1. My latest unabridged narration for StarShipSofa, which is of Storm Constantine's story "The Rust Islands," is now available to stream or download on the newest episode of the podcast. If you listen, I hope you enjoy! (A full list of links to my unabridged dramatic readings is here.)

2. I'll be a guest next weekend at ConCarolinas, and I now have my schedule. I have the delight of sitting on panels with some truly fantastic folks, including Jack McDevitt, David B. Coe, and The Blibbering Humdingers, among others. Here's my lineup:

Friday, June 1
5pm: The Legacy of Harry Potter
7pm: The Hunger Games
9pm: The Hobbit

Saturday, June 2
11am: Sherlock
3pm: Young Adult Genre Literature

3. By the way, I'm continuing to drink my way through the Sherlock Holmes-themed tea blends at Adagio Teas. (You can search for blends by name or by creator here.) My niece and nephew created a monster when they gave me the new teapot for Christmas! In case you're interested, here are my updated amateur "reviews" of the blends I've tried thus far, ranked in order of my enjoyment.
( Updated Reviews of Sherlockian Tea Blends )


"A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King."
- Emily Dickinson

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

There are two new nonfiction e-books out of possible interest to Sherlockians, both by professional pastiche authors: scientist Stephanie Osborn's exploration of the rationale behind Holmes's cocaine habit, Sherlock, Sheilas, and the Seven-Percent Solution, and Barbara Roden's collection of Holmesian essays on various topics, I Am Inclined to Think....

In science fiction news, the latest issue of Booklist has the young adult dystopia 1.4 on its cover. I just finished the book (the sequel to Human.4) and recommend it.

I was intrigued by Booklist's "Top Ten SF/Fantasy for Youth" list. Sometimes I think I'm the only one who was underwhelmed by Paolo Bacigalupi's Ship Breaker. Lest I sound like a curmudgeon, I should say that I was delighted to see that Delia Sherman's The Freedom Maze won this year's Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy. Well deserved!



In other news...

In the last day or so, a number of videos have appeared on YouTube from past meetings of PhreakNIC: Technology and Culture Exposition, the largest U.S. "hacker con" east of the Mississippi River. Several of these from the years 2003-2006 are my... well, not formal presentations exactly, but very informal talks. (These aren't professional videos like my other YouTube films; originally these simply were shown throughout the con hotel on closed-circuit TV.) It was fun reliving some terrific memories. I miss my "Got Jedi?" shirt! Ha.

• "Rights Under Attack: The Captain Power Story" (PhreakNIC 10, 2006)


• "Still Big Brother After All These Years: Totalitarianism in Science Fiction" (PhreakNIC 9, 2005)


• "The King of SF’s Golden Age: How Robert A. Heinlein Earned the Crown" (PhreakNIC 8, 2004)


• "Computers and the Rise of the Cerebral Hero in TV Drama" (PhreakNIC 8, 2004)


• "A Quick-and-Dirty History of Science Fiction" (PhreakNIC 7, 2003) <- This is the only one without an accompanying PowerPoint.

"…nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff… Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can’t-control-yourself love it. Hank, when people call people nerds, mostly what they’re saying is ‘you like stuff.’ Which is just not a good insult at all. Like, ‘you are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness’.”
- John Green

"Being a geek is all about being honest about what you enjoy and not being afraid to demonstrate that affection. It means never having to play it cool about how much you like something. It’s basically a license to proudly emote on a somewhat childish level rather than behave like a supposed adult. Being a geek is extremely liberating."
- Simon Pegg

A good friend and colleague of mine just wandered across this while in Oxford. Good man, he took a photo and sent it my way. I had to share.

Hey there! Remember me? I'm back from a fantastic and thought-provoking colloquium in DC, rather tired, but in a good way. My final lecture for my spring classes is done, I've celebrated our seventeenth anniversary with my best friend and true love, and now I'm turning my attention to my as-yet-incomplete writing projects before the beginning of the summer term.

Happy early birthday wishes to lexie_marie, jalara, theladyrose, elvenjoy, gondoriangirl, vivien529, and senket. May all of you enjoy many happy returns of the day!

In other news, my sold-out "Sherlock and Science Fiction" Webinar, hosted last February by StarShipSofa's "HoloDeck Workshops," is now available for purchase as a video and audio download, including the question/answer session. Here is more information. It was terrific fun, and I'm grateful to StarShipSofa for making it available to those who might be interested.


This mashup of The X-Files and Sherlock made my day. (Thanks to killerweasel.)




“Hi guys. My name’s Martin Crieff, the Captain, and I’m the guy in charge of flying you today. On behalf of the rest of the guys on my team and the guys back on the ground, let me give you guys one hell of a big MJN welcome on board today. Now, before we go right ahead and fly some plane, I’m going to ask you to pay attention to this short safety demonstration. Hey, I know guys. Big yawn, eh? But you know what? It might just save your life... A-a-although of course an air accident is statistically incredibly unlikely. See you on the flip side of the safety demonstration. Ciao!”
- Martin Crieff, "Rotterdam," Cabin Pressure <- I now hear this in my head before takeoff every time I fly!

Whew! My final grades are in for one course ("Native American Film, Fiction, and Myth"), and I have one lecture remaining in my other one ("Taking Harry Seriously: The Artistry and Meanings of the Harry Potter Saga"). Now to think about my summer classes!

At the moment I'm packing to go to Washington, DC, where I'll be for the next several days leading a series of roundtable discussions on “The Bourgeois Virtue in Film and Fiction” with a group of think-tank specialists and policy folks. (We'll be talking about several scholarly articles as well as Gaskell's North and South, Trollope's The Way We Live Now - both remarkably timely and relevant works - along with Lodge's Nice Work, the film King Rat, and other fascinating texts.)

