Monday, November 18, 2013

Weekly Update #128

Editor's Note

Thanks everyone for in last week's poll. I wanted to know just how useful the Links to the Multiverse were to you guys because to be honest it takes a hell of a lot of time to list them all out. A slight majority of you, however, appear to benefit from them. So I decided to compromise. I will continue with the Links to the Multiverse segment at the bottom of every Weekly Update, but I won't be pulling from so many sources. That way I get a lot more time for other projects, while still providing relevant alternate history links.

We have a NEW POLL up now. I want to know what recurring posts you like the best. Pick as many as you want.

Fair warning, probably won't have many articles this week as I need time to write up some posts for the blog tour I am doing to promote my new short story. Hopefully next week things can return to normal.

And now the news...

The Chronology Protection Case released with new, extended ending

You might have heard the name Paul Levinson, a time travel and alternate history author, if you read The Update regularly. I link to post links from his blog, Infinite Regress, and he seems to be a fan of The Update from the tweets I have seen from him (thanks again Paul). Well I am happy to report that the short film based on Paul's short story “The Chronology Protection Case,” first published in Analog Magazine in September 1995, has been released on iTunes with a new, extended ending.

The 40-minute movie by Jay Kensinger, first released in 2002, is an adaptation of Paul Levinson’s novelette. The novelette was a finalist for the Nebula Award, reprinted five times, including in the recent Mammoth Book of Time Travel, and made into an Edgar nominated radio play.

Kensinger directed, produced, wrote, and plays the role of Dr. Phil D’Amato in the movie. D’Amato has appeared in two other novelettes by Levinson, “The Copyright Notice Case” and “The Mendelian Lamp Case”, and in three novels by Levinson, The Silk Code, The Consciousness Plague, and The Pixel Eye.

The extended ending in the 2013 release of the movie brings the story forward from 2002 to 2013, and was written by Levinson and Kensinger. The 2002 release was shown at science fiction conventions around the east coast, including ICon and Philcon. More details about the movie on IMDB.

Congrats to Paul Levinson and everyone who worked on the film!

Tinker – The Steampunk Series Crowd Funding Campaign

The brass and goggles crowd might be interested in the Tinker Kickstarter campaign. Steampunk Partners, the producers behind the forthcoming steampunk series, have compiled a new list of incentives designed to stimulate audience participation in the form of pledges as a part of their crowd funding effort.

Described as "Blade Runner meets Firefly meets Dr. Who, wrapped in an envelope of Victorian Era-inspired Futurism", the press release describes Tinker as an alternate history where we follow a father/daughter engineering duo, who have achieved a level of notoriety as inventors in their native San Francisco of the Northwest American territory. When a wealthy and eccentric expatriate, now residing in British controlled Hong Kong, named Lady Cushing engages their services to build a device from the incomplete plans left behind by her late father, also an inventor and gentleman explorer. From the moment the pair accept Lady Cushing’s offer, they are thrust headlong into a world of intrigue, lies, deceit, greed and eminent danger in which the balance of worldly power rests unaware, alternately in both the calloused hands of Sho Tinker and the gloved hands of Lady Cushing.

Tinker features Victorian era-inspired wardrobe, sets (both practical and digital), custom props, locations and technology. The series, being developed jointly by Steampunk Partners and Containment Field, will be offered over the Internet where anyone can watch at any time and where network-programming and scheduling consideration will not be an issue. Steampunk Partners will distribute the show initially over the Internet with all episodes being available on their website as well as other Web-based outlets to be announced. Collections of episodes will be made available to collectors on Blu-Ray DVD from the Tinker online store.

Video Gallery

This week we have what you missed by not playing Assassin's Creed III:
Next, the Achievement Hunter guys show you how to get Should Auld Acquantance achievement in BioShock Infinite:
And finally we have a crash course in American history regarding the Korean and Vietnam War:

Calendar

Nov 30: Last day to fund Winter in the City Kickstarter, featuring Harry Turtledove.

Dec 16: Last day to submit a story to Apex's Christmas flash fiction contest.

Links to the Multiverse

Books


8 Best Sci-Fi Steampunk Novels of All Time by Nigel G. Mitchell.
Coming Soon! JANI AND THE GREATER GAME by Eric Brown at SF Signal.
Hild: Fantasy or History? by Nicola Griffith at Tor.
Roma Nova world building by Alison Morton.

Counterfactual/Traditional History


6 Insane Schemes Attempted at the Dawn of Space Travel by Xavier Jackson, Evan V. Symon and Ivan Farkas at Cracked.
An alternate history where Twitter is genuinely disruptive by Annalee Newitz at io9.
What If JFK Had Lived? by Eric Niiler at Discovery News.

Interviews

Johan Andersson at Game Aspect.
Delphine Dryden at My Bookish Ways.
Matthew J. Kirby at The Enchanted Inkpot.
Cherie Priest at Tor.

Podcasts

Dissecting Worlds Series 8 Running Order Revealed! by Matt Farr at Geek Syndicate.

Reviews

Elementary 2.7 and 2.8 at Thinking about books.
Fiendish Schemes by K W Jeter at Thinking about books.
Hild by Nicola Griffith at Alabama Public Radio.
If Kennedy Lived by Jeff Greenfield at Greenwich Time.
Knight of Shadows by Toby Venables at Falcata Times.
Revolution 2.8 at Paul Levinson's Infinite Regress.

* * *

Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update and a blogger on Amazing Stories. His new short story "Road Trip" can be found in Forbidden Future: A Time Travel Anthology. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. You can follow him on Facebook or Twitter.

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