Forrest J Ackerman on Early Science Fiction Authors He Knew

Remember when I said there was more yet of my interview with Forrest J Ackerman to be turned into micro-documentaries?  Well, I didn't have to do much work at all to produce this one.  When I was moving files from my dying hard drives to my new one, I found to my surprise that I'd had one ready to go all this time, but had forgotten about it in the wake of Forry's death.

So I just added a picture of Francis Flagg that I saw recently in the November 1931 issue of Wonder Stories (and used it for cover to cut out a mid-sentence pause), and there we are.



Text:

At the time I had 127 correspondents around the world, I was also in correspondence with a number of the early authors, like Jack Williamson and Edgar Rice Burroughs.  And finally, in 1939, at the first World Science Fiction Convention, I met in person authors I had been corresponding with, called Ray Cummings, and, 'course, the fabulous artist Frank R. Paul.

David H. Keller?  He was one of my favorite early authors, and at one time I visited him in his home in Pennsylvania, and I stayed overnight.  And I noticed, at each meal, he was including a handful of different vitamins.  And he said he was attempting to lengthen his life with these.  He did indeed live to a ripe old age.

My wife didn't believe in vitamins.  She said, you eat a healthy diet, and that's sufficient.

Well, Francis Flagg was a well-established name author, but he began to run out of ideas.  And I was overflowing with ideas, but I did not have any stature yet as an author.  So I began supplying plots to Francis Flagg, and he wrote up—the first one was called "Earth's Lucky Day."

Well, I remember at one time, when I was temporarily living in San Francisco, I found that an author of a series of stories called "Tani of Ekkis"—he had the name of Aladra Septama.  And I found that actually, he was a lawyer, Judson W. Reeves, living in—having his office in downtown San Francisco.

So one day, I went to his office and met him, and he took me to lunch afterwards, and out to his home.  And there I was staggered to see the first six issues of Amazing Stories on display.  I had not been aware of it in April 1926 when it began, and I only began collecting it in October.  And to my undying gratitude, Aladra Septama—boy, I—always fascinated by that pseudonym.  I never—I regret I didn't ask him how he created such a name.  But Aladra Septama took the six copies of Amazing Stories that I had missed, and gained by undying gratitude by making me a gift of them.

Winston: I'll bet you still have them, too.

Liz (louder): Do you still have them?

Ackerman: Of course I still have them!  I never threw away a science fiction magazine in my life!

When It Changed

Well, now that I have a brand new Iomega Prestige 1.5TB external hard drive (two of them, actually, so I can finally start keeping proper backups), we can soon get back to normal operations around here.

It's at times like this that I gain a new appreciation for how quickly technology advances nowadays.  My last drives before this one, I bought in 2007.  They were four Western Digital USB 2.0 drives with about 450 GB each.  In other words, three of them held about what the new one holds.  And each of those drives is more than twice the physical size, and cost at least half again as much when new.  (My new drives cost $99 each, with free shipping.  I don't think my last floppy drive even cost that little.)

Should I mention that my first hard drive was an Apple ProFile, held 5 megabytes, and had a volume somewhere north of a cubic foot?

So, does this mean it's time for Undersea Kingdom, Chapter Nine?  Well, not so fast, my fellow Crashites. I put together the file for Chapter Nine, then found I had a little problem uploading it to YouTube.

Turns out that during the couple of weeks I was reluctant to use the Thrilling Wonder drive for fear of finishing it off completely, YouTube made some changes.  Such as, now, in order to upload something, you need to use one of their approved browsers... all of which only run on Macs with System 10.5 or higher.  My eight-year-old G5 is currently running 10.4.11.

Fortunately, I do have a System 10.5 "Leopard" update disk, but I'm copying everything on my main drive before I do anything.  Apparently the folder with my iTunes files will take 7 hours all by itself.  Sometimes, technological change is a bitch.

So, what can I say?  Hold in there, folks.  Crash is coming.

UPDATE: I was worried about some aspects of the change to 10.5, so I re-installed one of my spare internal drives, and installed 10.5 on that, keeping 10.4.11 on my main drive.

