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Read Isaac Asimov’s Predictions for 2014… from 1964

Read Isaac Asimov’s Predictions for 2014… from 1964

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Isaac Asimov 3Several sites around the Internet are making a big deal of Isaac Asimov’s predictions for 2014, originally written as an Op Ed piece for The New York Times fifty years ago.

Inspired by his visit to the New York World’s Fair of 1964, Asimov’s original piece wasn’t a science fiction story, but simply his predictions for what the World’s Fair of 2014 would be like.

Alexis Kleinman’s article at The Huffington Post is titled “Isaac Asimov’s Predictions For 2014 From 50 Years Ago Are Eerily Accurate,” and carefully categorizes the Good Doctor’s predictions as Correct (“Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence”), Close, But Not Exact (“World population will be 6,500,000,000”), and Incorrect (“The appliances of 2014 will have no electric cords”).

Dylan Love at Business Insider takes a similar angle, with his post “In 1964, The Brilliant Isaac Asimov Wrote Some Predictions For 2014 — Wait Until You See How Right He Was.” Love grades Asimov much higher than HuffPo, noting that several predictions (“Men will continue to withdraw from nature in order to create an environment that will suit them better,” which clearly forecasts World of Warcraft, and “Much effort will be put into the designing of vehicles with ‘robot-brains,'” an obvious reference to Google’s self-driving cars) just need the right interpretation to be true.

Rebecca J. Rosen at The Atlantic takes Asimov to task for predicting an insufficiently grim future (“But he couldn’t have known the consequences of the development he predicted —- a planet whose climate is badly destabilized, whose inhabitants face mass extinctions in the years ahead”), and David Wogan at Scientific American clearly enjoyed the article, though he points out Asimov entirely missed the boat in at least one regard (“What we know as the internet is missing in these predictions, which is how we are all able to read this article and his thoughts decades later.”)

Good to see Asimov getting so much attention two decades after his death. You can read his original article here.

You Can’t Go Home Again . . .

You Can’t Go Home Again . . .

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A princess of mars-smallLast week I talked about my Window Theory of Emotional Response and I got some responses from people telling me about some books and films they’d encountered after the window had closed for them – and one or two who talked about works they’d loved once, but no more. Works where the window had once been open and was now closed.

It was pretty clear that I wasn’t talking about stuff we merely liked, or thought well of, but rather stuff that changed the world for us. Where the earth moved, the stars realigned and our understanding of the world was either fundamentally reordered or fundamentally approved.

We all know you can’t go home again. You’re not going to be able to relive that feeling of shock and awe, that feeling that the world just re-oriented itself, by rereading the book that did it for you or re-watching the movie or the TV series. Sometimes it happens that revisiting Parnassus leads us to feel it’s just a hill in Greece.

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Blogging Dan Barry’s Flash Gordon, Part Nine

Blogging Dan Barry’s Flash Gordon, Part Nine

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kurtzman_flash_gordon_cvr110892184892961“The Martian Baby” by Dan Barry was serialized by King Features Syndicate from November 15, 1954 to February 5, 1955.

The story gets underway in another tranquil setting with Flash and Dale enjoying a picnic in the country (Dale is supporting a very short, but stylish new haircut) only to have their peaceful interlude disturbed by a flying saucer that buzzes them so closely they are forced to run for cover. The saucer lands and reveals its occupant is a Martian baby crying for its mother.

The baby is far heavier than it appears, absorbs all moisture (staying dry during rain), and munches away happily on flowers. Apart from that, the little tyke with the Mohawk seems human. While Dale’s maternal instincts quickly come to the fore, another saucer appears and obliterates the baby’s ship with a death ray beam. Flash, Dale, and the baby seek shelter in the woods. Dan Barry gives readers a glimpse of the exotic and beautiful alien female piloting the saucer and immediately diffuses the threat in accordance with the gender politics of the 1950s.

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Goth Chick News: I, Frankenstein… You, Potentially Disappointed

Goth Chick News: I, Frankenstein… You, Potentially Disappointed

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I Frankenstein Poster-smallI am just not sure how to feel about this one.

On January 24, I, Frankenstein the film will finally come to life in theaters nationwide. This after the U.S. release was originally set for February 22, 2013. Then five months prior to release, in the fall of 2012, it was abruptly moved to September 13, 2013; then in April 2013, the date was moved again to January 24, 2014.

