The second installment of the Serenity comic book came out this week (8/4/05). I picked up the Jo Chen cover edition today, featuring Book. Sadly, the Jo Chen cover, featuring an elfish Kaylee was sold out. The story appears to fill in space between the last TV episode and the forthcoming movie. Page count is small, only 22 total pages per comic featuring panels with Serenity action, so this is barely enough to whet one’s appetite while waiting for the movie.
Author: Anders Monsen (Page 87 of 90)
A new short story magazine, Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest recently published its first issue. I found issue number two at Barnes & Noble, and saw that it contains a novella by James P. Hogan. The novella, “The Falcon,” deals briefly with an individual sentenced by her government for having the wrong ideas, and the temerity to not back away from those ideas.
Over at Emerald City, Cheryl Morgan continues her bafflement with libertarians in a note about Charles Stross’ Accelerando nominated for the Prometheus Award. Stross mentioned this fact in a forum post on 7/21/05, and on 7/27, Ms. Morgan muses about how “a British Liberal can be nominated for writing Libertaran fiction.” The fact is that you don’t need to be a card-carrying member of the Libertarian Party (US), and the Libertarian Futurist Society is in no way associated with the LP. The LFS recognizes works of fiction that deal with liberty and challenges authority of any individual over other individuals. This is not the only criteria for the Prometheus Award. Even Ken MacLeod, an avowed Marxist, show greater intellectual honsesty towards libertarians: they’re not all crazed right wing lunatics…
The first issue of Serenity, the comic book, came out last week. I still have not found the John Cassaday Cover, which no doubt is quite popular, as it features Capt. Mal Reynolds.
Today I received in the mail a copy of Destroying Worlds by John David, published in the UK. There was no return address, so no way to get back in touch with the sender and/or author (for which there is no biographical information on the book). I plan on reviewing this book in the Fall issue of Prometheus, which is scheduled for early-mid October. I’d like to send the author some copies of the issue with the review. If anyone knows how to get in touch with the author, please let me know.
Today all issues of Prometheus, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Summer 2005) were mailed to members of LFS and subscribers. The issue includes an article on Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano, by Thomas Sipos; a review of F. Paul Wilson’s latest Repairman Jack novel, Infernal, and much more. Mailed along with this issue was a special print version of the Summer 2004 newsletter, which originally appeared only in email form.
From the New York Times, a great and inspiring story of Duong Thu Huong, a fiction writer in Vietnam who spits in the face of the regime, and refuses to leave while opposing and denouncing its very oppressive government.
Cheryl Morgan from Emerald City on the Cato Institute:
I am, of course, familiar with the Cato Institute from my “real” job as an energy economist. They are the loony extremist wing of the free market movement and generally argue that no market should have any regulation, ever. It was interesting to actually meet a bunch of Cato Institute supporters. As I suspected, they tended to be very rich, deeply conservative, and strongly interested in protecting what they see to be important American freedoms, such as the freedom to take what you want, the freedom to exploit and opress others, and the freedom to kill anyone who gets in your way.
Yes, indeed. That’s freedom, folks. I shake my head in wonder and amazement.
Via Reason’s Hit and Run pages, and interesting article about Dave Sim and his 6,000 page comic book epic, Cerebus. I think it might be daunting undertaking to read 6,000 words of a comic book, let alone imagine the monomanic effort that went into writing this work.
From Ain’t it Cool News, a script review of V for Vendetta, and it’s not a pretty result. Instead of the book, we probably will end up with “inspired by the title of the comic book” in the credits. All the excitement I felt upon hearing the original news about this movie has evaporated into this air. Not even Natalie Portman’s presence can save this movie. A quote:
There is nothing sinister about the government. It isn’t subtle and manipulative at all like the graphic novel presented it to be. It is Evil with a capital E, black bags over the head and everything. Pothrero is not the Voice of England, but a screaming voice, devoid of nuance and subtlety, a damning indication of elementary screenwriting by two hacks.
