Reading Update

I've described books as my drug, and bookstores such as Barnes and Noble and Borders are akin to cocaine cartels, while the smaller bookstores are like the nice neighbor who grows pot in his basement. With graduate school, I've been devoting a lot of time to my coursepacks, and not very much time for pleasure reading. Thus far this year, I've really only read 16 books. The following ones are what I've got on my top shelf (which is my ever growing to-read list). Here goes:

The Great Uprising in India 1857-58, Rosie Llewllyn-Jones - This is for my long paper, which I'll hopefully finish within a couple days. It's, surprise, about the Sepoy Rebellion in India against the British. I'm arguing for reasons which the rebellion failed. Add in 6-7 articles and Saul David's Victoria's War, and I'll have a paper. Hopefully.

Trilobite - I'm about halfway through. Hopefully I'll finish this one before I die.

Salt, Mark Kurlansky - History of Salt. It's actually pretty interesting so far.

Theodore Rex, Edmud Morris - Theodore Roosevelt's presidency. I've been meaning to get this for a while now, and now I just need to find the time to read it. Ugh.

Ike, Michael Korda - Sort of for a paper that I want to write. I'll get to it sometime, because I've been meaning to learn more about Eisenhower.

The Day of Battle, Rick Atkinson - I just saw Atkinson speak at the SMH conference (which I never finished my writeup about...), and after finishing his first of the trilogy, I can't wait to get through this one.

Mao, Jun Chang - Biography of Mao, I've wanted to read it for a while.

John Adams, David McCullough - After seeing the miniseries, I really want to read this now. I wonder how it shapes up.

Heartshaped Box, Joe Hill - Joe Hill will be at the Granite City Comic Con later this week, when I go down. Hopefully, I'll get my copy signed. First, I have to remember to bring it.

A Crack at the Edge of the World, Simon Winchester - *still* on my reading list. I'll get to it someday.

A Civil Action, Jonathan Harr – On my list for a while now.

Western Warfare 1775-1882, Jeremy Black - Picked this up at SMH. Looks really good.

Warfare in The Western World 1882-1975, Jeremy Black - Ditto. The nice thing, they're both pretty short.

The Big Red One, James Scott Wheeler - History of the 1st Infantry Division, which looks facinating.

Devices and Desires, K.J Parker - Halfway through, I'll get to it sometime.

The 9-11 Commission Report - Also about halfway through this one.

The Space Opera Renaissance, David Hartwell - Short SciFi stories. Always a good read.

Woken Furies, Richard K. Morgan - Third of a trilogy. Need to get to this one soon.

Blood and Thunder, Hampton Sides - Just picked this up the other day, one that I've been meaning to get for a while now.

Prince Caspian, CS Lewis - Movie's coming up - I'd like to finish it before I get to see that. It's a short read. And look, there's yet another commercial on TV for the film. Blah.

A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin - Friends have threatened me with death and other horrible things if I don't read this. It's on the list.

Neuromancer, William Gibson - A classic I've been meaning to read for a while now.

Command Decision, Elizabeth Moon - Part 4 of a series. Need to read 2 and 3 first.

Marque and Reprisal, Elizabeth Moon - Part 2 of a series. I'll get to it at some point, it's not a huge priority at the moment.

Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein - Yet another classic that I haven't read yet.

The Dragon's Nine Sons, Chris Roberson - Cover looked interesting, and it appears to be a non-Americancentric SciFi novel. Woot.

Inferno, Troy Denning - Yep, 3 books behind.

Fury, Aaron Allston - Still behind.

Revelation, Karen Traviss - Yes, I know....

SF12, Judith Merril - Set of short stories that I found for free somewhere.

And a couple others, much lower priority:

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert Heinlein - I need to finish this one.

1776, David McCullough – Still need to finish this one.

And for School:

Battle, John Lynn – Interesting book. I can't wait to read this one.

World History of Warfare, Various - Long. Not sure what I think now.

Carnage and Culture, Victor Davis Hanson - I'm not happy to be reading this one. I'm not a big fan of VDH.

A Short Guide to Ancient Warfare - It's about 100 pages or so, should be a quick read.

Coursepacks 1-3 - Hm...

Nebula Winners!

The Nebula Awards were given out over the weekend, here are the winners:

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Presented the Nebula Awards® for 2007 at the Omni Austin Hotel Downtown in Austin, Texas on April 26, 2008.

Novel: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

Novella: "Fountain of Age" by Nancy Kress

Novelette: "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" by Ted Chiang

Short Story: "Always" by Karen Joy Fowler

Script: Pan's Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro

Other presentations included:

Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling

Damon Knight Grand Master for 2008: Michael Moorcock

SFWA Service Award: Melisa Michaels and Graham P. Collins

Very excited that Pan's Labyrinth, Michael Chabon and Nancy Kress won awards, contrats to them!

75th SMH Conference

I'm currently at the 75th Society for Military History conference out in Ogden Utah, which is pretty interesting thus far. Society for Military History is the big, official group of military historians, and I'm here because of my position at Norwich University. Dr. Ehrman, our program director and Dr. Broom, out assistant program director (and incidentally, my instructor for Seminar 1) are both presenting something on the nature of online graduate schools, which is later on today. What was really cool was that I got to meet a number of instructors in the various programs that I administrate: Dr. John Broom, Dr. Dennis Showalter, Dr. Mike Wadyko, Dr. Kevin McCraine, Dr. Joyce Sampson, Dr. John House, Dr. Sanders Marble, Dr. Antulio Echevarria, Dr. Kelly Devries, Dr. Doug Peifer, Dr. John Kuen, Dr. John Votaw and a couple others. Really great to meet them all. I've attended a couple of panels already, some very interesting:

Military Support to Civil Authority: From Pax Britannica to Hurricane Katrina This was an interesting one, about the ways that the US military has approached disaster relief, through three examples - The first paper was called In Support of the Civil Power, by John Beeler, University of Alabama. This looked at how the British navy was involved with non-military roles and how they focused on police actions, such as anti-piracy, relief for Ireland and a bunch of other things. The second paper was on the 1906 Earthquake in San Fransisco (ironically 102 years to the day): In Support of Civil Power, by Charles Bylar, Carroll College. This one discussed several legal issues that arose - after the earthquake, a local military commander ordered his troops into the city and placed them under command of the mayor, to help evacuate people, prevent looting and rioting. This was a completely illegal action, and it's thought that a number of people died as a result of this, although there was little public outcry at the time. The last paper was entitled The Air National Guard's Response to Hurricane Katrina by David Anderson, Air National Guard History Office, which focused on how the Air National guard was able to supply and evacuate hurricane victims, which was not as interesting to me.

The second panel that I attended was called Nationalism and British Military History, 1850s to 1914, which I found really fascinating. The three panelists were a lot younger, and there was a different dynamic to the presentations. The first paper was Moral Militarism in Victorian and Edwardian Britain by Stephen Shapiro, Ohio State University, which looked at volunteer militant forces and the fear of French invasions of England, and a number of trends associated with that. This one was interesting, as it highlighted some interesting aspects to the way the British public and the army interacted, or didn't interact. The second was a paper by Kate Epstein, called Torpedo Development in Victorian Britain, which seemed a little scattered, but mainly looked at political developments and the development of the British Military during this era. The last paper was Nation, Identity and Conflict: British Popular conceptions of War and Martial Service in the Summer of 1914 - this one had a lot to do with the upcoming first World War, and a fairly dramatic public shift in opinion of military service from it being the lowest occupation to a highly thought of one.

I'm looking to hit a couple others later on today after Lunch, What Good is an Educational Philosophy if it doesn't get your heart racing, about online graduate studies, and Nothing but Blood and Slaughter: The Southern Tory/Whig conflict in the American Revolution. There's also a banquet later on that I'll be at.

One of the highlights thus far was meeting up with members of the Alpine Garrison for dinner last night, which was an absolute blast - got to meet several people, including the LCO, Mark Fordam, which was neat. I'll probably talk about that on my trooper blog at some point.