In other personal news, my Achilles tendon continues to improve slowly but surely, thanks in large part to intensive physical therapy I've been receiving three to four times a week from the fantastic faculty and staff members at Lenoir-Rhyne's Athletic Training Program, who are more than awesome, and to whom I'm deeply indebted. I can see quite a difference already, and I have more to go. (Patience, Grasshopper...)

***
In case anyone is interested, here is the final lineup of films we viewed in the "Native American Film" portion of my "Film, Fiction, and Myth" seminar. I highly recommend them all.
Reel Injun (2009, documentary)
Smoke Signals (1998)
Four Sheets to the Wind (2007)
"Our Spirits Don't Speak English": Indian Boarding School (2008, documentary)
Older Than America (2008)
Standing Silent Nation (2006, documentary)
Barking Water (2009)

Each of the graduate students also chose another film to watch/analyze independently, such as Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001) and Skins (2002), among others.

***
Speaking of classes, this clever fan film came up in discussion as we were studying transformational works and participatory culture in the "Taking Harry Seriously" class. It's framed as a documentary about the Battle of Hogwarts, filmed twenty years after the fact (and including "interviews" with some of the participants). It's well worth watching.



The rest is as follows:
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5


"Given a strong feeling of independence in every Darkshire man, have I any right to obtrude my views, of the manner in which he shall act, upon another (hating it as I should do most vehemently myself), merely because he has labour to sell and I capital to buy?"
- Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

A friendly reminder to my friends in the USA: for three straight Sunday nights beginning on May 6, PBS will be running the second season of Sherlock. Here's the PBS trailer:



In addition, PBS will be livestreaming tonight's Sherlock Q&A with Benedict Cumberbatch, Sue Vertue, and Steven Moffat at 8:15pm EST. Here's the link!


On a related note, I'm continuing to drink my way through the Sherlock Holmes-themed tea blends at Adagio Teas. My niece and nephew created a monster when they gave me the new teapot for Christmas! In case you're interested, here are my updated amateur "reviews" of the blends I've tried thus far, ranked in order of my enjoyment.

( Updated Reviews of Sherlockian Tea Blends )


“I’m really annoyed by pigeonholes and categories and labels. I view them as iniquitous to the spirit of play and of experimentation and of storytelling. The fact at a bookstore, the fiction is divided into fiction and mystery and science fiction, I don’t understand why it has to be that way. To me it’s all fiction, and I think the best science fiction, the best mystery fiction, the best horror fiction ought to be put on par with the best quote-unquote ‘literary fiction.’”
- Michael Chabon

My summer "professorial plans" are complete. Beyond teaching "The Hunger Games and Worlds Gone Wrong: The Dystopian Tradition" for Belmont University, I'll also be teaching "Hogwarts 101: Exploring Harry Potter, Years 1-3" for the newly-created Mythgard Academy.

The Academy is an online, intensive, three-week literature and writing program designed for rising high-school sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Students in Academy courses will engage in live, interactive classes with college professors (such as yours truly), delving into the works of fantasy that they love and respect most. The Academy provides all students with personal writing instructors who will hold individual tutorial sessions every week to discuss students’ writing. The Academy also will offer something unique: an optional on-campus experience at Washington College during Mythgard Summer Camp.

You can read more about my Harry Potter course here. This semester's experience with my graduate Harry Potter class has been exceptional, and I'm delighted to be working with the Mythgard Institute again!


And now, for your amusement:


see more Set Phasers To Lol

Speaking of mashups, I'm still waiting for someone to use The Weasel King's glorious song "Through and Through," about Harry Potter's loyalty to Albus Dumbledore, for either a songvid or a fan fiction story about post-Reichenbach John Watson.
"Is this goodbye? Is this farewell to you?
I'm still your man, through and through."

Hello and happy Sunday, my friends!

Good news all around...

1. Earlier I failed to post about my latest "Looking Back on Genre History" segment for StarShipSofa, which is a tribute to the great author John Christopher, who died in February 2012. You can listen or download it here. An updated list of all of my podcast appearances (with links) is available here.

2. This mashup of Sherlock and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. put a big grin on my face.

3. So many upcoming birthdays! Happy early birthday wishes to angelinehawkes, idwoman, pseudoanorexic, vyrdolak, lyria_theringer, and bistokidsfan77. May you all enjoy a wonderful day and a fantastic year to come.

4. I've accepted invitations to speak this fall at The McConnell Center at the University of Louisville and next spring at StellarCon 37. My updated speaking schedule is here.

5. Fringe has been renewed for a fifth and final season.

And there's already a trailer... Feel the chills?



“Fringe is a remarkably creative series that has set the bar as one of television’s most imaginative dramas... Bringing it back for a final 13 allows us to provide the climactic conclusion that its passionate and loyal fans deserve. The amazing work the producers, writers and the incredibly talented cast and crew have delivered the last four seasons has literally been out of this world. Although the end is bittersweet, it’s going to be a very exciting final chapter.”
- Fox President Kevin Reilly

I'm back from a fantastic time at the Duke University symposium. Thanks to everyone involved! I'm grateful for the wonderful attendance at and reception of my presentation, and for the terrific conversations and talks I enjoyed.

In other news, my unabridged narration of Peter Crowther's moving story "Jewels in the Dust" is now available on the latest episode of the Tales to Terrify podcast.

I love this Doctor Who 50th anniversary trailer, "The Tale of a Madman in a Box." The sense of history it captures gives me chills.