Book trailer of Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure. The brilliant scientist Taldra loves her twin gay sons and sees them as the hope for her planet's future.

This is one of my first attempts at a book trailer. Please let me know what you think.

The Pandemonium trailers are on YouTube; this gay scifi movie looks fun.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=f9Kca8elxxY

Here's what the director says about about the trailer:

Phil makes many new friends in San Francisco, but not everyone is who they seem. This is the third trailer for my feature Pandemonium, which I made in my living room for $5000, because gay people need Heroes too. Think "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" meets "Tales of the City". Hope you have as much fun watching it as I had making it.

(Updated introduction message.)

Thanks for making me a contributing writer, and for starting this cool site! The blogs here catch my interest, and some of them make me laugh.

By the way, I first read about doorQ in Instinct. I still read that magazine, even though they made fun of one of my book covers! I’ve been insulted before, but at least their insults are clever. Usually.

Lubbock, Texas, is home, but I was born in New Orleans and mostly grew up in North Louisiana. (“Mostly grew up” might mean that I also grew up other places, or that I didn’t finish growing up. Think what you will.)

I read constantly, in a variety of genres. I especially love gay-themed fiction and/or scifi/fantasy/horror, so the combination is great.

For gay-inclusive sf/f/h, I suggest Stealing Some Time (Mark Kendrick), The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood), Cinátis (Ronald L. Donaghe), Ethan of Athos (Lois McMaster Bujold), Trysts (Steve Berman), The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula K. Le Guin), Bond-Shattering (William Maltese), China Mountain Zhang (Maureen F. McHugh), Sacrament (Clive Barker), Echelon’s End: PlanetFall (E. Robert Dunn), and Wraeththu (Storm Constantine), as well as two of my books—The Return of Innocence: A Fantasy Adventure and Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure.

I'm currently reading Dhalgren (Samuel R. Delany), a fascinating, complex sf novel that includes gay characters and gender themes.

I also love reading classics and nonfiction.

Please also see my Profile page, for more of my interests. I’ll write about some of them here at doorQ.

DuaneSimolke.Com includes links related to the classics, gay scifi, gay romance, and much, much more. Please visit and tell me what you think!

Thanks again!

Duane Simolke 

While gay science fiction novels now seem less unusual, gay scifi fans still can’t find many movies that combine their interests. So far, the few examples are mostly campy and low budget. One such film flies its camp flag and its made-at-home special effects as proudly as it frequently flies the rainbow flag. That film is Pandemonium, a hilarious barrage of one-liners, blue screens, and inter-dimensional battles.

Phil Connor (Brandon Grimaldi) arrives in San Francisco to work for a law firm that helps with gay causes. Besides immediately falling for the wrong guy, he also immediately picks up the wrong box, one that brings strange creatures from another dimension into our world. Opening the box also gives Phil the powers he needs to fight the creatures.

While many of the other characters seem frightened by the situation, Connor takes it in stride and basically becomes a gay super-hero. Fortunately, though, Grimaldi never covers up his handsome face with a mask.

After writing the screenplay, writer/director/co-producer Paul Jack used craigslist to find volunteers to star in the film. In fact, craigslist in-jokes occur throughout the film, along with possible titles for other gay scifi films. Poet Beware, the name of Jack’s production company, even appears on a refrigerator door in one of the early scenes.

Jack worked with Dex Craig, who co-produced and edited the film, designed the special effects, scored the original soundtrack, and played the role of Brandon, Phil’s stalker. Craig’s deadpan delivery makes his lines especially amusing, but all the actors obviously enjoyed their roles.

For escapist fun with a fast pace, some surprising twists, and a scary drag queen or two, Pandemonium delivers! As an extra bonus, the DVD also includes Alone, an animated film by Dex Craig that won the short film competition sponsored by Austin’s 2006 OUTer Gay and Lesbian SciFi/Fantasy Film Festival.

Paul Jack and Dex Craig are currently working on Applesauce, an animated movie with gay heroes named Unity and Identity. Details about that project appear at http://youtube.com/user/gaymecha. Visit Amazon.Com or PandemoniumMovie.Com to learn more about Pandemonium.

Pandemonium. Distributed by Poet Beware Productions.

Originally Reviewed for ThisWeekInTexas.Com. 

The following excerpt comes from the revised, second edition of my novel Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure.

The planet Valchondria seems advanced and remarkably humane in many ways. But the government regulates people's weight, reproduction, theology, actions, and speech; the government also forbids travel and contact beyond Valchondria's atmosphere. A charismatic leader called "Gazer" leads the cult of Degranon; he promises change, but at a violent and oppressive cost. In between these two dystopias (failed Utopias), we find Taldra and Hachen, striving to make a better world for their twin sons. Obviously, the book raises many social issues, but it often does so in humorous or exciting ways. This scene obviously pokes fun at the ridiculous Earth tradition known as "homophobia," but it still has some scary overtones. (The Valchondrians use "same-gendered" in place of the words “gay” or “homosexual.”)

Her gray eyes sparkled like no eyes Hachen had ever seen. Actually, she had broken the law by secretly telling him that her eyes were light brown, but, unlike his gifted spouse, he couldn’t see in color. He couldn’t even see the redness of her skin, though he knew from history class that most people on Valchondria have red, brown, or black skin, and some of the people who had once lived there had yellow or white skin. To him, everyone simply looked white or black.

During history classes, before the Maintainers expunged certain anti-glory facts from the school curriculum, Hachen had learned about how white-skinned people and yellow-skinned people faded from existence. After the Supreme Science Council realized that those two races contracted certain illnesses that no one else contracted, they worked with the Maintainers to pass a constitutional amendment, banning any two members of those races from marrying. The measure supposedly protected Valchondria’s families and stability. Within three generations, both races ceased to exist; only the red, black, and brown races remained obvious, or some mixture of the three.

That time in Valchondria’s history brought outcries of shame, and the government vowed to never again use the law to promote bigotry. But then, little more than a hundred years later, the SSC found that obesity caused many illnesses, adding to increased national healthcare costs. So another constitutional amendment passed, this one allowing the Maintainers to fine people for not keeping a healthy height-to-weight ratio.

And after the virus came, the Maintainers and the SSC passed yet another constitutional amendment that promoted discrimination. That one made the ridiculous assertion that discussing colorsightedness posed a heavy hazard threat to traditional values, and that claiming to be colorsighted was nothing more than a plea for so-called “special rights.” It amazed Hachen that a civilized culture could keep taking away people’s civil rights. It also hurt him, because the woman he loved was the target of that bigotry.

And the new forms of bigotry kept emerging. Next came legally permitted language, initially called “socially recommended rhetoric,” creeping slowly into schools and the media and then into the law. And then Maintainer cameras came. And freedom left. All in the names of preserving traditional Valchondrian values. All suffocating Valchondrian creativity, thought, and progress.

Hachen clasped the slender hand that reached toward the tiny person in the infant pod that was attached to the bed.

“I’ll get him,” said Hachen. He gently lifted the pale infant, who was wrapped in a white cloth as soft and warm as his skin.

“I was hoping to be able to say ‘them.’” She accepted the crying child into her arms, and he grew quiet as she rocked him back and forth.

“We had to work quickly. It’s bad enough we’re violating the codes. We can’t jeopardize Geln’s career as well as our own.”

“I know, Hachen. I just wanted a chance to see them both. I can’t believe I passed out during the birth.”

“I think those mind relaxants had something to do with it. I’m just glad no other healers came in. No one knows except for you, me, and Geln.”

“Wouldn’t the gossip masters love this story? ‘Leading scientists discover a rift in time and transport illegal twin into the past. Check your collector for details.’” She rubbed the tiny infant’s red face, and he seemed to smile. “Is this Argen, or Telius?”

“Argen,” said Hachen, sitting down on the edge of the bed. They had agreed on given names for the twins long before Taldra even started showing. “They’re identical. I performed a genetic scan; they’re both healthy and of potentially high intellect. Telius will need that to survive in his primitive environment.”

“But you said the village is peaceful. Hachen, where are we sending our baby?”

“Someplace where he at least has a chance.” Hachen had never seen her look so vulnerable before, like anyone could crush her with a touch. Before, she always projected herself as brave and outspoken, sometimes even reckless, but he could tell becoming a mother would change her. Somehow, she seemed less courageous but more protective. He tried to think of words to reassure her. “The village is peaceful. I just meant that he won’t have all the luxuries and protections we have. He’ll be like…well, like a colonist.”

The look of worry gave way to one of wonder. “I like that analogy.” She smiled at the baby who slept in her arms. “Maybe one day, we’ll all be on one colony together, the four of us.”

“That sounds nice. To the side, the genetic scan also showed that they’re both same-gendered.” Hachen used the term with pride, and Taldra smiled with the same pride. At least no one ever came up with the crumbled idea of discriminating against people who identified romantically and emotionally with members of their own gender. No culture could ever be that rusted, he told himself, but then thought again of how utterly ridiculous he saw all other forms of bigotry; none of it made sense. Discrimination and prejudice never made any sense at all to Hachen.

Copyright 2004 Duane Simolke.

http://DuaneSimolke.Com

My review for This Week In Texas.

Director David DeCoteau offers horror B-movies with extremely homoerotic undertones, mostly by putting a lot of cute guys in situations together that involve wrestling, underwear, or bondage. Some of those movies are fun as guilty pleasures, but the ones I’ve seen never quite make the leap from gay overtones to gay.

Enter writer/director/producer Jeff London. London usually makes quiet dramas about gay characters who are struggling to deal with coming out or other issues. I’ve kept up with his work since And Then Came Summer. I especially love his movie Regarding Billy and never would have expected him to jump from that tender love story to a zombie flick. But here it is.

When Darkness Falls is classic, 1950s-style horror, relying on shadows and scares, while avoiding gore. However, unlike any movies from the 1950s, all the characters are gay. Despite the success of the gay slasher movie Hellbent and Here TV’s supernatural series Dante's Cove, gay horror movies are still rare. This one is an entertaining entry into a new genre.

Mike Dolan and Matt Austin play two young men who are just starting a relationship. Kevin (Dolan) invites his new boyfriend, Danny (Austin), to spend the weekend with him in the mountains. Kevin’s home there is not only secluded in the woods but also adjacent to a cemetery.

Kevin enjoys scaring Danny as often as possible. Unfortunately, Kevin’s romantic advances get stalled by the arrival of his friends, who also enjoy scary pranks. As the night progresses, the scares go from joking around to something more sinister.

London keeps the tone light and playful. The actors all bring charm and good looks to that fun atmosphere. Some of the acting needed more work—another parallel to David DeCoteau—but that’s normal with low-budget horror movies.

The DVD of When Darkness Falls also includes a second, shorter film, The Best of Care. This one involves two of the actors from the first film, Mike Dolan and Ron Petronicolos. Both actors also appeared in London’s movie The Last Year.

The Best of Care uses a much darker tone than When Darkness Falls. Bill lives with his sick boyfriend, caring for him around the clock. The tension finally overtakes him, leading to some disturbing plot twists.

Mark Krench scored both of this DVD’s films with appropriately creepy music. Scary movies rely heavily on the right music to lead up to the bumps in the night; Krench delivers, adding to the fun of this Saturday matinee double feature.

Filmmaker Jeff London grew up in California but recently relocated to West Texas and plans to later relocate to Hawaii. His first film, The Judgement Road, received a Best Drama Award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in Hollywood.

Since London is a big science fiction fan, I hope he eventually procures the budget for a gay science fiction movie. We can find many gay science fiction books, and British television made a hit of the queer-themed scifi series Torchwood. The audience is apparently there, waiting.

Read more about When Darkness Falls and other Jeff London films at Guardian Pictures.

--Duane Simolke, author of the West Texas fiction collection The Acorn Stories and the gay-themed novel Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure.

Early on, strained acting and lame dialogue almost destroy Almost Normal. Hopefully, viewers won't grab the remote and hit stop, because they would miss out on a cute, clever tale. Fans of the TV series Sliders or the movies Back to the Future and Peggy Sue Got Married should take interest in this movie about a middle-aged gay man who suddenly finds himself back in high school, in an alternate reality where gay is cool and straight is sick.

Countless gay people will relate to the way this movie turns homophobia and heterosexism upside down, making the haters the hated. They will also enjoy the fun of seeing a world where gay is normal. It honestly amazes me that no one thought to make this movie sooner.

Director Marc Moody obviously has much to say about prejudice, acceptance, and love, but he says all of it in a light-hearted, imaginative way. He lets everyone see how unfairly society often treats gays, as well as the often painful experience of growing up gay, but he does both by asking, "What if gays treated heterosexuals as badly as so many heterosexuals treat gays?" Still, despite the profound satire, Almost Normal remains humorous throughout.

***

Review originally written for ThisWeekInTexas.Com. Review by Duane Simolke, author of the West Texas fiction collection The Acorn Stories and the gay-themed novel Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure.

The book trailer for The Return of Innocence: A Fantasy Adventure is now online at gay2share!

Read a review of the book at StoneWall Society.

Though I frequently came across her name as a highly recommended science fiction author, I missed out on Lois McMaster Bujold until recently, when I read Ethan of Athos. That scifi adventure involves a man from an all-male planet who uses technology to provide children for his world's population. Ethan happens to be gay; many of the other Athosians simply practice celibacy.

Unfortunately, something goes awry, and Ethan must leave Athos on a mission that will cause him to rely on a woman for help. Despite the strange plot and the comical tone, Bujold delivers an exciting story and characters that seem real. I like that she doesn't remind me of any other writer.

As someone who enjoys reading (and writing) science fiction or fantasy novels with queer themes, I suggest this novel, as well as Wraeththu (by Storm Constantine), Cinátis (by Ronald L. Donaghe), The Left Hand of Darkness (by Ursula K. Le Guin), Stealing Some Time (by Mark Kendrick) and The Handmaid's Tale (by Margaret Atwood). Other readers could suggest more, but I loved those and plan to read many related titles.

Read more about Bujold's books at her official web site.

--Duane Simolke, author of the gay-themed novel Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure.

Heartbroken? Involved with someone who only calls you when no one else is available? Feeling kicked around like a scifi series on the Fox network? John Amsterdam knows how you feel.

The delayed, delayed, probably shelved, and now heavily promoted scifi series New Amsterdam premieres on Fox tonight, returning with a new episode Thursday night, and then moving to Monday night. The main character (played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) looks good for a four-hundred-year-old cop, and seems to have acquired a clever sense of humor during his extended tenure.

Knowing how Fox treats scifi, they might keep moving this show around, and then cancel it quicker than you can say “Firefly,” but they’re short on scripted programming, so it might stand a chance. It looks interesting; visit the New Amsterdam site for photos and video clips.