Also, there's a ton of booksellers here, and they've really discounted their books. I've gotten the following:

The Big Red One, by James Scott Wheeler, about the 1st Infantry Division from WWI through Desert Storm. Western Warfare 1775-1882, by Jeremy Black - this and the next are about military theory in the West (Europe and US) Warfare in the Western World 1882-1975 by Jeremy Black (Both by him signed) The Great Uprising in India 1857-58, by Rosie Llewllyn-Jones Gathering at the Golden Gate: Mobilizing for War in the Philippines, 1898, Stephen D. Coats

More Later...

Costumes and Fandom

My parents have been longtime subscribers to The New Yorker magazine. I never really read a whole lot of the issues, but I did come across an interesting article by author Michael Chabon, the author of one of my favorite books of all time, the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which follows the history of comics pretty closely, and has brought out a couple of comics based off of its title character, the Escapist. The article, called Secret Skin, is part biographical essay and part examination at the characters in the superhero genre, mainly in what their costumes mean and represent. It's a brilliant article, covering a number of things that I'd never really given any thought to. The first real theme of the article is how people immerse themselves into their fantasy characters. He starts with an antidotal story that a teach told him in class, about how a boy tied a red towel around his neck as a cape and jumped from a building, hoping to fly, with the explanation being that the boy could not distinguish between reality and the reality that he saw in comic books. He then goes on to reminisce about times when he dressed up as a superhero, as Batman or Superman, to some of his own superheroes that were created out of pure convenience, and he then goes on to speak on transformation. This, I feel is one of the defining elements of Science Fiction and Fantasy fandom, at least a part of it. I don't do a whole lot with costuming - only armor from the Star Wars movies, but I think that this applies somewhat. Chabon describes what he sees in conventions (which he frequents often - an audio interview with him via the New Yorker's site speaks on this) as a disappointment. He describes, in the article that oftentimes, despite extensive attention to detail and elaborate care, costumes fall short of what they resemble: "Without exception, even the most splendid of these getups is at best a disappointment . . . acts to spoil what is instantly revealed to have been, all along, an illusion." (Chabon, The New Yorker, March 10, 2008, 66) I don't believe that he intends these remarks as a criticism of fans that spend the time and effort, or of their accuracy, but rather, that they miss the point. Merely putting on a costume doesn't automatically turn one into a superhero, as the boy who jumped off the roof found. The costumes aren't real, they aren't a character, and their creators are creating a replica of an illusion. From here on, he discusses some of the elements that make up a superhero's costume, and chiefly examines them as an extension of the character. This is one of the interesting points where form seems to follow function, at least to some extent. He looks at the components, the mask, gloves, boots, suits, capes, and symbols, and most importantly, how all of these components relate to the person's identity. Symbols relate to very personal elements to the characters, to how this tells a story. In the audio interview, he describes the costume as an idea that wraps up a person in a number of sub stories and meanings, and how that translates the person underneath into the embodiment of an idea. "Now the time has come to propose, or confront, a fundamental truth: like the being who wears it, the superhero costume is, by definition, an impossible object. It cannot exist." (Chabon, 66) Not to say that it can't be replicated down to exacting details. I think that with a replication, you only get the appearance, nothing more. However, I think that it's how people perceive these characters that have come to life, rather than what the costume itself brings to the table - people around you make it more than just a costume. The costumer and viewer need to come together in order to make the illusion work. One instills wonder, and there has to be wonder, excitement, coming from the viewer. I've sort of found this when I don my TK armor. A friend of mine once told me that I hold myself much differently once it's on, almost like I'm a different person. I've sort of felt that as well. In a way, I think all costumers have a similar feeling - we don't become the character at all, we represent their ideas, that feeling that we'd get as children reading a comic book under the covers or watching Star Wars for the first time. It's a way of honoring the character or figure, not becoming them. The time and energy spent on their creation is almost a work of love, an homage to something that really inspires us. Michael Chabon isn't really criticizing fans for their efforts, I think. I think that a lot of other people do, because they don't really get this depth and this love. I don't really agree that costumes are a disappointment really - although there are some really strange ones out there - it's quite something, especially for the younger kids, to see your favorite character walking around, right there, in the flesh, and he shakes your hand. I do think that he's right when he says that when you see a character as an adult, you think "cool costume" and look at it in purely practical terms, whereas a child might see that and encapsulate that with everything that they've read and seen, not making the distinction that all you really have is a representation. Maybe even some adults. And that's what makes it all worth doing. I highly, highly recommend checking out this article if you've been to a Con, do costuming, a SF/F genre fan or even someone outside of all that. Read it, and let me know what you think, I'd be interested in hearing other reactions beyond my own. I have a feeling that this'll prompt a couple more things from me, which I'll be interested to see what direction it takes me in.

The full article can be read here: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/10/080310fa_fact_chabon

Hugo Awards!

From the SciFiWire: Nominees have been announced for this year's Hugo Awards. Winners will be announced at the 66th World Science Fiction Convention, Aug. 6-10, in Denver. A complete list of nominees follows.

Best Novel: The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon, Brasyl by Ian McDonald, Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer, The Last Colony by John Scalzi, Halting State by Charles Stross

I'm rooting for Charles Stross. I haven't read that book, but out of all those authors, he's my favorite.

Best Novella: "Fountains of Age" by Nancy Kress, "Recovering Apollo 8" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, "Stars Seen Through Stone" by Lucius Shepard, "All Seated on the Ground" by Connie Willis, "Memorare" by Gene Wolfe

Hm, there's some good ones there. Nancy Kress and Connie Willis are some good ones.

Best Novelette: "The Cambist and Lord Iron: a Fairytale of Economics" by Daniel Abraham, "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" by Ted Chiang, "Dark Integers" by Greg Egan, "Glory" by Greg Egan, "Finisterra" by David Moles

Haven't read any of these, and I'm not familiar with a lot of the authors.

Best Short Story: "Last Contact" by Stephen Baxter, "Tideline" by Elizabeth Bear, "Who's Afraid of Wolf 359?" by Ken MacLeod, "Distant Replay" by Mike Resnick, "A Small Room in Koboldtown" by Michael Swanwick

Stephen Baxter's Last Contact.

Best Related Book: The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community by Diana Glyer; Breakfast in the Ruins: Science Fiction in the Last Millennium by Barry Malzberg; Emshwiller: Infinity x Two by Luis Ortiz; Brave New Words: the Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction by Jeff Prucher; The Arrival by Shaun Tan

Brave New Words: That's a really, really good one.

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Enchanted; The Golden Compass; Heroes, season one; Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix; Stardust

Hm... the whole season of Heroes? Either that or Stardust.

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: Battlestar Galactica: Razor; Dr. Who, "Blink"; Dr. Who, "Human Nature"/"Family of Blood"; Star Trek New Voyages, "World Enough and Time"; Torchwood, "Captain Jack Harkness"

Battlestar Galactica: Razor. Or Blink, both are fantastic.

I don't really have an opinion on the following:

Best Professional Editor, Short Form: Ellen Datlow, Stanley Schmidt, Jonathan Strahan, Gordon Van Gelder, Sheila Williams Best Professional Editor, Long Form: Lou Anders, Ginjer Buchanan, David G. Hartwell, Beth Meacham, Patrick Nielsen Hayden Best Professional Artist: Bob Eggleton, Phil Foglio, John Harris, Stephan Martiniere, John Picacio, Shaun Tan Best Semiprozine: Ansible, Helix, Interzone, Locus, The New York Review of Science Fiction Best Fanzine: Argentus, Challenger, Drink Tank, File 770, PLOKTA Best Fan Writer: Chris Garcia, David Langford, Cheryl Morgan, John Scalzi, Steven H. Silver Best Fan Artist: Brad Foster, Teddy Harvia, Sue Mason, Steve Stiles, Taral Wayne

John Adams

I really, really want to see this: I'm a big fan of David McCollough as a historian, and while I haven't read this book yet, damn, this looks like a good production. I just don't get HBO. Bugger.

RIP: Sir Arthur C Clark

I caught the news last night on my cell phone - British author Sir Arthur C. Clark died yesterday at the age of 90.

