Author: Eppu

Western Asian Science Fictional Art

Eppu

Omar Gilani is an illustrator, designer, and concept artist currently based in Pakistan. Not all of his art has sci-fi elements, but the pieces that do are amazing. Take a look:

Omar Gilani 2
Omar Gilani
Omar Gilani 5
Omar Gilani

The engineer-turned-artist takes inspiration from everyday life and combines traditional drawing with digitally created elements.

Omar Gilani sits4
Omar Gilani
Omar Gilani maybe3
Omar Gilani

I am very sorry I found out about his work only a day(!) after the Hugo nomination period closed. Well, hopefully he’ll continue producing genre art so I can nominate him next year.

Found via Islam and Science Fiction.

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

A Hannu Rajaniemi Standalone to Come in August 2017

Eppu

Mathematician and author Hannu Rajaniemi, known for his Jean le Flambeur series, will publish a new novel later this year.

Gollancz Summerland_revised

Called Summerland, the novel is a standalone and sounds like a mix of ghost and spy stories:

“Loss is a thing of the past. Murder is obsolete. Death is just the beginning.

“In 1938, death is no longer feared but exploited. Since the discovery of the afterlife, the British Empire has extended its reach into Summerland, a metropolis for the recently deceased.

Yet Britain isn’t the only contender for power in this life and the next. The Soviets have spies in Summerland, and the technology to build their own god.

“When SIS agent Rachel White gets a lead on one of the Soviet moles, blowing the whistle puts her hard-earned career at risk. The spy has friends in high places, and she will have to go rogue to bring him in.

“But how do you catch a man who’s already dead?”

Summerland will be published at the end of August.

Having read the Jean le Flambeur trilogy, though, “ghost and spy story” is a woefully flat and utterly inadequate description. I’ve no doubt Rajaniemi will again produce something extraordinary. I’m looking forward to reading this particular fellow Finn again.

Image: Summerland cover by Jeffrey Alan Love via Gollancz

Johanna Sinisalo on the 2016 James Tiptree Jr. Award Honor List

Eppu

Finnish author Johanna Sinisalo’s novel The Core of the Sun (Auringon ydin, translated by Lola Rogers) made it onto the 2016 James Tiptree Jr. Award Honor List.

Amazon Sinisalo The Core of the Sun

The James Tiptree Jr. Award is a juried award presented annually to works of science fiction or fantasy that explore and expand the understanding of gender and gender roles. In addition to selecting the winners, the jury chooses a Tiptree Award Honor List. The Honor List is a strong part of the award’s identity and is used by many readers as a recommended reading list.

Onnea! That’s fantastic news. Earlier, The Core of the Sun was also voted onto the BSFA Awards 2016 longlist for best novel. Sounds like a very good year for the book.

The Award announcement has several books that I’ve already read or that are on my TBR pile. I might also have to check out some of the others; several sound interesting.

Image via Amazon

Happy Twentieth Anniversary, Buffy!

Eppu

“Welcome to the Hellmouth,” the first episode of Joss Whedon’s cult series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, premiered on March 10th 1997. Happy twentieth anniversary, Buffy!

Here are a few of our favorite Buffy episodes or moments.

One of the better-executed truly creepy episodes I’ve seen is “Hush,” season 4, episode 10.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer | The gentlemen via SpookyTube

“Once More, with Feeling,” the musical episode (s. 6, ep. 7), is so much fun despite its cheesiness! Also has one of my favorite throw-away scenes ever: “They got the mustard ooooooouuut!”

They Got The Mustard Out! via PrincePrimeval

In “Grave” (s. 6, ep. 22), Xander saves dark Willow, who’s about to destroy the world, without any superhuman powers by reminding her of their friendship.

Xander saves Willow via ChrisPhaleus

Buffy’s speech to potential slayers and allies before the final battle in “Chosen” (s. 7, ep. 22) is also epic.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer – 7×22 – Chosen – Speach [sic] via Tito Luiz Pereira

“In every generation, one Slayer is born, because a bunch of men who died thousands of years ago made up that rule. They were powerful men. This woman [points to Willow] is more powerful than all of them combined. So I say we change the rule. I say my power, should be our power. Tomorrow, Willow will use the essence of the scythe to change our destiny. From now on, every girl in the world who might be a Slayer, will be a Slayer. Every girl who could have the power, will have the power. Can stand up, will stand up. Slayers, every one of us. Make your choice. Are you ready to be strong?”

What are your favorite Buffy memories?

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

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. 🙂