(Photo: Jericho’s Skeet Ulrich.)

And speaking of cancelled scifi series, resurrected fan favorite Jericho runs right after New Amsterdam tonight, over on CBS.

—Duane Simolke, author of the gay-themed novel Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure.

I originally mentioned the premiere of New Amsterdam repeating tonight. Actually, it's a new episode, Golden Boy! I enjoyed the premiere, and look forward to getting to know the main characters better.

From SciFi Wire: Amsterdam Has Strong Debut. That article includes sad news about ratings for Jericho.

Also from SciFi Wire: Amsterdam Lives to Die.

—Duane Simolke, author of the gay-themed novel Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure.

The wind blows colder now.
Did I dangle myself on a string
that would soon become my noose?
Did I lock myself
in the vault I robbed?

As I tend gardens around
this mansion like my former home,
I seek the shadow
of its Victorian columns.
Still, I feel the cold,
as if the mansion itself produces
chills, fear, a presence.

I hear someone laugh
as the new owner escapes to his job.
But he lives alone,
and that phantom
gliding past the window,
ruffling the curtains,
lacks substance.
It doesn’t seem real enough
to laugh.

The mansion is laughing,
knowing the owner might become
someone else’s gardener.

From my book Holding Me Together: Essays and Poems.

 

In Amazon Kindle’s Gay Fiction Chart, and its Genre Anthology Chart, The Acorn Stories: Kindle Edition is currently #1! It’s also the #2 book for gay short stories in general, not just Kindle eBooks. Brokeback Mountain is passing it up there as #1.

Acorn isn’t one of my scifi/fantasy books, but the eBook of Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure has also been charting recently.

Sf/f/h in the Kindle Gay Fiction Top 10 follows: Without Reservations (by J. L. Langley), #4. Eternal Darkness (by Rob Knight), #5. Vintage: A Ghost Story (by Steve Berman), #6. Falling, #7. IM (by Rick R. Reed), #9.

(Amazon’s charts update hourly.)

Yes, the news seemed inevitable, and here it is, CBS Drops Bomb On Jericho. The show that would not die is dying, after next week’s finale.

Better scifi/fantasy TV news follows:

Eick Adapts Children For TV

Caprica Very Different From Battlestar Galactica

SciFi Announces Scripted Pilots

Dadt Takes Sam Raimi’s “Wizard’s First Rule” To The Syndication Marketplace For A Fall 2008 Launch

Joshua Jackson is a Fringe Freak

Duane Simolke, author of Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure, winner of a StoneWall Society Pride in the Arts Award.

Stacking its fall 2008 schedule heavily with scifi shows, NBC is looking more scifi than its stepchild, the SciFi Channel, which has become increasingly dominated by reality shows and horror B-movies. Fortunately, SciFi is bringing out some new scifi series (sounds like an obvious move), such as Sanctuary (starring Stargate’s Amanda Tapping) and the Battlestar Galactica prequel Caprica. Caprica is still in the planning stages, though, while Sanctuary may debut in September.

To read about movies, please visit my DVD review section at the gay site ThisWeekInTexas.

Duane Simolke, author of Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure.

May 17 is the Day Without Homophobia! Find more resources on my Reactions to Homophobia page.

Arnold Vosloo and Steve Bacic, two actors familiar to scifi fans, star in the SciFi Channel’s original movie Odysseus: Voyage to the Underworld. It premieres April 12.

Yes, it died twice, but that never means the absolute end, at least not in science fiction. Jericho Seeks Home on Comcast.

Oh, and if none of that sounds interesting, then…Radcliffe to Make B'way Debut in Fall. An earlier story, about the London production, follows: Photo Flash: Daniel Radcliffe Stars in West End's EQUUS. It’s a disturbing play, but I’ve never seen it with Radcliffe.

To read about movies, please visit my DVD review section at the gay site ThisWeekInTexas.

Duane Simolke, author of Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure.

There' so much happening in movies, television and books this week! Here's a quick look at what I think are some of your best bets for a genre fix for the week!

---- 

Stargate Continuum, the second Stargate SG-1 DVD movie, arrives on DVD July 29, 2008. If it’s anywhere near as good as Stargate: The Ark of Truth, I’ll probably love it!

Speaking of TV series becoming movie series, the second X-FILES movie is titled THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE, in homage to the poster in Fox Mulder’s office.

Author Mark Kendrick is wrapping up work on his next gay-themed scifi novel, The Rylerran Gateway. He plans to release it in August 2008. I interviewed Mark in 2002, for StoneWall Society. Visit that site to read the interview. He talked back then about plans for gay sf novels, back before the publication of his gay time travel romance, Stealing Some Time.

I rarely write book reviews these days, but wanted to share some of my past reviews. The perfect place to start is with my reviews of Mark's previous novels, the Stealing Some Time series.

Books I and II: My Review.

The action of this romantic science fiction thriller takes place in two different centuries: the 25th century, plagued by homophobia and unquestioned propaganda, and the 19th century, a time of discovery and superstition.

After Technical Sergeant Kallen Deshara keeps finding gay sexual partners in a military that supposedly has no gays, he finally falls in love. Unfortunately, he does so during a mission that takes him into the past. The object of his affection had also been seeking a life-long, romantic bond with another man.

Kendrick keeps the scientific explanations in the narrative short but believable, focusing instead on intrigue, character development, and relationships. The pace never slows, and the book's time travel premise sneaks shockingly but somehow naturally into the already complex lives of the characters. Yes, it seems impossible in terms of what they know, but they were already starting to learn that much of what they supposedly "knew" isn't reality at all.

Appearing together in a single volume, Books I and II of the Stealing Some Time trilogy will take readers out of reality as well. I look forward to reading Book III to see how it all turns out!

Book III: My Review.

Mark Kendrick brings his Stealing Some Time trilogy to an exciting and romantic conclusion with Book III: Journey's End. Fortunately, Kendrick plans to write more gay science fiction novels. With Book I, we met Kallen Deshara, a young hero in a dark, homophobic future. With Book II, Kallen's time-traveling mission into the past brought him together with Aaric Utzman, a handsome young man who quickly stole his heart.

Book III winds up the trilogy with an even deeper romance between Kallen and Aaric, and with much more adventure. Mark Kendrick explores the possibilities of time travel, while also exploring the possibilities of gay love. Even though Chapter 24 of this book resolves the conflicts, Kendrick adds a touching Epilogue that will give readers an even greater sense of closure and satisfaction.

I think that will tide you over for the week!

Until next time, I'm Duane Simolke.

Welcome back to the Acorn Universe!

And speaking of welcome back, Moonlight and Supernatural both return from a strike-induced hiatus this week, with new thrills.

Two trailers for summer scifi follow: Stargate Continuum and Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D.

Though demonic superhero Hellboy won’t return to the screen for Hellboy II: The Golden Army until July 11, the film’s director is already weighing in on a third installment to the comic book adaptation. Del Toro: Hellboy III Would Be It. With plans for the Justice League movie and the X-Men spin-offs, it shouldn’t surprise comic fans to learn of a possible Avengers movie: Hulk Sets Up Avengers.

Socket has received a lot of gay media coverage lately. It’s a fun scifi/horror flick with gay characters.

Turning to pages, Blind Fall, the new thriller by Christopher Rice, doesn’t include supernatural elements, but it explores tensions between the military and the gay community in San Diego. It’s actually the first novel I’ve read by Christopher Rice, and definitely worth putting on your to-read list.

Photo: the stars of CBS's Moonlight.

Like last time, I'll end by reposting one of my past reviews.

Bond-Shattering (book), by William Maltese.

The ever-prolific William Maltese returns to science fiction with this adventure about two men who will soon become bond-mated. One of them, Roynoldo Lasi, will join a part of a wealthy family by bond-mating with the other man, Grenar Rajno. However, Family Rajno controls the essence Orchinid, which brings as much danger as money. The shape-shifter Zinder Avid brings much more danger.

While the Orchinid reflects the spice in Frank Herbert's classic novel Dune, Bond-Mating is certainly gayer than Dune; it also turns increasingly erotic. Like the wealth, though, that eroticism often becomes perilous, mixing sexuality with fear.

Maltese begins each chapter with scriptures from the followers of Meedek, a decidedly elitist and misogynistic God. The scriptures resemble the Bible, especially the Book of Genesis, but with twists that reflect Maltese's storyline. That isn't to say that Bond-Shattering is misogynistic, just the culture in which Roynoldo finds himself. And it often seems unlikely that he will survive in his environment.

The jargon in this novel mostly relies on familiar terms that Maltese blurs together, seemingly capturing the dialects of the characters and/or the frequent usage of those terms. He avoids too much tech-speak while still creating a believable, futuristic world. He also provides a fast-paced adventure and will doubtlessly write many more.

Duane Simolke wrote the award-winning anthology Holding Me Together.

Here TV will premiere Kiss Me Deadly, a gay spy thriller starring Queer As Folk’s Robert Gant, on May 2. Directed by Ron Oliver (Third Man Out and Shock to the System), this original film also stars Shannen Doherty and John Rhys-Davies.

A&E Television is offering an exciting original as well, a miniseries of The Andromeda Strain. The cast includes Benjamin Bratt, Andre Braugher, Ricky Schroder, Christa Miller, Lost’s Daniel Dae Kim, and Will & Grace’s Eric McCormack.

io9 has posted a Complete Guide to Science Fiction Season.

And no one can forget which movie opens tomorrow in theatres...

My video Gay Pride has now received more than 2000 viewings at YouTube!

As usual, I’ll end with one of my past book or movie reviews.

Mission Child (book), by Maureen F. McHugh

A colonized world develops a unique identity and culture. Years later, one of its citizens develops a unique identity as well, adapting to her culture by taking on the identity of a man. Soon, she finds that her gender-blurring actually appeals to her in ways beyond what her situation demands of her.

I love Mission Child as much as McHugh's more popular novel China Mountain Zhang, which received the James Tiptree, Jr. Memorial Award, the Lambda Literary Award, and the Locus Award for Best First Novel. McHugh is a great writer who can involve readers in any scene, regardless of how much or how little action that scene contains. The language seems descriptive to an extreme, but she still manages to tie those descriptions into the thoughts and feelings of the characters.

Before reading her work, I read reviews that included complaints about her supposedly not focusing on plot. Readers can find countless formulaic, plot-driven science fiction and fantasy novels, but they won't find many original and evocative writers of McHugh's caliber. McHugh's other novels include Nekropolis and Half the Day Is Night.

Duane Simolke wrote Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure and The Acorn Stories.

Watch for a TV season heavy in science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Details about some of the networks’ plans for 2008/2009 follow.

Fox

CBS

ABC

The CW

NBC

SciFi Channel, as usual, won’t wait until the fall for new scripted programming. While the current Friday night line-up will continue for a while, viewers can also look forward to a third season of the quirky hit Eureka on July 29.

For fans of gay-themed shows or movies, Logo will offer Sordid Lives: The Series, starting July 23. The movie Sordid Lives continues to grow as a cult classic. Here in West Texas, many viewers cringe while they laugh, because some of the characters in that comedy remind us of people we know!

Book Review of The Brentridge Gold: The Pleiades Portals Series

By W. Lambert III

While I usually won't read Westerns, the idea of one involving "Ancient Astronauts" intrigued me, because I love science fiction! The science fiction and adventure elements keep sneaking into the narrative, along with hints of possible supernatural activity. Still, author W. Lambert III stays tightly focused on the Western-style hero, David Brentridge.

In fact, David takes up most of the ink in this book. We often see only him, or just him with brief appearances from the other characters. Fortunately, Lambert makes David a unique and fascinating character who slowly reveals more and more about himself and his family through his actions, dialogue, and thoughts.

The people who keep crossing David's path in one way or another might want the Brentridge gold, and he rarely can decide which of them to trust. Lambert even holds back from the readers why the gold involves so many secrets, far beyond any obvious fortune, but he gives us fascinating hints and glimpses through David and an ancient shaman. He also gives a fast-paced, unpredictable read.

(Though I rarely write book reviews any more, I'm reposting some of my past reviews here.)

This week, Stargate Atlantis, War Games, Marvel, Prince Caspian, In The Closet, Steve Berman.

According to GateWorld, Stargate Atlantis will begin Season Five on Friday, July 11. That site also includes details about the new season, and the new SG1 movie, Stargate Continuum.

Wednesday, May 28, is my forty-third birthday. Of course, all I want for my birthday is for more people to order Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure or The Acorn Stories. That sounds reasonable.

And speaking of things that have been around for a while, July 29 brings us War Games (25th Anniversary Edition) and the new direct-to-DVD sequel War Games: The Dead Code. It could feel like 1983 again, if only I heard Duran Duran playing on the radio. Oh, wait.

For something younger, yet older, Ben Barnes Goes from Prince Caspian to Dorian Gray.

Marvel Studios, oh so giddy over its Iron Man money machine, announced details of upcoming comic book films, and a bit of trivia about a Captain America allusion in the Iron Man movie. The Iron Man movie lives up to its hype, by the way, but will The Incredible Hulk?

Publicity photos are now online for the gay-themed short horror film In The Closet. Pictures include a behind-the-scenes look, as well as an album with stars J.T. Tepnapa (Star Trek: Phase II) and Brent Corrigan (Another Gay Sequel).

As usual, I’ll end with a past review.

Trysts: A Triskaidecollection of Queer and Weird Stories

By Steve Berman

I had heard of Steve Berman’s fiction collection, Trysts, and it sounded interesting. Matt Bauer’s striking artwork on the cover caught my interest even more. As the words he chose for his title and subtitle suggest, Berman can find something obscure or archaic, then turn it into something wondrous and unpredictable.

While Berman will certainly appeal to fans of modern horror writers like Clive Barker, his writing seems more like a reshaped, updated, and gay-themed version of Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Like those 19th century authors, both of whom helped shape fantastic fiction, Berman can use a few suggestive words, emotions, or images to spawn entire worlds of fear, dread, and awe. But also like those writers, he makes us want to keep exploring the dark forests of the human mind, to see how the experience will affect us.

Of course, in Berman’s case, we mostly find modern landscapes, such as run-down apartment buildings that house demons, spiders, ghosts, and seductive hustlers. Or we find familiar situations that many gays can relate to, such as a young gay man who worries that he might not be as attractive as his gay buddy or the men in one of their favorite magazines.

These stories aren’t always dark. They can be hopeful or erotic, and they’re sometimes even funny, though Berman often adds to the intensity by mixing the fearful with those more positive elements. I loved these thirteen stories by Steve Berman, and I hope he won’t stop with the “Triskaidecollection” that introduced me to his work.

