The cover photo’s a little creepy, but now you can pre-order Others: The Tales of F. Paul Wilson from Shocklines. This DVD contains three short stories where the author granted permission to three young filmmakers – “Foet”, “Traps,” and “Lipidleggin.” The first two are horror tales, and the last a libertarian sf story that originally appeared in Asimovs in 1978, and then reprinted in Survival of Freedom an anthology edited by Jerry Pournelle in 1981. None of the shorts run longer than 20 minutes, but you can bet I’m ordering this little item. Expected ship date is October, 2006, and the cost is a mere $13.99.

I’m trying to minimize surfing while working on the Fall issue of Prometheus, but while wasting time elsewhere trying to add cover art to some iTunes albums, I stumbled upon a site that lets you sample tracks via free downloads, for jazz fans only, I guess. All available by permission from artist or record company, and all in the mp3 format. No apparent DRM. Probably friendly across many digital jukeboxes. There are currently 421 available downloads. I’m hoping this will lead to me discovering cool new jazz, as my tastes tend to be stuck in the 1950s and 1960s in that genre…

The next issue of the print newsletter of the Libertarian Futurist Society is slowly coming together. So far this is what’s planned:
Prometheus Award Winners’ remarks. Reviews of fiction by Naomi Novik, Keith Brooke, David Louis Edelman, Ian MacDonald, Gary Bennett, Chris Roberson. Movie review of V for Vendetta. Scheduled publication date is early to mid-October.

I’ve just finished putting together a wickedly cool cover for the newsletter, which I won’t yet reveal. My only concern with this issue is that it looks like I’m writing five or six reviews to fill content. Not that I mind, but I’m hoping for submissions from others so I can step back a little.

Speaking of which, if you like libertarian sf, and like to review stuff, please consider Prometheus.

I’m not longer sure… Do I belong to the cult of Apple, or a libertarian sf cult. I’m astonished at the intellectual strength required to label different ideas as cult like. Gosh, some weird people actually like an OS and and hardware design, instead of living with clunky and imitative software, viruses, blues screens of death, and grey boxes. You are a cult! Some people like liberty and dream of space. Cultist! With friends like this, who needs enemies.

Forbidden Planet interviews David Lloyd, who along with Alan Moore recently won the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award for V for Vendetta. Lloyd has a new book out, Kickback, a crime noir thriller which looks quite interesting. Lloyd also has a generous perspective on the changes made to the V for Vendetta movie. I haven’t yet sorted out all my feelings about the movie. Parts of it were quite good, but there were several shortfalls and it fizzled out long before the end. It certainly lacked the power of the book, and had nowhere near the impact of the original Matrix movie. I recently read the original screenplay that the Wachowskis wrote, and I can’t really understand why they didn’t film it that way, and why they made certain changes. Then again, I read the original screenplay for The Matrix Reloaded and I have no idea what they were smoking when they put that together. Even the strange mis-shapen outcome of the final movie was much better than that screenplay.

Update 9/10/06: I picked up a copy of Kickback yesterday. I’m hoping to review it in Prometheus, but unless I get creative I’m already out of space.

Wally Conger reviews Brad Linaweaver’s new non-fiction book about America’s foreign policy, and finds the plumb line of anarchism askew. I know Linaweaver and point #3 does not surprise me at all. As for the content of the book I have not yet read it, so I can’t comment.

A brief article from Advocates for Self-Government about writer and Prometheus Award winner Terry Pratchett. Debates have raged elsewhere regarding the supposed libertarian content of Pratchett’s books, especially from non-libertarians disparaging any connection. The Discworld scene is a varied lot, and certainly no libertarian utopia, but enough quotes in several books do bolster a pro-liberty leaning and somewhat cynical attitude toward those in power. A select few are reprinted in the article. Another great book not mentioned is Feet of Clay.

This link probably is meaningless to those who speak no Norwegian, but the blogger here, a young Norwegian lass, prints a letter she found at school that started her down the road to Terry Pratchett worship. In the letter is a brief snippet that mentions “two prestigious awards,” namely “Prometheus Award and Carnegie Medal,” which links back to a Norwegian Wikipedia entry.

I always knew the Prometheus Award had high status, but this seems, well, stratospheric.

Nice mention of the 2006 Prometheus Award winners by The Forbidden Planet, a UK site dealing with comics, grphic novels and cult merchandise. I’m in the middle of putting together the Fall issue with lots of items of the Prometheus Award event, and am alsways cheered by nice mentions like this. Beats the sarcarsm I’ve seen over at Emerald City in the past.

Smith prints a response to an inquiry about his three Lando Calrissian books.