This is post 6 of 6 today, and will close this afternoon’s virtual MonSFFA meeting. If you’re just now joining us, scroll back to today’s Post 1 of 6 to enjoy the whole meeting, start to finish.

12) ANOTHER CORONAVIRUS PARODY SONG

We first ran this Steve Stewart gem in July; it’s a very funny coronavirus-infused version of Escape, the so-called “Pina Colada Song”:

13) APRIL’S TRIVIA CHALLENGE CONTEST WINNERS HAVE BEEN SELECTED!

As most of you know, we launched a trivia challenge online back in April, fully expecting to conclude that contest a couple or three months later when we returned to a meeting hall for a face-to-face get-together following what we thought would be a relatively brief period of COVID-19 lockdown. That scenario, of course, never played out as the virus stubbornly persisted, and does so still, even as authorities have authorized a partial reopening of society while continuing to encourage and enforce coronavirus-safe practises, and the maintaining certain restrictions.

So last month, we announced that we’d be bringing the contest to a close by Labour Day and name our first, second, and third place winners during today’s virtual meeting. This we have done, verbally, just about two hours ago, live, during the mid-meeting break’s Zoom session.

Our two top-players each recorded a score of 54 points, one short of a perfect game. There was also a two-way tie for second place, with each of these folk coming in at 53 points. We decided on the awarding of first prize by random draw, bestowing second prize to the contestant for whom that draw was unsuccessful. And, we drew again between the two 53-point finishers to determine who would be granted third prize. Here, officially listed for the record, are those winners…

First Place: Lindsay Brown, who wins a hand-carved dragon clock crafted by club president Cathy Palmer-Lister.

Second Place: Lynda Pelley, who wins a set of vintage promotional lobby cards for various genre films, donated by MonSFFA treasurer Sylvain St-Pierre.

Third Place: Danny Sichel, who wins a stained-glass Star Trek ornament—the Federation insignia—suitable for hanging in a window or on a Christmas tree, also crafted by Cathy.

Congratulations to our victors, and indeed, to all the entrants who took part, and thanks for playing! Prizes will be mailed by standard post to the winners.

14) ANSWERS TO APRIL’S SCI-FI TRIVIA CHALLENGE

Here are the correct answers to the 19 questions put to MonSFFen and friends in our Sci-Fi Trivia Challenge, launched back in April as part of the club’s very first virtual meeting:

QUESTION 1 (2 points)

“Greetings, my friend. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future. You are interested in the unknown, the mysterious, the unexplainable—that is why you are here. And now for the first time, we are bringing to you the full story of what happened on that fateful day!” This introduction opens which sci-fi movie, and is spoken by who?

ANSWER: Ed Wood’s 1959 “classic” Plan 9 From Outer Space; The Amazing Criswell, an ostentatious psychic of the era whose prognostications were, not surprisingly, rather inaccurate.

QUESTION 2 (4 points)

What book won the very first Hugo Award for Best Novel, who wrote it, and in which year was the honour bestowed?

ANSWERS: Hugo Gernsback, editor of Amazing Stories Magazine and a pivotal player in the early history of science fiction; The Demolished Man; Alfred Bester; 1953

QUESTION 3 (1 point)

An unintentional programming glitch caused the so-called “Corrupted Blood” outbreak to sweep through the virtual world of what online massively multiplayer fantasy role-playing game in 2005?

ANSWER: World of Warcraft

QUESTION 4 (1 point)

Who is “The Man of Tomorrow” in Alan Moore’s “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?”

ANSWER: Superman

QUESTION 5 (1 point)

Boxer, Binky, Clover, Mollie—which of these does not belong?

ANSWER: They are all horses but Binky does not belong with the others. Binky is Death’s pale steed in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series while Boxer, Clover, and Mollie are characters in George Orwell’s 1945 novella Animal Farm.

QUESTION 6 (1 point)

In the Andrzej Sapkowski short stories and novels, the subsequent Projekt Red video-game trilogy, and now, the recently launched Netflix series The Witcher, what is the name of long-lived monster-hunter-for-hire Geralt of Rivia’s horse?

ANSWER: Roach, which is the name he gives to all of the horses he employs over the years. We’ll also accept the Polish “Plotka” as correct.

QUESTION 7 (2 points)

Claiming that 1984’s The Terminator was “a rip-off” of an Outer Limits episode he had written in the mid-1960s, this science fiction writer threatened litigation against Orion Pictures and received a sum of money, plus an acknowledgment in the credits of later prints of the film. Who is he, and what was the name of the Outer Limits episode upon which he claims Terminator was based?

