Author: Eppu

Quotes: Stereotypes … Sometimes Bear Truth’s Imprint

Eppu

“Stereotypes are untrue. Sometimes, though, they bear truth’s imprint. Sometimes they spring up from what truth has crushed down. As they manifest they can co-opt and mispurpose inescapable realities.”

– Nisi Shawl in the introduction to Ancient, Ancient by Kiini Ibura Salaam

I’ve been thinking of reductivism lately and, serendipitously, found more food for thought in my fiction reading.

Shawl, Nisi. “Annunciation” (introduction). In Ancient, Ancient by Salaam, Kiini Ibura. Seattle, WA: Aqueduct Press, 2012.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

Online Finds: Trappist-1 Illustrations

Eppu

A NASA Tumblr post about the newly found exoplanets in the Trappist-1 system included fantastic artist’s renderings of what the system and the planets might look like.

NASA Tumblr Trappist-1 Illustration System

“The planets also are very close to each other. How close? Well, if a person was standing on one of the planet’s surface, they could gaze up and potentially see geological features or clouds of neighboring worlds, which would sometimes appear larger than the moon in Earth’s sky.”

NASA Tumblr Trappist-1 Illustration Planet

One is even a retro-style travel poster! (See other NASA retro travel posters here.)

NASA Tumblr Trappist-1 Illustration Poster

Love ’em! Find more at NASA on Tumblr!

Note: I wasn’t paid or perked to mention this; just passing along a good thing.

Images by NASA, via the NASA Tumblr blog.

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Out There is an occasional feature highlighting intriguing art, spaces, places, phenomena, flora, and fauna.

5,000-Year-Old Beer Comes Alive

Eppu

How would you like to make beer and get college credit for it? Students at Stanford got to do just that. Their final project for Professor Li Liu’s course Archaeology of Food: Production, Consumption and Ritual involved practical experiments with ancient brewing techniques and materials. The oldest “recipe” they tried is 5,000 years old:

“Liu, together with doctoral candidate Jiajing Wang and a group of other experts, discovered the 5,000-year-old beer recipe by studying the residue on the inner walls of pottery vessels found in an excavated site in northeast China. The research, which was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provided the earliest evidence of beer production in China so far.”

The materials for the ancient Chinese beer contained millet, barley, Job’s tears (Chinese pearl barley), and traces of yam and lily root parts. The students tried other combinations as well. Watch a short video explaining the experiments:

Stanford students recreate 5,000-year-old Chinese beer recipe by Stanford

Professor Liu’s research also shows it’s possible that barley (a very popular beer grain even today) may have been introduced to China from western Asia hundreds of years before previously thought and specifically for brewing instead of a food crop.

Fascinating! It shows that as long as we have records—or material remnants, not just written word—there have been people interested in the minutiae of food and food production. I for one am grateful to be able to enjoy the fruits of such a long history of delicious experiments.

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Geeks eat, too! Second Breakfast is an occasional feature in which we talk about food with geeky connections and maybe make some of our own. Yum!

Quotes: It Is Dangerous to Build

Eppu

“It is dangerous to build. Once you have built something–something that takes all your passion and will–it becomes more precious to you than your own happiness. You don’t realize that, while you are building it. That you are creating a martyrdom–something which, later, will make you suffer.”

– Sofia Samatar: A Stranger in Olondria

That which we deeply care about always has a chance to destroy us.

Samatar, Sofia: A Stranger in Olondria. Easthampton, MA: Small Beer Press, 2013, p. 103.

(This quote comes from my 21 new-to-me SFF authors reading project.)

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

Sherlock North in Development

Eppu

Variety recently reported that an interesting take on Sherlock Holmes is in the works:

“Finnish writer-director-producer Juha Wuolijoki will run the upcoming 10-hour television series ‘Sherlock North,’ which he introduced yesterday as a work-in-progress at the TV Drama Vision section of the Nordic Film Market in Göteborg’s 40th Film Festival. He aims to shoot the series in the winter of 2018, at the latest 2019. Finnish broadcaster YLE is on board for series development.”

