Join us on May 14th for a discussion panel led by Joe Aspler: So Many Connecticut Yankees!

Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) was not the first time travel story. However, it was probably the first in the subgenre of the person transported to an earlier era, who decides to bring his new home “up to date” as part of his survival plan. 21st century inflation has brought us from one individual to entire islands, fleets, and towns.

We  invite people to discuss their favourite time travel stories of this genre. We’ll begin with the following.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, by Mark Twain (1889)

 Lest Darkness Fall, by L. Sprague de Camp (1939)

 Nantucket, series, by S.M. Stirling (1998 – 2000)

Axis of Time, series (aka World War 2.0) by John Birmingham (2004 – 2007, plus short fiction)

1632 series (aka Ring of Fire), started by Eric Flint; expanded into a shared universe with many contributors, many novels, much short fiction. Their online magazine also features non-fiction articles and discussions of how to adapt 21st century technology to the 17th century. And it’s still going strong.

The Terrors of Topanga Canyon: B-Movie Monster-Maker Paul Blaisdell’s Fleeting Sci-Fi Film Career

 Artist and sculptor Paul Blaisdell is fondly remembered by fans of mid-century sci-fi cinema for his memorably outlandish B-movie creatures.

In the mid-1950s, Blaisdell earned a reputation among independent genre film producers like Roger Corman for quickly designing and cheaply fabricating movie monsters, leading to his rapid rise and brief reign as the go-to monster-maker among Hollywood’s low-budget sci-fi/horror filmmakers. Often donning his monster suits to play the beasts on screen, Blaisdell’s special effects work was too frequently uncredited, and just as quickly as he rose within the industry, the rapacious nature and changing fortunes of the movie business conspired to drive a disillusioned Blaisdell entirely out of the entertainment field by the early 1960s, never to return.

Today, his then-largely unsung contributions to the field are acknowledged and heralded by modern Hollywood.

Members will be sent an invitation to the zoom session on the 14th of May. visitors are welcome, please contact <president@monsffa.ca> for the link to zoom.