Honestly, I'm upset. Clarke has long been a favorite author of mine, ever since I read his brilliant short novel 2001, and numerous short stories and novels that he's penned over the years. 2001 is by far one of my favorite science fiction movies of all time, and the book is just as good. Of all his short stories, I don't think that I can pick out a favorite - there are so many good ones.

This is a huge blow to the Science Fiction community - Clark has long been regarded as one of the biggest figures in the genre, with his expertise and sheer brilliance when it came to what the future might hold. Clark was one of the giants, right up there, if not surpassing Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and Frank Herbert. There will never, ever be anybody else like him, or one with his stature.

In addition to his Science Fiction, I've come across Clark a number of times when I've been reading about the development of the space program, to various capabilities in the development of Rockets and a proponent of space travel. So far as I know, he's been active in space exploration and in science fiction.

May the stars never go out for him.

Sigh, More Fanboys Drama

Sometimes, I think that the internet is a wonderful tool. Other times, it seems to really bring people out of the woodwork. Not since the release of the new Battlestar Galactica have I seen so much pent-up drama and somewhat misguided angst over a film. For those of you who don't know, the upcoming movie Fanboys is about a small group of fans who go out to Skywalker Ranch to steal a print of the upcoming Phantom Menace. In version A, they steal the movie to show a dying friend, aka the Cancer Subplot. Version B, no mention of cancer, the guys just steal the movie because they want to see it first. There's been a bit of teetering about which version would be released, and it's seeming like Version B will be released to theaters.

Okay. Take a breath. I was looking forwards to the Version A, because it does have that heart and moral point that would set this film apart from other comedies that are out there. Granted, there's nothing in the trailer that shows the Version A, and the trailer alone is pretty funny, so I think that regardless, we're going to get a pretty funny, if somewhat more mindless movie, which is fine - I go to a comedy to laugh, not necessarily for a profoundly interesting story.

Now, where the 501st comes in. They were in the movie - The Dunes Sea Garrison was part of the film, and they supplied some props for the film. This is pretty cool, to get some troopers on the big screen. We also got reined into this when someone started bandying our name around when they started a web-based protest against the film, the Stop Darth Weinstein movement. Or myspace.

We sent them off an e-mail about their use of our name and logo, because as a legion, we don't have a stance on the film yet. And while members have a range of opinions, using our name in that way paints our whole group in a bad light, something that we really don't want.

To me, the SDW group is really overreacting and injecting a whole lot more drama into a situation that really doesn't warrant it. While it's a little redundant to say "It's just a movie", we are all movie fans here, and Star Wars is something that a lot of us have gotten emotionally attached to. Fanboys, a film that hasn't even been released yet, isn't something to get attached to.

I'm going to address some points from their blog;

The thing that people have to remember is that this is a movie - it's a product that's designed to bring in more money than it cost to make. End of story. Weinstein's is in the business to make money, and then continue to make more movies. It's senseless to boycott a movie that they're going to try and open up to a larger audience, which seems to be the case there. The original film was a Star Wars fan film, and the current director was a Star Wars fan, but this film wasn't made simply because a couple of Star Wars fans got together and into the same room.

"Last summer, the director, Kyle Newman, screened his rough cut of Fanboys for the fans at the Star Wars Celebrations in both Los Angeles and London. It received several standing ovations at both screenings. The creators of this website are fans just like you, and were at those screenings. We witnessed the audience reaction ourselves! Everyone in attendance absolutely loved the movie! Fanboys is like Stand By Me for Star Wars fans. It is the ultimate Star Wars fan film!"

Of course is recieved a standing ovation, you idiot. You're at a Star Wars convention - you're going to have an audience there that's going to absolutely love anything that has any remote connection to Star Wars. I'm sure people there loved it, and there would have been a wonderful vibe in the room - however - that's just one part of the target audience that the film's intended to go to.

"The head of the Weinstein Company, Harvey Weinstein, seems to think he'll make more money if he rips the heart out of the movie and turns it into another mindless comedy. And he thinks fans like us won't mind if he recuts FANBOYS so that it portrays Star Wars fans as idiotic criminals who would break into George Lucas's offices just because they're hopeless dorks."

I'm sure that they will make more money this way. The sad reality of American entertainment is that it's incredibly watered down. Go watch something from the UK when it comes to comedy and just see how weak some of our things are. The thing is, people here buy it. It doesn't really matter what Star Wars fans think , really. As a group, we're subject to all sorts of stereotypes, and this sort of protest, written out the way that it is, doesn't help things at all. Yes, I mind that a bunch of Star Wars fans are going to be portrayed in a humorous situation because they're geeks, but it's nothing new, and a movie isn't going to change that at all.

"Now that the film is finished, the Weinstein Company, the studio who controls the film, is trying to change the plot of the entire movie SO THAT IT RIDICULES STAR WARS FANS!

For some reason, Harvey "Darth" Weinstein thinks FANBOYS it will make more money of it mocks its target audience."

I think that was sort of going to come across in the first place - you can't have comedy without people to laugh at, and it's going to be the guys on the screen. And, as I said before, we're not the target audience. The broad 18-24 through late 30s crowd is probably the main target demographic, and they sure ain't all star wars fans. And if it's a bigger audience, it'll make more money.

Group's been sending out e-mails to people involved with the film, and received this one back allegedly from the director:

" I can hook you up with the facts on this one. My only advice is don't judge something til you have seen it. Have you seen the cancer version of this movie? I have. It is unreleaseable. It would be irresponsible to release it. The cancer is used as a convenient subplot and is actually offensive to anybody who knows anything about or has gone through cancer. Trust me. You are fighting for something that you would not be proud of. Cancer is trivialized, marginalized and reduced to the worst kind of contrivance. That is what you are fighting to see. And you will see it. At least on the dvd. And you will cringe at the bad, manipulative melodrama that goes against the true spirit of the piece.The non cancer version is true, joyful and and in no way condescending to star wars fans. But again. You should see it. And perhaps you will. If you stop ranting about things you have not seen. You honestly remind me of the religious right condemning movies and books they haven't seen or read, and have only been fed inflammatory facts about....usually from people with an agenda. Your precious Star Wars homage movie has been made, and has been preserved......you will see. And then you should apologize to Darth Weinstein......"

I somewhat doubt that this is actually from the director. However, it does have a couple of good points - The new version hasn't really been seen by anyone. The Cancer one was, and it got good reviews all around. If they can eliminate the cancer plot with just a couple of re-shoots, I highly doubt that the quality of the film will be impacted that much.

Now, I'm not thrilled that Steven Brill was handed the film - from what little I've seen of Without A Paddle, it's certainly lower common denominator comedy, but keep in mind that he was only brought in for the re-shoots - this isn't something that's likely to change the entire film from it's original screenplay - remember, they did some re shoots, but they didn't reshoot the entire film. This leads me to believe that we've got much of the original still intact.

The group's also getting a lot of press, which is just fueling them up a bit more. Weinsteins has countered:

"We are thrilled to see all this great interest and excitement for 'Fanboys.' While a potential conflict like this has not occurred since Luke last walked into that bar in Tatoonie, everyone can be assured that there has been no stir in the force and the film stays on target."

Okay, a bit mindless there, but this is generating a lot of press for the movie. The group's claiming that 500 websites list their story. That's going to bring more people out to the film to see what all the fuss is about. Any news is good news.

A nice thing is that a good chunk of people in the Star Wars community is concerned with the film's status. According to a Starwars.com poll, 75% of respondents said that they knew about the drama and were concerned. A further 2 % said that they knew about the drama, but weren't concerned. The remaining 23% didn't know and didn't care.

Okay:

"What do these poll results tell us (and Darth Weinstein)? Several things.

77% of the fans have been following the production of FANBOYS. The majority of the fans are interested enough in the movie to follow what's going on with it. Star Wars fans CARE about this movie and about how they will be portrayed in it, Darth Weinstein!

And 75% of them are "pretty concerned" with the current state of the film. A whopping 2% are "not too worried."

