Pixel Scroll 5/8/25 It’s Just A Scroll To The Left

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(1) FUTURE TENSE. April 2025’s Future Tense Fiction story is “The 28th,” by Mark Stasenko—a story about AI, bias, and the criminal justice system.

The response essay by legal scholar Elizabeth Joh, of the University of California Davis, is “Automated Justice?”

… Yet nowhere is the use of AI as fraught as it is in the criminal justice system, where adverse decisions lead to starkly life-altering outcomes. This isn’t a hypothetical future concern: criminal justice automation of varying degrees has already arrived. Local police agencies can turn to predictive technologies to help direct patrol resources and even generate police reports. A number of jurisdictions use risk assessment tools to decide who should be detained pretrial. Others permit judges to use algorithmic tools to determine criminal sentences. Parole boards can rely on automated assessments to identify who should be eligible for parole.

So AI is already present in the criminal justice system. But how far should it go?…

(2) INFLUENCE OF ‘CLOUD ATLAS’. Charlie Jane Anders explores the question “Has ‘Cloud Atlas’ Become a Genre?” at Happy Dancing. Here’s an excerpt:

…I also feel like Cloud Atlas has become a shorthand for “genre-hopping novel with literary aspirations.”

As I’ve said before, this is how genres happen: a book comes along that everybody loves so much, they want more of the same. And “more of the same” leads to the use of tropes or devices that are reminiscent of that influential work. 

To find out more, I talked to four authors of recent books that seemed to bear a clear influence from Cloud Atlas. Here’s what they told me.

Conscious influence

“I conceived of Down in the Sea of Angels as Cloud Atlas meets X-Men,” says Khan Wong of his brand new novel. Down in the Sea of Angels is about Maida Sun, who can touch any object and see the stories of anyone who’s interacted with it in the past. Maida’s story in 2106 becomes intertwined with stories of a girl in a 1906 brothel and a tech worker in 2006. Wong describes it as “a time-hopping dystopian fantasy about psychic powers, liberation, and our interconnectedness through time.”

Wong says that he started out doing something more similar to Cloud Atlas’ format of six storylines spanning vast periods of time. But as he developed the novel, he “scaled it back, “both in terms of the span of time and the number of storylines and genres.”…

(3) ADULTING NEEDED. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Cli-Fi is becoming an established sub-genre of SF no least with books like Kim Stanley Robinson’s  Ministry For The Future.  However most politicians simply don’t get it: some even deny it! Meanwhile scientists working in the area are suffering mentally. This is something of which I am acutely aware having worked in climate science for a number of years.  So this week’s Nature has  a very important editorial message on behalf of today’s youth….

“Adults should finally act like adults  on climate change”:

“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.” This rebuke to the delegates at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York City in 2019 came from a tearful Greta Thunberg, founder of the children’s climate movement Fridays For Future. Then aged 16, she urged attendees to inject more urgency into keeping global warming to within 1.5 °C of pre-industrial levels. Since then, hundreds of thousands of children around the world have made similarly impassioned appeals to adults to heed the overwhelming evidence of the dangers of climate change. But so far, a grown-up sense of responsibility is lacking….

…Quantifying what climate change will mean for those being born now is an active topic of research. This week in Nature, one group of climate researchers reports findings (L. Grant et al. Nature 641, 374–379; 2025) that must surely make adults take more notice of what younger people are saying. Building on an earlier study (W. Thiery et al. Science 374,158–160; 2021), Luke Grant, a climate researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and his colleagues report that children and young people born in the present decade face exposure to heatwaves, crop failures, floods, droughts, wildfires and tropical cyclones, in a way that their parents and grandparents never did — and that this applies pretty much anywhere in the world.

Non-PDF version of the editorial with links to this week’s relevant research  here.

(4) THE BIG THREE AND FRIENDS. Big Issue offers several examples in “These are all the times sci-fi writers predicted the future”.

…In a 1964 interview for the BBC’s Horizon program, another of the ‘Big Three’, Arthur C Clarke, said: “I’m perfectly serious when I suggest that one day we may have brain surgeons in Edinburgh operating on patients in New Zealand.” He expanded on this in his 1975 novel Imperial Earth, in which the protagonist explains the risks of telesurgery over a network experiencing high latency: “A half-second lag would not matter in conversation; but between a surgeon’s hand and eye, it might be fatal.”

Clarke’s vision became reality in (fittingly) 2001, when a New York-based surgeon removed the gall bladder of a patient in Strasbourg, 6,200km away. A medical robot called ZEUS cut the patient’s flesh; the surgeon’s movements reached ZEUS across a network designed to minimise lag times…. 

…Sometimes one sees a prediction coming true in real time, and asks: will we heed the warnings SF gave us? Jack Williamson’s 1947 novelette With Folded Hands tells of a new type of robot following a Prime Directive: “to serve and obey and guard men from harm”. Since the robots work for free, soon no one has a job. It gets worse. The robots take the “guard men from harm” directive too literally.

They ensure a person can’t do anything remotely dangerous. Before long, humans can do nothing except sit… with folded hands. We should not fear this scenario. But one can easily imagine a world in which creatives – writers, painters, musicians, photographers – twiddle their thumbs while AI spews out soulless content on demand.

Writers such as Williamson saw the threat eight decades ago. Don’t complain we’ve had no time to prepare.

(5) THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING GAMING NEWS SCENE. [Item by Steven French.] The Guardian’s “Pushing Buttons” newsletter laments further loss of authenticity in video games journalism: “When video games journalism eats itself, we all lose out”.

Last week was a bad one for video games journalism. Two key contributors to the veteran site Giant Bomb, Jeff Grubb and Mike Minotti, have announced their departure after a recent podcast was taken down. The 888th episode of the Giant Bombcast reportedly featured a section lampooning new brand guidelinesissued to staff and is no longer available online. Later this week, it was announced that major US site Polygon was being sold to Valnet, owner of the ScreenRant and GameRant brands, resulting in a swathe of job losses. This follows ReedPop’s sale, in 2024, of four high-profile UK-based sites – Eurogamer, GamesIndustry.biz, Rock Paper Shotgun and VG247 – to IGN Entertainment, owned by Ziff Davis, which also resulted in redundancies.

It’s sad how these long-standing sites, each with vast audiences and sturdy reputations, have been traded and chopped up like commodities. On selling Polygon, Vox CEO Jim Bankoff said in a statement: “This transaction will enable us to focus our energies and investment resources in other priority areas of growth across our portfolio.” It felt gross, to be honest, to see this decade-old bastion of progressive video games writing being reduced to an asset ripe for off-loading. Of its purchase Valnet said: “Polygon is poised to reach new editorial heights through focused investment and innovation.” Quite how it will do that with a significantly reduced staff is anyone’s guess….

(6) THIRD (SEASON) FOUNDATION. Gizmodo analyzes the Season 3 teaser: “Foundation Season 3 Shares a First Look for Lee Pace Fans (and Everyone Else)”. Returns on Apple TV+ on July 11.

…Here’s the official description for the season: “Set 152 years after the events of season two, the Foundation has become increasingly established far beyond its humble beginnings while the Cleonic Dynasty’s Empire has dwindled. As both of these galactic powers forge an uneasy alliance, a threat to the entire galaxy appears in the fearsome form of a warlord known as ‘The Mule’ whose sights are set on ruling the universe by use of physical and military force, as well as mind control. It’s anyone’s guess who will win, who will lose, who will live and who will die as Hari Seldon, Gaal Dornick, the Cleons, and Demerzel play a potentially deadly game of intergalactic chess.”…

(7) NOTES FROM BEAR MCCREARY. “‘The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power’ Composer Bear McCreary On ‘Limitless Palette’ Of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Work & ‘Pushing Boundaries’ For Season 3” at Deadline.

