Time for our traditional end of year listing of our top ten traffic generating posts for 2016. This year I am also including an accounting of the ten most downloaded free SciFi and Fantasy eBooks. Once again, David Nadas made the list with a number six placing for his short story “23 Skidoo.” Congratulations David! In keeping with last year, SciFi short films had a strong following and fared well on the site. In fact, “The Leviathan” by Ruairi Robinson took the number one slot last year and continued to bring in traffic. I am especially fond of number four: “Immortal AD Vitam” by Charles Gassot. That movie is a must see if you have not viewed it yet. For the first time, Science Fiction awards posts made the top ten as did my review of Ernest Cline’s novel “Ready Player One.”

Drum Roll Please. . . . . . . . . . . .

Without further delays, here is the list:

Posts:

1. The Leviathan by Ruairi Robinson
2. Sci-Fi Short of the Week: “Uncanny Valley”
3. Nebula Awards Nominees for 2015 Announced
4. Immortal AD Vitam by Charles Gassot
5. 2016 Hugo Nominations Due March 31st
6. 23 Skidoo by David Nadas
7. Sci-Fi Concept Art of Kait Kubar
8. 2016 Hugo Award Finalists Announced
9. Dragon Con Launches Dragon Awards
10. Review of Ernest Cline’s Novel Ready Player One

Top 10 Free eBooks Downloaded:

1. Maelstrom by Peter Watts
2. Behemoth by Peter Watts
3. Blindsight by Peter Watts
4. Starfish by Peter Watts
5. Galactic Derelict by Andre Alice Norton
6. Shadow out of Time by H.P. Lovecraft
7. Time Traders by Andre Alice Norton
8. November Seed by David Nadas
9. Shadows in Zamboula by Robert E. Howard
10. Astounding Stories January 1930 – Editor: Harry Bates

Peter Watts took the top four slots with his Rifters books. If you have not read them yet, you need to rectify that situation ASAP. David’s novella “November Seed” is hanging tight at slot number eight. I also think it’s cool that Robert E. Howard’s “Shadows in Zamboula” squeaked in at number nine.

Thank You for Supporting Offworlders!

Axanar and the Future of Star Trek Fan Films

This issue is a tough one. Star Trek Fan Films have been around for a long time and have even included cast members from the original show. George Takai, for example, starred in the 1985 fan film “Yorktown: A Time to Heal.” There have been several other examples of high profile actors agreeing to star in fan-produced Trek movies. As technology made it easier and easier for fans to make films of increasingly better quality, the fans did just that. “Star Trek: Hidden Frontier” shot seven episodes in front of a green screen with special chromakey effects. By 2004 fan film production budgets were hitting a hundred and fifty thousand bucks and more.

Along came the fan film “Star Trek: Prelude to Axanar.” This short was masterfully done and perceived as competition by Paramount Studios. Take a look for yourself:

Prelude was a smashing success and later the team behind it managed to raise over a million dollars to flesh out “Prelude” into a full-length feature film. That’s when the hammer came down, and CBS and Paramount Studios filed a lawsuit against Axanar claiming copyright infringement and forced an immediate stop to production. Shortly after that, Paramount released a set of Guidelines would-be fan film producers must follow to make a Trek fan film and avoid being sued. The guidelines can be found here: fan-films.

A few of the notable new restrictions:

The fan production must be less than 15 minutes for a single self-contained story, or no more than two segments, episodes or parts, not to exceed 30 minutes total, with no additional seasons, episodes, parts, sequels or remakes.

The fan production must be a real “fan” production, i.e., creators, actors and all other participants must be amateurs, cannot be compensated for their services, and cannot be currently or previously employed on any Star Trek series, films, production of DVDs or with any of CBS or Paramount Pictures’ licensees

CBS and Paramount Pictures do not object to limited fundraising for the creation of a fan production, whether 1 or 2 segments and consistent with these guidelines, so long as the total amount does not exceed $50,000, including all platform fees, and when the $50,000 goal is reached, all fundraising must cease.

Major Buzz Kill – am I right?

