Science Fiction Foundation SF Criticism Masterclass 2012

The application deadline is approaching for the 2012 Science Fiction Foundation SF Criticism Masterclass (28 February). I've been on three of the six Masterclasses, and found them extremely useful in learning about the craft of writing about sf, and in making new contacts in the sf community. This year has a particularly good set of class leaders. The Masterclass is good value, and I highly recommend it.

Details:

http://www.sf-foundation.org/masterclass/criticism2012

Science Fiction Foundation SF Criticism Masterclass 2012

Class Leaders:

• Edward James
• M. John Harrison
• Kari Sperring

The Science Fiction Foundation (SFF) will be holding the sixth annual Masterclass in sf criticism in 2012.

Dates: June 22nd, 23rd, 24th 2012.

Location: Middlesex University, London (the Hendon Campus, nearest underground, Hendon).Delegate costs will be £190 per person, excluding accommodation.
Accommodation: students are asked to find their own accommodation, but help is available from the administrator (farah.sf@gmail.com)

Applicants should write to Farah Mendlesohn at farah.sf@gmail.com. Applicants are asked to provide a CV and a writing sample; these will be assessed by an Applications Committee consisting of Farah Mendlesohn, Graham Sleight and Andy Sawyer.

Completed applications must be received by 28th February 2012.

BSFA Awards nominations

For a number of reasons (largely because we can), the BSFA awards nominations deadline has been extended until 2200 UK time, Thursday 19th January. If you're a BSFA member, please nominate here, or e-mail awards@bsfa.co.uk.

To give you an idea of what's been nominated so far, you can look at this list. Those that get the most nominations will get on the final ballot.

For the record, I've nominated Christopher Priest's The Islanders (Gollancz) in Best Novel. For Best Art I've nominated Anne Sudworth's cover of Liz Williams’ A Glass of Shadow. and in best non-fiction, I've nominated David Seed's Science Fiction: A Very Short Introduction, Mike Ashley's Out of This World: Science Fiction But Not As You Know It, and Adam Roberts' introduction to Justina Robson's Heliotrope.

And I'm delighted that the collection I edited with Simon Bradshaw and Graham Sleight, The Unsilent Library, has been nominated, and that the cover by Pete Young has also been nominated.

Royal Holloway Classics Day

A few months ago, the Principal of Royal Holloway came up with a wheeze for the Classics Department - amalgamate it with History and lose six of its posts. I was amazed. This was not some minor department with a few staff too busy concentrating on their own navels to produce decent work. This was one of the best-respected departments in the country. The department's success had been recognised in more benign days by the promotion of a number of its staff to chairs.

I was lucky enough to teach a few courses there for a year in 1998-99, and it was the best experience in my teaching life up to that point. At the end of the year one student listed me as one of the best teachers they'd had - I was tremendously honoured, because I knew how good the other staff were there, and to be so considered was extremely flattering.

The College management has since modified considerably their proposals (see http://supportclassicsatrhul.wordpress.com/). But they still need to be reminded how vital the subject is. Tomorrow, there's a Classics day at the college. It kicks off at 10, and has lectures, quizzes, and a version of Aristophanes' Clouds. Unfortunately, I'm off to Germany, so I can't go. But I'll be thinking of my friends and former colleagues.

Swords, Sorcery, Sandals and Space: The Fantastika and the Classical World. A Science Fiction Foundation Conference in 2013

Swords, Sorcery, Sandals and Space: The Fantastika and the Classical World. A Science Fiction Foundation Conference

At The Foresight Centre, University of Liverpool

Guests of Honour/Plenary Speakers: Edith Hall, Nick Lowe, and Catherynne M. Valente

Website: http://www.sf-foundation.org/conference

Call for papers

The culture of the Classical world continues to shape that of the modern West. Those studying the Fantastika (science fiction, fantasy and horror) know that it has many of its roots in the literature of the Graeco-Roman world (Homer’s Odyssey, Lucian’s True History). At the same time, scholars of Classical Reception are increasingly investigating all aspects of popular culture, and have begun looking at science fiction. However, scholars of the one are not often enough in contact with scholars of the other. This conference aims to bridge the divide, and provide a forum in which SF and Classical Reception scholars can meet and exchange ideas.