The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia 2018-2019-sherlock-north-promo1

Snapper Films, Wuolijoki’s production, financing, and distribution company based in Helsinki and Los Angeles, has made available short production notes for Sherlock North:

“Consulting detective Mr. Sherlock Holmes in subzero Northern Scandinavia, featuring a female Dr. Watson from Finland, and the coldest Moriarty you have ever seen.

“Based on the unforgettable characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock North is a contemporary crime fiction television series, which will consist of 10 one-hour episodes. The series, produced by Snapper Films, is being developed in collaboration with the Conan Doyle Estate Limited.”

According to the notes, writer and actress Jenny Dahlström works with Wuolijoki on the project.

Wuolijoki describes the series concept further:

“Here is a fish-out-of-water story: Holmes is hiding from Moriarty but doesn’t know how his new landscape works. But he cannot live if not involved in something. He is a cocaine user, and although he has promised his brother Mycroft that he won’t do this, he starts solving local small crime mysteries, which lead into some bigger issues, helped by a Finnish former woman doctor, Johanna Watson. […]

“Doyle did not write what he did there [in Scandinavia], we created that, and it has been totally approved by the Doyle Estate. It is a Nordic series, with a Nordic identity, with an international appeal.”

IMDb Snapper Films Sherlock North Pilot Poster

On the basis of Wuolijoki’s interview in Variety, it sounds that the series was inspired by a one-liner in a story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle called “The Adventure of the Empty House.” (The reference really is just one sentence and reads: “You may have read of the remarkable explorations of a Norwegian named Sigerson, but I am sure that it never occurred to you that you were receiving news of your friend.”)

Sounds intriguing! (Even if they’ve copied the gender-flipped Watson from Elementary.) I’ve seen two posters for the series, the first (at the top of this article) with snow-covered fells in the background, and the second (above) with a fjord and fishing boats. It’s the latter that leads me to think that the series might take place in Norway. I’m looking forward to hearing more, and am definitely hoping Sherlock North will be successfully produced!

P.S. Read Conan Doyle’s short story, “The Adventure of the Empty House,” for free via Project Gutenberg.

Images: Snapper Films via The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia and via IMDb

[Signalboosting] Wanted: Speculative Stories by Women, Esp. of Color, LGBTQ, and Immigrants

Eppu

Last week, editor and writer Jaym Gates posted a call for stories for a potential anthology:

“Okay, so should I do an anthology of NEVERTHELESS, SHE PERSISTED, what female authors would be interested in contributing? What awesome female authors (especially POC and LGBTQ, ESPECIALLY immigrant and trans authors) should I be reaching out to?

“And why only female authors?

“Because this is a project about the struggles that women face from the moment their gender is announced, and the courage and tenacity that helps them rise above that deep and unending opposition.

“It is a book about the experience of women, told in their voices. It is not a book about how others imagine it to be, but one deeply and personally influenced by their own fights and victories.

“And sure, I’ll do an anthology as a stretch goal, titled I’M WITH HER. Men are welcome to submit to that one. But men are over-represented in the SF and political world as it is, and I want more women to be heard.

“Yes, it’s fucking political. This project will be incredibly political. Intentionally. It will have middle fingers everywhere, between the lines and sometimes in them. I’m not going to be shy about this being a female-oriented project. I am also going to ensure that it is not cis-centered, that anyone who identifies as female is welcome. At least 2/3 of the authors will need to be women of color, immigrants, or queer. That’s going to be really tricky.

“But nevertheless, we persist in making more women’s voices heard.”

Visit the Facebook post for how to contact.

Makes me wish I were a fiction writer. Alas, more room for others. 🙂

Tips Needed: Years-Long Story Arcs on Screen?

