MERPCon V will be held in Spokane, WA the weekend of July 24 - 26. This convnetion is the last of the series of five free gaming conventions that Hawke Robinson has been hosting in Spokane, WA at his own expense. MERPCon has combined con-style gaming with lectures by Tolkien scholars and game designers, including Thomas Morwinsky, Chris Seeman, John Rateliff, and me.
Hawke has tried to make MERPCon as open as possible, broadcasting it over the Web and allowing fans to send in questions through a chat room and email. This year the entire event will be broadcast live via multiple Webcams with audio feeds.
As this year's guest speaker I will have a breakout session on Saturday, July 25. You'll be able to watch it live and submit questions via the chat room. You can check the Web site for the schedule. I hope you'll find time to tune in, although the session will be recorded and made available download at a later time.
On Sunday morning we'll host a live panel discussion with young Tolkien fans. Be sure to have your questions ready for them.
In 2010 Hawke will launch Tolkien Moot to replace MERPCon. Tolkien Moot will be membership-supported and will include expanded programming, although gaming will still be an important part of the convention.
In other news, Hawke and I just wrapped up another episode of Middle-earth Talk Radio, which should be available for download later this week. We're also planning to do a live broadcast from MERPCon on Saturday evening. I've asked Hawke to see if he can arrange a phone-in guest but if not then we'll have fun anyway.
Besides working on MERPCon and Middle-earth Talk Radio this year, I've also been publishing the Hobbit News Newsletter. You may have noticed that I haven't found much interesting news in the past few weeks. The idea behind the newsletter is to publish news that isn't being covered on more traditional Tolkien news sites. Still, I hope to put together a new edition later this week.
Finally, Xenite.Org has relaunched its LoTR movie news site with a new design and expanded content. Now Xenite.Org will cover Hobbit Movie News, Guillermo del Toro News, and Tolkien News. Each section has its own archive of news reports.
SF-Fandom is a moderated, fan-run community devoted to science fiction, fantasy, history, and mythology. SF-Fandom was founded in 2001 and is part of the Xenite.Org network. Free registration is required to post. Please be sure you read our Posting Guidelines.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
Gaea's Island by Erin Lowe and Andre Norton
When Andre Norton passed away in 2005 she like so many creative spirits before her left a few unfinished projects in the hands of others. According to long-time Norton friend and fan Paul Goode, Baen Books is considering publishing Gaea's Island, which could be the last fiction by Andre Norton to be published.
Andre collaborated on the project with Erin Lowe (of whom the online Norton fan community has not heard of before). Originally there were going to be three books, and Andre worked on the first two. Erin completed the third book. According to Paul, it appears that the books are being considered for publication as a single volume.
Erin, if you're out there, contact us at SF-Fandom. I'd love to help you promote the book when it is finally published. Even if Baen passes on the project, someone will publish it, I'm sure. I trust Paul's judgement, as will many other Andre fans.
Good luck!
SF-Fandom is a moderated, fan-run community devoted to science fiction, fantasy, history, and mythology. SF-Fandom was founded in 2001 and is part of the Xenite.Org network. Free registration is required to post. Please be sure you read our Posting Guidelines.
Andre collaborated on the project with Erin Lowe (of whom the online Norton fan community has not heard of before). Originally there were going to be three books, and Andre worked on the first two. Erin completed the third book. According to Paul, it appears that the books are being considered for publication as a single volume.
Erin, if you're out there, contact us at SF-Fandom. I'd love to help you promote the book when it is finally published. Even if Baen passes on the project, someone will publish it, I'm sure. I trust Paul's judgement, as will many other Andre fans.
Good luck!
SF-Fandom is a moderated, fan-run community devoted to science fiction, fantasy, history, and mythology. SF-Fandom was founded in 2001 and is part of the Xenite.Org network. Free registration is required to post. Please be sure you read our Posting Guidelines.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
The Dark Man: Journal of Robert E. Howard Studies, publishes new issue
I posted this announcement over at Wordpress but I'm a big Howard fan and want to support Mark's work, so I'm reposting it here, too.
Mark Hall, editor of The Dark Man: The Journal of Robert E. Howard Studies, announced a couple of weeks ago that Volume 4, Issue 2 is now available. Here are a few highlights:
Contents:
80+ pages
$12 + postage ($2.50 domestic first class; $8.00 airmail overseas)
Disclaimer: Although there is no financial connection between SF-Fandom/Xenite.Org and the Dark Man journal, Mark is one of our volunteer forum moderators. Mark provides regular Dark Man Journal updates in our Pulp Authors Forum.
SF-Fandom is a moderated, fan-run community devoted to science fiction, fantasy, history, and mythology. SF-Fandom was founded in 2001 and is part of the Xenite.Org network. Free registration is required to post. Please be sure you read our Posting Guidelines.
Mark Hall, editor of The Dark Man: The Journal of Robert E. Howard Studies, announced a couple of weeks ago that Volume 4, Issue 2 is now available. Here are a few highlights:
Contents:
- Elements of Sadomasochism in the Fiction and Poetry of Robert E. Howard, by Charles Hoffman
- Giant Intelligent Crabs, Oh My! Haggard and Howard, by Robert McIlvaine
- Sumathi Ramaswamy, The Lost Land of Lemuria: Fabulous Geographies, Catastrophic Histories, Review by David R. Werner
- Ken, Asamatsu, editor. Night Voices, Night Journey Lairs of the Hidden Gods Volume 1., Review by Charles Gramlich
- Opinion: An Honorable Retreat: Robert E. Howard as Escapist Writer, by Brian Murphy
80+ pages
$12 + postage ($2.50 domestic first class; $8.00 airmail overseas)
Disclaimer: Although there is no financial connection between SF-Fandom/Xenite.Org and the Dark Man journal, Mark is one of our volunteer forum moderators. Mark provides regular Dark Man Journal updates in our Pulp Authors Forum.
