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September 2002


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Index to our previous shows

  • Shows from December, 2002
  • Shows from November, 2002
  • Shows from October, 2002
  • September 29, 2002 - WorldCon and Vernor Vinge
  • Shows from August, 2002
  • Shows from July, 2002
  • Shows from June, 2002
  • Shows from May, 2002
  • Shows from April, 2002
  • Shows from March, 2002
  • Shows from February, 2002
  • Shows from January, 2002
  • Shows from December 2001
  • Shows from November, 2001
  • Shows from October, 2001
  • Shows from September, 2001
  • Shows from August, 2001
  • Shows from July, 2001
  • Shows from June, 2001
  • Shows from May, 2001
  • Shows from April, 2001
  • Shows from March, 2001
  • Shows from February, 2001
  • Shows from January, 2001
  • Shows from November - December, 2000
  • Shows from September - October, 2000
  • Shows from July - August, 2000

  • Worldcon 2002 and Vernor Vinge

    On Sunday - September 29th, 2002 - we brought you a special show featuring excerpts from the Hugo award ceremonies at this year's WorldCon along with an interview with the convention's Guest of Honor Vernor Vinge.

    Over this last Labor Day weekend the Hour 25 crew spent their time in San Jose busily interviewing authors and other folks who were attending the 60th World Science Fiction Convention. It was a hectic time for us. We managed to get 14 interviews done in just three days - and two of those interviews were two hours long. At the end of each day I was exhausted, but it was well worth it.

          Vernor Vinge at ConJose.  Copyright © 2002, Suzanne Gibson
    Copyright © 2002,
    Suzanne Gibson
    Of course, I spent so much time of my time at the con doing interviews that I hardly saw anything else that was going on there. Though I did manage to slip away a couple of times for an hour to visit the dealers' room. {You wouldn't believe how fast you can spend money on books if you really set your mind to it!} And on those 'book buying expeditions' I even managed to line up some more guests for later interviews. Like I said, we were busy but it was lots of fun.

    On tonight's show we will be bringing you excerpts from this year's Hugo award ceremonies. For those of you who couldn't make it to the con, here's your chance to hear some of what you missed.

    I've got to say that Neil Gaiman's acceptance speech was one of those special moments that you will never forget. I mean, he's an immensely talented writer. Famous. Someone who draws huge crowds whenever he does a signing and his books and comics have set high standards within our genre. And here he was, tongue tied, surprised and honored to have won a Hugo. His words, and the expression on his face, made this Hugo ceremony one to remember.

    And speaking of really great writers....

    Tonight's interview is with Vernor Vinge, one of the smartest and most imaginative persons I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. He has the ability to find all the logical consequences associated with ideas that few people could even imagine and the writing skills to turn them into fascinating fiction. He is, to say the least, one of my very favorite authors.

    The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge - Cover  Copyright © 2001 by TOR books.
    Cover Copyright © 2001,
    TOR Books

    True Names and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier - Cover Copyright © 2001 by TOR books.
    Cover Copyright © 2001,
    TOR Books
    Vernor Vinge started his professional writing career while still in college and since that time has delighted the science fiction world with a series of memorable short stories and novels. His recent anthology from TOR books, The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge gives us a chance to have all of his short fiction - with two exceptions - in one place. And what a place it is.

    Upon reading this book I was struck by how many of Vernor's stories had stayed firmly in my memory, even though I had read many of them in magazines twenty or thirty years ago. Now that's good writing. And the icing on the cake is that the last story of this book, Fast Times at Fairmont High won this year's Hugo for best novella. You can't go wrong with this book. Highly recommended.

    True Names is one of the truely seminal books of the SF genre. It explored the nature of human-computer interaction, computer based crime, computer networks, virtual reality and artificial intelligence. In other words, all of the things that were to be a major part of the cyberpunk movement of the 1980's could be found in True Names several years before the publication of William Gibson's Neuromancer, the book that is often taken as the starting point for cyberpunk. Questions of dating aside, True Names remains one of the best science fiction stories I've ever read. It sparks your imagination, makes you think and entertains you at the same time with a cracking good yarn. If you haven't read this story, then by all means do so now. You won't be disappointed.

    Certainly the best place to find a copy of True Names is in the new book True Names and The Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier. This book uses that story as a focal point for essays by researchers in various computer science fields and continues the exploration of ideas that Vernor first put forth over twenty years ago. It makes fascinating reading. Highly recommended.

    A Note from the Interview : During this interview I mentioned that an engineer who was a contemporary of the Wright brothers had written a couple of books about aerodynamics that explained the effects of supersonic flow on airfoils and other things that were far beyond the technology of his day. Of course I couldn't remember the name of the engineer who had done this. <sigh> So I checked with my friend and aeronautical engineer extrordinaire Barnaby Wainfan to get the straight skinny. The author was F.W. Lanchester and the books were Aerodynamics {1907} and Aerodonetics {1908}. Please note these were originally written in 1897 but their ideas were so advanced that it took 10 years to get them published. For more information about this fascinating engineer check out this summary of his accomplishments, or view the comments that were made about him when he won the Daniel Guggenheim Medal in 1931, or this web page which discusses various develoments in aeronautics, including the work of F.W. Lanchester.

