eldritchhobbit

May the Fourth be with you!

Happy Revenge of the Fifth!

Happy 50th birthday to Star Trek!

This is the franchise that taught me to love science fiction before I could read (and, in fact, it greatly inspired my reading), before Star Wars, before school. Its characters, lessons, and fandom have had a major and ongoing impact on my life, my family, and my work.

Today I raise my glass in loving memory of and lasting gratitude to those who made Star Trek and who have walked on to that Undiscovered Country, including (but most certainly not limited to)
Gene Roddenberry and Majel Barrett-Roddenberry,
DeForest Kelley, Leonard Nimoy, and James Doohan,
Grace Lee Whitney, Mark Lenard, Jane Wyatt, Ricardo Montelban, Bibi Besch, Merritt Butrick, Michael Ansara, and Brock Peters,
Gene L. Coon, Alexander Courage, Jerry Goldsmith, Robert Wise, Harve Bennett, Samuel A. Peeples, Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, Adrian Spies, S. Bar-David, Jerry Sohl, Paul Schneider, Theodore Sturgeon, Oliver Crawford, Fredric Brown, Don Mankiewicz, Gilbert Ralston, John Meredyth Lucas, Jerome Bixby, Margaret Armen, John M. Ford, James Blish, Jack B. Sowards, and Joan Winston,
and, gone far too soon,
Anton Yelchin.

So... favorites.

My husband and I got to talking about our Trek favorites (several of which we rewatched for our recent Trek-athon), and I thought I'd share. I'm not saying these below are the very best, but they are my very favorites.

(Disclaimer: I left a lot of favorites off this list in the interest of brevity. If you ask me on another day, some of my choices therefore might change.)



Favorite Star Trek Primary Character: Dr. Leonard H. "Bones" McCoy
Dr. McCoy is one of my all-time favorite fictional characters, full stop. He's been a very real inspiration to me throughout my life. I lay much of the credit for my love of this "H.L. Mencken in Space" at the feet of the brilliant DeForest Kelley, whose deeply humane performance gave McCoy great life and great heart. Karl Urban's remarkably gifted (re)interpretation of the good old country doctor remains one of my favorite aspects of the new film series.

Favorite Star Trek Recurring Character: This must be a tie between Deep Space Nine's Elim Garak and Weyoun

Star Trek: The Original Series
Favorite Episode: "The Empath"
Runners Up: "City on the Edge of Forever," "Space Seed," and I'm stopping there because this list could go on and on...

Star Trek: The Animated Series
Favorite Episode: "How Sharper than a Serpent's Tooth"

Star Trek: The Next Generation
Favorite Episode: "The Inner Light"
Runner Up: "Ship in a Bottle"

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Favorite Episode: "Far Beyond the Stars"
Runners Up: Favorite Episode: "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River," "The Wire"

Star Trek: Voyager
Favorite Episode: "The Chute"
Runners Up: "Deadlock," "The Year of Hell," Parts 1 & 2

Star Trek: Enterprise
Favorite Episode: "Twilight"
Runners Up: "In A Mirror, Darkly" Parts 1 & 2, "The Andorian Incident"

Favorite Star Trek Film: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Favorite Star Trek Novel (The Original Series): Ishmael by Barbara Hambly
Runners Up: The Wounded Sky by Diane Duane, Uhura's Song by Janet Kagan, How Much for Just the Planet? by John M. Ford, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (novelization) by Vonda N. McIntyre

So that's me. What are some of your Trek favorites?

I'll shortly be on my way to MidAmeriCon II/the 74th World Science Fiction Convention. If you're attending, I hope you'll say hello!

Below is my schedule. I'm delighted and privileged to be on panels with some stellar folks in the SF community. Each event title links to its official description and list of participants.



Thursday, August 18
2pm: "His Fordship in the Capitol and Big Brother in the Districts: How The Hunger Games' World of Tomorrow Builds on SF's Classic Past"
This is my stand-alone academic presentation, which is part of the Campbell Conference/Academic Track.