We can now find many writers that bring the gay fiction genre into the sub-genres of science fiction, fantasy, and/or horror. I’ve barely started exploring the works of such writers, but I consider Trysts a great place to start!

This week, Charlie Jade, gay films, and Ronald L. Donaghe.

Charlie Jade, a Canadian and South African co-production, will become part of the SciFi Channel’s SciFi Friday line-up on June 6. From what I’ve read, this popular series is a gritty murder mystery that crosses dimensions. View the Charlie Jade trailer at YouTube.

My review of the DVD Not | Gay will appear soon at the gay site ThisWeekInTexas.Com. Frameline Films released that short film collection, distributed by Strand Releasing Home Video. Besides bringing gay films to viewers at home, Frameline also organizes an annual film festival.

Frameline32: San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival will run June 19-29, 2008. Besides screening various gay classics, the festival will also introduce audiences to many new films. This year’s program includes the following, and much more.

In Breakfast With Scot, two uptight gay man adopt a flamboyant boy. In Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild, characters from the outrageous comedy Another Gay Movie decide on a new contest. The documentary Be Like Others introduces viewers to the transsexual community in Iran, while Call Me Troy reintroduces us to Metropolitan Community Church founder Troy Perry. Tilda Swinton stars in and produced Derek, a doc about filmmaker Derek Jarman.

The Gay Bed and Breakfast of Terror (pictured) spoofs horror movies and the ex-gay movement. The short film Just Me? involves a young lesbian’s discovery that that she might not be the only pink sheep of the family.

As usual, I’ll end with a past review. I haven’t heard anything else about the rest of the books in the following series, though.

Cinátis, by Ronald L. Donaghe.

I’ll forego the knee-jerk comparisons to Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter that all high fantasy receives these days and tell you the simple truth: novelist Ronald L. Donaghe has created a world unlike any other, but with constant echoes of our own. The names, the places, the cultures, and the beliefs all seemed familiar enough that I could relate to and imagine them. Yet their differences from our world constantly surprised me.

When young Jeru breaks away from his family in the search for what caused a plague upon Omoham, he embarks on a series of adventures and soon becomes involved with one person who will become his mate and several other people who will become their allies in seeking the cause of the plague. However, their journey to Cinátis will involve them in much more, as Jeru finds himself entwined in a battle to rid Omoham of a violent group called the “Ch’turc.”

The names become comfortable after a while, just like the dialects. If you set the book aside for a few days, you might need to check the handy glossary in the back of the book, but why would you set this book aside? Despite its length (much longer than what I usually prefer), Volume 1 breezes by, entangling readers in its mists (you’ll have to read the book to know what I mean by that).

It also ends at a satisfactory place. It left me wanting more, without leaving me angry that I have to wait a while before Volume 2. I look forward to reading that book, as well as the two other books in this fantasy series, which Donaghe named “Twilight of the Gods.”

This week, Charlie Jade, Starship Troopers, Terminator, Smallville, Queer Writers, and The Acorn Stories.

SciFi.Com has posted an interview with Robert Wertheimer, executive producer of Charlie Jade. That dimension-spanning series comes to SciFi this Friday. 

The direct-to-DVD sequel Starship Troopers 3: Marauder arrives August 5. That site includes details, news, and images. The trailer looks promising, and didn’t give me eye-strain—unlike the poorly lit ST2.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Complete First Season arrives on DVD August 19, while Smallville: The Complete Seventh Season drops September 9; of course, both shows will return to TV in the fall.

Queer Writers, a resource for LGBT readers and authors, has relocated. Previous members need to rejoin.

2009 will mark the 10th anniversary of when my first book, The Acorn Stories, first went into print. The ebook release reached its 10th anniversary this year.

“A lush tangle of small-town life branches out in this engrossing collection of short stories.” –Kirkus Discoveries

“The ability to depict such a wide cross section of humanity, including details of each character’s breadth of knowledge and experience, takes a talented, insightful author, and Duane Simolke is such a writer.” –E. Conley, Betty’s Books

“If you liked WINESBURG, OHIO…rejoice.” –Watchword

“By the time you have finished reading these tales of the people who inhabit the fictitious town of Acorn, Texas, population 21,001, you will have met some endearing as well as irritating characters, from the Mayor to the local would-be gigolo; from the busy-bodies to the business owners; from those who grew up in Acorn and have tried to escape the small town to those who have moved to Acorn to escape from the real world.” –Ronald L. Donaghe, author of Uncle Sean

“A well-crafted collection of short stories.” –L. L. Lee, author of Taxing Tallula

“It was a real pleasure to read about the fictional town of Acorn, Texas.” –Mark Kendrick, author of Desert Sons

“There are people that you like, some that you can't wait to see if they get theirs.” –Joe Wright, StoneWall Society

“Each of Simolke's stories lets us look into the lives of some of the most interesting characters I have ever read about.” –Amos Lassen, Literary Pride

“When you finish, when you put the book aside, Acorn will still be with you.” –E. Carter Jones, author of Absence of Faith

This week, book and movie trailers, Gay Pride 2008, Jeff London, and gay DVD’s.

Mania has posted a new Babylon A.D. trailer. Vin Diesel stars in the French production, based on a popular science fiction novel of the same name. Mania also posted a Mirrors teaser trailer; that horror film stars Kiefer Sutherland.

About.Com has posted 2008 Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Parade Dates.

My video Gay Pride has received 2,595 views at YouTube. "Editing" is a poem about past and present homophobia. This video contrasts the dark imagery of "Editing" with colorful, positive pictures from Toronto Gay Pride, showing a refusal to let fear, violence, or hatred silence us. "Editing" appears in my book Holding Me Together, which also includes the essay "Reactions to Homophobia" and the gay love poem "Home."

My other videos follow: The Return of Innocence: A Fantasy Adventure, Fight Cancer, Texas Fiction, Gay Science Fiction, and Gay Love Poem.

Watch here for news about a new movie (and a new Web site) from Jeff London, director of And Then Came Summer, Regarding Billy, and the gay horror flick When Darkness Falls.

ThisWeekInTexas.Com has posted my review of NOT | GAY. Frameline offers a new DVD compilation, described as “four short films exploring the joys and frustrations of gay/straight friendships.”

The new DVD Back Soon is a gay love story with a supernatural twist. And speaking of supernatural and twisted, Dante's Cove: The Complete Third Season just arrived. For another gay love story, Brad Rowe returns in Shelter.

This week, gay marriage, George Takei, and upcoming scifi/fantasy TV.

Star Trek star George Takei has posted photographs and details about his engagement to long-time partner Brad Altman. They have been partners for over 21 years. In a blog entry, Takei writes that “As a Japanese American, I am keenly mindful of the subtle and not so subtle discrimination that the law can impose. During World War II, I grew up imprisoned behind the barbed wire fences of U.S. internment camps.”

More Gay Love and Marriage News and Views...

1st California Gay Marriage License Issued Today

California Same Sex Marriage: Guide to Getting Married in California

California Gay Marriage Blog

Couple Marks California's First Same-Sex Marriage

Marriage Equality Is Golden

Gay Love Poem

The CNN Wire: First same-sex weddings to take place Monday in California

BBC News: California Gay Couples Set to Wed

Norway Passes Law Approving Gay Marriage

California gay couples rush to wed as vote looms

Gay Marriage Would Increase CA Spending

In my novel Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure, gay marriage is a non-issue, and racism is a distant but painful memory. Unfortunately, people now face discrimination for their weight, as well as for their religious and political views. In science fiction, like in reality, we always need to struggle against prejudice.

Some news about scifi TV follows.

In a video at the ABC Family Kyle XY page, the narrator simply gives 2009 as the return date. The same page says “ALL NEW SEASON coming soon!” Soon?

Fox has posted a Fringe page. At this point, the page only shows strange images from the upcoming Joshua Jackson series.

SciFi.Com has posted new details about the syndicated series based on Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth novels: Wizard's Gets Show Runner.

SciFi.Com also posted Battlestar Galactica clarifications; the clarifications might cause more confusion. We’ll see what the future holds; if the rest of the season proves anywhere near as good as that midseason finale, viewers should stay tuned.

This week, site suggestions, book suggestions, a gay comedy, and some boy from Hell.

A friend just introduced me to the site Good Reads; it helps you find and suggest books. Find links to some similar pages—as well as numerous gay or scifi sites—via my Link Trades page.

I loved the book Weird Texas! I just started reading Weird U.S., and it has some good stories so far. The concept is simple: combine first-person reports of local folklore and urban legends with road-trip investigations. It should appeal to fans of the TV show Supernatural.

SciFi Wire includes an interview with Hellboy 2’s Doug Jones. That sequel looks it might be even more fun than the original.

The gay comedy A Four Letter Word arrives on DVD, August 14. It stars actor/OUT columnist Jesse Archer and Dante's Cove hunk Charlie David. (As opposed to all the ugly people on Dante’s Cove.) Read my review at ThisWeekInTexas.Com.  

Duane Simolke wrote Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure and The Acorn Stories.

This week, a Stargate legend, more Stargate news, and a gay scifi music video.

Don S. Davis of STARGATE SG-1 passes.

The Stargate site Gateworld has posted the tribute Don S. Davis: 1942-2008. The article, which chronicles the actor’s career, reveals that Davis had left his weekly role of General Hammond on Stargate SG-1 because of health problems. Davis passed away June 29, 2008.

It took the impressive Beau Bridges to create a character who could fill the void Davis left on SG-1. Still, Stargate fans will always remember General Hammond and the actor who played him. Davis was 65. One of his final performances will appear in the movie Stargate Continuum.

STARGATE: UNIVERSE

Gateworld also includes an interesting teaser, Wright: Stargate Universe news may be close. Stargate Universe, if it happens, would become the third live action Stargate TV series.

ULTIMATE QUEER VIDEOS

Passing videos by Culture Club, Scissor Sisters, Queen, George Michael, Mellissa Etheridge, Telling On Trixie, and many other artists, a scifi-themed video topped The Click List: Ultimate Queer Videos, last Sunday night on Logo. The video is of Ari Gold’s song “Where The Music Takes You.”

According to a description with Logo’s online posting of the video, “In the future, Ari Gold rules the world with an iron, club-banging fist. From his new album, Transport Systems, Ari's got the masses shaking their animated booties.” Visit The Click List: Ultimate Queer Videos to see all the videos, which Logo fans chose.

Until next time!

Duane Simolke wrote Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure and The Acorn Stories.

This week, scifi TV, YouTube, Kindle, and Star Trek.

SUMMER SCIENCE FICTION TV

Stargate Atlantis begins its fifth season this Friday on SciFi, after Doctor Who. Atlantis ended its fourth season with much of the cast apparently dead. Actually, Amanda Tapping really left as a series regular, because of her role on the upcoming series Sanctuary. But the cliffhanger last season should lead into another exciting season of Atlantis! Hopefully, the rampant cast changes (past, present, and apparently future) won’t hinder the series.

Of course, cast changes also plague Doctor Who. Rose is back but not really in our universe; Jack and Martha keep stopping by then leaving; the Doctor now has a daughter but thinks she’s dead (but he no longer thinks Jack is dead); and it sounds like Donna (Catherine Tate) might soon meet her doom. Somehow, though, the show still remains engaging.

Doctor Who fans might enjoy Catherine Tate’s zany role in the new British import Love and Other Disasters. Brittany Murphy, Matthew Rhys (the gay brother of Brothers and Sisters), and Santiago Carbrera (the prophetic painter of Heroes) also appear in that enjoyable, gay-friendly comedy.

Speaking of Brits, the British scifi series Primeval premieres Saturday, August 9, on BBC America. The show, which I mentioned here before, involves tears in the fabric of time, bringing humans into the past and dinosaurs into the present. I’m still looking forward to seeing it.

Eureka begins its third season on July 29. Cast members say to look for a return to the lighter tone of the first season.

VIDEOS AND E-BOOKS

My video Gay Pride has now surpassed 3000 views at YouTube. Gay Love Poem is currently at 5,762 views.

My Kindle e-books Degranon: A Gay-Themed Science Fiction Adventure and The Acorn Stories both reached the top five in Kindle Gay Fiction this week.

STAR TREK: THE EXPERIENCE

The interactive attraction Star Trek: The Experience will close after September 1. Interactive rides, a museum, a store, Quark’s Bar and Restaurant, and the occasional wedding attracted Trekkies and Trekkers to the Las Vegas Hilton for the past eleven years. Oh well, there’s still that new Star Trek movie coming up.

This week, Hellboy, Genre Writing, Worried, Judas Kiss.

HELLBOY, MEET BATMAN

According to the Associated Press, Hellboy II: The Golden Army took in about $35.9 million during its first weekend, making it the top movie in a genre-heavy box office. I haven’t seen it yet, but I love the original! Advance reviews for The Dark Knight, however, make it sound like the ultimate summer movie for 2008.

GENRE WRITING

I just read about a new project for writers of gay-themed scifi, fantasy, and horror: Collective Fallout Magazine. That blog includes details and submission guidelines.

Duane Simolke co-wrote The Acorn Gathering and The Return of Innocence: A Fantasy Adventure.

This week, Witchblade, Gay DVD’s, Gay Love.

WITCHBLADE

SciFi Wire reports that Michael Rymer will direct Witchblade. The new film version of the comic isn’t related to TNT’s version. Rymer, a director and producer for Battlestar Galactica, recently completed the SciFi Channel pilot Revolution.

GAY DVD’S

My quick thoughts on some new or recent DVD’s follow. Watch here for a link to my detailed review of In The Closet. Long films, short review—short film, long review; it’s almost like irony.

2 Minutes Later, a new film from Robert Gaston, feels like a pilot for a TV series, though definitely not commercial TV. While this suspense movie only becomes truly suspenseful in a few scenes, it provides plenty of humor and eye candy.

In the Blood, another gay thriller, goes for creepiness, and finds it. This movie relies heavily on atmosphere and violent imagery, crossing into the realm of horror, or supernatural thriller. It involves a gay man who wants to protect his sister from a campus killer. I enjoyed In the Blood, but I probably wouldn’t watch it repeatedly, after learning the plot twists.

Back Soon, a film I mentioned here recently, also involves supernatural elements. Gay-film fave Matthew Montgomery (Socket) plays a man whose life intertwines with a stranger's life, at a time of change. This is a nice, quiet, love story, with a little bit of action and a lot of heart.

Montgomery also recently appeared in the gay romantic comedy Long-Term Relationship. The comedy doesn’t always work, but the romance definitely makes Long-Term Relationship worth the short-term commitment of watching.

GAY LOVE

Essays and poems from Holding Me Together continue to garner attention in the blogosphere. Mc Dull and Darby’s blog looks at the meaning of the gay love poem Home.

Duane Simolke wrote Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure and The Acorn Stories.