…With Season 2 and the rise of Sauron, McCreary was excited to musically explore parts of Tolkien’s world that haven’t been adapted to screen. “We go to this part of the map that no adaptation has ever done before, the lands of Rhûn, and I’ve always wanted to write for the Bulgarian women’s choir,” says McCreary. “They are singing in a language Tolkien himself devised, so they had to learn it phonetically. But they brought all the beautiful, unique things that come with that kind of music.”…

(8) TOMORROW PRIZE CEREMONY. The Omega Sci-Fi Project’s “Tomorrow Prize & The Green Feather Award: Celebrity Readings & Honors” will be held on Saturday, May 17, from 4:00-6:00 p.m. at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena. Free registration at the link.

Our line-up of incredible guest stars include:

Nana Visitor from Star Trek: Deep Space, Tim Russ from Star Trek: Voyager, Isabella Gomez from One Day at a Time, Marcelo Tubert from Star Trek: The Next Generation, Amy Tolsky from Jury Duty, and Rico E. Anderson from Star Trek: Renegades.

Students winners and honorees of the Omega Sci-Fi Project’s awards are publicly recognized at the incredible May culminating event, where celebrity actors perform dramatic readings of finalists’ stories that you won’t want to miss!

“The young writers are offered a wonderful chance at recognition for their creative work through the awards process. Often, students don’t even realize that creative writing is a meaningful way for them to explore a world they struggle to understand. That is, until they get to try it!” says Bodin Adler, a participating teacher from Hollywood High School.

This event culminates a season of classroom workshops led by trained writers and literary enthusiasts and are free to any educator who wishes to participate. Within these workshops, students get to explore the development, writing, and editing processes for crafting a short science fiction story, preparing them to submit their original work to The Tomorrow Prize or The Green Feather Award, the two competitions offered under the Omega Sci-Fi Project umbrella. 

(9) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Sir Harry Paget Flashman VC, KCB, KCIE, 1822 – 1915

I grant he’s not even genre adjacent, but I’ll give you a tale in a minute that makes it relevant to us. Harry Flashman appears in a series of twelve George MacDonald Fraser’s books collectively known as The Flashman Papers. If Flashman had a birthday, the author says it would have been earlier this week, May 5. 

The first novel, Flashman, was published in 1969 and many readers here in the States thought it was a work of non-fiction. He’s certainly not the only fictional that readers have assumed was real. Or wished was so. Who would you would want to be? 

The books center on the exploits of Harry Flashman. He is a cowardly British soldier, rake and just generally disreputable character who is placed in a series of real historical incidents between 1839 and 1894. It must be noted that despite his cowardice and his attempts to flee danger whenever possible, he becomes a decorated war hero and rises to the rank of brigadier-general. 

There is a Chumbawamba  song, “Hanging on the Old Barb Wire”, which has the lyric 

If you want to find the general
I know where he is
He’s pinning another medal on his chest
I saw him, I saw him
Pinning another medal on his chest
Pinning another medal on his chest

(It’s a variant of a Great War song of the same name. As the band notes on their  English Rebel Songs 1381–1914 LP, “Hanging on the Old Barbed Wire was written by soldiers in the trenches in the first world war. Designed to be sung whilst marching the song is one of many showing the dissent and disgust at the way war perpetuates the inequalities of rich and poor—those with the money give the orders, those without money face the guns.”)

Royal Flash, the 1975 British film, is based upon the second Flashman novel of the same name. It stars a thirty-two year old Malcolm McDowell as Flashman. It was not well received as The Observer noted it left them “breathless not so much with enchantment as with boredom”. However audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes currently give it a rating of sixty-four percent which isn’t bad at all. 

Here’s the trailer with a really funny narrator. As always, the standard warming about linking to copies of the film which is up on YouTube apply. You really don’t want to be defenestrated, do you? It can be rather painful or worse. 

Now for that genre connection that mentioned much earlier. No, I didn’t forget… 

Kage Baker didn’t actually write a Flashman novel, though we talked several times about her doing so, but the bones of one appeared in one of her novels as her sister Kathleen told me here: “Most of her notes she used in her last novel, Not Less Than Gods, which she wrote while she was sick, and that was published as she was dying. As far as I can tell, Kage and I were the only people in the world who liked it. A lot of it was panned because the reviewers didn’t get most of the satire, or hated Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax, or both. Anyway, even if you personally disliked the book, I think you can see the bones of a Flashman novel there.” 

Now the Green Man reviewer also liked it though he had a lump in his throat as Kage had just died as he wrote his review.

I’m pleased to say the entire series is available in hardcover, trade paperback, epub and audiobook.   As audiobooks, the narration as done by David Chase captures the character extraordinarily well. 

(10) COMICS SECTION.

Or, if you prefer a smaller bookshop:

— Tom Gauld (@tomgauld.bsky.social) 2025-05-05T16:23:31.496Z

(11) SFF TO STREAM NOW. “’Godzilla Minus One’ and Other Science Fiction Movies to Stream” – recommendations from the New York Times. (Link bypasses paywall.) Here’s one of their picks.

‘Alienoid: Return to the Future’

Can’t decide if you want to watch a movie involving tentacled aliens or one with a sorcerer? Wire fu or time travel? How about ominous spaceships? The Korean director Choi Dong-hoon has you covered with his two-part “Alienoid” epic, which includes all of these elements. The second installment kicks off with a serviceable recap so newcomers can jump in, but having seen its predecessor, “Alienoid” (2022), makes the overall experience more enjoyable.

The madcap action goes back and forth between the 14th century and 2022 Seoul, when an alien menace going by the Controller is threatening to kill the entire population by unleashing a lethal gas. The key to defeat the Controller is in the past and involves a weapon called the Divine Blade. Even more important are the actions of a ragtag team that includes the spunky Ean (Kim Tae-ri, from “Space Sweepers”) and her possible love interest, Muruk (Ryu Jun-yeol). Choi keeps up a steady pace, peppered with goofy humor and surreal touches, as when Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams” plays during a big moment. Narrative coherence is an afterthought in the “Alienoid” universe so it’s best to go with whatever wackadoo scenes the movies throw at you: What matters here is pure fun, and this installment delivers.

(12) SHAUN THE SHEEP 3. [Item by Steven French.] Who could resist a trip to Mossy Bottom?! “Aardman announces third Shaun the Sheep movie: The Beast of Mossy Bottom” – details in the Guardian.

A Halloween-themed third Shaun the Sheep film is in the works from Aardman Animations, following hot on the heels of the success of Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.

“Expect smashed pumpkins, wayward science, and a wild hairy beast,” said Sarah Cox, chief creative director of Aardman, about the film, which launches international sales via studio StudioCanal at Cannes next week, but has already been acquired by Sky for UK distribution.

“Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom sees the residents of Mossy Bottom Farm looking forward to Halloween – until the clumsy farmer trashes the flock’s beloved pumpkin patch!” runs a synopsis for the film.

“When Shaun turns mad scientist to fix the problem, things rapidly spiral out of control … With the farmer missing and a wild beast roaming the woods of Mossingham, all the ingredients are in place for a monstrously fun family adventure.”

(13) LEGO AND LUNAR OUTPOST PARTNERSHIP. “Lego and Lunar Outpost to roll out ‘Moon Rover Space Vehicle’ in August” promises CollectSPACE.

The United States’ first teleoperated rover to reach the moon’s surface is rolling out as a Lego model this summer, together with two futuristic vehicles inspired by real-life robotic lunar explorers.

The new Lunar Outpost Moon Rover Space Vehicle is scheduled for release on Aug. 1, as part of Lego’s Technic line of advanced building kits. The $99.99 set is the result of a collaboration between the Danish toymaker and Lunar Outpost, a Colorado-based company specializing in lunar surface mobility, commercial space robotics and space resources.

“Inspired by real-life Lunar Outpost vehicles enabling humanity’s return to the moon, this Lego Technic Lunar Outpost Moon Rover Space Vehicle comes with a moon rover, mining rover and MAPP rover to inspire endless journeys of exploration,” reads the set’s description on Lego’s website.

The MAPP, or Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform, was the key part of Lunar Outpost’s Lunar Voyage 1 mission, which on March 6 arrived on the moon, making history. It would have made even more, had the commercial lander that delivered MAPP there not have immediately tipped over, trapping the rover inside its garage. It never had the chance to actually rove anywhere….

