Fred of Final Rune Productions has posted up his Kickstarter campaign to fund Season 2 of his post-apocalyptic serial The Cleansed.
The project is HERE.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Category: News
Worldcon HUGO Ceremonies coverage pulled from Ustream after showing clips from BBC and NBC
A live video of this year’s Worldcon Hugo Awards (Chicon 7: The 70th World Science Fiction Convention), held in Chicago, was being streamed on Ustream until shortly after clips from three Doctor Who episodes, an episode of Community, and a clip from last year’s Hugo Awards ceremony were shown. Neil Gaiman was giving his acceptance speech, for The Doctor’s Wife, when he was suddenly cut-off and replaced by a black screen and the words “Worldcon was removed due to violation of terms of service.”
Speculation by viewers, in the chat room associated with Ustream included surmises such as “Well, someone DCMA’d the Hugo live webcast” – and yet another chatter rightly pointed out that the clips used were “clearly FAIR USE.”
Things are clearly fucked up south of the border when a private “TERMS OF SERVICE” acts in place of copyright.
The next Hugo Awards ceremony should be released via torrent.
Update:
“Samuel Montgomery-Blinn Official announcement from @Chicon7 says that Ustream won’t be bringing this back online.”
Update II:
Posted by Jesse Willis
The Raven a FREE illustrated audiobook app from vNovel Interactive (for iOS devices)
There’s a terrific illustrated, and partially animated, audiobook app available free in the Apple App store. Made by vNovel Interactive The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe features a solid reading (by Domien de Groot), some unnecessary sound effects (rapping, tapping, creaking, and cawing), and some of the most gorgeous illustrations (by Vladimir Rikowski) of the poem that I’ve ever seen.
There’s an iPad version too, it’s HERE.
Experience “The Raven”, as it comes to life, like you’ve never seen it before: an innovative double play mode interactive book, featuring a world-class audio performance of Edgar Allan Poe’s classic poem.
Go back to the place where it all began, in the midst of a dreary night – the kind, the ghosts of our past (that come back to haunt us) find irresistible. Relive this poetic, frightening and sad tale of love and soul forever lost, in a charming new light.
With a powerful original musical score, that resonates deep within, and contemporary original art, that rivals some of the most expressive illustrations of the past – this is an experience you will never forget.
App trailer:
Musical score composed by Zoltan Csordas:
Incidentally, the app isn’t fully featured, there’s no rewind feature, only a pause. If you want to restart, or return to the main menu, shake your iOS device.
Posted by Jesse Willis
George R.R. Martin on Fantasy (“Everything That Is Wrong With Commercial Fantasy In A Single Quote”)
Brian Murphy, of the Silver Key blog, has posted about something interesting he found on another blog (Everything Is Nice). It’s about this poetic description of Fantasy written and read by George R.R. Martin (that sums up “Everything That Is Wrong With Commercial Fantasy In A Single Quote”):
Myself, when I think of Fantasy I think of The Twilight Zone, of Philip K. Dick’s Beyond The Door, of James Powell’s A Dirge For Clowntown, of Homer’s The Iliad, of Jorge Luis Borges and his Garden Of Forking Paths.
To me fantasy is not an endless adventures in a magical medieval Europe, nor a tattooed vampire with a sword in one hand and a laser blaster in the other.
To me Fantasy is countless tiny worlds – many like our own – many radically different – some entirely impossible, but all of them firmly found within my world.
Fantasy, to me, exist within the books themselves, and in my memory of them, and in my consciousness when I think of them, all as a part of the larger world I live in.
Fantasy is not a place of escape, nor a world separate from mine in which I wish to live.
I don’t view Fantasy literature as a form of escapism.
To me Fantasy is something to enjoy, like a fine meal. Something to inspire an attitude, not a way to understand the world, nor as a consolation or a substitute for a harsh reality I’d rather not think about.
But commercial fantasy, the endless book series that take up larger and larger section of the bookstore shelves, is, to me, a very small and uninteresting part of Fantasy literature. It is the part that gets the most attention. But it shouldn’t.
Posted by Jesse Willis