New Zine to share: Alexiad

New Zine to share: Alexiad

Alex128

Table of Contents
Editorial. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Reviewer’s Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Eclipse News. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
The Joy of High Tech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Nebula Nominees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Puzzle Books. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Worldcon News. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Book Reviews
JTM Bound, The Ship Beneath the Ice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
JTM Lisle, The Dirty Tricks Department . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
JTM The Jack Vance Treasury. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
JTM Yang, Superman Smashes the Klan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Random Jottings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Richard A. Dengrove, Lloyd Penney, AL du Pisani, George W.
Price, Darrell Schweitzer, Garth Spencer, Taras Wolansky
Comments are by JTM or LTM
Trivia: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Art:
Sheryl Birkhead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Alexis A. Gilliland. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Trinlay Khadro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Marc Schirmeister . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11

The N3F Review of Books Incorporating Pro Bono

Greetings from Worcester. With this mailing:

An issue of The N3F Review of Books Incorporating Pro Bono

N3FReview202304

Oh. the near-complete list of Laureate Award nominees. I anticipate having a couple of months to discuss these before we advance to a vote.

Laureate Award Nominations To Date

Best Novel:
The Other Side Of Night by Adam Hamdy
Ordinary Monsters by J. M. Miro
Fairy Tale by Stephen King
The Janus File by David Weber and Jacob Holo
Lords of Uncreation by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Ashes of Man by Christopher Ruocchio

Best Shorter Work or Anthology:
Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman
Return to Glory by Jack McDevitt
The Moonday Letters by Emmi Itaranta
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Rebecca Roanhorse
Stellar Instinct by Jonathan Nevair

Best anime/comic book/graphic novel:
Monstress by Marjorie Lie & Sana Takeda
New Think Volume 1.0 an anthology
Mindset by Zack Kaplan and John J. Peterson

Best anime: Chainsaw Man

Best manga:
EVOL by Atsushi Kaneko
Mindset

Best Fan Writer :
John Thiel

Martin Lock

Robin Rose Graves, the Book Wormhole

Best fan editor:
Jefferson Swycaffer
George Phillies
Gideon Marcus

Best Book Editor:
Lisa Kaits
Toni Weisskopf

Best fan website:
SciFi4Me from Jason Hunt and Mindy Hunt
Fanac.org and the Fancyclopedia from Joe Siclari, Edie Stern, and Mark Olson
efanzines.com from Bill Burns
Galactic Journey

Best Non-N3F Fanzine:
Portable Storage from William Beeding
Beam from Nic Farey and Ulrika O’Brien
Pablo Lennis
Simultaneous Times Newsletter

Best N3F Fanzine:
Eldritch Science
Tightbeam
Ionisphere

Best Fan Artist:
Brad Foster
Alan White
Jose Sanchez

Best Book Editor:
Lisa Kaits
Toni Weisskopf

Best Pro Artist:
Stephen Youll
Jim Burns
Austin Arthur Hart

Best Television Show, Film, or Video:
Star Wars : Mandalorian
Heath Row’s productions
Avenue 5

Best None Of The Above:
Best SF Poet, Michael Butterworth

The effort by Manuscript Press (Rick Norwood) and aruffo.com (I dunno the company name or the person responsible) for publishing the series of trade paperbacks that are reprinting the entire run of the Alley Oop daily comic strip beginning with the very first V.T. Hamlin strip and running all the way to the end of the 20th century. This is a monumental effort, making available a wonderful comic strip that is clearly science fiction/fantasy and has been recognized as one of the most important comics strips ever published. The original Comic Book Achievement Awards created by comic book fandom in the early 1960s were named the Alley Awards, with a pic/statue of Alley Oop as the symbol. Finally, a chance to read everything, the entire run, all shot from the original syndicate stats, published in affordable format. This deserves much wider recognition, and an award or two on its own.

Best Podcast – Simultaneous Times

Red Auroras, all the way to nearly Mexico!

While we were under pouring rain, this happened :
Space Weather News for April 24, 2023
https://spaceweather.com
https://www.spaceweatheralerts.com

LOW LATITUDE AURORAS: Last night during a severe geomagnetic storm, auroras spilled out of the Arctic Circle and descended almost all the way to Mexico. Reports of red lights in the sky are pouring in from the entire southern tier of US states including California, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and Arkansas. Photos and movies @ Spaceweather.com.

Did you miss the storm? Sign up for Space Weather Alerts to receive instant text messages when geomagnetic storms erupt.

[]
Above: Red auroras over Ouray, Colorado. “After receiving numerous space weather alerts about the storm, I decided to take the camera out to catch the auroras — and there they were!” says photographer Matthew Genuit.
 

Zines to share!

New zines to enjoy! Download them and read on the bus!

From Bill Burns at e-Fanzines:

Catching up after our trip to Corflu and Eastercon, I’ve added these new issues at https://efanzines.com 
More tomorrow!

