Jules (Gabriel) Verne is a household name throughout the Western world, and a well-known one even outside of it. Versions of his stories have been turned into movies, TV series, video games, anime, and any other form of entertainment imaginable. For me, he was one of the original sources of wonder. I first encountered the work of Jules Verne in a hardcover abridged (probably for children) version of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Even the abridged version was fairly heavy going (I think I was [ Continue reading... ]
Under the Influence: Star Trek: The Original Series
December 21, 2012 By 4 Comments
"Space… the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds… to seek out new life and new civilizations… to boldly go where no man has gone before." There is perhaps no piece of science fiction more well-known, more roundly mocked, and more completely loved, than Star Trek, the original series. Today it may often seem quaint, old-fashioned, sometimes even wince-inducing, but in its day it was a groundbreaking and shining example of what [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: When Worlds Collide/After Worlds Collide
December 19, 2012 By 2 Comments
It is often said that "The Golden Age of Science Fiction is 12". It is certainly the case that I remember fondly many books that I discovered at that age; that was in the middle of my Junior High career, and I had been introduced the year before to Doc Smith and Christopher Anvil. Subsequently, I decided to start looking for more science fiction, and went into the library of Shaker Junior High to start looking. Having no better idea, I started looking for books that caught my eye starting at the beginning of the alphabet, and [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Brian Daley’s Coramonde
December 17, 2012 By 5 Comments
Brian Daley was a science fiction and fantasy author with a great talent for painting worlds with words – his own worlds, or those of others. He was probably best-known personally as the writer of three Han Solo novels (I believe the first three published, aside from Splinter of the Mind's Eye), and most successful as one-half of Jack McKinney, the author of the Robotech novelizations. He died, unfortunately, in the middle of his career, victim of cancer at the age of 49. I, however, remember him for two original [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: The Lords of Dûs
December 14, 2012 By 8 Comments
Some years ago, I belonged to a writer's group, one of whose members worked at a bookstore. On occasion he'd bring in a box of stripped (front cover removed) books for people to take home if they wanted. NOTE: This is an illegal practice, though I didn't know it at the time. "Stripped" books are recorded as "returned" by publishers and are supposed to be destroyed. There are aspects of this practice that I'm unsure of in terms of whether it really makes sense, but I just want to make clear I'm not promoting [ Continue reading... ]
Under the Influence: The Mighty Thor
December 13, 2012 By 5 Comments
As I mentioned in an earlier post on the D'Aulaire's Mythology books, the Norse Myths have always had a powerful symbolism for me; they were the mythology of half of my ancestors and I always liked the myths themselves. Oh, the Norse Gods were far, far from perfect, but overall they seemed more likeable and less, well, dicks than the Greek Gods, which were the other mythology that I was most exposed to. But their stories were, after all, relatively static; their stories were finished, their race was run. But then in [ Continue reading... ]
Musings on Fanfiction Part 2: Fanfiction/Fanworks and Creators
December 12, 2012 By 4 Comments
Prior to becoming an author and interacting with people on Livejournal and some other sites where fanfiction became a major force, I was only aware of "arguments" about fanfiction in a pretty narrow set of senses – whether it fit with canon or not, and whether it was well done, or not. I had really never heard any serious arguments about whether it was right or wrong to do, and the few times I'd heard it I thought these were minority (and very silly minority) opinions. I was … mistaken in that impression. [ Continue reading... ]
Musings on Fanfiction Part 1: My Experiences
December 10, 2012 By 3 Comments
The creations of fans of various media have gained more and more exposure and recognition – both good and bad – over the last several years. It isn't uncommon to see an author or other creator bemoaning the fanfics written by various fans, or even threatening legal action to stop said fanworks from being spread. Here I'm going to talk about fanfic, mostly, but touch on some of the other fan-produced material, giving my view on it as both a long-time fan of many things and as a published creator of such things – an [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Forbidden Planet
December 7, 2012 By 2 Comments
Long ago even for me – in 1976, in fact – some friends of my father's heard about my interest in science fiction and invited me to come with them to a science fiction convention – the first I would ever attend, and the last for many years: Boskone 13. I jumped at the chance and went there with Pat and Peggy Kennedy as my temporary guardians, and registered under my first "handle" – calling myself "Kimball Kinnison", appropriately if arrogantly. In retrospect, I spent an awful lot of money to go there and got a lot [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Pandora’s Legions
December 5, 2012 By 6 Comments
As I mentioned back in my discussion of Doc Smith, when I was in 6th grade my teacher Mr. Dickinson gave me two SF books to read. One of them, Second-Stage Lensmen by Doc Smith, transformed my world forever. The other was only lesser by comparison with the titanic effect of Doc's work, for it was a truly worthy work by itself: was Pandora's Planet, the earlier edition of the book reissued by Baen as Pandora's Legions. Pandora's Planet was the first story I ever encountered which was told from the point of view of the alien [ Continue reading... ]
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