Pictured: Artwork by Jon Vermilyea
Monday, August 31, 2009
Silk screen art show and new book based on 1960s Mars Attacks trading cards
Pictured: Artwork by Jon Vermilyea
Read SFFH author Joe Hill's introduction to Ray Bradbury's forthcoming The Martian Chronicles: The Complete Edition
"I was thirteen the first time I read Bradbury, one of his later novels, Death is a Lonely Business. That first encounter with his prose was a shock of delight and discovery, on par with the moment in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy steps out of her black-and-white house and into a world of impossible color."
The Great Recession is over, time to start buying books again!
Top Mars SF audiobook on iTunes

#27. Out of the Silent Planet, by C. S. Lewis (1938)
No Bradbury, Burroughs, or Wells? Go figure!
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Sesame Street: Ernie and Bert meet the Martians
Ernie wakes up and tells Bert it's time to get up, but notices that Bert isn't in his bed. He slowly ponders what happened to his best friend, coming to the conclusion that maybe some Martians took him away in their spaceship. As it turns out, Bert just got up early to fix some oatmeal. Ernie is relieved ... until a real spaceship lands and the Martians enter the room.
Watch “Was Bert captured by Martians?” on YouTube (2:40 minutes).
Sunny day, Sweepin' the clouds away, On my way to where the air is sweet, Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street. ...
BBC Radio to broadcast reading of C. L. Moore’s classic 1933 short story “Shambleau”
• Episode 1, August 31st and again on September 1st. A space bounty-hunter lives to regret rescuing a young woman from attack.
• Episode 2, September 1st and again on September 2nd. Northwest Smith discovers the secret power of the alien woman he rescued.
• Episode 3, September 2nd and again on September 3rd. As he falls under the snake-haired alien's spell, is Northwest's time up?
Presumably, these episodes will be archived and accessible for a limited time through BBC’s "Listen Again" feature. Check the BBC’s website for details.
If you prefer to read “Shambleau” yourself, read it for free online. Note that all of C. L. Moore's Northwest Smith stories were published in Northwest of Earth: The Complete Northwest Smith (March 2008), which you can purchase from Paizo Publishing. The collection was reviewed by Fred Kiesche at SF Signal.
Pictured: Shambleau
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Lawyers for Authors Guild and allies to bank $30m if $125m Google Book Search settlement approved
However, according to a recent 47-page court filing by author and prominent attorney Scott E. Gant opposing the proposed settlement, “counsel for the Author Sub-Class ‘incurred approximately $140,000 in expenses as of the date of the Settlement Agreement’ [...] a tiny amount for a complex case or a large class action – further suggesting no significant discovery or expert work occurred.” Gant’s filing also states that “In light of the substantial problems with the Proposed Settlement [...] the award of fees requested by Plaintiffs’ counsel is unwarranted. [...] If the Court decides to approve the Settlement, in part or in whole, some of the $30 million set aside as fees for counsel to the proposed Author Sub-Class should be redirected to the author class members themselves.”
How much money are the members of the “author class” scheduled to receive under the proposed $125 million settlement? Here’s some light reading material that will blow your mind:
• The Google Books Settlement: Fact vs. Fiction, Open Book Alliance, August 2009
• Should I Opt Out? Should I Fear Google? What about the Money? Answers about the Google Book Settlement, The Authors Guild, August 2009
• “Is the Google Books Settlement Evil?” Vanity Fair, August 27, 2009
Now I understand why the Guild's Authors League Fund provides "open-ended, interest-free, no-strings-attached loans" to "professional writers and dramatists who find themselves in financial need because of medical or health-related problems, temporary loss of income or other misfortune."
Time magazine 1949: Author Stanley G. Weinbaum and S-F for Dreams
Sir:
May I congratulate you on your recognition of science fiction in your review of A Martian Odyssey. It is seldom that an S-F book receives mention in publications not exclusively devoted to this field, even though interest in science fiction has been increasing at a rapid rate ...
But as ... for dreaming ...' remember that almost all modern inventions, including radio, television, the atomic bomb, airplanes, autos, etc. were once dreams ... Science fiction is where many scientists and engineers dream ... If an engineer, for example, has an idea which does not, at the moment, seem practical, he can write a story about it. Someone else, reading the story, might contribute a further step in the realization of the dream. But if that same engineer should write the "impossible" idea into a technical article, it probably would not be published, and if published, might mean his professional ruin ...