Personally, this is a tough issue for me, and I find myself conflicted as to where I stand on the issue. The sticky wicket here I believe is the very nature of technology and the growing ease at which films can be produced. Trek fan films have grown from what truly looked like acts of undying fandom, to Hollywood-style productions. For those with the appropriate skill set and talent, technology has made possible the impossible. Take for example the sci-fi short “Underland, The Last Surfacer” by Gonzalo Gutierrez who shot the film in only three days, and crafted the output with some polished film editing skills:

Amazing film. I can see why film studios want to put a lid on these type productions when they take aim at an established franchise. At what point will fan films eclipse the commercially produced product?  Is that what should happen? Don’t get me wrong, on the one hand, my fanboy geekdom wants the fan films to be produced; yet the studios do have some legitimate concerns here. Copyright infringement is copyright infringement. As the first video points out, the fans have been a major force propelling Star Trek forward. I hope I am wrong, but I think the studios will win the day here and put a lid on big budget fan films. Technology has made it just too easy for those who know how to use it to produce films of such a great quality that the sheer nature of the competitive beast will ensure much gnashing of teeth and clashing of lawyers.

First Five of Burroughs Barsoom Titles Available for Download

The Barsoom series by American pulp fiction author Edgar Rice Burroughs inspired many science fiction authors the likes of Robert A Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, and Arthur C. Clarke. Of the eleven books which comprise the series, the first five are available in the public domain in the United States and are available for free download here on Offworlders. All eleven in the series are in the public domain in Australia at Project Gutenberg Australia.

The books fit nicely in the science fantasy genre and are the classic example of the planetary romance sub-genre. Burroughs penned the works between 1912 and 1943. They are incredible in their depth and imagination. If you have not waded into the series yet, now is the time! Burroughs has created a fantastical place where you can lose yourself in the wonder that is Barsoom. Links to the five novels on Offworlders are located below and are listed in our Barsoom section.

The Barsoom Series:

1. A Princess of Mars
2. The Gods of Mars
3. The Warlord of Mars
4. Thuvia, Maid of Mars
5. The Chessmen of Mars
6. The Master Mind of Mars
7. A Fighting Man of Mars
8. Swords of Mars
9. Synthetic Men of Mars
10. Llana of Gathol
11. Skeleton Men of Jupiter

Photo Credit: “Burroughs, Edgar Rice – Gods of Mars and Warlord of Mars (1971 BCE HB)”
by sdoble is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Image resized to fit and manipulated with photo filters. Cover art by Frank Frazetta
The Gods of Mars & The Warlord of Mars, Nelson Doubleday, 1971

Background Image Photo Credit: “Phlegra Montes southern tip”
by ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Image cropped. Color image of the southernmost portion of Phlegra Montes on Mars
The image was acquired by the High Resolution Stereo Camera on ESA’s Mars Express on 8 October 2014

From the Archive: David Nadas’ First Sci-Fi

My friend and Sci-Fi author David Nadas sent me a great email describing a significant find he recently made when looking through items stored away for safe keeping. Amongst the artifacts, he discovered a box labeled “personal items.” Inside he was delighted to unearth his first science fiction story. A great find! “The Wire” was created circa fifth or sixth grade and the discovery brought back a flood of memories. Not only was this David’s first science fiction story, but he produced the material in response to a major event in his life.

David revealed to me in his email that he struggled with dyslexia. He based the events of “The Wire” on his elementary school’s identification of his dyslexia. In his email, David summed up the event as follows:

One day I was rounded up along with other students and escorted into a bus and driven to a testing facility. After arriving at the center, the kids and I were led down a long corridor, where they separated us into individual rooms. I found myself in a darkened room, and a strange looking device projected words onto a blackboard in the front of the chamber. The beam of light moved from left to right as it cast the words upon the screen. I was watching the words appear when a voice called out “David, read.” The projected words were moving too fast for me to keep up and I missed every other word. Fear began to well up inside me, and I quickly succumbed to the fear of the moment and was so scared that I could not hear the sound of my voice. After being tortured, I mean tested, for about forty-five minutes, we were loaded back into the bus and driven back to school. The testing repeated over a period of several weeks. I don’t remember talking about this harrowing experience with my parents, and they never discussed the testing with me.

The teacher read “The Wire” to his English class and the students loved the story. His teacher wrote the following words on the cover page and underlined them five times: “Keep Writing.” David has done just that. He is the author of the novella “November Seed” and the short story “From Europa With Love.” In addition to those two works, David will soon release a novel titled “Silversides,” and has other works in progress. David is an author you want to keep on your radar.

In the video included with this post, I only read the first few pages of “The Wire.” If you want to continue where the video leaves off, you can download the short story in its entity in PDF format using the download button below.

