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Blog Posts

Guest Post: N.P. Griffiths on the Lasting Impact of Ellen Ripley

When I was asked to write a blog post about my top female influences in the sci-fi/fantasy arena, I had to think about who it was I wanted to write about. There’s Kathryn Bigelow, a woman who is best known now for Zero Dark Thirty and The Hurt Locker but who cut her teeth on Near Dark and Strange Days; Anne McCaffrey, a Hugo and Nebula award winning writer whose Dragonriders of Pern series has recently been optioned by Warner Brothers; and JK Rowling, a woman who needs no introduction here. All of these women have influenced me over the years. For me, though, when it comes to a lasting impact there is one name that comes shining through. And that name? Ellen Ripley

Blog Posts

Around the Podosphere #8: Podcasts of Note for 3/30/2015

Here are some of the exciting things we’ve been listening to in the past few weeks: On Awards Paul Weimer joins the new crew at Adventures in Sci Fi Publishing to discuss the Sad Puppies and the Hugos. Justin Landon, henceforth known as The Guy Who Talked About Hugos, brings in Renay and TheG to discuss, well, the Hugos. The fine folks at Galactic Suburbia host a special Galactic Suburbia Award episode!  Take a listen! On Science StarTalk Radio brings on Elon Musk to talk about the future of space travel and humanity!

Announcements and Errata

The 2015 Skiffy and Fanty Listener Survey!

If you missed it on Twitter, we’re currently seeking feedback from listeners about various aspects of the show.  The hope is that it will provide us some anonymous information which will help us improve the podcast for the future. So, if you have a little bit of time to offer your thoughts about The Skiffy and Fanty Show, please take our little survey. Thanks again for listening (and for your time)!

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Indy Genre: Spring

Bearing the subtitle “Love is a monster,” the movie poster for Spring boasts a color scheme like a sunset, and an overlay of the faces of two lovers. If you ignore the tentacles and claws rising up against the silhouette of the woman central to the poster, this could almost stand in for another goddamn Nicholas Sparks movie. Thankfully, there’s far more complexity, meat, and… tentacles to it than that.

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Book Review: Gemsigns by Stephanie Saulter

The price of humanity’s use of computing technology was high. The Syndrome caused degenerative physiological and neurological problems to an ever increasing amount of humanity. The wired age, as we in the 21st century might know, meant a radical change in humanity. Even as genetic engineering came up with cures for The Syndrome, the sheer amount of labor and effort needed to keep the world going during the transitional period meant that a different sort of genetically engineered being was needed. Beings designed who could lift more, think more, do more, to keep society functioning even as the world came to grips with the fallout from The Syndrome. Called Gems, after a century of propping up the world, these beings are no longer necessary for the functioning of society, but how can humanity keep them in shackles? And what rights does a superhuman being designed in a test tube really have? Or should have? These issues come to a head in Gemsigns, the debut novel by Stephanie Saulter.

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The Disquieting Guest — Ib Melchior: Tivoli Nights and Rat-Bat-Spider-Crabs

Ib Melchior passed away on March 13, at the age of 97. His death was rather overshadowed in genre circles by those of two far more famous figures in the field, so I’m going to take a few moments now to remember the contributions of the novelist, screenwriter and director. While his most notable contributions have been more SF than horror, there are enough horrific elements in his work that I think he has a place in this column. The most high-profile works associated with him are ones where his involvement was in one way or another indirect. He wrote the English-language script for Mario Bava’s SF/horror masterpiece Planet of the Vampires (1965). His concept Space Family Robinson (later a comic book) was, he claims, plagiarized by Irwin Allen as Lost in Space, and indeed, when the film version came along in 1998, Melchior was a paid consultant. And his short story “The Racer” was the basis for Paul Bartel’s brilliant (and ever-more-topical) satire Death Race 2000 (1975).*

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