(14) ONE LAST LANDING ON THE GLOBE THAT GAVE IT BIRTH. “53-Year-Old Soviet Spacecraft Will Plummet Back to Earth This Week” reports Gizmodo.

Kosmos 482 has been trapped in Earth’s orbit for 53 years but its wandering journey is coming to an end. The failed Venus mission is expected to reenter through the atmosphere in a dramatic fall toward its home planet, where it may remain intact or scatter its bits across a still unknown location on either side of the equator.

The Soviet-era spacecraft will plunge through Earth’s atmosphere sometime between May 8 to 12. As of now, the exact location of where Kosmos 482 will crash-land on Earth is still unknown, with a preliminary estimate that stretches across large parts of the world on either side of the equator. It’s also unclear whether the spacecraft will remain in one piece or if it will break apart during reentry, raining down bits of debris.

Kosmos 482 launched on March 31, 1972 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome spaceport in what is know Kazakhstan. The mission was an attempt by the Soviet space program to reach Venus, but it failed to gain enough velocity to enter a transfer trajectory toward the scorching hot planet….

(15) DONE BY DAYLIGHT. “Lunar laser: China makes 1st daytime laser-ranging measurement from Earth to the moon” – Space has the story.

China has achieved a milestone feat, making the first-ever laser ranging measurement from Earth to the moon during the daytime.

Researchers at Yunnan Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) used an infrared lunar laser ranging system of a recently upgraded 1.2-meter (3.9 feet) telescope to ping a small laser retroreflector on the Tiandu 1 satellite orbiting the moon.

Laser ranging over lunar distances is challenging, requiring sending a high-power, precise beam over 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometers) to hit a small corner retroreflector, which bounces the laser pulse straight back where it came from. The return signal then needs to be picked up by a telescope using ultra-sensitive detectors. Doing this in the daytime brings the added challenge of massive background “noise” from the sun….

(16) SQUAREPANTS TREK BLOOPERS. Animation Magazine is there when “Paramount+ Voyages Behind the Scenes of Crossover Spot ‘Patrick Starship Enterprise’”.

Following the debut of its new Star Trek: Strange New Worlds X SpongeBob SquarePants promo video (which you can watch here), Paramount+ has dropped a behind-the-scenes blooper reel full of illogical, astro-nautical amusement.

Starring Strange New Worlds cast members Ethan Peck (Spock), Anson Mount (Christopher Pike) and Celia Rose-Gooding (Nyota Uhura), the new video pokes fun at the making of the short and features some funny moments where we see the creative stand-in solutions for the animated characters, which include SpongeBob, Sandy and Mr. Krabs…

[Thanks to Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Steve Green, Joey Eschrich, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Mark Roth-Whitworth for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jim Janney.]

Op-Ed: About Choosing Convention Program Participants

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[Introduction: Erin Underwood originally left this as a comment and has given permission to republish it as a post.]

By Erin Underwood: I’m not going to get into the specifics regarding the use of AI by this Worldcon’s program committee. So, please note that this post has nothing to do with that…. However, I do recognize the appeal of using a tool like ChatGPT to help reduce a substantial, unpaid workload that is getting harder and harder to manage every year.

Instead, I would like to mention that one of the biggest issues that any convention program team faces (whether local, regional, or international) is figuring out who all these people are who are applying to be on the program. This is even more difficult since so many people complain about filling out longer, more detailed surveys. After years of running program teams or being a part of program teams, I can safely say that the information provided by potential program participants is often insufficient to make them stand out from all the other people who are also asking to be on the program.

Most of the time, these committees and teams rely heavily on long-time volunteers who are familiar with hundreds, if not thousands, of creatives across disciplines and over multiple generations. As longer-term volunteers disappear, their wealth of knowledge also disappears. This leaves new volunteers who are largely only familiar with the people they have read, seen, or are familiar with in their more limited capacity as a newer volunteer. We NEED new volunteers, and they are often doing the very best they can with the experience and information they have available to them.

Some common panelist questions that I have heard from volunteers include:
-Who is David Gerrold? What does he write? I don’t see any new books?
-Fonda Lee is a fantasy writer. Why would you put her on a YA or economics panel?
-What kind of art does Bob Eggleton do? Why is he on a TV show panel?

These are just a few questions that long-timers know the answers to without even seeing a survey response, but new volunteers are desperately needed, even if they don’t have the same depth of knowledge. More to the point, new volunteers are needed who are willing to do lots (and I mean LOTS and LOTS) of work for free, and those people have to actually follow through on the amount of work that is required. When I decide to run a convention program, I put in many hundreds of unpaid volunteer hours that fill up all my free time outside of my job between the months of August-February during the year – or thousands of hours if I also choose to also volunteer to help with a Worldcon. That is often a hard combination to find, and it’s a lot to ask of a person.

I can’t tell you how many times I have also seen program surveys come back from famous authors who assume that everyone knows who they are, and they only put in a bio that is pithy and funny… but doesn’t really say anything about their expertise, work, and interests. Their surveys are often detailed about when they are and aren’t available, and the use of tags and topics are usually very high level like: science fiction, fantasy, horror, diversity, writing, etc., which isn’t terribly useful when you are looking for panelists who can talk about “post-battle recovery from a medical or mental perspective within a non-industrial fantasy world.”

Additionally, the number of new, emerging, and midlist writers who are not well-known and who have 1-10 short stories and 1-3 novels is absolutely overwhelming from a program team perspective. We want to include everyone, and that is not possible. So, we have to rely on the surveys …. and when you are just looking at the answers and bios within a survey, easily 80% of survey responses look identical. Plus, the surveys are often sparsely filled out because people don’t understand the kinds of information that a program team really needs to see to understand that Author A would be amazing on a quantum physics panel because she actually works as a researcher in that field, but her survey only talks about her work as a fantasy novelist… or that Artist B would be a great panelist for that topic on how to restore engines in a post-apocalyptic world because he enjoys salvaging old cars and restoring them in his free time, but you’d only know that if you checked out his Facebook page. These are just two examples. I could come up with any number of similar examples.

But the core of the issue here is that when I work on a program, I spend easily half of my time googling authors who didn’t fill out their survey with enough information or writing to them to ask follow-up questions. That may sound like a normal and natural thing to do, but when you are dealing with 350+ people (or 1,300+ people), that can lead to hundreds of extra hours of unpaid volunteer work when you only have about 10-15 hours of time to give to your volunteer work per week. I loved doing it. When I run programming, I start the programming process in August (or earlier) just so I can get the program out by mid-January, and over the decades that I have been doing this, I have written hundreds of thousands of words in notes regarding what I know about people, and for privacy reasons, you really can’t keep these kinds of notes laying round. Yes, there are databases that could be used but you need to get permission to capture certain data and if you ever change databases, you lose all that past data …. and all this energy and effort over the years has burnt me out. People ask why I stepped back from running program. It’s because I simply can’t give that much time to a convention at the expense of my own creative work and mental well-being any longer.

Part of the problem is that we are dealing with real people, with real feelings, with hopes of achieving their dreams, with desires for success, and with love for the community they are a part of … and a convention’s program is the heart of the community because it brings all of these people together with fans, friends, and colleagues to talk about the things they love. Nobody wants to leave anyone out. Nobody wants to feel left out. And nobody wants to cause someone else harm … and it’s so easy to do these things unintentionally, despite our best intentions.

I, for one, would love to use AI as a tool to help cut down on some of that research time so that I could perform much more targeted research that is much more effective. I want to do a good job. I know every other program volunteer wants to do a good job. I also know that getting people to volunteer to work on program is getting harder and harder to do because they are terrified of landing themselves in the center of an internet firestorm, and the people who have the most experience at navigating this space without catching themselves on fire are becoming fewer and fewer … those who are left are burning themselves out at the expense of their own health, mental well-being, and creative success.

I understand the frustration and anger toward LLMs, but I think that we need to grant a little grace and understanding … and even kindness … to the people who are donating their time and putting their hearts, blood, sweat, and tears into trying to create these events that bring our community together.