ANSWER: Harlan Ellison; “The Soldier”

QUESTION 8 (8 points)

This question asked players to draw a connecting line from each of eight swords listed to their wielders, listed as well but in jumbled order.

ANSWERS: The Atlantean Sword is wielded by the titular character in the films Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer. Ice is Eddard Stark’s sword in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. Orcrist belongs to Thorin Oakenshield in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. The lightsaber-like Sunsword is Thundarr the Barbarian’s weapon in his Saturday-morning animated adventure series. Graywand is a two-hand sword wielded by barbarian Fafhrd in Fritz Lieber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser sword and sorcery books. The Sword of Athena is one of Wonder Woman’s weapons in her big screen adventures. Created by the forces of chaos, Stormbringer is the darkly enchanted black blade of Michael Moorcock’s ultimately doomed anti-hero Elric of Melniboné. And in C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, Rhindon is the sword bestowed upon Peter Pevensie, later to be crowned by Christ parallel Aslan the Lion as His Majesty King Peter the Magnificent, High King of Narnia, Emperor of the Lone Islands, Lord of Cair Paravel, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Lion.

QUESTION 9 (2 points)

Star Trek’s original starship Enterprise’s registry designation is NCC-1701; what does “NCC” stand for, and what is the designation for doomed sister starship Constellation, featured in the classic episode “The Doomsday Machine”?

ANSWERS: Naval Construction Contract (we’ll also accept the sometimes employed “Naval Construction Code”); Constellation’s registry designation was NCC-1017.

QUESTION 10 (3 points)

“Cyberpunk 2020,” a ’90s table-top role-playing game is set in which dystopian future year, has as its default setting which fictional West Coast American city, and was issued by which games publisher?

ANSWER: 2020; Night City; R. Talsorian Games. Note that there are four editions of these Cyberpunk games, with a fifth expected later this year. Cyberpunk 2020 is the second edition, and is set, as the title suggests, in 2020. The overall timeline at play, here, ranges from the first edition’s 2013 to the fourth edition’s 2045. The upcoming fifth edition will be called Cyberpunk 2077, set in—you guessed it!—2077.

QUESTION 11 (3 points)

Who was the first woman to win the Hugo Award for Best Novel, for which novel, and in what year?

ANSWERS: Ursula K. Le Guin; The Left Hand of Darkness; 1970

QUESTION 12 (16 points)

Players were here asked to first identify in which film eight listed sci-fi movie characters appeared, then secondly, match each to the actor/actress who played that character.

ANSWERS: Stella Star is the lead character in the Italian space opera Starcrash (1978) and was played by Caroline Munro. Colonel Dan McReady appears in Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964) and was portrayed by future Batman Adam West. United Planets Cruiser C-57D’s Commander, John J. Adams, was played by Canadian actor Leslie Nielsen in the classic Forbidden Planet (1956). Cora Peterson was part of the crew aboard miniaturized vessel Proteus in Fantastic Voyage, and was played by Raquel Welch. Sinbad was the leading man in stop-motion master Ray Harryhausen’s trilogy of movies featuring the character. He was portrayed by a different actor with each outing, in this instance, by Patrick Wayne, John Wayne’s son, in the trilogy’s final installment, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977). Gene Barry starred as Dr. Clayton Forrester, leader of the fight against H. G. Wells’ invading Martians in producer George Pal’s awarding-winning 1953 film adaption of War of the Worlds. Renate Richter is the daughter of a Nazi scientist who, with other “Fourth Reich” Nazis, are based on the moon in Iron Sky (2012); she was played by German actress Julia Dietze. And Nancy Archer, portrayed by Allison Hayes, was the vengeful 50-foot-tall woman who did all of the attacking in the kitschy B-movie attraction Attack of the 50-Foot Woman (1958).

QUESTION 13 (1 point)

Racially controversial comic book character Ebony White was a sidekick to which of the following? A) The Phantom, B) The Spirit, C) The Spectre, D) Black Panther

ANSWER: B) The Spirit (The accompanying image of Ebony White will tell you all you need to know as to why the character is considered racially controversial.)

QUESTION 14 (1 point)  

What does the acronym S.H.I.E.L.D. stand for?

ANSWER: Debuting in Strange Tales No. 135 in August of 1965, this high-tech super-spy organization’s moniker was short for Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage and Law-Enforcement Division, later changed to Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate, and for the MCU, Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. We’ll accept any one of these as the correct answer.

QUESTION 15 (1 point)

Who authored the collected Tales of Known Space?

