Wonder Reference

This is my battered paperback edition of The Science Fiction Encyclopedia.  Wikipedia informs me that the US publisher changed the name of the from The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, who knows why.  I found it remaindered at Waldenbooks a looooong time ago, remaindered, me all starry-eyed like an anime character with the background music soaring and...you get the idea.

That cover with its too-close moon and earthly cataclysm was irresistible.  I used to get lost in a daisy-chain of articles: from an author, to another author, to a movie, to a theme.  All this without hyperlinks, mind.

It became The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction in its second US incarnation, without illustrations sadly, though an update apparently came out on CD-ROM.  The second edition I have, but alas, not the CD.

The third edition moves the endeavor fully online: The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.  The site went live in October 2011 with the caveat that it is in beta, a work in progress. I have high hopes for its future.

John Clute, Peter Nicholls, David Langford, and many others are pounding away at this labor of love.  You can help with donations.

Webcomics I Love: Spacetrawler

Christopher Baldwin is the artist and writer behind Spacetrawler, a science fiction webcomic about humans shanghaied by an alien to help free the Eebs, another alien race exploited and enslaved by just about everyone because they can build...well, anything, but spacetrawlers (star ships) in particular.

Needless to say the situation is way more complicated than that. There are secrets and revelations; bad guys, good guys, and in-betweeners. It's a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of good intentions when coupled with only partial information...

Sounds serious, doesn't it? But it's also very, very funny (consider the mobile toilet, an Artificial Intelligence who only wants to do his job. And be loved for it, I think. And maybe follow you around, just in case--no, that is not indicative of the level of humor in the comic, though possibly indicative of mine).

Spacetrawler is also sweet and bittersweet.

The webcomic is for grown-ups, containing violence, cussing, sexuality amongst the stars (not explicit), some drinking, some heartbreak, some angst, some rollicking, some rampaging.

His art is often adorable. Even the more amoeba-like aliens are...kind of cute.

Christopher Baldwin's work appears often in MAD Magazine (here's a sample).

He's done other webcomics. His Little Dee is a delightful tale of a lost little girl adopted by a very civilized bear until she can be reunited with her folks. Trust me, you will love it. It's a storybook, sweet without saccharine, and sometimes takes a gentle swipe at our so-called real world.

Start from the beginning; these are real stories.

Mark Hamill Gives Good Villainy

I wish I'd gotten to see Mark Hamill onstage in Amadeus, but at least I've gotten to enjoy his voicework as the Joker in Batman:The Animated Series (you lucky gamers have gotten to hear him reprise the role in Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City)

He says he's done playing the Joker.

A moment of silence.

However, he has brought his talents to a new role in a new animated series on Disney XD called Motorcity.

I've fallen hard for Motorcity because of the animation which is just fantastic, a hot-rod and graffiti hallucination. The linework is alive with indie-comics grit, each moment crammed with detail, depth, and color. Here, lookit: Motorcity Animation Preview

The voice cast as a whole is great, worthy Mark Hamill's villain Abraham Kane...a big, bad man with a big voice full of verve and nuance.

Pep talkin'

The blank page is not an abyss. It's a vessel that deepens only as you fill it.

Let's try to keep that in mind, shall we?

Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains"

"There Will Come Soft Rains" is a short story included in Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and one of my favorite pieces. Possible spoilers to follow:

It's about a computerized, mechanical house left standing after nuclear war has destroyed the world.

The house provides for a family no longer there, making and discarding meals, playing music, putting on shadow plays for the children on the nursery walls, choosing and reciting a poem for a tired head of household returned from work...all a show for ghosts.

Thinking about it last night, I realized that the melancholy went far beyond any anthropomorphizing the reader might be doing. Once you get beyond that notion (after all, the A.I. of the house isn't sophisticated enough to really feel anything or to even notice the absence of its inhabitants or the destruction of the world), you're left with an artifact that embodies the best of human nature, a machine with a default setting of love. And then you're reminded that the earth is dead and everyone is gone. That too is humanity's handiwork.

The end of the story breaks your heart.

Thankfully, The Martian Chronicles doesn't end there.

If you haven't already, go see what Ray Bradbury wrought.

Mars Will Never Be The Same

Ray Bradbury Is Dead

Star Wars, deboned

In my travels, I came across this Star Wars alphabet on io9. A friend of mine has a baby boy who is being introduced to various science fiction joys, so I passed on the link (http://io9.com/5915838/teach-kids-the-alphabet-with-these-adorable-star-wars-prints)

He in turn asked me if I'd heard about the "de-specialized" Star Wars vids that were around and about (I'll leave the particulars as an exercise for the interested reader). Apparently, some enterprising soul has taken the crappy laser disc port of the original Star Wars trilogy and blended it with the Special Edition...and eliminating the, erm, enhancements. He tells me they are wondrous to behold.

I will say only that George Lucas, like all artists, needs to figure out when to quit (no pun intended in light of his recent "retirement"). He managed to insert a mythos into the world's collective unconscious. Not that many people get the privilege to actually make Myth. It seems folly for him to say, "Are you kidding? Here: this is much better!"

I mean, you know?

Just Read....

...Moxyland by Lauren Beukes which posits an almost-here future where identity and personal economy are tied into individuals' smartphones. Disconnect equals disenfranchisement and a built-in stun gun provides a handy way for law enforcement to defuse a situation. By situation, I mean citizenry--oh, you didn't think such a thing would be for their protection, did you?

This candy-coated dystopia is populated with characters in deep trouble. It's all a kaleidoscopic train wreck....some of the crashes you'll see coming, others will smack you broadside.