We invite proposals for papers (20 minutes plus discussion) or themed panels of three or four papers from a wide range of disciplines (including Science Fiction, Classical Reception and Literature), from academics, students, fans, and anyone else interested, on any aspect of the interaction between the Classical world of Greece and Rome and science fiction, fantasy and horror. We are looking for papers on Classical elements in modern (post-1800) examples of the Fantastika, and on science fictional or fantastic elements in Classical literature. We are particularly interested in papers addressing literary science fiction or fantasy, where we feel investigations of the interaction with the ancient world are relatively rare. But we also welcome papers on film, television, radio, comics, games, or fan culture.

Please send proposals to conferences@sf-foundation.org, to arrive by 30 September 2012. Paper proposals should be no more than 300 words. Themed panels should also include an introduction to the panel, of no more than 300 words. Please include the name of the author/panel convener, and contact details.

Swords, Sorcery, Sandals and Space is organised by the Science Fiction Foundation, with the co- operation of the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology at the University of Liverpool.

Tony Keen
Chair, 2013 Science Fiction Foundation Conference

Relaunch of FA Online

One of the things that occupied what turned out to be the last months on Martin Skidmore's life was FA Online, a relaunch of a (or as Martin had it, the) critical comics magazine that Martin had edited in the 1980s. Martin didn't do this simply as a vanity project - he had enough outlets for his writing about comics through Freaky Trigger and his LiveJournal (and if they were Japanese, his Japanese Arts site). But Martin felt that there was a need for a good comics review site to exist, so set about creating it.

Martin could have done something wonderful with FA Online, had he been given the chance. His friends can never do the same, but at least we can stop the site ossifying, and keep it growing as a tribute to Martin's memory - and also because we think there's a need for a good comics review stuff. Which is how Will Morgan, Andrew Moreton and (very much in a junior role) myself have come together as the new editorial team. We've just done the relaunch this evening, with new reviews and features, including an article on Captain America and a review of the new Cap movie by me.

We're also keen to reproduce some of Martin's older comics journalism, back before most of this was done online, and the first of these is up, a treatment of the 'Viet Blues' story of Alack Sinner.

So go read, comment, and if you're so inclined, write for us.

A science fiction bibliography

I've recently been appointed as an external supervisor for a graduate student working on Greek mythology and science fiction novels. I'm very excited by the project, and having my first graduate student since 1998 (I'd long assumed I wouldn't get any more). As part of the initial work for my student, I prepared a core bibliography of sf academic/critical works, which I thought I would share with you all.

I wouldn't necessarily expect any serious sf academic to have read all of these books cover to cover - I certainly haven't. But I would expect any Ph.D. proposal to make reference to at least two or three of them, and I would hope that a book-length work would make reference to most of them.

They are:

Brian W. Aldiss and David Wingrove, Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction (New York: Athenaeum, 1986)

Mark Bould, Andrew M. Butler, Adam Roberts and Sherryl Vint (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009)

John Clute, Pardon This Intrusion: Fantastika in the World Storm (Harold Wood: Beccon Publications, 2011)
John Clute, David Langford and Graham Sleight (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (third online edition due soon - see http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/; the second edition, ed. John Clute and Peter Nicholls, London: Orbit, 1993, corrected paperback 1999, is also worth consulting)

Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr., The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2008)

Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)

Roger Luckhurst, Science Fiction (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005)
Adam Roberts, The History of Science Fiction (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005)

David Seed, Science Fiction: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)
David Seed (ed), A Companion to Science Fiction (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2005)

The following works are not perhaps so essential - some of them are primarily about fantasy, but have useful insights for sf, others are on subsidiary areas of sf. But they do come highly recommended (and not just by me):

Michael Ashley, Out of this World: Science Fiction, but not as we know it (London: British Library, 2011)