This week, DVD’s, Green Arrow, and More Genre TV.

DVD’s

Fans of Edge of Seventeen might enjoy The Curiosity of Chance. It uses a safe formula of teen angst plus eighties music but still manages to entertain. Sassy drag queens help too. Tad Hilgenbrinck (American Pie Presents Band Camp, Lost Boys: The Tribe) charms as Chance. Brett Chukerman of Eating Out 2 also stars in this fun coming out film.

Speaking of Lost Boys: The Tribe, that film and Stargate Continuum both arrived on DVD today. Another direct-to-DVD sequel, Starship Troopers 3: Marauder, arrives August 5. I look forward to seeing all three movies—especially Stargate Continuum—and look forward to hearing what other doorQers think of them. I can guess now that I’ll love Stargate, but I hope the other two might turn into pleasant surprises.

GREEN ARROW

SciFi Wire has reported an update to rumors about a possible Green Arrow movie: Warner Aiming At Super Max? Meanwhile, on the CW, Justin Hartley will return as Green Arrow in season eight of Smallville. See the fan site JustinHartely.Net for more about the actor’s upcoming appearances.

MORE GENRE TV

The Sword of Truth TV series will begin in November with a two-hour pilot; the series already underwent a name change from Wizard’s First Rule (the name of the first novel in Terry Goodkind’s fantasy series) to Legend of the Seeker.

Eureka returns to the SciFi Channel tonight, and the episode will feature a sneak peak at the new Amanda Tapping/Robin Dunne series Sanctuary. SciFi ordered a full season of Eureka this time. However, as with Battlestar Galactica, much of the season won’t air until early 2009. Friday on SciFi, watch for the 90-minute season finale of Doctor Who, followed by a new episode of Stargate Atlantis.

Duane Simolke wrote Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure and The Acorn Stories.

This week, In The Closet, Battlestar Galactica, Stargate, and Doctor Who.

IN THE CLOSET.

ThisWeekInTexas.Com has posted my review of In The Closet, as well as an updated version of my review of A Four Letter Word. As all doorQers probably know by now, In The Closet is a doorQ production.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.

The SciFi Channel has announced plans for another Battlestar Galactica prequel. Edward James Olmos will direct the feature, which takes place just before the mini-series and series, but will air after the series finale in 2009. SciFi had previously announced the prequel pilot Caprica, which takes place much further in the past.

STARGATE.

The new direct-to-DVD movie Stargate Continuum is an exciting romp, filled with nostalgia. It also contains hints about a new villain, suggesting more installments in the movie series. If the sequel prequel sequel The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior can happen, you just never know.

DOCTOR WHO.

The site io9 has posted an Exclusive Interview with Doctor Who’s Steven Moffat. The new show-runner discusses his plans for the series, which won’t return until 2010, except for some specials.

Duane Simolke wrote Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure and The Acorn Stories.

This week, Books, Jake, Star Trek: The Experience.

BOOKS.

The Kindle edition of The Acorn Stories, winner of a Pride in the Arts Award, is currently charting as follows. Those charts update constantly.

#1 in Kindle Store > Kindle Books > Fiction > Genre Fiction > Gay & Lesbian, #2 in Books > Gay & Lesbian > Literature & Fiction > Fiction > Short Stories > Gay, and #3 in Kindle Store > Kindle Books > Fiction > Genre Fiction > Anthologies

The rest of the gay fiction top five is dominated by queer-themed scifi, fantasy, or horror.

#2 Second Thoughts: More Queer and Weird Stories by Steve Berman, an author whose works I’ve praised before.

#3 Without Reservations, J. L. Langley’s queer werewolf epic.

#4 IM, Rick R. Reed’s cleverly promoted tale of stolen identity. Reed, a doorQ-er, is passing himself up, with his thriller Deadly Vision at #8.

#5 is a magic-tinged book from Mark Abramson, with a title that might say it all: Beach Reading.

SciFi Wire lists the Hugo Awards. SciFi Wire also talks to fantasy author Patricia Briggs Patricia Briggs about her werewolf POV novel, Cry Wolf.

JAKE GYLLENHALL.

For beach viewing, try Jake Gyllenhaal is the Shirtless Prince of Persia.

STAR TREK.

I finally caught Star Trek: The Experience! See it before it ends! It’s geeky fun!

This week, Superheroes, Arizona Sky.

SUPERHEROES.

MovieWeb has posted Comic-Con 2008 footage of Smallville cast members Allison Mack (Chloe Sullivan) and Justin Hartley (Oliver Queen/Green Arrow) and the new villains Sam Witwer (Davis Bloome/Doomsday) and Cassidy Freeman (Tess), talking about the new season. MovieWeb had recently posted other Smallville news from Comic-Con: The Legion of Super-Heroes is Coming to Smallville. Also on the Man of Steel front, Variety has posted a Superman Status Update, regarding the long-rumored movie.

I barely saw The Dark Knight in time before reading some major spoilers. Everyone assumes everyone else has seen it. Despite all the hype about the late Heath Ledger’s role as the Joker, I wasn’t at all surprised by his excellent performance. I’ve enjoyed Ledger’s work since seeing him on the short-lived fantasy series Roar. However, I thought the entire cast of TDK fit the roles perfectly, and I look forward to seeing Christian Bale in his next genre film, Terminator Salvation.

ARIZONA SKY.

Writer/director Jeff London presents another gay-themed independent film, this one involving young love that might blossom, many years later. A return to small-town life gives a Hollywood film-maker a second chance. Visit ThisWeekInTexas.Com to read my review.

This week, vampires, a fantasy artist, fighting cancer, and Part 1 of Fat Diary.

VAMPIRES.

SciFi Wire has posted a list about True Blood, the upcoming HBO series from the openly gay creator of Six Feet Under. 10 Reasons True Blood Won't Suck includes a hint at the show’s gay subtext. True Blood premieres September 7.

FANTASY ARTIST VALERHON.

Fantasy artist Valerhon posts enchanting fantasy artwork and stories at the blog The Art of Valerhon. And speaking of vampires, doorQers might especially like The Art of Valerhon: Forbidden Love.

FIGHTING CANCER.

On Friday, September 5, ABC, NBC, and CBS will present a one-hour, commercial-free special, Stand Up to Cancer. The educational fundraiser will include appearances by Jennifer Aniston, Scarlett Johansson, Meryl Streep, Christina Applegate, Lance Armstrong, Jack Black, Kirsten Dunst, America Ferrera, Halle Berry, Hilary Swank, Forrest Whitaker, Keanu Reeves, and many other celebrities. Please also read about the fundraiser The Acorn Gathering: Writers Uniting Against Cancer.

FAT DIARY (FICTION/HUMOR) PART 1.

(This story uses a librarian’s diary to introduce readers to a scifi geek, a closeted mayor, and many other interesting characters, in the West Texas town of Acorn. Read Views from the Acorn Universe next week for another installment, and for sf/f news.)

“And she thought maybe that acorn would be all right.” From “Mae,” one of The Acorn Stories.

January 20, 2001
Dear Fat Diary,

My nutritionist told me to write in you every day, until I can come to terms about why I’m not happy with my weight, and why I want to change. I’m supposed to call you my “love diary,” but I’m not trying to get rid of love; I’m trying to get rid of fat. We’ll talk about love later.

No, on second thought, we’ll talk about love now. I don’t have love because I have fat. If I didn’t weigh 260 pounds, I might be writing a love diary, and teenage girls would read it and swoon, while listening to the latest boybands and dreaming of that guy who sits in the second row of their American history class. Wait, that’s what I did at the University of Texas in Austin.

My name is Pamela Mae Willard, named after my Aunt Mae and my father, Samuel Carsons (yes, as in “Carsons Furniture, Acorn’s best-kept secret”). He wanted a Samuel Carsons, Jr. He had to settle with a Pamuel, which became Pamela, due to the mercy of the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, and my passive-aggressive mom. She kept “accidentally” referring to my father as “Samueluel,” and when that bothered him, she said she “didn’t give a damnuel,” and when he wanted supper, she said he could fry some “Spamuel,” and if he wanted someone to keep him warm, he could “buy a cocker spaniel.” Even though she never actually said how much she hated the name “Pamuel,” the message came through clearly enough, and he eventually asked if Pamela Mae would be all right.

Pamela Mae sounded sufficiently dignified and Southern for a member of Acorn’s beloved Carsons family, so she consented, and soon began cooking meals that weren’t primarily composed of meat byproducts. Harmony soon returned to our home, and my parents adopted an unwanted newborn baby just over a year later, naming him Samuel, of course, but calling him “Sam.” If they were going to go through all of that just to call someone “Sam,” they probably could have named me Samantha! Unfortunately, I wasn’t quite in a position to impart my keen sense of logic at the time.

My parents were very happy with Sam, who would eventually join the Air Force. I taught Sunday school for a time and, after returning from college in Austin, managed the library.

Our childhood went by with very little trauma or disaster. Meteorites, tornadoes, and general flying debris never hit our house, unless you count acorns, pecans, and the occasional dust storm. Daddy wasn’t a drunk, though he always liked touring the wineries that keep popping up around West Texas. Mom didn’t have a secret past, unless it’s still Acorn’s best-kept secret, to use that tired catch phrase I mentioned before, the one Daddy’s store shares with most of Acorn’s local advertisers. And my adopted brother didn’t turn out to be a space alien, despite my early suspicions; in fact, he and I remain the best of friends. Regardless of how some people around here make it sound, the sky isn’t always falling in Acorn, at least not for our family. I had loving parents and a happy, well-rounded childhood.

“Well-rounded.” Bad word choice.

I grew taller fast during my early teens, so much so that my mom worried I might have some sort of thyroid disorder, and it seemed like I needed to eat a lot for my body to keep up with its own growth. But then I stopped growing. Upward, that is. Then I got fat, and I stayed fat. So here I am, writing in my fat diary. Worst of all, I’ll probably wind up writing about my joke of a short-lived marriage.

I’m supposed to examine key moments from any of my amazing thirty-something years, and find reasons to love myself, all the while congratulating myself for the conclusions I reach.

Do I get a lollipop for that?

Duane Simolke edited The Acorn Gathering and wrote four of its stories, including “Fat Diary.”

This week, Supergay, Twilight, J. V. Jones, Click, and Parts 2 and 3 of Fat Diary.

MOVIES.

At SciFi Wire, writer/director Kevin Smith explains why he cast Superman Brandon Routh in a gay role: Smith’s Revenge: Gay Superman? SciFi Wire has also posted New Twilight Teaser Trailers.

BOOKS.

Rainbow Reviews has posted a review of my gay-themed novel Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure. Read the review.

I’m currently reading the following titles. Watch here for my review of Mark Kendrick’s new gay scifi novel.

Master and Fool (Book of Words Series #3), by J. V. Jones. Fantasy and scifi series tend to go on too long, so I tend to just jump in during any volume of a series. In this case, I started with the final book. No worries; Jones catches the readers up and quickly plunges them into an exciting world of intrigue, betrayal, and suspense.

Click: What Millions of People Are Doing Online and Why it Matters, by Bill Tancer. This is a fascinating study, examining the social and business aspects about what people view and/or buy online. The chapter using prom dresses as an example becomes tiresome, but it's still good. The author's job uniquely qualifies him to write this book.

FAT DIARY (FICTION/HUMOR) PARTS 2 AND 3.

(This story uses a librarian’s diary to introduce readers to a scifi geek, a closeted mayor, and many other interesting characters, in the West Texas town of Acorn. Read Views from the Acorn Universe next week for another installment, and for sf/f news.) Read Part 1.

January 21, 2001
Dear Fat Diary,

I attended Seventh Street Baptist Church for most of my life, like the rest of my family. In fact, I even taught Sunday school there sometimes. But I walked right out when they started promoting censorship and book burning, and I mean the term “book burning” literally! As a librarian, I just couldn’t calmly support that, dropping my tithe into the plate, to see my money used not for helping the sick or the poor but to pay for full-page newspaper advertisements that attacked any literary work with the slightest spark of imagination.

So I started going to the local Episcopalian church. It’s smaller, more intelligent, my friends Chandler Davis and Keith Colson go there, and the new minister is kind of cute. Hey, if you have to stare at someone that long every Sunday morning, he should look better than the sag-faced pastor of 7-Bap. Chandler and Keith are also pleasing to the eye, but I’m one of the few people in Acorn to notice that they’re also pleasing to each other’s eyes, if you know what I mean, so there was never hope for me with either of those two.

I probably would have just moved my letter to the Zionosphere Baptist Church, since I still consider myself a Baptist, but that congregation fell apart after all of those paternity tests came back positive. Sure, Pastor Jimmy Jacobs left his wild days behind when he got saved and went into the ministry, but everyone had trouble forgiving him when so many young members of the congregation—not to mention Acorn’s general population—started looking like him. He made the best move by accepting a calling to another state.

His uncle, Coach Jacobs, still attends 7-Bap, and he’s usually the one who encourages its backward “crusades.” I really think that church would be much better off without him, especially considering some of the good work they still do, when he allows it. By the way, I want to state for the record that Coach Jacobs has no first name. I checked.

Mayor Nick Williams (who is stylishly handsome, if you’re into pretentious fifty-somethings) couldn’t understand why I would leave 7-Bap for a church that didn’t endorse his reelection campaign, which obviously meant that they were the enemy of all that’s good. Most of my relatives said I was losing my faith; one of the few kin to spare me that grief was my cousin Aragon Carsons-Friedman, who is one of the ten people who attend Acorn’s Holy Chastity Catholic Church (the others being her husband, her daughter, an altar boy, the priest, and the choir). But I didn’t care what anyone thought. I needed a church where I felt real, and where I didn’t feel like I was supporting something I shouldn’t support.

January 22, 2001
Dear Fat Diary:

I’m not sure when I realized that I didn’t need a husband or even a lover to make me happy. It was probably as soon as I divorced my husband, but I think it really just sank in a few months ago, while I was training a new employee at the Megan Carsons Library, where I’m head librarian. Considering that Megan Carsons was my grandmother, and that there aren’t many librarians in the Acorn area, it wasn’t a hard job for me to get, but it’s certainly one I love.

I mentioned some of the censorship that goes on in Acorn. Sometimes, it affects the library, and we’ll get people trying to ban books like Tom Sawyer, Common Sons, or even Lord of the Rings, but most Acornians are supportive of us, even if they never come in. The censors eventually got too busy protesting Keith’s art gallery, which is what made me become friends with him. Still, they backed off on that after the gallery’s re-opening led to grants and awards that helped Acorn get featured in a certain monthly magazine with “Texas” in its title that used to act like we don’t even exist. Go figure.

