m. c. de marco

Rudy Rucker's "webzine of astonishing tales" includes work by Adam Callaway, Paul Di Filippo, Robert Guffey, Philip Harris, Kathe Koja and Carter Scholz, Kek, Richard A. Lupoff, Mari Mitchell, Jessy Randall, Alex Roston, Danny Rubin, and Christopher B. Shay...

Actress Nan Martin (1927-2010) was known for playing strong women and mothers, including Freddy Krueger's, and Counselor Deanna Troi's almost-mother-in-law...

There is no shortage of online communities for science fiction fans, but the folks behind MyOuterSpace.com think that the star power of Captain Kirk can make them stand out from the crowd. Perhaps it will, but it's a crowded field and I know that I'm not interested in "friending" William Shatner. I don't know how many people will be siphoned away from such sites as Facebook or MySpace, but I'm sure some will be. Starting an online community takes a lot of work, but technical know-how is not the biggest barrier to entry. With network-building sites like Ning, you can very quickly create a social network of your own centred on any topic like the International Space Art Network did. The internet is allowing all sorts of fan communities to thrive and we are seeing some fascinating social experiments, such as this attempt to  create a fan-funded science fiction film.  

Pyr SF is five years old, and giving away birthday gifts, including their complete catalog and a trip to Dragon*Con, with their "Pyr and Dragons Adventure 5th Anniversary Contest"...

Baen Books newest contest has two parts. First, honor your favorite Baen author, novel, or character with a limerick. Then guess who the limericks refer to...

The awesome is back, and star Zach Levi has directed a kicking episode that proves how necessary and wonderful both Morgan and Buy More can be for secret spy Chuck...

Sorry for the late notice. Pandemonium Books & Games will be hosting a Worldwide D&D Game Day on March 20, beginning at Noon. This game day coincides with the release of Player's Handbook 3 and will highlight content from that book.

Sign-ups available at http://warhorn.net/pandemoniumwwdnd/

Judges are needed. If you'd like to DM, please contact Andy at aethan [AT] bloopwatch [DOT] org with a subject of "Game Day DM"

Right now, plans are for 4 slots, 5 players and 1 DM per slot. If we get more judges, we'll add more slots. :)

I'm sure James Cameron is bummed out that his movie Avatar didn't win an Oscar last night, but he's probably more annoyed at the steady stream of people who want to sue him for allegedly stealing their ideas for the script. I suppose the sheer number of such allegations is proof that the plot is far from original and possibly one of the reasons it didn't grab the big prize, although it did get some recognition with wins for technical categories at the Academy Awards. The latest person to sue Cameron is a Vancouver restaurateur who sent his script to several movie studios, including Cameron's. Someone in China also took Cameron to court for the same reason, but the court overturned the lawsuit. I'm sure we'll see even more suits as the movie continues to rake in the dough. As for the Avatar sequel, don't call it Avatar 2, says Cameron. For reasons that are obvious to anyone who has seen the movie, the word avatar no longer makes sense in a follow-up story. Cameron's next project is to find a director for a remake he's written of the classic 60s film, Fantastic Voyage. It will be cool if that one is filmed in 3-D.

The May/June issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction will feature fiction by Dale Bailey, Elizabeth Bourne, Fred Chappell, Hilary Goldstein, Lokiko Hall, Alex Irvine, Michael Libling, Robert Onopa, Rachel Pollack, Steven Popkes, Aaron Schutz, John Sladek...

The Australian Horror Writers Association have expanded the number of categories in their annual Australian Shadows Award from one to three, and announce this year's finalists...

The March issue of Andrew Andrews' review 'zine marks continues its new life on the web, with feature reviews of eighteen books plus brief reviews of another seven, an editorial...

Amelia Beamer's first novel, The Loving Dead, is a novel of sexy zombies. Night Shade will publish it in July, but it's being serialized for free on her web site now...

Josephine Angelini's debut trilogy will open with Starcrossed, when a modern American high school girl discovers her connection to Helen of Troy...

Movies won awards; a few of them sf/f/h films. The winners...

Not much relative movement this week among sf/f/h films, and nothing really new in the theatres, but some of those totals are really adding up...

The most popular SFScope articles during the last week, as well as those which were updated...

The Golden Raspberry Awards, which honor the worst in cinema, are the much darker counterpart to the Oscars. This year, sf/f/h genre films picked up five of them...

Even if neither Avatar or District 9 win the Academy Award for best picture, the one thing their nomination has done is to elevate the profile of science fiction among mainstream movie-goers. That's got to be a good thing as it means even more science fiction movies will get made. The hope is that they will be as high quality as Avatar and District 9. Don't be worried that Hollywood is unleashing a Space Invaders movie on us soon. They'll always be crap like that. It's possible that more mainstream movie directors might give their hand at helming science fiction films in coming months and years. Of course, that's nothing new. There have been other examples of big-name directors who have made sci-fi, although their success has been mixed. As Oscar night approaches, it seems less likely that Avatar will win the big prize as there has been a torrent of backlash against the film. This article is a prime example. Considering the weird voting mechanism for this year's movie, there's a chance that a dark horse like District 9 could end up winning it, despite the steep odds. And if you were wondering why the Na'Vi women have boobs, James Cameron explained it to a journalist who asked. It's because the audience for the movie is human. Duh.

Two of my favorite authors, seanan_mcguire and antonstrout have new Urban Fantasy books out! If you enjoy The Dresden Files, I think you'll enjoy Anton's works. Seanan's writing is a little more like a cross between Charlene Harris and Stephen King.

And because Seanan has far too much talent, she drew a comic about her character Toby meeting Anton's character Simon:

Publishers Lunch is reporting that Kevin J. Anderson Kevin David Anderson has signed to write Night of the Living Trekkies for Quirk Books. Agent Scott Miller at Trident Media Group handled the deal with Quirk Associate Publisher Jason Rekulak. The book will be "a mash up mixing a zombie apocalypse with the enduring mythology of Star Trek."...