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MAVEN to launch any minute now!
Live streaming video by Ustream
The MAVEN launch is happening now (as of this posting, of course). Above is the live feed. MAVEN is the Mars orbiter that is going to find out why Mars lost all that water. It’s rather important that it launches relatively soon, as that rather big storm that caused trouble in Illinois is pushing winds toward Florida. If NASA misses its window, MAVEN will have to wait two more years before Mars gets close enough to try again.
Good luck, MAVEN!
The Night of the Doctor
If you can’t wait to get just a little bit of the Doctor Who 50th, you’re in luck!
Thor: The Dark World Review
Thor might be seen as the stuffy older brother of the Marvel film franchise family, but Thor: The Dark World proves that there’s plenty of adventure and jolliness to be found in stories about a Norse space god. I enjoyed the first film in the franchise well enough, but like many others I found it to be a bit too origin-heavy and melodramatic. I suppose The Dark World has more than its share of melodrama, but the many lighter asides help balance that out.
You have to give Marvel credit for going whole hog with their goofy cosmology that they’re lifting almost verbatim from the comics. The idea that the Norse cosmology of Nine Realms connected by the World Tree Yggdrasil is in any way comprehensible in conjunction with modern astronomical systems is absurd, but I have a wry admiration for the producers who insist on keeping this conceit going. In The Dark World the Nine Realms are under threat of annihilation by the Dark Elves, a race from the Realm of Svartalfheim, who existed before the current universe, and yearn to plunge all the Realms back into the primordial darkness. The Dark Elf Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) was the leader of the last attempt at darkening the universe by using the artifact known as the Aether, and he was driven to the stars by Odin’s father Bor in a military campaign. Every five thousand years or so the Nine Realms align, giving Malekith the opportunity to try destroying the universe again. It just so happens that this alignment is beginning right now…
Thor has been busy keeping the Nine Realms orderly after the events of the first film. When the rainbow bridge-slash-wormhole device Bifröst was destroyed in Thor, the Realms ceased to benefit from the Asgardians’ beneficent ruling power, and began a quick descent into civil unrest. Thor and his armies are run ragged putting down rebellions of monster armies, and he hasn’t had time–or permission–to visit his human lover Jane Foster (Natalie Portman). That changes when Foster happens upon a hole in reality, one that transports her to another world, where the Aether is waiting to be released. This is the first of a few overly convenient plot devices that get things moving in the film, but when you compare this to the thin gruel of characterization and plot in The Avengers, this movie almost feels like Shakespeare. Which is ironic, considering that Kenneth Branagh is no longer involved with the franchise.
Actually, the comparison to Shakespeare is not without its merits. The Dark World is a melodrama operating on multiple levels: the grand and courtly paradise of Asgard, and the ridiculous comedic realm of Earth, with some dark fantasy realms in between. It’s not unlike many Elizabethan tragedies in the way it transitions between the “high” and “low” players on the stage. On Asgard and the other space worlds, we see betrayal, family conflict, jealousy, battles, and political intrigue. On Earth we have light comedy, romance, humiliations, and screwball humor. It’s surprising how well it all works together. Not that The Dark World is actually anywhere close to the level of Shakespearean drama in terms of artistry, but it’s good that the filmmakers have ambitions.
Chris Hemsworth is solid as Thor, with plenty of opportunity to flex his dramatic and comedic muscles, in addition to his, well, actual muscles. Natalie Portman is decent as Jane Foster, who was sort of a bland character from the beginning, and basically becomes a plot device in The Dark World. Tom Hiddleston has little to do as Loki in the first half of the film, but his interactions with Rene Russo as his mother Frigga and with Anthony Hopkins as Odin are a strong highlight. Christopher Eccleston is surprisingly bland as the movie’s villain, considering some of the more flamboyant roles he has played in the past. Kat Dennings as Foster’s assistant Darcy Lewis gets more than a sidelined role this time, and provides the bulk of the movie’s laughs.
