You all know what happened with Columbia. We won’t dwell on
it, but a word is in order.
Subject: Sci / Sci-Fi
Science and Science Fiction are very closely related, even though many people
will not admit that. The SS Columbia tragedy is going to affect us all, let’s
hope that NASA learns from whatever mistake was made so problems with entry
will no longer occur. My condolences go out to all of the family, friends,
and coworkers of the Columbia crew. (death_prophet@hotmail.com)
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America have put up a petition
and comment board. I really like the Heinlein quote.
http://www.nyx.net/columbia
I think SF fans feel differently about the tragedy than other people. I’m
not saying we grieve more, or less, but we feel different. Space travel is part
of the imagination that pulled each SF fan into the genre in the first place.
This loss seems like a bit of a dream being pushed further away from reality.
But it’s not really.
The astronauts were heroes before this. They, and everyone in the space program,
have pushed and will push the limits of human experience.
Our prayers are with their families and with everyone in the space program.
Now here’s our irregularly scheduled silliness.
Subject: Mrbroe’s Faramir rant
Um, why don't you tell us the differences between the Faramir of the book
and the Faramir of the movie? Because I don't know what the hell you are complaining
about. I've seen The Two Towers twice (did I just stumble across a tongue-twister?)
and I have only one complaint; eventually, the movie ends. (wolvie110@hotmail.com)
I’ll let Shane "Tolkien 4 Life" Ivey answer that:
In the book, Faramir was noble and wise as all get-out. He was much more
like Aragorn than Boromir. In fact, that was probably the main problem for
the filmmakers; what's the point of spending screen time introducing a character
who behaves pretty much exactly like Strider?
Faramir was tremendously admirable in the books; once he realized what Frodo
was carrying and what he was planning to do, he never even thought about trying
to waylay him, let alone pull a Boromir and try to send him straight to Minas
Tirith. Naturally, Faramir fans the world over were dismayed -- nay, incensed;
indeed, wroth to the point of pissedness -- when they saw him misbehaving
on screen.
Me, personally, I was a little disappointed. But hey, they made up for it
with Eowyn, not to mention Arwen in that funky elvish negligee. Can I get
a double-duty WHOO-HOO? (shane@revolutionsf.com)
And now: castigation!
Subject: Horror movie
Hey, you guys! There's a new horror movie coming out soon. It's called "Getting
Up Off Your Ass, Going Outside, And Getting A Job." I saw a theatrical trailer
for it, and I'm interested in seeing it. Did anyone else see this trailer?
If so, are you interested, too? (a@b.c)
This is old news. The sequel is already out. It’s called Getting
a Job II: Keeping It Because You Have To. The only complaint that its fans
have is that it lasts THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.
Here’s some news about a few things that RevSFians might be interested
in. Or as I like to call it:
SPACE FLYING TIGER DROP!
The downloadable PDF horror magazine The Spook has changed its name
to Metropole. Anthony Sapienza, the magazine’s editor said that
publishing reps and celebrities were confused by the title "The Spook,"
and so it was changed to something more mainstream.
Hopefully, fans of telephone poles won’t be freaked out. You can get
the latest issue at www.metropolemag.com
or www.thespook.com.
Night Shade Books has opened new message boards, to cover authors Jeff VanderMeer,
Lucius Shepard, Elizabeth Hand, Michael Bishop, Steve Aylett, Jeffrey Ford,
Jack Cady, L. Timmel Duchamp, Zoran Zivkovic, Rhys Hughes, Tim Lebbon, Brian
Hodge, Richard Calder, and Gabriel Chouinard. So if you want to talk to and/or
about those people, then you can go to www.nightshadebooks.com/discus
Subject: Darkness Falls
OK, it's two weeks later than your review (so update this site more often!)
but I do agree with your ultimate review of Darkness Falls.
I have a question though- why in the HELL would you name your town Darkness
Falls? You're just asking for stuff to happen.
("Hey, why are all these people showing up to Witches Point on Halloween?")
But yeah, the 'quick-buck' movie really is pulling down an industry that
would otherwise be trying to improve itself, rather than relying on the lowest
common denominator to bring in the 13-yr olds.
Funny, I have the same complaint about music, TV, and books too... go figure.
Anyway, if you're going to review a lousy movie, at least do "Shanghai Knights".
What does it have to do with fantasy/horror/SF? Nothing, unless "horror" is
how you describe Chan's acting when he's not beating someone up with a ladder.
What does "Darkness Falls" have to do w/ horror? Roughly the same thing. (rhythman1234@hotmail.com)
I think Owen Wilson, Jackie’s co-star, should have a cartoon like Jackie.