SF-Fandom is a moderated, fan-run community devoted to science fiction, fantasy, history, and mythology. SF-Fandom was founded in 2001 and is part of the Xenite.Org network. Free registration is required to post. Please be sure you read our Posting Guidelines.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Larry King debunks Michael Jackson's ghost
By now you have probably seen this first video.
Okay, I have to admit that I thought it was faked. It looks so real, it just HAD to be faked, right? Wrong.
According to a follow up report by Larry King, the video is real:
It's a real ... shadow of someone walking past a light in another room down the hallway.
Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.
SF-Fandom is a moderated, fan-run community devoted to science fiction, fantasy, history, and mythology. SF-Fandom was founded in 2001 and is part of the Xenite.Org network. Free registration is required to post. Please be sure you read our Posting Guidelines.
Okay, I have to admit that I thought it was faked. It looks so real, it just HAD to be faked, right? Wrong.
According to a follow up report by Larry King, the video is real:
It's a real ... shadow of someone walking past a light in another room down the hallway.
Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.
SF-Fandom is a moderated, fan-run community devoted to science fiction, fantasy, history, and mythology. SF-Fandom was founded in 2001 and is part of the Xenite.Org network. Free registration is required to post. Please be sure you read our Posting Guidelines.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Xenite Hobbit Movies News site redesigned
Xenite.Org launched the oldest continually updated Lord of the Rings News site in January 1998. We've been publishing or republishing Tolkien-related news for 11-1/2 years. That's a loooong time, but as many of you know I really love J.R.R. Tolkien's books and I'm a big suppporter of film and stage adaptations.
Nonetheless, for the past several years I just haven't had time to focus on the old LoTR Movie News site like I once did. Things change and all that -- and the last of Peter Jackson's three films was released in 2003 anyway.
But now we have Guillermo del Toro's 2 "Hobbit" movies coming and in this year alone two fan film productions were released. So it seemed high time I do something about a site which had, admittedly, grown stale and was no longer as useful and relevant as it once was.
So for the past few days I've been working hard to upgrade and expand Xenite's Hobbit movies news. I think it was worth the effort.
You can check out our Hobbit Movies News site and see that the new design is compatible with Xenite's current look overall (a few custom sections of Xenite are still not yet using the new template).
As part of the reorganization I've moved Old LoTR Movie News pages into their own sub-directory, as that information is no longer as relevant and useful as it once was. I've also removed many old links to sites that no longer exist (thus depriving domainers of some of the link value they've enjoyed for the past several years).
I've also updated the original LoTR Movie News Archive index. This was a complex, evolving document that just did not want to ever use a single template, but now every page in it uses the standard template we introduced a year-and-a-half ago.
In the process of cleaning up the old content I found that one news page really wasn't adequate. I was just trying to cover too much news. So now I've created two sub-sections, each with their own special archives. Here is a quick run down of the new pages (including the main news page that I linked to above).
The daily archive pages will link directly to the most recent news archives in the directories. The directories are organized by year, month, and day to help people look for news stories in as many ways as possible.
SF-Fandom is a moderated, fan-run community devoted to science fiction, fantasy, history, and mythology. SF-Fandom was founded in 2001 and is part of the Xenite.Org network. Free registration is required to post. Please be sure you read our Posting Guidelines.
Nonetheless, for the past several years I just haven't had time to focus on the old LoTR Movie News site like I once did. Things change and all that -- and the last of Peter Jackson's three films was released in 2003 anyway.
But now we have Guillermo del Toro's 2 "Hobbit" movies coming and in this year alone two fan film productions were released. So it seemed high time I do something about a site which had, admittedly, grown stale and was no longer as useful and relevant as it once was.
So for the past few days I've been working hard to upgrade and expand Xenite's Hobbit movies news. I think it was worth the effort.
You can check out our Hobbit Movies News site and see that the new design is compatible with Xenite's current look overall (a few custom sections of Xenite are still not yet using the new template).
As part of the reorganization I've moved Old LoTR Movie News pages into their own sub-directory, as that information is no longer as relevant and useful as it once was. I've also removed many old links to sites that no longer exist (thus depriving domainers of some of the link value they've enjoyed for the past several years).
I've also updated the original LoTR Movie News Archive index. This was a complex, evolving document that just did not want to ever use a single template, but now every page in it uses the standard template we introduced a year-and-a-half ago.
In the process of cleaning up the old content I found that one news page really wasn't adequate. I was just trying to cover too much news. So now I've created two sub-sections, each with their own special archives. Here is a quick run down of the new pages (including the main news page that I linked to above).
- Hobbit Movie News
- Hobbit Movie News Archives Directory
- Hobbit Movie News Daily Archives Page
- Guillermo del Toro News
- Guillermo del Toro News Archives Directory
- Guillermo del Toro News Daily Archives Page
- J.R.R. Tolkien News
- J.R.R. Tolkien News Archives Directory
- J.R.R. Tolkien News Daily Archives Page
The daily archive pages will link directly to the most recent news archives in the directories. The directories are organized by year, month, and day to help people look for news stories in as many ways as possible.
SF-Fandom is a moderated, fan-run community devoted to science fiction, fantasy, history, and mythology. SF-Fandom was founded in 2001 and is part of the Xenite.Org network. Free registration is required to post. Please be sure you read our Posting Guidelines.
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