Hi there from Tachyon Publications!!

The Tach Pach – that’s Jacob, Jill, Elizabeth, Jim, Bernie, Rachel, Charlene andRina (not to mention Clyde the cat!) extend a special invitation to all of you to attend TACHYON’S 16TH ANNIVERSARY PARTY!!

16 years of saving the world, one good book at a time, and all of our friends and customers have had a part to play in our success. So we sort of want to celebrate you, as well!

Borderlands Books
Sunday, Sept. 11th
2PM to about 4-ish – we’re never in a hurry to leave a good party!

We’ll have cake by Madeleine Robins, food catered by yours truly, good conversation, a special giveaway item, and good books for sale (the Borderland crew will be happy to help you fill out your Tachyon collection!)

Check out what we’ve been up to the last 16 years with a visit to our website at www.tachyonpublications.com.

SPECIAL GUESTS INCLUDE:
Nancy Kress
Jack Skillingstead
Kathleen Bartholomew
Peter S. Beagle

And… just to tempt you further, we are planning something exciting and mysterious, thrilling and interesting, as a nice tribute to author Kage Baker!

No need to RSVP – just show up with an appetite for food and books!

Borderlands Books
866 Valencia Street, bet. 19th & 20th
(very conveniently located about 3 blocks between 16th St. and 24th St. BART stations, so no need to drive!)
www.borderlands-books.com

Hope to see you all there!
We’re excited about having been in this crazy business for 16 years…here’s to the next 16!!!

OK, so we promised you we’d have people associated with the film Ringers along to talk on Thursday. That’s now firmed up. We will have:

Peter S. Beagle, who wrote the screenplay and book adaptations of the 1978 Ralph Bakshi animated version of The Lord of the Rings (Anthony Daniels (“C-3PO”) was the voice of Legolas!), and worked extensively on ensuring that the purity of the story was transferred to the screen. Beagle also wrote an introduction to the American edition of The Lord of the Rings in the early 1970s. Beagle wrote his first novel, A Fine and Private Place, when he was only 19 years old. Today he is the beloved author of The Last Unicorn and numerous other works. He also wrote the teleplay for “Sarek” (episode 71 of Star Trek: TNG).

Carlene Cordova is an indie-filmmaker, web producer, and designer living in the San Francisco Bay Area. A contributor to the Geek-culture website TheOneRing.net, she also produced the site’s enormously popular Oscar parties for Peter Jackson’s The Lord Of The Rings films. Before embarking on the three-year journey to make Ringers, Carlene was a Senior Producer for Sony Pictures’ online entertainment network, Screenblast.com. She oversaw the editorial writing and entertainment journalism side of the network and interviewed dozens of stars on the red carpet at premieres and awards shows for Screenblast.com.

Thursday, August 25th – a special engagement for our film night!

Filmmakers in Person!!

Ringers – Lord of the Fans
One Book. One Ring. One World.

This award-winning documentary about the growth of Tolkein fandom, and how The Lord of the Rings has influenced Western popular culture over the past 50 years. Produced by local filmmakers Cliff Broadway, Carlene Cordova, Danny Lukic, and Jeff Marchelletta, Ringers won the award for Outstanding Achievement in a Documentary at the 2005 Newport Beach Film Festival and was nominated for Best DVD Release at the 2006 Saturn Awards.

The film says a lot about the early days, when it was part of hippie culture and influenced many people in the pop world, some of whom became famous and are interviewed. Ringers includes Leonard Nimoy (Mr Spock in Star Trek) performing “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins”. It tells the story of the first cartoon version, along with the Ralph Bakshi version filmed in 1978. The success of the Peter Jackson films is described through interviews with Jackson and the stars of the trilogy. “Ringers” is primarily a term for Tolkien fans who concentrate on the Jackson films.

Doors and cash bar open at 6:00PM

Event begins at 7:00PM

The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor — entrance between Quiznos and Citibank
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104

Don’t Drive — BART/MUNI Montgomery Street station is right at our front door, and parking in San Francisco sucks!!! Street parking ($3.50 per hour) is metered M-Sat., til 6PM; find a parking garage here.

Suggested $5-$10 donation at the door or the bar supports Variety Children’s Charity of Northern California.

Seating is limited, and is first come, first seated.

Saturday, August 13th

Tad Williams & Deborah Beale

6:00PM doors and cash bar open
7:00PM Event begins
Suggested $5-$10 donation at the door or the bar enables us to support Variety Children’s Charity of Northern California

A special evening of reading and conversation with Tad Williams and his wife, Deborah Beale. Rick Kleffel, of The Agony Column will talk with both, and moderate a Q & A with the audience. Booksigning and schmoozing in the lounge follows; books for sale courtesy of Borderlands Books.

