On this day in 1997, U.S. astronaut Jerry M. Linenger and Russian cosmonaut Vasily Tsibliyev completed the first-ever Russo-American space walk, a five-hour excursion from the Russian space station Mir.
Carina Nebula
Writing, Editing, and Publishing:
The European Science Fiction Society award winners have been announced, with Brit China Mieville garnering an award for best author.
The Libertarian Futurist Society released the Prometheus award nominees, including Liu Cixin and Terry Pratchett.
Seiun Awards finalists (the Japanese equivalent to the Hugo Awards), honoring the best original and translated works published last year in Japan, have been announced. The website I linked focuses on works in translation, but this link will take you to the main website, which is in Japanese, and which tells about all of the nominees.
Very exciting news: Nick Offerman is hosting the Nebulas! I didn’t even know he was a big SF/F fan, but apparently he is, and this is just great. Now I want to be his friend even more.
A new book is coming out soon, featuring female illustrators of fantastic art. Check out the introduction to Women of wonder here.
Leigh Butler sallied forth to the annual JordanCon and here’s her hilarious recap.
Crab Nebula
William Gibson writes about how ignorance might save your novel.
Anonymous author The G writes about “message fiction,” specifically SFF that has a political or social message.
Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America [SFWA] has been working to gain members recently. Here, author Lela E. Buis writes a symbolic story about the choice to join SFWA or not, entitled SFWA vs. the Demons.
Movies and Television:
I had not heard about the new Goosebumps movie, but apparently it will feature Jack Black as a cranky R. L. Stine battling some of the monsters he writes about, and that, to me, sounds really great.
If you’ve been waiting on pins and needles to hear about the BBC Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell miniseries, here’s a trailer and (finally!) a date!
Check out this cartoon fantasy short, created as a graduation project by several Italian film students.
Tycho Supernova remnant
Internet Stuff:
Feast your eyes on images of seven of the most beautiful botanical mazes.
Do you ever wonder what it takes to become a successful SFF author? Lots of talented writers have honed their craft and made important connections at workshops for speculative fiction, such as Clarion and Clarion West, the most prestigious writing workshops for SFF work. However, these workshops ain’t cheap. Becca, a published author, has been accepted to Clarion (a major accomplishment in itself) and is now crowdsourcing some of the funding to help her achieve this goal. Only a day left to support her project!
Art Feature:
I wasn’t able to arrange an art feature from a specific artist today, so instead, enjoy the art of the universe!
As usual, I love the art! :)
I’m very interested in the Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell adaptation because I just wasn’t able to read past the first quarter of the book but I keep running into it being recommended to me because it has so many things that I should like in a novel. I wonder if the movie version would work better for me? Though, usually, I’d much rather read a book than see a movie – at least with most of the sff works because you get so much more from the written version as they have to cut a lot to get a 2 hour movie (or miniseries).
April, Was it the tone that did you in? If yes, (she captured a certain time period perfectly; that doesn’t mean everyone in our time period loves it) the adaptation might work better for you.
I’ve heard this from people whose heads spun around when they tried to read WOLF HALL, because of her idiosyncratic POV, but are loving the PBS adaptation.
And, two different authors! Hilary Mantel wrote Wolf Hall. I was just making a comparison.
I don’t know! I tried reading it way back when, after it first came out, and for some reason DNF’d it – this was before I was on GR so I have no notes to consult either. I may have to go back and give it another go, it is possible that it just wasn’t what I wanted to read at the time.