"Owen Wilson Adventures." He’d travel the world looking bored
like he does in all his movies.
More about cyberpunk:
Subject: Cyberpunk’s importance
Regarding Rick Klaw's assessment of cyber-punk's influence...
::Stunned Silence:: (mrbroe@yahoo.com)
Subject: Up Yours Cyberpunk
On the plus side you forgot George Alec Effinger's As Gravity fails. On the
negative side you forgot John Shirely's left wing conspiracy theory about
neo-nazis taking over the world novel "Eclipse".
I managed to endure about 60 pages or so before I had to throw it across
the room. For a book less than twenty years old it's dated amazingly fast.
Probably because it had nothing to say that hadn't already been said in 1984.
(gijoel@big.net.au)
Subject: Cyberpunk
Dear Kevin,
this is an old fart speaking who actually is just beginning to delve into
cyberpunk after reading all kinds of stuff for the last 20 years (sad - isn't
it?).
Anyway one author that I was missing was Melissa Scott. So far I have read
"Trouble and her Friends" as well as "The Jazz" and liked both. I believe
that "The Jazz" actually exemplifies what one auther called the logical progression
of cyberpunk - information age scifi. I realley liked Trouble as well since
the book got an attitude but not to the point to where it becomes obnoxious.
Well these are my two cents for this topic. (jayberg@gmx.de)
Subject: Cyber Bitches
I'm so glad I stopped reading stuff and thinking for myself. (dharma.bum@
anonymousness.)
Hey, who wants to pick a fight over bookstore categorization? Harlan Ellison,
are you watching?
Subject: Pure Junk
Last Subspace Gooba 42 wrote: "Bookstores...don't know where to put Communion
and Whitley's other books."
I have a suggestion: straight into the garbage can. I'm sick of this guy,
John Edwards, and the Pet Psychic, et al "crossing over" into OUR TERRITORY
DAMMIT! We take enough guff from muggles without adding these people's mind-crappings.
Not that I entirely cast away everything they stand for, but at least make
the treatment of these themes less obviously stupid, transparent, and tinged
with religious overtones. I want to go Samurai Jack on these Jerry Springer
types. Akuuuuuuuuuu! (kingfisher61@cs.com)
My favorite was James Von Praagh. Isn’t that a Klingon greeting?
Subject: DBZ to Finally End!
Yes, Joe, it's true! Starting March 10, the final 14 episodes of the popular
series Dragonball Z will finally on Cartoon Network's Toonami block, officially
bring the franchise to a close. (They will still play reruns after that, though,
but then again, who watches reruns?) (fnchnst@cox.net)
RevSF’s Anime Guy Kevin, who actually knows about this stuff because
I only pretend that I do, says:
"The DBZ series ended in Japan with the end of the Buu Saga. It's the
last few episodes of that saga that the email was referring to. There was
a sequel series in Japan, Dragonball GT, and that's rumored to be on the slate
for when DBZ finally wraps up. But it sucks, so I hope not..." (anime@revolutionsf.com)
Subject: My Theory: If Yoda is so bad…
A true Star Wars fan does not try to combine the things of Episode 1 and
Episode 2 into the REAL trilogy of Star Wars movies: New Hope, Empire, and
Return. The more recent movies are really just "based on Star Wars, created
by George Lucas," and don't really count for anything. Except for Natalie
Portman. She can overturn my trade embargo any time! (naguscook@aol.com)
This was a contest entry that didn’t make the cut. I include it because
it is the first time that the term "trade embargo" was turned into
a sexual euphemism. You read it here first! Always on the cutting edge, that’s
us.
Subject: Paul Riddell auction on eBay
Thought you'd be interested in this. Need your own Green Lantern ring?
[Big
long E-bay address] (anonymous)
That's a former RevSF contributor selling all his stuff. Not me, buddy.
Nobody’s ever touching my hoard.
Subject: Confused
Congratulations. On the same issue as your humour piece about fans not getting
jokes, you print a lament for Data that perfectly captures everything about
SF fan writing - the dumb pseudonym, the overheated prose, the belief that
the death of a fictional character is as tragic an event as a living human
being - that gives us a bad name. Please, please tell me that was a joke.
(phil_eagle@ureach.com)
Well noted, and point taken, about the synchronicity. But those were actually
two separate writers. And separate writers sometimes have separate opinions.
Weirdbut true.
Besides, we’re going to talk about storyline stuff here. Sometimes
you can’t do that without getting irritated or over-serious. (See the "death
of the Lone Gunmen" articles, which surprisingly, struck a much deeper
chord with fandom.)
