Doctor Who television special “The Waters of Mars” wins Hugo Award

BBC’s acclaimed Doctor Who television special “The Waters of Mars” (2009), which attracted millions of viewers in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States, just won the prestigious Hugo Award in the category of Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form. A science fiction horror set on the Red Planet in the year 2059, “The Waters of Mars” stars British Actor David Tennant as the Doctor and acclaimed Scottish actress Lindsay Duncan as Adelaide Brooke, his companion and head of Bowie Base One on Mars.

The Hugo Awards were announced at Aussiecon 4, the 68th World Science Fiction Convention, held in this past weekend in Melbourne, Australia.

[via SF Signal]

Douglas A. Van Belle’s 2009 story “Zombies from Mars” nominated for Sir Julius Vogel Award

Congratulations to New Zealand writer and university lecturer Douglas A. Van Belle, whose short story “Zombies from Mars” has been nominated for a Sir Julius Vogel Award. “Zombies from Mars” was published in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine Issue #40 (September 2009). The Sir Julius Vogel Awards are administered by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Association of New Zealand (SFFANZ). This year’s awards will be presented at Au Contraire, the New Zealand National Science Fiction Convention, to be held in Wellington in August 2010.

Doctor Who television special “The Waters of Mars” nominated for Hugo Award

BBC’s acclaimed Doctor Who television special “The Waters of Mars” (2009), which attracted millions of viewers in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States, has been nominated for a Hugo Award in the category of Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form. A science fiction horror set on the Red Planet in the year 2059, “The Waters of Mars” stars British Actor David Tennant as the Doctor and acclaimed Scottish actress Lindsay Duncan as Adelaide Brooke, his companion and head of Bowie Base One.

The Hugo Awards will be announced at Aussiecon 4, the 68th World Science Fiction Convention, to be held in Melbourne, Australia, in September 2010.

Giveaway: Dr. Who “The Waters of Mars” DVD

The movie review website Week in Rewind is giving away three copies of the BBC’s acclaimed Doctor Who television special, “The Waters of Mars” (2009) on DVD, Set on the Red Planet in the year 2059, "The Water of Mars" stars British Actor David Tennant as the Doctor and acclaimed Scottish actress Lindsay Duncan as his companion. The DVD also includes a 60-minute, behind-the-scenes look at the making of "The Waters of Mars." Check Week in Rewind for giveaway details. The deadline is March 30, 2010.

DC's comical Frankenstein kicks ass on Mars

In Seven Soldiers: Frankenstein #2, written by Grant Morrison, drawn by Doug Mahnke and published by DC Comics in 2005, a heroic Frankenstein somehow makes it to the Red Planet, where he “follows a trail of death and human misery to the demon-haunted Tombs of B'aal B'zaar and the largest seam of gold in the solar system. Carnivorous horses, a new kind of slave trade, the secret origin of Melmoth the Wanderer and the unstoppable menace of Red Zombies await!”

A review of the 1952 film Zombies of the Stratosphere

Steven Tee of the website HorrorYearbook reviews the oft-forgotten film Zombies of the Stratosphere (Republic Studios, 1952), which is perhaps best known for casting actor Leonard Nimoy in a minor role as Narab the Martian. Tee concludes, in part, “This is a campy little serial that is filled with obsolete everything: acting, special effects, plot, etc."

“The Waters of Mars” creates a flood of viewers for BBC America

The science-fiction entertainment news site Airlock Alpha reports that the BBC’s acclaimed Doctor Who television special, “The Waters of Mars,” attracted a record 1.1 million viewers to its American cable channel last Saturday evening. If you missed the adventure and horror at Bowie Base One on the Red Planet and don't want to wait for the DVD or Blu-Ray to be released, you can watch the entire 60-minute program on YouTube!


And, if you’re not opposed to some fantasy with your science fiction, take the Best Bum on Bowie Base One poll.

Neil Gaiman liked BBC’s Doctor Who television special “The Waters of Mars”

Award-winning British SF&F author Neil Gaiman revealed in a recent entry in his online journal that he liked the BBC’s Doctor Who television special “The Waters of Mars,” which aired in the UK last Sunday evening, November 15th:

“Maddy and I watched the antepenultimate Doctor Who special, The Waters of Mars, which we both liked a lot more than the Bus-in-the-desert episode. Good, scary classic, monstery Doctor Who which felt predictable (in a good way -- almost inevitable) until suddenly it wasn't, and it got interesting in different ways. I liked the plot and performances, and feel comfortably certain that David Tennant's Doctor is going to have a better exit from the stage than any of the other nine.”