Louis E. Garner, Jr., President
Washington Science-Fiction Assn. Washington, B.C.
[Time magazine, letter to the editor, June 27, 1949]
ARC of The Martian Chronicles: The Complete Edition gets some love
Here’s a beautiful excerpt from The Mad Hatter’s review: “The Martian Chronicles: The Complete Edition is a volume destined for the display shelf. It will proudly sit there shouting to all who enter my library area and shout that this is one of the best books of its kind, ever. As soon as I opened the package I was blown away but it sheer size, weight, and completeness. I immediately starting reading the introductions and found myself reading the majority of the original story and than thumbed through many of the unpublished short stories gems, which would be worth the price alone for the true Bradbury die-hards. However, this is no single sitting book, but one to be savored and reread for years to come.”
I can hardly wait until I receive my package later this year! Yahoo!
Friday, August 28, 2009
Dover coloring book Mars Exploration: Fact and Fantasy includes novels and films
Two Mars SF works by Mary Turzillo provided as rec reading aboard International Space Station
To see what other recreational materials are on the International Space Station, check out this 13-page document (pdf) of “NASA List of books, movies, television shows, and music maintained on the International Space Station (ISS) for recreational/off-duty consumption,” released by the Johnson Space Center in April 2008.
Mary Turzillo is working on a science fiction novel about Mars entitled Isidis Rising.
Photos of actress Traci Lords as Dejah Thoris on set of forthcoming Asylum film Princess of Mars
The Asylum's film Princess of Mars is an adaptation of the classic early 20th-century novel written by author Edgar Rice Burroughs and co-stars Antonio Sabàto, Jr. as John Carter. The film, classified as science fiction, is scheduled to be released in late December 2009.
Pictured: Presumably, Traci Lords on the set of Princess of Mars.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Forthcoming: Revised edition of Jason Stoddard’s 2005 novel Winning Mars
Jere Gutierrez is bucking the trend at the dying art of "linear" entertainment -- what we know today as TV shows. His combination of astounding stories, captured in the moment, are captivating millions. Of course, every one of his stories are fabricated and engineered and orchestrated, even though they're sold as "real." Unfortunately for Jere, his backers have begun to see through his tricks. Desperate for another story, one large enough to capture the attention of the world, he teams up with a retired TV executive to create an ad-supported mission to Mars, complete with corporate sponsors and extreme sports events. What Jere doesn't know is just how captivating his Winning Mars will be.
The revised Winning Mars is being published by Prime Books and is scheduled to be released in March 2010.
10 things Ray Bradbury and musician Nikki Sixx have in common: #7 - Created an illustrated man
Ray Bradbury is the author of The Illustrated Man (1951), a collection of eighteen unrelated science fiction short stories that deal with love, madness, and death. Inspired by a “Tattoo Man” that Bradbury met at a carnival as a youngster, the stories are tied together by a literary framing device, “the Illustrated Man,” a tattooed vagrant whose illustrations come alive to tell their stories. Five of the stories are set on or involve the planet Mars.
Here’s how Ray Bradbury's website describes his The Illustrated Man (1951): “a collection of tales that breathe and move, animated by sharp, intaken breath and flexing muscle. Here are eighteen startling visions of humankind's destiny, unfolding across a canvas of decorated skin -- visions as keen as the tattooist's needle and as colorful as the inks that indelibly stain the body.”
Nikki Sixx is an illustrated man, with tattoos inked on his chest, back, arms, and at least one of his legs. According to excerpts from Sixx’s autobiographical book The Heroin Diaries (2007) that were published in the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper, he believes “Tattoos are a great way to keep people away who you wouldn't want to know anyway. I was 21 when I got my first tattoo. I have always loved the idea of the body being covered. We all had a few tattoos but after the Girls, Girls, Girls tour I came into rehearsal with a full sleeve. Then Tommy Lee [Mötley Crüe bandmate] got a back piece, and I got one, too. We'd go into hotel lobbies with stage make-up on and our tattoos; people thought we were a freak show.”
More Bradbury-esque are these lines that Nikki Sixx wrote about a near-death experience in The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band (2002): “I tried to sit up to figure out what was going on. I thought it would be hard to lift my body. But to my surprise, I shot upright, as if I weighed nothing. Then it felt as if something very gentle was grabbing my head and pulling me upward. Above me, everything was bright white. I looked down and realized I had left my body. Nikki Sixx -- or the filthy, tattooed container that had once held him -- was lying covered face-to-toe with a sheet on a gurney being pushed by medics into an ambulance.”
