"Space," it says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindboggingly big it is. I mean you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space."

(Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

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"No space traveling man says aught is impossible."

(Andre Norton)

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(Reposted from 2005 and updated for 2007.)

I was rummaging through a list that I maintain of books that are yet to be published. I was amazed at the number of titles that we may never see. Whatever happened to... more...

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A day that will live in infamy? Why remake such a wonderful film? Why not do something new? (Yes, I know I've said it before. I've heard the standard reasons. But Hollow-wood wonders why they are losing an audience?)

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The mail brought me The Last Oblivion: Best Fantastic Poems of Clark Ashton Smith. I've read fragments of Smith's poetry, but nothing quite as complete as this.

The book is also of interest as it has a couple of examples of Smith's artwork. In addition to fiction and poetry, he also did sketches, paintings and sculpture. Some of his work can be seen at The Eldritch Dark. This got me to thinking about other art associated with fantasy writing.

The style reminded me of Sidney Sime. Sime was an artist that did a lot of stuff for Lord Dunsany, a man who inspired H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and others. Unfortunately, before the internet, I never was able to see much of his stuff. He is mentioned often in reprints, even in Lovecraft's own tales (see Pickman's Model, for example), but until I got a Penguin edition of Dunsany's works, I never had a Dunsany book with his favorite artist! Here's a site that has several galleries of his work.

Another favorite "pulp artist" is Virgil Finlay. He did a lot of work for the stories of A. Merritt, H.P. Lovecraft and others. Some samples of his work can be found here. A friend of mine passed on the following quote by Algis Budrys regarding Finlay's amazing works:

To imagine Virgil Finlay painstakingly stippling a two-page illustrations, knowing in advance that it would be manhandled by the Street & Smith pressmen and printed on paper roughly equivalent in quality to Scott Towels, is to picture a man as his own tormentor.

Finally, there was Hannes Bok. Also associated with Merritt, to the point of co-writing some works (fragments, unfinished by Merritt at the time of his death) and producing a few works of fiction on his one with a strong Merritt-esque flavor. Alas, no site devoted to his works, but this Wikipedia entry has some samples.

The appreciation of certain authors is enhanced by works of art that are associated with them!

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As you'll see from this reposted 2005 entry, David Gerrold has been on a quest for many years to get his Starwolf tales onto the little screen...or the big screen (scroll down to "The Long March of Star Wolf"). All to nought, alas.

Looking at Gerrold's website, I noticed an entry from August and an entry from September of this year that talks about a new effort to bring the tales to the screen.

Meanwhile, there are other things percolating. A few years ago, we tried very hard to get The Star Wolf off the ground as a TV series. Couldn't do it. Too much competition from the 800 lb. gorilla. But ... now, the market has changed and we're back in business, only this time developing The Star Wolf as a movie. Some very good people are involved and it's possible that this time next year, we'll be in production. (August 11, 2007)

And while, it's a little premature to talk about the details of this, I do want to acknowledge that the successful shoot of "Blood And Fire" is the reason for the rekindled interest in the possibility of turning "The Star Wolf" into a movie or TV series. There's nothing to report yet, except that gathering together and updating all the presentation documents is one more thing on my plate. (Unfortunately "agent.exe" will not update my presentation files.) (September 15, 2007)

The reason I bring this up...is a sinking feeling that the project will be scuttled...again. As you are no doubt aware (and I'll have another posting on the subject), screenwriters are out on strike. Various productions are going on hiatus, no doubt more will be cancelled. It'll be a dang shame if this is one of them—again!

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Ladies and Gentlemen, Issue #244 for your reading pleasure.

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Via Zoe Brain, what not to do when you write science fiction.

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Lois McMaster Bujold has posted an essay about the relationship between one of her most popular characters (Miles Vorkosigan) and the much-maligned science fiction sub-genre of space opera.