Thor: The Dark World is fun, ambitious, ridiculous, spectacle-ridden, full of plot holes, and a pleasure to experience. Your mileage may vary depending on how serious and logically consistent you want your superhero movies to be, but for what it is, The Dark World is not a bad movie. I would love to see more attempts at creating superhero films that don’t rely so much on silliness and melodrama, and with Hollywood recognizing the financial potential of the genre, maybe some day we will. There are plenty of good superhero comics just waiting to be adapted, after all.
Forays into Fantasy: Fritz Leiber’s Conjure Wife and the Beginnings of Urban Fantasy
Scott Lazerus is a Professor of Economics at Western State Colorado University in Gunnison, Colorado, and has been a science fiction fan since the 1970s. The Forays into Fantasy series is an exploration of the various threads of fantastic literature that have led to the wide variety of fantasy found today, from the perspective of an SF fan newly exploring the fantasy landscape. FiF examines some of the most interesting landmark books of the past, along with a few of today’s most acclaimed fantasies, building an understanding of the connections between fantasy’s origins, its touchstones, and its many strands of influence.
Fritz Leiber (1910–1992) is indisputably one of the most important science fiction and fantasy writers of the twentieth century, recipient of the Science Fiction Writers of America’s Grand Master Award and the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, as well as six Hugos and four Nebulas. His science fiction is some of the best of its era, including Gather, Darkness (1943), Hugo winner The Big Time (1958), and a series of great short stories for Galaxy during the 1950s. Despite his achievements in SF, he is better known today for his fantasy, due primarily to his sword and sorcery sequence featuring Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, which began with “Two Sought Adventure” (aka “The Jewels in the Forest”) in 1939, and continued throughout his long career (and which should be the subject for a future post in this series).
Leiber may also have been more comfortable writing fantasy, turning to science fiction at least in part due to the lack of fantasy publishing outlets following the demise of John W. Campbell’s Unknown magazine in 1943, after which science fiction would dominate the genre magazine (and eventually the book publishing) landscape until the 1970s. Due to Unknown’s market for sophisticated fantasy, the years 1939 to 1943 produced a disproportionate amount of great fantasy, much of which is still read today. Last year I wrote about three of these—Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp’s Enchanter stories, Jack Williamson’s Darker Than You Think, and A. E. Van Vogt’s The Book of Ptath—and as I return to this period in the history of fantasy, several additional Unknown stories will be looked at. Along with the first five Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories, Fritz Leiber’s contributions to Unknown include the classic “Smoke Ghost” (1941) and the novel Conjure Wife (1943), which was first published in book form, slightly revised and updated, in 1952 as part of the omnibus Witches Three.
The Day of the Doctor: The Second TV Trailer
So there’s this coming up. I prefer Day of the Daleks myself.
Women of Genre Fiction Reading Challenge: October Review Poll is Open!
We posted 11 great reviews for October and it’s that time again to cast your votes for your 3 favorites. As always, there are 3 prizes awarded each month. We’ll keep the poll open until October 25 so you’ll have time to read all the reviews.
- The Giver by Lois Lowry – Badseedgirl
- Summer of Love by Lisa Mason – spoltz
- Arslan by M. J. Engh – valashain
- Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal – bazhsw
- Mindscape by Andrea Hairston – ParallelWorlds
- Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke – alixheintzman
- The Vampire Tapestry by Suzy McKee Charnas – charlesdee
- We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson – thecynicalromantic
- Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin – mfennvt
- The Drowning Girl by Caitlín R. Kiernan – Allie
- Boneshaker by Cherie Priest – lynnsbooks
Thanks to all our reviewers last month. If you didn’t make the October list, don’t give up – there are still more chances! Please help us spread the word about the review poll and encourage your friends to come over and vote. A lot of effort goes into these great reviews each month so show some love for our reviewers and vote!
We’re getting down to the end of things with this year’s challenge and we’re still going strong. Amazingly, even at this late date, we continue to get new signups – 8 more since the last poll. I suspect these folks aren’t really intending to complete the challenge with so little time left but who knows? I’m sure it can be done and they may have read several women this year already. Kudos to them!
It was nice to see our “books read” fly past the 1,000 mark to land at an impressive 1,048. I often wonder how many of those books and authors were read just because of our challenge? I find myself hoping that it’s a lot because it would validate our goal to get more people reading books by women but at the same time I kinda hope it’s not really that many. We should be reading those books anyway, right?
