Finally
I have posted the course grades and although one or two things are still outstanding. I imagine the Registrar’s office will turn the grade of “Incomplete” to “F” almost immediately, but I can still change grades so if you still have something for me, get in touch a.s.a.p.
A big thank you to all of you for your patience and good humour. As you know it has been a difficult term for personal reasons and I have certainly set a personal record for late grades. You have all been very gracious and I appreciate it more than I can say.
Have a great summer, full of SF books and movies!
Sad news
about Natasha Richardson, the actress who played Offred in The Handmaid’s Tale. Here she talks about the film.
Bujold’s Ethan of Athos has arrived in the campus bookstore. Possibly takes the prize for the cheesiest cover of the course; let me know your nominee(s).
Former UNBSJ student’s novel
FYI: Shannon Stever, a former English/Philosophy student at UNBSJ, has recently self-published his first novel, Through Bright Light, which can be either downloaded or bought in hard copy. In addition, he is planning some interesting things with social networking:
For the next part, I will be making social pages for each of the main character. Some of the characters, being human, will be straightforward enough… the fun ones will be the non-human characters, like the green, beetle-eared hero, or the cadaverous villain and his devoted, priest-like follower.
I will post if and when I come to know more.
And another thing:
The exam schedule lists an exam for this course: ignore it. Marks will be based on participation, blogs, presentations, website, and papers. That seems like enough!
Update on The Forever War
There was an error at the bookstore and next week’s book, Haldeman’s The Forever War, was not ordered when the others were. The bookstore has put in a rush order to have the books Purolated, but they may not be in until Monday, though they are hoping for Thursday or Friday. This week would be bad enough but if the book isn’t in until Monday it would be extremely awkward. What do people think: could you have it read over the weekend if it is here by Friday? If so, we can follow the schedule as written. If it isn’t here until Monday, though, the only thing I can think of doing is to move everything back a week and drop Bujold’s Ethan of Athos, as it isn’t here yet and so no-one will have bought it, and as there is no-one presenting on it. There are also no presentations booked for Elgin on March 10 or Tepper on March 31, though those books have been in for awhile and I assume that some of you have bought them already.
What I suggest is this: if the Haldeman is in by the end of this week — and I will email you as soon as I hear — we continue as scheduled. If not, then we treat next Tuesday as a movie day — I will find something relevent and/or fun — and push everything back a week. This would mean we would need to drop a book, and the Bujold seems like the obvious choice. Would this create difficulties for anyone presenting, to have your presentations pushed back a week?
Let me know what you think.
[Sorry for duplication but I am also going to email you this message on your uni accounts, and post it to FB.]
The
schedule and list of texts have been updated. Let me know if anything is incorrect. Those who have not yet signed on for a presentation, let me know what you would prefer. And if I don’t have the URL for your blog posted to the right, there, could you please send it on to me? Thanks. When all the addresses are up, you may want to link them from your own blogs.
SF films in 2009
Here is a funny blog post from the Weekly World News that links trailors from upcoming genre films with commentary from alien film critic Mygar.
Update
Folks, class is cancelled this week due to a death in my family. Do the reading on your own, and we will sort ourselves out next week.
I’m sorry about this; I know it’s particularly awkward at the beginning of term. But we will work around it.
See you next week.