Someone with enough intelligence to wrap their head around these confusing numbers might get the distinct feeling that...

THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY IS ALIENATING ITS TARGET AUDIENCE!"

1 - Internet polls aren't really that reliable. This star wars one targets only people who vist the main page, and doesn't list the number of people who responded. Again, it's not targeting the entire target audience, just the built-in audience. They're annoying their built-in audience, but not alienating them. If they hired Paris Hilton, they're be alienating their built-in audience.

"Fine, Darth Weinstein. You have officially incurred the wrath of the Rebel Alliance. Our new goal is to make sure your next release (SUPERHERO MOVIE) grosses exactly $0 on its opening weekend. On the day it opens, there will be a crowd of Star Wars fans outside every theater, urging people to go see "Run Fatboy Run" instead. That movie stars Simon Pegg - and he's an actual Star Wars fan. Like all of us."

This is after the Weinstein Page changed text to reflect the new version. Please, I'm sure they're quaking in their boots. There's no way that these guys are going to have any substantial impact on the film (although I am hoping that nobody will see it - it's going to get slammed critically, and will probably earn a good spot on the top 10 for a week), because it's a known formulaic comedy. It might be crap, but two protests in the US are hardly going to slow anything down.

"The Weinstein Company has ignored the vocal outcry from Star Wars fans around the globe, all demanding that they release the original version of Fanboys.

They have ignored the results of the Official Star Wars website poll which shows that 78% of the fans are following the production of Fanboys, and that an overwhelming 94% of those fans disapprove of the changes they're making to the film!

They have ignored our pledge to boycott all Weinstein Company/Dimension films, even though our intentions have been reported in the New York Post, the Daily Telegraph, Vanity Fair, and on thousands of websites."

Um, it was 76%, and it's a 97% margin of respondants who are concerned. Let's learn to use a calculator and read the polls correctly, shall we? Again, a poll like that pulls in a small number of people out of the target demographic - it can't be construed as reliable by any stretch of the imagination. And they might have ignored the poll, so what? Honestly, this movement and your pledge aren't really that worrisome - if anything, they'll generate more interest in the film, which in turn means more people going to see it. You have just under 500 friends on myspace, which, at let's say $7 a ticket = $3500 in lost revenue. Let's count the 115 people on the facebook group as different people, and that brings up to a lost $4305. Maybe a couple hundred more in lost ticket sales to people who join on with protests. A drop in the ocean when it comes to what films take in nowadays.

Honestly, I'm just annoyed that these guys were trying to use the good name of the 501st to galvanize things. It just annoys me to no end. It seems to me that there's a lot more productive ways to go about this.

I'm looking forwards to this film, a bit less so than before the news of the recuts, but I'm still going to see it. It's not good to see what was a very promising and interesting cut of the film taken out, but for a film like this, it's not really worth getting all worked up about.

To A Distant Day

I had a really nice surprise on Friday afternoon - a package from the University of Nebraska Press with a copy of the next installment of their Outward Odyssey series, To A Distant Day, by Chris Gainor, about the human history of space exploration. I was a big fan of the first two books in the series, Into that Silent Sea and In The Shadow of the Moon, both of which dealt heavily with human space flight, with Silent Sea taking much of the earlier days from Mercury to very early Apollo and with Shadows taking the lead up to and half of the first lunar landings. In both, I was incredibly impressed with the amount of detail and narrative style of history that laid the American and Russian space programs out in the open, almost comprehensively. After reading both, I have been eagerly awaiting the next one, To A Distant Day, which is due out in April of this year, with the fourth installment due out in the fall of 2008. To A Distant Day takes a step back in the development of human space flight. Where the first two books took care of the rock-star elements of the space program, this book went back - far back to the birth of rocketry. Mercury, Gemni and Apollo would never have taken flight without the vast history of rockets behind them. Gainor's book covers the history of the development of the rocket, from Ancient China's development of gunpower and tracing the development of military rockets across Asia to Europe, through to the First and Second World Wars, while looking at some of the major figures who worked out the mathmatics and physics of rocketry. While it's arguably a more important and vast history, this book is the shortest yet of the Outward Odyssey series, clocking in at 264 pages. The earlier developments of the rocket is gone over a bit briefly, while a bulk of the attention is paid to the efforts of the German Scientists in and around the Second World War, and the Space Race between the United States and Soviet Russia. What we get is facinating, and the shorter read holds the same level of detail and care that the first two books contained. One of the things that I noted was the influence that Jules Verne, whose works constitute the first Science Fiction, had on a number of the early rocket scientists, sparking their imagination as to what was possible in the future. What's even more facinating is at how the rocket scientists around the world, linked by this book, shared a vision of a human in space. Having just started my Master's Degree in Military History through Norwich University's graduate school, it was interesting to me as to the degree to which military elements helped influence the creation of the US and Soviet space programs, especially when one considers the reluctance of multiple governments to weaponize space. The common sci-fi phrase "We come in peace" seems like hypocrisy when one considers the development of the V-1 and V-2 rockets, which helped influence both the Russian and US space programs to a huge degree. Like in the first two books, we also get a good look at how the US and Russians built up for the Cold War. This book provides a better look at the military aspects of the arms race, as much of the rocket science that the US government used was also used to build bigger and better missiles, and takes a good look at some of the technical aspects of the arms race. The author does skirt around some issues, such as the use of German scientists in the space program. A number, who had joined the Nazi party and utilized concentration camp labor, were used by the US government to build up a space program that would eventually superceed that of the USSR. While NASA and it's predecessors would not have succeeded without then, it's an uncomfortable topic that's not really addressed. This aspect of history in the space program is a lot more vast, touching on social and military aspects, and covers a lot more ground than the first two books. It's a weighty task, and the book succeeds extremely well at it, covering everything in a fair amount of detail that is neither dry nor hard to get into. I can't wait for the next installment.

The Original 6

Earlier this year, I picked up a wonderful book on the making of the first Star Wars movie - The Making Of Star Wars, by JW Rinzler. I was paging through and started looking for where they started doing things with the Storm Troopers in the film. The first reference I came across was on page 138:

"One item that stood out, however, was the cost associated with the stormtroopers, who ran up a tab of £ 40,000 ($93,000) - and whose final outfits were still not ready a week before location shooting was to begin. 'Stormtroopers were the nightmare costume' Mollo explains. 'We got a model in of suitable size, did a plaster body cast, and Liz Moore modeled the armor onto this figure. Then everybody used to go in and say, "Arm off here, arm off there," and George changed all the kneecaps. This went on for several weeks. Finally that was all taken away and produced in vacuum-form plastic - but the next question was: how foes it all go together? And I think we had something like four days before shooting, but we just played around until we managed to string it all togetgher in such a way that you could get it on or off the block in about five minutes.' 'On top of all this, George announced that he was going to take some Stormtroopers on location, and he wanted them in Combat Order. I said "Oh yes George, what's combat order for Stormtroopers?" and he said "Lots of stuff on the back". So I went into this Boy Scout shop in London and bought on of these metal backpack racks; then we took plastic seed boxes, stuck two of those together, and put four of those on the rack. Then we put a plastic drainpipe on the top, with a laboratory pipe on the side and everything was sprayed black. [laughs] This was the most amazing kind of film! George asked, "Can we get something that shows their rank?" So we took a motorcycle chest protector and put one of them on their shoulders. George said "That's great!" We painted one orange and one black and that was it!' Mollo concludes, happily." (Rinzler, 138)

Reading over that, it seems that the storm trooper armor creation was very typical of the creation of the movie - very quickly done, with a lot of improvisation, all on a fairly tight budget. The price really surprised me - $93,000 for six suits is a lot of money, especially for a film that is on such a low budget.

It appears that the troopers were created by much the same way as we make them today - vacuum-formed plastic, although there also seems to have been a lot of working out how exactly the suits would be put together, and after the fact, the sand trooper variant was created almost as an afterthought, with fairly commonly found items.