As for reviews, they are obviously still rolling in! We went from 519 to 573 since we looked last month and the quality is still as high as ever. You guys and gals do not disappoint and we thank you all for your efforts. Can you feel that 600 reviews goal creeping up on us?
General Stats After 10 Months:
Time Remaining: 53 days
Participants: 382!
Books Read: 1,048
Books Reviewed: 573
WoGF Review: Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
For Lynn Williams (lynnsbooks) books are much more than a hobby or a pastime they’re really an obsession. If she’s not reading a book, she’s talking about books on her blog, Lynn’s Book Blog, or deciding which books to buy next. Lynn reads all sorts of books, sometimes straying into YA, but her first love is fantasy. Recently she started to cross into science fiction thanks to the suggestions of some very excellent bloggers.
Editor’s Note: This review counts for October.
Just finished reading Boneshaker by Cherie Priest which is my (only just) October submission for Worlds Without End, Women of Genre Fiction reading challenge. I loved this book. It’s a seriously entertaining romping, steampunk adventure. The main protagonists are a mother and son and we watch as they go in circles around each other in an almost despairingly frustrating fashion which is both fast moving and really compelling to read.
So, Briar and Zeke, mother and son. They live in a less than comfortable condition and appear to be virtual outcasts. Blair’s husband, now passed away apparently, was an inventor. His last invention however was responsible for almost wiping out the city of Seattle. A gold mining drill, built to dig through hundreds of feet of snow was set to test under the streets of Seattle causing massive destruction and mayhem leaving not only the collapse of many streets but the release of a noxious gas which kills and ultimately turns people into zombies – rotters as they’re now called. In order to survive in the wake of this catastrophe the survivors built a massive wall around the perimeter of the blighted part of the city, not only to contain the zombies but also to prevent the spread of the gas which is too dense to breach the wall.
Black Labyrinth Book II: Joe R. Lansdale Kickstarter
I so wish I had seen this last month! It would have been perfect for our Month of Horrors series and it looks totally bad ass. Check out the wicked-cool illustrations by Santiago Caruso. They are the stuff of nightmares. And Joe-freakin’-you-had-me-at-Bubba-Hotep-Lansdale is the author! You want to get your creep on in style? THIS is the way to do it. The leather slipcase and cover for Black Labyrinth Book I: The Walls of the Castle by Tom Piccirilli is just beautiful and you can expect more of the same for book 2.
Now here’s the bad news. As it is, there are only 3 days left for this Kickstarter campaign so if you want in you have to act now. Chris Morey, owner and publisher of Dark Regions Press and creator of the Black Labyrinth imprint and his team are really close to funding so you could be the person to put them over the top. If not you, then perhaps someone you know would be interested so help us spread the word.
WoGF Review: The Drowning Girl by Caitlín R. Kiernan
Allie McCarn (Allie), reviews science fiction and fantasy books on her blog Tethyan Books. She has contributed many great book reviews to WWEnd including several Grand Master reviews featured in our blog. Allie has just kicked off a new blog series for WWEnd called New Voices where she’ll be reviewing the debut novels of relatively new authors in the field.
Editor’s Note: This review counts for October.
The Drowning Girl by Caitlín R. Kiernan
Published: Roc, 2012
Awards Won: Stoker Award, Co-Winner of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award.
Awards Nominated: Nebula Award, Shirley Jackson Award, Locus F Award, Mythopoeic Award, World Fantasy Award
The Book:
“India Morgan Phelps (Imp) is a mentally ill woman who is also haunted, for a certain definition of the word ‘haunted’. Her ghost story involves mermaids and wolves and two women rescued from the side of the road. One is Abalyn, a transgender woman who becomes an integral part of Imp’s life. Another is Eva Canning, a mysterious woman who brings chaos with her.
In her journal, Imp tells the story of the time(s) she met Eva Canning, and tries to separate truth and fact, in order to come to terms with the events of one summer and/or fall—both the events that happened, and those that did not. The facts may never be clear, but perhaps the truth can be found.” ~Allie
