Skip to main content

Lightning News Flashes: Ian McEwan; SF Prophecy; ‘Hunchback’; Locus Awards


A flash of lightning.
Credit: Pixabay.com



Here is another post of Lightning News Flashes! Lightning News Flashes are bits of news in the science fiction and fantasy scene. The news for this post: author Ian McEwan’s response to fans lashing out at his so-called denial of science fiction; a new BBC series of articles about sci fi books that correctly predicted today’s events; an artifact from a classic Universal film based on a classic gothic novel; the Locus Awards.


Ian McEwan Says He Was Not Putting Down Sci Fi 


Last week, I said it was reported that Ian McEwan was criticised by science fiction fans for denying his newest book, Machines Like Me, being sci fi and implying that the genre was an insignificant form of fiction. I talked about how that was a misunderstanding on the part of those fans’. Well, this week Wired reported that McEwan himself has admitted that he was misunderstood, that he was not trying to downgrade science fiction and that he was even open to his novel being classified in the genre. More details about this can be found at Wired.com. 


New BBC Series of Articles On Sci Fi as Prophecy 


A few weeks back, I discussed how science fiction can and has served as a form of prophecy. A new series of articles at BBC’s Culture website talks about books that have done that. The first installment of this series is about how John Brunner’s 1968 novel, Stand on Zanzibar, predicted today’s events such as wearable technology, legalisation of marijuana, same-sex marriage and widespread mass shootings.  According to this article, Brunner’s novel predicted events as accurately as no more than a year’s difference from when they’ve really happened. However, it also talks about some of the inaccuracies in the novel’s predictions, sci fi tropes such as guns that shoot out electrical bolts. Well, if it weren’t for inaccuracies such as that the novel would no longer be science fiction, would it?


‘Hunchback of Notre Dame’ Movie Collectible To Be Auctioned 



A promo poster of the 1923 film, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", depicting a dancing gypsy woman and the Hunchback.
Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Universal



Los Angeles Magazine reports that several sci fi and fantasy movie memorabilia items are going up for bid in the TCM Presents . . . Wonders of the Galaxy auction this Tuesday. Among these is a promotion poster for Universal’s silent classic, The Hunchback of Notre Dame which starred Lon Chaney Sr. The movie was based on Victor Hugo’s gothic novel of the same name. The poster’s estimated value is $150,000 to $200,000. This auction will also offer another, similar, item of a silent film that starred Lon Chaney: a lobby card for the lost vampire film, London After Midnight. The card is estimated to be at a value between $18,000 and $25,000.


2019 Locus Awards Finalists 


The Locus Science Fiction Foundation has selected the top ten finalists for the 2019 Locus Awards. The winners will be announced at the Locus Awards ceremony in Seattle, WA, during the weekend of June 28th 2019. Author Connie Willis will host the ceremony. The Locus Awards is an annual awards ceremony, put on by the ones who publish Locus Magazine, that acknowledges the best in speculative fiction


That’s it for this week’s science fiction and fantasy news. Be here next week for a Book-To-Movie review!

Have you ever attended the Locus Awards? Do you read Locus Magazine?

Until next time . . .


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Book-To-Movie: ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’

Credit: Wikimedia Commons I apologise for posting outside our regular post-day which is late Saturday night/early Sunday morning. However, I got behind on several things last week and so had to postpone the post to today.  I’ve been a reader of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes books ever since I was 11. What I’ve always liked so much about the series is that, like a good horror story, the stories often take place in dark settings and involve bizarre cases. Conan Doyle’s novel, “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, definitely contains these elements. It’s a detective story that crosses over into the gothic horror genre. Several movie adaptations of the novel have been made that go as far back as a 1915 German silent film. In 1959 Hammer Studios released a version starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. As much as I’m a fan of the Hammer horror films, I have not seen that one yet. The only one that I’ve seen so far is the 1939 adaptation starring that other big name in classic Bri

Book-To-Movie: ‘I Am Legend’

A vampire similar to the ones in 2008's "I Am Legend" which starred Will Smith. Credit: Pixabay.com It’s time for another Book-To-Movie review! In a Book-To-Movie, I review a book and its movie adaptations. This month’s book and its movies based on it is I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. While vampires were no longer in in the American pop culture of the the 1950s, science fiction horror in general was. So Matheson’s I Am Legend brought the scientificising of vampires into the pulp literary scene of that era. Not too long after, in the early ‘60s, the first of three book-to-movie adaptions appeared and was renamed The Last Man On Earth which starred Vincent Price. The other two were The Omega Man starring Charlton Heston in the ‘70s and I Am Legend starring Will Smith in the 2001s. Even though each one debunked the myth of the vampire as a supernatural being, each had its own depiction of the creature. ‘I Am Legend’, The Book Set in a near post-apocalyptic fu

Book-To-Movie: Stephen King’s 'The Raft'

Credit: Pixabay.com It's the third Saturday of the month and so that means it's time for another Book-To-Movie ! In a Book-To-Movie we review a book and its movie adaptation. One of the reasons I as a horror fan don’t read a lot of Stephen King’s work is because most of it consists of novels that go more than 400 pages. I have a short attention span when it comes to reading, ironically since I consider myself an avid reader, and so I normally won’t read a work that is much more than the equivalent to a 350-page mass market paperback. The other reason why I don’t read a lot of King’s work is that, as literary scholars will tell you, a lot of his writing is poor. However, he does have some good writing in his works, especially his earlier stuff, including his short horror tales. So if I read anything by Stephen King it’s usually his short stories or novellas. One of his collections I’ve read is Skeleton Crew which includes some of his good, or at least better, fi