Origami Unicorn

No Quarter

A simple primer on a complicated subject.

Briar Rose or the Sleeping Beauty

Not at all what you're expecting, but a fine animation using stop motion, that is not as brilliant in color in these clips as it really is.

Amazon Vs. Lightning Source

Both Publishers Weekly and Publisher's Lunch are reporting that Amazon is disabling the buy button for POD publishers who are working with Lightning Source, rather than Amazon's own BookSurge.

BookSurge, more expensive than Lightning Source, has been trying to reduce the giant market share of Lightning Source. Amazon's "Use BookSurge" mandate apparently extends to traditional publishers, who often use POD to fulfill older titles and produce extra copies when there is extra demand.

Other respected news sources, including the Wall Street Journal, confirm the story.

Richard Widmark, 93

Dead at the age of ninety-three, after a career that spanned radio, theater, movies, and television for decades, Richard Widmark. Along with the numerous successful and lauded films he appeared in, he also acted in what many consider the worst disaster film of all time: The Swarm. He did a perfectly respectable job playing a general, which is more than can be said for most of the other actors, who had as a hard time battling the script as they did battling an attack of killer bees. Widmark did not care for the tough guy, psychopath, and racist roles he was often cast for, so pop some corn and celebrate his memory with Golden Turkey fun. The rest of the nearly seventy films he appeared in will wait for another night. Many of them appear regularly on tv, including Turner Classic Movies, which has a brief biography and fan appreciations, and is almost certain to schedule a retrospective of his work.

The Ditmars

The winners for the 2008 Ditmar Awards were announced at Swancon, the 2008 national SF convention.

Best Novel
Saturn Returns by Sean Williams (Orbit)

Best Novella/Novelette
"A Lady of Adestan" by Cat Sparks (Orb #7)

Best Short Story
"The Dark and What It Said" by Rick Kennett (ASIM #28)

Best Collected Work (tie)
The New Space Opera, edited by Jonathan Strahan & Gardner Dozois (HarperCollins)
Fantastic Wonder Stories, edited by Russell B. Farr (Ticonderoga Publications)

Best Art Work
Nick Stathopolous for the Rynemonn Cover (Coeur De Lion)

Best Fan Writer
Robert Hood

Best Fan Art
‘Exterminate!’ Dalek Postcards – Kathryn Linge

Best Fan Production
2007 Snapshot Project, by Alisa Krasnostein, Ben Payne, Alexandra Pierce, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Kathryn Linge, Kaaron Warren and Rosie Clarke.

Best Fanzine
Not If You Were the Last Short Story on Earth, edited by Alisa Krasnostein, Ben Payne, Alexandra Pierce, Tansy Rayner Roberts.

Best Professional Achievement
Andromeda Spaceways Publishing Co-Operative Ltd

Best Fan Achievement
Alisa Krasnostein for ASiF! (Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus!)

Best New Talent
Tehani Wessely

William Atheling Jr Award
Grant Watson for “The Bad Film Diaries” (Borderlands #9.)

Philip K. Dick Award

This year's Philip K. Dick Award for best original paperback published in the US in 2007 is M. John Harrison's Nova Swing (Bantam Spectra), with a special citation given to Minister Faust for From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain (Del Rey).

2008 British Science Fiction Association Awards

Winners are embolded.

NOVEL
Alice in Sunderland, Bryan Talbot (Jonathan Cape)
Black Man, Richard Morgan (Gollancz)
Brasyl, Ian McDonald (Gollancz)
The Execution Channel, Ken MacLeod (Orbit)
The Prefect, Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz)
The Yiddish Policeman's Union, Michael Chabon (Fourth Estate)
SHORT FICTION
"The Gift of Joy", Ian Whates (TQR)
"Lighting Out", Ken MacLeod (disLocations)
"The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate", Ted Chiang (F&SF Sep 2007)
"The Sledge-Maker's Daughter", Alastair Reynolds (Interzone #209)
"Terminal", Chaz Brenchley (disLocations)
ARTWORK
Les Edward's cover for "H P Lovecraft in Britain," a chapbook by Stephen Jones)
"Cracked World" by Andy Bigwood (disLocations ed. Ian Whates; Newcon Press)
Richard Marchand, Cover of Interzone #211
Kenn Brown, Cover of Interzone #213
BEST NOVEL OF 1958
The Big Time, Fritz Leiber (Galaxy Mar,Apr 1958)
A Case of Conscience, James Blish (Ballantine 1958)
Have Space Suit -- Will Travel, Robert A. Heinlein (F&SF Aug,Sep,Oct 1958)
Non-Stop, Brian Aldiss (Faber 1958)
The Triumph of Time, James Blish (Avon 1958)
Who?, Algis Budrys (Pyramid 1958)

The Cat Who Walked by Herself

This is a Russian animation, very freely adapted from Kipling's work. The embedding is to the first part on YouTube. It begins in a leisurely, dreamy fashion, as a bedtime story of sorts, then shifts to something faster-paced, a trifle more adult, and slyly humorous.

For the entire film, The Cat That Walked by Herself, you'll need to go to Google, which supports longer works than YouTube does. If you are watching on Google, reducing the size of your browser window will improve the apparent resolution. Also, if you reduce the window size, the Google version will have the subtitles below the picture, not on it.

Toot, Whistle, Plunk, Boom

The Academy Award-winning, Toot, Whistle, Plunk, Boom.

This was a follow-up to the first American animated 3-D film—sorry, 2-D here; you'd need a different print and glasses—but here we are with Professor Owl and his fledgling students, studying melody.

Arthur C. Clarke Buried

At a secular funeral attended by his brother Fred and the Ekanayake family which had adopted the aging, ailing author, Arthur C. Clarke was buried, as music from 2001 was played.