"The Water of Mars," which is set on the Red Planet in the year 2059 and stars British Actor David Tennant as the Doctor and acclaimed Scottish actress Lindsay Duncan as his companion, will be aired in New Zealand on Sunday, November 29th; in Australia on Sunday, December 6th; and in the United States on BBC America on Saturday night, December 19th.

Millions in UK tune in to Doctor Who tv special “The Waters of Mars”

BBC’s highly anticipated Doctor Who television special “The Waters of Mars” landed on the small screen Sunday evening in the United Kingdom. More than 9 million viewers tuned in to watch the Doctor, British actor David Tennant, and his companion, Scottish actress Lindsay Duncan, confront Zombies at Bowie Base One on Mars in the year 2059. Trumpeted by many as the “scariest” Doctor Who episode ever, “The Waters of Mars” is receiving mixed reviews. For example:

BBC releases clip for Doctor Who television special “The Waters of Mars”

The BBC recently released a three-minute video clip for its forthcoming Doctor Who television special, “The Waters of Mars,” which is set on the Red Planet in the year 2059 and features zombies. British Actor David Tennant stars as the Doctor and acclaimed Scottish actress Lindsay Duncan plays the role of Adelaide Brooke, his companion and head of Bowie Base One on Mars.



"The Water of Mars" will be aired on BBC One in the United Kingdom on Sunday night, November 15th, and on BBC America in the United States on Saturday night, December 19th. The DVD and Blu-Ray are scheduled to be released in early 2010.

[via John DeNardo of SF Signal]

BBC announces dates for Doctor Who television special “The Waters of Mars”

The BBC has announced that its forthcoming Doctor Who television special, “The Waters of Mars,” will be aired in the United Kingdom on Sunday night, November 15th, on BBC One, and in the United States on Saturday night, December 19th, on BBC America. If you're not familiar with this special, the plot is set on the Red Planet and involves humans, zombies and the waters of Mars. British Actor David Tennant stars as the Doctor and acclaimed sexy Scottish actress Lindsay Duncan plays the role of Adelaide, his companion and head of a base on Mars.

Meanwhile, if you're not afraid of a few spoilers, check out Digital Spy's Ten "Waters of Mars" Teasers.

“The Waters of Mars” is scheduled to be released on DVD in early 2010.

Interview with Doctor Who director Graeme Harper on forthcoming “The Waters of Mars”

SFX, "the Earth's greatest SF and fantasy magazine," has an interview with British television director Graeme Harper on the BBC’s forthcoming Doctor Who tv special “The Waters of Mars.” Starring actor David Tennant as the Doctor and acclaimed actress Lindsay Duncan as his companion, Adelaide, the storyline is set on the Red Planet and involves humans, zombies, and the waters of Mars. Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

Graeme Harper: Now, how do you make it creepy? It seems to be alive, the water, by the way it follows the characters in the story. Sort of -- we didn’t make a big thing of it in the story, but that’s how I shot it, so it was chasing people, following them and trapping them. The best effects you can get come out of seeing the enormity of the water, the relentlessness of it. I think where it becomes really creepy and you get the fear, is when it continues draining out of characters’ mouths.

“The Waters of Mars” is scheduled to be aired in the UK in November 2009.

Kurt Vonnegut’s 1959 novel The Sirens of Titan employs the sixth type of zombie

Although I know nothing about zombies, the book Monsters and the Monstrous: Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil (2007), edited by Niall Scott, informs me that “Zombies in literature, film and culture fall into seven distinct categories or types”: the zombie ghost, the zombie ruse, the zombie drone, the zombie ghoul, the zombie channel, the tech zombie, and the cultural zombie.

Apparently, the sixth type of zombie, the “tech zombie,” finds employment in Kurt Vonnegut’s Hugo Award-nominated 1959 novel The Sirens of Titan. According to Monsters and the Monstrous, here is how Vonnegut describes the process of zombiefication:

Their memories were cleaned out by mental-health experts, and Martian surgeons installed radio antennas in their skulls in order that the recruits might be radio-controlled.

And then the recruits were given new names in the most haphazard fashion, and were assigned to the factories, the construction gangs, the administrative staff, or to the Army of Mars.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t own a copy of The Sirens of Titan, even though the cover is one of my favorites. If anyone owns the book, please consider posting a comment that enlarges the above excerpt so we can get a better look at these zombies. Thanks.

"The Waters of Mars": Approaching age 60, Doctor Who actress Lindsay Duncan is still sexy

The most refreshing aspect of the BBC’s forthcoming Doctor Who television special, “The Waters of Mars,” scheduled to be aired in the UK in late 2009, isn’t the youthfulness British actor David Tennant brings to the role of the Time Lord, or the clever storyline that the waters of Mars can transform humans into zombies. Rather, the most refreshing aspect is the decision to cast 58-year-old Scottish actress Lindsay Duncan as Adelaide, head of a base on Mars and "the Doctor's cleverest and most strong-minded companion yet.”

