was to have been shown over the first three nights [Sept. 17-19], NBC has scheduled a pair of recent blockbuster movies and a made-for-television film. The movies are Coming Home, with Jane Fonda and John Voigt ... Semi-Tough, with Burt Reynolds and Kris Kristofferson ... [and] the television movie Mrs. R’s Daughter, a story on the theme of rape.

November 25, 1979: Paperbacks: New and Noteworthy. These recently published volumes are especially suitable for gift-giving. [...] The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury. (Bantam, $6.95.) Since it was published in 1950, this story of successive visits to the planet Mars by tellurians -- first spacemen, then tycoons, next odd types, and, finally the survivors of the last large-scale war on Earth -- has come to be counted one of the classics of science fiction. For this handsome, large-format edition, Ian Miller has provided 28 drawings that capture the eerie, poetic quality of the tale.

January 6, 1980: Does Science Fiction have a Future on TV? The initial box-office success of Star Trek and The Black Hole
-- hot on the heels of Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Superman -- has confirmed the status of science fiction as the most popular of current film genres. Yet, science fiction has seldom garnered more than cult interest on television. Even Star Trek, the television series, never attained “hit” ratings when it was first shown on NBC in 1966 [...] At present, only one science-fiction series, NBC’s new Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, is on in prime-time, and it has never placed among this season’s top-rated shows.

Now, all three commercial networks as well as the Public Broadcasting Service are about to test the airwaves with made-for-television movies that may well determine the future of science fiction on the home screen. Of these projects, the two most ambitious are a made-for-TV film -- a first for public television – dramatizing Ursula Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven [...] and NBC’s $8.5-million, three-part mini-series based on Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, which is scheduled to begin Jan. 27. Conceived before the success of Star Wars and other recent theatrical films, each in its own way demonstrates that in an era of spectacular special effects, on television’s small screen, less may indeed be more. [...]

The Martian Chronicles, an episodic account of the colonization of Mars published in 1950, is studied in high school and college literary classes. To date, the book has sold more than 5 million copies; over the years, it has been optioned for the movies by, among others, David Wolper, Alan Pakula, John Houseman and Kirk Douglas, but never did get before the cameras. At one point, David Susskind bought the rights with the idea of turning it into a musical comedy, but this project also foundered. Author Bradbury had written several unavailing screen adaptations of his book before succeeding in mounting a stage version in Los Angeles for a modest $15,000. Beginning on Sunday, Jan. 27, and continuing the following two evenings, NBC will present the six-hour mini-series based on The Martian Chronicles, produced by Charles Fries, with co-financing from the BBC. The cast of the $8.5-million project includes Fritz Weaver, Bernadette Peters and Rock Hudson.

After waiting so long to see his book brought to the screen, Mr. Bradbury is less than enthusiastic about this production. At a press conference held this past September when the mini-series had originally been scheduled to be shown, he confessed that he found its first two hours boring, a fatal flaw if viewers are expected to tune in on two successive nights. Even after re-editing, he still has problems with it. "They cut corners in production," he recently said in a telephone interview from his office in Los Angeles. "I believe they started with good intentions that got lost along the way."

According to Mr. Bradbury, the special effects for The Martian Chronicles, shot under the supervision of Oscar-winner John Stearns at a cost of nearly $2 million, at times appear surprisingly shoddy. The mini-series opens with a shot of a Viking lander wobbling toward the surface of Mars in a rather unconvincing manner. This is followed by model work intercut with Saturn moon rocket footage that does little to establish the reality of a Mars expedition at the turn of the 21st century. The sequences that seem to work best use simple animation to represent the globular, disembodied Martians who interact with a missionary portrayed by Fritz Weaver.

Mr. Bradbury added: "There are some nice moments in the film. I think some of the scenes with the priest work well on television because of their intimacy."

Has this dramatization of The Martian Chronicles soured its author on the possibilities for science fiction on television? "Not at all," Mr. Bradbury replied. "I think this will get viewers to read the book. In the future, I hope the producers will get into people’s imaginations."