The last I heard, Nikki Sixx was dating tattoo artist Kat Von D. Check out this 10-minute video from October 2008 on YouTube in which Kat inks Nikki with a portrait of Mötley Crüe bandmate Mick Mars! Thanks TLC. Love the educational programming!
Pictured: Nikki Sixx
Previous entries on the Ray Bradbury-Nikki Sixx 10 list:
#10. Both are Angelenos who once palled around with a motley crew doing crazy things
#9. Neither attended college
#8. Both are intimately familiar with Playboy magazine
Labels:
Anthologies and Collections,
Lists,
Music,
Short Fiction,
Television
Listen to a reading of Jay Lake’s 2008 short story “Skinhorse Goes to Mars”
was first published in the #15, Summer 2008, issue of Postscripts magazine. Although this R-rated, scientifically syrupy story about a philosophical being named Skinhorse who goes to Mars on some kind of a genetic mission didn't appeal to me, here are the opening lines:
When I met Skinhorse, my first thought was old. Which was weird. Nobody gets old these days. We all die young, some of us after living a long time, if we’re lucky.
He was in Piet’s Number Seven, a bar-cum-caravanserai in an illegal orbit trailing far enough behind Vesta to be ignorable. Piet’s had been instantiated in an old volatiles bladder that had done the Jovian run a few too many times before falling into the surplus circuit. You could store entire cities in Piet’s cubage, which made for a somewhat attenuated bar experience. Plus the place had one of those gravity cans -- yes, those gravity cans -- which meant your drink stayed stuck down long as you were near a Higgs carpet. ...
Now I understand what critic Lois Tilton meant when she reviewed “Skinhorse Goes to Mars” for the Internet Review of Science Fiction in 2008: “This is a story strongly driven by its prose, by its energetic and evocative language. The pace moves so rapidly that [...] the reader is just supposed to hang on for the ride with eyes closed and not ask questions. Lose the momentum, like a bicyclist, and it all falls down.” Unfortunately, I fell down.
[via Dave Tackett of QuasarDragon]
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Open Book Alliance launches website opposing $125m Google Book Search settlement
Under the leadership of the Internet Archive’s Peter Brantley and Silicon Valley attorney Gary Reback, the Open Book Alliance pits Amazon, Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, Internet Archive, Microsoft, New York Library Association, Small Press Distribution, Special Libraries Association, and Yahoo against Google, Association of American Publishers, and the Authors Guild! United States District Court Judge Denny Chin will hold a fairness hearing on the matter in New York City on October 7, 2009.
Meanwhile, read the Alliance’s The Google Books Settlement: Fact vs. Fiction (PDF, 2 pages).
Offworld, a new Christian novel by Robin Parrish
The return of NASA's first manned mission to Mars was supposed to be a momentous day. But when the crew loses touch with ground control before entry, things look bleak. Safe after a treacherous landing, the crew emerges to discover the unthinkable -- every man, woman, child, and animal has vanished without a trace. Alone now on their home planet, the crew sets out to discover where everyone has gone -- and how to get them back -- only to discover they may
not be as alone as they thought.
Parrish has a neat marketing campaign to promote his new novel. In addition to posting the first chapter of Offworld on his website, he has downloadable wallpaper and a book trailer posted on YouTube.
The August 2009 featured novel of the month of the Christian Science Fiction & Fantasy Blog Tour, Offworld was reviewed by a long list of bloggers, including writer and editor Rachel Starr Thomson, Jason Joyner of the blog Spoiled for the Ordinary, and Dona Watson of the blog Fantasy & Faith, as well as Timothy Taylor of Examiner.com.
Interested in reading an interview with author Robin Parrish? Check out this interview with Timothy Taylor of Examiner.com, or this interview with Julie of the blog My Own Little Corner of the World.
Almost forgot: You have a chance to win a copy of Robin Parrish's new novel Offworld if you can respond to Rachel Starr Thomson by Friday, August 28, 2009.
Pictured: Cover of Offworld, courtesy of Bethany House Publishers.