    Across Realtime - Cover Copyright © 1991 by BAEN books.
    Cover Copyright © 1991,
    BAEN Books
    A Fire Upon the Deep - Cover Copyright © 1992 by TOR books.
    Cover Copyright © 1992,
    TOR Books
    A Deepness in the Sky - Cover Copyright © 1999 by TOR books.
    Cover Copyright © 1999,
    TOR Books


    Your host enjoying a conversation with Vernor Vinge - Copyright © 2002, Suzanne Gibson.
    Your host enjoying a conversation with Vernor.
    Copyright © 2002, Suzanne Gibson
    Vernor during his Hour 25 interview - Copyright © 2002, Suzanne Gibson.
    Vernor during his Hour 25 interview.
    Copyright © 2002, Suzanne Gibson

    And the Winners Are...

    Presented below are the winners of this year's Hugo awards.
    • Best Novel: American Gods by Neil Gaiman (Morrow)
    • Best Novella: Fast Times at Fairmont High" by Vernor Vinge {The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge, Tor}
    • Best Novelette: "Hell Is the Absence of God" by Ted Chiang {Starlight 3, Tor}
    • Best Short Story: "The Dog Said Bow-Wow" by Michael Swanwick {Asimov's 10-11/01}
    • Best Related Book: The Art of Chesley Bonestell by Ron Miller & Frederick C. Durant III, with Melvin H. Schuetz {Paper Tiger}
    • Best Dramatic Presentation: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring {New Line Cinema/The Saul Zaentz Company/WingNut Films} Directed by Peter Jackson; Screenplay by Fran Walsh & Phillipa Boyens & Peter Jackson; Peter Jackson, Barrie M. Osborne and Tim Sanders, Producers; Michael Lynne, Mark Ordesky, Robert Shaye, Bob Weinstein and Harvey Weinstein, Executive Producers.
    • Best Professional Editor: Ellen Datlow {SciFiction}
    • Best Pro Artist: Michael Whelan
    • Best Semiprozine: Locus, edited by Charles N. Brown
    • Best Fanzine: Ansible, edited by Dave Langford
    • Best Fan Writer: Dave Langford
    • Best Fan Artist: Teddy Harvia
    • Best Web Site: Locus Online, Mark R. Kelly editor/webmaster
    • John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer of 2000 or 2001: Jo Walton
    You can listen to readings of the Hugo nominated short stories - for a small fee - at SciFiAudio.com.

    A Night at the Hugos

    Below are some pictures that Suzanne took at this year's Hugo ceremonies. If they seem a bit dark, just remember that they were taken in available light and that the subjects were about 50 feet away. {All of the following pictures are Copyright © 2002, Suzanne Gibson unless otherwise noted.}

    Hal Clement accepting the first fandom award for Sir Arthur C. Clarke - Copyright © 2002, Suzanne Gibson
    Hal Clement accepting the first fandom award for Sir Arthur C. Clarke
    Fred Pohl and Tad Williams - Copyright © 2002, Suzanne Gibson
    Fred Pohl and Tad Williams
    Pat Murphy - Copyright © 2002, Suzanne Gibson
    Pat Murphy
    Sean Astin and Sala Baker accepting the Hugo for The Lord of the Rings - Copyright © 2002, Suzanne Gibson
    Sean Astin and Sala Baker from The Lord of the Rings
    Ron Miller and Fred Durant - Copyright © 2002, Suzanne Gibson
    Ron Miller and Fred Durant
    The Art of Chesley Bonestell - Copyright © 2001, Collins & Brown Ltd, Illustrations Copyright © Bonestell Space Art 2001
    Copyright © 2001, Collins & Brown Ltd,
    Illustrations Copyright © Bonestell Space Art 2001
    Neal Gaiman getting the Hugo from Vernor Vinge - Copyright © 2002, Suzanne Gibson.
    Neal Gaiman getting the Hugo from Vernor Vinge
    American Gods - Copyright © 2001, HarperCollins Books.
    Cover Copyright © 2001,
    HarperCollins Books
    Neil Gaiman with his Hugo - Copyright © 2002, Suzanne Gibson.
    Neil Gaiman with his Hugo
    Neil Gaiman accepting the Hugo - Copyright © 2002, Suzanne Gibson.
    Neil Gaiman accepting the Hugo
    It was a pleasure to see the joy writ large across Neil Gaiman's face when he won the Hugo for best novel. His unabashed delight made his winning a moment that everyone could share. And his spontaneous expletive made us all roar with laughter.
    The Hugo winners - Copyright © 2002, Suzanne Gibson.
    The Hugo winners
    The Hugo winners - Copyright © 2002, Suzanne Gibson.
    The Hugo winners

    For more information about this year's WorldCon check out the ConJose web site or Locus On-line.