January 25, 1980: Two programs, each a new series of sorts, each dealing with human discovery, in one case, of the earth, in the other, of Mars, will appear on television Sunday night [...] At 8 P.M. [...] The Martian Chronicles, a television adaptation of the science-fiction novel by Ray Bradbury in three two-hour segments starts on NBC-TV, Channel 4. The other parts of this will appear at 9 P.M. on Monday and Tuesday. [...]

The Martian Chronicles is entirely fictional but it is also quite philosophical and is an example of how difficult it is to translate ideas from printed word to spoken film and television. The first installment catches the eye and the attention, but it moves slowly.

The plot has to do with the exploration of Mars and life on that planet. Two expeditions are sent, land there and are never heard from again. A third six-man crew headed by Rock Hudson finally gets there and learns that almost all of the native Martians have been destroyed by chicken pox brought by the first earthlings who arrived. One of the crew, played by Bernie Casey, is appalled at the prospect of further settlement by people from earth who will not appreciate the heritage of serenity in the arts and living left by the Martians, a hairless nonviolent people skilled in telepathy and gracious by nature. There follows a conflict, and one must wait for the next installments to see how colonization will fare.

The production is interesting and somewhat different from the usual technologically centered run of science fiction. The concepts are attractive, and the show has spooky moments when the illogical becomes fact and the imagined becomes real. Michael Anderson, the director, may have overestimated the holding power of deliberate slowness on home screens, where distraction is all too easy, but he has a sense of the mysterious, and that is what is needed. Richard Matheson, who did the adaptation from the book, has given us a series of small stories, bigger than vignettes but smaller than complete yarns, which fit into the major theme of man’s drive to reach Mars. This makes for a heavy turnover in personnel, but the theme does emerge. And one does want to know what will happen. That is the kernel of good storytelling.

January 27, 1980: The Martian Chronicles – Maggie Wright and James Faulkner play inhabitants of Mars in an adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s science-fiction novel, beginning tonight at 8 on NBC. The three-part mini-series also stars Rock Hudson.

January 28, 1980: The Martian Chronicles: Part II of the dramatization of Ray Bradbury’s science-fiction novel; starring Rock Hudson, Fritz Weaver and Bernadette Peters. [At 9:00 p.m. on Channel 4].

January 29, 1980: The Martian Chronicles: In the last installment of this three-part dramatization of Ray Bradbury’s science-fiction novel, survivors of a cataclysmic war on Earth fight to preserve the human race on Mars. [At 9:00 p.m. on Channel 4].

January 30, 1980: With another strong showing last week -- its sixth winning week in succession -- CBS-TV broke a tie with ABC-TV in the audience-popularity derby for the season and recaptured the flag it lost to ABC four years ago this month. [...] ABC’s new Tenspeed and Brown Shoe finished in eighth place [#8], ahead of two popular CBS programs, Archie Bunker’s Place [#12] and Alice [#15], and NBC’s The Martian Chronicles [did not make top 15], that were in direct competition.

February 6, 1980: After losing its four-year lead in prime time to CBS-TV a week ago, ABC-TV bounced back to win last week and achieve a tie with CBS for the season to date. [...] Movies had a bad week overall. The most-watched film was Part II of NBC-TV’s made-for-television serial, The Martian Chronicles, on Monday night [Jan. 28]. It ranked 33d among the week’s 67 prime-time shows.

April 24, 1983: Filming a Ray Bradbury Fantasy. For the last 50 years, Ray Bradbury has protected himself against the world by spewing out allegories of civilization’s eventual end in fire, ice, nuclear rain, or silence. [...] Many of Ray Bradbury’s books and short stories have been turned into bad movies and television programs. “My idea of hell,” he says, “is having to watch NBC’s mini-series of The Martian Chronicles."

I’m slowly watching my way through The Martian Chronicles on YouTube, for some kind soul has posted the entire six-hour miniseries in ten-minute blocks. Here are the links:

• Episode I, Part 1 (9:56 min.)         • Episode I, Part 2 (9:52 min.)

• Episode I, Part 3 (9:36 min.)         • Episode I, Part 4 (9:58 min.)

• Episode I, Part 5 (9:57 min.)         • Episode I, Part 6 (9:42 min.)

• Episode I, Part 7 (9:39 min.)         • Episode I, Part 8 (9:43 min.)