UCLA's Mexploitation film series to close with 1967 Santo the Silver Mask vs. The Martian Invaders
Extraterrestrials invade Earth seeking human specimens. Announcing themselves in apocalyptic television broadcasts, then tele-transporting themselves to private homes and public sporting events, the platinum-bewigged, mylar-clad, macho Martians, backed by scantly dressed female beauties as counterparts, kidnap select humans, obliterating others with vaporizing rays. But heroic masked wrestler "Santo" neutralizes the invaders with his incredible wrestling prowess, after respectfully consulting a famous scientist and the local priest -- thus mediating between Mexico's high-tech future and its traditional past to restore peace and order to the nation.
If you speak Spanish, you'll understand this four-minute trailer of Santo the Silver Mask vs. The Martian Invaders posted on YouTube.
Pictured: Movie poster
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Trio of Brits join cast of Hollywood's long-awaited John Carter of Mars film
The film, starring actor Taylor Kitsch as John Carter and actress
Lynn Collins as princess Dejah Thoris, is being directed by Hollywood director Andrew Stanton and is scheduled to land in theaters in 2012. John Carter of Mars is based on the science fiction novel A Princess of Mars (1912, 1917), written by pulp author Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Pictured: Polly Walker
Science: Robotic greenhouse for Mars among Electrolux Design Lab 2009 finalists
In honor of its 90th anniversary, Electrolux invited undergraduate and graduate industrial design students to send in their home appliance ideas for the next 90 years. The goal was “to create thoughtfully-designed products that will shape how people prepare and store food, wash clothes and do dishes over the next nine decades.” Over 900 entries were submitted from students in more 50 countries, including Le Petit Prince, by Martin Miklica, Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic:
"Le Petit Prince is a robotic greenhouse designed to facilitate the future exploration and population of Mars. Le Petit Prince takes care of a plant it carries inside its glass case, which is mounted on top of its four-legged pod. In search of nutrients to care for the plant, the robot is programmed to intuitively learn the optimal method for this process. It also reports its movements and progress to its fellow greenhouse robots via wireless communication so that they can learn from each other."
Check out the short video for Miklica’s Le Petit Prince on YouTube.
New piece of flash fiction: “Morning on Mars," by Kent Gutschke
“Elysium Planitia, Mars 2031. Black boots use air intake - marked NOT A STEP - for a step, then propel the safety-orange-colored flight suit over the fuselage and into the heavily padded seat.”
Kent Gutschke is a “Martian-born writer and artist living on the third planet from the star, Sol.”
Drama critic picks “Mars: Population 1” as pieces of one-man Sci-Fi play land on YouTube
Utter isolation. Limitless exploration. As he runs out of air, the first man to land on Mars comes fact to face with his own sanity, humanity, and space-madness, in this innovative sci-fi experience that will awe your imagination.
With a runtime of only 45 minutes, you can watch about 6 minutes of a performance of “Mars: Population 1” on YouTube (Part 1, Part 2).
“Mars: Population 1” is just one of many events at the 13th annual New York International Fringe Festival, which ends August 30, 2009.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Amazon, Microsoft, Yahoo join Open Book Alliance, oppose $125m Google Book Search settlement
Los Angeles Times, August 21, 2009
By Alex Pham
Three powerful technology companies have banded together to oppose Google Inc.'s proposed settlement with the Authors Guild and the Assn. of American Publishers over the Internet search giant's book scanning project.
Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. have signed on to a coalition being assembled by the Internet Archive and Gary Reback, a Silicon Valley antitrust lawyer, said Peter Brantley, director of the Internet Archive, a San Francisco nonprofit that is trying to build a free digital library of Internet content. [...]
Read the entire article in the Los Angeles Times
Tales From the Bully Pulpit: Evil Nazis + Green Martians = Areans on Mars
Although I don’t read a lot of graphic novels, this one held my attention for quite a while, until Abraham Lincoln, Saddam Hussein, and a few other deceased world leaders entered the plot, turning an interesting storyline into a ludicrous one. Nevertheless, Tales From the Bully Pulpit has some interesting bits of science, like Aqua Spirans, a liquid packed with algae so that when you drink it, it coats your lungs and provides you with enough oxygen to breathe on Mars. Also, there is some cool artwork, including Bellatrix, a blue-skinned Martian who leads her Caerulean race against the Nazis and the green-skinned Areans.
Read Tales From the Bully Pulpit for free online!
Cheers to Doc Mars of the French blog Mars & SF for the tip.
Anthology to reprint Michael Chabon’s 2003 short story "The Martian Agent, A Planetary Romance”
Originally published in McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales (Issue #10, 1993), you can read an excerpt from “The Martian Agent, A Planetary Romance,” posted on McSweeney's website.
