The Handmaid’s Tale received the first Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987. The award is given for the best science fiction novel that was first published in the United Kingdom during the previous year. It was also nominated for the 1986 Nebula Award, and the 1987 Prometheus Award, both science fiction awards.
Atwood has resisted the suggestion that The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake are science fiction, suggesting to The Guardian that they are speculative fiction instead: “Science fiction has monsters and spaceships; speculative fiction could really happen.”[17] She told the Book of the Month Club: “Oryx and Crake is a speculative fiction, not a science fiction proper. It contains no intergalactic space travel, no teleportation, no Martians.”[26] On BBC Breakfast she explained that science fiction, as opposed to what she herself wrote, was “talking squids in outer space.” The latter phrase particularly rankled advocates of science fiction and frequently recurs when her writing is discussed.[26]
Atwood has since said that she does at times write social science fiction and that Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake can be designated as such. She clarified her meaning on the difference between speculative and science fiction, admitting that others use the terms interchangeably: “For me, the science fiction label belongs on books with things in them that we can’t yet do…. speculative fiction means a work that employs the means already to hand and that takes place on Planet Earth.” She said that science fiction narratives give a writer the ability to explore themes in ways that realistic fiction cannot.[27]
I was much struck by the term ‘advocates of science fiction’. So I clicked on the link.
Ah. Okay.
Still, got to admit I understand why it might have rankled some while also understanding why Atwood may have felt her work didn’t quite fit into SF. But I think the genre is pretty broad.
A ‘Halloween treat …courtesy of Orson Welles’… Kudos to them.
YouTube, seeing my interest in all things relating to film on Mars offered me this. Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet from 1965.
It’s… well… it is what it is. There’s Basil Rathbone. There’s Faith Domergue. There’s a rocket. There’s Venus.
Except it’s not. You may find the dialogue is… dubbed. For yes, it is. And as the helpful accompanying piece notes:
Astronauts land on Venus and confront all kinds of prehistoric creatures and plants. Roger Corman acquired the Russian science fiction picture, Planeta Bur (Planet of the Storms), cut it, wrote new dialog, dubbed it, and cast Basil Rathbone in some new English language scenes. This version has since fallen into the public domain. The special effects and design are outstanding.
And indeed the effects aren’t bad for 1962. There’s some bits, particularly the beginning, that makes one wonder if a certain S. Kubrick saw the film. But perhaps form followed function.
And here is another ‘reworking’ of it… Peter Bogdanovich’s Voyage To the Planet of the Prehistoric Women – a re edit and extension of the original and the second version.
2001 it ain’t.
This is relatively recent from Relay FM, a podcast from ‘enthusiastic space fans’ Stephen Hackett and the indefatigable Jason Snell (formerly editor of MacWorld and now the creator of a stable of SF, tech and other podcasts). I’ve listened to a couple and found them interesting.
Meanwhile, what an age we live in. There’s so much that human ingenuity can make right, or better, but some things are remarkable.
Well, I’d tentatively lined up another post for today, but the sad news this week that vocalist Diane Charlemagne has died this week and at an appallingly early age seemed to make it fitting to consider Goldie’s album Timeless, twenty years old last month and an album that in some ways brought jungle and drum ’n’ bass to a much wider audience than it had had hitherto. Central to that project was Charlemagne. She contributed some of the key vocals on the album and co-wrote two of the tracks and along with vocalist Lorna Harris provided a link to other areas of dance as well as accentuating the individuality of Goldie’s approach. She was someone with an already broad cv in dance, including being lead singer for Urban Cookie Collective and alter contributed to Netsky and worked with producer High Contrast. Lorna Harris’s provided vocals on State of Mind and You&Me. Her contribution along with that of Charlemagne was essential in providing a distinct character to the album.
Timeless was immediate, a rush of sound and melody and something like pop, but paradoxically languorous – with no track shorter than four and a half minutes, and some like the title track stretching to a good 20 minutes or so. Goldie, who had already a name as a graffiti artist, had been producing and appearing on tracks from the early 1990s a process that eventually led to the establishment of the Metalheadz label. His profile sort of mushroomed from there – fairly sharpish he was in television and film and so on.
I always loved the sound he achieved, the clatter of breakbeats, the none so deep basslines, the synth sweeps, even – perhaps particularly – when, as at times there was, something endearingly plastic about it, I’m not sure exactly why. I think it had an oddly nostalgic feel even when it first came out – perhaps that was driven by the almost over abundantly lush high pitched keyboard strings, the genuine emotiveness of the vocals, the sense that everything including the kitchen sink had been thrown in. And it worked!
Let’s not ignore the sheer experimental heft of the sounds on the album (again look at the soundscapes created on Timeless itself) which are breathtaking, even at this remove. The choppy and chopped up approach (weirdly reminiscent of prog) wasn’t one suspects necessarily an easy listen for some. That this proved chart-topping was nothing short of astounding. I suppose the pop finish of some tracks – State of Mind with its joyous unspooling chorus comes to mind, helped the medicine to go down.
Worth noting some of the names of others involved, Dego, Marc Mac, Howie B and Photek amongst them. Rob Playfords production and programming holds the whole show together. But this is unquestionably Goldie’s vision ably aided and abetted by Charlemagne and Harris.
Inner City Life
State of Mind
Sea of Tears
Kemistry
Also here’s Charlemagne with Urban Cookie Collective – The Key, The Secret
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 