Copyright

It may surprise readers (and wannabe writers) that legally, writers do not sell stories. That’s how it’s described in everyday terms, such as selling a story to a magazine or selling a novel to a publisher. But in legal terms, what writers sell is copyright.

This can become extremely complicated. See my post on speakers at Norwescon on how publishers try to get the rights to audiobooks. They will also try to get the rights to movie versions, graphic book versions, action figures, t-shirts, etc. This all has to be negotiated. But it underlines the fact that what the writer sells is copyright to the story. In some contracts, the rights revert to the writer if sales of the novel fall below a certain point. And there are nightmare stories of a publisher going bankrupt, and writers have no clear path to recovering their copyright.

On the lighter side, the old Star Trek did some black and white publicity photos. They never copyrighted them. They are public domain.

Don’t know who this is? Watch an old show.

300—Bad Dubbing

I don’t have much time for a post this week, so here is some really bad dubbing for the movie 300. 

On second viewing, they did match the lip movements better than I thought at first. I'll have to find some really bad example when I have time. 

Name That Planet—Vili was Robbed

Okay, OR10 is not a planet, it’s a small body in the solar system. But it’s big enough to have it’s own moon. So The Planetary Society allowed people to vote on its name! Never heard of this? Get better news sources.

So the candidates were: Vili, Gonggong, and Holle. Vili was a brother of Odin and Ve, and the three of them defeated the giant Ymir and created Middle Earth in Norse mythology. Gonggong was a Chinese deity who caused floods. Holle was a Germanic fertility spirit.

art by Sokol_92

To quote The Planetary Society site, “Vili took the lead for a long while, but in the final stretch Gonggong surged, taking the lead.”

Oh, come on! Putting Vili and Holle in there split the Nordic/Germanic vote. I demand a recount!

VOTE MIDDLE EARTH! VOTE VILI!

Rutger Hauer Passed Away

Rutger Hauer, the great Dutch actor, just passed away. We’ll get to Blade Runner in a moment, but first I strongly recommend Ladyhawke. This was a Medieval fantasy that featured a young Rutger Hauer, a young Michelle Pfeiffer, and a very young Matthew Broderick.

The only disadvantage is they have bad synthesizer music for part of the background. Come on, where are the crumhorns?

So years later, we have Blade Runner. I never liked that movie. I know, how can I like and write science fiction if I don’t like Blade Runner? It had an immense influence on the grittier forms of science fiction here in America, and parts of it were flat-out copied in anime in Japan. For those of you who saw the theatrical version, the director’s cut is so superior, it is practically a different movie. Do yourself a favor and do not read any description or review of the director’s cut, because those hack writers tend to give things away.

And no, I don’t like the director’s cut, either.

But here is the haunting scene in Blade Runner. Rutger Hauer as the homicidal android gives his ending monologue.

“I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.”

Game of Furries

The official trailer for the movie Cats is out, and the reaction is not pretty. Movie reviewers say they’ve never seen backlash against a movie trailer that is so purrfectly full of bile. I haven’t seen the stage musical Cats, but apparently it featured singers and dancers who had faux cat hair flamboyantly glued on, especially on their faces. This movie version features what look like humanoid cat creatures. Here’s your treat: 

I could make a few remarks, such as: And it has _____ playing herself. But I don’t want to get protested.

So . . . if people do not really look like cats, it’s amusing, but if people really look like cats, it’s creepy?

The funny thing is, my novel Alpha Shift has a brief scene that mentions something like this. A previous excerpt is here. My friends Erin and Grace can attest that I wrote this story before the movie trailer came out. (This is the bad guy reminiscing.)

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Derk’s vision clouded with those times in the suite prepared just for him, with gin and vermouth in the precise proportions, and the women over six feet tall dressed head to toe in their skintight furry outfits.

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As you can tell, my story is a cultural treat.

Ducks and Bass Fiddles in the Park

This is a little late, but I had a pleasant time in a park in Bellevue for the 4^th of July. (Bellevue is a suburb of Seattle.)

First, there is a nice artificial waterfall which is quite popular. Here are some ducks in the top part. One duck is so comfortable, it’s standing on one leg at the lip of the fall.

Then a bunch of them get the same idea.

In the background are the typical inflatable play areas for children.

A nice moment was the presentation of the colors—the U.S. flag and the Washington flag. It was a very casual crowd, but most people stood for the flags.

I was pleasantly surprised that most people would still do that.