Also, if you're not afraid of spoilers, check out a 2008 review of Chabon's story by Fábio Fernandes of The Fix: Short Fiction Review.
Thanks to John DeNardo of SF Signal for the tip on the forthcoming anthology.
Labels:
Anthologies and Collections,
New Works,
Reprints,
Reviews,
Short Fiction
Sunday, August 23, 2009
10 things Ray Bradbury and musician Nikki Sixx have in common: #8 - Familiar with Playboy
Ray Bradbury has had fiction, essays, and poetry published in Playboy since the magazine was first launched in 1953. Fahrenheit 451 (1953), his SF masterpiece, was published in the magazine as a three-part serial in 1954. Bradbury was one of several prominent SF authors who participated in “The Playboy Panel: 1984 and Beyond,” published in the summer of 1963. A wide-ranging 1996 interview with Playboy is considered one of Bradbury’s most important, and not just for the author’s views on the magazine:
“Playboy is in fact one of the best magazines in history, simply because it has done more than any other magazine. It has published the works of most of the important short story writers of our time, as well as some of the most important novelists and essayists -- and just about every important American artist. The interviews have included just about everyone in the world with something important to say. Nowhere else can you find such a complete spectrum, from the semivulgar to the highfalutin [laughs]. I have defended Playboy since the beginning. Its editors were brave enough to say, "The hell with what McCarthy thing" when they ran excerpts from Fahrenheit 451. I couldn't sell that to any other magazine because they were all running scared. And I must add another important point -- one I'm sure that many other guys growing up in the sorry years before Playboy existed will agree with -- which is that there would have been a lot fewer problems if Playboy had been around back then. I wish I'd had Playboy when I was 14.”
The timeless guy of Sci-Fi even had time to visit Hugh Hefner at the Playboy Mansion in Beverly Hills in 2002!
Nikki Sixx’s first wife was model and actress Brandi Brandt, Playboy’s “Playmate of the Month” for October 1987. His second wife was model and Baywatch actress Donna D'Errico, Playboy’s “Playmate of the Month” for September 1995. Sixx has visited the Playboy Mansion on several occasions, including a 2007 charity event benefiting the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.
Belated Happy Birthday, Mr. Bradbury!
Pictured: Dolores Del Monte, Playboy's Miss March 1954.
Previous entries on the Ray Bradbury-Nikki Sixx 10 list:
#10. Both are Angelenos who once palled around with a motley crew doing crazy things
#9. Neither attended college
Friday, August 21, 2009
"Martians Never Die," a 1950s short story written by Lucius Daniel
At three-fifteen, a young man walked into the circular brick building and took a flattened package of cigarettes from his shirt pocket.
"Mr. Stern?" he asked, throwing away the empty package.
Stern looked with hard eyes at the youthful reporter. He recognized the type. ...
You can read "Martians Never Die” online or download it for free from either ManyBooks.net or Project Gutenberg.
Thanks to Dave Tackett of QuasarDragon for the tip and the links. I’ve never heard of writer Lucius Daniel and there is no entry for him in Clute & Nicholls' The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1995)!
Trailer for film War of the Worlds: Goliath, animated steampunk sequel to classic SF novel
In 1900, the Earth was attacked by ruthless invaders from the planet Mars. The Martian's 80 ft. tall, heat-ray spewing, Tripod battle machines laid waste to the planet, but the invaders ultimately fell prey to Earth’s tiny bacteria.
Fourteen years later, Man has rebuilt his shattered world, in large part by utilizing captured Martian technology. Equipped with giant, steam-powered Tripod battle machines, the international rapid reaction force, A.R.E.S., is Mankind’s first line of defense against the return of the rapacious Martian invaders. Based in a massive fortress complex at the south end of Manhattan Island, the young warriors of A.R.E.S. train under the leadership of Secretary of War, Theodore Roosevelt, and the grim General Kushnirov.
And return the Martians do. The rematch finds the multinational squad of the A.R.E.S. battle Tripod “Goliath” on the front-lines of a vicious interplanetary offensive when the Martian invaders launch their second invasion using even more advanced alien technology. In the crucible of combat, this young team helming the mighty Goliath will be tested to the limits of their endurance and courage as they fight for Mankind's very survival under the onslaught of an implacable enemy.
