Category Archives: Fandom

Philcon 2021 – Part 1

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A smaller ‘haul’ than some years…

The weekend before Thanksgiving 2021 I headed out and did something I’d done dozens of times before, but not at all since the pandemic. I went and attended a science fiction convention in person. I was excited to see the convention was actually going to happen. I understood the rules going in… prove that you had your vaccination AND wear your mask properly the entire time you’re attending. It’s a private event, you know the rules. I was also excited to see those rules in place. It was wonderful feeling to be headed out again.

The con itself was… small. I suppose this was an expected thing given the pandemic and the number of people that don’t want to deal with the chance of catching something. The sense I got was of a con that was even smaller than that. Small enough that I fear for the future. It was also a very gray convention. I know that I am a contributing factor to this, but it just felt… old. There are other cons out there that are making an effort to keep up with the times. Panels are changing, recordings are being made and an online presence is being maintained. I don’t know what it would have taken to have a multi-platform con, but that really felt like it could have been attainable this year with such a small gathering – and it wasn’t. There were the motions of ‘the way it was’ but somehow it felt hollow.

The hotel felt empty, old and more than a little shabby. Peeling wall coverings, worn furniture, foggy windows and wheezing air handlers. Nobody cleaned my room while I was there. The door lock access card needed to be reset 3 times despite all my efforts to keep the magnetic key far from anything else on my person. The door didn’t close properly, and required attention more than once. The bar was closed early and the ability to just… gather and chat felt far more limited than it should have. The place felt as old as the con.

All of this could have added up to a miserable experience. It didn’t. A number of friends gathered and got to spend time talking about, showing off and selling various aspects of the things we all love. Yes, the dealer room was still there and so was the art show. There was live music. The folks that attended made the con special. I still had the opportunity to chat with amazing creators. I got to chat with the music guest of honor about butterflies painted on overalls. I got to talk art show set up with an artist that only recently moved to the area. I went to dinner with friends, laughed and generally had a fantastic time.

The dealers room was less full this year. Some folks couldn’t be there. Some folks retired or simply went out of business during the pandemic. I was grateful to see those that were there. I met some fantastic creators and did my level best to support them (yes, I blew out the budget). I suggest you head out and support these creators too. I picked up an eye, you should check them out you might like what you see. I also grabbed a 3d art piece as a gift, along with a very geek oriented gift for somebody this year. One of my favorite conversations was with the guys running Questbourne. A place that does more than just sell you an *.stl file and hopes you can print it. I plan to be picking up more from them in the very near future.

One of my favorite parts was seeing the premier issue of a new magazine from Fortress Publishing. Mendie The Post Apocalyptic Flower Scout issue one was on the table and ready to get out there. My story “Peach Pirates” is in this issue, along with some small humor bits tucked in other places. It’s a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to seeing more issues. You should definitely check it out!

Flower Scouts!
Issue #1 out now!

The convention and the hotel had a lot of issues that could have made for a weekend worthy of complaint. It was the opposite. The staff – both convention and hotel – seemed to have everything in hand and things ran quite smoothly. Any time there was a line, it moved quickly. Nobody seemed to have unresolved issues, and that’s probably far better than many would expect for a return to a live convention. People were friendly. People were interested in the panels. There was laughter and fun and a generally good time. I had a great weekend and I’m already looking forward to next year.

Part 2 – The Panels – coming soon!

You Should Be Watching

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This post was originally published in Watch The Skies November 2021 edition.

Maya and the Three

Cabra Kan

From the Netflix description: A spirited princess with the heart of a warrior embarks on a mission to fulfill an ancient prophecy and save humanity from the wrath of vengeful gods.

I have always enjoyed stories of the magical and fantastic. Swords, sorcery, prophecies and epic battles get my attention every time. This new cartoon series Maya and the Three checks all those boxes. The art is beautiful. The story has excellent pace even with short episodes. There are deep emotions, epic battles and moments of true humor. I had no intention of doing the classic Netflix binge, and then sat there and devoured the whole series.