  • Littlebrook #12 edited by Jerry Kaufman & Suzanne Tompkins
  • Taral Wayne’s Dark Toys #74
  • Henry Grynnsten’s Wild Ideas #34
  • Opuntia #547, edited by Dale Speirs
  • Leybl Botwinik’s CyberCozen – April 2023
  • Andy Hooper’s CAPTAIN FLASHBACK #53
  • The Science Fact & Science Fiction Concatenation, Summer 2023, is now on line
  • Octothorpe #81, a regular fannish podcast by John Coxon, Alison Scott and Liz Batty, is now on line

From the N3F:

With This mailing:

The National Fantasy Fan for April 2023 TNFF202304

FanActivity Gazette for April 2023. FanAct202304

Reminder: You have another week to make nominations for the N3F Laureate Awards. Se the latest issue of The National Fantasy Fan for details.

Aurora Awards & CSFFA Updates for April 2023

Aurora Awards & CSFFA Updates
for April 2023

In this newsletter:

  1. Aurora Awards 2023 Nominations Deadline Imminent
  2. CSFFA Board of Directors Vacancy

Aurora Awards 2023

Nominations close on April 22, 2023, at 11:59pm EDT.

Yes, there is still time to get your nominations in for this year’s Aurora Awards. As we always say, nominate what you know and enjoyed. This is your chance to put your selections forward.

You are allowed to nominate up to five works in each of the ten categories. Choose from the list of approved works by Canadian’s in 2022. You don’t have to nominate in all the categories. Here a link to this year’s approved works.

A couple of notes about the nomination process

  1. You can change your nominations up until we close nominations on Saturday, April 22nd.
  2. Selections on our nomination form are done by using its drop-down lists of approved works.
  3. When you put in your nominations you MUST click the SAVE or UPDATE button for each category.
  4. When you click the SAVE/UPDATE button, your screen changes to show a message that your selections have been saved instead of your selections. No, your selections have not been lost. If you refresh your screen or leave and come back to this screen your selections will be displayed.
  5. If you select something that you don’t want to nominate, just go to the top of the drop-down list and select the first item which is a blank line.
  6. Don’t wait until the last day since you can always add or remove items at any time until the deadline.

Payment Note:

If you pay your annual CSFFA dues and the system still will not let you in, DO NOT pay a second time. Wait a little bit and try logging in again. Do not wait days. If after an hour you are still having trouble, then please send us an email through our contact form. Include your PayPal receipt information and we will update your account. If you pay with a PayPal account that has a different email address than your CSFFA account PayPal might not get us the right information to update your account automatically.

APRIL 2023 E-MEETING, POST 7 OF 7: Answers to Quiz, Wrap-Up

This post closes today’s MonSFFA e-meeting.

10) ANSWERS TO ALIEN AND CREATURE EGG QUIZ!

Were you able to correctly identify each of the aliens or creatures from the single film-frame provided showing their egg, or eggs? How about the movies or TV episodes in which they appeared?

Here are the answers to our quiz, which was posted at the outset of the e-meeting, earlier this afternoon (Post 1 of 7).

This egg is that of, or these eggs are those of…

1) The Xenomorph, or Alien, the titular extraterrestrial star of director Ridley Scott’s 1979 film, Alien, and its sequels. This lethal threat begins life as a “face-hugger,” which emerges from its egg.

The Aliens are, perhaps, the most famous space monsters in all of sci-fi cinema, certainly among the most terrifying!

2) The Ymir, or Venusian creature, seen in Ray Harryhuasen’s 1957 monster movie, 20 Million Miles to Earth. Never actually named “Ymir” in the film, this designation is, nevertheless, well known by fans of Harryhausen’s fantastic films.

Brought back from Venus aboard a crippled Earth rocket, once hatched, the beast grows rapidly in Earth’s atmosphere from house cat- to elephant-sized, terrorizing Italy as scientists and the military attempt to capture it.

3) Velociraptors, the deadly dinosaurs featured in the Jurassic Park/World franchise.

Pilfered Velociraptor eggs are at the center of a pivotal plot development in Jurassic Park III (2001).

4) Crites, the rotund, voracious, hedgehog-like aliens of the Critters film and television franchise (1986-2019). Their large, wide mouths are filled with multiple rows of sharp teeth. A Crite can curl up into a ball, and many together can form a large sphere that rolls across the countryside causing destruction and eating everything in sight!

5) Dragons, the flying, fire-breathing icons of epic fantasy, these particular specimens appearing in Game of Thrones (2011-2019), the television miniseries adapted from George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. The popular HBO show featured Emilia Clarke’s Daenerys Targaryen, the Mother of Dragons, and her trio of flame-belching reptiles.

6) The “Alien Cyclops,” a Martian monster using mind-control on human minions to help with a plot to plant its eggs throughout Manhattan in the 1980 sci-fi/horror film Contamination. The slime-oozing eggs have the nasty habit of exploding, spraying a toxic, viscous liquid on any person nearby, which instantly causes that person to, themselves, violently explode in a rain of guts and gore!