Lindsay Duncan isn’t a household name in the States and she probably will not get as much media attention as fellow Doctor Who actress and barely-legal gal Karen Gillan, but Duncan proves that almost-60 is still sexy and that our planet doesn’t have to revolve around twenty-somethings. Here’s how The Independent, a British newspaper, described Duncan in 2005:

While it would be unforgivably coarse to join those lensmen in a bout of prose slavering over her good looks, it would be prissy to shirk the obvious truths that most film actresses are still required to be beautiful. Some three decades and more after her stage debut, Lindsay Duncan is looking, well, terrific: movie-set glamorous even sitting inconspicuously in a north London coffee shop, dressed in regular old T-shirt and dark trousers with no fancy lighting set-ups, and no more than the most perfunctory hint of slap. Fine-boned and patrician in the face, slender in the body, she could easily pass for a good 15 or 20 years younger than her true age (She was born in 1950, and doesn't seem to give a hoot who knows it.)

Check out Lindsay Duncan in this "The Waters of Mars" photo gallery preview or in this new video trailer (YouTube, 1:15 mins.) that just debuted at Comic-Con 2009 in San Diego.

Pictured: Lindsay Duncan

BBC telly working on “The Waters of Mars,” a Doctor Who special

BBC One is working on a production of a Doctor Who television special entitled “The Waters of Mars.” Scheduled to be aired in the UK in the fall of 2009, the storyline is set on the Red Planet and involves humans, zombies, and the waters of Mars. Actor David Tennant will star as the Doctor and acclaimed actress Lindsay Duncan will play the role of Adelaide, head of a base on Mars.

"So what can we expect from The Waters of Mars? There's the question of the prophesy the Doctor heard at the close of Planet of the Dead. His song ending? He will knock four times? Will the Doctor learn more on the Red Planet? And when we last left him, he was travelling alone. The Time Lord who once delighted in sharing the wonders of the universe was once again the 'lonely angel'. But judging from what we already know of the story, he won't have long to worry about loneliness. There will be action, danger... and an awful lot of running!"

Check out video clips and a photo gallery for BBC’s forthcoming Doctor Who: “The Waters of Mars.”

“Zombies of Mars”, a recent short story by Canadian writer James Gordon Bailie

Thanks to the generosity of Canadian writer James Gordon Bailie, you can download his short story
“Zombies of Mars” (2007) as a PDF. I haven’t had time to read the story, but it seems to involve a naked woman, an immersive literary game called Zombies of London, and a trip to a colony on Mars. Here are the opening lines:

I found myself tiring of their accents, even. Edwina spoke with a generic London accent, while Marie spoke in a French accent so extremely nasal it sounded like a caricature.

I set the terminal of the messaging system in my cabin to auto-reply.

"Johnny is enjoying his quiet time, right now. Your frivolous interruption is not welcome. Goodbye." ...

“Zombies of Mars” is the title story of James Gordon Bailie’s book, Zombies of Mars (2008), a collection of “twelve (mostly science fiction) stories, ranging from farcical space opera to serious speculation.” I think all of the stories in this collection are available for free as PDFs at www.mammothcheese.ca, a website maintained by Bailie.

Actor Leonard Nimoy played Narab the Martian in the 1952 film Zombies of the Stratosphere

Unbeknownst to me, actor Leonard Nimoy, who starred as Dr. Spock in the late 1960s television series Star Trek, played the minor role of Narab
the Martian in the obscure film Zombies of the Stratosphere (Republic Studios, 1952). Here's a synopsis of the
plot, taken from the blog Classic Sci-Fi Movies:

Mars is a dying world, cooling down because it's too far from the sun. The Martians decide to knock Earth out of it's warmer orbit and put Mars there. To accomplish this, the Martians set about trying to build an H-bomb on Earth, with the reluctant help of an earth scientist with "unfriendly powers" connections. Like Radar Men the few Martians who come to Earth employ various earth thugs to do their bidding. In each episode, the Martians' latest plan is foiled. Each episode usually had a chase scene (with or without shootout). The Martians eventually succeed in getting the bomb built and armed. They flee in their rocket, but are shot down by Larry in his rocket. After the crash, the last surviving Martian, Narab, (played by Leonard Nimoy) tells Larry how to find and disarm the bomb. This he does, and the world is safe ... for now.

As the website Todd Gault's Serial Experience notes, “Of course the most famous cast member in the serial is Leonard Nimoy, almost fifteen years before wowing fans as Mr. Spock, plays a small part as a Martian invader, with few scenes and even fewer lines. Though he does get to battle the hero in the underwater knife fight.”

Pictured above: Leonard Nimoy as Narab the Martian.