• Episode I, Part 9 (9:52 min.)         • Episode I, Part 10 (9:34 min.)


• Episode II, Part 1 (10:02 min.)      • Episode II, Part 2 (10:01 min.)

• Episode II, Part 3 (9:59 min.)        • Episode II, Part 4 (9:59 min.)

• Episode II, Part 5 (9:58 min.)        • Episode II, Part 6 (9:58 min.)

• Episode II, Part 7 (9:57 min.)        • Episode II, Part 8 (9:49 min.)

• Episode II, Part 9 (9:58 min.)        • Episode II, Part 10 (8:31 min.)


• Episode III, Part 1 (10:03 min.)     • Episode III, Part 2 (9:53 min.)

• Episode III, Part 3 (9:56 min.)       • Episode III, Part 4 (9:58 min.)

• Episode III, Part 5 (9:47 min.)       • Episode III, Part 6 (9:59 min.)

• Episode III, Part 7 (10:03 min.)     • Episode III, Part 8 (9:53 min.)

• Episode III, Part 9 (9:56 min.)       • Episode III, Part 10 (7:39 min.)

New novelette: “Foe”, a tale of efficiency, by Mark Rich

"Foe", a new novelette by Mark Rich, appears in the April 2009 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine. While I haven’t had a chance to read the story yet, I believe the plot is set in Dometown 26
on Mars and the main character is Jay Wirth, an efficiency expert. Here are the opening lines:

"Can't you just ship him out, if he's a bum?"

To judge from her look, my question was way off base. Could I whoosh the words back in through my lips?

Then Dena MacLaren made a dismissive hand motion and smiled.
She seemed an awkward sort -- tall and slender with short, straight, brown hair, and given to motions of a timid nature. Awkward folk easily forgive others their awkwardness. Plus I figured she might
be giving me a break because I, Jay Wirth, was a newcomer to Dometown 26, also named Neuhight, here in Bliss. ...

If you're not afraid of spoilers, check out detailed reviews of "Foe”
by Jim Steel of The Fix: Short Fiction Review and Lois Tilton of the Internet Review of Science Fiction, as well as brief reviews by Sam Tomaino of SFRevu, Wendy S. Delmater, and Stephanie Young. According to Young, Rich's novelette is “Heart warming, predictable, and fun to read.”

Concern grows for orphan books in $125 million settlement of Authors Guild v. Google

Opposition to Google Books Settlement Jells
The New York Times, April 17, 2009
By Miguel Helft

With a May 5 deadline for filing objections to the Google books settlement looming, opposition to and criticism of the settlement continues to cement.

I recently wrote about concerns among copyright and antitrust scholars and others that the settlement would grant Google a monopoly over millions of so-called orphan books, which are out of print and whose rights holders are unknown or cannot be found. I later gave more details of where the opposition was coming from.

Now some of the opposition is starting to jell. The Internet Archive, which is currently working to match Google’s effort to digitize millions of books from major libraries, has filed a motion to intervene in the case. [...]

Read the entire article in The New York Times.

Poll: Which tribute to author Edgar Rice Burroughs would you most like to see established?

I’m conducting a poll to determine which tribute to author Edgar Rice Burroughs you would most like to see established by the company Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. of Tarzana, California. Here are four possibilities I'm thinking about:

• Edgar Rice Burroughs Award, to be given annually to a SF novel. This would complement other awards, such as the Philip K. Dick Award.

• Edgar Rice Burroughs Scholarship, to be given annually to an aspiring SF writer to attend the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers' Workshop. This would complement other scholarships, such as the Donald A. and Elsie B. Wollheim Memorial Scholarship.

• Edgar Rice Burroughs Foundation, to provide annual grants to high school science teachers to create summer programs to help students understand the merits of sending a human mission to Mars. This would complement other foundations, such as the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation.

• Edgar Rice Burroughs Prize, to provide a one-time prize to the first team of scientists that successfully creates a propulsion system capable of sending a spacecraft to Mars in less than 60 days. This would complement other prizes, such as the Heinlein Prize.

The poll, which closes on May 15, 2009, is located near the top right-hand column of this blog, just below the cover art of Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles. If you have time, please consider voting, or feel free to leave a comment.

