AMAZING NEWS: 11/23/14

SPECIAL NEWS HIGHLIGHT: Listen to what Ursula Le Guin has to say (watch too)

SOCIAL

dalek Daleks on Patrol. Wasn’t sure whether to put this here or under Science. Considering that the Dalek’s favorite word is “exteriminate”, I figured it ought to go here.

Beauty is the Beast

Radical Radish: Links post with many interesting things to read

Review Fallout

Women Get Paid Less & Pay More

73,000 Open Access Webcams: One Could Be Yours

High Heels Positively Affect Men (well duh!) (women in heels are treated better)

Misogyny at the Border (Good Idea, UK)

Toxicity & Abuse in Online Criticism

ENTERTAINMENT

Chappie from Bloenkamp

Pern Has a Screen Writer

Serenity Firefly Flash Drive

Gozer the Destroyer (of Dogs) – she will come as one of the pre-chosen forms!

Guardians of the Galaxy Dance Off

How Guardians SHOULD Have Ended

He-Man Put Downs

Vintage SF Month Launch

A Girl Walks Home At Night review (sounds really intriguing!)

Lady Warrior added to Shadow of Mordor game

INDUSTRY

NOVA Award Winners

ISFiC Writers Contest

Glen Larson (Battlestar Galactica, Knight Rider) RIP

VICE Launches Terraform SF Magazine

SCIENCE

While You Weren’t Looking, NASA Has Built A Hiway to the Stars

There Might Just Be Life Without Water

Listen to the WiFi

Two Female Astronauts on ISS (they did NOT bring high heels with them)

Wonderful! Now there is a reason to go into space!

NEWSLETTERS & PR

Norwescon 38

Distant Horizons, Epic Adventures

Norwescon 37 Postcon Report

Finally, that piece of news you have all been waiting for, we give you the Norwescon 37 Postcon Report.

Scheduled Gaming

Scheduled gaming’s deadline for full advertisement of your game is coming up! Submit your games by Dec. 1 to have full advertising by our publications team. Emailgaming@norwescon.org with your game to get started. After Dec 1, your game can still be scheduled, but it will not be in the program book and will be scheduled after all the games submitted by the deadline. Gaming is also still recruiting room staff; we would like a LARP Track Lead to help us recruit and organize LARPs. Again, email gaming@norwescon.orgif you’d like to sign up as a gaming staffer. Meeting attendance is not mandatory for most room staff, except for the last meeting before the convention. If you can’t make meetings, but would still like to work in gaming, drop us a line!

Volunteer Announcement

Norwescon relies solely on a volunteer staff to ensure everyone has a great convention experience. Please consider donating some time, and volunteer to help make this year’s convention the best one yet.

If you are interested in the planning and running of the convention, please join us at the next planning meeting November 22, 12:00-4:30. If you find yourself with a little time during the convention, please visit the Volunteer Lounge, and we will be happy to find you something to do.

Lobby Services

Can, Make, Do?

Art in Action is a place for artists and makers to share their craft with other Norwescon member, and applications are now being accepted for Norwescon 38, beginning at the con on Thursday at 3:30 p.m. and closing at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday. Norwescon attendees are encouraged to sign up for a time slot/table using our online form. More information is found in theguidelines.

New this year – time slots will be offset 30 minutes from the top of the hour to make improve coordination with scheduling and general crowd control. Electricity and audience seating are also available. Remember, participants must have a Norwescon membership, so buy yours now before the price increases!

Last Call for Club Tables

Norwescon offers table space to clubs, groups, conventions, and organizations that promote science, science fiction, fantasy, costuming, and other fannish pursuits. This table space is an opportunity to share your enthusiasm with Norwescon members who have similar interests. Applications may be submitted via the website until November 21 at 6pm PST. The selection committee will make their selections at the November ConCom meeting, and notices will be sent to participants shortly thereafter. We hope this will allow people to best plan their Norwescon attendance. This will also ensure participating groups have the opportunity to include their information in the Norwescon program book.

Fairwood Writers

Want to take your writing to the next level? The Norwescon Writers Workshop offers extra help with improving your short fiction or novel. Fiction writing professionals will give you feedback on your work. You’ll find guidelines here, but don’t delay! Submit your work by 11:59pm PST on November 30 for a place in the 2015 workshop.

Cascadia’s Got Talent

DISTANT EARLY WARNING — THIS IS NOT A DRILL; IT’S AN ANNOUNCEMENT!

Cascadia’s Got Talent, our very silly talent show, has grown too big for its britches and is moving up in the world. Last year, we broke out of the Tower and made it back to the main floor. This year, we have big ideas, big plans, and big, big delusions of grandeur. We’re talking a headline show, baby – and YOU, yes you, can be a part of it. No, even better – you could be the star!