With our location across the street from campus, we double as Acorn’s public library and as Acorn College’s library. The building itself, a moderately ornate, two-story mansion, served as the home of my grandparents for many years, before they donated it for its current purpose and moved into a smaller home. Many of the books on our shelves came from their collection, and Grandma Megan (known to most other people as “Old Lady Carsons”) even wrote one of the books: An Acorn History. Aragon talks about writing a more up-to-date chronicle and calling it The Acorn Stories, but I doubt anyone outside Acorn would buy it, if anyone bought it at all.

So it was the fall of the year 2000, which I still can’t say without thinking of space ships, world peace, painless exercise, and all the other stuff we expected by the year 2000. Thanks to Acorn College’s student worker program, I received a sparkly new freshman every year whose paycheck came from somewhere else—I never really understood where, but why ask?

Tiffani Basil, a bleach factory with high heels and overly snug clothing, bounced my way fresh out of Acorn High. A little too fresh.

“So, what do you like to do?” I asked her, during our first day working together. We were standing behind the checkout counter, and, like most fall semesters, I knew not to expect many students until the day before midterms started. The only people in were housewives feeding their romance novel cravings, Ian Aristotle making a beeline to the science fiction shelves for the latest Babylon 5 novel, and Lynn Williams (the mayor’s gray-haired and red-eyed wife) perusing our stock of self-help books before abandoning herself to the latest posthumously published Schafly Shlockel novel.

“I like mostly like movies.” The extra “like” wasn’t like a typo on my part, but like how Tiffani like talks.

“Really? What have you seen recently?”

“I like saw that Brad Pitt movie, Meet Joe Black. It was like three hours long! I think it was so long because everyone talked real slow.” She punctuated her conclusion by jolting her long head backwards and staring into space.

Forcing myself not to scream, I quickly changed the subject. “I noticed on your application that you’re married. How long?”

“How long what?”

“How long have you been married?”

“We were married five months. We just got divorced, but we were still married when I filled out my application for you.”

“I’m sorry,” I offered, trying not to think about the fact that my marriage only lasted five weeks, and that I wasn’t sorry at all when it ended.

“It’s okay. I’m like so over him! He thought he was all that because he was manager of the last Piggly Wiggly around here, but it closed down and he wasn’t manager of nothing. He’s a bag boy at the super center now, but I don’t go in there. It’s like a magnet for stupid people. My new man is more sensitive than my husband was. He’s a theater major, anndduh…he has a part-time job at the flower shop!”

I stifled the stereotypes that flooded my mind, and I mentally kicked myself for thinking those stereotypes. “He sounds nice!”

She indicated exclamation with some sort of cheerleader motion of her right hand. “Oh, you wouldn’t believe how nice! But we’re not real serious. If he wants to buy me stuff, that’s great, but I need to be my own woman now, and I don’t need any help raising my kids.”

“Kids?” I said the word too loud for decorum, especially in a library. One of the housewives, spending way too long reading the back cover of a love story she would soon check out for the fifth time, looked up and cocked her roller-covered head.

“I have two kids, but I live with my parents now, so I don’t need any help. I’m a independent woman! My little sisters are both pregnant, though, so we need more income while I’m in college, planning for a career with some big company, maybe Enron or K-Mart.”

While helping Ian check out his TV/paperback tie-in and noticing for the billionth time how he and Lynn Williams always appeared at the same places at the same time, I bit my tongue over a myriad of “don’t go there” thoughts. Still, after Ian left, I couldn’t help but voice one of those thoughts. “I take it the Acorn School District still uses the abstinence-only, no-discussion sex education program that’s so popular in West Texas.”

“Yeah,” said Tiffani, chewing her bubble gum and tugging at the lacy bra strap that peaked out of her red sweater’s V-neck collar. “Why fix what ain’t broke?”

“And speaking of the Dewey Decimal System,” I swiftly and breathlessly replied, before I could get myself into trouble.

“The what?” Tiffani scrunched her makeup-caked face. “I’m not good at math.”

“Math? Oh. Decimals. Never mind. I was just joking anyway. The library catalog is completely computerized.”

“Now I’m good at computers! I can sit at one all day, and not even know there’s a world going on around me.”

“Hm!” I replied, ambiguously. But even as I contemplated the possible ramifications of letting such a vacuous individual become second-in-command of Acorn’s intellectual epicenter, I came to the important conclusion I mentioned earlier. If Tiffani could survive without a man, I certainly could. Only I wouldn’t be such a glutton for melodrama as to move back in with my parents. I mean, I love them, and they’ve always been there for me, but I don’t think we could deal with each other as adults on a 24/7 basis. It sounds too much like a TV sitcom that would be turned down by everyone but CBS and then wind up on UPN.

I haven’t always been so independent or so outspoken as the person writing this diary. In fact, I only recently graduated from uniformity and timidity, via certain strange and/or wonderful experiences. I’ll describe some of those in the entries that follow.

(Next week, in Part 4, some little old ladies learn a little too much about the mayor’s secret gay life.)

Duane Simolke edited The Acorn Gathering and wrote four of its stories, including “Fat Diary.”

This week, movies and more gay scifi/fantasy reviews. Also, in Part 4 of the comedy Fat Diary, some little old ladies learn a little too much about the mayor’s secret gay life.

MAGICAL GAY MUSIC.

Wolfe Video has just announced its acquisition of DVD rights to Were the World Mine, which will also appear on Logo. Directed by Tom Gustafson, the musical involves a gay high schooler who uses magic to turn his homophobic town gay. Wolfe has not announced a release date. The gay and lesbian DVD distributor also acquired another festival favorite, The New Twenty, directed by Chris Mason Johnson, which will appear on DVD and on Logo in 2009.

GAY SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY REVIEWS.

Last week, I mentioned that Rainbow Reviews had posted a review of Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure. More of their recent scifi/fantasy reviews follow, listed by the titles and authors of the books.

Second Thoughts by Steve Berman
VR Palace by J.M. Snyder
Intimate Traitors by Astrid Amara
Moonlight Sonata for Two by Helen Louise Caroll
Tokyo Ink by Ann Vremont
The Future is Queer edited by Richard Labonte and Lawrence Schimel
Beyond Machu by William Maltese
The Gold Warrior by Clare London
Valentine by Jamieson Wolf

FAT DIARY (FICTION/HUMOR), PART 4.

(This story uses a librarian’s diary to introduce readers to a scifi geek, a closeted mayor, and many other interesting characters, in the West Texas town of Acorn. Read Views from the Acorn Universe next week for another installment, and for sf/f news.) Read Part 1. Read Parts 2 and 3.

January 23, 2001
Dear Fat Diary:

Here is the tale of the last time I ever saw Mr. or Mrs. Mayor Williams. It’s a sordid tale, but you’ll recover quickly.

Every Tuesday afternoon at 3, about twenty women between the ages of 50 and 80 congregate in the library’s meeting room, which is actually a big table in the middle of the magazine and microfiche room. Of course, they all talk rather loudly, since some of them can barely hear, and since most of them are used to living with people who either can’t hear or don’t listen. So at least the noisy old hens are cut off a little bit from the rest of the library.

Still, I often find myself walking past the group, known as PAW. That stands for Polite Acorn Women, though it sounds like something about pets; in fact, animal lovers sometimes show up, and I have to remind them that cats, dogs, and assorted reptiles aren’t allowed in the library, unless they’re in a book. Then there was that horrible incident with a ground squirrel and the collected works of Edgar Allen Poe, but we won’t get into that.

One day, as I walked past the PAW meeting, I tried not to think about the fact that the congregation of big white hair and big blue hair made it look like a cotton candy machine exploded in the middle of the table. I also tried not to think about the fact that PAW supported Mayor Williams’s election all three times, or that they pushed him into supporting censorship in Acorn. I support everyone’s freedom of speech (even when they espouse bigoted views), but I was a little suspicious about the fact that Keith Colson’s original art gallery burned down right about that time.

Of course, I found it difficult not to think about those things when I saw the mayor in attendance, and saw one of the women stand up and introduce him, after a lengthy struggle with her stroller. “It is my delight to introduce to all of you a very special person and a pillar of our community.”

I wondered which of the women didn’t remember meeting him countless other times, considering that no one new ever joined PAW and that its numbers were slowly declining from attrition. Acorn’s newer old people are so much more hip, or they’re just swinging their hips in aerobic dance sessions. But Sadie Aristotle introduced him anyway, and I thought about the fact that I had just seen her grandson, dropping off his quickly devoured Babylon 5 book with Tiffani, who said she hadn’t read Babylon 1-4, but that “Mr. Davis, my like English teacher in high school, made us read The Great Gatsby, and I thought it was like about a magician or something, but there were like all these people like—” I quickly escaped that conversation, and found myself walking among blue and white clouds.

“As you all know,” said the mayor, being someone who frequently informed people what they think, what they know, how they feel, and so forth, “the element of immorality continues to seep into our fine community, and we must stomp it out. Stomp it out! Stomp it out of our libraries!”

His eyes darted about before meeting mine; my eyes looked for a large book that I could throw at him, without damaging the book. No, that would be wrong, I told myself, hurting an innocent book.

His exercise in parallel structure continued. “Stomp it out of our schools! Stomp it out of our bookstores!”

“Bookstores?” The loud voice tripped by me. Well, actually, the person with the loud voice did the tripping, nearly falling onto the microfiche viewer before tripping her way to the foot of the PAW meeting. She straightened her expensive-looking blouse as she regained her footing.

“Lynn!” exclaimed the mayor, as if surprised that he might run into his wife sometimes. I rarely saw them together, so I guess that surprise made sense.

“Ladies,” she said, gesturing about at the blue-hairs, “my husband knows all about bookstores, especially every adult bookstore in Texas. That’s just one of the many places where he picks up gay men, just before coming back and lecturing everyone about immortality…ality…whatever!”

“Lynn!” exclaimed the mayor again, obviously not progressing in the amusing conversation. It certainly caught my attention. It also caught Ian’s, who walked in behind the obviously intoxicated Lynn Williams. But she didn’t seem to notice him, or her own loud raving. As head librarian, it was my job to stop her, but my love of drama won out, and I stood gawking, right beside Ian.

“What are you saying?” one of the women demanded of Lynn.

“I’m saying that my self-righteous joke of a husband is one of those whatdoyacallit ex-gays, and like the rest of the ex-gays, he keeps forgetting the ex part. Well, he’s gonna remember the ex part, because I’m filing for divorce, and he’ll be my ex-husband. I’m tired of seeing his car parked at the most em…embar…embarrassing places in West Texas!”

Nick gave a well-rehearsed answer: “I had to use the bathroom!”

“And the back seat, and a dirt trail, and all kinds a other places. You think no one knows! Wives know-uh! We aren’t as stoopdidid as you think.” The passion in her voice did little to clear up the slur from her drinking, a slur that aggrandized the more comfortable syllable stretching of a West Texas accent.

“That’s terrible!” one of the women exclaimed, scowling disapprovingly at Nick.

Ian covered his mouth, but obviously to keep from laughing, rather than out of shock. “This is the best thing since the SciFi Channel,” he whispered to me.

Lynn continued. There was no stopping her! “Do any of you know what it’s like being married to a closeted ho-mo-sectional…sexual…homosexual?”

Another old lady spoke up. “Well, I’m not sure if he’s you know, that way, but my Vinnie never misses The Laurence Welk Show…and he’s always shopping for antiques.”

“Worry!” Lynn told her.

Nick threw up his hands and approached his drunken, angry, shouting, extremely amusing wife. “This is insane! Lynn, you’re drunk again, and you’re probably hallucinating.”

“No, I was hallucinating when I saw a man who loved me and would be faithful to me, because that damn sure isn’t you!” With that, she stormed out, and Nick went tumbling after. Then the library grew quiet as…well…as a library should be. Even PAW paused, before noticing the time and wandering out.

Though most of them remained silent, I heard one of the women ask another, “What’s an adult bookstore? Is that like adult daycare?” The other waved her hand and shook her head, deciding not to respond.

Ian told me, “Well, that was bound to happen eventually.”

“You knew?”

Obviously feeling awkward about seeing his grandmother walking by at the end of a sex-based conflict, Ian looked the other way for a few seconds. She seemed too shocked to notice him anyway, and almost ran into the exit door on her way out. Ian continued: “Yeah, we saw him a few times, while we were parked on the outside of town.” Realizing too late what he had just revealed about himself, he lifted his fingers away from his hips and shrugged.

“Well, I’m sure y’all were just talking about your favorite scifi books.”

“Okay. That works. But I don’t think Lynn and I will be…talking scifi…anymore. I’ve been wanting to end our…book club…for a long time. It’s just too weird a situation. Convenient. Fun. Hot!”

“Don’t get graphic,” I implored him.

“But weird.”

“I’m sorry you got caught in the middle of a situation like that. You’ve always been so sweet.”

He smiled at the compliment, then said, “Look, I’m totally cool about the gay thing. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but my Aunt Talia is a lesbian.”

“I know.”

“How did you know? The haircut? The pickup truck?”

“The Sapphic tastes in literature.”

Ian grinned. “We know way too much about our Acornian neighbors.” I nodded, and he continued his earlier thought. “Anyway, Aunt Talia’s been with the ladies’ basketball coach from Acorn College for longer than I’ve been alive, though everyone pretends not to notice, or forces themselves not to notice. And it isn’t like they’re the only gay couple around. I’ve seen how your buddies Keith and Chandler get all googley-eyed at each other when they’re sharing a sundae at my ice cream shop.”

“You’re right. We do know way too much about our Acornian neighbors. We both have the perfect cover for gathering Acorn intel. Though I don’t know what we’d do with it.”

“A sequel to your grandmother’s book?”

I rolled my eyes. “Talk to Aragon.” I quickly amended my response: “But don’t tell her anything you don’t want printed.”

“Anyway,” he said again, almost assertively. Ian, though quite handsome and still boyishly charming in his early thirties, suffered from a small frame and a lack of ambition. He only became manager of the Ice Cream Dream because the owner/manager retired, and Ian was the only person who had lasted more than two months as assistant manager, after being the only person to last more than three weeks as a cook/cashier. “An-y-way, I’m cool about the whole gay thing, but not when they play house with some straight person while going out at night, finding random same-sex sexiness, and doing all kinds of risky…risking.” He shook his hands about toward the end of his sentence as his articulation began to fail him, but I fully agreed with his point.

“You’re right. Who wants a marriage like that?”

Emboldened, Ian added, “That would be even worse than your marriage!” Then he lowered his head, letting his adorable black bangs drape over his face. (I’ve read a lot of books, and I’ve noticed that bangs have a tendency to drape constantly, which makes you want to put bangs up in your window. But, okay, it isn’t like anyone is going to read this.) “Sorry,” he sheepishly added.