In February 2013, Lions Gate said they would release the film in 3D and then in September 2013, they came back to tell us the film would be digitally re-mastered and released in the IMAX format – in 3D.

I, Frankenstein’s release strategy has been retooled more than the old guy himself.

There are a lot of reasons for a studio to postpone a movie release: like problems with the script/ talent/ director, the test audiences didn’t react well and new footage needs to be shot, the studio doesn’t want the release to be diluted by a competitive release in a similar genre…

Or the film just isn’t good and the studio needs time to add some additional razzle-dazzle — like 3D and IMAX.

As a fan of the graphic novel and after seeing the movie trailer, I tend to believe this case might be a combination of all of the above.

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New Treasures: Spectrum 20, edited by Cathy Fenner and Arnie Fenner

New Treasures: Spectrum 20, edited by Cathy Fenner and Arnie Fenner

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Spectrum 20-smallChristmas is pretty hectic at our house, and has been for about 18 years. Ever since we started sharing it with children.

Our kids try to sit still and open their presents. They do. But after they’ve torn open a few, they can’t sit around in a calm circle in the living room any longer. Nope, nope. They tear off to shoot each other with their new Nerf guns or play Arkham Origins on the Xbox or read Atomic Robo or otherwise enjoy their gifts. Leaving my wife and I to sit and stare at each other, in the middle of a big pile of wrapping paper.

Which is a long-winded explanation for why it takes anywhere from a week to ten days to open gifts in the O’Neill-Dechene household. Which is why I didn’t get around to opening Alice’s gift, a copy of the hardcover edition of Spectrum 20, until last night.

If the cover (at left) looks familiar to Black Gate readers, it should. The piece, “The Lover’s Quarrel,” by Donato Giancola, is another view of the warrior woman featured on the cover of Black Gate 15. She’s even wearing the same outfit and belt, and has the same hair beads. Her sword is no longer broken, but I think we can be reasonably confident that she has just wrapped up business satisfactorily.

Alice gave me a copy of the first volume of Spectrum in 1994 and I’ve gotten one every Christmas, on and off, for the past twenty years. Every holiday season, I spend a leisurely hour or two in my big green chair, enjoying the best science fiction and fantasy art of the year.

The Spectrum Annual, as it’s known, is a showcase for the Spectrum Awards, which celebrate the best fantastic art from around the globe. Every year, a five-member jury team selects the winners of the Gold and Silver awards and the artwork that will be included in the next volume. The Spectrum Awards are perhaps the most prestigious artistic accolade our industry has to offer and the annual volume is without doubt the best annual collection of genre art on the market.

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Fantasy New Year’s Musings

Fantasy New Year’s Musings

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Blood and Iron Jon Sprunk-smallHello, friends. As 2013 comes to a close and the New Year dawns, I’m taking a few moments to consider what 2014 will bring to the realm of fantasy.

Personally, I’m proud to announce the beginning of a new fantasy tetralogy next year, starting in March with Blood and Iron. I’ll be finishing the sequel in 2014, as well as writing at least one short story for a friend who invited me to be a part of his fantasy shared-world. (More details on that next year.)

I also have a few conventions and a writing conference scheduled in 2014. These are often the highlights of my professional life, as I get to reconnect with old friends and make some new ones. Meeting readers and other writers is one of the awesome perks of this field.

The big one will be a return to DragonCon. I’d gone three years in a row before taking 2013 off, but I’ve missed it so much I have to go back. It’s a four-day fantasy/scifi geekfest with all the trimmings. Great costumes, wonderful guests, and some of the best partiers on the planet.

Beyond my professional goals, I will make an effort to read more books next year. It’s a funny thing. I had so much more time to read before I started writing full-time. Alas, that’s what happens when you embrace your passion.

Yet I’m going to make more time to read in 2014. There are so many freaking amazing books out there and I want to devour as many as possible. My problem is that I like to go back and re-read my favorite books/series, so I’m forever trying to catch up with the new crop.

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Sherlock Holmes Tiptoes into the Public Domain

Sherlock Holmes Tiptoes into the Public Domain

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Sherlock Holmes dang itAn American judge has ruled that Sherlock Holmes is in the Public Domain.