All bar and tip proceeds benefit Variety Children’s Charity of Northern California — to date, we’ve helped raise over $20,000 for the kids in our community!

Robert Paul “Tad” Williams, originally from San Jose, California, is the author of several fantasy and science fiction novels, including Tailchaser’s Song, the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series, the Otherland series, and The War of the Flowers. Williams has just completed the Shadowmarch series, the first volume of which was published in November 2004. The second volume, Shadowplay, was published in March 2007. The third volume, Shadowrise, was published in March 2010, and the fourth volume, Shadowheart completed the series when published in November 2010.

In July 2006, Williams started publishing a new six issue comic mini-series called The Next through DC Comics. A second series for DC Comics called The Factory is currently in planning stages. In addition, Tad wrote Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis for DC Comics starting with issue #50, a project which began in March 2007 and ended with issue #57.

Deborah Beale was a longtime editor of books for adults and children in her native London before she began her career as a writer. Tad and Deborah live with their children in the San Francisco Bay Area in California, with far more cats, dogs, reptiles, pet ants, and banana slugs than they can count.

Together, Tad and Deborah are also currently working on a series of young-adult books called Ordinary Farm. The first volume, The Dragons of Ordinary Farm was published in June 2009 and a second book, The Secrets of Ordinary Farm is anticipated. Three more volumes are planned.

Rick Kleffel reports on literature, technology and whatever he can talk his editor into for National Public Radio. He hosts an hour of literary and theatrical talk Sundays at 6 PM Pacific Time on NPR Affiliate KUSP, 88.9 FM for the California Central Coast, and online at http://kusp.org/live. He rarely sleeps and sometimes plays electronic music. Check out The Agony Column for a plethora of literary reviews and interviews.

The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor — entrance between Quiznos and Citibank
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104

Don’t Drive — BART/MUNI Montgomery Street station is right at our front door, and parking in San Francisco sucks!!! Street parking ($3.50 per hour) is metered M-Sat., til 6PM; find a parking garage here.

The man of the moment in fantasy fiction, George R.R. Martin, will be appearing at Fox Theatre, 2215 Broadway St., Redwood City on Wednesday, July 27 at 7:00 p.m.. The event has been organized by Keplers Bookstore. Tad Williams will host. See the Keplers’ website for ticket purchase and details of restrictions on what can be signed.

Wednesday, July 20th – Film night!

The Adjustment Bureau – based on a Philip K. Dick short story, “The Adjustment Team”
The Men Who Stare At Goats – pretty darn funny!!

6:00PM – doors and cash bar open
7:00PM – Film starts
there will be a short intermission between films

SF in SF Film Night with Free Popcorn and Raffle for SFF schwag!
Cash bar and candy sales benefit Variety Childrens Charity of Northern California

Seating is limited, and first come first served.

A suggested $5 at the door donation is welcome and appreciated, so that we can continue bringing these events to San Francisco, and benefiting Variety’s mobility programs!

The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor — entrance between Quiznos and Citibank
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104

Don’t Drive — BART/MUNI Montgomery Street station is right at our front door, and parking in San Francisco sucks!!! Street parking ($3.50 per hour) is metered M-Sat., til 6PM; find a parking garage here.

Saturday July 9th

Doors open 6:00pm, readings begin 7:00pm.

For our July readings we are proud to present John Shirley and Mira Grant.

John Shirley is a past guest of SF in SF and we are delighted to welcome him back. John was a key member of the cyberpunk movement back in the early days. He is also a respected horror author. His most recent book, The Other End, imagines how Judgment Day might go if the narrative were not written by religious fundamentalists. John is also a gifted musician and lyricist. He has fronted his own bands, and written lyrics for the Blue Oyster Cult.

Mira Grant may or may not have attended SF in SF before. She is the evil twin of local urban fantasy writer, Seanan McGuire, who shot to fame last year by winning the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer at the Worldcon in Australia. More recently Mira’s personality has crept to the fore. Her debut science fictional zombie tale, Feed, has received nominations for Best Novel in the Shirley Jackson and Hugo awards. Rumors that Mira has kidnapped Seanan and plans to torture her to death in various slow and painful ways are hotly denied by her publicist (but then he’s a demon and does everything hotly). Mira’s new novel, Deadline, a sequel to Feed, is currently available in bookstores and summoning circles for appropriate payment.

Readings will be followed by a Q&A moderated by Terry Bisson. There will be the usual cash bar, benefiting Variety, and book sales/signings courtesy of Borderlands Books.

Thanks again to our podcaster, Rick Kleffel, who’ll be on hand to record the evening for posterity and those unable to be in San Francisco on the day.