The Original Six

Further on in the book, on page 147, there's a picture of seven people - the six original storm/sandtroopers, and an unidentified person. None of the men are named. One points his gun at the camera, while the rest hold their helmets at their sides, looking at the camera. One of them is sitting on the Dewback used for the shot, looking over his shoulder at the camera. A side panel explains a little of the costuming here:

"'We had a black all-in-one leotard for the stormtrooper costumes' Mollo says, 'over which the front and back of the body went together; the shoulders fit onto the body, the arms were slid on-the top arm and the bottom arm were attached with black elastic - a belt around the waist had suspender things that the legs were attached to. They wore ordinary domestic rubber gloves, with a bit of latex shoved on the front; the boots were ordinary spring-sided black boots painted white with shoe-dye. Strange to say, it worked'" (Rinzler, 147)

Indeed it did. All components that are still used today, although in some cases with the 501st, we probably use higher quality stuff - boots that are specially made, gloves, etc.

The stormtroopers aren't really mentioned any more in the book after that point, although there are several behind the scenes images of the actors in costume, and a mention of Mark Hamil's experiences in armor (wasn't pleasant).

By and large, the original storm troopers were very expensive prop pieces, played by local Tunisians. It's a pity that their names aren't listed - it would be absolutely amazing to try and track the six men down and have them inducted into the 501st as honorary members – after all, we have them to thank for our group.

Another person who should probably be inducted into the legion would be John Mollo, the costuming designer, who took the concept images and created our suits. Mollo entered production on the movie as the department head in January of 1976 - he had been recommended to Lucas, who was looking for someone who was familiar with armor and military costuming. According to Lucas: "I wanted designs that wouldn't stand out, which would blend in and look like they belonged there." (111). Very true, and it worked - looking at the storm troopers in the film, and how people interact with them, it's very clear that these are commonplace soldiers in the Empire, and that they are wearing a very functional protective suit (although naysayers will often cite how often troopers will go down with one shot. Argument for another time...) While Ralph MqQuarrie was the original designer of the look and appearance of the storm troopers, Mollo seems to be the one who brought them to life.

(Rinzler, JW. The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film. Ballentine Books, New York, 2007. 138)

RIP Gary Gygax

Yesterday, the co-creator of the fantasy roleplaying game Dungeons and Dragons, Gary Gygax, died at his home after lengthly illness. Dunegons and Dragons is possibly one of the most important and relevant aspects of fantasy geekdom. The game, invented in 1974, has become an enduring and massive cultural phenomenon, which has taught like minded people imagination and creativity. I first started playing at Camp, with a couple of friends - we were known as the geek squad - nearly eight years ago. I look back on those gaming sessions with fondness, and look forwards to picking it up again sometime in the future. D&D seems to be an almost universal bonder for a huge number of geeks out there. Most geeks have dabbled in it at some point, and it's a source of many hours of entertainment. In a world where that term increasingly means whatever is displayed on a television screen, it's a shot of imagination. The game has gotten a bad rep from a number of groups, who've insisted that the game leads to violence, satanism and the whole nine yards. I've always stressed, in camp classes devoted to D&D and other fantasy games, that these games teach creativity, adventure and imagination. Gary will be missed by fans of the game all over the world - he apparently played the game regularly with fans until January, and was always excited to learn when the game helped somebody or made an impact in their life. In the wise words of Penny Arcade this morning, he'll be rolling in his grave.

Simple History

History is a really complicated affair, something that I don't like boiling down into simple bits, for the purpose of catering to people's disinterest. The complexities are where it gets interesting, when a number of factors are taken into events to lead to an outcome, and how that event becomes a factor in another outcome, etc. That being said, simple histories can be fun, when presented in an interesting way, and make you look at things interesting. Something that I came across earlier today is The History of Evil, in 5 minutes and 40 seconds. Very stark, minimalist animation, which looks fantastic, with a neat way of illustrating human history through the concept of evil:

Animation isn't the only way for this to happen, either. There's a book that I'm really trying to find, called A Little History of the World by E. H. Gombrich.

The book was written in 1935, and was first published in 1950. The book follows human history from cavemen to the first world war in a very simple, yet elegant fashion, incorporating just about all the major events. The book was written in a matter of weeks, and was later banned by the Nazies (the author lived in Germany). It's another example of where history can be simplified.

Good Female Sci-Fi Writers are Hard To Find?

I just came across this via Pat's Fantasy Hotlist - Orion Books and Gollancz have just launched a really, really bad ad promoting a book by a female Science Fiction author, and one that seems to say that there aren't very many female science fiction authors out there, and that good ones are even rarer. From the back cover:

"Female SF writers are a rarity; good ones are even scarcer!"

and

"Good female SF writers are hard to fine - this is sure to be included on many SF award shortlists"

I find this to be really off base and frankly, pretty offensive to a number of female science fiction and fantasy authors out there. Off the top of my head, I can think of a number of absolutely fantastic science fiction authors who are also female: Karen Traviss, Nancy Kress, Elizabeth Moon, Ursula K. Leguin, Madeleine L'Engle, Elizabeth A. Lynn, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Octavia E. Butler, Naomi Novik, Julie E. Czerneda, Karin Lowachee, Anne McCaffrey, Liz Williams, Connie Willis, Mary Shelley and a lot more. There's a good list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_science_fiction_authors

I don't doubt that this author that they're promoting is good - Jaine Fenn, with her upcoming book Principles of Angels. But to completely degrade a whole wealth of science fiction authors and their works is absolutely appalling - there's no justification for it at all.

http://fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com/2008/02/good-female-sf-writers-are-hard-to-find.html

The Science fiction field is largely unbalanced when it comes to gender. There's a lot of male science fiction authors out there, but overall, I think female authors have just as good of a time with it as men do. I don't know how they compare, but I suspect that there's a slightly more even split when it comes to awards and individual fame, once you adjust for time and cultural changes.

Of all the Science Fiction books that I'm looking forwards to this year, the most anticipated is Karen Traviss's book, Judge. I personally think that she's one of the best contemporary science fiction authors out there. Good science fiction authors aren't hard to find, and I think that nowadays? It's easier to find a woman author who can hold her own with any male author out there.

