On June 24th the 35th annual Saturn Awards will be handed out, and this time the lifetime achievement award goes to Leonard Nimoy. At a con in the UK last weekend Zach Levi (the Chuck of Chuck) led a Flashmob to Subway where he ended up making sandwiches for his fans. Much to the confusion of the local security folks, who thought it was the politest riot they had ever seen. Also from the UK comes Gratuitus Space Battles, a game who’s goal is to bring the over-the-top explodiness back into space games (their words). This one looks like a lot of fun.
By the title of this entry, you have probably guessed that MacLeod won the Clarke Award this year, for his book Song of Time. Pretty impressive, since his competition included Paul McAuley, Alastair Reynolds, Neal Stephenson, Sheri S. Tepper and Mark Wernham. The Clarke Award was presented last night at the Sci-Fi London 8 Film Festival, and presenting an award for a best book at a film festival is not as unusual as it sounds. This film fest has grown into one of the best SciFi Cons in the UK, and even has its own awards show for best short film made specifically for the event.
Eyeborgs opens this week in London, even though it’s a US movie. So does The Clone Returns Home, and Stingray Sam (a space musical western with unique design features). But there are other movies opening soon, including Star Trek 11 and Moon. And besides the Sci_Fi London festival, another party in that town is Anime Extravaganza at the East End Film Festival. Without getting Close Up and personal, I can tell you one of the Anime’s I am looking forward to is Oh! Edo Rocket!, and let’s not forget Death Note Day on the 28th in New York, and all across the country when the showing of Death Note 3: Change the World hits all the Fathom Events digital theaters. And don’t forget the Robot Penguins working for the Army.
Yes, it is time once again for Sci-Fi London, that truly amazing film festival held at the Apollo Piccadilly Circus and many nearby locations. This is the eighth year for the festival, and it is bigger and better than ever, starting Wednesday the 29th and running through Monday the 4th. It has become the event where the Arthur C Clarke Award is handed out, as well as the Sci-Fi London Awards. For those who want to build their own, they have created the SFL Lab where scientists, comic artists, leading genre writers and filmmakers will present a full program of classes, including things like Filmaking for small screens. For the more gonzo build-your-own types they held the 48 Hour Film Challenge a few weeks ago (so they could show the results at the SFL festival). They handed out titles, dialog, and props to 71 teams on Saturday, and on Monday 55 of those teams returned with finished films. They will be doing many World and UK Premiers, including the films The Hunt for Gollum, Eyeborgs, Eraser Children, The Clone Returns Home, and one of my personal favorites, Cyborg She. They will be screening X-Men Origins: Wolverine before it opens in UK theaters. And so much more; wish I could get the time off from work to be there, but at least I can watch Sci-Fi London TV!
Thanks to a posting at Mike Lynch Cartoons, this home movie from the 1975 World Science Fiction Convention came to light. Thanks, Mike, and thanks to Paul Scrabo for putting it together!
The Nominees for the 2009 Hugo Awards were announced a few days ago, and they include (as always) an amazing collection of stories. Some of them belong to Cory Doctorow, Charles Stross, and John Scalzi, to name but a few. Big Dumb Object has some comments worth noting. Now I need to read everything on the lists; a good way to start is by grabbing the links from Anticipation SF, and as always the SF Signal Hugo page has links to all the free online reading version of the nominees stories…