JimC's blog

Book trailers are dead, long live the "Redshirts" book song

I love this song by Jonathan Coulton inspired by John Scalzi's new book "Redshirts". I will get this book. Spotted in Wired.

This isn't Scalzi's first book theme song. Last year Paul and Storm put out a power ballad for the book "Fuzzy Nation". (First saw this on boingboing)

Leviathan: A book trailer that got me to buy the book

One of the coolest book trailers I have ever seen is for the book Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld. This is a simple video - all it does is show the amazing illustrations by Keith Thompson and add a little animation. It is interesting that the cover for Leviathan does not highlight the Thompson illustrations. Instead, like most YA covers, it uses a photoshopped mosaic of images that includes manipulated photos.

DASFA reading list December 2011

Just what do DASFA members read? DASFA member Angela found out at the Christmas party in December 2011. She asked each of us to give the name of a book or series, and it could either be an all-time favorite or whatever we're reading now. This is her list, sorted by date published. If a story was cited, the link is to a collection containing it.

DASFA member

Rocky Horror: Cover of Science Fiction Double Feature and a Star Trek Time Warp

Posted by Paul on the DASFA Yahoo Group. Awesome cover of Science Fiction Double Feature from Rocky Horror by Moby, Stephin Merritt, Amanda Palmer & Neil Gaiman.

He also posted this video, Doing the Time Warp, Star Trek style. It includes scenes from TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, and a couple of the movies. (What, no animated series?) Like all fan videos, it has scenes from the Star Trek TOS episode "Plato's Stepchildren". I wouldn't recognize it otherwise.

DASFA Meeting Programming and DASFAx Articles 2009-2011

Monthly meetings and a monthly fanzine-style newsletter have always been central to the identity of DASFA. The table below lists the programs for all of the DASFA meetings from March 2009 to the present. We bring in guest speakers for most of the meetings, with the exceptions of the summer picnic and the Christmas party.

The list also includes feature articles included in the newsletter ("DASFAx") each month. Besides the articles, DASFAx contains artwork, club news, and a schedule of local literary events. It is currently emailed to members in PDF format.

Acoustic Testing of Spacecraft, Todd Neff, and “From Jars to the Stars”

Last week I saw a story in the Denver Post about acoustic testing of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle at Lockheed Martin’s Waterton Canyon facility.  The purpose of acoustic testing is to see if a spacecraft can survive the vibrations that occur during takeoff by blasting it with 150 decibels of sound for an extended period of time.

Next DASFA hive mind activity – list of fan places in Colorado

Work on the list of science fiction and fantasy settings in Colorado will continue at MileHiCon.

List of SciFi/Fantasy Settings near Denver

This is the list of sites that are on the DASFA map, last updated 8/14/2011.  (The map is still in it's temporary location http://www.aupsd.com/Map_of_SciFi_Fantasy_Settings_near_Denver).

DASFA Challenge: SciFi/Fantasy Settings near Denver

DASFA - I challenge DASFA to name at least 100 books, stories, TV shows, and movies that have been set in DASFA Country (DC). How do we define DC? Where are you now?

You can respond on the Yahoo group, the DASFA Facebook, dasfa.org, or jim_crawford@aupsd.com. We will eventually post the results on a map at dasfa.org. For now, I have an example at my old (dead) site (Please let me know if you have trouble with this)
http://www.aupsd.com/Map_of_SciFi_Fantasy_Settings_near_Denver

You get points for your answers, much like the old TV series "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" I will compile (make up) the points just like Drew Carey.

There are only three rules (listed below):