ANSWER: Larry Niven

QUESTION 16 (1 point)

The Era of Hopeful Monsters, Maniacs in the Fourth Dimension, The Gospel from Outer Space, The Smart Bunny—what do the preceding titles have in common?

ANSWER: They are all fictional novels authored by a fictional science fiction writer, Kilgore Trout. Kurt Vonnegut created the character of Trout, a prolific but unsuccessful science fiction writer whose name is a play on that of Vonnegut’s friend and fellow genre writer Theodore Sturgeon. Trout is featured or referenced throughout Vonnegut’s oeuvre, but the details of his life and circumstances vary, sometimes wildly, from book to book.

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The Neptune Factor (1973), Starship Invasions (1977), Scanners (1981), Firebird 2015 A.D. (1981), Manborg (2009), Code 8 (2019), Rabid (2019), Manborg (2009), and Sci-Fighters (1996)—what do these diverse sci-fi films spanning some five decades have in common as regards their production?

ANSWER: They are all Canadian productions!

QUESTION 18 (3 points)

Captain America was co-created by who, and first appeared in which comic book, the cover depicting Cap punching out which infamous villain?

ANSWER: Joe Simon and Jack Kirby; Captain America Comics No. 1; Nazi leader Adolph Hitler

QUESTION 19 (3 points)

The critically-acclaimed television series The Expanse is based upon a series of novels and stories by James S. A. Corey; what is the title of the first book in that series, and what are the names of the two authors for whom James S. A. Corey is a shared pen name?

ANSWERS: Leviathan Wakes; Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck

15) A PAIR OF BONUS PARODY SONGS

Here are two more of our favourite coronavirus parody songs: the first, another that we featured in our May meeting, is this amusing ditty from South Africa’s The Kiffness (www.thekiffness.com), about the need, during lockdown, to just get out of the house for a while…

And the second, which, if memory serves, was included as part of a between-meetings post, Five Times August’s droll take on watching TV during quarantine (fivetimesaugust@fivetimesaugust.com):

16) ANSWERS TO “WHO WAS THAT MASKED MAN?”

You know, of course, who this Kent guy really is, but did you successfully identify to which superhero belong each of our 19 listed alter-egos (Post 1 of 6, uploaded at 1:00PM today)? Compare your answers to these:

1) In the modern era, KENDRA SAUNDERS is Hawkgirl, an immortal reborn many times!

2) High-school teacher JEFFERSON PIERCE is secretly Black Lightning!

3) REMY LEBEAU, a mutant and reformed thief who joined the X-Men is known as Gambit!

4) DINAH DRAKE-LANCE is the Black Canary!

5) ROBERT REYNOLDS is Sentry!

6) Private investigator RALPH DIBNEY is Elongated Man!

7) BRIAN BRADDOCK is Captain Britain!

8) LINNYA WAZZO, a native of the planet Bgztl, is Phantom Girl!

9) IRMA ARDEEN’s alter-ego is Saturn Girl, she of the Saturnian moon Titan, and of the 31th century!

10) WENDELL ELVIS VAUGHN is Quasar, a former S.H.I.E.L.D. field agent and founding member of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Super-Agents!

11) Former NHL hockey superstar BRYCE LAINE is MooseMan, the Antlered Avenger and a MonSFFilms superhero!

12) Russian mutant PIOTR RASPUTIN is the mighty metallic mutant Colossus!

13) Model and TV personality MARI JIWE McCABE is Vixen!

14) ALEC HOLLAND is Swamp Thing!

15) ANGELICA JONES is a heat-generating mutant known as Firestar!

16) She is an aspiring singer and actress, a mutant capable of transmuting sound into light, and a reluctant superhero; ALISON BLAIRE is the alter-ego of Dazzler!

17) Teenager RICHARD RIDER becomes the superhero Nova when granted the cosmic energy of the Nova Force!

18) Businesswoman CAROL FERRIS is, in fact, Star Sapphire!

19) DUKE THOMAS is The Signal, a young protégé of Batman’s!

 

17) THANK YOU!

We hope you have enjoyed your time with us this afternoon, and we ask all of you to check in regularly here at www.MonSFFA.ca for additional content during this continuing period of partial lockdown/cautious reopening, and for any news as to when the club expects to return to face-to-face gatherings. Thank you for your interest and attention, and don’t forget to comment on today’s meeting!

We’d also like to thank Sylvain St-Pierre, Danny Sichel, Joe Aspler, Cathy Palmer-Lister, and Keith Braithwaite for putting this September 2020 DIY Virtual MonSFFA Meeting together, with a nod, as well, to our supporting contributors today.

