Plasma: What’s hot today
Sunburst
Quill and Quire reports that the Sunburst award faces an uncertain future after losing their anonymous core backer for the last couple of years. A juried award, the Sunburst is Canada’s richest prize for genre specific fiction and has given a boost to many of our authors.http://www.sunburstaward.org/
Cerebral SF
It’s hard enough to get two people to agree on something, but ask a larger group what their picks are for “Top Cerebral SF flicks of all time” and you’re simply asking for trouble. WIRED posted their selection recently, and faced a storm of criticism, most grievously for leaving out “Blade Runner”WIRED top Cerebral SF flicks of all time
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/07/gallery-cerebral-sci-fi-films/
versus:
WIRED READERS’ top Cerebral SF flicks of all time:
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/08/cerebral-sci-fi-cinema-readers/
The 10 Greatest Fictional Inventors of all time
If you’re a fan of the work of Emmett Brown, the Brain, or Major Boothroyd, you might enjoy Gizmodo’s The 10 Greatest Fictional Inventors of All Time“National Buy a Book Day” - September 7th
(updated September 3)National Buy a Book Day is the Brain-child of Philip Athans and falls on the day before International Literacy Day. It is intended to offer readers a solid way to show our support for Writers, Publishers, and book-sellers, by all purchasing one new book on a single day. Autumn is an ideal time to prepare for the Canadian Winter we are all so proud to hate. Why not take a chance? throw caution to the wind and buy a new book on September 7. Read more in Phillip’s blog post, here:
http://www.graspingforthewind.com/2010/08/19/september-7-national-buy-a-book-day
FanFlares: Gatherings of a Fannish Nature
C.U.F.F.Canadian Unity Fan Fund is a way of promoting East/West fan interaction. Each year, a delegate is selected from one side of the county ( as divided by the Manitoba/Ontario border) to travel to a con on the opposite side. Funds raised for CUFF help to pay the fan’s costs for the trip. At the end, the fan who was that year’s recipient manages the fund for the next year, and arranges an election among fans to choose their successor. Diane Lacey, last year’s CUFF delegate from Eastern Canada indicates that she is gearing up to start the process for 2011.
Aurora news:
The CSFFA is continuing distribution of the Aurora Finalist pins that were donated by Conadian, and made their first appearance at the Aurora Ceremony at Keycon in May of this year. Based on the Aurora award itself, the pins are being distributed to all previous finalists at several events across Canada this fall. The first two scheduled events art Vcon and Con*Cept. Both taking place on the first weekend in October. (in Vancouver and Montreal) The CSFFA is asking fans assistance in tracking down previous finalists. If you are a previous finalist for an Aurora, or know of one, who is eagerly awaiting this fine looking piece of Canadian Genre Bling, you are asked to contact them at csffa.publicity@gmail.com.Mega Joules: Large releases of Fannish energy
- Vcon - Oct 1-3, 2010
- Vancouver Airport Marriott Hotel, 7571 Westminster Highway, Richmond, BC, V6X 1A3
- GoH: Author Guest of Honour: Cherie Priest, Artist Guest of Honour: James Beveridge, Music Guest of Honour: Heather Dale
- Vancouver's Science Fiction & Fantasy Convention. Theme: Steampunk: From Alchemy to Zeppelins
- Con*Cept - Oct 1-3, 2010
- Hotel Espresso, Montreal, QC, Canada
- GoH: Tad Williams, Deborah Beale, Nicki Clyne
- Montreal's annual SF and fantasy convention
- Con-Version Oct 15-17, 2010
- Calgary Alberta, Canada
- Robert Picardo, John de Lancie, Marina Sirtis, Ethan Phillips, Chase Masterson, David B. Coe, Sean Cummings, The 404s, HeroIncredible
- Calgary's longest running Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Convention.
- Pure Spec Oct 22-24
- Edmonton Alberta, Canada
- Tanya Huff, Andrew Hackard, Mark Askwith
- Edmonton’s Friendly Little SF&F Fesitval.
- Toronto SpecFic Colloquium - Oct 23, 2010
- Hart House, Toronto, Ontario
- Guests: Peter Watts, Karl Schroeder, Tony Burgess, Gemma Files
- World Fantasy Convention - Oct 28-31, 2010
- Hyatt Regency Hotel, Columbus OH
- Guests of Honor: Dennis McKiernan, Esther Friesner, David Hartwell, Darrell K. Sweet
- SFContario - Nov 19-21, 2010 (updated Sept 4)
- Toronto Ontario Canada
- Author GoH: Michael Swanwick; Editor GoHs: Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden; Artist GoH: Billy Tackett; Fan GoH: Geri Sullivan; Filk GoH: Karen Linsley,
- Toronto's newest science fiction convention.
Historoscope: You must be this far away to see...
Observers using visible light would need to be 18.4 parsecs away to observe some of the first showings of “Destination Moon” one of the first major film productions to deal seriously with Space Travel. It had extensive involvement by Golden Age author Robert A Heinlein, who served as technical advisor and contributed to the script. Heinlein also released a novelization of the film about the same time.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destination_Moon_%28film%29
Star Field: References of interest to fans
Marcel Gagné and Robert J. Sawyer are maintaining the Canadian SF Works Database, a resource for tracking Canadian Genre Fiction.http://canadiansf.com/
Space’s schedule:
http://www.spacecast.com/Schedule.aspx
System: where fiction and fact begin to intersect
More opportunities than ever for Mass Extinction!
Feeling like there isn’t enough chance that you’ll ever get to witness a species destroying asteroid? Fear not. There are lots of the little buggers out there. Plenty of opportunities left for a mass extinction in your lifetime! To look for some likely candidates, check you this video of every asteroid discovered since 1980:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_d-gs0WoUw
(Note, the pace picks up once we start getting lots of observation satellites in place.)
Early LHC Results being shared in Toronto
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/08/26/large-hadron-collider-toronto-savard.htmlWhat will the future of reading look like? LG thinks they have the answer.
LG putting 9.7-inch color, 19-inch flexible e-paper displays into productionhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/08/26/lg-putting-9-7-inch-color-19-inch-flexible-e-paper-displays-int/
1% Accidention
Nothing better to stimulate the writing muse than new inventions? Or, in this case, old inventions that occurred by accident. Gizmodo presents “Whoops! The 10 Greatest (Accidental) Inventions of All Time”http://gizmodo.com/5620910/whoops-the-10-greatest-accidental-inventions-of-all-time
Sun spots: Canadian locations spotted in SF&F
One of this summer’s Genre blockbusters, “Inception” features scenes shot at Fortress Mountain ski resort near Calgary.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/
Obligatory Vampire news:
Sookie Stackhouse continues to pile up fans, and bodies, on “Tru Blood” the HBO mildly-erotic TV series based closely on the novels of Charlaine Harris.http://www.charlaineharris.com/
Nova
Coronal mass Ejection number 001 is Copyright (c) Kent G Pollard, 2010. Errors and omissions are my own, everything else is shared with the Spec-fic fans of Canada.The Coronal Mass Ejection photo as the top of this newsletter is Courtesy of SOHO consortium. SOHO is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.
Those with news and events of interest to fans are encouraged to forward same to Coronal Mass ejection at cmezine@gmail.com
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