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Fan-produced cablecast Fast Forward: Contemporary Science Fiction is completing its 15th anniversary. The monthly half-hour television series about SF, fantasy and horror began in 1989 and more than 170 episodes have aired. Tom Schaad and Mike Zipser are co-producers and on-air hosts, Kathi Overton is associate producer, Colleen Cahill reviews books, Marianne Petrino reviews anime, and John Pomerantz contributes special reports.
John's picture on the Fast-Forward.tv website shows him in a jail cell - I hope they'll run a contest where fans get to guess the crime that landed him there. Or maybe we already know - the caption says John is a former on-camera host who got demoted to special reports when he "complained that he wanted to have a life rather than spend all his spare time prepping for interviews."
Fast Forward is produced through the facilities of Arlington Independent Media in Arlington, VA. It is cablecast in Northern Virginia on channel 69 in Arlington and channel 10 in Fairfax County. Each show features an in-depth interview with a professional writer, artist, editor or filmmaker, plus a book review, a segment on a new or classic genre movie or TV show, and an events calendar
Highlights of four recent episodes included: (1) artist Cortney Skinner talking about his work designing mutants and media tie-ins for the recent feature film The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra; (2) author Jasper Fforde discussing his novel, Something Rotten, and saying about his elaborate website (www.jasperfforde.com), "I tend to regard the web site not only as entertainment and after-sales service ... but also like a big R & D lab for ideas"; (3) Susanna Clarke speaking about the 10-year process of researching and writing her critically acclaimed debut novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell; and (4) author and editor Laura Anne Gilman chatting about her contemporary fantasy mystery novel, Staying Dead.
Previous Fast Forward interviews are available on the website in video and mp3 audio versions. The "library" of interviews currently online includes the guests mentioned above, and also China Mieville, Kim Stanley Robinson, Bruce Sterling, William Gibson, Tamora Pierce, Nalo Hopkinson, Jack Williamson, Terry Pratchett, Karl Kofoed, Margaret Weis, Laurell K. Hamilton, Garth Nix, Roger MacBride Allen, and Donna Andrews.
Promised for the future are interviews with writers Elizabeth Massie, Pat Murphy, Terry Pratchett, Keith R. A. DeCandido, Neil Gaiman, Frederik Pohl, Connie Willis, Lois McMaster Bujold, and Patricia Wrede.
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