Keep on social distancing, washing your hands often, and following all of the other vital public health guidelines that authorities have issued. And take particular note: Quebec is now imposing stiff fines on those who are out in public without a protective face mask, so remember to wear yours, not just to save a few hundred bucks, but to help save lives and hasten the end of this accursed pandemic!

18) FINAL PARODY SONG 

Have you made your way, tentatively, to the barber’s or hair salon yet? We’ll complete today’s selection of tunes with an encore of The Holderness Family’s (www.Instagram@TheHoldernessFamily) take on a Bonnie Tyler classic, originally featured as part of our July meeting:

19) NINETEEN RANDOM BRIEFS TO CLOSE OUT TODAY’S MEETING!

Black Panther Star Chadwick Boseman Dead at 43, leaving many of his castmates and fans shocked and surprised to hear that the actor had been quietly fighting colon cancer since 2016! Early speculation regarding the 2022-scheduled Black Panther sequel has King T’Challa’s sister, Shuri, taking on the mantle.

Also Deceased is Another Avenger, but not one of Marvel’s; rather, actress Diana Rigg, a co-star of the 1960s British “Spy-Fi” series The Avengers. She played the brilliant, fashionable, and formidable martial-arts expert Emma Peel to Patrick Macnee’s secret agent, John Steed. Rigg was also a Bond girl, and the only one to wed the legendary 007, not that she lived to enjoy the honeymoon. Fantasy fans may recognize her most recent Emmy-nominated genre role, that of the Machiavellian Lady Olenna Tyrell in Game of Thrones. She passed away peacefully at age 82.

Batman has COVID-19, it seems, as reports circulated last week of star Robert Pattinson having contracted the disease just as filming on the latest Batman movie resumed following a six-month hiatus enacted due to the pandemic! The Batman remains slated for an October 2021 release.

Batwoman Star Ruby Rose Elaborates on Her Decision to Exit Hit Series after a truncated first season, cut short by the COVID-19 lockdown. After suffering a serious injury performing a stunt last year, the actress required emergency surgery lest she risk paralysis. Soon back on set post-operation, she was finding the physical demands of fronting an action series more taxing than she had expected. The lockdown afforded her time to re-evaluate her position and she finally opted to take time off to heal before a return to acting, announcing in May that she was leaving the show. Thus will Kate Kane/Batwoman’s disappearance unfold as a key plotline in Season Two and a new character, Ryan Wilder, be introduced to fill her Bat-boots; Javica Leslie has been cast.

Recommended Genre TV, 1: Lovecraft Country (HBO/CraveTV), a deft and timely exposé of America’s racist history in which a black man sets out across country in search of his missing father. For him and the show’s other principals, the demoralizing affronts of the Jim Crow era are on par with those of horror writer H. P. Lovecraft’s weird and terrifying landscape, a certain irony being that the acclaimed and much admired Lovecraft was himself a virulent racist.

Hollywood Stars Recovering from COVID-19 include Walking Dead and Guardians of the Galaxy actor Michael Rooker and the Jumanji franchise’s Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, whose wife and children had also contracted the disease!

Promise for Russian Vaccine Says Lancet, the prestigious medical journal, which published peer-reviewed results of two early-stage trials in which all 76 participants developed an antibody response to the COVID-19 virus and showed no sign of serious side effects! The Lancet cautioned that further, large-scale trials, “including a placebo comparison,” will be needed “to establish the long-term safety and effectiveness of the vaccine.” Russia has authorized domestic use of this so-named “Sputnik V” vaccine.

Recommended Genre TV, 2:  The Boys (Amazon Prime), in which those select individuals gifted with fantastic powers are recruited and ultimately corrupted by powerful Vought International, a corporation which manipulates, markets, and manages them as valiant superheroes. But behind their masks, most are vain, ignoble, nasty, abusive, and even murderous characters. By way of comparison, think of the studio system during the heydays of Hollywood under which movie stars were supervised and controlled in order to project a positive public image and gloss over any untoward behaviour. Standing in opposition to Vought and its stable of supers is an underground group of vigilantes determined to bring them down and expose the fraud. Season Two has just dropped.

 “Star Trek Day” Featured Cast Members, past and present, in CBS All Access’ celebration of the franchise. Every Trek series to date was represented in a 24-hour session of virtual panels and episode screenings. The event took place just a few days ago, on September 8, anniversary of the premiere of the original series in 1966. Worldwide access to the panels was offered.

