Call for Review Copies: World SF Authors and Creators (Books, Comics, etc.)
As you may know, my podcast, The Skiffy and Fanty Show, is hosting a year-long feature called the World SF Tour. And because I’m dedicated to world sf in general, I want to do more than just post podcast episodes and reviews of foreign films for the “2010: A SFF Film Odyssey” feature. So this is a call for review copies. I’m looking for books, movies, comics, and other forms of media that fulfill the following: They are works of speculative fiction, broadly defined (and I do mean broadly defined; the only thing I won’t read is erotica, because I’m really not the right audience for it) They are works created by people from outside the United States (I will give special attention to works outside the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom) They are works which are professionally published (note: this does not necessarily mean they must be published through traditional means) OR of professional quality (a subjective measure, I know) I cannot guarantee I can read and review everything under the sun. As such, this is what I’m offering: Reviews of 1-2 titles a month (depending on the medium; I can review more movies than books, for example) Guest post slots on my blog and The Skiffy and Fanty Show for anyone whose work I cannot review due to time restraints (so you can talk about your book, your writing, etc.) That’s it. Spread the word!
#WorldSFTour Fundraiser Updatery: Free Reads and Moving Forward
First things first, I would like to thank everyone who has donated to this adventure so far. It means a lot to have the support of folks following me around on the Internet. So, thanks! If you haven’t supported the fundraiser yet, please consider doing so. I really want to bring my podcast and the World SF Tour to Worldcon this year, in no small part because it will help me expand the project ten fold. I won’t lie: Worldcon will be a lot of fun. But it will also be about contributing to this field, which means a lot to me. Now for the updates: Not too long ago, the fundraiser reached the 1st Milestone, which meant one of the perks activated. The 1st Milestone Perk involved an entry in the Encyclopedia Confictura, a fun little alternate history thing I’ve done for giggles. This time, I let a donor pick the topic, which ended up being the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. That perk is now live. It’s listed under C in this magic Google Doc of other examples! I had a blast writing it, and folks seem to be enjoying it thus far. The 2nd Milestone Perk also activated, which involves Paul Weimer writing a “Mining the Asteroid” column on a classic work of sf/f. Everything for this fundraiser is donor selected, so a lucky individual selected The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers. Paul’s post isn’t live yet, but it will be next week. 🙂 I’ve registered for Worldcon. So, yeah. At this point, I’m trying to raise travel expenses, which is the largest bulk of the cost (somewhere between $1500 and $1700). We’re now $232 (or thereabouts) from the 3rd Milestone. For anyone who follows The Skiffy and Fanty Show, you’ll know that we do two film-related subcasts: Torture Cinema and Shoot the WISB. The 3rd Milestone Perk will allow a lucky donor to pick someone for one of those subcasts. That could really turn out to be hilarious. Oh, and if someone picks Waterworld, I’m sure Jen Zink will be in that episode…and she will defend it with her life! And that’s about it. If you’ve got a little spare cash, please consider helping out. Even $5 goes a long way. Anywhoodles!
Another Week of Joy Commences Today
I’ve done this before. Last night, I declared Friday the beginning of another Week of Joy, in which I will only discuss or talk about happy things, like books, movies, spaceships, magic wizard monkeys, and anything that should be, in principle, producers of happiness. You are free to join me in whatever way appeals to you.
Around the Interwebs: An SFF Film Odyssey at Skiffy and Fanty + #WorldSFTour Fundraiser Updates
A couple things to let folks know about: 1) Remember when I said I would review or discuss every SF/F film released in 2010? Well, the first post just went up, be because it’s for a non-American film, it ended up on The Skiffy and Fanty Show blog: “A (World) SFF Film Odyssey: Mutant Girls Squad (2010) and Anime’s Excesses.” Do go check it out when you get a chance. I’m also going to start working on a post about Monsters (2010), which I’m going to review here, even though it clearly has an international scope in terms of its secondary characters and setting. After that, I’ll probably watch one of the animated children’s flicks that came out that year. Maybe Megamind (2010). I’m also not sure where I’m going to compile all of this. Maybe I’ll just use the original post as a depository. What do you think? 2) The fundraiser to bring the World SF Tour and The Skiffy and Fanty Show to Worldcon has received $115 in donations so far. That’s a good start, but I still need a lot of support for this. If you’ve got $10 to spare and/or a willingness to share the heck out of this thing, I’d really appreciate it. Also: since we’re at $115, that means the first milestone was reached. I’m working on getting the topic for the Encyclopedia Confictura entry now; that will hopefully be up this week! And that’s that. What have you all been up to?
Worldcon Fundraiser: Send the #WorldSFTour to London!
Folks on Twitter will have seen this already. Over at The Skiffy and Fanty Show blog, I’m hosting a fundraiser to help bring the World SF Tour to Worldcon in London. At last year’s Worldcon, we interviewed quite a bunch of folks and released those episodes throughout 2013. This year, we want to do the same thing, because London will contain a far more international audience, and I’d like to expand the reach of the tour as much as possible! The fundraiser just started today. You can support that fundraiser on this GoFundMe page. As of this moment, we’re nearly to the first milestone, which will mean a perk opens up. And there are lots of other nifty S&F-related perks to become available as the donations rack up. Other perks might be announced later. If you’re at all interested in World SF and want to see more content on S&F related to that theme, please support the fundraiser!
Announcement: Comments Moderation Change
A while back, I changed my comments system to un-moderated w/o all the CAPTCHA and Google account requirements. I did that as an experiment. Overall, it’s been a good one, as folks have been able to comment without much difficulty. However, the spambots have become a little more persistent and “clever” in recent weeks, which means some spam comments are getting through the spam system. This requires me to go into the comments area and manually mark them as spam (the email notifications only sometimes let me mark them as spam from there). As such, I’m making a change to how I handle comments here. As of now, all comments will be moderated. CAPTCHA and other such requirements will remain off. I can’t imagine this will have any discernible impact here, as I tend to approve almost all messages anyway (unless you’re super creepy or a jackass). But this way, the spam will never get through. Anywhoodles.