John Clute and John Grant (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (London: Orbit, 1997)

Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011 [not yet published])

Paul Kincaid, A Very British Genre: A Short History of British Science Fiction and Fantasy (London: British Science Fiction Association, 1995)

Paul Kincaid, What it Is We Do When We Read Science Fiction (Harold Wood: Beccon Publications, 2008)
Farah Mendlesohn, Rhetorics of Fantasy (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2007)
Farah Mendlesohn, The Inter-Galactic Playground: A Critical Study of Children's and Teens' Science Fiction (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009)

I'm open to comments here. Are there any obvious texts I've missed? I won't invite you to argue that there are works I've included that shouldn't be on this list, because I think they all should be.

Martin Skidmore

My friend Martin Skidmore died last night, at the ridiculously young age of 52. It wasn't unexpected - he'd been diagnosed with cancer a few months ago, and with each examination it became clearer and clearer how aggressive his cancer was. I saw him in hospital yesterday afternoon - he was asleep, and deep down I knew he wasn't going to wake up.

I'd known Martin, at first through correspondence, the best part of twenty-five years. We weren't best friends - we didn't move enough in the same circles for that - but we did like each other and respected each other's opinions. We didn't always agree - he loved the Monkees and didn't love the Beatles, and whilst I do love the Monkees, I love the Beatles more. But Martin's opinions were always backed up by a deep knowledge of whatever it was he was talking about. He was one of the best-read people I knew, but 'best read' doesn't cover it, as his breadth of experience covered music, art, film and television, as well as book and comics (and football and wrestling).

Martin loved pop culture in all its forms, but never uncritically. I knew him through his love of comics; I first became aware of him when he edited his fanzine Worlds Collide. He then became editor of Fantasy Advertiser, at the time the main comics fanzine in the UK. Over the years he was in charge, he transformed the magazine, applying new standards of professionalism in terms of production, hosting a letter column that was more than happy to wander off the subject of comics when it was warranted, and encourging reviews that cut deep below surface impressions. Of course, this met some resistance, and there were some who considered that FA (as Martin officially renamed it) had become too pretentious in leaving behind its former role as primarily a news 'zine and becoming more of a critical magazine. But the contributors (who often disagreed with each other spectacularly in the lettercol) seemed to me tho have been attempting to apply to comics the sort of critical approaches that were being used elsewhere, and why not? If they often seemed negative, that stemmed from a refusal to tolerate the drivel that so many comics publishers thought (and still think) acceptable for the readers. The result was a serious rival, at least in terms of writing quality, for The Comics Journal, with perhaps a better sense that, deep down, the writers did love comics.

Martin himself epitomised that. He was never shy of calling something rubbish if he thought it was rubbish, but his praise for work he liked was effusive. And behind this was the fact that he was basically a kind man, and also modest about his own abilities - the naming of his own column as 'So-Called Critic' illustrates this.

In the late 1980s Martin got what must have been a dream job for him; he got to edit his own line of comics. Trident published early work by such writers as Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison and Mark Millar (whose first published work was put out by Trident). I'm not going to say that these writers would not have made it without Martin, if only because he would himself scoff at such an extravagant claim. But he did provide opportunities for them to do work they might otherwise not have done, and Morrison's St Swithin's Day remains, in my view, one of the best things he ever wrote.

Sadly, financial issues with the parent company killed Trident in 1991. Martin went away and successfully reinvented himself as a Computer Scientist, and was a Senior Analyst at UCL when he was diagnosed and took medical retirement. But his love of pop culture and comics never left him, and in recent years he was a prolific contributor to Freaky Trigger and The Singles Jukebox. Last October, he restarted FA as an online presence.

I don't think I write much like Martin Skidmore. But I think he was an influence on my writing, above all in teaching me that writing must always have integrity if it is to be worth anything. Martin was incapable of anything less.

Goodbye, Martin.



(And I would like to mention Hazel and Sarah, who were troopers in looking after Martin in his last days.)