One of the best parts of this show is the reality of the characters. There are indiscretions (read – cheating on your spouse), emotional confrontations, and genuine repercussions from all the fighting and battles. Nobody comes out of this story unscathed. Without giving away specifics, not everyone makes it to the end of the series.

To paraphrase one particular character, “There’s a word for folks that always do heroic things…”

“Heroes?”

“Dead.”

Netflix lists this show as a children’s cartoon, but I believe this is definitely aimed at a middle year student level. That is not to say this traditional coming of age story can’t be watched by adults. It indeed should be watched by adults. In fact, my hope is that enough people watch it to keep the studio in a mindset where they will produce more and more stories like this. You should be watching Maya and the Three.

Check out the trailer:

Live and In Person!

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That’s right ~ for the first time in what seems like forever, I’m headed to a science fiction convention live and in person. Philcon is being held the weekend of November 19-21 this year, and they’re doing it in person. Thankfully, I still make the list of people they’ll tolerate as a guest.

PHILCON!

They have strict rules in place about vaccination and mask wearing, but they are not actually any different than where I work. I’m glad they’re serious about keeping their participants safe. They certainly don’t seem to be holding non-attendance against anyone that would normally be there either. It will definitely be an interesting journey.

While I’m there, my schedule so far includes 4 panels:

 Start Time      Duration      Room Name      Title
Fri 7:00 PM 50 Min Plaza 2 Setting the Scene: Ambience for GMs
Fri 9:00 PM 50 Min Plaza 2 Writing Branching Narratives for Game Play
Sat 1:00 PM    50 Min        Plaza 2          The Harry Potter Kids Have Grown Up               
Sat 7:00 PM    50 Min        Plaza 2            Architecture in Worldbuilding   

I’m very interested to hear what other things will be going on and hopefully reconnect with a number of friends while attending. I’m also looking forward to digging back into the writing business. I’ve allowed my writing to sit idle for far too long a time.

A full report to follow!

You Should Be Watching

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This was originally published

Visions

Star Wars is a cultural phenomenon. It has become part of the culture of media. The first film hit screens more than forty years ago. Lately the franchise has come under new ownership. These new owners have pushed forward with many, many new works in the universe of Star Wars. There’s a lot out there, even for fans. I have considered myself a fan for a very long time. I was exactly the right age when the first movie hit theaters. I scrambled to get action figures and play sets as a kid and spent seemingly endless hours pushing my imagination out to all the various places in the Star Wars universe. The movies are deeply entrenched in my personal nostalgia along with all the entwined media. I can effectively say that I’ve ‘always’ been a fan.

I’m also a fan that just doesn’t want or need to devour the seemingly unending supply of hot off the presses Star Wars stuff. Maybe I’ve outgrown certain aspects of the story telling. Maybe the abundance of available material has taken the shine off the whole thing. I could just be tired of seeing the same old thing. This ennui is at the very root of this recommendation.

Star Wars, only done as anime. Imagine taking a team of amazing story tellers and artists from an anime studio and saying, “Go – play in our universe. Make something great”. That is precisely what they’ve done. Now streaming on Disney+ (because I think they own everything?) Star Wars Visions gives us seven all original stories in the same galaxy, using the same background and the same legendary ‘Force’. The stories vary in style, but never lack in beauty. The art is amazing. The stories are fresh. The look of it all is straight up anime. They’re short, so you can sneak them in between other things, or you can easily binge them. I would suggest one at a time, to give each the attention it should have. I think this may even be a way to draw new fans in; fans that might not have given a tired old franchise a chance otherwise. You should be watching Visions.

Check out the trailer:

You Should Be Watching

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This was originally published in the Watch The Skies fanzine, September 2021 issue.

What If…

When I’ve worked on my recommendations for this little column each month I’ve tried to find things that are bent toward the (potential) interests of this group, but also slightly off the beaten path. These things might not be your preference, but should certainly be worthy of consideration. I’ve tried not to go for the obvious, splashy things out there.