So, from my new 10.5-running drive, I went to the websites of Firefox and Google Chrome (YouTube's approved browsers for files over 2GB)... and found I should have read them more closely the first time.  Because, you see, what they require is System 10.5... and an Intel Mac, which mine is not.

So it looks like I'm stuck.  The files I've uploaded since returning in July have ranged up to 5.5GB.  But no more.  In their wisdom, YouTube took a system that worked adequately (if not perfectly) for PowerPC Macs, and junked it for no particular reason.  So when you see my videos, and they're lower in resolution than they used to be, or chopped into two or three pieces, thank YouTube.

My file for Undersea Kingdom, Chapter Nine, was 2.16GB.  So looks like I'm going to have to knock down the quality a tad before trying again.

Drive Me Crazy

The drive where I keep most of my Thrilling Wonder-related stuff is giving me a gentle reminder of the need to make proper, frequent backups.  So while I'm dealing with that, updates will probably be thinner upon the ground than usual.

Alien Armageddon: Alien-Fighting on Demand

A shout-out for a friend: Alien Armageddon, the latest feature by writer-director Neil Johnson, premieres today on Video on Demand on Comcast, Cablevision, Insight, and Cox.

I've written about Neil here before when I posted a trailer for his last film, Humanity's End.  His films always have an enormous energy to them, with Alien Armageddon hitting perhaps an all-time high for him in this respect.  His love of science fiction storytelling pops off the screen, making his movies fun even when, sometimes, the material gets a bit dark.  What I like best about his movies is that, even on small budgets, he's not afraid of big ideas and a sprawling canvas.

Of course, it helps that he gets such amazing value out of those budgets, more so as he goes along.  Watch this trailer and try to believe it was made for a five-figure budget:



Yes, it seems that aliens attacking Los Angeles has kind of been in the air the last year or so, what with Battle: L.A., and Skyline before that, but Neil has brought his own excitingly warped sensibility to it.  Let's just say you'll never be able to look at a turkey breast the same way again.

I attended the world premiere at the Crest Theatre in Los Angeles on July 6, and it was quite a trip, getting photographed as though I was somebody, and then seeing a brand new film with an excited and appreciative audience.  You won't see me in the clip below, since evidently the video crew knew I wasn't anybody-- which is fine, because I would have frozen up instantly.



I'll let Neil's press release do some talking now:

Alien Armageddon tells the story of Jodie Elliot, a young woman who is trying to find her daughter in a city controlled by an invading alien army. The Nephilim were mentioned in the bible as a race of fallen angels who preyed upon humanity. Now they have returned to enslave humanity and conduct genetic experiments.

Neil’s previous films, Nephilim, Bipolar Armageddon, Battlespace, and the recent underground hit, Humanity’s End, all take place in the same universe. “The film saga spans a thousand years and deals with humanity’s evolution and extinction. The films are not made in sequential order, but each film expands the mythos of the Humans and the Nephilim. In Battlespace, we destroyed the universe. In Humanity’s End, we destroyed the Earth. This time it is just Los Angeles!”

Neil Johnson has been a director for 23 years but shows no sign of slowing down. He is already planning a big time travel film, and then will later return to the Nephilim universe.

Alien Armageddon features Claudia Wells (Back to the Future), Virginia Hey (Road Warrior/Farscape), Marilyn Ghigliotti (Clerks), Eric Nyenhuis (Howard Stern’s Jerky Boys), DeeDee Bigelow (Showgirl), George Noory (Coast to Coast am);

And stars Katharine McEwan (The Secret), Rochelle Vallese (Humanity’s End), Don Scribner (Crash), Ben Cain (Dogma), Will Tulin (Shelter), and Julia Parker (90210).

I'm back.  See a little more of the film below, and enjoy the theme song, "Spread Your Wings."  Alien Armageddon comes to VOD on Time-Warner, AT&T, Fios, and DirecTV in December, and to DVD and Blu-ray in January.

Density of the Daleks: Less Than 1

But they're still deadly. If they continue to wipe out editors of more popular science fiction venues, however, I can live with that.

