* Overheard in the Store:
"I told him, 'This tastes really carcinogenic,' and he got SO offended!"
* Overheard at the Con: (Thanks to a great anonymous sponsor for all these great "overheards" from DragonCon)
"I mess with people, but I do it stoically."
"Please take your tail out of my cleavage."
"What do you mean, Stephen King doesn't come to DragonCon?"
"No honey, you can't go to the football game dressed as a White Walker."
"This has totally ruined my trip - I just found out the people I most wanted to see here are dead."
"The eight cups of coffee I have at breakfast are essential to getting me through the day here."
"I'm sorry, but I just get so tired of being doofusy all the time, ya know?"
"Can I pet your snake? OH MY GOD IT'S A REAL SNAKE!!!!" <runs away screaming>
(Woman to her husband, very definitively): "Oh yes, some panda porn is definitely coming home with us!"
"I've just been called "ma'am" by Darth Vader."
"Walk in back of me, damn it - your sword keeps hitting me in the boobs."
"I'm buying this book for my wife - she doesn't know I'm here with my girlfriend, but she'll forgive me for the signed book."
* Some good news, for a change: Governor Brown has signed AB228, which amends California's dreadful, cumbersome, intrusive, ineffectual, & unenforceable autographed-collectibles law. The new law specifically excludes signed books (among other categories of items,) and is focused, as originally intended, on sports and entertainment memorabilia. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180AB228
* R.I.P. Jerry Pournelle; the award winning author died in his sleep at age 84. Read John Scalzi’s obituary here: https://whatever.scalzi.com/2017/09/08/rip-jerry-pournelle/
* A ranking of the 40 Stephen King adaptations from worst to best. Theatrical release only, so it excludes the truly wonderful written for TV miniseries "Storm of the Century" which is in many peoples' top five King productions for sure. http://www.vulture.com/2017/09/every-stephen-king-movie-ranked-from-worst-to-best.html
* R.I.P. Kit Reed -- a prolific and well-respected science fiction author who passed away last month. https://boingboing.net/2017/09/25/rip-kit-reed-brilliant-giant.html
* More sad news: we're going to lose the nearly 40-year-neighborhood-fixture Aardvark Books because their building is up for sale: http://hoodline.com/2017/09/after-39-years-final-chapter-for-church-street-s-aardvark-books
* Minneapolis Public Radio talked to Jude (Borderlands' General Manager) about some book recommendations: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2017/09/29/seven-fantasy-and-scifi-recs-from-diehard-reader
* Want a chance to win $12,000 for a short story? Check out the Into The Black contest!
https://medium.com/economicsecproj/into-the-black-a-short-fiction-contest-with-a-big-prize-f91cd6553967
* N.K. Jemisin's trilogy gets high praise in the New York Times, and with a TV adaptation on the way she stands to become of the biggest names in speculative fiction. Well-deserved for such an immense talent.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/books/review/nk-jemisin-stone-sky-broken-earth-trilogy.html
* Is the backlash to dystopian futures finally beginning? Some authors like Cory Doctorow think there should be some pushback and room for optimism at the very least. https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2017/1006/Blade-Runner-2049-Why-some-science-fiction-writers-are-tired-of-dystopias
* Amazon is focusing on science and science fiction for its children's programming and perhaps their adult programming will take the same path. https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/5/16427902/amazon-pilot-season-2017-will-vs-the-future-skybound-stem-for-children
* African Science Fiction continues to rise: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/african-science-fiction/#!
* We had never heard of The Osiris Child: Science Fiction Volume One until now, but thanks to its name and this review, Na'amen's now obsessed with this film. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-mini-osiris-child-review-20171003-story.html
* A selection of science fiction works that focus on personal relationships and the bonds of human connection. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2148878-science-fiction-picks-sound-wedding-bells-and-other-alarms/
* Perhaps you don’t care about personal relationships as much as crime and punishment in science fiction? Check out this list instead: http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-science-fiction-20170921-story.html
* Futurists who imagine the shape of the world in the decades to come are being hired by companies you wouldn’t exactly expect. https://www.ft.com/content/f603e438-a4ba-11e7-9e4f-7f5e6a7c98a2
* For a competing POV, here's Lawrence Krauss on why the next technological innovation is pretty much unpredictable. We're not sure we agree but it's an interesting counterpoint. http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/09/why_science_fiction_writers_couldn_t_imagine_the_internet.html
* This review for the upcoming film "Downsizing" points out that even as the film is aware of injustice and parodies, it still relies on unfortunate racial assumptions at its core. https://io9.gizmodo.com/downsizing-is-a-clever-big-idea-science-fiction-comedy-1819010098
* Charles Yu and John Joseph Adams appear on the latest episode of Geek's Guide to the Galaxy to discuss the Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy series, among other projects: https://www.wired.com/2017/09/geeks-guide-charles-yu/
* Speaking of podcasts! To celebrate their 25th anniversary the Syfy network has released a 15 part podcast featuring discussions with various veterans of science fiction TV and film. https://www.space.com/38075-syfy25-origin-stories-adam-savage-podcast.html
* And the last of a triptych of podcasts for you! Here's SFWA president Cat Rambo, with hundreds of published short stories to her name, giving advice on becoming a science fiction writer to Geekwire: https://www.geekwire.com/2017/want-write-science-fiction-tips-president-science-fiction-fantasy-writers-america/
* It's the 40th anniversary of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and the movie is being rereleased in theaters. Here's an article on how it changed how we viewed aliens forever. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/steven-spielberg-close-encounters-of-the-third-kind-richard-drefus-aliens-et-contact-arrival-jodie-a7956851.html
* SFWA has put out their annual call for grants. Check out the rules and deadlines here: http://www.sfwa.org/2017/09/call-grants-2017/
* "Star Trek: Discovery" has seen a broad spectrum of reactions and reviews by the science fiction community. Here's a review of the third episode that praises it for the "science" part of science-fiction. https://www.inverse.com/article/37003-star-trek-discovery-s1ep3-recap-review-context-kings
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Award News
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* The winners of the 2017 British Fantasy Awards have been announced! https://www.tor.com/2017/10/01/announcing-the-2017-british-fantasy-award-winners/
* The 2017 Salam Award winner, for a short story written by an author currently living in Pakistan or of Pakistani birth/descent, has been announced: http://thesalamaward.com/index.php/the-award/2017-winners/
* The longlist for the 2018 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence has been released and there are quite a few genre-adjacent titles on the fiction list. Check it out here: http://www.ala.org/awardsgrants/carnegieadult/longlists
* The winners of the Sixth Annual Copper Cylinder Award have been announced. http://coppercylinderaward.ca/2017-winners
* N.K. Jemisin has won the Eugie award for her story "The City Born Great" on Tor.com. Check out the announcement and most of the nominees here: http://www.eugiefoster.com/eugieaward
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