This month is a break in that trend. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is pervasive in pop culture. The series of movies and shows that have the common, unifying thread of a group of comic book super heroes has been with us for a solid decade now. The story lines, the characters, the massive tent pole films that seep into all the nooks and crannies of the genre are familiar. Perhaps they are familiar to the point of apathy. The MCU could be running the very serious risk of over saturation with the sheer number of films and shows it’s dumping forth for mass consumption. The omnipresent super hero genre has kept me away, until now.

The house of mouse has an animated show based around the stories of these well known super heroes called “What If…” that gets directly to the heart of the science fiction and fantasy genre. The title of the show is the very essence of what makes SF/F great. The best stories always ask that question. What if? Can we go back and change things? How would that have worked out if one tiny thing changed (butterfly effect anyone)? It’s a terrific mental exercise. The MCU has now combined that concept with stunning artwork to make a series of short animations. These stories give us the characters we’ve come to know viewed in very different lights. Asking the simple question “What if…” and following through with things like having the Ravagers pick up T’Challa rather than Peter Quill or having a serial killer remove Avengers before they start their journey to being a hero.

Yes, viewing these episodes does actually work out better if you’ve seen and / or are familiar with the films that have been put out in the long series from Marvel. The stories are short (averaging about a half hour each) and only give us glimpses of what might have been. It’s those glimpses that make it work. The animation is at exactly the level you’d expect from a world leader. There’s a lot of great stuff in there. This series is definitely one you should be watching.

Check out the trailer here:

D&D Movie

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The Dungeons and Dragons movie has wrapped up filming. Now I suspect they’re moving on to the ‘zillions of special effects bits that need to be created in order to make a world of fantasy come to life. Got the news from this article:
https://gizmodo.com/the-dungeons-and-dragons-film-has-wrapped-production-1847535005
I’ve written about this before, but I think the author of this article sums up my fears in a single phrase,

“…but with the caliber of people involved, maybe this one will turn out to be watchable.”

Why is it so difficult to make a fantasy story on film that is both a good story and NOT some variation of King Arthur (there are at least 15 variations / versions I can come up with)? There’s so much good material out there. Let’s hope for a real fantasy boom. Think Avengers quality. I’d love to see so much more variety. Give me a wizard that is NOT Gandalf or Merlin. Please.

Flaming Sphere!

You Should Be Watching

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This was originally published in Watch The Skies fanzine, August 2021 issue.

Nestflix

It’s the dog days of summer. The doldrums. Media is scattered far and wide but people aren’t focused on sitting down and watching whatever they can scrounge. Folks are squeezing in one more beach trip or working hard at getting ready for back to school time. Reruns and re-watching old movies is the kind of relaxing thing that can fill gaps between all this summer activity. But when you do the re-watching, do you notice the world inside the world? Do you catch the shows that are on the screens in the background?

This is not a true “what to watch” in the sense that these shows don’t actually exist, except in an alternate world. When you’re going back to an old Futurama episode, do you recall anything about “The Scary Door”? How could you miss a show with a description like this;


“You are entering the vicinity of an area adjacent to a location. The kind of place where there might be a monster, or some kind of weird mirror. These are just examples; it could also be something much better. Prepare to enter: The Scary Door.”

There is a fun site out there that lists more than four hundred of these magical shows inside shows. Have you noticed a show within a show? Do you have a favorite? When you get a few minutes head on over to the Nestflix site and check out this crazy collection.

You Should Be Watching

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This was originally published in Watch The Skies Fanzine, July 2021 issue.

The Vast of Night – Amazon

Pick a night. Pick a slow night. Wait until it’s quiet out. Turn out the lights. Get cozy and flip this movie on. The Vast of Night is a small film that’s big on catching you at just the right time. There are bright, glaring action movies and soft filtered romances beside the raucous comedies. This movie pulls you back to the fifties in the American southwest. The story follows two people from the little New Mexico town of Cayuga as they track down a mysterious noise and more mysterious radio station callers. It’s the kind of town where everyone knows everyone else… until they dig a little deeper.

From the Amazon description:

“In the twilight of the 1950s, on one fateful night in New Mexico, a young, winsome switchboard operator Fay (Sierra McCormick) and charismatic radio DJ Everett (Jake Horowitz) discover a strange audio frequency that could change their small town and the future forever. Dropped phone calls, AM radio signals, secret reels of tape forgotten in a library, switchboards, crossed patchlines and an anonymous phone call lead Fay and Everett on a scavenger hunt toward the unknown.”

