Happening tomorrow on x-mas eve at 9PM eastern on BBC America we have The Nerdist: Year In Review, hosted by Chris Hardwick. I am not quite sure how Chris became the definitive American nerd for BBC America, but we could be represented by a much less able spokes-geek and I for one am satisfied. The program includes guests Nathan Fillion and Will Wheaton talking about Firefly, a review of Neil Gaimon’s favorite Doctor Who moments, as well as David Tennant and Simon Pegg. Including the results of a two way competition for the Nerd of the Year Award, where you submit a video with your vote embedded in it. What makes it two way is the fact that three of the best videos (best as defined by a combined criteria of most convincing argument and overall geekery) will be featured on BBC America before the special airs.
It is time for the SFX 2011 Blog Awards, where the world class Sci-Fi magazine staff have narrowed each category down to four or so nominations. They have six categories, but they have still left us some impossible decisions. Under Best Podcast, as an example, they have both Escape Pod and Doctor Who Podshock, both of which are insanely good, so how do you decide? The Fan Community choice is even harder; Gateworld or Whedonesque gets compounded with Gallifrey Base or The Trek BBS, and I want to vote for all of them! But you only get one vote per category, and trust me when I say the others are just as difficult to choose between.
If you haven’t put your votes in yet, you only have a bit over a day to put in for your favorites for the Locus Awards. If you are not familiar, Locus Magazine is the closest thing the science fiction publishing community has to a professional trade magazine. Voting closes April 1st. Just opened up is the initial set of nominations for the MTV Movie Awards, with their usual off the wall selection of categories. This is you chance to put in for some of the movies that got slighted at the other awards, like District 9, Star Trek 11, or even Avatar. Go out and make your voice heard! For those of you who are members of the SFWA, you have until midnight tonight PST to vote for the Nebulas this year.
There is an excellent article at CNet UK’s Crave site called The future is now: Sci-fi films in real locations. Besides all the movies you would expect, it mentioned one I somehow missed: The Girl From Monday. It turns out it is part of Netflix streaming collection, so I will be seeing it soon. Another quality read is io9’s Greatest Swashbuckling Heroes From 100+ Years Of SF Books. The collected artwork alone is worth the visit, like the ERB John Carter of Mars covers (including the one that inspired a certain Starwars costume), and the commentary is just as informative and entertaining as the article itself.
Geek Tyrant (or perhaps Geekty Rant) has posted a list of 5 Films that changed the way people look at Sci-Fi Movies. Starting with Metropolis, lobby posters and film clips are included. Over at Bookstove there is another list of the top 10 Science Fiction authors of all time. As with all such lists, both of these are subjective decisions, but it is fun to see what others think and comment on your own inclusions for the list. If you are at all into art, be sure to check out Mari Kasurinen’s My Little Pony collection. She has done some amazing work; I particularly like My Little Stormtrooper, Han Solo, and Boba Fet from the Star Wars universe, as well as the Trek, Batman, and Cthulhu entries. And a little Nerdcore…
io9 strikes again, this time with the 10 best Fan Collectibles that don’t exist… and neither do the fans. More than one of them was created by Joss Whedon. There is a new Mind Meld at SFSignal; this time the topic is Books That Hold Special Places in our hearts and on our shelves. I found quite a few favorites listed there, as well as a few I missed the first time around.