“Martian Rose”, a recent poem by Stuart Atkinson

“Martian Rose” (2007), a poem written by Englishman Stuart Atkinson, appears on his weblog. Comprised of fifty lines, the poem is about a rose flower on Mars. Here are the opening lines:

I had a dream we sent
a single seed to Mars, and all Mankind
watched, mesmerised, as a red rose
bloomed on that dusty, rusted world.

An amateur astronomer and spaceflight enthusiast, Stuart Atkinson has written several children’s books on astronomy and space. He loves poetry.

New novel: Martian Divides by Phyllis K. Twombly

Martian Divides (2009), the third science fiction novel in Canadian author Phyllis K. Twombly’s Martian Symbiont series has been self-published through iUniverse. Following Been Blued (2007) and Martian Blues (2008), here’s a detailed description of Martian Divides, taken directly from Amazon:

Martian Divides picks up the Martian Symbiont story two years after the end of Martian Blues. The Martians who returned to Earth hundreds of years ago finally found human women who were compatible with them and their telepathic symbiont. With the additional issue of defending Earth from hostile aliens now resolved, the Martians decide it's safe to return to their one true passion: space travel. Only one group of beings can threaten their plans.

Angry that most other people now carry the alien telepathic life form, the underground insists that what's left of real humanity is in danger. They believe Martian influence on society puts them at a disadvantage, so they set out to prove their humanity still has a voice. When they attack a Martian, the resulting mental shockwave has consequences felt around the world.

The Martian matriarch chooses not to delay the planned return to outer space. However, faced with the prospect of losing her telepathic leadership, humans with the symbiont insist on a successor. To their dismay the underground comes to realize they might not be getting rid of all the aliens. Loyalties and friendships are tested as events unfold along various sides of the Martian divides.

You can read a lengthy excerpt from Martian Divides on Scifialien’s Weblog, a blog maintained by Phyllis K. Twombly, or purchase the novel as a softcover or eBook through iUniverse.

Amazon books one-third of all U.S. e-commerce

Here’s great news for fans and shareholders of Amazon. According to RBC Capital analyst Stephen Ju, Amazon (ticker symbol AMZN) could be responsible for close to
a third of all U.S. e-commerce transactions. Ju has an Outperform rating on the stock and raised his price target to $84, from $72. Read the short story at Barron’s Online.

Author Michael Chabon signs on as screenwriter for film John Carter of Mars

The SF blog io9 reports that well-known author Michael Chabon, who wrote the steampunk short story “The Martian Agent: a Planetary Romance” (1993) and whose novel The Yiddish Policeman's Union won the 2008 Hugo Award, has signed on as a screenwriter for Hollywood director Andrew Stanton’s film adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs pulp legend John Carter of Mars. John Carter of Mars, a Disney production, is scheduled to land in theaters in 2012.

Old time radio: BBC rebroadcasts Journey Into Space: The Red Planet

Starting on Monday, April 13, 2009, and continuing for several days, BBC Radio 7 will rebroadcast The Red Planet, the second series in Journey Into Space, a classic science fiction radio program written and produced in the 1950s by BBC's Charles Chilton. Originally broadcast over several months from September 1954 to January 1955, The Red Planet consists of 20 episodes set in the late 20th century and stars actor Andrew Faulds as Captain Andrew “Jet” Morgan.

Check BBC 7’s website for specific dates and times of the live rebroadcast of The Red Planet. The best opportunity to listen to the rebroadcast might be through BBC's "Listen Again" feature, which makes programs available for about a week after they are aired.

Here are descriptions of the first six of the 20 episodes of The Red Planet, taken directly from BBC Radio 7’s website:

• Episode 1. “Captain Jet Morgan and his crew commence their 1971 mission to Mars, but there's a problem.”

• Episode 2. “Captain Jet Morgan is bound for Mars, but one of his crew has been cast adrift in space.”

• Episode 3. “Whitaker is behaving strangely, as bad dreams plague the crew on their mission to Mars.”

• Episode 4. “The mystery over Whitaker deepens, as tragedy strikes on board one of the Mars freighters.”