This is definitely a movie that is all about the mood. It is quiet. It moves a little slow at the start. Give it a chance. As the story rolls, the speed and the tension build. If you take your time you will get to a place where you’ll be out staring up into the night. There are small things, inconsequential to the success of the story if you allow yourself to go along for the ride. Coming in at an hour and a half it’s definitely worth the time to catch up with the folks in this small town.

Check out the trailer here:

You Should Be Watching

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This was originally published in Watch The Skies Fanzine, June 2021

Oxygen

Oxygen is an intense little movie about a woman who wakes up with no memory of who she is or why she’s locked inside an automated pod. It wouldn’t be such a dilemma, except the level of oxygen in her single, tiny room is slowly running out. She needs to solve the puzzle of who she is, why she’s there and what she can do to fix her situation before she runs out of air to breathe.

This is a tense movie. The actress (Melanie Laurent) plays the main character. She’s stuck in this tiny pod. She doesn’t remember why. She doesn’t remember who she is. She’s got no place to go. This leaves all our focus on her as she runs through a monumental list of emotions. It’s a testament to this actor’s abilities that she can carry the whole thing off. There’s no scenery other than the pod. There’s barely any space for movement. You feel for her. You breathe with her.

Slowly, over the course of the movie memories and flashbacks give us tidbits. We rebuild all the various parts of a memory right along with the character. This is a smart lady. She figures out various ways to come at the problem even when one avenue or another runs up against a wall. She shifts and wiggles and carries the whole movie.

Were there things that didn’t work? Yes. There were one or two very small, very nit-picky things that I caught while I was along for the ride. I could very easily chalk them up to suspension of disbelief. This is a well done film that I don’t think is getting the attention it should. A locked room mystery that fits in the science fiction category. It’s a rare thing, but when it’s done well it’s a wonderful, terrible, memorable thing. This is definitely a film you should be watching!

Check out the trailer here:

You Should Be Watching

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This was originally published in Watch The Skies Fanzine, May 2021 issue.

Space Sweepers – Netflix

In the year 2092 the Earth is suffering. The planet is distressed to the point that humans are looking for a way out. Some lucky (or chosen) few get to ascend and become UTS citizens living in orbiting homes around the planet. The UTS corporation sets strict controls and financial arrangements for citizens and non-citizens alike. This is the where the crew of the salvage ship Victory scrounges out a living.

This movie is filled with action, suspense, comedy and even heart. It clocks in around two hours and fifteen minutes but it really didn’t feel that long. Watching the crew of misfit scavengers attempt to make ends meet while dealing with their own issues would have been interesting enough, but then Dorothy gets thrown into the mix. Dorothy looks and acts like a child, but the UTS has declared her a weapon of mass destruction and has set off an all out hunt to get her back. The Victory crew just happen to pick her up as part of one of their salvage missions.

As a South Korean film, I was fully prepared to read subtitles the entire time I watched this movie. I did, but not in the way I expected. I found it wonderful that the film makers included a quick bit about universal translators and then proceeded to allow everyone to speak in whatever language was their own. Space, and all the humans from all over the planet could just speak their own language. Yes, there were subtitles, but there was as much in English as there was in any other language. I could identify five different languages through the course of the film. This is wonderful and we need more of this in our science fiction. People will find a way to communicate, then language and background become less of an issue.

Beyond the language aspect, this film had well done special effects. I’m not going to claim they’ve got some kind of mastery or that the effects shots disappeared in a seamless way. You could tell there were special effects in this movie, but they didn’t get in the way. I never had a moment when I thought, ‘well that wasn’t very well done’. I just sat and enjoyed the action. The action likely works out the way you’d expect, but even that didn’t hurt the enjoyment of this story. This was a movie that has less of a dystopian downer feel and something a little more refreshing and hopeful.

If you’ve got access to Netflix, grab your popcorn and go check this movie out.