Friday, August 19
11am: "Queer Star Wars"
This panel is part of the 40th Anniversary Star Wars Day programming.

Saturday, August 20
10am: "Alienation and Science Fiction"
I am the moderator of this panel.

12pm: "Inspiring the Creativity"
I am the moderator of this panel.

2pm: "Magazine Group Reading: Escape Artists, Inc."

8pm: The Hugo Awards
I am honored to be the official representative of Hugo nominee Tales to Terrify at this year's ceremony.

Sunday, August 21
12pm: "Criticism in Speculative Fiction"


I plan to post updates and photos on my Twitter feed.

Catch you on the flip side!

I'm very excited about heading off shortly to a convention that never fails to be great fun, ConCarolinas.

This year's planned events look great!

I intend to post updates from the con on my Twitter feed.



Here is the schedule of my events at the con:

Friday
3pm: "Star Wars Literature: New Canon and Legends" (I'm moderating this panel.)
5:30pm: "Star Trek and Diversity" (I'm moderating this panel.)

Saturday
12:30pm: "Fifty Years of Star Trek"
2:00pm: "Where's Rey?"
6:30pm: "We Are SHERLOCKed!" (I'm moderating this panel.)

Sunday
1pm: "Disney-Era Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Rogue One" (I'm moderating this panel.)

I'm very excited about heading off shortly to a truly fantastic convention, RavenCon. This year's schedule looks terrific! I'm looking forward to seeing some of you there.

I plan to post updates from the con on my Twitter feed.




Here is the schedule of my events at the con:

Friday
5pm: "Sherlock Holmes and Science Fiction" (This is my solo presentation.)
7pm: Opening Ceremonies

Saturday
11am: "Star Wars Literature: New Canon and Legends" (I'm moderating this panel.)
2pm: "Going Where No Man Has Gone Before: Roddenberry's Star Trek vs. Abrams' Star Trek" (I'm moderating this panel.)
5pm: "Podcasting"

Cool Things are Extremely Cool:

- Netflix Revives Western Longmire. Woohoo! I am one happy fangirl.

- The University of Iowa is digitizing 10,000 vintage sci-fi zines dating back to the 1930s. Fantastic!

- Three Calls for Papers of potential interest: 1) on Robert A. Heinlein, 2) on the Gothic and Racism, and 3) on "It's Happening Again": Twenty-Five Years of Twin Peaks.

- FX Is Making a Television Show Out of Alan Moore's From Hell.



- The latest episode of StarShipSofa is out - it's a jam-packed episode - and it includes my most recent "Looking Back on Genre History" segment, which celebrates the recent good news received by fans of The Pretender, Millennium, and Twin Peaks. You can download the episode via iTunes or stream/download it here.


Uncool Thing is Way Not Cool:

( Cut for TMI )

The takeaway here is that most of my Spring 2015 trips and appearances - my Asheville weekend seminars, SofaCON and ConCarolinas, and likely another university campus talk in the works - won't be affected by this turn of events, but I'm very disappointed to say that it looks like Mythmoot III in January is off the table. I'm quite bummed about this.

For now I'm on the road again. Have a great one, my friends!

A Long-Expected Party 3 was a fantastic experience I'll never forget: reuniting with old friends and making new ones, enjoying brilliant music and costumes and food (enough to satisfy the most gluttonous hobbit!), and endless discussions with my colleagues and fellow attendees. I was delighted by the attendance and participation at my talks. The final night, the recreation of the Baggins birthday party under the stars and the trees, was truly magical.





Thanks to everyone who voted in my poll about October. September is almost over! Starting tomorrow, please join me for a month of daily posts as I celebrate the spirit of Halloween. If you know of anyone who would enjoy these posts, please pass along the word. Thank you very much!

If you'd like to see the posts from past years' countdowns to Halloween, go here.

You may want to check out other blogs that likewise are celebrating Halloween all October long. The wonderful Countdown to Halloween 2014 is a clearinghouse site that links to this and other blogs with similar month-long post-a-thons.

