Book Recommendations September 2019

After last year’s insane autumn, we may well be facing yet further, highly vibrant months at the Otherland! First the best of this month: Right in time before the dreaded Brexit, NATE CROWLEY is coming back to the Otherland for another fun reading! We immensely enjoyed reading the aquatic Zombie-Klassenkampf novel The Death and Life of Schneider Wrack, and got to know and love the hilarious The 100 Best Video Games that Never Existed. So I’m both excited and curious what Nate has in store for us this time. We will find out on Wednesday, October 16, at 7.30 pm at the Otherland Bookstore!
Moreover, we have our usual routine: First, on Thursday, October 10th, it’s role playing evening - this meeting will be dedicated to the memory of Greg Stafford, creator of RuneQuest, Glorantha and the King Arthur Pendragon rpg, who died this time last year. The next day, October 11th, it’s Otherland Speculative Fiction Book Club-time again! We’ll be discussing Hannu Rajaniemi’s otherworldly spy story Summerland. The Mythic Fiction Book Club discussion, where we’ll talk about Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s also otherworldly story with the gorgeous cover Gods of Jade and Shadow is on Friday, October 25th. All events start at 7.30 pm at the Otherland Book Shop, there are snacks and drinks you don’t have to pay for, but we’re always happy about contributions. If you want to take part in the role playing event please make sure to drop Jakob and Simon a line under (service@otherland.de). If you want to join the book club discussions, we’d like to ask you read the book we’ll be talking about in advance! There is more to come for November, see you then!

Last Chance to See ... the Future

The Otherland supports the Global Climate strike on September 20th – we will be at the protest (starting at Brandenburg Gate at 12) and our shop will go dark on the day. On Friday evening we would like to invite all of our striking friends to join us for after-rally drinks and music at the store.

Lovecraft Country at the Otherland Book Club

Dear Otherlanders! I unterstand there has been some confusion about the next book we're reading, so here's the deal: we were originally going to read Hannu Rajaniemi's Summerland - a short alternative history gig in which Britain becomes great again. But due to organizational reasons it has been postponed to next month and the book of next month, Matt Ruff's Lovecraft Country will be discussed  this Friday instead. This was decided as early as July, but I failed to announce it extensively here on the blog, sorry for that.

Lovecraft Country is a delightful book that will engross you immediately! It is set in a fictional US with some supernatural/horror elements as well as some bitterly real elements from US history. Book clubber Henry was telling me that it is being serialized for HBO with Jordan Peele directing, yippie!

Meeting is Friday September 13, 7.30 pm at the bookstore as always. You don't need to sign up to join in, please just read the book.

Upcoming OBC meetings are as follows:

Release Event: Cthulhu goes to the Wicked City!

Berlin in the 1920s, a city of the arts, of theatre, of opera, of entertainment and all kinds of pleasures, but also of the working masses. Everybody who is anybody gets together here, the young go wild, it's the age of Jazz, and all the great German authors, scholars and scientists shake hands here. All the while, no one suspects the horrors lurking beneath this shrill and noisy veneer ...

Do You Believe in Vampires?

...because a young Stephen King believed he can make you!

There ain't no such thing as a horror book club who hasn't read Stephen King (need to shake off last book club's effects immediately, yuck). SO we are on our way to become an official horror book club, when tomorrow August 23rd, at 7.30 pm at the bookshop, we will for the first time read the King's 'salem's Lot from 1975, I think his second published novel after Carrie.
He once said "Give them to me young and they're mine forever" and so it is... Most people from my generation and background would agree. He shaped above all our sense of justice, he got us hooked on reading and had a huge impact on the way we perceive literature and horror's place in it. King means a lot to me -he is one of the two authors that I started reading books with, the second one is Agatha Christie. So you can guess that I'm thrilled about our upcoming session.
Even though 'salem's Lot, the story of a writer who returns to the small town of his childhood only to witness its gradual decay in the hands of a nasty vampire, is quite far from being the perfect book, it does an original and good job in placing decadent central European-nobility-horrors in lower middleclass US suburbia of the 70s AND features one of my favorite book characters of all time: Father Callahan (you might rather know him as the charismatic vampire hunter in the "Dark Tower" books).
So bring garlic and thyme and be there tomorrow evening for our next OBC horror special, and maybe think of your favorite character or scene in this veeeery long book. See you tomorrow at the Otherland!

Book Recommendations Summer 2019

The last newsletter in June predicted a quiet summer, and it was in fact a quiet summer at the Otherland to the extent that we could even afford to skip the July edition/or make a joint Newsletter Summer-Edition -which is finally ready!
So what’s coming up in September? If you’re one of the people who think that Tobias Meißner is by far not enough present at the Otherland, then here’s something for you to look forward to: On Thursday September 12, at 8 pm our favorite Berlin sf/fantasy/horror author will be at your favorite Berlin bookshop for a reading of his latest: Evil Miss Universe- this event is in German!
Our usual routine remains uninterrupted: First Thursday of the month (September 5.) role-playing evening and second Friday of the month (September 13.) Otherland Speculative Fiction Book Club, where we will talk about Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country. This Friday, August 23rd, we'll take a look into the world of vampiric horror with Stephen King's Salem's Lot! Both events take place at the bookshop, start at 7.30 pm, admission, snacks and drinks are free for both and contributions are always welcome. It would be super if you could drop Jakob a mail in case you want to come to role-play and it would be equally great that you read the book we are discussing at the book club if you want to show up.
Also: The Hugos are being handed out in August and we have people at the WorldCon in Ireland who will tell us at the Gatherland on September 19 all about how it was! Exciting!
Enjoy our summer recommendations!

Spectacularity this weekend!

Otherlanders b-ware and don't forget the Final Girls Berlin, Women in SciFi Spectacular Festival this weekend!
On my last "Final Girls Berlin" experience I was impressed by and immensely enjoyed the shorts selection, so I won't be missing those this time either!
There will be a small group of Otherland book clubbers there on Saturday, so please join us! Hope to see you there, in Ladenkino!

SATURDAY AUGUST 17

18:00 – Shorts Program 1: Otherworldly (89 mins)
The short films in this program are set in alternative realities. From the aftermaths of an ecological disaster to dealing with new types of moral dilemmas, these uncanny shorts will offer a glimpse into worlds both familiar and strange.

20:00 – ANOTHER EARTH (92 mins)
Directed by Mike Cahill, US, 2011
Starring Brit Marling, William Mapother

In this award-winning philosophical sci-fi film, a young woman (Brit Marling, The OA) who is filled with guilt and regret, learns about a parallel Earth, “Earth 2”, and wants nothing more than to leave her reality and go there.

22:00 – CODEPENDENT LESBIAN SPACE ALIEN SEEKS SAME (76 mins)
Directed by Madeleine Olnek, US, 2011
Starring Lisa Haas, Susan Ziegler, Jackie Monahan

Zoinx, a space alien, meets Jane, a timid clerk, and sparks fly. Zoinx is being tracked down by government agents, but that won‘t stop the new couple‘s love from blossoming.

0:00 – Shorts Program 2: Midnight (89 mins)
We‘ve assembled an eclectic mix of funny, bizarre, and downright unclassifiable sci fi shorts in this midnight program.


SUNDAY AUGUST 18