Sometimes it is enough to say “this action is unacceptable” without burning everything to the ground, including the people … people who are just like the people who are raging in their angry protests, resigning their posts, turning down their nominations, and walking away from the convention. Again, saying “no” is enough. Thoughtful, if not stern, reprimands work far better than internet firestorms.

On a personal note, I don’t think I will ever feel comfortable volunteering or possibly even attending another SF/F convention again. I’m not even sure if this is the kind of community I want to be a part of any longer when every year, almost without fail, I see my friends and colleagues publicly shredding each other to pieces as they tear down different conventions, traditions, and communities.

I don’t think we can solve this problem as long as Worldcon remains run by independent organizations each year. Without a systemic organizational structure that has continuous annual oversight from year to year as well as some number of paid employees to maintain the structural, procedural, and data integrity, we are doomed to repeat the annual Ground Hog Day activities of the SF/F community dining upon ourselves at the annual Worldcon banquet.

Erin Underwood is a writer, editor, and content producer based in the greater Boston area. She has edited several anthologies, including Futuredaze, Geek Theater, and The Grimm Future, and her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in various publications. Erin is also an active volunteer in the science fiction community. She holds an MFA and enjoys exploring the intersections of storytelling, technology, and fandom. Visit her at www.youtube.com/@ErinUnderwood

Pixel Scroll 5/7/25 The Compleat Pixeller In Scroll

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(1) NEW SEATTLE WORLDCON 2025 DEVELOPMENTS. Last night Seattle Worldcon 2025 chair Kathy Bond and Program Division Head SunnyJim Morgan published their promised statement detailing how ChatGPT was used in the program panelist selection process. (See File 770’s coverage here: “Seattle Worldcon 2025 Tells How ChatGPT Was Used in Panelist Selection Process”.)

Some public announcements by departing program participants have been spotted:

  • Leah Ning of Apex Books has written a two-page “public record” of the reasons for withdrawing as a Seattle Worldcon 2025 program participant. Read it at Bluesky.
  • Philip Athans has also dropped out of the program – announcement on Bluesky.

Cora Buhlert has written a link compilation post, “Robot Hallucinations”, that also features a long exposition about what ChatGPT returned when she ran her own name through the prompt. The notorious prompt namechecks this blog, about which Cora says, “File 770 is a good resource, but it’s not the only SFF news site nor is it free of bias. So privileging File 770 as a source means that any bias it has is reproduced.” Which is true as far as it goes, however, I believe the reason Seattle included 770 was to corral news about code of conduct violations.

Frank Catalano recommends this Bluesky thread by Simon Bisson as “what appears to be a good analysis of the Seattle Worldcon AI prompt from a well-regarded and experienced tech journalist.” It begins here: “So I looked at the ‘query’ that Worldcon used, and as someone who has written at least two books on enterprise AI and many many developer columns on how to build AI apps, and, well, the slim hope that I’d had that they may have done things right has been dashed.” (Coincidentally, Bisson was once a frequent commenter here.)

(2) A LOT OF THAT GOING AROUND. Publisher’s Lunch reported today that the Mystery Writers of America apologized in a Bluesky post for using AI-generated animations of Humphrey Bogart and Edgar Allan Poe in a video shown at the Edgar awards ceremony on May 1

(3) AFUA RICHARDSON GOFUNDME. A GoFundMe – “Aid Afua’s Path to Recovery” – has been started to fund medical expenses of comics creator Afua Richardson, a featured artist at Dublin 2019.

Like most artists, she is not insured and has to come out of pocket for medical expenses after her major surgery. Please help her on her path to recovery.

Afua Richardson is known for her work on Genius and World of Wakanda. Other stories she has drawn for include X-Men, Captain Marvel, Captain America, and the Mighty Avengers for Marvel Comics; and Wonder Woman Warbringer and All-Star Batman for DC Comics; and Mad Max. She also worked with U.S. Representative and civil rights leader John Lewis to illustrate Run, a volume in his autobiographical comic series co-written with Andrew Aydin. She won the 2011 Nina Simone Award for Artistic Achievement for her trailblazing work in comics.

(4) PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION HALTS CUTS TO IMLS. “R.I. District Court Grants Preliminary Injunction in IMLS Case” reports Publishers Weekly.

In welcome news for the Institute of Museum and Library Services and two more federal agencies targeted for dismantling by a presidential executive order, the District Court of Rhode Island has granted 21 states’ attorneys general the preliminary injunction they sought in Rhode Island v. Trump. In response to the evidence and to an April 18 motion hearing, chief judge John J. McConnell Jr. granted the states’ motion, agreeing with the plaintiffs that the executive order violates the Administrative Procedures Act, separation of powers principle, and the Take Care clause of the U.S. Constitution.

From the first paragraph of his order, Judge McConnell upheld that Congress controls the agencies and appropriates funding, and he referred to “the arbitrary and capricious way” the March 14 order was implemented at the IMLS, Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), and Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS). He determined that the EO “disregards the fundamental constitutional role of each of the branches of our federal government; specifically, it ignores the unshakable principles that Congress makes the law and appropriates funds, and the Executive implements the law Congress enacted and spends the funds Congress appropriated.”

Notably, the order’s timing closely coincided with FY25 congressional appropriations. On March 15, the day after issuing the EO, President Donald Trump—a named defendant in the case—approved the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, mandating FY2024-level funding for IMLS and other agencies through September 25, 2025. In 2024, IMLS was appropriated $294,800,000, so the same amount was approved for FY25.

In some cases, IMLS is issuing checks, fulfilling its statutory obligation…

(5) TONY AWARD NOMINEES. File 770 lists the many “2025 Tony Award Nominees” of genre interest at the link.

(6) RACE MATHEWS (1935-2025). Charles Race Thorson Mathews, a founding member of the Melbourne Science Fiction Club in 1952, and holder of its membership number 1, died May 5. Race suffered a broken pelvis from a fall three weeks ago, and had been going downhill since. He died May 5 at the age of 90.

Fancyclopedia 3 recalls he sold off his collection to fund the courtship of his wife, and mostly gafiated in 1956 following his marriage.

He subsequently went into politics. He opened Aussiecon 1 in 1975, while he was a member of federal parliament. By 1985 he was Minister for the Police and Emergency Services for the State of Victoria and at Aussiecon 2 gave the opening address. Mathews was kind enough to let File 770 publish his speech, which was rich in fanhistorical anecdote. (It can be found at File 770 57, p. 16 (part 1) and File 770 58, p. 2 p15 (part 2).)

Mathews was the author or editor of numerous books on politics, cooperatives and economics.

He is the subject of a biography, Race Mathews: A Life in Politics by Iola Mathews, Monash University Press, 2024.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

May 7, 1931 — Gene Wolfe. (Died 2019)

By Paul Weimer: Were I to do this birthday properly and proud, I’d do a Gene Wolfe piece that had unreliable narration, used a prodigious and positively unwonted vocabulary, possibly footnoted, and definitely something to be re-read, re-examined and thought over for years. 

Unfortunately I am not Gene Wolfe, and frankly, few other others in the SFF genresphere have ever dared to try and approach him. His is the kind of work that like few others, you can read and re-read over a lifetime, and get not just nuggets but whole veins of new and exciting ideas. His ideas have influenced my RPG scenarios and ideas for years.

Jack Vance may have invented the Dying Earth, but Gene Wolfe codified it and made it a whole subgenre of his own with the New Sun books, which is where i began his work. I did begin a bit in the deep end, but a friend (and at the time one of the players in my TTRPG) said that I just had to read Gene Wolfe. And so I did.  Did I understand my first read through of Severian’s story? Not as much as I thought I did. Read number two went much better, and I keep thinking I need a read number three–I’ve made a couple of abortive attempts at it but the siren song and responsibility of new work keeps me from doing so.