Living in the Future

I've come to an interesting conclusion the past couple weeks while driving home. We're living in the future. During my drive home every day, I usually listen to NPR's All Things Considered, and during that time, I've heard a lot of news that has made me realize that the future that most of the Science Fiction novels that I read (Usually Asimov, Heinlein and Clarke) had promised was here, although not quite in the way that we've expected, and not quite as dramatically. However, that being said, with elements of a science fiction future popping up in this day in age, it makes me wonder if other elements might be on their way soon. It's a hopeful thought. Over the past couple of days, a couple of items in the news have caught my eyes. The first is a runaway satellite that's due to cross into the Earth's Atmosphere in February 29th. Launched a couple of years ago for the US military, it was supposed to be a top of the line spy satellite. Once it reached orbit, it malfunctioned and started to de-orbit. Tonight, at 10.30, a Navy ship will shoot a missile into orbit to shoot it down before it burns up in the atmosphere. To my knowledge, a satellite has only been shot down once before, about a year ago by the Chinese. Looking at this sort of situation, I can't help but wonder if this will be a new phase of warfare over the next several decades, and it absolutely scares me - With China and India becoming dominate powers in the world, while former superpowers in Europe and North America are forced into competition for a sort of global dominance - will space become a new battleground? I can see a situation in which orbital dominance and occupation might happen. Something that I've noticed with some of the books that I've read is that there seems to be a progression in detail for most of the stories in the way that science and technology are handled. This has to do, I suspect, with the progression that technology and science itself has taken, as we further understand the world around us, and as things become more advanced. Earlier science fiction tends to handle these things in much broader strokes. I don't think it's a coincidence that we see Space Opera coming before Cyberpunk novels, and I know it isn't a coincidence that Cyberpunk novels came and have gotten a lot more sophisticated with the advancement of computers. With this parallel advancement in science and science fiction, the visions of the future between Golden and New age Science fiction novels and contemporary Science fiction have diverged, with the contemporary sci-fi becoming more and more accurate, especially when it comes to smaller details - as technology progresses, it adds opportunities for use, once authors get a good anchor point from which to work from. There are a lot of items that would have been considered fantastic and right out of science fiction even ten to twenty years ago. Items such as mobile phones, (which in and of themselves have advanced at an extremely fast rate in the past five years) portable computers, automobiles, portable music players, houses, spaceflight and warfare. Mobile phones and MP3 players now double as video players, audio recorders, telephones and web browsers. Cars now have voice activated features, interface with satellites for navigation, computers that can now fit into an envelope and homes that are becoming increasingly energy efficient and advanced. Wireless networks are everywhere - in cities, homes, along highways and more - devices are now becoming increasingly dependent on them, all while the internet continues to grow and change, where websites become integral parts of our culture. Television and video have gone digital and high definition; All items that would have likely made it into a futuristic environment. Advances in biology, another root theme in Science fiction has also made a lot of headway in the news. One distinctive news story that I remember coming across was about a burgeoning bio-research field in Iran, where there have been huge advances in cloning. Even more interesting, the FDA in the United States has approved cloned food for regular consumption. Advances in stem cells have led to promising results and even more promising Crime fighters and the military have undergone their respective advances that might have been considered science fiction as well. As the boundaries between battlefields and civilians have shrank in the years since the Second World War have necessitated huge changes in the way that force is delivered to their targets. With an increasing number of battlefields with higher numbers of civilians, accuracy has become paramount and wars are being fought with fewer casualties. Soldiers fight in the dark, call in missiles from hundreds of miles away with pinpoint accuracy, and planes are flown without pilots. Police are being issued non-lethal weapons. There are darker sides as well. The internet is growing and individual privacy has been reduced significantly. Databases of information are gathered and updated around the clock. Private information is held and used against users for shopping and browsing. It's an extremely frightening concept. All of these things have been looked at in a number of different science fiction stories, some very accurately, some not as much. I can say with relative certainty, that twenty, thirty, forty and fifty years ago, these items would have seemed absolutely fantastic and things that were not likely to come around for a lot longer. Not all of the future has come true. We don't go to the moon any more, space flight has been relegated to science that rarely yields practical results (fascinating results, but no major changes in life, at least not since Velcro was invented) and teleportation, time travel, hover cars and jet packs still have yet to come about. 2001 was an optimistic idea, but one that might come about with a little more time. Maybe space flight is about to be the next advance. Virgin Galactic is set to start launching civilian space flights for tourists out of New Mexico on a regular basis - Next year. If I could afford it, I'd buy a ticket tomorrow. There's a great quote from a film that I really like, Seabiscuit. Interestingly, it's set a turning point in the twentieth century, as the automobile is coming into larger acceptance: "I'd like to offer a toast: To the Future!"

To the future indeed. `

501st Blog

So, I've started yet another blog, this time, focusing on my work with the 501st, with news, commentary, reviews and things like that. Check it out here:

http://VTTrooper.blogspot.com

The Saturn Awards

The Acadamy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror films just released their nominations for the 34th annual Saturn Awards, one of the big heavyweight awards in the genre. Here's the nominations. I've bolded the ones that I think should win. Best Science Fiction Film

Cloverfield - Runner Up - Visually interesting, although the story is nothing new. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer I Am Legend

This film was really stunning - it was extremely well thought out and concieved, and it's got what's probably Will Smith's best performance to date.

The Last Mimzy Sunshine - Runner Up - Very interesting, trippy film. Transformers

Best Fantasy Film

Enchanted The Golden Compass Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End Spider-Man 3 Stardust

This film just rocked. It was funny, well acted and one of the better fantasy films that I've seen in a long time.

Best Horror Film

30 Days of Night 1408 Ghost Rider Grindhouse The Mist Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Didn't see any of these.

Best Action / Adventure / Thriller Film

3:10 to Yuma

I have to go with this film, because it's spectacularly acted, has a fantastic cast and amazing story. Hands down one of the best films of 2007.

300 The Bourne Ultimatum - Runner Up. Live Free or Die Hard No Country for Old Men There Will Be Blood Zodiac

Best Actor

Gerard Butler (“300”) John Cusack (“1408”) Daniel Day-Lewis (“There Will Be Blood”) Johnny Depp (“Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”) Viggo Mortensen (“Eastern Promises”) Will Smith (“I Am Legend”)

This is probably Will Smith's best acting job that I've ever seen him do. He deserves this one.

Best Actress

Amy Adams (“Enchanted”) Ashley Judd (“Bug”) Helena Bonham Carter (“Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”) Naomi Watts (“Eastern Promises”) Belen Rueda (“The Orphanage”) Carice van Houten (“Black Book”)

Haven't seen any of these.

Best Supporting Actor

Javier Bardem (“No Country for Old Men”) Ben Foster (“3:10 to Yuma”)

Ben Foster's portrayal of a somewhat insane sidekick to Russell Crowe here was just an amazing job.

James Franco (“Spider-Man 3”) Justin Long (“Live Free or Die Hard”) Alan Rickman (“Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”) David Wenham (“300”)

Best Supporting Actress

Lizzy Caplan (“Cloverfield”) Marcia Gay Harden (“The Mist”) Lena Headey (“300”) Rose McGowan (“Grindhouse” – “Planet Terror”) Michelle Pfeiffer (“Stardust”) Imelda Staunton (“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”)

Best Performance by a Younger Actor

Alex Etel (“The Water Horse”) Freddie Highmore (“August Rush”) Josh Hutcherson (“Bridge to Terabithia”) Daniel Radcliffe (“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”) Dakota Blue Richards (“The Golden Compass”)

Even though the movie wasn't the best, Richards did a wonderful job as Lyra

Rhiannon Leigh Wryn (“The Last Mimzy”) Best Direction

Tim Burton (“Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”) Frank Darabont (“The Mist”) Paul Greengrass (“The Bourne Ultimatum”) Sam Raimi (“Spider-Man 3”) Zack Snyder (“300”) David Yates (“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”)

Best Writing

Roger Avary, Neil Gaiman (“Beowulf”) Brad Bird (“Ratatouille”) Joel Coen, Ethan Coen (“No Country for Old Men”) Michael Goldenberg (“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”) Michael Gordon, Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstad (“300”) John Logan (“Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”)

Haven't seen, but No Country for Old Men will probably take this one.

Best Music

Tyler Bates (“300”) Jonny Greenwood (“There Will Be Blood”) Nicholas Hooper (“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”) Mark Mancina (“August Rush”) Alan Menken (“Enchanted”) John Powell (“The Bourne Ultimatum”)

Eh, none of these are really all that great. I'd pick Bourne, but that's because I have that one.

Best Costume

Colleen Atwood (“Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”) Ruth Myers (“The Golden Compass”) Penny Rose (“Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”) Sammy Sheldon (“Stardust”) Jany Temime (“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”) Michael Wilkinson (“300”)

Best Make-Up

Howard Berger, Greg Nicotero, Jake Garber - (“Grindhouse” – “Planet Terror”) Nick Dudman, Amanda Knight - (“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”) Davina Lamont - (“30 Days of Night”) Ve Neill, Martin Samuel - (“Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”) Peter Owen, Ivana Primorac - (“Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”) Shaun Smith, Mark Rappaport - (“300”)

Best Special Effects

Tim Burke, John Richardson, Paul Franklin, Greg Butler - (“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”) Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Russell Earl, John Frazier - (“Transformers”) Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris, Trevor Wood - (“The Golden Compass”) John Knoll, Hal Hickel, Charles Gibson, John Frazier - (“Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”) Scott Stokdyk, Peter Nofz, Spencer Cook, John R. Frazier - (“Spider-Man 3”) Chris Watts, Grant Freckelton, Derek Wentworth, Daniel Leduc - (“300”)

Best International Film

Black Book Day Watch Eastern Promises Goya’s Ghosts The Orphanage Sleuth

Best Animated Film

Beowulf Meet the Robinsons Ratatouille Shrek the Third The Simpsons Movie Surf’s Up

TELEVISION NOMINATIONS

Best Network Television Series

Heroes Lost Pushing Daisies

Best new show. Period. If you're not watching this, you should be.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Journeyman Supernatural

Best Syndicated / Cable Television Series

Dexter Battlestar Galactica

Still the best SciFi Show out there.

