“Tiina Nunnally - Zimbio” plus 2 more

Tiina Nunnally - Zimbio
With stark, pessimistic science fictions, Nebula winner intends a ... - Denver Post
Vintage makes case for living in the present - Denver Post

Tiina Nunnally - Zimbio

Posted: 04 Jun 2010 07:22 PM PDT

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Disambiguated: Arne Dahl → Jan Arnald; Unlinked: Unseen, Jenny, Katinka, Laterna Magica

Five Filters featured article: Into the Abyss. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

With stark, pessimistic science fictions, Nebula winner intends a ... - Denver Post

Posted: 29 May 2010 11:54 PM PDT

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Recently anointed with his field's highest honor, the Nebula Award, science-fiction writer Paolo Bacigalupi asks you to consider the humble iPad.

"If you look at the iPad and extrapolate, we say the future is shiny. It looks pretty nifty, actually," says the rising science-fiction superstar from tiny Paonia.

That's more or less the perspective of Bacigalupi critics, who say his future visions are too dark and pessimistic.

"If that is your dominant data point, then all the stuff I'm writing is bull," Bacigalupi says cheerily.

The stuff he's writing? Well, yeah, it's pretty grim. In his 2009 debut novel, "The Windup Girl," a future Bangkok huddles in a post- oil world hammered by global warming, heartless corporations and pollution. But that's nothing compared with his story "The People of Sand and Slag," in which humans bioengineered to survive a blasted Earth — i.e., they can eat sand — come to accept their fading humanity.

His work features no exciting frontiers in space, no magical sources of nonpolluting energy. But, Bacigalupi says, to write otherwise would be dishonest.

Again, take the iPad.

"Where did you get the materials for the batteries? What people were hurt in the manufacturing and shipping process? When you ask about using oil that's running out. . . . If those are your data points, the iPad is just window dressing on something very ugly," he says.

Bacigalupi (pronounced BATCH-uh-guh-LOO-pee), born in 1973 in Colorado Springs, grew up reading classic science fiction by Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke and others. He forgives SF writers of the '50s and '60s, "who came by their optimism honestly," but isn't impressed by contemporaries who offer shiny, happy futures.

"They are actively ignoring the (messed)-up (stuff) that's going down," he says.

Bacigalupi won't cite "influences." But he does cop to "internalizing" lessons from past masters — intensity from William Gibson, storytelling from Heinlein, environmentally compromised futures from John Brunner, and from Ursula K. Le Guin the notion that "you can actually say something with your story, and it's OK."

Like any sane science-fiction writer, he doesn't claim to predict the future. But, he says, his worlds sprout organically, like mushrooms from manure, out of current trends.

"Every time you read the news and look at the data, they don't lead anywhere good," he says. "None of it says this is going to be better, there will be more energy and more species. . . . I'm not going to write something to console the reader and say everything's all right. . . . We aren't doing anything that's even remotely sustainable."

Today's adults, he says, are waging "generational warfare" through resource depletion, global warming and pollution.

"We're enjoying all the benefits of our highly industrialized society and passing all the costs along to our children. It's a giant extended middle finger to the next generation," says the married father of a 6-year-old boy.

Bacigalupi, who rides a bike to work and frets over the size of his 1,500-square-foot home, says he lies awake at night worrying about the world his son will live in. That's one reason he decided to write his new novel, "Ship Breaker," for a young-adult audience.

"Adult readers nod their heads like a Chihuahua (bobble head) on a dashboard and say, 'Wow, that's really deep.' Then they get in their car and drive to work again," he says. "But with young people, they actually still have a chance to make better decisions than we made."

The massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has, sadly, provided some real-world publicity for the new novel, which takes place along the Gulf Coast and "definitely leads to the kind of world I've created," he says.

But Bacigalupi also sees the new novel as less grim than his other work. Taking his cue from "Citizen of the Galaxy" and other Heinlein juveniles, he says he was trying to write a "ripping good yarn" that would attract younger readers, especially boys.

But "Ship Breaker" isn't exactly cheery. It features teenage protagonists living in a brutal, socially stratified future where they perform dangerous ship salvage for a pittance, violence is a part of daily life, and bioengineered animal-human hybrids serve as muscle for distant, rapacious corporations. Pollution has despoiled land and water. Nailer, the protagonist, is constantly on the run from his drug-addled, savage father.

Yet it's a fast-paced, absorbing story that offers a somewhat hopeful message: You can choose your "family," and those who stand by you put blood ties to shame.

And the novel is "age-appropriate" for adults.