After Beyond the New Sun, I went to the Long Sun (generation ships for the win!) and then moved on. I loved the Wizard Knight series with its Yggdrasil like setup of worlds (you all know how much I enjoy worldbuilding, even as I sometimes mistype Discworld for Ringworld and my editor misses it 😉 ). I think the Fifth Head of Cerberus might be his most accessible work, an entry point if you want to try Wolfe without going for some of the more elusive works. I think The Land Across is also a good entry point as well, and feels timely and relevant with its capricious rules in the government of the country our narrator visits (also makes me think of Miéville’s The City and the City). 

I’ve not read all of his oeuvre, but I’ve tried most of it. I’m weakest on his short stories and need to catch up on those (I’ve read Castle of Days of course, and found out recently a friend found a copy of the Castle of the Otter for a bargain price in a used bookstore. What a rare find!)

My favorite Wolfe are probably the Latro books (Soldier of the Mist and Soldier of Arete and Soldier of Sidon). These books are almost as if Gene Wolfe decided. “Paul Weimer needs books just for him).  Latro is a Roman mercenary, circa 470s BC serving as he will in the Mediterranean as a soldier. He’s had a head injury and so cannot remember events of the previous day (50 First Dates, anyone?).  However, he can see the various supernatural beings that populate the landscape that no one else can.  The books are masterpieces of information holding and withholding as we, the reader can piece together things that Latro clearly misses, all in one of the best all time favorite set of settings. Sure, you’ve got to work hard to really get these books, but that’s the secret of all of Wolfe’s work. If you want to read it, be prepared to do the home work. Sure, this series and much of Wolfe’s work is not a casual read (and I’ve tried audio and audio and Wolfe do not work for me), but Wolfe was Umberto Eco in full SFF guise. If that is what you are ready for, or in the mood for, Wolfe’s works await you.

I never got to meet him in person, alas.  Requiescat in pace.

Gene Wolfe

(8) COMICS SECTION.

(9) WATER, WATER, EVERYWHERE. “Hugo 2025: Flow” is another compelling review of a Hugo finalist by Camestros Felapton.

…Simple plot. The characters are a cat who is a cat. A labrador who is very much a labrador. A lemur that is a bit obsessed with stuff. A capybara that is a bit stoical. A secretary bird who possibly is a transcendental messenger of cosmic forces whose role is to usher the cat into a meeting with the divine to maybe save the world or maybe that’s a dream. So straight forward stuff.

Of course, I’m being intentionally obtuse. The film uses simple parts to tell a complex story with many thought provoking aspects, an intentionally unresolved mystery and a strong religious themes without any overt religion or religious messaging….

(10) FALLING ON HIS SWORD A SPECIALTY. Gary Farber reminds File 770 “I’m still willing to make sacrifices for fandom.”  He wanted to be sure we didn’t miss his offer on Facebook —  

Now I’m thinking I could volunteer to a Worldcon so they could have another body they could offer up to resign to take the blame for whatever Inevitable Embarrassing Scandal is happening in that half of that year before the con.

I wouldn’t need any actual skills. I could just have a title, and then be duly fired/resign when someone needs to be fired/resign in order to take the blame.

Future Worldcon Committees, I’M AVAILABLE!

Sandra Bond suggests his title should be, “Gary Farber, Omelas Fan.”

(11) MYERS-BRIGGS-SKYWALKER. “Woman wins £30,000 compensation for being compared to Darth Vader” – the Guardian has the story.

Comparing someone at work to the Star Wars villain Darth Vader is “insulting” and “upsetting”, an employment tribunal has ruled.

A judge concluded that being told you have the same personality type as the infamous sci-fi baddie is a workplace “detriment” – a legal term meaning harm or negative impact experienced by a person.

“Darth Vader is a legendary villain of the Star Wars series, and being aligned with his personality is insulting,” the employment judge Kathryn Ramsden said.

The tribunal’s ruling came in the case of an NHS blood donation worker Lorna Rooke, who has won almost £30,000 after her co-worker took a Star Wars-themed psychological test on her behalf and told colleagues Rooke fell into the Sith Lord’s category….

… In August 2021, members of Rooke’s team took a Star Wars themed Myers-Briggs questionnaire as a team-building exercise.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator sorts people into 16 categories based on how introverted they are, level of intuition, if they are led by thoughts or feelings and how they judge or perceive the world around them….

…Rooke did not participate as she had to take a personal phone call but when she returned a colleague, Amanda Harber, had filled it out on her behalf and announced that she had the same personality type as Vader – real name Anakin Skywalker.

The supervisor told the tribunal this outcome made her feel unpopular and was one of the reasons for her resignation the following month….

(12) FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE. [Item by Cliff.] When truth is stranger than science fiction….. “AI of dead Arizona road rage victim addresses killer in court” – the Guardian tells how it was done.

Chris Pelkey was killed in a road rage shooting in Chandler, Arizona, in 2021.

Three and a half years later, Pelkey appeared in an Arizona court to address his killer. Sort of.

“To Gabriel Horcasitas, the man who shot me, it is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances,” says a video recording of Pelkey. “In another life, we probably could have been friends.

“I believe in forgiveness, and a God who forgives. I always have, and I still do,” Pelkey continues, wearing a grey baseball cap and sporting the same thick red and brown beard he wore in life.

Pelkey was 37 years old, devoutly religious and an army combat veteran. Horcasitas shot Pelkey at a red light in 2021 after Pelkey exited his vehicle and walked back towards Horcasitas’s car.

Pelkey’s appearance from beyond the grave was made possible by artificial intelligence in what could be the first use of AI to deliver a victim impact statement. Stacey Wales, Pelkey’s sister, told local outlet ABC-15 that she had a recurring thought when gathering more than 40 impact statements from Chris’s family and friends.

“All I kept coming back to was, what would Chris say?” Wales said….

…Wales and her husband fed an AI model videos and audio of Pelkey to try to come up with a rendering that would match the sentiments and thoughts of a still-alive Pelkey, something that Wales compared with a “Frankenstein of love” to local outlet Fox 10.

Judge Todd Lang responded positively to the AI usage. Lang ultimately sentenced Horcasitas to 10 and a half years in prison on manslaughter charges…

(13) TRAILER PARK. Dropped today — The Long Walk (2025) Official Trailer.

From the highly anticipated adaptation of master storyteller Stephen King’s first-written novel, and Francis Lawrence, the visionary director of The Hunger Games franchise films (Catching Fire, Mocking Jay – Pts. 1&2 , and The Ballad of the Songbirds & Snakes), comes THE LONG WALK, an intense, chilling, and emotional thriller that challenges audiences to confront a haunting question: how far could you go?

[Thanks to Mark Roth-Whitworth, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, N., Paul Weimer, Ersatz Culture, Joyce Scrivner, Cliff, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, and SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Joe H.]

2025 Tony Award Nominees

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The 2025 Tony Award nominees are out. The winners will be announced June 8.

The nominees of genre interest are named below. The Wikipedia’s help has been enlisted to explain why some of these have been included.

  • Oh, Mary! is set in the days leading up to Lincoln’s assassination, which occurred while he and Mary were watching Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre. The show portrays Mary as someone who longs to live a life away from politics and be a cabaret performer, while Lincoln uses her as a beard to hide his sexuality, and is often away from home dealing with the issues of the Civil War, leaving her alone in the White House.
  • Maybe Happy Ending follows two life-like helper-bots, Oliver and Claire, who discover each other in Seoul in the late 21st century and develop a connection that challenges what they believe is possible for themselves, relationships, and love.
  • Death Becomes Her is a musical based on the 1992 sff/h movie.
  • Boop! The Musical is a musical based on the animated character Betty Boop. Betty leaves the black-and-white world and finds colorful adventures and romance with Dwayne, a jazz musician boyfriend in present-day New York City, where she is surprised to find that her fame has preceded her.

The complete list of nominees is at The Hollywood Reporter.

