Are you a fan of Ren & Stimpy? Jim Smith, co-creator of Ren & Stimpy, will be signing copies of his book, Chestaclese at The Hyaena Gallery in Burbank, Calif., tomorrow.

Joining him will be:

• Angus Oblong, creator of the Oblongs on Adultswim, signing copies of Creepy Susie
• Glenda Rolle, signing Upon Water’s Edge, a tale of the discovery of the Sand Baby Castaways
• Christopher Ulrich, signing Demoneater
• Jim Wirt, signing copies of Coloring Book Land: Coloring Outside the Lines of Good Taste
• D.W. Frydendall, The Creeps

Event Details:

What: Book Signing w/ Six Author/Artists

When:
Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009
5pm - 10pm

Where:
Hyaena
1928 W. Olive Ave.
Burbank, CA 91506

Who:
Angus Oblong
Jim Smith
Glenda Rolle
Christopher Ulrich
Jim Wirt
D.W. Frydendall

Event curated by Glenda Rolle

For More Information: www.hyaenagallery.com

Starring Nathan Lane (Titan A.E., Austin Powers in Goldmember, Astro Boy) as Gomez, and Bebe Neuwirth (The Faculty, Jumanji and a really fun episode of ST:TNG, “First Contact”) as Morticia, The Addams Family: A New Musical is set to hit Broadway in March, and will have it’s World Premiere in Chicago on Friday. For more information that you can shake a stick at, including bios of the cast and the creator of the characters, Charles Addams, visit www.theaddamsfamilymusical.com.

To help me keep abreast of things happening in the SF/F/H worlds so I can share them with you, I subscribe to a number of Google Alerts. As I was looking through them today, I found this interesting blog post:

The 2MTL Guide to Soloing Conventions

In it, the author describes what it is like to travel solo to a convention. It was interesting to see his take on it.

I’m a solitary, introverted person and I have very few friends who are into the whole con scene, so I usually do go to them alone. But, because I am introverted, not only do I not seek to socialize, I sometimes even get annoyed when someone tries to socialize with me. It try not to show it and remain polite, but I do feel like the person is invading my privacy.

Anyway, I enjoyed reading the post and seeing the con experience from another perspective and thought I’d share it with you.

If you’re in the Woonsocket, RI, area today through Sunday, you might want to check out a new vampire musical debuting tonight at St. Ann’s Arts & Cultural Center.

With music written by Kari Tieger & Kevin Campbell, based on Tieger’s 1996 EP release, “Trilogy of Nightsongs: A Romantic View of Vampires,” Nightsong: A New Vampire Musical tells the story of Robert, a 300-year old vampire who’s been feeling a little off lately. His eternal lover, Vivienne, “has grown increasingly cold over the years” and she views humans as little more than a source of sustenance … unlike Robert, who still finds them fascinating.

But low and behold, a new conquest has caught Robert’s eye: Andrea, a naïve human who’s been widowed for nearly two years.

Robert becomes desperate to be closer to her without pursuing her physically. So he calls upon an ancient, forbidden power, known as the Nightsong, to enter Andrea’s dreams while she sleeps, drawing her fragile mind ever closer to him.

Further Information:

What:
Nightsong: A New Vampire Musical

Who:
Book by Jon Brennan
Music by Kari Tieger & Kevin Campbell
Directed by Jon Brennan
Music Direction by Alex Tirrell

When:
Nov. 5, 6, 7 at 8pm
Nov. 8 at 2pm

Where:
St. Ann’s Arts & Cultural Center,
84 Cumberland St, Woonsocket, RI

Ticket & More Information:

• East Providence Community Theatre
• Brown Paper Tickets
• Alliance Française de Providence

What if the ship that landed in New Mexico back in 1947 wasn’t the only one to crash that day?

Enter the lives of Heather, Mark and Jennifer … three students at Los Alamos High School who find the second ship and are thrust into a world filled with government cover ups, secretive scientists and alien-tech enhanced religious freaks.

I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Second Ship, the first book of the Richard Phillips’ new series The Rho Agenda. I mean, this book had it all

• Really good writing
• Adventure
• Intrigue
• Danger
• Alien ships
• Simple teenage angst
• Brilliant minds
• Mystery

Oh, and did I mention that it was very well written? Not only was the plot well spun, but the fine detail of the story were lusciously laid out. The characters were well developed and the bad guys were really bad.

Oh, yeah … I meant that to be plural. The three friends … our heroes of the story … aren’t just up against one foe. No, not at all.

Heather McFarland has a crazy homeless guy after her.

There’s an evil scientist twisting the tech from “his” ship to his own ends … without the government knowing about it.

The government has been … and to some degree is continuing to … hide the information they have about the ship.

And there’s a homicidal serial killer on the loose working with the evil scientists (who doesn’t know his henchman is a wacko).

And this all goes down in just the first book! I can’t wait to read the second.

