Genre-ally speaking

For years, one of my favorite genre news-and-reviews sites has been SF Signal. The latest news posted there is quite sad: they are ceasing operations (All Good Things…). To operate and sustain even a small blog -- and theirs is no small blog! -- is a commitment, so I understand their decision. I wish the principals, Messrs. DeNardo and Franz, well in their future endeavors. Gentlemen: you did our community a great service over the years.

So long, and thanks for all the fish ...

But as an old adage goes, when a door closes, a window opens. Must be an air-pressure thing ;-)

ANYway, on the upbeat side, it's great to see progress by the Museum of Science Fiction on their Escape Velocity project. (From the MOSF website: "Escape Velocity is a micro futuristic world’s fair to promote STEAM education within the context of science fiction using the fun of comic cons and fascination of science and engineering festivals. Escape Velocity seeks to make a measurable positive impact to boost informal learning on the more conceptually challenging academic areas.") Escape Velocity will be held July 1-3 at the Gaylord Resort in National Harbor (Maryland, just outside DC.) For the latest on the museum in general, and on Escape Velocity in particular, see MOSF's latest newsletter.

A couple of months back, I had the pleasure of participating in an SF panel / fund raiser for the Arlington Planetarium (Cosmic!). I recently ran across a Flickr page with beaucoup photos of the overall weekend-long program. If you're curious, whether about the SF panel or any of the related festivities, check out Saveplanetarium.

Time travel is among my favorite subgenres in SF. I was delighted to run across a website dedicated to the topic: The Big List of Time Travel Adventures. Three of the adventures in that expansive database are even mine :-)  I'm playing with a new candidate for that archive now -- or I would be (see opening paragraph), if I weren't busy blogging.

We're in High Award Season (actually, when isn't that the case in the SF community?), so it's worth noting that DragonCon, one of the largest cons of all, has instituted its own award program. Awards will be made for "fiction, comics, gaming, TV, and movies." Any fan can take part in the process. See the official press release for the Dragon Awards.

I can hardly comment upon awards without also mentioning that the Hugo Finalists for the year have been announced. See "2016 Hugo Award Finalists."