In one of those strange but true moments, I started re-reading (for the first time in a long time) Shards of Honor. Whether this leads to a re-reading of the rest of the series, we shall see. more...

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A few random bits from my morning reading.

John Scalzi comes across what might be his favorite negative review of Old Man's War.

A biopic on Philip K. Dick...not!

My favorite Brother Astronomer has a new book out! more...

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The posting can now be viewed here.

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I haven't seen an official note yet, but Rand Simberg has posted that Robert Bussard has passed away. Wikipedia confirms this. He threw off ideas the way some folks shed skin. Physics will be that much the poorer for his death.

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Ansible! Ansible! Time for the October Ansible!

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While we wait for the release of the five-disc ultimate-fanboy-edition of Blade Runner, BoingBoing has posted a link to an interview with director Ridley Scott on the "final" version of the film. Final? We shall see!

Addendum (September 30, 2007): Fred Kaplan, at The New York Times, on the restored edition. Here there be spoilers.

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Lobachevsky alone has looked on Beauty bare.
She curves in here, she curves in here.
She curves out there.

Her parallel clefts come together to tease
In un-callipygianous-wise;
With fewer than one hundred eighty degrees
Her glorious triangle lies.

Her double-trumpet symmetry Riemann did not court-
His tastes to simpler-curvedness, the buxom Teuton sort!
An ellipse is fine for as far as it goes,
But modesty, away!
If I'm going to see Beauty without her clothes
Give me hyperbolas any old day.

The world is curves, I've heard it said,
And straightway in it nothing lies.
This then my wish, before I'm dead:
To look through Lobachevsky's eyes.

(Roger Zelazny, Doorways in the Sand)

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Omnibus review can now be found here.

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(Let's try posting this a third time!)

It's that time of the month again. The time for Dave Langford to illuminate the field of science fiction with Issue #242 of Ansible.

And, as always, it is interesting to see how those outside look at the field:

Arthur C. Clarke gets short shrift in Crunch Time: How Everyday Life is Killing the Future (2007) by Mike Hanley and Adrian Monck. 'Here in spades is the incurable optimism of the science fiction writer,' they write, and then quote 'Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Technology', including 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' Our reporter John Bark wonders whether Professor Monck (Head of the Faculty of Journalism and Publishing at City University, London) teaches his students that 'Any sufficiently famous Science Fiction writer is indistinguishable from any other.'

Jeanette Winterson's The Stone Gods is not sf, because: 'I hate science fiction. But good writers about science, such as Jim Crace and Margaret Atwood, are great. They take on science because it's crucial to our world, and they use language to give energy to ideas. Others just borrow from science and it ends up like the emperor's new clothes, with no understanding of the material. But you shouldn't fake it because science is too important, it's the basis for our lives. I expect a lot more science in fiction because science is so rich.' (New Scientist, 25 August) What is so particularly non-sciencefictional about this science novel? From The Bookseller: 'Billie Crusoe flees an authoritarian society in the company of a highly evolved robot of the species Robo sapiens, to join the perilous voyage to a new Blue Planet, a pristine place of apparently infinite possibilities. [...] Another part of the book is set in Wreck City, a no-go zone peopled by outcasts and casualties post 3-War, a conflict which has ravaged the world.' Winterson explains: 'This part of the book is far from fantasy [...] Everything in that part of the book has been written about scientifically already, it's very near.' [MKS via CB] Her next book will be equally unsciencefictional: 'It's called Robot Love and it's for kids. A girl builds a multi-gendered robot, which then kills her parents because it sees them mistreat her, so they both go on the run. I'm fascinated by artificial intelligence and where it will lead. These robots couldn't build anything as bad as us -- so why would they keep us?' [YH] What sf author could have imagined such novel concepts?

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The omnibus review can now be found here.

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Locus Online has posted retro-reviews of several of Heinlein's works. This ties in nicely with my completed review of Beyond This Horizon.

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You can build anything with Lego! Feeling some pain in your chest?

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