Have you got a talent? Practice up. This could be your day to shine! Details to come.

Let’s Make a Movie

Since 1999, the Let’s Make a Movie workshop at Norwescon has consistently produced hilarious, thoughtful, fun, uplifting, and just plain weird movies. Professionals and amateurs alike have participated, and it is always a barrel of hilarious fun-monkeys.

Other conventions have tried to mimic the workshop, but they just didn’t manage to pull it off. Perhaps there are dangerous microwaves? More likely, the particular combination of participants is the key – a group of professional filmmakers and teachers who not only love their craft but love teaching others.

Not to be accused of resting on its laurels, in 2015, the Let’s Make a Movie workshop is expanding!

In addition to workshops on basic filmmaking, shooting, low-budget special effects, and editing, the Let’s Make a Movie track is adding three brand new panels:

Let’s Make a Movie – Break it Down

It’s one thing to read a script and imagine epic space battles across thirty five planets, seven historical periods, three different kinds of airship, and an underground lizard-man lair. It’s quite another to break that script down and figure out exactly what needs to happen to go from paper to, “Okay, roll camera!” Our experts walk you through the process using examples from their own movies and maybe something we make up just for this event!

Let’s Make a Movie – “What’s my Motivation?” Working with Actors

They are the heart and soul of your production, and yet they also have feelings and desires and needs to make their own mark, too. In between tyranny and chaos lies the perfect balance of working well with your actors, and our panel of distinguished directors will walk you through how they went from a character on paper to a terrifying screen presence.

Let’s Make a Movie – The Other Two-Thirds: Lights and Sound

If there’s anything that identifies an amateur movie production as amateur, it’s the lighting and the sound. A simple lighting setup done right can do more for a mood than all the scary music in the world. Come join our filmmakers for a hands-on demonstration of lighting tricks, a chat about good sound versus bad sound, and answers to almost every question you might have.

This is a valuable and unique opportunity for amateur and other filmmakers to learn in an intense and fun environment, while putting Norwescon at the forefront of offering this kind of workshop sequence.

Come check it out!

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Wolfram’s Free Fiction Update

Free SF, Fantasy and Horror Fiction Newsletter #44

Don’t Miss These Links:

Written

Beneath Ceaseless Skies #160 – November 13, 2014: [Fantasy Magazine]
- “A Guest of the Cockroach Club” by M. Bennardo
- “The Streetking” by Peter Hickman [also available in audio]
@Cosmos Magazine: “Murdering Miss Deboo” by Sean Williams [Science Fiction]
@Daily Science Fiction: “The Nixie Revels” by Andrew Kaye [Fantasy]
@Lightspeed Magazine:
- “A Flock of Grief” by Kat Howard [Fantasy – also available in audio]
- “Spidersong” by Susan Petrey [Science Fiction]
@Mad Scientist Journal: “Weather is a Zero-sum Game” by Judith Field[Science Fiction]
@Nightmare Magazine: “Rebecka” by Karin Tidbeck [Horror]
@Strange Horizons: “A Moon for the Unborn” by Indrapramit Das [Science Fiction – also available in audio]
@Weird Fiction Review: “The Sound of the Mill” by Marcel Béalu, Translated by Michael Cisco [Weird]
@The WiFiles: “Forked Tongues” by Jill Corddry [Dark Fantasy]

Written – Flash

@365 tomorrows:
- “A Lesson in Being Human” by Doug Robbins [Science Fiction Flash]
- “Airlift” by Chris McCormick [Science Fiction Flash]
- “Enhanced Matching” by CR Briffett [Science Fiction Flash]
- “Ever Forward” by S T Xavier [Science Fiction Flash]
- “In Case of Emergency” by Steve Smith [Science Fiction Flash]
- “Six Degrees of Sky” by Jae Miles [Science Fiction Flash]
- “The Prisoner” by Roger Dale Trexler [Science Fiction Flash]
@Daily Science Fiction:
- “Real Things We Learned as a Fake Band” by James Beamon [Science Fiction Flash]
- “The Most Elusive Game” by K. J. Zimring [Fantasy Flash]
- “Trending” by Ian Whates [Science Fiction Flash]
- “When Robot Mermaids Attack” by Oliver Buckram [Science Fiction Flash]
@Every Day Fiction:
- “5 SECONDS • by Deven D Atkinson” by Camille Gooderham Campbell[Time Travel Flash]
- “Tell Me” by Edward Ashton [Fantasy Flash]
- “Used Time Machine For Sale” by Kelsey Snyder [Time Travel Flash]
@Farther Stars Than These: “Explosions and Collapses “ by W. T. Paterson[Science Fiction Flash]
@MicroHorror:
- “Lia Sianna’s Last Dance” by Chris Yodice [Horror Flash]
- “Okeegara” by Iain Aschendale [Horror Flash]
- “The Fetch” by Jonathan Helland [Horror Flash]
@Nature: “Möbius” by J. W. Alden [Science Fiction Flash]
@Short-Story.me:
- “Cry of the Wendigo” by Louise Ann Barton [Horror Flash]
- “The Three Dolls” by Dominic Robertson [Horror Flash]
@Weirdyear: “Picture This” by David Castlewitz [Weird Flash]