I had a marvelous time at this year's Worldcon (which, the last I heard, was in the running to be the largest Worldcon in the event's 72-year-history with well over 10,500 attendees).

Some of the highlights of the con for me were the following.

- Meeting in person several of the StarShipSofa crew with whom I've worked for the last six plus years, including Tony C. Smith, Diane Severson Mori, Steve Bickle, and others, as well as many of our long-term listeners.

- Attending the 1939 Retro Hugo Awards Ceremony, which was presented like a 1939 radio broadcast, complete with a live band, ads, and breaks for newsflashes about approaching Martians. (Fortunately for us, the "con crud" killed the invaders before they penetrated the ExCel Centre where the ceremony was being held.) It was a loving extended tribute to Orson Welles' adaptation of The War of the Worlds, beautifully realized. My friend Diane Severson Mori, who was representing Amazing Stories editor Raymond Palmer (who was nominated for Best Editor), kindly invited me to be her "plus one," so I also got to see the other representatives at the pre-awards reception and enjoy the ceremony from choice seating. It was moving for me to see classic works I've loved and taught honored in this way.

- Officiating at the Prometheus Awards ceremony, where it was my privilege to present "Best Novel" awards to Cory Doctorow (for Homeland) and Ramez Naam (for Nexus), both of whom gave stirring speeches, and a "Special Award" to the representative of Leslie Fish (for her novella “Tower of Horses” and her related filk song, "The Horsetamer’s Daughter"), as well as to accept on behalf of Lois McMaster Bujold the "Hall of Fame" honor for her novel Falling Free.

- Giving my two talks, "Sherlock Holmes and Science Fiction" and "Millennials and Worlds Gone Wrong: These Aren't Your Grandparents' YA Dystopias." I'm grateful to A.J. Hall for her wonderful (and hilarious) introduction to my Holmes talk, and to everyone who attended - even those several dozen who were turned away after the doors were closed due to overcrowding. (What a turnout! I was amazed.) I'm also grateful to the many who came to my YA dystopias talk and stayed with me, contributing great comments and questions, even though the tech specialists were unable to get my PowerPoint up and running. (So it goes...)

- Participating in stimulating and thought-provoking panels. It was great fun to sit side-by-side and converse with some truly gifted authors, scholars, and journalists. I particularly enjoyed the "Young Adult SF on the Big Screen" panel, where we had just the right balance of agreement and disagreement to make for a vigorous and fruitful discussion. I also attended several excellent panels as an audience member. Two of the standout examples were "My Beautiful Dystopia" (with a stellar panel of authors including the always-awesome Peadar O'Guilin) and "Reluctant, or Just Not Interested?," a panel about reluctant readers, the education system, and publishing, which featured more terrific guests (including Gray Rinehart, whose appearances are always "must sees").


Here's my obligatory selfie with my Loncon 3 badge, taken just before the Retro-Hugo Awards ceremony, and a photo of the ExCeL Centre at the Docklands, where the con was held.



Click here for my photos from Loncon 3/Worldcon, including close-up pictures from the "50 Photos for 50 Years of Doctor Who," "A Brief History of Worldcon," and "The Destruction of London" special exhibits.

My next con appearance is in September at A Long-Expected Party. At this point I'm not sure about next year's Worldcon, but I know I will be attending MidAmeriCon II/Worldcon in 2016.

It's official! I've happily accepted the position of Department Chair of Literature and Language at Signum University. Speaking of which, registration is open for my online "Science Fiction, Part I" course for Fall 2014 at Mythgard Institute at Signum University.

I'm getting ready to head out for a quick trip south to offer guest lectures on intellectual history and The Hunger Games, Serenity, and YA dystopian fiction. (It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it.) Here is a quick look at my upcoming speaking schedule.



Where I Will Be Speaking When

***JULY***
"Life Is Improv" Seminar at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia

***AUGUST***
Loncon 3/the 72nd Worldcon in London, UK
( Here is my updated schedule. )

***SEPTEMBER***
A Long-Expected Party 3 in Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, Kentucky