Rise of the Planet of the Apes - watch teaser, April 13th at 2:30 pm PDT!

I think going to see Beneath the Planet of the Apes was my very first date. I don't remember my date's name. I was 8 years old. But I went alone with a boy, so I guess it qualifies as a date. We also played penny ante poker at Gma's house. I had just got blue suede clogs and was delighted to have somewhere to go to show them off.

Now, thirty years later, Planet of the Apes is alive again. And you can watch footage from the film with behind-the-scenes goodies and a Q&A on its facebook event page. The movie will hit the big screen in August. The biggest challenge for me will be to accept an actor other than Roddy McDowall as Caesar. This Twentieth Century Fox production has cast Andy Serkis in that role. Alas, Roddy's not as young as he used to be. I was glad to see that Brian Cox and John Lithgow are in the line-up.

The teaser will be shown at 2:30 pm Pacific on Wednesday, April 13th on the facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=208627862498676
It's living on the Avatar fan page. Hmmm. Now that's just wro...strategic positioning. Actually, this live-stream is produced by WETA, the visual effects masters of Avatar, so I guess they're entitled.

UPDATE!!!

Just got the embed code! Now you can watch it here! w00t!

Watch live streaming video from apeswillrise at livestream.com

You can also post a question to the Apes Will Rise fan page and it might make the cut. See you there!

And stay tuned tomorrow for an interview with E.E. Knight.

Building momentum - keeping the sf train rolling

Well, I finally revamped the blog a bit. If you scroll down - way down - on the right, you'll see my new blog roll of sf authors. What's really handy is it includes the title of their latest entry. Hey, I'm using it to see what they're up to. You can, too. I tried to add more, but Blogger no longer wanted to play. I'll try again another day. Meantime, there's about 25 excellent author blogs to choose from and 11 other science fiction blogs higher up. Don't forget that all the author interviews (nearly 40 of them!) are listed by name in alphabetical order as well. Still can't find what you're lookin' for? There's a Google search box on my page, too.

I noticed that my 42 Blips button is missing from my blog directory buttons. I googled 42 Blips. When I clicked on their site I got this message: Thank you for your interest, but the website you are trying to visit is no longer being supported. Hmmmm. Poof. Gone. Lock, stock and barrel. Just like that. Anybody know why? Wish I could offer the scoop on this, but I can only speculate. And I had climbed to 33 in their ranking. Oh, well. It was nice while it lasted. At least I finished near the top of another list. :) While deleting the code I realized there was yet another button missing. The blog directory "um yeah" vanished without a trace.

I'm almost caught up on book reviews. I was IMing with a friend on facebook earlier and I lamented the fact, yet again, that there are so many older books that I don't have time to read. I read the latest books to deliver timely reviews. I have an embarassing number of classic science fiction novels sitting on my shelves that I have yet to read. I'm thinking I should devote a few months a year to reading oldies, but goodies. I'm not going to review them. Those reviews would be superfluous. But I could review sci-fi TV and movies those months while I'm indulging myself and filling in those embarassing gaps.

Right now I'm devouring Peter F. Hamilton's The Evolutionary Void.

And when do I find time to write? Yeah. About that. It's pretty much been relegated to a couple days a week. On the plus side, I have a contract writing job and can quit chasing freelance work, which will give me more time for my own writing. How appropriate that as school is back in session, I have to return to a more structured schedule. You know how they say if you need something done, give it to a busy person? I seem to get more accomplished when I'm busy and have to budget my time carefully.

I'm wrestling with what I think will be one of my better stories, but it has been nothing but trouble to get just right. I'm back to rewriting again and putting back some things that I too hastily deleted. And I'm going to throw in some dangerous fauna. If I can't whip this thing into shape and send it off by the end of this year I'm going to scream. It's resisting my attempts at shaping it into a short story when it really only wants to be a novel. Why can't I have both? First the short, then the novel. I can do this!

I must get poor Horace (Awesome Lavratt sequel) through his next hurdle as well. He really is too fun to torture.

And in my inbox this morning is the panelist questionnaire from Conjecture programming. Conjecture is a little con that can in San Diego. This year's GOH is Rob Sawyer. My friend and fellow Broad (Broad Universe), Trisha J. Wooldridge made GOH for


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