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LonCon 3 Report: Attending the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention

LonCon 3 Report: Attending the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention

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LONCON3_logo_270wLast weekend in London was LonCon 3, this year’s Worldcon. The convention, which has been held in various cities around the world since 1939, is where the Hugo Awards are given out and where fans from all over the globe meet up.

It was my first Worldcon, and while I’ve been to large conventions before such as World Fantasy and Eastercon, not to mention several local conventions such as Tuscon, I still wasn’t quite sure what to expect. What I got was five fun days of events, conversation, and camaraderie.

The Loncon staff did a fine job making everything run smoothly. A handy pocket guide steered me around the huge convention center without a hitch, and twice-daily newssheets kept me up-to-date on any changes.

There were only a couple of small minuses. First off, the dining options at the ExCel Centre were overpriced and generally substandard. Not that this is unusual for a convention center, so I don’t blame LonCon for this!

Also, the ExCel is huge and has all the ambiance of a shopping mall. But as Robert Silverberg pointed out, “Cons aren’t about venues, they’re about people.”

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: When Elric of Melnibone Came to 221B Baker Street

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: When Elric of Melnibone Came to 221B Baker Street

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Moorcock_DorsetLodgerWell, not quite. That title was just to grab your attention. But Elric’s creator did set a tale at London’s most famous address, 221B Baker Street. And it’s a pretty ‘normal’ Holmes tale; which you might not expect from the guy who created Stormbringer.

I enjoyed Fletcher Vrendenburgh’s post last week on Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champion. I devoured the tales of Corum, Hawkmoon, Erekose, and of course Elric in my middle-school years.

Being a Dungeons and Dragons player, these books were awesome. I think I even used Rackhir the Red Archer in a game. If you’ve not read  significant parts of that saga, your fantasy education is lacking.

Moorcock’s work encompasses much more than just the Eternal Champion tales. I’m a Christian and I was fascinated by the premise of The War Hound and all the World’s Pain (an excellent read: the sequel, not so much).

I even wrote a paper on the idea for a high school religion class. That got me an invite to see the teacher, a priest, after class.

Back in 1995, Moorcock wrote “The Adventure of the Dorset Street Lodger” as a privately printed chapbook which he let friends of his, who were opening a hotel on Dorset Street, give away to their first guests.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Sherlock (Doctor) Who?

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Sherlock (Doctor) Who?

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Baker_PipeThe BBC recently held a ‘Best of Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Poll’ and Tom Baker came out number one. This is a bit surprising, as he roamed in the Tardis from 1974 to 1981, which was over three decades ago. And less relevant but still of note is that the Doctor never really broke big in America until David Tenant took on the role.

Baker_Moore
Roger Moore starred in the TV movie Sherlock Holmes in New York. It’s not quite as bad as it might appear, though John Huston was woefully miscast as Moriarty.

After Baker gave the Doctor up for regeneration, the BBC approached him and asked what project he would like to do next with his popularity still soaring. Baker immediately replied, “Sherlock Holmes,” and traded his scarf for a deerstalker.

With England’s most iconic actor (sorry, Roger Moore) to play England’s most iconic character (sorry, James Bond), only the biggest Holmes story would do. Though that’s not the smartest choice to showcase Holmes.

The BBC hadn’t tackled The Hound of the Baskervilles since Peter Cushing’s second attempt at it for his 1968 television series (a role he secured after failed attempts to land Robert Stephens and Eric Porter). There had been an American TV version in 1972 starring a dull Stewart Granger with Bernard Fox as yet another doofus Watson who mumbled his lines.

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Blogging Dan Barry’s Flash Gordon, Part Fifteen

Blogging Dan Barry’s Flash Gordon, Part Fifteen

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Flash Alpha 1Flash Alpha 2“Return to Mongo” by Dan Barry was serialized by King Features Syndicate from January 2 to March 24, 1956. The story gets underway with a party celebrating Dr. Zarkov’s newly discovered young adult daughter Zara and her arrival on Earth after growing up on an otherwise deserted swamp planet with her mother. Flash, Dale, and the Space Kids are at the party when Zarkov is alerted to the discovery that Mongo is once again entering Earth’s orbit and threatening our world’s stability. Willie, who still has the ability to psychically grant wishes, inadvertently teleports everyone from the party to Mongo.