I laughed at his apology and his comment. “Don’t be. My marriage was from the depths of Hell! Tyler Willard is the most egotistical, misinformed, cruel, idiotic weed of a man I’ve ever met!”

“He wasn’t very nice on the school bus either. So what happened to Tyler?”

“The last I heard, he’s still somewhere in West Texas, writing editorials for a local newspaper.”

“God help us!”

(Next week, in Part 5, Tiffani Basil melts down.)

Duane Simolke edited The Acorn Gathering and wrote four of its stories, including “Fat Diary.”

This week, Sanctuary, Knight Rider, and Doctor Who. Last week, in Part 4 of the comedy Fat Diary, some little old ladies learned a little too much about the mayor’s secret gay life. This week, in Part 5, Tiffani Basil melts down.

SANCTUARY, KNIGHT RIDER.

SciFi Wire has posted Sanctuary: Q & A With Tapping; Stargate star Amanda Tapping discusses the evolution of Sanctuary to a TV series, which premieres October 3. SciFi Wire also posted the intriguing article Knight's Poitier Still Lesbian?

DOCTOR WHO.

According to Tony Grew, a gay actor could play the next Doctor Who. It sounds interesting, but I honestly hope David Tennant keeps playing the role beyond his current contract.

FAT DIARY (FICTION/HUMOR) PART 5.

(This story uses a librarian’s diary to introduce readers to a scifi geek, a closeted mayor, and many other interesting characters, in the West Texas town of Acorn. Read Views from the Acorn Universe next week for another installment, and for sf/f news.) Read Part 1. Parts 2 and 3. Part 4.

January 24, 2001
Dear Fat Diary:

So, as you can guess from my last entry, Ian and I later started dating, while the mayor and his wife suddenly but separately skipped town. As it turned out, even Tiffani couldn’t stick around much longer. A few weeks after the mayor’s geriatric outing, I was approaching the check-out counter one day when she was trying to figure out how much change to give our young town doctor, Bolt Briggs, who had returned an overdue copy of Leaves of Grass. Her head kept bobbing up and down, like an oil derrick.

“Let’s see,” she said, “first we need to minus this by 46 cents, no, 47 cents.”

Bolt laughed that annoying machine-gun laugh of his. “It’s all right there, Jennifer, y’all can keep the change.”

“Jennifer?!” she practically screamed, dropping pennies, nickels, and dimes off the counter. “Jennifer is, like, my sister’s name! Do I look like a Jennifer to you?!”

He tilted his head to one side then the other. “Well, yeah. I’m sorry, I really thought you were Jennifer. I treat you both, and the other one.”

“Jerafani! Her name isn’t ‘The Other One.’ It’s ‘Jerafani.’ My parents liked our names, but couldn’t come up with anything for a third daughter, so they just put together our names. I am like so sick of people bringing that up! Who names their daughter something like that?” Tiffani cringed, her mascara practically flaking off her eyes, and the bows practically popping off her super-bleached hair. “I don’t need this,” she stated, to no one in particular.

“Don’t need what?” I asked, in case maybe she was talking to me. I never found out. She left even more abruptly than the mayor.

I soon learned that she had a history of breakdowns, and had spent some time in a hospital, after one of her sorority sisters introduced her to vodka enemas. Don’t ask. I later learned that Tiffani was also upset because her boyfriend had left town with the mayor. Don’t tell. Tiffani decided to be a stay-at-home mom, while staying at her mom’s home. Worse yet, a week after Tif’s tiff, I learned that government cutbacks were about to phase out the student worker position anyway.

I wound up hiring Ian’s older sister to help out, and I found myself spending more and more time with the Aristotle clan. As her unlikely but suitably literary family name suggests, she’s much smarter than Tiffani, or even Ian for that matter, and has had several papers about the beatnik poets published. She wrote one paper about a famous beatnik poem with 320 lines of mad ravings, all beginning with the word “because.” She titled her paper “No One Asked Why.”

I liked her already!

(Next week, in Part 6, meet the ex.)

Duane Simolke edited The Acorn Gathering and wrote four of its stories, including “Fat Diary.”

This time, Coming Out Day Contest.

I recently posted a review here of the charming gay comedy The Curiosity of Chance. Bigfoot Entertainment, the production company for that movie, is sponsoring a contest, in which you can win $500 for your humorous coming out story. Honorable mentions will receive a copy of The Curiosity of Chance.

You can tell your story in writing or on video. The contest will be open throughout October, in observance of National Coming Out Day. Click here to read more.

I will also announce the winner in my blog.

Some pictures from the film follow below.

Duane Simolke wrote Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure and The Acorn Stories.

This week, Praxis, John Barrowman, and the conclusion of Fat Diary.

PRAXIS.

This weekend, gay scifi fans can look forward to Praxis at Gaylaxicon, in Bethesda, Maryland. The OUTer Film Festival in Austin, Texas, will also screen that award-winning film on November 8.

JOHN BARROWMAN.

The Torchwood star, a Broadway singer before his Doctor Who spin-off fame, is releasing a new album next month. The video for one of the singles cuts between a gay couple and a nongay one. Of course, many doorQ-ers really just want to see the new season of Torchwood. Buddy TV reports that Cardiff Bystanders Peek at 'Torchwood' Season 3; that article includes more details about the new season, but no news about when it will air on BBC America.

FAT DIARY (FICTION/HUMOR) CONCLUSION.

(This story uses a librarian’s diary to introduce readers to a scifi geek, a closeted mayor, and many other interesting characters, in the West Texas town of Acorn. Read Views from the Acorn Universe next week for another installment, and for sf/f news.) Read Part 1. Parts 2 and 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6.

January 26, 2001
Dear Fat Diary

For our first date, Ian took me to the Cow Palace, my all-time favorite restaurant. Sad, isn’t it? But it wasn’t like Acorn has any of those fancy restaurants like in New York City. Don’t get me wrong. We have restaurants on every corner, but they’re all owned by people with names like “Bubba” or “Chuck.”

I hadn’t been to the Cow Palace in a couple of weeks. As always, they had hired a new waitress during my brief absence. This one was a rather young-looking and slightly pregnant-looking little girl with puffy lips, and with “Jennifer” written on her slanted nametag.

“Aren’t you the librarian?” Jennifer asked me, when she finally wandered vacantly over to our table.

“Could I puh-lease get some coffee?” the rotund man at the next table demanded, his tone overstating his impatience.

I suddenly realized, as if for the first time, that I was hardly one of the few overweight Acornians. Out of the forty or so people at the Palace (it was a Friday night, so they were crowded), at least half of them looked like they could barely fit their bulk between the nailed-down benches and the nailed-down tables. (Everything is nailed down in the Cow Palace, because of some sort of teen ritual that apparently involves taking items from places that have “cow” in their title.) Some of the kids looked like they weighed even more than the adults.

Jennifer also looked a bit “big-boned,” as my parents euphemistically called me, even if you don’t include the teen pregnancy. She also looked vaguely familiar. After she returned from nervously pouring Mr. Grumpy some more coffee, she came back to our table. But then the cell phone in her apron pocket started ringing, rather shrilly.

“Hey,” she said into the phone, obviously forgetting us. “No, you did NOT. No, you did NOT! No! That is just too funny! I would have been like so out of there!”

“Excuse me,” Ian said, with forced politeness. As sweet as he is, even he couldn’t believe our waitress would stand over us, talking on her cell phone.

She pulled the phone slightly away from her multi-pierced left ear. Though her only earring had somehow found its way through her right eyebrow, the many holes in both of her elongated ears made her look like she had walked through a dart-board championship at the wrong moment. “Uh, hello, this is like a private conversation. I’m like talking on the phone. See,” she waved it at him, “tel-e-phone.” Returning to her conversation, she said, “I have to call you back. The manager’s looking at me. He’s kinda hot, too. Maybe he’ll ask me out, if I get good comments on my customer cards.” Seeming to forget about her own rudeness and Ian’s objection, she asked me again, “Aren’t you the librarian?”

“Yes,” I replied, trying to match her face and nametag to a library card. “You don’t have an overdue library book, do you?” I don’t know why I asked her that—maybe because people avoid me when they have overdue books, and I always know it’s the reason for their fear. Well, that and the sheer terror that I might suggest they read something, anything, please! Still, I’d already been replaced once by her cell phone, and I certainly didn’t want a waitress who avoided me completely, as she had obviously avoided the super-chunky coffee freak. I mean, he was super-chunky, not the coffee; that would be gross.

She somehow managed to pull her face into her skull, while rolling her florescent green eyes back and forth. I suspect the former act involved some sort of circus background, while the latter involved colored contact lenses that a teen salesclerk said “look like totally real on you, Jennifer.” After pouring coffee into our already supplied cups, without seeing if we wanted coffee, Jennifer asked, “Do I look like I have an overdue library book?”

“Not really,” I replied, as pleasantly as possible.

“My sister, Tiffani, worked for you, and it was like total mental turmoil for her!”

I glanced at Ian, whose adorable face couldn’t hide his amusement at our bizarre exchange, then I looked back to our florescent-eyed waitress with the multi-selection earring racks for ears. “I think tying her shoes was like total mental turmoil for your sister,” I blurted, my words somehow bypassing the “don’t say that out loud” filter that had kept me safe all my life.

Ian burst into animated laughter (not Woody Woodpecker animated, but wild gesturing animated—then again, Woody Woodpecker wasn’t far off on how he started laughing). He knocked over his coffee in the process, but Jennifer started sobbing and ran out the door. The nicely groomed teenage manager, always close by for such emergencies, strolled over to our table and asked us to leave.

“Fine,” I told him, as we got up. “And there’s still another Basil girl, if you need a replacement.”

That was my first date with Ian. It was kind of fun.

January 27, 2001
Dear Fat Diary:

Most of what you’ve been reading dealt with a few months ago, or even further back. It’s time to catch up, because I’m not going to keep writing this diary forever. I won’t keep saying “because” when no one asked “why.”

Nick Williams became a popular evangelist who claims to “cure” homosexuals of their sexual orientation; Tiffani’s ex-boyfriend is always at his side, for some reason, and I’m sure “always” isn’t an overstatement.

I read in the paper last month that my ex-husband, Tyler Willard, had been arrested for trying to bomb a feminist bookstore; unfortunately for him, the web site where he found the bomb ingredients was a prank site created by bored former users of Napster. He called in the bomb threat from his house, oblivious to Caller I.D., and later confessed everything to the police, before they told him that it just shot a bunch of pretty sparkles around the building, causing numerous passersby to come in, see what’s going on, and shop there for the first time.

The library continues to thrive, and I’ve actually seen a boost in checkouts, thanks to Harry Potter mania and Becky Blake mania. Lynn Williams wrote a book (which is already out, thanks to the wonders of Print-On-Demand publishing), exposing her now ex-husband as a not-so-ex-gay. Nick Williams quickly managed to prove her affair with Ian, and to convince his followers that Satan sent Lynn to lead him astray. She was emasculating and overbearing, apparently, which supposedly caused him to have anonymous sex with men he met at truck stops, gay bars, and adult bookstores, though he always just went to those places to use the bathroom. Amen, or not.

Ian has turned Ice Cream Dream into a big success, and now there are plans for a franchise, with locations in several Texas towns: Aqua Dulce, Ben Franklin, Bigfoot, Cut and Shoot, Gun Barrel City, Happy, Plfugerville, Tarzan, and maybe even Uncertain. The potential investors in Utopia, Texas, said it just wasn’t right for them—like they’re so perfect!

January 28, 2001
Dear Fat Diary:

It’s my birthday! I don’t have time for you! Ian’s taking me out, and he’s made plans for a big dinner. I hope that means “nice,” rather than literally big. I’ve actually lost thirty pounds since starting with my nutrionist, and I’d like to not gain it all back in one night, even if it is a special night.

January 29, 2001
Dear Fat Diary:

Ian asked me to marry him last night, and I’m going to say “yes” soon. Just as well keep him guessing for a while. I’ve quit worrying that all men might turn into Tyler Willard (that’s even less likely than Tyler Willard turning into a man). Ian can live without Lynn Williams and a life of extramarital sneaking about. Ian and I could even live without each other, or anyone else. But why should we?

Now, if it turns out that he’s unfaithful, a jerk, a loser, or abusive, he’ll probably be my last husband, and I’ll become Emily Dickinson, living with my books and my relatives. I left “gay” out of the list of things he shouldn’t turn out to be, because I don’t see that as something bad, but I think it would be somewhat problematic if my husband turned out to be gay. It certainly didn’t lead to the ideal marriage that Mr. and Mrs. Mayor Williams tried to project.

Honestly, though, I really think Ian has turned out pretty good, and I’m glad I caught him before anyone else realized that, or any other lonely, desperate housewives in sham marriages wandered into the Ice Cream Dream looking for love—which apparently isn’t a totally unlikely scenario. Ian is sweet and good-looking. I also enjoy the fact that he knows books and the library almost as well as I do, even if his literary tastes generally lean more to Piers Anthony than to Shakespeare.

I’ve decided to wear white to the wedding. The only man I’ve ever been with is Tyler, and he was so pathetic in bed that it’s easy not to count him. I’m still waiting to find out what making love with a real man actually feels like. Besides, our marriage started and ended so quickly that most people never noticed it.

Will I keep trying to lose weight? Probably, but not for Ian. He accepts me as I am, and he’s also just glad I don’t have any skeletons (or husbands) in my closet. So it isn’t for Ian, or anyone else but me.

I want to take better care of Pam.

Will I keep going with this fat diary? No. As I said, my real problem was that I didn’t have love, and writing about the past few months has helped me realize that I am very much in love with Ian. Even more shocking, he’s also in love with me! He doesn’t hang around me because my parents are rich, or because I can let him keep The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy an extra week (well, maybe a little bit of the latter). He hangs around me because we have fun together and like being a part of each other’s lives.

I’m getting the love and companionship I needed from Ian. Anything else I needed, I’m learning to get from myself, which is what I should have started doing a long time ago. Maybe that’s what this writing project has been all about: bringing me to a place where I love myself. Some people still won’t accept me, but that’s really not my problem.

My name is Pamela Mae Willard, and I’m fat. Get over it already. I have.

THE END

Duane Simolke edited The Acorn Gathering and wrote four of its stories, including “Fat Diary.” He also wrote the award-winning novel Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure.

This week, Queer Wolf, Thor, Kelley Eskridge, Steve Berman, Thomas M. Disch, and Part 6 of Fat Diary.

TWO SNAPS AND A HOWL.

Queered Ficton wants gay-themed werewolf stories for its upcoming ebook Queer Wolf. A submitted story should involve a community of werewolves. See that blog for details.

THOR.