Best Play

  • Oh, Mary! Author: Cole Escola

Best Musical

  • Death Becomes Her
  • Maybe Happy Ending

Best Revival of a Musical

  • Pirates! The Penzance Musical

Best Book of a Musical

  • Death Becomes Her, Marco Pennette
  • Maybe Happy Ending, Will Aronson and Hue Park

Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre

  • Death Becomes Her: Music & Lyrics: Julia Mattison and Noel Carey
  • Maybe Happy Ending: Music: Will Aronson; Lyrics:  Will Aronson and Hue Park

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play

  • Cole Escola, Oh, Mary!
  • Louis McCartney, Stranger Things: The First Shadow

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical

  • Darren Criss, Maybe Happy Ending

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical

  • Megan Hilty, Death Becomes Her
  • Jasmine Amy Rogers, BOOP! The Musical
  • Jennifer Simard, Death Becomes Her

Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play

  • Conrad Ricamora, Oh, Mary!

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play

  • Sarah Snook, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Best Scenic Design of a Play

  • Miriam Buether and 59, Stranger Things: The First Shadow
  • Marg Horwell and David Bergman, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Best Scenic Design of a Musical

  • Dane Laffrey and George Reeve, Maybe Happy Ending
  • Derek McLane, Death Becomes Her

Best Costume Design of a Play

  • Marg Horwell, The Picture of Dorian Gray
  • Holly Pierson, Oh, Mary!
  • Brigitte Reiffenstuel, Stranger Things: The First Shadow

Best Costume Design of a Musical

  • Gregg Barnes, BOOP! The Musical
  • Clint Ramos, Maybe Happy Ending
  • Paul Tazewell, Death Becomes Her

Best Lighting Design of a Play

  • Jon Clark, Stranger Things: The First Shadow
  • Nick Schlieper, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Best Lighting Design of a Musical

  • Ben Stanton, Maybe Happy Ending
  • Justin Townsend, Death Becomes Her

Best Sound Design of a Play

  • Paul Arditti, Stranger Things: The First Shadow
  • Clemence Williams, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Best Sound Design of a Musical

  • Peter Hylenski, Maybe Happy Ending

Best Direction of a Play

  • Sam Pinkleton, Oh, Mary!
  • Kip Williams, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Best Direction of a Musical

  • Michael Arden, Maybe Happy Ending
  • Christopher Gattelli, Death Becomes Her

Best Choreography

  • Christopher Gattelli, Death Becomes Her
  • Jerry Mitchell, BOOP! The Musical

Best Orchestrations

  • Will Aronson, Maybe Happy Ending

Special Tonys are also going to be awarded to the musicians who make up the band in Buena Vista Social Club and to the illusions and technical effects team at Stranger Things: The First Shadow.

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy for the story.]

2025 Derringer Award Winners

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The Short Mystery Fiction Society announced the 2025 Derringer Award winners, and several special awards, on May 1.

FLASH

SHORT STORY

  • “The Wind Phone” by Josh Pachter (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, September/October 2024)

LONG STORY

  • “Heart of Darkness” by Tammy Euliano (Scattered, Smothered, Covered & Chunked: Crime Fiction Inspired by Waffle House, Down & Out Books)

NOVELETTE

  • “The Cadillac Job” by Stacy Woodson (Chop Shop Episode 1, Down & Out Books, January 1, 2024)

ANTHOLOGY

  • Murder, Neat: A SleuthSayers Anthology, Edited by Michael Bracken and Barb Goffman, Level Best Books

HALL OF FAME

  • O. Henry (William Sydney Porter)

This year’s inductee to the Hall of Fame is O. Henry (1862-1910), real name William Sydney Porter.  Though best remembered today for the Christmas story “The Gift of the Magi,” O. Henry’s hundreds of published short stories also include a huge number of influential crime narratives, including “The Ransom of Red Chief,” “The Cop and the Anthem,” and “A Retrieved Reformation.”  A master of plotting and effective twist endings, O. Henry exemplified the depth, range and flexibility of the short story.

EDWARD D. HOCH MEMORIAL GOLDEN DERRINGER FOR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT

  • Art Taylor

This year’s recipient of the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer for Lifetime Achievement is Art Taylor.  Jon L. Breen has accurately described Art as “one of the finest short-story writers to come to prominence in the twenty-first century.”  His many awards include an Edgar, an Anthony, four Agathas, four Macavitys, and four Derringers.  Art brings to the mystery story an unusually rich sense of character and theme; his stories are not merely puzzles to be solved, but insightful and engaging meditations on the mystery of life itself.  He is also one of the finest scholars of the history of mystery fiction, particularly in its short form, and unfailingly generous in his support for other writers, including through his continuation of the “First Two Pages” blog series begun by B. K. Stevens.

THE SILVER DERRINGER FOR EDITORIAL EXCELLENCE

  • Janet Hutchings

On rare occasions, the SMFS Awards Committee presents a special lifetime award: The Silver Derringer for Editorial Excellence.  The award was most recently presented to Cathleen Jordan in 2002.  This year, the committee is delighted to present the award once more, to Janet Hutchings.  From 1991 until her retirement at the end of 2024, Janet served as just the third editor-in-chief of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, indisputably the most important publication in our genre.  To mention just a few of her accomplishments during this remarkable thirty-three year run, Janet introduced readers to a huge number of the best authors in the business, including Ian Rankin, Ann Cleeves, Jeffrey Deaver, Val MdDermid, Marcia Muller, and many more; created the “Passport to Crime” department, which has presented the work of hundreds of international authors; and guided Queen into the twenty-first century with its first blog, podcasts, and digital editions.  It is safe to say that no living person has done as much for short mystery fiction, and we are honored to recognize Janet’s overwhelming contributions and influence.

[Thanks to Cora Buhlert for the story.]

Seattle Worldcon 2025 Tells How ChatGPT Was Used in Panelist Selection Process

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Seattle Worldcon 2025 chair Kathy Bond and Program Division Head SunnyJim Morgan tonight published their promised statement detailing how ChatGPT was used in the program panelist selection process. The complete statement appears at the end of this post.

Bond says ChatGPT was not used in deciding who to invite as a panelist, it was used “in the discovery of material to review after panelist selection had occurred.”

Morgan adds, “This process has only been used for panelists appearing on site in Seattle; panelists for our Virtual program have not yet been selected.”

Bond stresses that “ChatGPT was used only for one tailored task that was then followed by a human review and evaluation of the information,” and that “no selected panelist was excluded based on information obtained through AI without human review and no selected panelist was chosen by AI.”

As part of their remediation, the Seattle committee is redoing the part of the program process that used ChatGPT, with that work being performed by new volunteers from outside their current team.

Morgan also makes her own apology (the chair published her own several days ago).

I want to apologize specifically for our use of ChatGPT in the final vetting of selected panelists as explained below. OpenAI, as a company, has produced its tool by stealing from artists and writers in a way that is certainly immoral, and maybe outright illegal. When it was called to my attention that the vetting team was using this tool, it seemed they had found a solution to a large problem. I should have re-directed them to a different process. Using that tool was a mistake. I approved it, and I am sorry. As will be explained later, we are embarking on the process of re-doing the vetting stage for every invited panelist, completely without the use of generative AI tools.

And Morgan has provided the text of the ChatGPT query that was used in the vetting process.

The committee will be making their next update about the subject on May 13.

The full statement follows the jump.

Continue reading →

Pixel Scroll 5/6/25 All I Need To Know, I Learned From Pixel Scrolls

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(1) MORE SEATTLE WORLDCON 2025 COVERAGE. Two of the more widely-read pop culture sites have picked up the story – and heavily cite File 770, for which I thank them.

Jason Sanford’s new Genre Grapevine is also devoted to the “2025 Seattle Worldcon AI Fallout”.

Yesterday Elizabeth Bear and Fran Wilde withdrew from the Worldcon program:

(2) BALTIMORE BOOK EVENT FAILS. “Broken promises, Fyre Festival vibes: A Million Lives Book Festival was a disaster” reports The Baltimore Banner.

In February, Philadelphia-area author Hannah Levin found out she’d been accepted to participate in A Million Lives Book Festival, a convention of fantasy authors, narrators and influencers to be held the first weekend of May at the Baltimore Convention Center. As a new author whose debut novel, “The Treasured One,” was published by Aethon Books in 2024, she was excited about the event. “We thought it would be a big thing for us,” she said.