• Episode 5. “With communications to Earth lost, Jet Morgan's courage is tested during a meteor swarm.”

• Episode 6. “Captain Jet Morgan and his crew receive warnings to turn back - but who is sending them?”

“The Man Who Lost the Sea”, a classic short story by Theodore Sturgeon

Thanks to the generosity of the Theodore Sturgeon Literary Trust, Strange Horizons, a weekly web-based magazine of and about speculative fiction, has re-printed “The Man Who Lost the Sea”, a classic short story written by Sci-Fi author Theodore Sturgeon that was originally published in the October 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. A tale about the final moments of a dying astronaut on Mars, here are the opening lines:

Say you're a kid, and one dark night you're running along the cold sand with this helicopter in your hand, saying very fast witchy-witchy-witchy. You pass the sick man and he wants you to shove off with that thing. Maybe he thinks you're too old to play with toys. So you squat next to him in the sand and tell him it isn't a toy, it's a model. ...

Cheers to Blue Tyson of the blog Free SF Reader for the link.

Cover art: John Russell Fearn’s Red Men of Mars

Here’s some interesting cover art from the early 1950s: Red Men of Mars (Hamilton & Co., London, 1950), the third book in British science fiction author John Russell Fearn’s four-novel Mars series. The artwork is by Terry Maloney, who died in April 2008.

An Interview with SF&F author Ruth Nestvold

The website of the Nebula Awards has a neat interview with SF&F author Ruth Nestvold, whose short story “Mars: A Travelers Guide”, published in the January 2008 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, has been nominated for a Nebula Award. Here’s a snippet from the interview:

Rochita Loenen-Ruiz: Tell us a bit more about your story, Mars: A Traveler’s Guide? What was the inspiration behind this story and what did you hope to achieve?

Ruth Nestvold: The gestation period for my stories tends to be very long, so it’s hard for me to pinpoint any one source. [...]

For “Mars,” one of the inspirations was that I like to play with new ways of telling a story, something that probably at least in part comes from my work in hyperfiction, fiction in hypertext. This story is like doing that _without_ the hypertext.

Another one of the inspirations, believe it or not, was a little lecture Michael Swanwick gave at a workshop a few years back entitled “How to win a Hugo.” (Really!) I didn’t do what he said, but the idea stayed with me. What Michael told us to do was to have a character stranded in a hostile environment in our solar system and have him or her solve the problems that arise using science. I just turned it around a bit and had the science take over and not solve the problems.

Ruth Nestvold is an American writer living in Stuttgart, Germany. She has a Ph.D. in English literature. Her short fiction has been published in several venues, including Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy, Baen’s Universe, and Strange Horizons, as well as several anthologies.

Nantucket bookstore catches ironic financial breeze, outruns gale of Googlenomics

As many readers, journalists, authors, newspapers, publishing companies, booksellers, and libraries struggle to weather the new economics of the online world created by technological behemoths like Google and Amazon, one quaint, independent bookstore down on the island of Nantucket, off the coast of Cape Cod, has caught an ironic financial breeze and managed to outrun the destructive gale of Googlenomics.

Founded in 1968 by retired Madison Avenue graphic artist Henry Mitchell Havemeyer and his wife, Mary Allen, Mitchell’s Book Corner, a landmark located in a historic building at 54 Main Street, is a full service bookstore that stocks titles in all subject areas and offers the most extensive selection of books about Nantucket, the whaling industry, and the island’s genealogy.

In 1978, the Havemeyer’s daughter, Mimi Havemeyer Beman, whose maternal uncle was once president of the Doubleday Book Company, assumed stewardship of Mitchell's Book Corner and continued to operate it for the next 30 years. In January 2008, Beman sold the historic building in which the bookstore resides for $3.2 million to ReMain 54 LLC, a real estate entity controlled by a woman named Wendy Schmidt. Schmidt, a summer resident of Nantucket and president of the Schmidt Family Foundation of Palo Alto, California, is married to Google chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt.