Let me know what you think of David’s story and of my first Offworlders video? Considering this is my first green screen video with a new camera and new software, the final result exceeded my expectations. I am sure our videos will improve as I train myself on the software and practice setting up proper lighting. The video was produced using Corel VideoStudio Pro X8, and a Canon VIXIA HF R600 camera.

Thanks for sharing your story David! I look forward to reading “Silversides.”

 

 

Here are the top ten posts that generated the most traffic on our site in 2015. Kudos to David Nadas, who managed to take second, ninth and tenth place with his science fiction web serial “Kulcin’s Law.” David’s web series starts here: Kulcin’s Law Part 1. You can also download the 2.0 version revised into a novella by visiting this link: From Europa With Love. The number one post honors go to the Sci-Fi short “The Leviathan,” which is a Moby Dick in space flick replete with outstanding CGI imagery. If you haven’t seen it yet, take a look. You won’t be disappointed. This short cries out to be fleshed out into a full-length feature film.

Without further ado, here is the list:

1. The Leviathan by Ruairi Robinson
2. Kulcin’s Law: Part I
3. Sci-Fi Short of the Week: “Uncanny Valley”
4. Blood of the Narlack: Part 4
5. Sci-Fi Concept Art of Kait Kubar
6. Ancillary Justice Wins Arthur C Clarke Award
7. What’s Your Favorite Sci-Fi and Fantasy Novels?
8. My 2015 NaNoWriMo Experience
9. Kulcin’s Law: Part II
10. Kulcin’s Law: Part III

It should be noted that the film “Uncanny Valley” is also an active performer. This movie was posted on December 7th and has already climbed to the number three position. In this short virtual reality is the new drug laying waste to the urban landscape, surpassing heroin and other physical addictions. My Sci-Fi web serial “Blood of the Narlack” made the number four position. I am very proud of this placement for 2015. This story is, in fact, a writing exercise for me and I have no idea where the plot will turn next. I am having fun with the free web serial. My NaNoWriMo experience threw me off schedule on the Narlack story, but I will be revisiting it come the new year.

Thank you so much for visiting our the site. We have a lot of great content ideas for 2016 so stay tuned!

The 73rd World Science Fiction Convention:

Fourteen days to Worldcon 2015, the annual Sci-Fi convention where the Hugo award has been presented almost annually since 1939. This year’s convention site is Spokane, Washington. The highlight of this year’s festivities will without a doubt be my attendance at the conference!

Seriously, this year’s Hugos will be anything but dull, especially when you factor in the Puppygate scandal where block voting resulted in full slates of nominees being added to the ballot. As Puppygate is not the focus of this post, should you care to read about the topic just google “sad puppies Hugo Awards.” Your browser of choice will serve up a plethora of articles covering every aspect and side of the issue.

The convention will open its doors at noon on Wednesday, August 19 and close up shop at 4 PM on Sunday, August 23 (Except for the Dead Dog filks). The full Sasquan program is online now, and the lineup looks great. I am particularly excited about the Literary Beer and Kaffeeklatsch events that I will be attending:

Literary Beer – Elizabeth Bear
Kaffee Klatche – Wesley Chu
Literary Beer – Joe Haldeman
Kaffee Klatche – John Joseph Adams

I registered for the John Scalzi Kaffee Klatche, my spot was confirmed, and then in a few days my registration was canceled by a site administrator. Turns out that when I registered the program registration site was in test mode. Certainly would have been nice if a bar across the top of the page notified site visitors that the page was only accepting test registrations. I had linked in from outside the official website or Twitter feed, so I was totally unaware that all my registrations were bogus! Oh well, I did manage to re-register for the events listed above – just no Scalzi. Sniff . . . . Sniff. Waaaaaaaaaa! Waaaaaaaaaa!

OK, let me pull myself together and look at the bright side. Drinking beer with Joe Haldeman and Elizabeth Bear! Outstanding. Kaffee Klatche with Wesley Chu, and the venerable John Joseph Adams. Sweet. And did I mention DRINKING BEER WITH JOE HALDEMAN. Nice. Triple nice as “Forever War” is one of my all-time favorites.

Time permitting I will be posting convention news here on Offworlders: Fear and Loathing at the Hugos!

Till then.

Produce a Video Trailer for Your Novel

A helpful tool for marketing your book is a video trailer, and you don’t need a professional videographer to do it. I used iMovie to produce my video trailer. They have several trailer formats. All you have to do is select the stills or video’s you want to use and plug them into the template and add the appropriate text. Then proof the final product and upload it to YouTube or other online video hosting site. It’s as simple as that.