Stargate SG-1 The Closer Kyle XY Saving Grace

Best Presentation on Television

Battlestar Galactica: Razor The Company Fallen The Family Guy: “Blue Harvest” Masters of Science Fiction Shrek the Halls Tin Man

Either Razor or Blue Harvest. Can't tell which.

Best International Series

Doctor Who Torchwood Meadowlands (aka Cape Wrath) Jekyll Life On Mars

Life on Mars, hands down. Brilliant drama.

Robin Hood

Best Actor on Television

Matt Dallas (Kyle XY) Matthew Fox (Lost) Michael C. Hall (Dexter) Kevin McKidd (Journeyman) Edward James Olmos (Battlestar Galactica) Lee Pace (Pushing Daisies)

Best Actress on Television

Anna Friel (Pushing Daisies) Lena Headey (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) Jennifer Love Hewitt (Ghost Whisperer) Holly Hunter (Saving Grace) Evangeline Lily (Lost) Kyra Sedgwick (The Closer)

Best Supporting Actor on Television

Michael Emerson (Lost) Greg Grunberg (Heroes) Josh Holloway (Lost) Erik King (Dexter) Terry O’Quinn (Lost) Masi Oka (Heroes)

Best Supporting Actress on Television

Jaime Alexander (Kyle XY) Jennifer Carpenter (Dexter) Summer Glau (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles)

Firefly loyalty here - Summer's doing a good job though.

Elizabeth Mitchell (Lost) Jaime Murray (Dexter) Hayden Panettiere (Heroes)

DVD NOMINATIONS

Best DVD Release

Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (remix) Driftwood The Man From Earth The Nines White Noise 2

Best Special Edition DVD Release

Big (Extended Edition) Blade Runner (5 Disc Ultimate Collector’s Edition) Close Encounters of the Third Kind (30th Anniversary – Blu Ray) Death Proof (Grindhouse Presentation: Extended & Unrated) Pan’s Labyrinth (Platinum Series) Troy: Director’s Cut (Ultimate Collector’s Edition)

Best Classic Film DVD Release

Alligator The Dark Crystal Face/Off Flash Gordon The Monster Squad Witchfinder General

Best Collection on DVD

The Godzilla Collection The Mario Bava Collection (Vol. 1 & 2) The Sergio Leone Anthology The Sonny Chiba Collection Stanley Kubrick (Warner Home Video Directors Series) Vincent Price (MGM Scream Legends Collection)

Best Television Series on DVD

Eureka (Season 1) Heroes (Season 1)

Really, really good DVD Set.

Hustle (Complete Seasons 2 and 3) Lost (The Complete Third Season) MI:5 (Volumes 4 & 5) Planet Earth: The Complete BBC Series

Best Retro Television Series on DVD

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones (Volume 1: The Early Years) Count Dracula (BBC Mini-series 1977) Land of the Giants (The Full Series) Mission Impossible (The Second and Third Seasons) Twin Peaks (The Definitive Gold Box Edition) The Wild Wild West (The Second and Third Seasons)

Eh?

Writer's Strike About to End?

Various news agencies are reporting that the Writer's Guild of America and various production companies might have reached a consensus and that the strike might be ending soon. Already, Television writers have been on strike, picketing constantly, for four months, leaving all the major networks strambling for programming by rearranging their schedules or adding new reality shows to the airwaves. Some shows, such as the popular 24 have been pushed back indefinently, while others, such as Battlestar Galactica, LOST, House, and more, have incomplete seasons ready, and their runs are going to be up in the air. According to Reuters:

"Negotiators for Hollywood studios and striking writers have agreed to terms of a new contract that could be presented to union leaders in days and, if approved, end their three-month-old labor clash later this week, two sources told Reuters on Monday.

While the outlines of an accord were reached over the weekend, the two sides still need to hammer out contract language before a deal is submitted for approval to the governing boards the East and West Coast branches of the Writers Guild of America, they said."

Variety is also hopeful:

"As the lawyers work overtime to hammer out the details, scenarios are emerging that could -- underline could -- bring an end to the WGA strike as early as next week."

Finally, the New York Times is cautious, not because the writers might be returning, but because of the very nature of the strike, the playing field will be very different:

"But even as the sides were moving toward conciliation, many of those best-versed in the writers’ business were fretting that a more complicated, and perhaps less lucrative, future lies ahead. In interviews last week, lawyers and others — some of whom were granted anonymity to avoid derailing talks — cautioned that a post-strike world appeared likely to bring more imports from foreign television, diminished spending on expensive pilot episodes and even more reality programming."

I guess we'll be seeing. I hope that the strike has been helpful to the writers, and that they will get paid for the work that they do for the shows, but I'm guessing that that will come to light once the strike is over.

The next big step will be the recovery. At this point, I see it as highly unlikely that most of the current shows will recover from this strike. The current season has been effectively slashed in half. Some shows have been delayed, such as Battlestar Galactica and 24, while others have aired their current runs, and are at the mercy of the strike for their return. Heroes had done this, with a much shorter season. Hopefully, this won't impact some shows as much, but I suspect that it might be the death for some, such as Friday Night Lights.

The strike, I'm guessing, will also spell an end for some of the upper range budgets that some shows have typically employed. COupled with the financial problems of the US, numerous shows have already been dumped by studios while they tighen up their belts.

Book Blog

An update on what I've been reading recently, covering World War II, Science Fiction and the Grand Canyon. I finally finished my copy of Rick Atkinson's Pulitzer-winning book An Army At Dawn, the first in his ongoing Liberation Trilogy. I had started the book a long time ago, when I was in college, but for whatever reason, I'd never gotten around to finishing it. This time around, I was able to get through the whole thing, although it is a bit of a dense read. However, the book is chock full of details about the North African Campaign of 1942, from the beginning of the war, where the origins of the invasion were first explored, to the final battles when the German and Italian forces were driven off of the continent. This book isn't written in a vacuum either - all aspects of the campaign are explored in vivid detail. The logistics, politics, tactics, the soldiers on the front, and more is looked at over the course of the entire segment of the Second World War, one that hasn't really been explored to the extent to which other battles have been. By far, this is the best book that I've read about the African campaign during WWII.

The next book that I picked up is a new one from Adam Roberts, called the History Of Science Fiction. This is a field that holds great interest for me - and this book certainly explores the course that Science Fiction has taken - in this case, since the Ancient Greeks. This book was a little mixed for me. While it holds an incredible amount of information on the field, it's a little densely written - this book is more academic than other books that I've looked at, such as Geeks, Gangsters and the Men of Tomorrow, but it's still a fairly accessible read. Robert's main thesis concerns the changes in Science Fiction dating back to the split between Catholicism and Protestantism, between I and It and humanity (soft scifi) vs science (hard sci-fi). The thesis is interesting, but I'm not wholly won over by his arguments to this. The historical content here is in depth and fascinating. Exploring various definitions of Science Fiction based on what numerous critics have come up with, and tracing the roots of the genre since the Ancient Greeks, further expanding the field. However, it's once we reach the late 19th - 20th century with Jules Verne and H.G. Wells that the story really picks up and gets interesting, going through the golden age, new wave and modern science fiction. Once up to the 1990s, the pace drops off and seems much more constrained to the real contemporary items. Authors such as Alistair Reynolds, Ben Bova, Nancy Kress, Ken McLeod, Charles Stross, Karen Traviss and Richard Morgan are either mentioned briefly or not at all, while Science Fiction TV, is passed over with little mention at all, with only the new Battlestar Galactica really talked about. Other shows, such as Babylon 5, the various Star Treks, Stargate SG-1, Firefly and several others have had huge impacts on the field of science fiction, and by and large, media tie-ins aren't really discussed. Furthermore, the impact of fan groups isn’t discussed in too much detail either. Overall, it's a good read, but some aspects of discussion were a bit of a letdown, particularly with the 1990s. However, the passages that cover the 1930s through the 1970s are very well done.