Flash and the Space Kids are immediately set upon by Queen Azura’s cowled servants, who nearly massacre them. Working as a team to defeat Azura’s servants, Flash and the Space Kids are overcome by a paralyzing gas as they explore a nearby cave. They are subsequently captured and brought to Queen Azura’s palace, where they learn she is plotting to overthrow Prince Barin.

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Blogging Dan Barry’s Flash Gordon, Part Fourteen

Blogging Dan Barry’s Flash Gordon, Part Fourteen

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Barry Gordonkurtzman_flash_gordon_cvr11“The Swamp Girl” by Dan Barry was serialized by King Features Syndicate from October 31 to December 31, 1955. Just as Dan Barry guided the strip closer to its origins, he took two sidesteps in introducing a back-story for Dr. Zarkov that Alex Raymond never intended. “The Swamp Girl” introduces us to a hot-tempered, beautiful young woman called Zara, whose mother was the sole survivor when her rocket crashed on the swamp world of Malagua twenty years before.

As the story begins, Lisa (Zara’s mother) is succumbing to malaria just as her daughter has finally succeeded in repairing their rocketship. Zara sets off to visit her father’s home world of Earth and fulfill her mother’s dying request that her daughter bring the father she has never met to see her mother before she dies, so that her mother may reconcile with him.

Zara arrives on Earth with her pet black panther, Octavio. Their ship’s coordinates take them to the desert town where Zara’s father, Dr. Zarkov, lives. After upsetting the neighborhood and evading the police, both the swamp girl and her panther reach their destination.

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Blogging Dan Barry’s Flash Gordon, Part Thirteen

Blogging Dan Barry’s Flash Gordon, Part Thirteen

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Space Circus tradSpace Circus alt“Space Circus” by Dan Barry was serialized by King Features Syndicate from September 5 to October 29, 1955. “Space Circus” is significant for being the first time in the Dan Barry strips where Flash’s past adventures on Mongo are now an integral part of the storyline. One wonders if reader response prompted King Features to request a change of direction from what would today be considered a reboot to a direct sequel to the original storyline of the early 1930s.

“Space Circus” gets underway with Flash abducted by a flying saucer while out driving on a desert road late one night. Abduction by UFO was a relatively new concept in the 1950s, but one that was spreading rapidly as a fear that many shared during the Cold War era. The aliens are from the planet Mesmo and appear as Asian caricatures. While a number of the inhabitants of Mongo were depicted as Asian in appearance, they were portrayed as being exotic and not as demeaning cartoonish representations. While there were certainly many more offensive Yellow Peril figures in comics of the era, the Mesmans are a far cry from the seductive and imposing inhabitants of Mongo as Alex Raymond portrayed them.

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Blogging Dan Barry’s Flash Gordon, Part Twelve

Blogging Dan Barry’s Flash Gordon, Part Twelve

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Barry Gordonkurtzman_flash_gordon_cvr11“Starling” by Dan Barry was serialized by King Features Syndicate from July 11 to September 3, 1955. “Starling” starts off with Flash visiting Dr. Zarkov one evening to find his old friend depressed, as the U.S. Government has turned down his request for an additional million dollars funding to finish construction of the Super-S Rocket. It is a nice hint of direction for the strip to come, which will take the series closer to its roots. Flash and Zarkov are startled by the discovery of a prowler outside, but the man gets away.

Over the next few days, similar disturbing incidents occur. Flash and Dale are nearly run down by a speeding car while out walking one afternoon on the grounds of Zarkov’s estate. Later, a crate is dropped off the roof of a downtown building when Flash is walking beneath and just misses him. Shortly thereafter, Zarkov receives a telephone call from B. B. Remsen, the billionaire industrialist requesting an interview with Flash.