SciFi Wire reports that director and Shakespearean actor Kenneth Branagh might direct Thor. Branagh previously explored supernatural themes with Dead Again and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, but this would be his first superhero movie, and the first big screen version of Thor. The mythic hero received campy treatment on the small screen, as an attempted spinoff from The Incredible Hulk.

KELLEY ESKRIDGE.

AfterEllen has posted an interview with Kelley Eskridge, in which the science fiction author discusses her use of gender, identity, and sexuality themes. She also discusses her influences and some suggested reading. KelleyEskridge.Com includes some of her writing, as well as interactive discussions of it. The New York Times Book Review called her novel Solitaire “A stylistic and psychological tour de force.”

STEVE BERMAN, THOMAS M. DISCH.

Visit LiveJournal for an interview with Steve Berman. The dark fantasy author discusses gay themes in scifi/fantasy, as well as the growing popularity of his books. Berman mentions his admiration of the late spec fiction writer Thomas M. Disch. Read a tribute to Thomas M. Disch at Critic After Dark.

FAT DIARY (FICTION/HUMOR) PART 6.

(This story uses a librarian’s diary to introduce readers to a scifi geek, a closeted mayor, and many other interesting characters, in the West Texas town of Acorn. Read Views from the Acorn Universe next week for another installment, and for sf/f news.) Read Part 1. Parts 2 and 3. Part 4. Part 5.

January 25, 2001
Dear Fat Diary:

Okay, I’ve put it off long enough. It’s time to talk about my ex-husband, how we met, and how everything went quickly downhill from there.

I was at 7-Bap one morning, several years ago, when this little beanpole of a man with frizzy, bad-part-about-West-Texas hair sat down beside me. I had seen him before, at church and around town. You really couldn’t miss him. In fact, I had recently seen him dating someone who was shaped amazingly like me, and who had frequently checked out library books before she moved off to California, but I couldn’t remember her name.

As it turns out, this young man went from lonely woman to lonely woman, letting them pay his rent and buy his supper. Well, I wasn’t falling for that. I wasn’t going to let someone like that string me along.

I just married him.

He asked me out right away, while glaring at the passing offering plate full of wadded-up cash, and he seemed really nice. Then, obviously having no life or job, he kept asking me out, and hanging around the library, looking for books on government conspiracies, the New Age movement, the end of the world, and whatnot. My dear cousin Aragon warned me that he was bad news, but I thought he was hilarious. Bear in mind that he rarely meant to be funny, but he was so inarticulate, while desperately trying to convince everyone of his profound intellect, that comedy just poured forth from his lips. He would say things like “That guy always wears that suit sometimes,” or “I’m not going to sit here and stand for this!” It was like dating Archie Bunker! (In hindsight, I wonder why anyone would want to date Archie Bunker.)

And he had an odd sort of charm to him, not to mention the fact that he could be as clever when he wasn’t trying to be clever as he was funny when he wasn’t trying to be funny. Sometimes, he would make a little remark that struck me as somewhat racist, sexist, or homophobic, but you hear stuff like that a lot in a small town, and you try to forgive people their stupidity.

I forgave too much of it.

Aragon saw where it was going. I was a lonely, desperate, twenty-something virgin. A loser magnet!

“If you get married, get a prenuptial agreement,” she insisted, as we sipped green tea together in the dining room of her first home. With the overkill of oak furniture and Southwest décor, it looked much like the dining room in the mansion where she now lives. Billy Friedman, her beautiful boyfriend (and now husband) with the perfect body (and now still-perfect body) wandered through and smiled at me. I hated her for finding someone so…so…so would not be with me. But that isn’t really true. I’ve always loved Aragon for her boldness and bluntness, and I wanted to be just like her, even if I couldn’t find a boyfriend who looked like he should rip off his shirt and start saving screaming little girls from sharks, tidal waves, and misguided crushes.

“Air, I’m not getting one of those. It’s like a promise to divorce.”

She blew on her tea, its steam curling around her pretty, lightly made-up face. “No one calls me ‘Air’ anymore. I don’t do nicknames.”

“And I don’t do prenuts! I mean, I don’t do prenups!” We both laughed at my blunder, before Aragon warned, “You’re already starting to talk like him! It’s the dumbing down of Acorn’s intellectual leader! Do we really need that? Goodbye, Ernest Hemingway, hello, tractor pulls! Goodbye, Alice Walker, hello, mud wrestling!”

“Goodbye, Aragon, hello, time to go back to work.” I walked around the table and hugged her neck, careful not to mess up the intricate workings of her latest pull-up hairstyle.

 “I love you,” she reminded me.

“Someone needs to.” I picked up an odd, misshapen piece of crystal from an antique sewing table, near the open doorway to the living room. Tiny, multi-colored buttons surrounded the object’s jagged, multi-angled surface. “What’s this doohicky?”

Aragon pushed herself around, her face vibrant with the opportunity of sarcasm, something she loved as much as I did but rarely kept to herself. “Did you just use the word ‘doohicky’? You are getting dumb, Ms. Librarian.”

“Okay!” I set the doohicky down.

“You know, if you killed someone with a doohicky, that would be doohickular homicide.”

“Let’s find out if you’re right,” I said, reaching for it again, then shaking it about in a threatening motion.

“It’s a universal remote control, for the ceiling fans, the stereo, the TV, the lights. It was designed to not stand out, not be noticed.”

“It didn’t work.”

“And it doesn’t work.” As I set it down again, Aragon grew serious. “Sweetie, Billy thinks Tyler could be abusive. Billy does a lot of research on domestic violence, you know, because of his father.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed the books he reads on the subject. Tell Billy not to be a hero. Your boyfriend worries about people too much, just like you.”

Aragon nodded in agreement, but then she said, “I’ll have my lawyer write a draft for you.”

“We have the same lawyer.”

As I started to walk through the doorway, she added, “Well, I was really going to write it myself, just to be safe.”

“I know you were. You’re my cousin, not my big sister. Love you!” I slipped on out.

Of course, she wrote it, and I told Tyler that I wouldn’t marry him unless he signed it. Not because Aragon pushed me into it, but because I knew deep down that she was right. My insistence made Tyler mad, and he shouted something about “feminaligations,” which I know isn’t a word, but that never stopped Tyler. I guess it wasn’t too much worse than “doohicky.” He relented, after reading me a passage from one of his conspiracy tracts, and telling me “You remember that!” I don’t remember a word of it, or what it was about. I just wanted him to sign the prenup.

Just five weeks after our wedding (and the New Mexico honeymoon that my parents paid for), I started insisting that he get a job and keep it. He’d been through five since we’d met, including three that I’d helped him get, and one that Billy helped him get. I told him to be more responsible, and not to drink so much, or use such spiteful language about people who were different from him. Then he up and slugged me. I don’t mean a slap; I mean hockey player style. And that bony little fist hurt a lot more than what I would have expected.

Billy happened to be the deputy back then (now the sheriff, with the still-perfect body), and he virtually assaulted Tyler when he found out what happened. I had to agree to drop any charges against Tyler to keep Tyler from filing charges against Billy. I had my prenup. I really didn’t care.

Like so many other people, Tyler soon faded out of Acorn, which makes you wonder why our population is always exactly 21,001. Maybe no one wants to repaint the city limits sign. But, then, new people fade in just as quickly. I was just glad Ian never left, and that he eventually gave up on the mayor’s wife. Unlike Tyler, Ian was intentionally and successfully witty and insightful, even if his life thus far had suggested he shared Tyler’s lack of ambition. At least he’d kept the same job for several years! That was something: a little star by his name.

And he is cute, unlike Tyler. Not the perfect body, but you can only find one of those per small town, and Aragon had already found Billy, and don’t start thinking that I’m fixated on him. He’s just nice to look at, like his Army/fireman hunk of a brother (another person who faded away from Acorn, though he visits now and then), and like my boyband posters. I’m just glad Ian never expected me to take those posters down.

(Next week, chaos at the Cow Palace.)

Duane Simolke edited The Acorn Gathering and wrote four of its stories, including “Fat Diary.”  He also wrote the award-winning novel Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure.

This week, season finales, The Forever War, a gay sf/f publisher, and a look back at Fat Diary.

This week, my book review of The Rylerran Gateway by Mark Ian Kendrick.

Mark Ian Kendrick’s ambitious science fiction epic, split into three sections in a single volume, involves two men who fall in love before embarking on an inter-dimensional adventure. Of the Consortium’s fourteen inhabited planets, only Andakar approaches Earth in wealth and a desire for equality.

After Lieutenant Commander Darreth James-Po and Dr. Naylon Ress, the two young lovers, crash land on another of the so-called “Inhab” planets, they accidentally discover a gateway to another dimension, almost like their own but with a different power struggle. Here, the human race wars with an alien race. Instead of the Consortium, a military force rules.

Kendrick uses his interests in science and language to enrich his world-building with interesting technology and terminology. The glossary in the back of the book explains all of that in brief phrases, and also lists the various characters. I never needed to refer to that glossary, though, because it all becomes clear in context. The other-worldly language adds to an exciting, textured science fiction experience.

While Kendrick stays focused on entertaining his audience with battles and political intrigue, he also shows how easily people can justify injustice, such as discrimination and even slavery. The characters interact in believable yet often unexpected ways.

Ultimately, the romantic relationship between the men Darreth and Naylon provides the glue for the expansive narrative. Even though they only appear together in certain key parts of the novel, these two heroic men pull readers in and will keep them wanting to find out what happens next.

The Rylerran Gateway should entertain anyone who enjoys science fiction, and especially the many readers who share Kendrick’s frustration with the odd lack of gay characters in science fiction. As he explains at his website, he wants to change what he and his partner see as the disappointing lack of gay people depicted in the genre they love.

Visit that website to read more about Mark Ian Kendrick’s writings, which also include Stealing Some Time Volume 1, Stealing Some Time Volume 2, Desert Sons, and Into This World We’re Thrown.

Duane Simolke wrote Holding Me Together and New Readings of Winesburg, Ohio.

This week, J. L. Langley, Legend of the Seeker, Game of Thrones, and Push.

J. L. Langley.

Blogger Jesse Ware recently posted an interview with J. L. Langley, the author of The Tin Star and Without Reservations. Langley’s books tend to focus on gay male characters, and sometimes include dark fantasy elements.

Legend of the Seeker.

Based on the Sword of Truth books by legendary fantasy author Terry Goodkind, the TV series Legend of the Seeker isn’t bad. Still, could the writers stop cramming “the Seeker” into the dialogue every few seconds? We get that Richard is the Seeker. Really. Couldn’t his friends call him Richard now and then?

Craig Horner plays Richard Cypher in the series, which airs in syndication, including the cable station WGN. Watch the Seeker Preview.

Game of Thrones.

Speaking of famous sword-and-sorcery novels, SciFi Wire reports an update on HBO’s adaption of A Song of Ice of Fire, the fantasy series from George R. R. Martin.

Push.

SciFi Wire also posted images from Push, a new science fiction movie that stars the Fantastic Four’s Chris Evans.

Duane Simolke wrote the gay-themed novel Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure.

This week, Milk, EQuality Entertainment, and more X-Men.

Milk.

Milk looks like it might finally give the civil rights activist more recognition, and allow more people to learn from his story. It also looks like a well-made film from director Gus Van Sant. The genre films Twilight and The Day the Earth Stood Still, as well as the historical epic Australia, all look exciting. However, I hope their hype won’t drown out publicity for this important docudrama.

EQuality Entertainment.

EQuality Entertainment has posted a review of Milk that explores the movie’s relevance in 2008, despite the fact that its events took place thirty years ago. Of special interest to doorQers, that site also examines the gay elements in books, movies, and Star Trek.

X-Men.

SciFi Wire reports on plans for Josh Schwartz to write X-Men: First Class. Schwartz, also known for Chuck and The OC, will focus on the next generation of mutants. I haven’t seen any details about which characters to expect.

Duane Simolke wrote Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure and The Acorn Stories.

This newly revised chapter opens my upcoming novel Worried: A Science Fiction Adventure. In this stand-alone sequel to Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure, Taldra and her twin gay sons face new dangers to the home world, both from within and from outer space.

Worried: A Science Fiction Adventure

By Duane Simolke

After ten hours of strange readings and no contact with their planet-side comrades, Captain Laaron returned to the bridge of the Equestar, hoping to hear good news for a change. The long face of his first officer, Lt. Kee, suggested she no longer even understood the concept of good news.

Lt. Em, the only other bridge officer who remained onboard, looked equally gloomy. A red-skinned woman with a clean-shaved head and intimidating height, Em rarely showed much emotion at all, but now fear throbbed in the veins of her long hands.

All three officers wore the traditional military uniforms of Degranon’s tenth circle. Red boots stretched up their legs, above the knees, with ribbed tops that curved outward to allow room for daggers or laser pistols. Belt-less, tight black pants folded into those ribbed tops, leading back up to a collarless and short-sleeved red shirt.

Kee spoke first, whispering Laaron’s name as if she couldn’t think of anything else to say, but desperately wanted to offer her old friend hope. Staring at the stars on the holographic monitors that filled the center of the bridge and rose from their personal monitors, Laaron wondered how soon they could break from their orbit of Wah-edge, the planet they had unsuccessfully mined for the past two years. The five empty stations only served as grim reminders of the shuttles and firejets on Wah-edge, and of the Degrans they couldn’t save from the strange readings that kept appearing on their monitors.

Laaron breathed in deeply. He was tired and hungry, and probably should have grabbed a slice of meat bread, instead of making a futile attempt at taking a nap. Like anyone could sleep with possibly alien ships approaching! Alien ships! What if they aren’t even human? Could the stories be true about another intelligent life form that exists outside Valchondria and Degranon? I’m a scientist; I have to stay open to the possibility. On the other side, I’m in charge, which is the real reason I have to stay open to the possibility.

“Still no word, and no signal, from the others,” Kee eventually added. “We tried again to disable the recharge, but Equestar’s computer just warned us that we would provoke a complete shut-down, including life support. That didn’t sound like a good idea.”

“Only our government would insist on safety features that endanger lives. Our computer has enough bureaucracy embedded in it to hold office on the Council!” He hated that Kee and Em still looked to him for guidance. He was just a scientist, not a leader. And he felt like little more than a child, playing in space. Laaron, a boyishly handsome and brown-skinned man with close-cropped hair and deep blue eyes, always looked and felt much younger than his twenty-three years. But he suddenly felt older as Kee saluted him with a nod, her slight stature hiding the warrior he had seen fighting in Degranon’s civil wars, during their teen years, a time long before their mission took them away from Degranon, the planet they knew as home.