Written – Serialized

@Strange Horizons: She Commands Me and I Obey by Ann Leckie – Part 1 of 2 [Speculative Fiction – also available in audio]
@Author’s Site: Musketeer Space by Tansy Rayner Roberts – Part 26 – “Rendezvous at the Fountain of Tranquility” [Space Opera Serialization]
@Author’s Site: New Dawn by Andrew James Morgan – Chapter 14 [Science Fiction Novel Serialization]

Audio

Beam Me Up! Podcast #431 by [Science Fiction]
Beneath Ceaseless Skies Audio Vault #009 – “Ill-Met at Midnight” by David Tallerman [Fantasy]
Beneath Ceaseless Skies Podcast #139 – “The Streetking” by Peter Hickman[Fantasy]
Drabblecast #342 – “I’m Bill Kurtis” by Victor Schultz [Horror]
Far Fetched Fables #30 – “Keeper of Memory” by Todd Lockwood and “Awakening” by Valjeanne Jeffers [Fantasy]
@Lightspeed Magazine: “A Flock of Grief” by Kat Howard [Fantasy]
@Relic Radio: Lights Out –“Murder Castle” [Horror Radio Drama – from 1943]
@StarShipSofa:
- #361 –“The Mouse Ran Down” and “21st Century Girl” by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and “The Drained World” by Ian Watson [Science Fiction]
- #362 –“I Love You Like Water” by Angela Slatter and “About Face” by Matthew Sanborn Smith [Science Fiction]
@Strange Horizons: “A Moon for the Unborn” by Indrapramit Das [Science Fiction]
Tales To Terrify #148 – “Green Thumb” by Nancy Kress and “Reconstructing Amy” by Tim Lebbon by [Horror]

Audio – Radio Dramas

@Boxcars711 Old Time Radio Pod: The Sealed Book –“Beware Of Tomorrow”[Horror / Science Fiction Radio Drama – from 1945]
@Relic Radio: X Minus One –“Chain Of Command” [Science Fiction Radio Drama – from 1956]

Audio – Serialized

@Aftermath:
- Season 1, Episode 1 –“The Lock In” [Post-Apocalyptic Serial]
- Season 1, Episode 2 –“New Rules” [Post-Apocalyptic Serial]
- Season 1, Episode 3 –“Jaded Hopes” [Post-Apocalyptic Serial]
- Season 1, Episode 4 –“Doctor’s Orders” [Post-Apocalyptic Serial]
- Season 1, Episode 5 –“Steel Birds” [Post-Apocalyptic Serial]
- Season 1, Episode 6 –“Absent Friends” [Post-Apocalyptic Serial]
- Season 2, Episode 1 –“New Blood” [Post-Apocalyptic Serial]
- Season 2, Episode 2 –“Breaking the Ice” [Post-Apocalyptic Serial]
- Season 2, Episode 3 –“Deadbolt” [Post-Apocalyptic Serial]
- Season 2, Episode 4 –“Shanghai” [Post-Apocalyptic Serial]
@Strange Horizons: She Commands Me and I Obey by Ann Leckie – Part 1 of 2 [Speculative Fiction]

Free eBooks – Science Fiction

From Chaos Born (The First Empress, #1) by Michael R. HicksFor long millennia, the Kreelan race has been ruled by war. Countless civilizations have risen amidst bloody conflict before falling back into savagery, with total annihilation averted only by the unnatural powers of the warrior priests and priestesses of the ancient orders. And then one day a mysterious warrior from a brooding fortress deep in the Great Wastelands began her bloody rise to power. Syr-Nagath, known as the Dark Queen, began a new war of conquest, secretly planning to destroy the ancient orders and resurrect the dark ways of the apocalyptic past. What she did not anticipate was the birth of Keel-Tath, a child unlike any other. Keel-Tath’s birth was foretold in an ancient prophecy, and was destined to wield the great powers of all the ancient orders to unite her race across the Homeworld and among the stars. But she could only fulfill her destiny if she lived…[Space Opera Novel – First of Series – Amazon]

Pennsylvania – Book One by Michael Bunker Jedidiah Troyer is now a traveler. He has signed up for an emigration program that is colonizing the planet of New Pennsylvania. He just wants to start a farm and homestead on affordable land in a new Amish community. Space pioneering isn’t as easy as it sounds when you’re “plain.” Things might work out for Jed… if he can ever get to his new home.[Science Fiction Novelette – First of Series – Amazon | B&N | Kobo |Smashwords]