While purchasing the historic building at 54 Main Street, Wendy Schmidt also struck a legal agreement with two employees of Mitchell’s Book Corner, Mary Jennings and Lucretia Voigt, to operate the bookstore. According to an article in the August 31, 2008, issue of The Boston Globe newspaper, Jennings and Voigt “rent the space at significantly below-market rates, and they are forbidden, by contract, to ever move the store. Schmidt retains ownership of the Mitchell's name, but the two operators essentially own the business and all its inventory and are solely responsible for its profit and loss.”

In an article in the January 9, 2008, issue of The Nantucket Independent newspaper, Wendy Schmidt was quoted as stating in a press release: "Nantucket is fortunate to have many vibrant local businesses. Local opinion leaders have pointed out the importance
of buying local. They have noted that a dollar spent at a Nantucket business like Mitchell's returns about 45 cents to the island's economy and benefits the community through a multiplier effect.
We are pleased to help make sure a successful, established business like Mitchell's has a home on Main Street where it will continue to contribute to our community and Nantucket's downtown retail environment."

The same Nantucket newspaper article quoted former bookstore owner Mimi Havemeyer Beman as saying: “I am so pleased that
the bookstore can stay. Being in that spot so long and being so successful there worked against me for selling the building. To
see the building go to other than the bookstore made buyers of the building reluctant because they'd have to kick the bookstore out to put in another business. It was such an anchor on Main Street. [...]
I was facing giant repairs and the bookstore doesn't make enough,
so this is ideal because you still have the bookstore with the same mission and you have someone treating the building with tender loving care, bringing it into the 21st century and preserving the character of Nantucket architecture."

And Mary Jennings, one of the bookstore’s new owners, was quoted as saying: "Having the support of the community means so much to us. It's an incredible opportunity. It's so important that Main Street keep its backbones that are so important to the community. It would have been a shame if something had happened to Mitchell's. Nantucket is lucky in a sense; independent bookstores are a dying breed all over the country. It's very important that they stick around, discovering new authors, keeping the quality of literature high and keeping people reading."

Today, Mitchell’s Corner Bookstore is located in temporary quarters while the historic building at 54 Main Street undergoes a green renovation, including the addition of a new second floor for the bookstore. Check out this six-minute video in which Mary Jennings and Wendy Schmidt discuss the importance of the green renovation and local book stores to Nantucket's community.

Interested in reading some books about Nantucket? Start with these 341 books, compliments of Google's online digital library!

“Fields of Mars”, a pulpy new short story of seduction by Scott Wilson

Fans of pulpy, well told tales might enjoy reading
“Fields of Mars” (2009), a new short story by Scott Wilson that was recently published online at Well Told Tales. It’s a story of seduction in the Gas Fields of Mars. Here are the opening lines:

It was nearly dusk when I drew close to the Gas Fields, and already the scarlet vapors were about, riding across the sunken levels like restless ghosts in a graveyard. Though I had set forth in a mood of wild delight, I had sobered in the lonely ride across the fields of Mars and was now uneasily edgy and somewhat frightened. ...

Review of C. L. Moore’s collection Northwest of Earth: The Complete Northwest Smith

British science fiction critic Paul Kincaid has written a detailed review of Northwest of Earth: The Complete Northwest Smith (2008, Paizo Publishing), a collection of thirteen classic science fiction short stories written by C. L. Moore predominately in the 1930s starring her interplanetary adventurer Northwest Smith. Moore's collection contains five stories set on Mars:

• "Shambleau" (Weird Tales, November 1933)

• "Scarlet Dream" (Weird Tales, May 1934)

• "Dust of Gods" (Weird Tales, August 1934)

• "The Cold Gray God" (Weird Tales, October 1935)

• "The Tree of Life" (Weird Tales, October 1936)

In concluding his review, Paul Kincaid writes: “For all that, the Northwest Smith stories have a raw power that makes them enduringly readable. They represent the peak of 1930s pulp fiction, and if their plot lines and two-fisted hero seem out of place compared to today's fiction, that also makes them fascinatingly different.”

Note that I recently bought C. L. Moore's Northwest of Earth: The Complete Northwest Smith (2008) from Paizo Publishing.

New novelette: "Steak Tartare and the Cats of Gari Babakin" by Mary A. Turzillo

"Steak Tartare and the Cats of Gari Babakin", a new novelette by Mary A. Turzillo, appears in the April 2009 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine. While I haven’t had an opportunity to read the story yet, I understand that the plot revolves around the Martian colony of Gari Babakin and a deadly infection of toxoplasmosis. Here are the opening lines:

"Earthlings were coming to attack the cats this very afternoon. And where was Benoit?

