All posts by Cathy Palmer-Lister

Movies

The Canadian behind The Flash explains what it takes to design a blockbuster

Oscar-winning production designer Paul Austerberry melded multiple universes in DC super hero film

Jackson Weaver · CBC News ·
A man in a purple gingham shirt stands in a kitchen. On the table in front of him are two Batman figurines, a toy Batman motorcycle and a large emblem of The Flash.
The Oscar-winning Canadian production designer Paul Austerberry poses with Batman and Flash memorabilia. Austerberry is one of the creative forces behind the upcoming super hero movie The Flash. (Craig Chivers/CBC)

It hasn’t been an easy journey for The Flash. The movie has been hampered by a floundering, then rebooted DC expanded cinematic universe that lags far behind Marvel’s, a heavy schedule of reshoots and a lead actor in and out of legal trouble.

But at CinemaCon film festival this week, that all faded into the background as audiences got their first preview six weeks ahead of the rest of the public. The reactions were, for the most part, glowing: some called it superb, one of DC’s best and funniest, and also one of the great all-time super hero movies.

While that’s a triumph for director Andy Muschietti, there’s another talent behind the screen — even if few are aware.

“My job is very detail oriented,” Paul Austerberry explained to CBC News. “Half the things we do, some people will see, some people won’t.”

READ MORE, watch trailer

MonSFFA Website

Locus Magazine: books for May

These are the forthcoming “Selected Books by Author” for May from the December 2022 issue of Locus Magazine.

MAY 2023

  • CASSANDRA KHAW • The Salt Grows Heavy • Titan Books UK, May 2023 (h, hc, eb)
  • CHARLES STROSS  • Season of Skulls • Tordotcom, May 2023 (h, hc, eb)
  • CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI  • Fractal Noise • Macmillan/Tor UK, May 2023 (hc, eb)
  • CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI  • Fractal Noise • Tor, May 2023 (hc, eb)
  • CHRISTOPHER PRIEST  • Airside • Orion UK/Gollancz, May 2023 (hc, eb)
  • GENEVIEVE COGMAN • Scarlet • Ace, May 2023 (tp, eb)
  • GENEVIEVE COGMAN • Scarlet • Macmillan/Tor UK, May 2023 (tp, eb)
  • JUNO DAWSON • The Shadow Cabinet • Penguin Random House/Penguin, May 2023 (tp, eb)
  • KAGE BAKER • Maelstrom and Other Martian Tales • Subterranean Press, May 2023 (c, hc, eb)
  • MARK LAWRENCE • The Book that Wouldn’t Burn • Harper Voyager UK, May 2023 (1st US, hc, eb)
  • MARTHA WELLS  • Witch King • Tordotcom, May 2023 (hc, eb)
  • MICHAEL SWANWICK  • The Best of Michael Swanwick • Volume Two, Subterranean Press, May 2023 (c, hc)
  • PETER S. BEAGLE • The Essential Peter S. Beagle • Volume 2: Oakland Dragon Blues and Other Stories, Tachy­on Publications, May 2023 (c, hc, eb)
  • PIERCE BROWN • Light Bringer • Hodder & Stough­ton UK, May 2023 (hc, eb)
  • PIERCE BROWN • Light Bringer • Penguin Random House/Del Rey, May 2023 (hc, eb)
  • R.F. KUANG • Yellowface • HarperCollins UK/The Borough Press, May 2023 (a, hc, eb)
  • R.F. KUANG • Yellowface • HarperCollins/Mor­row, May 2023 (a, hc, eb)
  • RORY POWER  • In an Orchard Grown from Ash • Penguin Random House/Del Rey, May 2023 (hc, eb)
  • RORY POWER  • In an Orchard Grown from Ash • Titan Books UK, May 2023 (hc, eb)
  • S.L. HUANG • The Water Outlaws • Tordotcom, May 2023 (hc, eb)
  • SEBASTIEN DE CASTELL • The Malevolent Seven • Quercus/Jo Fletcher UK, May 2023 (hc, eb)
  • STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES • The Salt Grows Heavy • Tor Night­fire, May 2023 (na, h, hc, eb)
  • TEMI OH  • More Perfect • Simon & Schuster UK, May 2023 (tp, eb)
  • TEMI OH  • More Perfect • Simon & Schuster/Saga Press, May 2023 (tp, eb)
Fanzines

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

Fanzines

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

Astronomy News

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.
 
Fanzines

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.

Awards, CSFFA / Aurora Award / Hall of Fame

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.