Michael Moorcock Presents The Jack Trevor Story Memorial Cup Award

Posted on December 18, 2015 by The Geek Curmudgeon

The occasion of Michael Moorcock’s birthday got me thinking about a little known aspect of the extraordinary polymath ‘s award-winning career: The Jack Trevor Story Memorial Cup Award.

Michael Moorcock presenting the The Jack Trevor Story Memorial Award Cup to Howard Waldrop (photo: Elze Hamilton)

Maintained and awarded by Moorcock, The Jack Trevor was originally presented to the writer of the story in the Time Out series of London stories that he best liked. In more recent times, a special committee, organized by Moorcock, determines the winner, typically for excellence in humorous writing. The five hundred guinea prize is given with the following conditions: The entire award must be spent “in a week to a fortnight” and the recipient must have nothing to show for it. Most winners use the money for a big night or a foreign vacation. One winner, a trawlerman from Hull who spent the money with the expertise of a drunken sailor before he got home, had to spend the money all over again just to prove to his shipmates that he’d won it.

The Cup awarded to Steve Aylett (photo: John Coulthart)

The unique terms of the award are based on Jack Trevor Story‘s famous words when asked at his second bankruptcy what happened to money from his films The Trouble with Harry and Live Now, Pay Later. The judge wondered how he managed to go through so much without having a thing to show for it.

You know how it is, your honour ‑‑ two hundred or two thousand ‑‑ it always lasts a week to a fortnight. You can spend a couple of hundred easy just going around the supermarket.

Past winners have included Fred Normandale, Steve Aylett, Nicholas Lezard, and Howard Waldrop (the only American so honored). The memorial cup is just that. A cup with the words Jack Trevor Story Memorial Cup written on the side in magic marker.

The Jewel (The Lone City, #1) – A Review

Posted on December 5, 2015 by ubalstecha

Violet used to live in the Marsh, the poorest area of the One City. But she possesses a genetic variation that allows her to manipulate the world around her using what is called the Auguries. This makes her perfect to be a surrogate, to carry the child of the royalty who can no longer give birth to healthy children do to inbreeding. Once this was revealed, Violet is taken from her family and put into a special school where she is trained to use the Auguries.

At 16, Violet is sold at auction to the Duchess of the Lake and stripped of her name. The Duchess has an ambitious plan to have Violet produce a daughter within three months to be betrothed to the new born Elector (the title of the One City’s ruler). Once this is done, Volet will be steralized and sent to live the rest of her life at a retirement facility. Meanwhile her best friend Raven, who is also a surrogate, is starting to behave strangely. Violet begins to suspect that there might be more going on than she has been told. Can she take action to save herself and her friend?

This is a distopian YA novel that marries the Handmaid’s Tale to the Selection. It had the potential of eing BRILLIANT, but the author AMy Ewing threw in a romance for Violet. While well written, it was unnecessary and detracted from the main story. It would have been much better if the story had just been focused on VIolet’s journey into the Jewel, her realization that something wrong is going on and then her beginning to fight back. To have the revel hinge on the romance reduced Violent from a freedom fighter to the victim of a Victorian melodram.

Only for the rue YA distopian fan.

The Other Worlds Austin 2015 preview Day 3

Posted on December 2, 2015 by The Geek Curmudgeon

Designed by tattoo and graphics artist David Poe

After last years successful first offering, the Other Worlds Austin scifi film festival returns thisThursday, December 3 at the Galaxy Highland Theater. The three day event has grown to include 13 full length films, a secret Star Wars-related screening, and a variety of shorts. Not terribly surprising to anyone who regularly follows my writings, I’m covering the festival.

Over the next three days, I will preview the 13 features.

House of Time

Jonathan Helpert | France | 86 min

Writer: Jean Helpert
Cast: Maxime Dambrin, Laura Boujenah, Benjamin Wangermee, Julia Piaton, David Atrakchi

Robert d’Eglantine has uncovered secret Nazi scientific research on time travel. He tells his guests he has taken them seventy years back in time, to 1944, during the French Occupation and only few weeks before the landing in Normandy. Although the house and everything inside seem the same, the appearance of a woman in the French Resistance, on the run from her Nazi captors, make them question if Robert may just be telling the truth. Or is the woman just an actress? Or was she an actress before the occupation and now a revolutionary?

(Saturday, 5)

Continue reading →

The Other Worlds Austin 2015 preview Day 2

Posted on December 1, 2015 by The Geek Curmudgeon

Over the next three days, I will preview the 13 features.

Projet-M

Eric Piccoli | Canada | 98 min

Writers: Julien Deschamps Jolin, Eric Piccoli, Mario J. Ramos
Cast: Jean-Nicolas Verreault, Julie Perreault, Julien Deschamps Jolin, Nadia Essadiqi, Pierre Verville

Orbiting the Earth aboard a space station for 1,000 days to prepare for a mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa, four astronauts face unforeseen crises when a war breaks out on Earth below. Arguing whether to break off their mission, or what to do about the loss of communication from headquarters, or what to do about the other satellites orbiting the Earth, the team and themselves more alone than they could have prepared for.

(Friday, 10:15)