LGBTQ+ Actors Join Star Trek: Discovery Cast for third season, Blu del Barrio playing the non-binary Adira, a new series regular, with Ian Alexander appearing as a recurring transgendered character named Gray!

Closest Known Fly-By of Earth by Asteroid occurred on August 16, when the SUV-sized Asteroid 2020 QG passed as near to our planet as 2950 kilometres, or roughly 1830 miles! The asteroid was too small to have posed any kind of threat.

Rogue Planets in Galaxy Could Number in the Trillions according to new research published in the Astronomical Journal, which suggests that the Milky Way may well include more starless, unbound planets than it does stars!

Justice League Actor Ray Fisher Calls Out Josh Whedon for having been “abusive” and “unprofessional” to the cast and crew of the big-screen superhero team-up when Whedon stepped in to replace director Zack Synder, who departed the production early to attend to pressing family matters. Fisher played Cyborg and has been exchanging missives with Warner Bros. over his allegations, the details of which have not yet been fully outlined. Whedon’s version of Justice League was not terribly well received and anticipation is building for the so-called “Synder Cut,” to be released on HBO Max next year and said to re-establish the film’s original vision.

Recommended Genre TV, 3: Raised by Wolves (HBO Max/CraveTV) is a new series which pits science against religion as the remnants of humanity escape an Earth devastated by war and seek to rebuild human civilization on a distant habitable but harsh new world. Guided by science and categorically rejecting prayer and dogma, the atheist faction has tasked a pair of androids with birthing, raising, and caring for human children on this new world. The deeply religious Mithraic arrive some years later aboard their space ark, inviting the possibility of renewed conflict. But the narrative isn’t that simple and, in fact, layers of complexity deep as the story and character relationships develop. Of note is the android, Mother, who is both nurturing and terrifying, memorably interpreted by actress Amanda Collins. Alien and Blade Runner director Ridley Scott is a co-producer of the series and directed the first two episodes. His influence is all over the production.

Adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s Classic Foundation Trilogy Scheduled for 2021 Release on Apple TV+ despite a suspension in production ordered by Apple in March as the coronavirus pandemic took hold. The series’ executive producer and showrunner is comic book writer David S. Goyer, who penned the screenplays for Christopher Nolan’s Batman films, as well as the Blade movies, Man of Steel, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Recommended Genre TV, 4: The Umbrella Academy (Netflix), a time-hopping, at times sardonically humorous superhero ensemble harbouring a few surprises, is about seven adopted siblings raised by an eccentric billionaire. All but one sister exhibit a unique extraordinary power and their father trains them from an early age to become a well-oiled teen-aged crime-fighting unit. They operate out of the family mansion, dubbed “The Umbrella Academy.” But too many shocking secrets and growing suspicions fracture the family and the team eventually disbands. Years later, as adults, this dysfunctional dynasty reunites for their father’s funeral, and learn from one of the brothers, who is able to time-travel, of an impending global apocalypse which their outlier sister will precipitate—she has abilities, after all, which their father had suppressed pharmaceutically all these years because her power was simply too dangerous to unleash. When their collective efforts to prevent her from ending the world actually contribute to causing it, the time-travelling brother uses his powers to transport them all into the past to regroup and make another attempt in Season Two, which became available mid-summer.

Queen Elizabeth II’s Sandringham Estate to Host Drive-In Movie Events for commoners beginning September 25, complete with a concession stand—“I’ll have a Duke-of-Pork Hot-Dog, a bucket of Prince Philip’s Popcorn, and a Henry VIII-sized soda, please!” Sandringham is the queen’s private home and, for you of the Millennial, Generation Z, or Generation Alpha cohort, drive-ins are outdoor movie theatres in which people park their cars in a lot facing a giant screen and watch films projected thereon while seated comfortably in their own vehicles.

Thumbs-Up to Nunavut, the only Canadian province or territory to have completely held off the coronavirus, having recorded zero deaths and not a single case of COVID-19 to date!

DC FanDome Best of Digital Conventions to date, say comics devotees, DC’s virtual stand-in for the cancelled-in-2020 San Diego Comic-Con offering many hours of free streamed content, including exclusive behind-the-scenes material, trailers, virtual panels, fan art, cosplay, and more! The first and major part of this event unfolded in August over a 24-hour period and reportedly managed to satisfactorily emulate a real convention. A second installment is scheduled for today, again, only accessible for 24 hours, so now that you’ve finished here with us, skip on over to www.DCFanDome.com to “Explore the Multiverse!”