As usual, the Bellevue Youth Symphony Orchestra was to play. I noticed some bass fiddles being unpacked beside the stage. Among the players were a couple of slim young women.

They each hauled a bass fiddle up the steps to the stage.

The Bellevue Youth Symphony Orchestra was phenomenal. They play modern pieces in a stirring manner. And as usual, I took a picture from the back, since the park was too jammed to get a picture from the front.

Note the bass fiddles on the right.

So the news is out that some people vandalized the Cloud Gate in Chicago, more affectionately known as “The Bean,” by spraying graffiti on it. Since this is not a negative blog, I won’t spend time telling those idiots what chuckleheads they are.

Instead, here’s a reposting from my time at the 2012 Worldcon. 

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Worldcon, the world’s largest science fiction convention, was held in Chicago this year.  The convention hadn’t started yet, so I did some sightseeing on Wednesday.  This bas relief was just outside my hotel: 

I don’t normally see art like this casually on display. 

Further on, their Magnificent Mile featured Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate sculpture, often nicknamed “The Bean.” 

The Cloud Gate was featured in the movie Source Code, and you can see my review here.  Notice how the buildings are clearly reflected in the surface: 

People can easily walk beneath its curved surface: 

Beneath the center of it, the reflection seems much farther away than it really is. 

I became nervous there, because loud street noises reflected around inside. 

On the other side of the Chicago River is the NBC tower: 

I had spotted the peacock while walking from my hotel, and you can barely see it at the top of the picture. 

So here’s the Chicago River itself, looking towards downtown: 

Batman – Robert Pattinson

Word is officially out. There’s a new Batman! The dark knight will be played by Robert Pattinson. Uh, Robert Pattinson?

photo by Nicolas Genin 

Do not get me wrong: Whether you like the first Twilight movie or not, it is a model for inciting incidents, try/fail cycles, and of course, the climactic moment when the hero desperately has to perform a forbidden act to save the day.

But it seems to me he lacks the gravitas to play Batman. He’ll have to bulk up a lot to play the part. I’m not sure millions of people will pay a lot of money to see him as the caped crusader.

What next, Kristen Stewart as Wonder Woman?

public domain 

That might attract a few people.

But who would play Superman?

photo by Eva Rinaldi

Book Review - Erebus: One Ship, Two Epic Voyages, and the Greatest Naval Mystery of All Time by Michael Palin

Michael Palin’s chief fame comes from his being a performer and lead writer for the comedy group Monty Python. Since then, he’s served as the president of the Royal Geographical Society and has produced travel documentaries such as Pole to Pole.

In Erebus: One Ship, Two Epic Voyages, and the Greatest Naval Mystery of All Time, Palin chronicles the work of the HMS Erebus and her sister ship the HMS Terror as they explore the “Southern Ocean” and encounter the forbidding continent of Antarctica.

The Erebus and the Terror head down to Antarctica no less than two times, stopping back in Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) and New Zealand to renew supplies. One of their first sights was of a wholly unexpected active volcano, which they named after their ship—Mount Erebus. To quote from one of the logs, “It would Shew first with a volume of Smoke, as dark as Pitch which would gradually become of a lighter hue and then the Flame would burst forth with great fury for some time.” Then there was the eerie wall of ice two hundred feet high, that seemed to have no end. “McCormick clambered up to the crow’s nest, ‘but could see no termination to the great ice-wall, which we have named the Great Southern Barrier.’” That was just the edge of what is now called the Ross Ice Shelf, named after James Clark Ross, captain of the Erebus.

At one point, both of these wooden sailing ships were completely locked in by ice. They made the best of it by going out onto the ice and performing plays to maintain morale! It is hard to believe these ships survived the ice, the waves, the lightning, and other perils.

Later, the Erebus sailed north in an ill-fated attempt to find the Northwest Passage. Palin has less to recount here, since he has to piece together what happened from scraps of information.

So some application for science fiction writers (if you’re not one, ignore this paragraph): If you’re writing about ships in space, you can profit greatly from reading this sort of non-fiction—especially of older ships. There are gripping scenes of near disaster from forces far mightier than these ships. The feel of awe from encountering a volcano or the wall of ice are essential for good adventure fiction. On long voyages, something like a hologram deck or live plays would be a must for crew morale. And of course, there is the friction among officers as to who will be chosen for the glorious attempt to find the Northwest Passage.

All in all, Erebus is a beautiful book. Palin does the Royal Geographical Society proud.