It was a big thing, but not in the way anyone expected. The festival, organized by Baltimore-based author Grace Willows’ Archer Fantasy Events, was supposed to provide an opportunity for writers to network and an audience of at least 500 to 600 paid ticket holders. What participants got, they said, was a disappointing weekend of dashed expectations, unfulfilled promises, lost money and more questions than answers.

“I think ‘debacle’ is the word for it,” Levin said of the event that was quickly dubbed online as the Fyre Festival of literary festivals.

The 11 authors, vendors and influencers I interviewed by email and phone spent between $300 and $2,000 to attend A Million Lives depending on their travel arrangements and other factors. They said they were promised special badges that designated them as official participants, a creator’s lounge, cosplay events and a VIP swag bag for the top two ticketing levels.

That didn’t happen.

“There was a huge financial loss for authors, vendors and narrators attending,” wrote a book influencer known as Azthia, who spent about $300 on a plane ticket but crashed with other participants when her hotel stay was not paid for as promised. “They were told 600 tickets and in the end there were more authors than attendees.”…

(3) ACTOR/ACTRESS AWARDS? “’The Last Of Us’ Star Bella Ramsey Defends Gendered Emmy Categories” at Deadline.

Bella Ramsey has a decent shot at Emmy success this year — and won’t quibble if competing in the Lead Actress category.

The British star of HBO hit The Last of Us identifies as non-binary and prefers the they/them pronouns, but said it was fine for people to “call me how you see me.”

Speaking on Spotify’s The Louis Theroux Podcast about gendered award categories, Ramsey said it was important “recognition for women in the industry is preserved.”

“I don’t have the answer and I wish that there was something that was an easy way around it, but I think that it is really important that we have a female category and a male category,” Ramsey added.

The former Game of Thrones star said they had thought hard about how to represent non-binary individuals in award categories, but did not have a solution.

One idea was to name the category “best performance in a female character,” but Ramsey said this creates issues for those portraying non-binary characters on screen.

One thing Ramsey is certain of is that being called an “actress” feels uneasy. “I have a guttural, ‘That’s not quite right,’ instinct to it,” Ramsey said. “But I just don’t take it too seriously … it doesn’t feel like an attack on my identity.”…

(4) ROWLING ON HARRY POTTER ACTOR’S SUPPORT OF TRANS RIGHTS. “’I don’t have the power’: JK Rowling won’t sack Paapa Essiedu from Harry Potter TV show over trans rights views” reports the Guardian.

JK Rowling has said she will not fire actor Paapa Essiedu from the forthcoming Harry Potter TV series over his support for transgender rights.

Essiedu has been cast as key character Severus Snape in the HBO drama, which is designed to run for more than a decade and will be one of the most expensively produced television shows of all time.

In a post on X, Rowling wrote: “I don’t have the power to sack an actor from the series and I wouldn’t exercise it if I did. I don’t believe in taking away people’s jobs or livelihoods because they hold legally protected beliefs that differ from mine.”

Last week, Essiedu, along with more than 1,500 figures from film and TV, signed an open letter condemning the UK supreme court ruling, which judged that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act refer only to a biological woman and to biological sex….

(5) CIVILIZATION ENDS: FILM AT ELEVEN. “Is This the Worst-Ever Era of American Pop Culture?” from The Atlantic (Archive.ph link).

Last year, i visited the music historian Ted Gioia to talk about the death of civilization.

He welcomed me into his suburban-Texas home and showed me to a sunlit library. At the center of the room, arranged neatly on a countertop, stood 41 books. These, he said, were the books I needed to read.

The display included all seven volumes of Edward Gibbon’s 18th-century opus, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ; both volumes of Oswald Spengler’s World War I–era tract, The Decline of the West ; and a 2,500-year-old account of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, who “was the first historian to look at his own culture, Greece, and say, I’m going to tell you the story of how stupid we were,” Gioia explained….

…He’s not alone in fearing that we’ve entered a cultural dark age. According to a recent YouGov poll, Americans rate the 2020s as the worst decade in a century for music, movies, fashion, TV, and sports. A 2023 story in The New York Times Magazine declared that we’re in the “least innovative, least transformative, least pioneering century for culture since the invention of the printing press.” An art critic for The Guardian recently proclaimed that “the avant garde is dead.”

What’s so jarring about these declarations of malaise is that we should, logically, be in a renaissance. The internet has caused a Cambrian explosion of creative expression by allowing artists to execute and distribute their visions with unprecedented ease. …

…in 312 c.e., the Roman Senate ordered the construction of a gaudy monument called the Arch of Constantine. It incorporated pieces from older monuments, built in more glorious times for the empire, which had begun its centuries-long decline.

The Arch is one of Gioia’s favorite metaphors for modern culture. The TV and film industry is enamored of reboots, spin-offs, and formulaic genre fare. Broadway theaters subsist on stunt-cast revivals of old warhorses; book publishers rely disproportionately on backlist sales. Entertainment companies have long understood the power of giving people more of what they already like, but recommendation algorithms take that logic to a new extreme, keeping us swiping endlessly for slight variations on our favorite things. In every sector of society, Gioia told me, “we’re facing powerful forces that want to impose stagnation on us.”

The problem is particularly acute in music. In 2024, new releases accounted for a little more than a quarter of the albums consumed in the U.S.; every year, a greater and greater percentage of the albums streamed online is “catalog music,” meaning it is at least 18 months old. Hoping to remonetize the classics, record labels and private-equity firms have spent billions of dollars to acquire artists’ publishing rights. The reemergence of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2022, 37 years after its release, seemed to signal that this was a good bet. A brief placement in a popular TV show (Netflix’s Stranger Things, itself a pastiche of 1980s movie tropes) could, it turned out, cause an old hit to outcompete most of the newer songs in the world….

(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

May 6, 1969 — Annalee Newitz, 56.

By Paul Weimer: I first encountered Annalee Newitz’ nonfiction, first, as a columnist, as a non fiction writer, as a podcaster with their partner Charlie Jane Anders. Four Lost Cities is an amazingly researched book looking at the rise and fall of four cities and what we can learn about the challenges they faced. I learned an amazing amount I never know about, for example, Angkor Wat. I think it is their strongest work and if you asked me “what one book of theirs should I read?”, Four Lost Cities is the one I’d put into your hands. 

Annalee Newitz

Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction was a surprisingly hopeful book, given its title and content. 

Although they have been writing fiction, too for a while, I finally got into their fiction with The Future of Another Timeline, with rival powers fighting for control of a timeline just catnip for me. Given the political changes lately in the United States, it feels even more relevant than it once did. And once again, I learned a lot about some historical events I hadn’t even heard of, thanks to the jumping around the timeline by the protagonists. But even with that, the changes to the timeline are not shown in some grand manner, but how they affect people. People matter to Newitz’s work. 

Newitz’ work is bright, well researched, deep, and thought provoking, with a mind like an engineer and the language and diction of an English professor. I am pretty sure that as good as Future was, I prefer Newitz’ nonfiction more, but I am primed for whatever they decide to turn their prodigious powers on, next. (In the meantime, of course, there is always Our Opinions are Correct). 

[Note: ISFDB and the Science Fiction Encyclopedia say Newitz’ birthday is today, Wikipedia says tomorrow. Happy birthday whichever is the case!)

(7) COMICS SECTION.

(8) HUGO VIEWING. In “Hugo 2025: The Wild Robot”, Camestros Felapton rates another finalist.

…As I said in the intro, the film has more bite than you might imagine. It’s not a nature documentary and their are kid-friendly fantasy elements to how the animals of the island live but aside from that the animals are presented naturalistically. There is a repeated emphasis on death as a common occurrence and the film is clear that animals kill and eat other animals. Fink the fox (the almost ubiquitous Pedro Pascal) is a key supporting character but when he first turns up he is trying to catch and eat Bright Bill, Roz’s adopted baby goose child.

The idea of juxtaposing robots with nature is not a new one but it is an under-explored one….