Say what? If you’re like me, you’ve had some trouble wrapping your head around the fact that Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective wasn’t already in the public domain. His first appearance, in the short novel A Study in Scarlet, was in 1887, and he appeared in a total of four novels and 56 short stories between then and 1927. To my mind that’s the pre-pulp era, roughly contemporary with the Old Testament and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Let’s review. If most of Robert E. Howard Conan tales, published between 1932 -1936, are in the public domain — and in fact, virtually all literary works published before January 1, 1923 are no longer covered by United States copyright law — what’s the deal with Sherlock Holmes?

Well. Near as I understand it, the Conan Doyle Estate bases their claim on the fact that the last Holmes story was published in 1927, and the characters of Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, Irene Adler, etc. were not truly completed until then. The Estate has challenged any production that tried to make use of the characters — and indeed, popular TV series like the BBC’s Sherlock, and CBS’s Elementary, have paid a license.

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Ancient Worlds: Athena Symmachos

Ancient Worlds: Athena Symmachos

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K8.3AthenaEven among the gods, Athena is an extraordinary figure. She is born fully formed and fully armed out of her father’s head. As one of the virgin goddesses she is almost completely independent of masculine control, which is always astonishing in the Greek world.

She reflects a fascinating series of attitudes. As the goddess of wisdom, she and Aphrodite are completely foreign to each other, so much so that in one poem, when Athena is Aphrodite’s house she is literally unable to speak. (Wisdom and desire are completely incompatible with each other, you see.)

As the goddess of war, she is contrasted with Ares. Where Ares is the god of the warrior, the rage and chaos of war, Athena is the goddess of strategy and tactics.

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Vintage Treasures: Parlainth: The Forgotten City, an Earthdawn Campaign

Vintage Treasures: Parlainth: The Forgotten City, an Earthdawn Campaign

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parlainth-smallMany years ago, when I was unemployed and trying to get a new website off the ground, I made a lot of calls to publishers large and small. I’d introduce myself, talk fast about how many readers there were on the web, and try and sound a lot bigger than I was.

Didn’t usually work. This was the mid-90s, and there were lots of publishers who didn’t even have a website. But occasionally one would take a chance, and agree to send me some sweet review copies.

One such publisher was FASA, one of the leading RPG game makers of the day. I’ll always remember opening the first box they sent me, and gaping in surprise at the contents: every single Battletech supplement in print — nearly 1,000 bucks worth of premiere product. A treasure trove far beyond my expectations.

And a textbook bittersweet moment, because what I was really hoping for was material for Earthdawn.

Earthdawn was a fantasy role-playing game designed by Greg Gorden and first released by FASA in 1993. Over the next few years they produced 20+ supplements, all with gorgeous cover art by folks like Janet Aulisio, Brom, Les Edwards, and many others. Set on the same world as Shadowrun, but thousands of years earlier, the key theaters were where the nations of Russia and Ukraine exist today, in the gorgeously detailed land of Barsaive.

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Lay Down Your Weary Year

Lay Down Your Weary Year

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time-enough-at-last-350x263“It… is… later… than… you… think.” — Arch Oboler, Lights Out radio program

10…

There’s that classic Twilight Zone episode about the bookwormish little gentleman who has a list long as his arm of books he’s always wanted to read, but who is constantly thwarted by the day-to-day demands of society and pressures of life. He happens to be down in the basement library stacks when a nuclear war breaks out. He emerges to find every other human being gone. After this revelation sinks in, he heads back to the library. Cut to hours or days later: he has amassed piles of books in the order he plans to — finally — read them all.

And then…the unexpected happens. The ol’ TZ twist. In this case, his glasses fall off, and he accidentally steps on them. In the closing shot, he stands there, blind as a bat without his reading glasses, with a look of utter despair on his face that dwarfs any emotions he may have felt on realizing that the rest of his fellow creatures were gone. With the books, even authors long dead were still with him. Now even they have been wrested away, leaving him truly alone.

Rod Serling provides his usual wry commentary in the coda of the closing narration, but everyone who’s seen that episode (“Time Enough at Last”, 1959, starring Burgess Meredith) remembers that final scene — within the context of the story’s simple little narrative, that pair of broken glasses is somehow, improbably, more devastating than the destruction of the human race.

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