Had she really considered licking his earlobe while he was reporting on the new cheese flavonoids? As if he were a surly tomcat, like this handsome furball now rubbing her legs?

Ah, Lucile, she thought, so impulsive we are! The boy's not all that sexy; he never combs his hair or gets it cut, or even washes it often.

He had a certain something, though. Think how he lashed out at the Earth inspectors who came through a year ago trying to murder the feral cats in tunnel M. The inspectors wanted to vent that corridor and let the cats die of decompression. Benoit put them in their place. ..."

If you're not afraid of spoilers, check out detailed reviews of "Steak Tartare and the Cats of Gari Babakin” by Jim Steel of The Fix: Short Fiction Review and Lois Tilton of the Internet Review of Science Fiction, as well as brief reviews by Stephanie Young, Sam Tomaino of SFRevu, and Wendy S. Delmater. According to Delmater, Turzillo's novelette has “the sensibility of a good Pink Panther flick, but with some real science behind it.”

Speaking of real science, Jan Messersmith’s blog post about the parasite Taxoplasma gondii is worth reading, too.

Authors Guild responds to protest by Reading Rights Coalition over attempt to mute Amazon's Kindle 2 e-reader

Here’s the opening paragraph in a statement from the Authors Guild in response to a protest held yesterday afternoon in New York City by the Reading Rights Coalition, a nonprofit organization that represents millions of disabled people who cannot read print, over the Authors Guild’s attempt to mute the text-to-speech function in Amazon’s new Kindle 2 e-reader:

“April 7, 2009. Today, the National Federation of the Blind led a protest in front of the Guild's offices in Manhattan. This protest stems from Amazon's announcement in February that it would allow publishers to disable the voice-output feature of its Kindle 2 after we had objected that the feature threatened audio markets, violated authors' copyrights and exceeded the e-rights licenses that authors granted publishers. ..."

Read the entire statement from the Authors Guild.

Magazine cover art by Sci-Fi artist Frank R. Paul

Thanks to a recent post by Steve Davidson of the blog The Crotchety Old Fan, I was able to browse an awesome gallery of early science fiction magazine cover art by legendary Sci-Fi artist Frank R. Paul, who will be inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in Seattle later this year. The gallery, maintained by Hugo Award-winning SF&F artist Frank Wu, includes several covers about Mars and Martians, such as:

• A scene from H.G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds (1898), depicted on the cover of the August 1927 issue of Amazing Stories

• A scene from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novel The Master Mind of Mars (1928), depicted on the cover of the 1927 annual issue of Amazing Stories

• A Martian, depicted on the cover of the September 1965 issue of Fantastic Stories

• A scene from Stanley D. Bell’s story “Martian Guns” (1932), depicted on the cover of the January 1932 issue of Wonder Stories (Pictured above)

Reading Rights Coalition to protest Authors Guild’s opposition to text-to-speech feature in Amazon's Kindle 2 e-reader

The next battle in the war over the text-to-speech feature in Amazon’s Kindle 2 e-reader will be fought tomorrow afternoon in New York City. According to a statement from the Reading Rights Coalition, a nonprofit organization that represents millions of disabled people who cannot read print, the Coalition will “protest the threatened removal of the text-to-speech function from e-books for the Amazon Kindle 2 which promised for the first time easy, mainstream access to over 255,000 books. Hundreds of disabled Americans (the blind and people with dyslexia, learning difficulties, spinal cord injuries, seniors losing vision, stroke survivors) will march to demand that the Authors Guild reverse its decision.”

The informational protest will take place outside the headquarters of the Authors Guild in New York City at 31 East 32nd Street on April 7, 2009, from noon to 2:00 p.m.

If you support the Reading Rights Coalition but cannot attend the protest, consider signing a petition: Allow Everyone Access to E-books. At the moment 1,786 people have signed the petition. The goal is 10,000 signatures.