Featuring the voice talents of Adrian Paul, Peter Wingfield, Adam Baldwin, Elizabeth Gracen, and Jim Byrnes, War of the Worlds: Goliath is scheduled for release to DVD in early 2010.
Thanks to the website Twitch for the tip.
Pictured: Promotional poster for War of the Worlds: Goliath.
Audiobook review of Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s 2005 novel Buried Deep: A Retrieval Artist Novel
Forensic anthropologist Aisha Costard has been summoned to Mars to examine skeletal remains recently discovered beneath a building erected by the Disty aliens. The bones belong to a human woman who vanished 30 years ago with her children. She is believed to have been one of the Disappeared, outlaws wanted for crimes against alien civilizations.
To investigate the mystery of the skeleton, Aisha turns to Retrieval Artist Miles Flint. Following the trail back three decades and seeking the whereabouts of the victim's missing children, Miles discovers a deadly secret that could threaten the stability of the entire solar system.
Mervi’s audiobook review concludes that Rusch’s Buried Deep is “Another excellent addition to the series.”
Got a few minutes? Listen to narrator Jay Snyder read a sample of Buried Deep at Audible.com.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Prominent attorney files major objection to $125m Google Book Search settlement
Publishers Weekly, August 19, 2009
By Andrew Albanese
The Google Book Search settlement has its first heavyweight objection, as author and attorney Scott Gant this morning filed with the court a hard-hitting 50-page objection that claims the sweeping deal is an illegal expansion of class-action law. In a copy of the brief shared with PW, Gant, a Harvard-educated lawyer with more than a decade of class-action litigation experience, and the author of We're All Journalists Now: The Transformation of the Press and Reshaping of the Law in The Internet Age (Free Press), argues that the settlement is a “predominantly commercial transaction,” that “cannot be imposed through the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23,” the order that authorizes class action. [...]
Read the entire article in Publishers Weekly.
Scott E. Gant is a partner in the law firm of Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, Washington, D.C.
Forthcoming mockbuster film: Princess of Mars, starring Traci Lords and Antonio Sabàto, Jr.
The guy who plays the character Tal Hajus has even posted a few photos over on Flickr!
University of Liverpool acquires rare first edition of 1905 Gullivar Jones of Mars novel
While first edition copies of Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation are "extremely rare and have been known to attract valuations of more than £1,000 at auction" ($1,109 on AbeBooks), you can read the novel online or download it as an e-book through Project Gutenberg or ManyBooks.net. Or, if you prefer, you can listen to a reading of the novel thanks to the folks at LibriVox.
Some SF scholars consider Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation to be the inspiration behind Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novel A Princess of Mars (1912, 1917).
Pictured: University of Liverpool Science Fiction Librarian Andy Sawyer holding first edition of Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Writer Shawn Scarber aims to complete military SF novel War Dogs of Mars by November
Shawn Scarber (Shawn Scarber-Deggans) lives in Texas and is a Clarion West graduate (2006) and a founding member of the North Texas Speculative Fiction Workshop. His fiction has appeared in various online venues and a few small press publications.
Review of Frederik Pohl’s 1976 Nebula Award-winning novel Man Plus
Pictured: Cover of first edition of Man Plus
Mars art: Silhouette portrait of John Carter by ... Rockwell Kent?
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Author Caitlín R. Kiernan on the future of her writing: “October is all Mars”
“Half a day off before I try to write two issues of Sirenia Digest in what remains of August. This is called attempting to get a little breathing room. September will be consumed by the next new novel, getting it up and off the ground, and October is all Mars. This is my plan, though I am reminded that a plan is just a list of things that never happens.”
Does this mean that Caitlín R. Kiernan's long-dormant, stand-alone novella The Dinosaurs of Mars is roaring to life again?
10 things Ray Bradbury and musician Nikki Sixx have in common: #9 - Didn't attend college
Ray Bradbury graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1938 but didn’t attend college because he couldn’t afford it. However, he has received honorary degrees from several schools, including Columbia College Chicago, Woodbury University in Burbank, CA, and National University of Ireland, Galway at Los Angeles.
Nikki Sixx was expelled from Roosevelt High School in Seattle in the mid-1970s and did not attend college.
Pictured: Nikki Sixx
Previous entries on the Ray Bradbury-Nikki Sixx 10 list:
#10. Both are Angelenos who once palled around with a motley crew doing crazy things
Should Hollywood turn Ian McDonald’s 1988 novel Desolation Road into a film?