Contamination was an Italian/German co-production released in the U.S. as Alien Contamination. Writer/director Luigi Cozzi, working under the pseudonym Lewis Coates, freely admitted that his film was entirely inspired by Alien and parroted in many ways Ridley Scott’s masterpiece. Montreal-born actress Louise Marleau starred as a government operative assigned to deal with the situation.

7) The Roc, a giant, two-headed, mythological bird, as seen in 1958’s fantasy/adventure The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. Travelling to the island of Colossa, Sinbad and his crew come upon a huge egg and kill the emerging hatchling for food, only to be set upon by the chick’s angry parent.

The Roc and other denizens of Colossa were brought to life on screen by stop-motion animation wizard Ray Harryhausen.

8) Q, or Quetzalcoatl, a dragon-like Aztec deity, as depicted in 1982’s Q—The Winged Serpent. Picking off hapless New Yorkers from rooftop terraces, Q has attracted police attention. The giant, stop-motion lizard has nested in the spire of New York City’s Chrysler Building, and there laid a single, colossal egg.

Michael Moriarty, David Carradine, and Richard Roundtree are among those facing off against the winged serpent in writer/director Larry Cohen’s well-received monster movie.

9) The Raxacoricofallapatorians, or the Slitheen, egg-laying aliens native to the planet Raxacoricofallapatorius in the Doctor Who universe. They resemble something of a twisted cross between the Pillsbury Doughboy and a Rancor!

Adversaries of the Doctor, the Slitheen are, in fact, a family of Raxacoricofallapatorians, but when referring to the species as a whole, their surname is used interchangeably with the proper designation.

10) Mothra, a daikaiju in the Godzilla monsterverse. When she dies, Mothra is reincarnated by way of the giant egg she leaves behind, effectively cheating death.

11) A vampiric humanoid race, the queen of which is featured in the 1966 film Queen of Blood. A beautiful, green-skinned woman, this Queen exercises hypnotic influence over the male astronauts aboard an Earth vessel.

After she kills two of the men by draining them of blood, and is herself killed by the lone female astronaut aboard, alien eggs are discovered hidden throughout the ship. It is deduced that the Queen of Blood sought for her race fresh breeding grounds. On Earth!

12) The Horta, an intelligent, utterly alien, seemingly monstrous silicon-based life form that secretes from its body a powerful corrosive, allowing it to effortlessly tunnel through solid rock. Featured in “The Devil in the Dark,” a 1967 Star Trek episode, the Horta’s eggs, numbering in the thousands, have been discovered by Federation colonists working a pergium mining operation on this, the creature’s home planet. Mistaken for valueless geological oddities, many of the smooth, volleyball-sized eggs were destroyed by the colonists. The maddened mother Horta responded in defense of her unborn children by wrecking the miners’ equipment and attacking colony personnel, her caustic expulsions instantly burning the men to ashes!

The Enterprise arrives, soon sorts out the terrible misunderstanding, and by episode’s end, the Horta and her newborns are helping the miners dig new tunnels to tap richer deposits of pergium. “The Devil in the Dark” is one of genre television’s finest examples of exciting, intelligent, thought-provoking science fiction.

11) THANK YOU!

We sincerely hope you have enjoyed your time with us these past few hours and encourage you to visit www.MonSFFA.ca regularly for additional content.

We thank Josée Bellemare, Kofi Oduro, Keith Braithwaite, and Cathy Palmer-Lister for their contributions to today’s programme. Thanks is extended, also, to all of our supporting contributors this afternoon.

And of course, to all who joined us today and took in our online get-together, we thank you for your interest and attention, and remind you to leave a comment!

12) NEXT MonSFFA e-MEETING

As club members are aware, our hoped-for return to in-person MonSFFA meetings has been stalled by lingering pandemic-related circumstances! We continue our search for an available, affordable meeting hall; we’ll keep you updated as to any progress in that regard, but frustratingly, there is nothing new to report at this time.

And so, join us next month, on Saturday, May 13, beginning at 1:00PM, right here at www.MonSFFA.ca, for another in our series of MonSFFA e-meetings!

13) SIGN-OFF 

Until then, fellow fans of all things sci-fi and fantasy, farewell and safe travels.

APRIL 2023 E-MEETING, POST 6 OF 7: “What Are You Reading/Watching?”

This is our April 2023 e-Meeting’s Post 6 of 7.

9) WHAT ARE YOU READING/WATCHING?

On ZOOM at this moment, we’re asking “What are You Reading, or Watching?” Give us your quick book report, or your brief review of a film or TV show you’ve recently been enjoying!

For those not participating in our ZOOM chat, today, you may contribute, nonetheless, by submitting your concise book reports or movie and television-series reviews via this post’s “Leave a Comment” option. Your input is encouraged and welcome.