The Bird of Time, a novel by Wallace West

The Bird of Time, a novel by Wallace West (1959)

At left: Paperback (New York: Ace Books, 1961),
#F-114, 224 p., 40¢. Here’s the blurb from the back cover:

"A running chronicle of the conflict between the ancient feathered folk of Mars and the brash expansionists of Earth. ... It is entertainment from start to finish, with only snatches of the serious aspects of dying Mars and bull-headed Earth. Go along with the author and enjoy the story." -- P. Schuyler Miller, Analog Science Fiction

And here’s the blurb from inside the front cover:

When the first expedition from Earth arrived on Mars they were not greeted with open arms. Not only had the Martians long ago learned all they wanted about Earth -- they wanted nothing to do with us.
To quote their welcoming committee:

“You Earth people don’t know your own history. You have always been incorrigible. When Mars was younger, we drove you back to your own planet, whereupon you tumbled into savagery for a gratifyingly long time. The really intelligent Martians then emigrated to the ends of the universe to avoid a second encounter. In fact we are not interested in playing cowboys and Indians with your people.”

But Earthmen are incorrigible and Martians are obstinate, and the result is an adventure-packed novel that spans two planets and several stars and is great science-fiction all the way.

An editorial note inside the front cover states that The Bird of Time is "based upon material originally copyrighted in 1936 by Street & Smith Publication, Inc., 1949, 1952, 1953 by Thrilling Wonder Stories." According to an entry in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, The Bird of Time is a fix-up of four stories by Wallace West: “En Route to Pluto” (Astounding Stories, August 1936), “The Lure of Polaris” (Thrilling Wonder Stories, October 1949), “The Bird of Time” (Thrilling Wonder Stories, October 1952), and “Captive Audience” (Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1953).

Three Mars stories nominated for 2009 storySouth Million Writers Award

Three science fiction/fantasy short stories about Mars have been nominated for the 2009 storySouth Million Writers Award for Fiction. The award is sponsored by the online literary journal storySouth and is presented to the
“best online fiction of the year.” Both the award and the journal are the brainchild of SF&F writer and editor Jason Sanford. Here are the three Mars stories:

• "Is There Life on Mars?" (2008), by Kyle Hemmings, published online at Juked.com in April 2008

• "The Film-makers of Mars" (2008), by Geoff Ryman, published online at Tor.com in December 2008

• “Willpower” (2008), by Jason Stoddard, published online at Futurismic.com in January 2008

More than 300 other online short stories have been nominated for the 2009 storySouth Million Writers Award for Fiction. Preliminary judges are in the process of reading the nominated stories and sending their selections to Jason Sanford, who will post the list of notable stories by April 15th. Then, Sanford will post the top ten selections around May 1st, at which time fan voting for the best story begins!

New RPG: MARS - Savage Worlds Edition

Adamant Entertainment, a design studio that makes Role-Playing Games (RPGs) and related products, recently released a new sword-and-planet campaign setting titled MARS: Savage Worlds Edition. “From character creation, to creatures, to tips on the planetary romance genre, MARS: Savage Worlds Edition features everything you need to get started telling savage tales of adventure beneath the moons of Mars." Here's a detailed description of the new RPG:

"Welcome to Mars!

Not Mars as it is -- airless, most likely lifeless, with only the faintest hints of what might have once been a damp, if not necessarily lush and living, world billions of years in the past. No, this is Mars as it should be and as it was once imagined to be -- an ancient, dying, but not yet dead world, a world where a vast canal network reaches from pole to pole, bringing water and life to vast and fantastic cities. A Mars where albino apes run a vast empire in the last surviving jungle, a world where warrior tribes of Green Martians raid the outlying cities of the canal dwellers, a world where, in places dark and quiet and forgotten beneath the surface, ancient and terrible intellects plan dark and dire deeds.

It is a Mars of sky-corsairs, of duels with blade and blaster, of vile plots, fantastic inventions, daring rescues, arena battles, and spectacular stunts. It is a Mars where ancient cities can be discovered and their lost treasures plundered, a Mars where a trek across the dry sea bottoms can yield amazing discoveries, where terrible monsters roam the rocky wastes.

It is the Mars of pulp fiction and Saturday morning serials.

It is now yours."

Check out the map!