“Since this debut novel spans several generations of Martian colonists, focusing on a town growing beside the cross-planet railroad, I'm not sure how it would work. But the image of impossibly vast steampunkish trains hurtling across the boundless Martian desert, with whole families of engineers and drivers living and dying onboard, is too impressive to not want to see on the big screen. Perhaps the sequel, Ares Express, would work better as a film with a human narrative -- but it might be best produced in Japan where the idea of reality being altered at the whim of godlike entities is less outré.”
The geeks haven't persuaded me, but both Desolation Road and Ares Express (2001) are worth reading. John DeNardo of SF Signal recently reviewed the new Pyr reprint of Desolation Road.
I'd rather see a spin on Frederik Pohl's 1976 Nebula Award-winning novel Man Plus: Woman Plus, starring Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos.
Pictured: Cover of 1988 British first edition of Desolation Road
Monday, August 17, 2009
Graphic novel adaptation of Ray Bradbury's classic The Martian Chronicles coming down the canal

Pictured: Descent (1989), by artist Michael Whelan
“The Waters of Mars”: Doctor Who has a problem with older women in authority
Q: The Doctor has had pretty steady companions for a few series, and then for the specials the Doctor has been solo with new companions. How was it to shoot those specials? How did that change the dynamic on the set for you?Pictured: Actress Lindsay Duncan as Adelaide.
David Tennant: It's been slightly different in each one. In the first one, we had Michelle Ryan who, for all intents and purposes, was the companion, and she was fantastic. Although she was a very distinct character, she was in the mold of the traditional young, beautiful woman, who is also feisty. But, in the next special, the closest thing we have to a companion is Lindsey Duncan, who is an older woman, which is not something the show has done before. And, she probably thinks she's more in charge than the Doctor is. In many ways, she is, actually. So, that's a different dynamic.
“Sunrise,” a new vignette written by a Martian
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Los Angeles Times on original book dust jackets and the counterfeiting market
• A Princess of Mars (1917), by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• The Gods of Mars (1918), by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• The Warlord of Mars (1919), by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1920), by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• The Chessmen of Mars (1922), by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• The Master Mind of Mars (1928), by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• A Fighting Man of Mars (1931), by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• Planet Plane (1936), by John Beynon
• Swords of Mars (1936), by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• Synthetic Men of Mars (1940), by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• A Martian Odyssey and Others (1949), by Stanley G. Weinbaum
• Red Planet (1949), by Robert A. Heinlein
• The Martian Chronicles (1950), by Ray Bradbury
• The Sands of Mars (1951), by Arthur C. Clarke
• Marooned on Mars (1952), by Lester Del Rey
• The Martian Way and Other Stories (1955), by Isaac Asimov
Allison Hoover Bartlett is the author of The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession, which is scheduled to land on bookstore shelves in September 2009.
Pictured: Marooned on Mars (1952), by Lester Del Rey
Issac Asimov’s Mars, a 1991 anthology edited by Gardner Dozois
At left: Paperback original (New York: Ace Books, 1991), 225 p. Cover art by Bill Binger. Featuring nine fantastic journeys to the Red Planet, here’s the blurb from the back cover:
Destination: Mars. Your Tour Guides: Today’s Masters of Science Fiction. Gregory Benford attempts to drink “All the Beer on Mars.” Allen M. Steele reviews the future of rock-and-roll-and-mankind, playing “Live from the Mars Hotel.” George Alec Effinger reveals the startling reason why “Mars Needs Beatniks.” Brian W. Aldiss sets the focus on fear and explores “The Difficulties Involved in Photographing Nix Olympica.” Plus: Other brilliant tales from the pages of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine – exciting stories by Robert Frazier, Ian McDonald, Kim Stanley Robinson, Eric Vinicoff, Lawrence Watt-Evans.
Here’s the table of contents, with comments by Gardner Dozois:
• “Live from the Mars Hotel” (1988), by Allen Steele. A “hard-edged, yet gently ironic story ... which takes us traveling very far indeed to hear the music of home.”
• “The Difficulties Involved in Photographing Nix Olympica” (1986), by Brian W. Aldiss. “He takes us along to a military base on a future Mars, and shows us that what’s most important is not so much what you see, but how you see it.”
• “Windwagon Smith and the Martians” (1989), by Lawrence Watt-Evans. A “whimsical story of a journey to a Mars that ought to have been.”