Singularity (The Archon Sequence #1) by Bill DeSmedt June 30th, 1908 — In the remote Tunguska region of Siberia, the most violent cosmic collision in recorded history flattened ancient forests over an area half the size of Rhode Island. Yet after a hundred years of international scientific research the cause of this impact remains a mystery. A Maverick Astrophysicist Jack Adler thinks he’s fingered the culprit: a submicroscopic black hole, smaller than an atom, heavier than a mountain, older than the stars. What’s more, that fantastic object is still down there, deep inside the Earth, burrowing through the mantle in an ever-decaying orbit that will end only when it has devoured the entire planet. A Rookie Secret Agent Marianna Bonaventure is tracking three missing scientists suspected of involvement in weapons of mass destruction research. The trail leads to Rusalka, the luxurious floating corporate headquarters of billionaire Russian industrialist Arkady Grishin. Determined to prove herself, Marianna creates an elaborate ruse in order to infiltrate the megayacht — a dangerous gambit that requires the coerced cooperation of a rather special civilian … An Uncanny Consultant Jonathan Knox is one of the country’s most sought-after analysts; his knack for intuiting hidden relationships among seemingly disparate events serves his Fortune-50 clients well. But when Marianna compels the reluctant Knox to join her undercover mission, he must grapple with puzzles of a whole different order of magnitude. Against violent and cunning opposition, the three of them unearth a scheme to capture the submicroscopic black hole that caused the Tunguska Event and use its awesome power to transform the world — or end it altogether. [Science Fiction Novel – First of Series – Amazon]

@Dreaming 2074: A Utopia Created by French Luxury by [Science Fiction Anthology – EPUB, MOBI, PDF – Dreaming 2074]

Free eBooks – Science Fiction – Young Adult

Fatal Boarding (Fatal Boarding #1) by E.R. Mason “I have never believed in going strictly by the book. My six-foot-two frame has an assortment of scars and marks that readily attest to that. It’s the main reason I’ve never been offered a higher position on a big-draft. But, when things really go to hell, I’m always the first one to get the call. They trust me with their lives, but not their jobs.” -Adrian Tarn, Chief Security Officer, Starship Electra [YA Science Fiction Adventure Novel – First of Series –Amazon]

Deep Crossing (Fatal Boarding #2) by E.R. Mason No one on Earth could ever convince Adrian Tarn to take an untested prototype spacecraft deeper into unexplored space than anyone had ever been, to retrieve a mysterious artifact never before seen by humans. No one on Earth could ever convince him, but someone did… [YA Science Fiction Adventure Novel – Second of Series – Amazon]

Free eBooks – Post-Apocalyptic and Dystopian – Young Adult

Open Minds (Book One of the Mindjack Trilogy) by Susan Kaye Quinn When everyone reads minds, a secret is a dangerous thing to keep. [YA Dystopian Novel – First of Series – Amazon | Kobo |Smashwords]

Free eBooks – Fantasy – Young Adult

Ruby Blue (Ruby Blue #1) by Julie Cassar Meet Ruby. She’s your average (somewhat dorky) ice-cream eating, garden-loving teenager, who is constantly being annoyed by her little brother, is best friends with possibly the only Goth kid in town and, oh yeah…she sees fairies. [YA Fantasy Novel – First of Series –Amazon]

Free eBooks – Zombies

Among the Dead and Dying (Among the Masses #1) by A.R. Wise Thousands of years after a zombie apocalypse wiped out the majority of humans, the world is a very different and harsh place. It’s safest to live behind the fortified walls of the Kingdom of Golden Rock, or it least it had been. Rumors of an army of dead led by a man calling himself The Scholar have proven true, and even the most secure cities are no match for his undead soldiers. The Scholar’s goal is to crush the world of the living, but he also wants to capture a simple baker named Saffi, though no one seems to know why. affi’s father vows to protect his daughter, and flees The Scholar’s path, only to fall prey to other evils of the world outside the walls. In just one day’s time, Ward and Saffi’s lives will be forever altered, and the secret about why The Scholar wants her will be revealed.[Zombie Novel – First of Series – Amazon]

LZR-1143: Infection (Book One) by Bryan James Until he was convicted of murdering his wife and condemned to a life sentence in a psychiatric prison, Mike McKnight was a movie star. A real, live action hero. But the mysterious circumstances surrounding his beloved wife’s death pointed a damning finger at just one person: him. He was tried by a world that hated him. He was convicted by a jury who never doubted his guilt. He was discarded and forgotten, locked away by a society that moved on. At least until the zombies showed up. [Zombie Novel – First of Series – Amazon | Smashwords]

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