I found it extremely difficult to write a synopsis I was satisfied with for my novel, “The Transplants,” as many authors do, because it has a complex story line with many sci-fi and non-sci-fi aspects. Every time I tried to include them in a text synopsis it ended up too long. I was afraid I would lose the reader’s interest after the third sentence. The truism that a picture is worth a thousand words enables the author to compress a complex story line into a short and concise video presentation. The viewer’s mind fills in the blanks.

One of the great things about the Offworlders.com site is that it allows you to embed your video trailer on the book page along with the description.

If you have the creativity to write a novel, you have the creativity to produce your video trailer.

By Ed Ross

Ed Ross is President of EWRoss International. His previous positions include Principal Director, Security Cooperation Operations in the Defense Security Cooperation Agency; Acting Deputy Assistant Sec-retary of Defense for POW/ MIA Affairs; and Senior Director for China and Taiwan, in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. Ed’s novel “The Transplants” is a sci-fi adventure novel and romance. Two refugees from another planet get separated by a hurricane on earth. The pair are then hunted by a host of characters to include several foreign intelligence services, a NASA scientist, and an FBI agent. A first contact story. To read more about the novel follow this link: The Transplants by Ed Ross

New Comedy Series by Firefly Alum Alan Tudyk and Nathan Fillion:

Have you heard about the new upcoming comedy series “Con Man” by Alan Tudyk and Nathan Fillion? Alan of course played the Serenity pilot Hoban “Wash” Washburne in the 2003 space western television series “Firefly.” Nathan Fillion played the popular role of Captain Malcolm Reynolds. Even though 13 years has passed since the show was cancelled “too soon” by a not to be named network, “Firefly” remains loved by fans. In the upcoming comedy, Alan will play the role of Ray Nearly who was a former pilot of a spaceship on a sci-fi show called “Spectrum” that was cancelled by a network “too soon.” Ray’s best friend in the show is a character named Jack Moore, who will be played by Nathan Fillion. Suspiciously, Jack Moore was the Captain in “Spectrum” and was the only cast member that continued on to great fame after the show was cancelled “too soon.” Oh, how art imitates life!

Now comes the great part. Due “trust issues” between Alan and any “Network” partners who might want to fund the new program, Nathan and gang have turned to the crowd funding platform Indiegogo. This program will not be cancelled by a network “too soon” because you and I are funding this baby. The Con Man Indiegogo Campaign has set crowd funding records! The Browncoats have united in great numbers, raising a record $1 million dollars in less than 24 hours. The original goal of $425,000 was quickly destroyed and with 21 days left the campaign has raised $2,263,713. That’s Two Million plus dollars people! I am proud to say Offworlders donated to this just and worthy cause.

Zoe: “First rule of battle, little one … don’t ever let them know where you are.”
Mal: “WHOO-HOO! I’M RIGHT HERE! I’M RIGHT HERE! YOU WANT SOME O’ ME?! YEAH YOU DO! COME ON! COME ON! AAAAAH! Whoo-hoo!”
Zoe: “‘Course, there’re other schools of thought.”

If you want to contribute, it’s not too late. Here is the link to help: Con Man Indiegogo Campaign.

New Year Wishes and Offworlders Site News:

Offworlders Publishing wishes you peace, happiness, prosperity and of course a whole lot of Science Fiction in 2015. We have a lot planned for the New Year and hope you will join us as we grow and expand our offering of high-quality fiction.

We are working on adapting the site design to include the Fantasy Genre. This is something we have been working for some time now and should be online soon. We will soon open the online portal to authors of fantasy fiction. Often there is often an overlap so this move just plain makes sense. Stay tuned for further details.

Another area we are concentrating on is recruiting authors to sell their material on Offworlders. To this end we will be opening the site up to more countries to increase the pool of available authors. Recommendations are welcome! If you know an author that would be a good fit to sell their material on Offworlders send them to this link for further information: Sell Your Science Fiction on Offworlders Publishing.

Vendors can now list eBooks for sale on a pre-order basis so you can now pre-purchase books scheduled to be released within 30 days. This will give our vendors some flexibility and make sure you are first in line for new releases.

Lastly, don’t forget about our Offworlders Firefly Yahtzee Giveaway. We are conducting a random drawing on January 9th, 2015 so there is still time to enter. Full details here: Firefly Yahtzee Giveaway.

Have a great 2015!

Photo Credit: “Sail Away”
by L.E. Spry is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Image resized and cropped to fit required size.