See and read more about it here.

And here, where I heard about it.

Project Constellation and the Future of Space Exploration

Here's an email I received today from Mike and Denise Okuda. As you may know, they're veterans of Star Trek, and Mike illustrated two stories in Thrilling Wonder Stories, Volume 2. But it's real-life space travel that's the issue today:

February 8, 2010

Dear Friends:

As long-time supporters of real-life space exploration, Denise and I were disappointed to learn that the proposed NASA budget for 2011 would cancel Project Constellation and the planned return to the Moon. Constellation, as you may know, began in 2004, after the tragic loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia and its crew. NASA was determined to make spaceflight safer for its astronauts, and it knew that it had to give those astronauts a worthwhile mission: Exploring the final frontier.

Constellation is tasked with developing boosters, spacecraft, and other systems to provide a safer replacement for the Space Shuttle, one that would enable a return to the Moon for the specific purpose of developing the ability for humans to live on another world. Unlike Apollo, Constellation is designed to run on a comparatively constrained budget. Constellation’s Ares boosters are based on Space Shuttle technology, reducing their development costs and improving safety and reliability.

Since 2004, NASA has made a lot of progress with Constellation. New rocket engines have been designed and tested. A new launch pad has been built at the Kennedy Space Center, and a massive new launch tower has just been completed. Prototype Orion capsules are being tested, even as prototype moon rovers are trekking through the desert. Design work on Altair lunar landers and next-generation space suits is well underway. And last October, NASA conducted the successful first launch of Project Constellation, the Ares I-X Development Test Flight. We’re finally on our way back to the Moon, and heading out to Mars.

Now, the administration has proposed to cancel Constellation in favor of a “flexible path” of technology development and the use of commercial launch services for astronauts to get into orbit. While technology development is a very good idea, it’s not a substitute for an actual mission with a real goal. Without a goal and a specific plan, we believe that NASA, however well-intentioned, will simply end up spending a lot of money without actually going anywhere. It’s happened before. We don’t want it to happen again. And while we believe that commercial spaceflight will be a reality in the relatively near future, the fact is that no such capability exists yet. Spaceflight is a difficult, dangerous enterprise, and it would be foolish to gamble the future of our nation’s space program by abandoning systems that are already well into development. With so much progress already made, we believe that canceling Constellation would be a serious mistake.

The good news is that the proposed budget is just that: A proposal. Over the next few weeks the Congress will review the proposal and will make whatever changes it deems necessary. Constellation can be saved if members of Congress – and the President – see that their constituents want it. That’s why we’re asking you to support Constellation by writing to the President and to your elected representatives.

Here’s a website that we’ve put together with more information on Constellation, plus resources on how to reach your elected officials.

http://www.supportconstellation.com

Space exploration is vital source of technology and innovation for our society. The space program is one of the most effective means to stimulate economic growth, both in the short term and the long run. And exploration inspires our young people, even as it helps us comprehend the wonders of the final frontier, now and in the future. Please join us in making that future a reality by writing letters and by spreading the word to your friends. We very much need your help, and we need it today.

Sincerely,
-Mike and Denise Okuda

More of Us to Love

We've expanded the width of the blog from 850 pixels to 1000. This will allow us to present videos at full 640x480 resolution, and have a neat little sidebar on the right where you can click to go to our various product pages on Amazon.

Also, the Astronomy Picture of the Day is now at the bottom of the page, where you can see the whole thing at once.

Let us know how it works out for you.

Living in the Future

If, ten years ago, I'd read a science fiction story set in the year 2009, featuring, as President, a black man named Barack Hussein Obama, I'd have rolled my eyes, and gone, "Oh, yeah, right."

(Here's a This Modern World comic expressing a similar view.)

However, after his speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, I had Obama pegged as the party's 2008 nominee... for vice president.  Beside whatever role race might play, I couldn't picture a freshman senator being nominated for president (never mind elected).  I thought even my vice presidential prediction was sort of putting this rising star on the political fast track.

Not that I'm at all upset that I turned out to be wrong.