The Crotchety Old Fan

I’ve just recently finished re-reading the entire series.  I do not need internet pundits to remind me that Sir Richard fucking Francis Burton is not a bad guy; nor that people were resurrected all at once;  nor that….
To say that the upcoming mini-series on syfy is FULL of fail is an understatement of such grand [...]

As mentioned earlier today, a mention for which I have already been roundly castigated by none other than Jeff VanderMeer, who’s work I unsuccessfully nominated (Finch for Best Novel) and who – despite his obvious mastery of the English language could come up with no better word to describe my justifications than “babble” (both Jeff [...]

Just finished voting! Made my votes and my ’selections’ (I chose to rank every work/person in a category rather than leaving them blank if I hadn’t read a particular work). Your ethics may disagree with that methodology, but there’s not line in the rules that says “you must have read or seen a [...]

The Hugo Awards shortlist was released yesterday and I can’t say that I’m surprised at all that only one of my nominations actually made it to the final ballot. (On the other hand, I did exercise my option not not vote in categories in which I felt I was incapable of making an informed [...]

I just submitted my ballot: I only made four choices for novel, a couple of short stories, one movie (dramatic, long form), a couple of fanzines and fan writers, two short story nominations, one novelette nomination and one fan artist nomination.
My finger is purple.
Make yours purple if you’re eligible and haven’t submitted a ballot [...]

Here’s (most of) the list of “genre” (sf, fantasy, horror) winners and nominees of most of the categories awards are given out for.
Music remains to be handled (best, mixed, editing, etc), as do shorts, but this is the bulk of it.
You may agree or disagree with some of the films I’ve included or excluded: [...]

This is going to be one of those round-up posts – but please pay attention as everything here today is important to someone, and some of them are probably important to a lot of someones.
First:  Gary Farber is in need of some assistance.  You can read the detail here.  If you can spare a few [...]

This morning’s Google Reader roundup brings yet another declaration of science fiction’s slow and agonizing, death rattle infused, demise, this time in the form of commentary from Amy Sterling Casil over at the Book View Cafe’s Blog site (via Charles Tan’s link roundup).
I have decided that enough is enough.  Most of this prognostication and eulogizing [...]

Remember the so-called Joanna Russ amendment introduced at Anticipation? It was designed to assist and elevate the presence of female science fiction authors, at least so far as the Hugo Awards were concerned.
It achieved this noble task by putting forth the scheme that in any year in which there were no female authors represented [...]

But it has been – and here is some of that has been:
Pocket Books is making several copies of a current fantasy series available for folks who buy a membership in Aussiecon IV.  I’ll reveal the title when the shipment arrives.
Haikasoru is making several copies of a couple of titles available for folks who buy [...]