Yes, this book isn’t for everyone. Since the protagonists are teenagers, some readers might not relate and might find the action a bit toned down. I didn’t care. But you might … that’s your bally-wick.

I was pleasantly surprised … with the premise I was not expecting to be so drawn in or to enjoy the experience so much.

The Second Ship is rich in details in part due to the author’s personal experience. Phillips is a nuclear physicist and former Army Ranger officer. He has worked on classified projects for the U.S. government at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and currently works on military simulation software at General Dynamics.

The underlying theme of the book, however, is about how new technologies can have unexpected effects. “Every new technology offers fascinating opportunities,” says Phillips, “but at a potential cost.” The Second Ship explores this theme using alien technology as its metaphor.

Score: 5 out of 5 Palm Trees Possible

The first hotel planned in space hopes to open for business in 2012. During a typical stay, guests could:

• travel around the world in 80 minutes
• see the sun rise 15 times a day
• use Velcro suits to crawl around their pod rooms

and experience a surreal weightless shower … guests will enter a spa room in which bubbles of water will float around.

Galactic Suite was designed by Barcelona-based architects and they claim that it will be the most expensive in the galaxy, costing $4 million for a three-day stay.

But this is not your ordinary hotel … like you thought it would be … when guests are not admiring the view from their portholes, they will take part in scientific experiments on space travel. (You mean these people pay $4 million to be a guinea pig?)

This venture all began as a hobby for former aerospace engineer Xavier Claramunt, director of the company, until a space enthusiast decided to make the science fiction fantasy a reality by fronting most of the $3 billion needed to build the hotel. Since then, an American company bent on colonizing Mars has come on board, and private investors from Japan, the United States and the United Arab Emirates are in talks.

For more information: http://www.galacticsuite.com/

With November 3 being Housewife’s Day, also known as Retro Housewife’s Day, it got me to thinking how wives and mothers are portrayed in genre fiction. This, of course made me think of the 1975 classic film, The Stepford Wives (recently re-made in 2004 starring Nicole Kidman).

Filmed in various locations around Western Connecticut, The Stepford Wives was based on Ira Levin’s novel of the same name. Originally, he was going to write the story as a stage play but changed to novel once he realized it had too many characters.

The story tells of a small suburb where the women happily go about their housework - cleaning, doing laundry, and cooking gourmet meals - all to please their husbands. But, as a new arrival to the neighborhood finds out, these aren’t real women … they are actually domestic sex robots who have replaced the original wives.

A lot has been said about the symbolic subtext of the story and how it is an expression of the ongoing “war” between the sexes. So I won’t go into it here.

It tried to find other mentions of wives in science fiction, but there is more written about women … typically portrayed as vilainesses or damsels in distress … not much about domestic bliss or terror.

Of course, there is comedy television … I Dream of Jeannie with the “housewife” portrayed as fawning love-struck girl, and Bewitched, with the housewife portrayed as having to curb her power to keep up domestic bliss.

So … how do you feel about housewives? They certainly haven’t been treated with much respect in what I was able to find.

Locations from The Stepford Wives — all in Connecticut:

• Darien - Goodwives Shopping Center - 25 Old Kings Highway
• Fairfield, Connecticut, USA
• Norwalk - Men’s Assoc. Bldg, Factories
• Redding
• Weston
• Westport

PS: Interesting to not that Nicole Kidman has portrayed a housewife in two of the remakes mentioned above: The Stepford Wives and Bewitched. I guess she just has that scary housewife look about her.

Erg. I Tivo’d Invasion of the Body Snatchers starring Donald Sutherland, Jeff Goldblum and Leonard Nimoy last week. When I got to near the end of the movie …. bleep … Tivo cut off the ending. So now I don’t know how it ended. I hate when that happens!

Why do I share? Because now that I have Nimoy on the mind, I wanted to share with you that he’ll be making a guest appearance at the New England Fan Experience taking place in Boston November 13th through 15th. Other guests include James Hong (Big Trouble in Little China, Bladerunner and so much more), Heather Menzies Urich (1977’s Logan’s Run and the culdt favorite, Sssssss), Gareth David-Lloyd (Torchwood), Corin Nemec (Stargate SG-1, The Stand and others … need I mention Mansquito?) and John De Lancie (Q from ST:TNG), among others.

New England Fan Experience is a multi-genre event which presents celebrities in science fiction, popular culture, gaming, animation, science and technology. The event is divvied up into five genre experiences:

• Pop Culture
• Science & Technology
• Sci-Fi
• Anime & Kaiju
• Gaming

What can you do during the Experience? Events include Dinner with the Stars, a live concert with Devo Spice and The Others, a shadowcast screening of Repo: The Genetic Opera, photo opportunities, autograph sessions, Karaoke, costume contest and much, much more.

Oh … and did I mention Karaoke? I love Karaoke! Wish I could be there.

What: New England Fan Experience

Where:
Courtyard by Marriott Tremont
275 Tremont Street
Boston, MA 02116

When:
November 13-15, 2009

For More Info:
http://nefanx.com