    Listen to this week's show

    webcasting
    • Click here to listen to the entire show. {1:54:32}
      Or
    • Click here for the show's intro music.{0:41}
    • Click here for the show's opening. {30:49}
    • Click here for excerpts from the Hugo ceremonies. {47:09}
    • Click here for the Vernor Vinge interview. {33:43}
    • Click here for the show's closing.{2:10}
      Or for more Hour 25 Interviews
    • Click here for an index of all Shows on our site.
    We had some last minute problems with the audio for the Hugo winners segment of this week's show that were not found until after we had the show finished and uploaded to our test location. And as a result we had to take several extra days to fix the audio for that part of the show. Because of that, our next show will be going up on the second weekend in October.

    Also, in this week's news I mentioned that the Shuttle would be launched on Wednesday for a mission to the International Space Station. However, weather problems caused a delay in that flight and it is now scheduled for launch on this coming Monday.



    Hour 25 and the Hugo and Nebula Nominees

    For a long time now the best way to find out who would be getting nominated for a Hugo or Nebula has been to see who has recently been a guest on Hour 25. Each year a large percentage of the persons who get nominated for either award - generally in the long form categories - will be guests on our show. And in most cases they have appeared before they got their nomination. Far be it for me to postulate a cause and effect relationship, but none the less, if I was a betting man.....

    Presented below are links to our interviews with the Hugo and Nebula nominees for this year who have appeared on Hour 25 in the last year or so.

    And here are links to two more people who appeared in this year's Hugo ceremonies. Pat Murphy, who won the Seiun award from Japanese fandom for best translated novel, and Tad Williams, the Master of Ceremonies.

    For more information about these authors here's a set of links to their web pages or web pages about them.


    The Great Hour 25 Disk Crash of 2002 - On-Going News

    As a result of our recent hard disk crash the Hour 25 newsletter mailing list has vanished into the digital darkness. It would be very helpful if subscribers to the Hour 25 Newsletter would resend their email addresses to me {wwjames@earthlink.net} so I can reconstitute the Newsletter mailing list. {If you have done this "post-crash" then I have your email address and you don't need to do anything.} New editions of the newsletter will start coming out "real soon now".

    In the same vein, if you previously sent in an entry for the Karen Willson Five Word Challenge, now would be a good time for you to fish around in your "sent mail" folder and resend your entry. Or come up with a new one and send it in. {And please put "Five Word Challenge" or some approximation thereof in the subject line of your email to make it easy for me to keep track of your entry.}



    Links for more information relating to this week's show

    Vernor Vinge
  • You can read more about Vernor Vinge's ideas about the singularity here.
  • You can find out more about Vernor Vinge by going to any of these web sites; The Singular Vernor Vinge Page, Vernor at Westercon 48, Singularity, Vernor at MiniCon30.
  • You can learn more about Vernor and his works by reading any of these on-line interviews and articles; Vernor Vinge - Salon.com, or Flashpoint on-line chat transcript.
  • If you enjoyed this show and would like to know when other interviews are uploaded to the Hour 25 web site, then send an email to me at wwjames@earthlink.net and I will add your name to the free Hour 25 Newsletter mailing list. That way you'll get a brief notice in your email every time a new show gets uploaded to the web. {People who have subscribed to the newsletter before should do so again as I am having to regenerate the Hour 25 Newsletter Mailing List following the Great Hard Disk Crash of 2002. «Sigh».}

    Space News
  • More information about Earth's newly captured 'moon' can be found at this JPL web page.
  • Information about Dr. Robert Forward can be found at his web site.

    For On-Going Updates on Space News
  • The Reusable Launch & Space Vehicle News web site web page that is part of the Hobby Space web site is a really good place to watch for news about, well... Reusable Launch Vehicles and related subjects. I check it out just about every day and often find news there that doesn't show up anywhere else. Give it a look. {And while you're there be sure to check out some of the site's other pages. Wow! Is there a lot of information there.}
  • The Space Today web site is a great place to find space news from all over the 'net.
  • The Spaceflight Now web site carries real time information about current space missions and presents a lot of space and astronomy news. This is the place I go to when I want up to the minute information about current space missions. Do I need to say more?
  • The NASA Watch web site is another great place for getting information about current space missions. Check there also for news about other 'goings on' within NASA. Highly recommended.

    ISS News
  • The Florida Today web site has a very interesting report about the causes of the ISS budget problems and their impact on the space program. It makes very interesting reading.
  • Click here to view the press kits for various ISS missions.
  • Check out the NASA International Space Station web page or the Boeing web page to learn more about this project.
  • A great source of news about Russian space activities, including their work on the ISS, can be found at the Russian Space Web.
  • Do you wonder where the Space Station is right now? You can use your browser to view real time maps showing the location of the ISS by going to this link at the NASA Space Link web site or here at the Johnson Spacecraft Center. Please note that your browser must support Java to make use of this satellite tracking software.
  • You can find out when the ISS - or many other spacecraft - can be seen from your location by going to this NASA web page. Please note; your browser must support Java for this application to work.

  • Click here for information about the audio files used for Hour 25 and for information about configuring your browser and downloading audio players.

    Please note web pages from external sites will open in a separate browser window and that Hour 25 Productions are not responsible for the content of any external Web Sites.

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