The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor — entrance between Quiznos and Citibank
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104

Don’t Drive — BART/MUNI Montgomery Street station is right at our front door, and parking in San Francisco sucks!!! Street parking ($3.50 per hour) is metered M-Sat., til 6PM; find a parking garage here.

SNEAK PREVIEW!

Please join us! on Monday June 27th for

Vincent Wants to Sea

A young man suffering from Tourette’s syndrome absconds from an institution with two other inhabitants to travel to Italy to fulfill his mother’s last wish.

96 mins. Germany (2010), US release 2011. This film is subtitled .

Doors open at 6:00PM, 6:45PM – Seating for film; 7:00PM – Film begins

Free popcorn!! Cash bar.

If you are interested in attending for free, please RSVP for one or two people at this link: http://vincentwantstosea.eventbrite.com/.

The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor — entrance between Quiznos and Citibank
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104

Don’t Drive — BART/MUNI Montgomery Street station is right at our front door, and parking in San Francisco sucks!!! Street parking ($3.50 per hour) is metered M-Sat., til 6PM; find a parking garage here.

Taking place over the 4th of July weekend, at the Fairmont San José, the 2011 Westercon has Guests of Honor Patricia McKillip, Phil & Kaja Foglio & Mike Willmoth. You can purchase memberships here, ahead of time, or at the door. Tachyon Publications will be in the Dealers Room, and SF in SF will be doing a special event, with author Terry Bisson, with Patricia McKillip and the Foglios — our first SF in SF away from home!! Stay tuned for more details, and see you at Westercon!

Wednesday, June 15

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time & Paprika

Free Popcorn and Raffle for SFF schwag! Cash bar and candy sales benefit Variety Childrens Charity of Northern California!

6:00PM – doors and cash bar open
7:00PM – Film starts
there will be a short intermission between films
Seating is limited; first come, first seated
Suggested $5 donation at the door helps us conitnue to bring films to the SFFH community

Anime Celebration Night!

We thought long and long about what to show you folks this month — and we realized we’ve never shown two true classics of anime film. Both are wonderful examples of the anime genre, but we all tend to get lost in the Miyazaki fan squee. We’re pulling these two out of the vault, and think they are both fabulous films you’ll love. The first, very suitable for kids — the second, absolutely not. But both really great!

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006; PG; 98 mins.)

Something strange has happened to Makoto Konno. Time has suddenly stopped and moved her backwards. With her newly discovered ability to literally leap backwards in time Makoto finds that tests become a piece of cake, embarrassing situations are corrected and she can have her favorite food anytime she wants. Unfortunately her carefree time traveling somehow alters the fate of those around her. As she races back in time to fix everything, she notices that her abilities are not limitless but with every successful jump she is one step closer to discovering the most wonderful secret in her young adult life. This film showed in Japan to standing room-only audiences, and was the first recipient of the newly formed Animation Award in the Japanese Academy Awards, and won many other anime awards. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is a masterpiece of anime fantasy in its own right.

Papkria (2006; R; 90 mins.)

Anime soundly based in science fiction – great stuff! Cited by director Christopher Nolan cited Paprika as an influence on his 2010 film, Inception. Based on Yasutaka Tsutsui’s 1993 novel of the same name, and directed by renowned director Satoshi Kon, Paprika is about a research psychologist who uses a device that permits therapists to help patients by entering their dreams. The head of the team working on this treatment, Doctor Atsuko Chiba, begins using the machine illegally to help psychiatric patients outside the research facility, using her alter-ego “Paprika,” a persona she assumes in the dream world..but what happens when dreams and the real world merge has to be seen to be believed.

Paprika won the Best Feature Length Theatrical Anime Award at the sixth annual Tokyo Anime Awards during the 2007 Tokyo International Anime Fair. In the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun, reviewer Andrez Bergen wrote: “The film rates as the most mesmerizing animation long-player since Miyazaki’s Spirited Away…add to this some stunning background art, peerless integration of 2-D and 3-D animation, and some wonderful character designs by Studio Ghibli regular Masashi Ando. But Kon’s forte is in the surreal interaction of reality and dreams—which often drift into nightmares.” Rob Nelson of The Village Voice wrote that Paprika “isn’t a movie that’s meant to be understood so much as simply experienced – or maybe dreamed.” And, master animator Terry Gilliam included it in his top 50 animated film list.
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No need to RSVP for either of these events – but seating is limited, and first-come, first-seated. Once we are full — we’re full! 🙂

The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor — entrance between Quiznos and Citibank
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104

Don’t Drive — BART/MUNI Montgomery Street station is right at our front door, and parking in San Francisco sucks!!! Street parking ($3.50 per hour) is metered M-Sat., til 6PM; find a parking garage here.