"Too much of young-adult writing is precious, and there are a number of very odd strictures," he says, noting that adult "gatekeepers" of young- adult literature — parents, librarians, teachers — like to pretend kids don't curse or have sex. Bacigalupi was asked to remove curse words that are used daily by many teens (well, specifically one word, which begins with "f"), but "they didn't blink when I said I'm going to grind up (a character) in gears."

He hopes the sheer adventure of the story, coupled with exciting technology (such as his future sailing ships, which travel up to 50 knots using high-altitude sails) will awaken a sense of wonder in readers. And just maybe, he says, he'll inspire some kid playing video games in a bland, soul-sucking, suburb to engage with his world.

"I'm delivering a short, sharp shock," he says.

Five Filters featured article: Into the Abyss. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Vintage makes case for living in the present - Denver Post

Posted: 04 Jun 2010 05:49 PM PDT

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In the world premiere of his 20th play, "Books on Tape," William Missouri Downs flexes his considerable wit in asking if our ability to live in the present has been quashed by our need for familiar outcomes.

If that sounds like a lot to get your mind around, fear not, for Downs brings this down to earth in the person of Adriane, an audio-book junkie, who wants her life to be the incarnation of her favorite taped stories.

This brief play is being presented by Vintage Theatre late nights on weekends following earlier performances of the comedy "Hospitality Suite." (It also gets a "normal" start time on Sundays through June 20.)

We meet Adriane (Kellie Rae Rockey) as she's enraptured in a "bodice ripper." Fantasy meets

reality as the narrator, the handsome Jeffrey (James O'Hagan-Murphy), suddenly appears and snuggles up next to her. We discover that Adriane met Jeff at a store where she rents and buys her books on tape.

Downs' lively dialogues move easily, between the couple's cooing assurances that they are sexually attracted to each other, to a discussion on the subtleties of time as manifested in the tenses they use — future, present, past or past perfect (Adriane's favorite) — to frame their conversation.

Rockey sparkles as Adriane, breathlessly weaving fictions into whatever circumstances she encounters. O'Hagan-Murphy deftly moves Jeffrey back and forth from a hapless, everyday guy, trying to enjoy an intimate encounter, to a Don Juan, systematically enveloping his liaisons.

Downs broadens his satirical targets from prepackaged electronic media to psychology and religion, as the plot unfolds. Jeffrey entraps Donna Paige Murphy (Boni McIntyre), a well-known self- help guru, whose books he narrated. "There's something familiar about you," she says.

Meanwhile, Adriane happens upon an exciting new church that she is persuaded to join by "Father" Larry (Anthony Bianco), who mixes and matches practices from various belief systems. Downs expertly milks this opportunity, verbally serving up a series of whipped-cream- filled pies in the face of sanctimonious mythology.

McIntyre zestfully embraces Donna Paige Murphy's mile-a-minute pop psychology, setting Jeffrey and Larry back on their heels. Bianco is one surprise after another, as his Larry morphs through a series of life changes.

In her director hat, Rockey sets a brisk pace that lets the dialogue speak for itself and keeps the laughs coming. Downs leaves us with some thoughtful advice on the importance of being in the present.

Bob Bows also reviews theater for KUVO/89.3 FM and for his own website, coloradodrama.com. He can be reached at bbows@coloradodrama.com.

"Books on Tape" *** (out of four stars)

Comedy. Vintage Theatre, 2119 E. 17th Ave. Written by William Missouri Downs. Directed by Kellie Rae Rockey. Starring Rockey, James O'Hagan-Murphy, Boni McIntyre and Anthony Bianco. Through June 20. 80 minutes. $12. 10:30 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays (following performances of "Hospitality Suite"), and Sundays at 7:30 p.m. Added performance 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 8. 303-839-1361 or vintagetheatre.com

Read a scene from the script

The Denver Post offers you the chance to read samples from original plays being performed in the area. To read a scene from "Books on Tape," click here

About "Hospitality Suite"

"Books on Tape" runs in repertory with Vintage Theatre's "Hospitality Suite, right (photo by Ellen Nelson). In a small hotel room, three representatives of an industrial lubricants firm prepare to host a convention hospitality suite, desperate to make the acquaintance of the one man who can save their ailing company. A regional premiere by Colorado native Roger Rueff. Performs at 7:30 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, and June 8; and 2:30 p.m. Sundays, through June 20. 303-839-1361 or vintagetheatre.com

Five Filters featured article: Into the Abyss. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Jumat, 04 Juni 2010