“Any word from Degranon?” Laaron asked her, as they sat down together at their conjoining stations near the entrance to the bridge. Kee was the only white-skinned person on the mission, and one of the few Laaron had ever met; white-skinned people were an even smaller minority on Degranon than yellow-skinned people. Of course, color names for people were usually misnomers, since she was actually almost as dark as many of the red-skinned or brown-skinned people he knew, and even “red-skinned people” were really more reddish brown than red. Still, Kee’s skin color looked different from either of those, her hair was yellow (blonde, she called it), and her nose seemed almost unnaturally thin…to the point that he wondered how she could breathe.

“None, sir. I don’t think anyone really expects to hear from them again. Something happened that day we lost contact. Maybe the battles between the ten circles escalated into….” Her voice faded as she flinched at the obvious conclusion.

“A single battle that destroyed everything?” Flashes of a particular skirmish kept replaying in Laaron’s mind, one from his teen years of service in his circle’s army. His friends…little boys and girls from his classes…toting weapons and getting shot. Laaron detested the violence, all over differing interpretations of the holy book that had given their world its name, Degranon. The very word resonated with death.

Suddenly, an alarm went off, jerking Laaron back to the equally dangerous present, and they heard screaming through the intercom system. They orbited the planet Wah-edge, on a Degran exploration ship designed for nearly a thousand people. The flight deck was empty, with both of the shuttles and all five firejets making sweeps of Wah-edge’s surface, looking for anything of value to their circle…especially new energy sources.

“Laaron,” said Kee, her skin oddly pale, and perhaps truly white now. “I can’t get a holo-lock or a radar signal from the firejets. But that scream came just before I lost contact with the shuttles. Do you think they’re all...?” Again, she couldn’t say the rest.

Old friends, Kee and Laaron constantly finished each other’s sentences—when studying The Book of Degranon, when competing in pressure tournaments, when enjoying a loaf of their favorite meat bread, when comforting each other over boyfriends who left, and even on the bridge of their beloved ship, the Equestar. But Laaron decided not to complete her sentence this time. The thought was too horrible, and too likely.

Em shouted, “Captain Laaron!”

But Laaron had already seen it on the three-dimensional holo-screen that hovered over his station: a spiked and elongated ship, pulling away from the similar ship that flew from then dipped back into the clouds around Wah-edge.

“Fire at will!” Laaron shouted to Em—the warrior inside, the thing he hated, taking over without a thought. “I want those sons of hiliates to have their dust in the skies before they get any closer!”

Em fired, obviously catching the massive spacecraft off guard. It exploded, but not without sending one of its crystalline spikes into the Equestar’s hull, tossing everyone from their chairs and through the porous holo-images of the exploded ship.

As Laaron stood up, he noticed Kee already anticipating his orders by running a damage report, searching every area of the ship with her holo-screen. “The secondary solar battery,” she whispered.

“Can we reach Degranon on one battery?” Laaron asked Kee, while helping Em up. Both women looked uninjured. Finally, Laaron thought, some good news.

“We could hide on one of the moons until those ships leave,” Kee offered.

“If they’re leaving. That doesn’t seem likely, considering that they’ve obviously killed all our crewmates. But you haven’t answered my question.”

“You know the answer.” She paused, her eyes narrowing like she had looked at Wah-edge’s sun.

“What’s wrong?”

“Sensor malfunctions. I had an organic reading for an instant, but the battery room is now exposed to space. Nothing could be alive in there.”

“The reading’s gone now?” Em asked, not able to share in the nearly psychic conversation between Laaron and Kee.

Kee stared at the holo-image of the crystal shard embedded in the metal grates of the solar panels, its contours reflecting a rainbow spectrum from the flashing lights in the battery room. “It’s gone.” She looked back over to Laaron. “And so is our hope of returning to Degranon. The only good news is that”—her eyes diverted to her monitors—“our remaining battery is now charged. We can move again! We just don’t have the energy to reach any other Valchondria-class planets, and I’d rather not stop for another charge.”

“Then we won’t settle with Valchondria-class,” said Laaron, leaning over her monitor. “Set a course for Valchondria herself.”

She gasped, and it took a lot to shock Kee. “Never mind that it’s against our laws and theirs. They’ll shoot us from the sky, quicker than you shot down that…whatever it was!”

Em interrupted. “Another of those ships is leaving the surface.”

“Now!” Laaron shouted.

“I suggest you sit down…sir,” Kee said, relenting in her own strong way.

Laaron took her advice as she took them from nothing to full speed.

* * *

With a safe distance behind them, they finally relaxed enough to talk beyond simple directions. Kee’s gaze settled upon Laaron in a way that revealed the depths of her fears. “Laaron, those weren’t Degran ships, and Valchondria outlawed space travel after they colonized Degranon. That just leaves—”

“There might be some other race, or some colony that one of Degranon’s other circles kept secret.” He knew all too well that she was about to append something to his sentence.

“Or the Uubsoon.”

There! She said it! She just had to say it! Laaron narrowed his eyes. “The Uubsoon are a myth, created by Valchondria’s Maintainers to justify their xenophobia.” I really want them to be a myth, considering the stories we used to read about them!

“Well, I suppose we can ask the Maintainers about that, when we get to Valchondria.”

Laaron wondered how they chose him over Kee to receive a promotion and command of the mission. But then he remembered the way she had talked to their commanding officer back home. So honest! Kee never knew when to be quiet, and he loved his best friend for that. But he also loved her and Em for their courage, and they would need that courage when they reached the place known as “home world,” the place known as “Valchondria.”

End of Chapter 1.

This week, Battlestar Galactica and Stargate Atlantis.

Battlestar Galactica.

SciFi Wire has posted a promotional video for Battlestar Galactica’s final episodes, as well as a Caprica trailer. SciFi has managed to stretch out Galactica’s final season a long time, and it looks like the franchise might continue a while.

Stargate Atlantis.

Of course, Stargate Atlantis will end before Galactica. Only a few episodes remain. Those episodes, including the show’s 100th episode, will air in December and January. Many doorQers will miss a certain colonel, and maybe even miss Rodney Mckay.

This week, Milk, Acorn, Wolverine, and Gaeta.

Milk.

TheCinemaSource.Com has posted an interview with Sean Penn about his title role in Milk. Penn discusses how he approached the part of murdered civil rights leader Harvey Milk, and how life might be different for gays if Milk had survived.

The Acorn Stories.

Read about the West Texas fiction collection The Acorn Stories in the Christmas issue of The New York Review of Books and the November/December issue of Bookmarks.

Wolverine.

New pictures from X-Men Origins: Wolverine appear at ComingSoon.Net, and a picture of Taylor Kitsch as the character Gambit appears at CinemaSource. The movie’s trailer will debut with prints of The Day the Earth Stood Still, 12/12/08.

Battlestar Galactica.

SciFi Wire has revealed the almost kiss between Battlestar Galactica’s male characters Gaeta and Hoshi. The word "almost" counters past rumors, but I wonder if SciFi Channel intentionally leaked those kissing rumors, for increased publicity. If so, it certainly worked, and the article I just linked to still leaves the possibility open. Regardless, making a recurring character gay is a big step for the hit franchise, and it looks like that trend will continue in the spinoff series Caprica.

This week, some TV news regarding Smallville, Kings, and Prayers for Bobby.

Smallville.

Smallville returns January 15, and may soon reach its series finale. Cinema Static includes rumors about the show’s future.

Kings.

Eragon’s Christopher Egan will star in NBC’s new series Kings. The series, which begins March 19 with a two-hour premiere, updates the biblical story of David, in an alternate reality. The preview looks promising.

Prayers for Bobby.

The movie Prayers for Bobby, based on the acclaimed book by Leroy Aarons, premieres on Lifetime, January 24. Sigourney Weaver (Aliens, Ghostbusters, Gorillas in the Mist) stars in this true story, about a religious woman who cannot accept her son’s homosexuality, until after his death. Russell Mulcahy (Highlander, Queer As Folk, The Shadow) directed the TV movie.

Duane Simolke wrote Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure and The Acorn Stories.

This week, The Prisoner, Stargate Atlantis, and Whirlwind.

The Prisoner.

SciFi Wire has posted part of an interview with Sir Ian McKellan about his role in AMC’s upcoming remake of The Prisoner, as well as some comments McKellan made about The Hobbit and the long-proposed Magneto movie.

Stargate Atlantis.

Stargate Atlantis ends its five-year run, tonight on SciFi. Fortunately, as most readers here probably already know, the first Atlantis movie will premiere on SciFi this spring, with Stargate Universe arriving this summer. Atlantis provided an entertaining escape!

Whirlwind.

Director Richard LeMay presents the story of a group of gay men whose views and situations vary in terms of relationships. A newcomer shakes all of that up in unexpected ways. Read my review at ThisWeekInTexas.Com.

Duane Simolke wrote the gay-themed novel Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure.

This week, Science Fiction Writers, He Likes Guys, and Primeval.

Greatest Science Fiction Writers.

Tim Janson of Mania.Com is using his weekly book blog to pose the question Who are the Greatest Science Fiction Writers of All-Time? This week’s blog also includes news about Star Wars, DC Universe, and more.

He Likes Guys.

Wolfe Releasing brings together eight short films from the years 2005 through 2008. They range in length and tone, but all eight involve gay men. Read my review at ThisWeekInTexas.Com.

Primeval.

No news yet on when BBC America will show the third season of Primeval, but a trailer follows below. BBC America showed the first two seasons (or “series,” as the Brits call seasons of a TV show) of the hit show back-to-back, as a single season.

Duane Simolke wrote Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure and The Acorn Stories.

The SciFi Channel has unveiled the cover art for the Caprica TV Series Pilot. Caprica provides a backdrop for SciFi’s version of Battlestar Galactica.

Rumors about a new Galactica movie follow.

SciFi Watch: Universal Pictures to Re-remake Battlestar Galactica?

Hollywood Reporter: Universal in talks for 'Battlestar' movie

Richard Hatch’s Battlestar Galactica Trailer has also emerged online, revealing his past work at reviving the franchise.

Duane Simolke wrote the gay-themed novel Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure.

An excerpt from Degranon’s first chapter follows.

Lorfeltez suddenly realized that she had stopped speaking and that everyone had stopped listening, or even jeering. The Maintainers had arrived. They filed through the crowd like a swarm of insects, freely pushing and shoving with all the authority that their office granted them, elbowing several people, and pushing a few out the doorways.

Part of the crowd began disappearing, as if the weight of the entering officers forced them outside. However, many of them failed to move away in time, and the Maintainers freely grabbed at their collars or even punched at them, before finding the sources of the disruption.

A female Maintainer yanked the holo-projectors away, knocking them to the floor, then used the handle of her rifle to destroy them, sending hot metal parts and wires everywhere. One of the wires gashed a woman’s arm, sending out a small spurt of blood. Before even noticing her, the Maintainers quickly managed to handcuff all five men, even while the crowd continued to shift madly about, trying to escape. But then one of the Maintainers assisted the injured woman, holding his hand over the cut on her arm while obviously calling a healer with the transmitter in his ear.

Dr. Lorfeltez saw an elderly red woman in the audience, frail to the point that she had obviously lived beyond the virus’s benefits. One of the Maintainers waved his laser rifle around to scare away the remnants of the controversial gathering; he held the rifle at the center, his hand near the button.

It frightened Lorfeltez to see the Maintainer’s barrel sometimes pointing directly at the old woman. At least the other citizens could move quickly from his senseless demonstration of power, even if some of them ran in too many different directions for everyone to escape. As he swung it around again, the handle struck the old woman on the forehead, knocking her to the floor.

Surely that Maintainer sees what he’s doing, Lorfeltez thought. Just as some members of the crowd almost trampled the old woman, the handsome stranger pulled her up and helped her escape.

Lorfeltez had wanted to intervene as well, but another Maintainer stood beside her, aiming a laser pistol at her. The Maintainer was an extremely tall black woman, but barely more than a teenager, with hair shooting out from her headband, reminding Lorfeltez of a docle flower, one of the few remaining flowers on Valchondria’s overly industrialized landscape. The absence of stripes on her uniform revealed her as a trainee, but she carried herself like a Top Maintainer.

“Dr. Lorfeltez,” she said, her voice brimming with Maintainer superiority, and her unusual height adding to that superiority. Lorfeltez had always hated being short, especially at times like this. The Maintainer continued: “I find you in conflict with the glory of Valchondria. To protect our children and our society, I hereby refrain you from public mobility. Any verbalization on your part will be considered heavy hazard. Do you recognize my guidance?”

Her dark brown eyes studied Lorfeltez. The self-confidence was real, but Lorfeltez could see that this Maintainer didn’t actually want to arrest her or stop her from voicing her concerns. Something existed between them: a sort of sisterhood, if such a thing could exist for two young women in a world with no siblings below the age of forty.

But it was her job, her genetic destiny as someone with a Maintainer-quality genetic structure. That genetic structure reasserted itself. “I ask again, Dr. Lorfeltez: do you recognize my guidance?”

“I recognize it.” Lorfeltez clasped her hands together behind her back, her slender fingers grasping each other. It was the proper motion of surrender, and she imagined one of her own hands as that of her mother or her father, reaching out to comfort her in this moment of crisis.

But they wouldn’t be holding her hand anymore. They had warned her to avoid the rally. “Think of your career,” her mother had said. Her father had said much worse: “Stay away from disruptive elements. If you don’t distance yourself from them, we’ll have no choice but to distance ourselves from you. Be maintained, if you want to be a part of this family.”

When a gay teen faces constant bullying, the last thing he wants is to play the faerie Puck in his senior class’s production of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. His drama teacher insists, though, sending him on a musical odyssey...

Visit ThisWeekInTexas.Com to read the rest of my review of Were the World Mine. Tanner Cohen of the electronic pop duo The Guts stars in this musical fantasy about a gay teen who responds to homophobic bullying by using a magic spell to turn much of his town gay. The award-winning film arrives on DVD June 9.

Duane Simolke wrote the gay-themed novel Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure.

Being Human, a supernatural series with gay actor Russell Tovey, will debut on BBC America on July 25, according to a story in SciFi Wire. The show involves a ghost, a werewolf, and a vampire, in an apartment.

Other stories there give news about a Doctor Who movie and Doctor Who's new season on BBC America.

Read more about Being Human at its BBC home page.

Being Human (Tovey in center).

Duane Simolke wrote the gay-themed novel Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure.

From SyFy: ABC announces V will debut in November and V producer on who might return and other homages.

The original miniseries and its sequel included some interesting parallels to Nazi Germany, but the series lacked a budget and direction. Will the new series be better, or worse? ABC’s V Preview makes it look better.

 (The word "rats" in the headline refers to certain V images, not to the nice folks in the picture.)

Duane Simolke wrote Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure and The Acorn Stories.