Finally, the last book that I've finished recently was entitled How The Canyon Became Grand, a short read on the cultural and scientific history on the Grand Canyon, from the earliest encounters from explorers to today. The book is a fascinating read, one that covers a broad spectrum of topics, ranging from science, art, exploration and society. The canyon, fittingly, is the result of several geologic events coming together: the rise of the Colorado Plateau, the earlier deposition and depression of seafloor sediments and the Colorado River flowing during the uplift. Like its creation, the canyon lies at a number of intersections of American culture, helping build the United States Geological survey, becoming a corner stone of western exploration and now tourism and the National Park Service. This is explored as a perennial American creation, as the views of the canyon first appear as an impediment to exploration, a blemish on the landscape, to one of sheer beauty and majesty.

All Hell Breaks Loose

I just got back from seeing the film Cloverfield, which came out on the 18th of January. I have a couple of mixed feelings about it, but overall, I think that it was an absolutely facinating film, one that I feel will really change the way that films are made. The story, in case you haven't seen the film or haven't heard anything about it, is almost non-existent, all filmed from the point of view of Hud, the best friend of Rob, who's about to leave for Japan to become the Vice President of something. We start off with some clips of Robert and Beth, from something that was taped over about a month before. We then go to a party, where we're introduced to various people, some of whom are caught up in what happens next. There's a huge tremor, the lights go out and panic everywhere. People go up to the roof to see what happened and while up there, there's an explosion, and more panic. The rest of the movie documents a small group of four as they try and escape from the city. As they run, we get glimpses of the monster as it destroys buildings and drops smaller creatures that attack people. Rob gets a phone call from a girl, which drives much of the film from there as he and the other three people tag along as they try and get to her. A couple people are picked off. Rob's brother Jason is killed when the Brooklyn Bridge is destroyed by the monster, and one of the girls is bitten by a smaller creature and explodes shortly after they reach a makeshift Army base. Another gets onto a helicopter and escapes, and so on. Overall, there's not much to the story here, but really, a story isn't needed. Rather, we just see part of the story, but only from this one point of view, and the characters make us aware of this as they document what happens. This movie is a product of the post 9-11 and YouTube world, where anything can be documented on a camera phone or a digital camcorder, which translates into a lot of footage of the world around us. While I was watching this, I was really reminded of a bit of combat footage that some soldier caught in Fallujah, Iraq. This film keeps much of the same intensity and single-minded focus that really just gives us one piece of what is a larger event that the main characters are caught up in. The approach is brilliant, and I can't think of a more simple and interesting way to come up with a story such as this. All we see are the four main characters, as they literally run for their lives. This is a monster movie that's not about the monster, but about these mid-twenties kids who are witness to this incredible event. There's no explanation, no scientist that drones about how this came from who-knows-where, and there isn't much that we do learn. The group runs into an army group, and from what we hear from them is that they're just as in the dark as we are, except that they know that victims who've been bitten are not good (messy explosion, and probable contamination, hence the Hazmat suits), and that they have permission to shoot it. Hud, our camera man, speculates that it's from the ocean, or a government experiment. (Look at the end of the film, when there's part of a taped over section with Roger and Beth, in the corner of the ocean, you see something fall from the sky and into the ocean. Hm...) But overall, it doesn't really matter where this thing came from. There's the big version that's destroying buildings and playing baseball with the statue of liberty, and there's smaller things that seem to fall off of it that move much faster and attack people nearby. There's no time for explanation here. Just running and more running. Hud, at some point, realizes that documenting what happens here will possibly make their ordeal worth something. This comes right from this generation, with the ability to film something. The footage that we get is remarkably like homemade films from soldiers in Iraq in the middle of battle, with much of the intensity here. The events are preserved, and technology, both in capture and then distribution, have made this a practical thing for a huge group of people. Given the events of 9-11, with the images of dust-covered survivors and rubble strewn streets, this film is a direct product in theme and style. It's not too unbelievable that there would be (and probably are) a number of films shot by regular people about the events of 9-11. This is that same logic to much more fantastic proportions. With these two things put together, there's a highly successful, out of the box film here that is really something to watch. While not terribly original by any stretch of the imagination (Monster attacks city; panic ensues - this has been done to death. No pun intended.), it's a fresh look at the genre. The monster, when we do see it, is interesting, frightening and not really like anything seen before. What really makes this film work is the unknown - we don't see the monster that often, and we don't know much else about it. I think that over explanation here would have rendered much of this film useless. Already, the film has done spectacularly well at the box office - it made #1 at the box office by a large margin, and remained there for a little while, all the while this film was made for a fairly low budget. As of the time of this writing, there's already talk of a second movie (I'd hesitate to call it a sequel). This could be done really easily - there were several other people that we come across in the film who are also holding cameras. At the beginning of this film, there's an official looking seal that states that the footage is one of many recovered from the city after the event (Designated as Cloverfield), so further films aren't an improbability here. The only issue would be making sure that any future effort isn't simply a rehash of this movie - a group of kids merely running away from the monster. Future films, while retaining similar filming styles, should incorporate completely different people and catch different views of the event. I can see a video from some of the military personnel filling this void, or from medical or rescue personnel. A collection of films, all with different viewpoints of the Cloverfield event, would together tell the entire story. It's an interesting possibility, and one where I think is just begging to happen. Sequels here don't need to coincide too much with the first film, nor do they need to be wholly consistent with characters or events, just overlapping at a couple of points here and there.

Writing Slate

So, I've been doing a bit of independent projects with history since I've graduated, both centered around the history of Camp Abnaki. I started this summer with archiving a lot of the records and sorting them out in house, and from there, I embarked on two projects:

1 - Comprehensive History of Camp Abnaki. This is going to be an extremely long-term writing project, given the scope of what I'm trying to do. Rather than just writing a history paper that essentially goes from point A to B to C to D, this project is going to look at the history of Abnaki in the context of 20th century history - how major events such as the stock market crash, the first and second world wars, the cold war, outbreak of flu, the 1960s and how attitudes towards child care have been changing since 1901. This is going to take me a long time to finish, and it's currently on the back burner due to it's size and due to the next project:

2 - The life of Byron Clark. This paper's in a more complete form now, standing at 25 pages, with probably another ten or so to be written. I've just gotten Clark's journal, which I'm working on translating from cursive to a regular text file. However, in order to finish this in time, I'm going to have to forgo some of the translating and pick out sections where needed. I currently have one feeler out for a presentation at a historical conference in April, and I'm hoping to get this published (it will probably need to be edited down.) I've also currently put out requests for editing from three PhDs that I know.

3- Norwich University and the Invasion of Normandy. This was my thesis paper for my senior year at Norwich, and while I completed it for the course, topping out at 38 pages (50 with maps and sources), I'm not at the point where this is finished for me. I need to visit the National Archives and pull unit records for various infantry and armored divisions, which I found to give incredibly detailed information on the going-ons of the campaign. This is something that I'd love to get published someday.

4 - The Class the Stars Fell On - this is going to be my next project, and I'm going to start it right after I finish with my Byron Clark Paper. I came across the reference earlier this weekend when I finished Rick Atkinson's An Army At Dawn (FINALLY), when he mentioned that the American Military Academy (West Point) class of 1915 numbered 162 graduates. Out of that class, 59 were made general, two of them reaching the highest rank possible, five stars (Eisenhower and Bradley). Following that, there were two 4-star generals, seventy-three 3-stars, twenty four 2-stars and twenty four 1-stars. The intent it to examine what role this class played in the world following their graduation and why this class was so extraordinary - no class since has graduated as many people who obtained the rank of General. This will probably be a long project as well - possibly book length. I know that there's a lot of information, particularly about the more visible members of the class, such as Eisenhower and Bradley, but I'm going to need to research a lot of other people, to see what they were up to. I'm excited for the prospect of this project, and I suspect that it'll take me a bit longer than I'd like because I'll be starting my Masters in March, although maybe this can be a part of it.