February Shuttle Pasteup FINAL
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Te Shutle February 2009 The Next NASFA Meeting is 28 February 2009, at the Regular Time and Location Note that this is one week later than usual ATMM at Mike Kennedy’s house following Con†Stellation XXVIII Concom Meeting Sunday 15 February 2009, 2P, Mike Kennedy’s House (past by the time you see this, but see full list in calendar) Directions will be available at the meeting. This is a change d Oyez, Oyez d from the previously-announced location. The March ATMM is scheduled for Doug and Mary Lam- The next NASFA Meeting is Saturday 28 February 2009 pert’s house in Meridianville — in the far north part of the — one week later than the usual date. Other than that delay, it’ll metro area. We need ATMM volunteers for April and forward. be at the regular time (6P) and the regular location. Meetings CONCOM MEETINGS are currently at BookMark, 11220-J South Memorial Parkway The second Concom Meeting for Con†Stellation XXVIII — at the corner of the Parkway and Meadowbrook Drive. will be Sunday 15 February at 2P (past by the time this sees PROGRAM print) at Mike Kennedy’s house — 7907 Charlotte Drive SW in The February program will be a presentation and showing of Huntsville. Many Concom Meetings this year will be at Mike’s Fan Films by local fan (and member of the SF Writers Group house the Sunday six days before the monthly NASFA Meet- and Cake Appreciation Society) Dan Thompson — who says ing, but check the calendar elsewhere in this issue because that he’s been a science fiction fan from the age six and that he there are several exceptions. enjoys many sub-genres but is currently fascinated by alternate Remember that Con†Stellation will be about a month earlier history. Dan has assembled an extensive collection of SF fan than in the recent past so we really need to push along faster films and will be sharing some of his favorites with us. than usual this year. ATMMs NASFA CALENDAR ONLINE The February After-The-Meeting Meeting will be at Mike NASFA has an online calendar on Google. Interested parties Kennedy’s house — 7907 Charlotte Drive SW in Huntsville. may check the calendar online but you can also subscribe to Inside this issue… News and Info....................................................................... 2 Bram Stoker Awards Preliminary Ballot................................ 6 Minutes of the January Meeting............................................ 3 Oscar Nominations............................................................... 7 NASFA Calendar.................................................................. 4 Razzies Nominations............................................................ 8 A List of Lists....................................................................... 5 Awards Roundup.................................................................. 8 American Library Association Awards.................................. 6 Letters of Comment............................................................ 10 Deadline for the March issue of The N1ASFA Shuttle is Friday, 6 March 2009 that calendar and have your Outlook, iCal, BlackBerry, or other dates but “all of the reasonable dates (early August through calendar automatically updated as events (Club Meetings, Con- early September).” Reading between the lines of the official com Meetings, local sf/f events) are added or changed. Contact announcement it sounds like there were possible alternate fa- Bill S. for details. cilities but none that met criteria that the committee felt would PED ON HIATUS; PAGING SUE & STEVE work well for a Worldcon. Bid chair Bobbie DuFault closed the PieEyedDragon’s latest tale is on a ~4-month hiatus. The announcement by saying that Seattle “will be reviewing future original plan was to run, in this issue, the first of three install- opportunities with our potential facilities with an eye toward ments of Steve and Sue Francis’ multi-con, multi-family-visit, bidding for a subsequent year.” multi-multi-state cross country trip report for (among many Seattle is hardly the first Worldcon bid to lose their facilities other things) last year’s Worldcon. However, space problems late in the bidding game and likely won’t be the last. pushed that first installment out of this issue. RODDENBERRYS TO BE SPACED The plan now is to run the travelogue in the March, April, Per Majel Barret Roddenberry’s (1932-2008) expressed and May issues. PED’s tale should resume in the June issue, wishes, plans have been announced to launch ashes of both her subject to exigent circumstances. and husband Gene Rodden- berry (1921–1991) on a rocket designed to escape Earth’s gravity. Shuttle readers may News and Info recall that some of the ashes of Star Trek creator Roddenberry HUGO NOM PROCESS ONLINE (along with those of Timothy Anticipation, the 2009 Worldcon, had announced earlier that Leary and 22 other people) they would be adding the ability to make Hugo nominations were put in orbit back in 1997. online — that is now operational. Members