I think there’s a good mix of detachment and enthusiasm on our site, though.
At least, this week.
I can’t wait till you guys read the LETTER O’ THE WEEK. As a group,
we, the RevolutionSF staff, heartily recommend it. It’ll be good for you.
The author is talking about our old "What Would Cthulhu Do?" game.
Subject: u r confused. i will tell u of true cthuhlu
you ppl seem to know nothing of cthulhu, yog-sogoth, and the shoggoth lords
(learn to spell there names u fools!). all u know is the stuff you read from
horror books, found on cult sites, and seen in 3rd class movies.
1. Yogsogoth is NOT the same thing as cthulhu. they do exist in the same
reality but are difrent. the relationship is like cross between that of the
christian god and jezus, and that of the christ god and micheal. Albiet yog-sogoth
is a god, or atleast god like, but cthulhu is the true god. yog-sogoth but
one of his children. and the shoggoth lords are the equivilant of the humans
juhovan-god made... but with chtuhlu... not johova
2. they are not evil. blood thirsty yes. but not evil. for 1 thing evil exixtx
only our (human) minds. and even in our perseption of reallity it is non-exixtant.
it is just what we use to say what WE shuld and should-not do. but remember,
the old ones can, and may, do things that we cant and must not do (or try
for that matter).
3.the stars are not right. have not been so for atleast 2.6 billion years.
and i dout the fact that that number co-ensides with the begining of earthen
life is coinsidental. and there is no telling when they will be right again.
but they cam close to it aprocimatly 3000 years ago. unfortunatly before cthulhu
got thru the heavens shifted.
4. cthulhu has no body as we know the word. he exists as incomprehencible
engery and uknown physical form. we can not see him, or know him, and hardly
sence him. he is not of this reallity and the only reason we can even know
of him is due to the fact that he is so powerfull his essence can trandsend
time, space, demensions, and being itself. he is all. all that we know is
nothing. to him our whol univers is but a plaything, a marble. to him he was
just here. it is like a child looking for a lost buable. hel find it again.
and if were lucky we will survive the emense rupture of our universe when
he come back. our verry form of matter will change. sanity as we know it will
not exist. our verry existance will be alterd. it will be a hole torn in our
reallity that will leave us gasping for truth. he is not to hurt us. or help
us. he is indifrent.
do not worry. he wont come for a long. youll be dead by then. unless you
can find the necramonicon. and , if your lucky, live to bring him slithering
here for us to wonder. (grey_cyberpunk@yahoo.com)
From Mostly Retired RevSF Art Guy Todd Shearer:
Yegads, and I thought us artist types were the unedumicated heathens of RevSF,
that and the only ones steeped in mystical bull-hockey.
Does anyone know if this guy is blind or just missing six of his ten typing
fingers? My guess is that he sacrificed them to Yog-sothoth...and my
beagle much appreciated those tasty morsels, like a 7-11 big bite with a nail
thrown in for added calcium.
From Shane Ivey, RevSF Webmaster / Mack Daddy:
Heh heh. In a few parts, he actually is right on the "canon" view of the
Cthulhu mythos, at least as understood by people that think there is a "canon"
view of a bundle of literary ideas that grew haphazardly over the past 80
years from pastiche to pastiche.
Then again...
> you ppl seem to know nothing of cthulhu, yog-sogoth, and the
> shoggoth lords (learn to spell there names u fools!).
Punk, I been writing Lovecraft rip-off games and fiction for ten years. And
anybody who knows Shoggoths from Shinola knows Yog-SoTHOTH only has one damn
'G'.
Just like "Smelly Little Geek".
And what up with Cthulhu being Yog-Sothoth's dad? And not having a body?
Hello? Tentacles? "A mountain walked or stumbled"?
(See, you can tell I'm street because I said "I been writing" and "what up".
On the street we got no time for contractions.)
From Me:
Where else besides "horror books" is there Cthulhu stuff? Jerry
Springer?
From Rachel Ivey, Shane’s Boss:
Yeah, I think I saw that program. Wasn't it "Cthulhu Is My Baby's Daddy and
Won't Cough Up the Child Support", or was it "Yog-Sothoth Is a No-Good, Lying,
Cheating Scoundrel"? I loved the part where Cthulhu got up in the lady's face,
shook his tentacles, and started cussing up a blue streak.
From Peggy Hailey, Book Editor:
"u r confused. i will tell u of true cthuhlu"
Who knew Prince was a cthulhu fan?
From Shane again:
Sure. Don't you remember his signature, "I Would Ululate Monstrously Under
a Gibbous Moon 4 U"?