Eppu

Recently I’ve been thinking of Babylon 5 quite a bit from the storytelling point of view. When it first aired (1994-1998 in the U.S.), it was unique in my experience (which was, at the time, still quite limited) for a few things.

The Catholic Geeks babylon52

Firstly, I loved B5 for its complex, detailed, and consistent world. I hadn’t seen that level of commitment to worldbuilding on tv before. Also, the plot moved on several levels, from individual concerns to multi-species war, and involved political struggles, religious prophesies, racial tensions, social pressures, and personal rivalries of many kinds. At times it was heavy-handed, for instance in its discussion of authoritarianism vs. free will (“Who are you?” “What do you want?”), but not consistently across every plotline, if memory serves. (Note to self: It’s clearly time for a rewatch!)

What really sets B5 apart from other attempts, however, is that it’s carrying essentially one huge story arc over years of tv programming, not just one season’s worth. The creator, J. Michael Straczynski, conceived of the whole plotline before the series was written for tv. Apparently, it was specifically supposed to be a “novel for television,” with the core plot points figured out beforehand. (That’s my biggest beef with the current Doctor Who, for example: the writers are struggling to fold in new storylines into the existing canon—even very recently created canon—and it shows.)

Game of Thrones and The Expanse feel very similar to B5, being tv adaptations of stories already in existence, and I’ve really enjoyed those aspects of both. Before them, though, I can’t really remember seeing that many quality series that incorporate truly extended story arcs. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the Battlestar Galactica reboot all tried, even though none of them really implement as overarching a story as B5 does.

I’ve been wanting to see (and not just read) long plots lately, so I’d really appreciate your input. I still haven’t looked into Straczynski’s new series sense8—does anyone know whether it has a similar structure? Or can you recommend any other genre shows with long-term payoff?

Image via The Catholic Geeks

In the Seen on Screen occasional feature, we discuss movies and television shows of interest.

 

How to Helsinki: Resources by Worldcon 75 Staff

Eppu

Worldcon is in Helsinki this year. As a Finnish-American couple, we are very excited about this! In the coming months, we’d like to offer some practical advice about visiting Finland to our fellow fans who are considering going to the event but haven’t had experience with Finland and Finns before.

Eppu here. Erik already started with his take on Finns through American eyes. I want to briefly highlight some resources Worldcon 75 has already published through their progress reports and elsewhere:

Confession: I had to check what kind of food vorschmack is, and I’m pretty sure I’ve never eaten it! 🙂

Post edited for style, and again to add resources.

In Live and Active Cultures we talk about cultures and cultural differences.

Quotes: [People Are] Not Isolated or Sensationalized Exceptions

Eppu

“[…] I wanted to write about people who were seen as freaks, who had been broken out of the Acceptable Mainstream Mold, because […] those are the more interesting characters to show. But I didn’t want to punish them for it.

“And I didn’t want that punishment to be seen as what was valuable about them. […]

“But it wasn’t until the Devil’s West books that I faced head-on what had been simmering […]. I wanted to show those characters as part of the society that created them, not isolated or sensationalized exceptions. More, I wanted to show them as active parts of that society.”

– Author Laura Anne Gilman

Author Laura Anne Gilman talking about how anger (at sensationalizing attitudes and at one novel in particular) has directed her creative work; specifically, to show charcters outside the accepted American norm not as outsiders but insiders.

Gilman, Laura Anne. “The One Book That Piqued My Creative Fury”. Tor.com.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

Han Solo: A Smuggler’s Trade – A Fan Film par Excellence

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More fan projects from the Star Wars universe! This short, unofficial, non-profit Han Solo fan film really nails the mood and attitude:

Han Solo: A Smuggler’s Trade – A Star Wars Fan Film by Jamie Costa

The story is by Nathaniel Nauert, and the screenplay is by Nauert plus Jared Bell and Keith Allen. Allen also directed the short.

The production did a fantastic job with propping, lighting, sounds, music, and effects. Nice work!

Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.