of both Anticipa- That crypt-o-llite eventually tion (who joined by the end of January) and last year’s World- reentered and burned up in the atmosphere (as designed) once con (Denvention 3) may nominate for the Hugo and Campbell the orbit decayed sufficiently. Awards by mail or at <www.anticipationsf.ca/pub/hugos/ This new venture — like the ’97 flight, a service of Texas- nominations.php> (or en Français at <www.anticipationsf.ca/ based Celestis Inc. — will be launched in about a year and a pub/hugos/nominations_fr.php>). half, if all goes according to plan. In the meanwhile Celestis To nominate online you’ll need your membership number <www.memorialspaceflights.com> is accepting tribute mes- (technically optional, but encouraged), your full name and sages for the Roddenberrys online <www.nameastarlive.com/ address as known to Anticipation, and a PIN issued by Antici- roddenberry_message.asp> and will include them in a digital pation. PINs were emailed to members whose email address file along with the ashes. was available to Anticipation in late January. If you didn’t re- MORE SF IN NATIONAL REGISTRY ceive said email (or acquire the PIN in some other way) you The Library of Congress recently added three genre films to can contact Anticipation at <[email protected]>. it’s National Film Registry. These, and the other films in 2008’s LOCAL AUTHOR ACHIEVEMENT batch of 25, are thus chosen for the Library’s state-of-the-art Huntsville scientist and author Les Johnson <www. film preservation program. This group brings the Registry to a lesjohnsonauthor.com> received round 500 titles. an Honorable Mention (First The selected genre films were The Invisible Man (1933), Runner Up) in the Cosmology The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), and The Terminator (1984). and Astronomy category of the NEBULA RULES CHANGE PENDING 2008 PROSE Awards <www. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America proseawards.com>, given by the <www.sfwa.org> has announced a number of rules changes Association of American Pub- <www.sfwa.org/awards/rules2009.htm> in both the nominating lishers honoring professional and and final balloting rounds of the Nebula Awards. While this scholarly publishing. The book, won’t directly affect many Shuttle readers, the changes are Solar Sails: A Novel Approach to nonetheless interesting. These rule changes will not affect the Interplanetary Travel, was writ- process currently underway for this year’s awards but will take ten with Giovanni Vulpetti and effect for all works published in 2009 and forward and thus Gregory Matloff; and is available affect the awards given in 2010 and forward. from many bookstores and online The Shuttle has not undertaken a review of the changes; if at such places as Amazon.com you’re interested in the full details check out the official SFWA and The Missing Volume site or check Cheryl Morgan’s analysis at <www.irosf.com/q/ <tinyurl.com/bhl7z2>. zine/article/10510>. For a quick look, the Shuttle notes that SEATTLE DROPS WORLDCON BID various online sources are citing as significant: The Seattle 2011 Worldcon bid committee has announced •Removal of the rolling eligibility period (thus limiting eligi- that they are withdrawing from the race. This leaves Reno as bility to one calendar year), the only bid to file the paperwork required to be on the printed •Expansion of some voting rights to other than full members, ballot and thus the almost-certain winner. Write-in votes are •Elimination of the ability of jurors to add works to the final allowed, but a write-in bid would face heavy odds against an ballot (except for the Andre Norton Award for Outstanding existing and well-regarded bid. Young Adult Science Fiction or Fantasy Book), and For Seattle it came down to difficulties getting a signed, •Replacement of the preferential ballot with a “vote for one, contingent contract for their preferred facilities. Various other highest vote count wins” ballot. groups (who did not have to wait for a site selection to make a “BUILD YOUR OWN” STAR TREK EPISODE final commitment) had stepped on not only Seattle’s preferred Web site <io9.com> has published a flowchart (designed by 2 Stephanie Fox) that lets you didn’t care. It was basically a three-way tie. create the plot for your very Mike C. moved that we move the February meeting one own “original” episode of week later, to February 28th. Bill seconded. Twelve voted in ST:TOS <www.io9.com/ favor, and two opposed, so the motion carried. 5136738/create-your-own- Jim moved that we move the February meeting from the 28th original-star-trek-story>. Funny to the 14th. Many opposed. stuff. In the spirit of “fair use” Jim moved that we move the March meeting to February the Shuttle is showing only a 28th, and Sue seconded. In her unofficial role as Sergeant at small portion of the graphic; Arms, Alice stated that motion was out of order. please visit the <io9.com> site Many March convention conflicts were discussed, particu- for the full thing (or bug a larly on the 21st and 28th.