Upon visiting Remsen’s estate, Flash is outraged to discover Remsen hired his goon, Byron, to test Flash’s reflexes by nearly running him down with a speeding car and dropping a crate off a building. Byron was the prowler at Zarkov’s estate who learned of the need for financing for the Super-S Rocket. Remsen agrees to finance the rocket if Flash will take on a unique assignment. Remsen’s very wild granddaughter, Starling, wants to travel in space and Remsen wants Flash to pilot the rocket that will take her to the stars.

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Politics and Fantasy Make Strange Bedfellows

Politics and Fantasy Make Strange Bedfellows

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strange bedfellowsIn January, both M. Harold Page and I wrote posts about politics in fantasy literature. While we came at the topic from different points, I think we narrowed in on the same conclusion. I quote from Page’s post:

Of all the genres, Fantasy must be the worst possible channel for the politically minded author. They simply can’t be heard over that clash of steel and the roar of dragons…

Really enjoyed and appreciated his post. And I do take his point – escapism is great fun and entertaining. But ultimately escape and make believe can only go so far, and at other times and places we will have other needs, other reasons to want to read. Something that touches us inside.

The reason I’m coming back to this topic, perhaps more convinced than I was before of this serious liability in fantasy, is that I’ve just read Strange Bedfellows: An Anthology of Political Science Fiction. I’d mentioned the anthology in my post as something I was looking forward to reading.

Now that I have, maybe I’m having one of those stumbling-upon-a-watch-in-the-heath moments, because, for the life of me, I can’t see how fantasy could have done even a fraction of what this anthology seems to have accomplished effortlessly. A few examples will make this clear.

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Mindjammer RPG: Transhuman Sci-Fi Adventure in the Second Age of Space

Mindjammer RPG: Transhuman Sci-Fi Adventure in the Second Age of Space

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Several years ago, I published my first ever roleplaying game supplement, a 200-page softback for the Starblazer Adventures RPG, using the Fate 3rd edition rules. Black Gate‘s very own Howard Andrew Jones reviewed it here, and a few short months later we were delighted when it won a Judges Spotlight Award at the ENnies in GenCon. We decided to produce a second edition…

… And here it is! A lot has happened in the meantime, not least the release of a brand new edition of Fate, the Fate Core System, from Evil Hat Productions, which won Best RPG in the Golden Geek Awards only last week. The publication of an elegant and sophisticated new edition of Fate meant that I had a golden opportunity to update Mindjammer and publish it as a full roleplaying game, taking full advantages of the Fate Core System‘s cutting edge innovations. Last month, we launched Mindjammer – The Roleplaying Game for pre-orders, providing customers with an immediate download of a “Thoughtcast Edition” pre-release PDF of the game, and this week we’re going to print and updating the PDF to the final production version.

So what’s Mindjammer? Put simply, it’s a game and a setting. As a game, it’s been called the “lovechild of Traveller and Eclipse Phase” – a full-featured science-fiction roleplaying game for the 21st century, featuring all the elements of “modern” science-fiction: transhumanism, hyperadvanced technologies, culture conflicts, rules for organisations, worlds, star systems, ecosystems, and alien life forms all drawing on the latest discoveries in xenoscience and astrophysics, wrapped up in an expansive and action-packed game which lets you play in any modern science-fiction genre.

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Blogging Dan Barry’s Flash Gordon, Part Eleven

Blogging Dan Barry’s Flash Gordon, Part Eleven

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kurtzman_flash_gordon_cvr1155_d__0_FlashGordon1950sTVStarringStev2“Tympani” by Dan Barry was serialized by King Features Syndicate from April 27 to July 9, 1955. The strip gets underway with Flash returning to Earth and taking Dale out to enjoy a symphony orchestra concert. Dale’s hair has reverted to its classic look, happily. The concert goes awry when the orchestra launches into a piece and the audience is deafened by the cacophonous sound.

Taking to the streets, they discover every car horn in the city is going off causing accidents and traffic jams. The situation spreads over the globe with factory whistles going off, sonar jamming, rockets misfiring, etc. Soon train accidents cripple the food industry and fuel truck accidents leave people without heat in winter. Dr. Zarkov is busy researching sound vibrations to try to get to the root of the problem that has threatened civilization.

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