• “Retrovision” (1988), by Robert Frazier. “He shows us that the old saying about how we live on only in the memories of those who loved us may be a good deal truer than we think.”
• “The Great Martian Railroad Race” (1988), by Eric Vinicoff. A “clever and suspenseful story of entrepreneur Timothy Lo, who thinks that he knows just what the developing Teran colonies of the Red Planet need - a railroad!”
• “All the Beer on Mars” (1988), by Gregory Benford. “He takes us along on a near-future expedition to the Red Planet - one that’s going to run into a few surprises.”
• “The Catharine Wheel” (1983), by Ian McDonald. An “evocative dream-vivid portrait of everyday life on a future Mars.”
• “Mars Needs Beatniks” (1983), by George Alec Effinger. “In the remarkably silly story ... he takes some of the Beat Generation On the Road to a brand-new destination.”
• “Green Mars” (1985), by Kim Stanley Robinson. “One of the classic Mars stories of the eighties - perhaps the classic Mars story - it was the first story I thought of when I began to assemble this anthology, and clearly the one story that had to be in the book. You’ll soon see why, as Robinson sweeps us along with him to a vividly realized future Mars, for an exciting and evocative story about a band of men and women determined to climb the tallest mountain in the Solar System - Olympus Mons.”
“Let Us Now Praise Awesome Dinosaurs,” a new speculative fiction story by Leonard Richardson
“Let Us Now Praise Awesome Dinosaurs” (2009), a new speculative fiction story written by Leonard Richardson. On the surface, the story is about two talking dinosaurs from Mars. I'm a big fan of dinosaurs, but all I could think about was the PBS children's television series Dragon Tales. In any case, here are the opening lines of “Let Us Now Praise Awesome Dinosaurs”:
"I want to buy a gun," said the Thymomenoraptor. He moved his foreclaw along the glass case of pistols, counting them off: one, two, three, four. "That one." He tapped the case; the glass squeaked.
"Why would a dinosaur need a gun?" asked the shop owner.
"Self-defense." ...
According to a biographical piece at the end of the story, “Leonard Richardson became a programmer because paleontology involved too much outdoor work. He writes prose and open source software from his home in New York.”
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Shh! Conversion story of SF author John C. Wright mentions Man from Mars but not Jesus Christ
Letter from Paul to Mr. Wright: If Pope Benedict XVI finds out, he'll excommunicate you from the Church!
Pictured: Saint Paul, author of the original conversion story.
10 things Ray Bradbury and musician Nikki Sixx have in common: #10 - Motley crew in L.A.
Ray Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Illinois, in 1920 and moved to Los Angeles as a teenager with his family in the mid 1930s. Initially living “about four blocks from the Uptown Theater,” he has lived in the City of Angels ever since. As a young man, Bradbury palled around with members of the now legendary Clifton’s Cafeteria Science Fiction Club: Forrest Ackerman, Leigh Brackett, Fredric Brown, Ray Harryhausen, Robert Heinlein, Henry Kuttner, Emil Petaja, and Jack Williamson. According to a 1975 interview published in Conversations with Ray Bradbury (2004), he and Ray Harryhausen “became fast friends. I used to go out to his house. He made a life mask of me and put together a liquid latex horror-mask for me to wear on Halloween back in 1938. And I went to the Paramount Theatre with Ray Harryhausen and Forrest Ackerman, wearing this liquid latex green Martian sort of mask, and had a wonderful time. So you see how crazy we all were.”
Nikki Sixx was born in San Jose, California, in 1958 and lived in Los Angeles as a child with his mother, “on the ninth floor of the St. James Club -- then known as the Sunset Towers -- on Sunset Boulevard.” After moving around various states, Sixx moved back to L.A. from Seattle as a teenager in the late 1970s. He has lived in and around L.A. ever since. As a young man, Sixx palled around with the other three members of the now legendary band Mötley Crüe: Vince Neil, Tommy Lee, and Mick Mars. According to The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band (2002), Sixx “bought my first real car, a Porsche, after landing a publishing deal with Warner/Chappell. It was my pride and joy. Tommy [bandmate Tommy Lee] and I would drive down Sunset Boulevard with the pedal to the floor at 2 A.M., swigging off fifths of Jack. We didn’t realize how stupid drunk driving was until a year later.”
Pictured: Photograph of Ray Bradbury & Forrest J Ackerman, in Los Angeles, 1938. Ackerman is wearing the mask Ray Harryhausen made for Bradbury.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)