The 2022 Hugo Awards shortlist

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The 2022 Hugo Awards shortlist

12 April 2022

It doesn’t seem so long ago that the winners of the 2021 Hugo Awards were announced, but the shortlist for the 2022 awards, which recognise the work of science-fiction and fantasy writers, has been unveiled. This year works spanning nineteen award categories have made the cut, with winners being named on Sunday 4 September 2022, at Chicon 8, in the American city of Chicago.

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awards, science fiction

The 2021 Aurealis Awards shortlist

9 April 2022

The Aurealis Awards have been celebrating the work of Australian science fiction, fantasy, and horror writers since 1995, and the shortlist for the 2021 awards was announced last week.

Titles have been nominated in fifteen categories: Best Graphic Novel / Illustrated Work, Best Young Adult Short Story, Best Horror Short Story, Best Horror Novella, Best Fantasy Short Story, Best Fantasy Novella, Best Science Fiction Short Story, Best Science Fiction Novella, Best Collection, Best Anthology, Best Young Adult Novel, Best Fantasy Novel, Best Horror Novel, Best Science Fiction Novel, Best Children’s Fiction, plus the Sara Douglass Book Series Award.

The winners will be named on Saturday evening, 28 May 2022, at the The Hellenic Club in Canberra.

A trailer for the Obi-Wan Kenobi TV mini-series

12 March 2022

A teaser/trailer for the upcoming Disney+ Obi-Wan Kenobi six-part TV mini-series, that delves further into the Star Wars saga. Both Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen reprise their roles as Obi-Wan and Darth Vader, respectively.

The story begins 10 years after the dramatic events of “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” where Obi-Wan Kenobi faced his greatest defeat — the downfall and corruption of his best friend and Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker, who turned to the dark side as evil Sith Lord Darth Vader.

From this snippet, Obi-Wan Kenobi looks promising. Though some have been better than others, I’m wary of some efforts to “fill in” gaps in the original Star Wars saga, or more the point, the first six films, as, to me, episodes seven through nine didn’t feel the least bit like Star Wars.

While I thought Rogue One, depicting events immediately prior to A New Hope, wasn’t too bad — terrible CGI representation of some characters aside — Solo, the Han Solo “origin story”, was unnecessary to say the least.

Given almost twenty-years separate events of Revenge of the Sith, and A New Hope, there’s probably enough room to insert a story half-way between episodes three and four, without compromising the integrity of the saga. Time will tell. Obi-Wan Kenobi debuts on Wednesday 25 May 2022.

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film, science fiction, trailer

2001: A Space Odyssey, a 2022 remake

14 February 2022

Related to my earlier post, can it be? George Lucas and Steven Spielberg collaborated on a remake of 2001: A Space Odyssey? How did I miss this? And even though the remake has a release date of 3 December 2022, it has already been appraised by the critics:

The film got mixed reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 89%, which is very close to the original films rating. People thought that it had good music (while the original barely had any music) since it was performed by John Williams, who makes great music, and they loved HAL 9000’s theme “Bad Programming Day”. Also, a lot of people thought that it was similar to the original film. Harrison Ford even got a reward for his excellent acting in this film, people even say that it was better than his performance as Han Solo.

In this… “remake” Harrison Ford voices HAL, Chris Pratt is David Bowman, Jason Bateman is Frank Poole, and Mark Hamill portrays Heywood Floyd, so it looks like the reboot fails the Bechdel Test. John Williams composed the soundtrack, which is awesome even if it means no Blue Danube this time around.

Can’t wait to see it though…

Vale Douglas Trumbull, film visual effects artist

14 February 2022

Douglas Trumbull, a visual effects artist whose film credits include Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: the Motion Picture, The Tree of Life, and the mind-boggling “star-gate” sequence in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, died last week at the age of 79.

By the way, the above trailer was made in 2018 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the release of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Expounding the reality of climate change through science fiction

31 January 2022

American science-fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2020 novel The Ministry for the Future is set in a world once ravaged by climate change, but slowly on the mend. Yet the inhabitants of this world have not had to merely tolerate weather extremes, but also numerous other significant problems.

His most recent novel, “The Ministry for the Future,” published in October, 2020, during the second wave of the pandemic, centers on the work of a fictional U.N. agency charged with solving climate change. The book combines science, politics, and economics to present a credible best-case scenario for the next few decades. It’s simultaneously heartening and harrowing. By the end of the story, it’s 2053, and carbon levels in the atmosphere have begun to decline. Yet hundreds of millions of people have died or been displaced. Coastlines have been drowned and landscapes have burned. Economies have been disrupted, refugees have flooded the temperate latitudes, and ecoterrorists from stricken countries have launched campaigns of climate revenge.

Perhaps more stories like this — that are both gloomy yet hopeful — might prompt more people to take climate change more seriously?

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Martha Wells wins best novel prize in 2021 Hugo Awards

22 December 2021

Network Effect, by American speculative fiction author Martha Wells, won the best novel in the Hugo Awards for 2021. Established in 1953, the Hugos celebrate the best science fiction and fantasy written works – across a number of categories – of the past twelve months.

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Can turning to the light side of the force change the world?

13 November 2021

Can the light side of the force (à la the Star Wars universe) change the world? Washington D.C. based American author Stephen Kent, writer of How the Force Can Fix the World, believes some of the core principles of the Star Wars stories – hope, humility, and balance among them – can be of help to humanity in times of uncertainty.

We’re living in a time of unprecedented and rapid change. An age of chaos. Democracies are in decline worldwide. Dictators are ascendant. Civic organizations are crumbling. People feel lonelier and more rudderless than in any other time in recent history. We’ve tried to slow down, and in some cases we, like Anakin, have tried stop the change, but failed at every turn. The fears that come with living in an age of disruption have produced public anger, and that anger has swelled movements of hate.

And for those who are strong with the force, American journalist and editor Meg Dowell recently interviewed Kent about the book and its concepts, on the Followers of the Force Podcast.

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books, science fiction

Laura Jean McKay wins the 2021 Arthur C Clarke award

1 October 2021

New Zealand based Australian author Laura Jean McKay has been named the winner of the 2021 Arthur C Clarke award for science fiction writing, with her 2020 novel The Animals in That Country. Very much a novel for our times.

Wuher: A Star Wars Story, and other films you may not live to see

18 November 2015

If a single movie, Rogue One, a Star Wars “spin off” story, slated for release in late 2016, can be spawned by way of a few words taken from the opening crawl of A New Hope, then imagine what else seen in the six films released to date, has the potential to inspire? A point that’s not lost on current series producers, the Walt Disney Company:

And if the people at the Walt Disney Company, which bought Lucasfilm for $4 billion in 2012, have anything to say about it, the past four decades of Star Wars were merely prologue. They are making more. A lot more. The company intends to put out a new Star Wars movie every year for as long as people will buy tickets. Let me put it another way: If everything works out for Disney, and if you are (like me) old enough to have been conscious for the first Star Wars film, you will probably not live to see the last one. It’s the forever franchise.

I think Wuher, the gruff bartender in the canteen at Mos Eisley, is worthy of a film. In fact, I’m of the opinion that the significance of his role in the saga has been greatly understated so far. Read his profile. I think you’ll agree there’s far more to him than meets the eye.

Originally published Wednesday 18 November 2015.

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