SF Signal: SF News Roundup

SF News Roundup

Lots o' SF news today. Nothing earth shattering, but still rather interesting.

From the PR wire, we see that there is a new, 6(!) volume young adult SF series from LaRene R. Ellis called 'Stones' Quest. It looks to be a mixture of SF and Fantasy and I've never heard of Ellis before either so I'm not sure how good this is. I'm assuming it won't be the SF equivalent of Harry Potter, but it is a SF book aimed at the younger folks. Which is always a good thing.
Next up, a report from Baltimore detailing the troubles the Baltimore Science Fiction Society is having in trying to convince a judge that they are, in fact, a literary society and therefore are an educational institution. This stems from the fact the Society's tax exempt status was removed from them. I do agree that SF, and its promotion, are in fact educational because you can learn quite a bit of popular science by reading and it will cause people to investigate further. I think the judge in this case is horribly misguided and needs to spend a few days with JarJar as punishment.
The News Tribune, from Tacoma, WA, has a nice article on Ursula K. Le Guin, inspired by the SF Channel's upcoming Earthsea mini-series (the commercial for it looks intriguing BTW). Nothing huge here, but nice to see a well know SF author getting coverage in the papers.
Dreamworks SKG has announced their acquisition of the US distribution rights to the Japanese live action SF epic, Casshern. I've been waiting for this to hit the US, but no word on when exactly Dreamworks will release it. I may have to force my brother to get the DVDs and then camp out at his place to watch it. In fact, I extend an invitation, on behalf of my brother, to everyone to come see it when he gets it!
And last for all you miniature gamers out there, you know who you are. The Figure Trader, a British gaming company, will be releasing a SF-based table-top miniature game called Sabotge. No word on whether it will be cheaper than the Warhammer 40K, but they'd have to work hard to make their stuff more expensive.