Film Review: Trollhunter (2010) — A (World) SFF Film Odyssey
Trollhunter (2010)(Trolljegeren in Norway) is André Øvredal’s most popular film, though it is, I’d argue, sorely overlooked by American audiences. Originally released in October 2010, the film was eventually transplanted to U.S. audiences via the Sundance Film Festival in January 2011. The premise is fairly simple: Under the guise of presenting secret footage, Trollhunter follows a trio of student journalists who arrive in the mountains in order to interview and document the actions of a mysterious man named Hans who locals suspect is illegally killing bears. In their attempts to catch the man in the act, they follow him and discover that Hans is actually a trollhunter, protecting the borders between human and troll territories with a UV light gun and other clever amenities. Invited to ride along, the trio document Hans’ journey to determine what has caused a recent series of violent troll events, only to realize that they’re in over their heads.
Finding Filipinos in Science Fiction and Fantasy
A decade ago, whenever I mentioned Filipinos in science fiction and fantasy, genre fans here and abroad would mention two novels to me: Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers and Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon. Now I haven’t read Cryptonomicon, but I have read Starship Troopers. My initial impression with the book was that here was a book that featured a Filipino (well, Filipino-American) protagonist! As I grew older, I realized Starship Troopers was a squandered opportunity (aside from Heinelin’s pro-military propaganda). I had questions like:
Mining the Genre Asteroid: Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner
Donald Hogan is a spy. Meanwhile, his roommate, Norman House, suspects nothing of this. To him, Donald is a self employed dilettante. Bookish, maybe, but not a bad guy. Norman has other things to occupy him, like his rising star at General Technics. General Technics is a corporation vast enough and powerful enough to contemplate a political and economic takeover of an small, refugee-laden African nation which by all rights should be absorbed, conquered, or writhing in civil war and discontent like much of the continent. And yet it is not. Why?
Business Time – Impatience, Rapid Release, and Saturation
This has been a busy week in publishing news. A lot of people are talking about authorearnings.com and/or the Digital Book World response to same. Lots of people are talking about that report, but since I’m not a statistician and I don’t have access to Amazon’s actual sales numbers, I’m going to talk about something I *do* know about, and that’s rapid release schedules in genre publishing. Prompted by this New York Times article, I wanted to talk about my observations about reader impatience, quick-to-market releases, and market saturation. Rapid release has been going on in genre publishing for quite some time. The romance category has numerous authors who write incredibly quickly, keeping their names fresh. In SF/F, we have our prolific authors as well. Seanan McGuire, Chuck Wendig, and more. Angry Robot and several other small/medium publishers have shorter production windows, meaning that the time from acquiring the book to releasing it is less, sometimes much less, than the 12-15 months you might see at other times.
My Superpower: Christian Baines
My Superpower is a regular guest column on the Skiffy and Fanty blog where authors and creators tell us about one weird skill, neat trick, highly specialized cybernetic upgrade, or other superpower they have, and how it helped (or hindered!) their creative process as they built their project. Today we welcome Christian Baines to talk about how his power of recognizing non-humans relates to The Beast Without. —————————— My name’s Christian Baines, and I’m one of a handful of people blessed, cursed, enriched, soundly spanked or however you want to see it with the ability to immediately spot creatures that look human, but aren’t. You know the list. Vampires, werewolves, demons, Kardashians. Kidding. I really wouldn’t know a Kardashian if I fell over one.
My Superpower: Kyle Burnett
My Superpower is a regular guest column on the Skiffy and Fanty blog where authors and creators tell us about one weird skill, neat trick, highly specialized cybernetic upgrade, or other superpower they have, and how it helped (or hindered!) their creative process as they built their project. Today we welcome Kyle Burnett to talk about how the power of Cinematic Superimposition relates to Big Driver. ————————————————– Origin stories for most superheroes involve tragedy of one type or another. My story is no different. My super power is called Cinematic Superimposition. What this does is allow me to see and hear everything in terms of cinematic production value. Growing up, I experienced trauma of both the emotional and physical variety. When I was four years old, I watched my three year old brother fall into a river and drown in front of me. I helplessly watched my father deteriorate from Huntington’s Chorea before finally passing when I was seventeen. In a single year, I cremated my step father, my sister, and another of my little brothers. It happened to be the same year my grandfather passed, but I wasn’t involved in his cremation.
