A Far Out Fantastic Site

Most Saturday afternoons I’m usually recording my expenses in the cheque transaction booklet and cleaning house so that later in the day I can work on what I enjoy most: writing. But this Saturday I ditched the usual routine and took a bus out to the second annual Sacramento Zine Fest held held at the Verge Center for the Arts in downtown. My first experience with zines was when I picked up a couple free science fiction fanzines at my first full sci fi/fantasy convention, BayCon in San Jose, several years ago. Soon, I came across one called The National Fantasy Fan and purchased a membership that gave me as many as six issues a year. I even wrote a review of a Larry Niven book for one. That was one of my first published works. Ever since then, I’ve always been interested in the zine scene. Many famous speculative fiction writers started off writing for fantasy and science fiction fanzines-- Harlan Ellison and William Gibson to name two.  Many fantasy and science ficti...

Credit: Pixabay.com Well, it’s been more than six months since the last Book-To-Movie article. So I’m glad to present another, finally, after all this time. I’m planning to have a Book-To-Movie here at the Fantastic Site on the third Saturday of each month and so am planning to make it a regularly occurring series. In this series, I review, or in some cases preview, book to movie adaptations. In each installment, I discuss the book and the movie that’s based on it, showing how faithful the latter is to the former. Because this is a science fiction/fantasy blog, most of the book to movie adaptations will be sci fi, horror, or some other type of fantasy.  This time, I’m reviewing William Nolan and George Clayton Johnson’s 1967 novel Logan’s Run and the movie adaptation that released in 1976. As with most book to movie adaptations, Logan’s Run the film lacks the details of the novel and so scenes are either condensed or cut entirely. However, the style of filming makes up for th...

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 h...

Last month, many science fiction fans and authors were enraged at Ian McEwan’s dismissal of the genre when he talked about his newest novel, Machines That Think Like Me , in an interview with The Guardian . As much as it contains the elements of science fiction, it was said that McEwan does not refer to it as that. Many people took this as literary elitism on his part. Science fiction has had a history of belittlement which has given the genre’s term a negative connotation. In this age of political correctness, many people do not like using the term and much less its shortened version, “sci fi”. Because of that, fans and even authors of the genre are self-conscious of using the word “science fiction” to refer to their reading preferences or work. I know because I’ve been there myself. However, there is nothing bad in the word “science fiction” except what the literary elite put in it. But that doesn’t count since what they put in it is only based on their own biases . Credi...

Welcome to another post of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) , a network of bloggers who post every first Wednesday of the month about problems in writing and how to solve them. It was founded by blogger/author Alex Cavanaugh. This month it is co-hosted by Lee Lowery, Juneta Key, Yvonne Ventresca, and T. Powell Coltrin. This month’s IWSG writing problem that I’ll discuss here at the Far Out Fantastic Site is how to stay motivated with revising your story. Even though I’ll read them, I was never a big fan of writing long works of fiction. I am more of a short story writer. However, my current novella, titled Invasion of the Avatars , that I’m working on is the long work that I’ve stayed with the longest so far. Because I’m ADD, it’s hard for me to stay focused on writing long fiction such as novels. Yet, I’ve always wanted to try my hand at writing a novel, so one NaNoWriMo, the nationwide novel writing challenge that occurs each November, I compromised with m...

Credit: Pixabay.com Last time I said that there may not be a post for this Saturday due to posting this coming Wednesday for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG). But when I heard about Independent Bookstore Day , I had to post at least a brief write-up about it. This special day, which occurs on the last Saturday in April, has been going on for five years. Yet as much as I’m a supporter of independent, locally owned bookstores, I only found out about it two days ago. So maybe not enough people are sharing about it on social media and/or maybe news media isn’t covering it enough. I can’t say for sure. What I can say for sure is that I felt compelled to do my part and share this special day with fellow avid readers and fellow writers who may be in the dark about Independent Bookstore Day like I had been. Independent Bookstore Day started in California in 2014 and went nationwide in 2016. Each store that participates celebrates in their own special way. W...

Credit: Pixabay.com I have some Lightning News Flashes for this post. The month of April has sadly seen the loss of two science fiction writers but it’s also seen some good news, too. N ew TV shows based on science fiction and fantasy novels have been announced as being in the works and also an Edgar Allen Poe Museum ha s acquired a genuine letter written by Poe. For longer versions of these stories, click on the links below. Obituaries Science fiction and fantasy author Vonda McIntyre passed away at age 70 on the first of the month. She wrote several Star Trek books, including the novel adaptations of movies ST II: The Wrath of Khan and ST III: The Search for Spock . Her 1978 novel, Dreamsnake , had won both a Hugo and a Nebula. According to Geekwire .com, McIntyre started the Clarion West writers’ workshop in Seattle in 1971. Geekwire also says she completed her last novel, Curve of the World , “in less than two weeks before her death” from pancreatic ...