(9) VINTAGE PROPS. “Where Would Hollywood Find Its Guillotines or Pay Phones Without Them?” asks the New York Times. (Article is behind a paywall.)

When the Netflix series “Wednesday” needed a guillotine recently, it did not have to venture far. A North Hollywood prop house called History for Hire had one available, standing more than eight feet high with a suitably menacing blade. (The business offers pillories too, but the show wasn’t in the market for any.)

The company’s 33,000-square-foot warehouse is like the film and television industry’s treasure-filled attic, crammed with hundreds of thousands of items that help bring the past to life. It has a guitar Timothée Chalamet used in “A Complete Unknown,” luggage from “Titanic,” a black baby carriage from “The Addams Family.”

Looking for period detail? You can find different iterations of Wheaties boxes going back to the ’40s, enormous television cameras with rotating lenses from the ’50s, a hair dyer with a long hose that connects to a plastic bonnet from the ’60s, a pay phone from the ’70s and a yellow waterproof Sony Walkman from the ’80s….

… History for Hire, which Jim and Pam Elyea have owned for almost four decades, is part of the crucial but often unseen infrastructure that keeps Hollywood churning, and helps make it one of the best places in the world to make film and television.

“People just don’t realize how valuable a business like that is to help support the look of a film,” said Nancy Haigh, a set decorator who found everything from a retro can of pork and beans to a one-ton studio crane there for “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” which she won an Oscar for. “But it’s because people like them exist that your moviegoing experience has such life to it.”…

… “I don’t know what we would do without them,” said Pascale, who has won an Oscar for “Mank.”

No one likes entertaining that idea. But with fewer movies and television shows being shot in Los Angeles these days, and History for Hire getting less business, the Elyeas fear they may not be able to afford to renew their lease for five more years. If they close, Los Angeles will lose another piece of the vibrant ecosystem that has kept it attractive to filmmakers, even as states like Georgia and New Mexico lure productions with lucrative tax credits. Some Angelenos fear a vicious cycle: If the city continues to lose local talent and resources, even more productions will flee….

(10) SPEAKEASY. “AI-Dubbed Swedish Film ‘Watch the Skies’ Opening in Theaters” – Variety listens in.

When XYZ Films‘ “Watch the Skies” has its U.S. theatrical release on Friday, Hollywood will also get a glimpse at the state-of-the-art in AI-driven “visual dubbing” and its potential for Hollywood.

“Watch the Skies” is a sci-fi adventure filmed in Swedish (under the name “UFO Sweden”), but, uniquely, the actors will appear to be speaking English through the use of TrueSync, an AI visual dubbing tool from startup Flawless, which effectively syncs new (in this case, English language) dialogue with the actors’ mouth movements. The original actors recorded their lines in English as an ADR process, before the Flawless AI tech was applied to the movie….

(11) LEFT BEHIND. “Andor Leaves Out a Key Part of Star Wars Mythology, and I Think It’s Brilliant” says CBR.com.

While Andor enjoys effusive praise from critics and Star Wars fans, both usually fail to mention a key reason the series is so unique. The two-season Disney+ series is the first, and thus far only, story in the expansive saga aimed specifically at adult viewers. How Cassian Andor finds his way to the Rebellion meticulously examines the Star Wars political philosophy, which only works because it ignores an important aspect of the mythology: the Force. As a fan of both the political and spiritual allegory in this universe, I believe ignoring the latter makes the series absolutely brilliant….

(12) GETTING WITH THE TIMES. Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki reminds readers:

(13) KEEPING THE AI IN SETI. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.]  I spotted this article pre-print on the Nature website. “AI scientist ‘team’ joins the search for extraterrestrial life”.

The collaborative system generated more than 100 hypotheses relating to the origins of life in the Universe.

 Artificial intelligence (AI) researchers have created a system that can perform autonomous research in astrobiology, the study of the origins of life in the Universe.

AstroAgents comprises eight ‘AI agents’ that analyse data and generate scientific hypotheses. It joins a suite of other AI tools that aim to automate the process of science, from reading the literature to coming up with hypotheses and even writing papers….

…The result was 101 hypotheses from Gemini and 48 from Claude. One hypothesis posits that certain molecules found on Earth would make “reliable biomarkers” indicating the presence of life. Another suggests that a cluster of the organic molecules found in two meteorites might have formed through the same series of chemical reactions.

Buckner scored each hypothesis. She deemed 36 of the Gemini hypotheses to be plausible and 24 novel. By contrast, none of the Claude-generated hypotheses was original — but they were overall less error-prone and clearer than Gemini’s.

Primary research pre-print: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.23170 

[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Steven French, Jeffrey Smith, Daniel Dern, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kendall.]

2024 Otherwise Award Winners Announced

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The Otherwise Award winners for 2024 are:

  • In Universes by Emet North
  • “Kiss of Life” by P.C. Verrone
  • Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera
  • Walking Practice by Dolki Min, translated by Victoria Caudle

The Otherwise Award (formerly known as the Tiptree Award) honors stories that expose the many ways we experience gender in this world and others. The authors of the winning works will each receive $200 in prize money, and a medal commemorating their Award.  The jury also shared an Honor List of five works:

  •  “The Flame in You” by L. Nabang
  • Sacrificial Animals by Kailee Pedersen
  • The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy
  • “Scarlett” by Everdeen Mason
  • Vanessa 5000 by Courtney Pauroso

Each year, a jury selects Otherwise Award winners and a list of additional notable works that celebrate science fiction, fantasy, and other forms of speculative narrative that expand and explore our understanding of gender. The jury is encouraged to take an expansive view of “science fiction and fantasy” and to seek out works that have a broad, intersectional, trans-inclusive understanding of gender in the context of race, class, nationality, and disability.

The 2024 jury members were Eugene Fischer (chair), Avery Dame-Griff, E. Ornelas, Elsa Sjunneson, Liz Haas, and Sophia Babai. We thank each of them for their many dozens of hours of service!

The winning works will be celebrated and discussed at WisCon 2025, during the Sunday night gala (including speeches by the authors as well as the singing of a celebratory filk), and in a panel during the convention. WisCon 2025 (also known as WisCONline) will be online from May 23 through 26; registration is pay-what-you-wish.

Following the jump are some of the jurors’ thoughts on why they chose this year’s Award winners and Long List.

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Prix Imaginales 2025 Finalists

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The 2025 Prix Imaginales finalists were announced on May 2.  

The Prix Imaginales recognize the best works of fantasy of the year published in France in six categories.

The winners will be announced May 23 at the Imaginales festival in Epinal, France.

 [NOTE: The Prix Imaginales is a different award than the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire.]

Prix Imaginales du roman francophone (Fantasy) / French novel

  • Roman de ronce et d’épine, de Lucie BARATTE – Éditions du Typhon
  • La Boutique des choses inavouables, by Céline CHEVET – Éditions du Chat Noir
  • Kosigan, un printemps de sang, by Fabien CERUTTI – Éditions Mnémos
  • Une valse pour les grotesques, by Guillaume CHAMANADJIAN – Éditions Aux Forges de Vulcain
  • Le Cycle de syffe, tome 4 : La maison des veilleurs, by Patrick K. DEWDNEY – Éditions Au Diable Vauvert
  • La Sonde et la taille, by Laurent MANTESE – Éditions Albin Michel Imaginaire

Prix Imaginales du roman étranger traduit (Fantasy) / Foreign Novel translated into French

  • Requiem pour les fantômes, by Katherine ARDEN. Translated by Jacques COLLIN – Éditions Denoël, Lune d’encre
  • Les Cités divines, tome 1 : La cité des marches, by Robert Jackson BENNETT. Translated by Laurent PHILIBERT-CAILLAT – Éditions Albin Michel Imaginaire
  • Starling house, by Alix E. HARROW. Translated by Thibaud ELIROFF – Éditions Hachette Heros, Le Rayon Imaginaire
  • Les Sœurs solstice, tome 1 : L’automne du grimoire, by Jane Lenore VAMPA. Translated by Cécile GUILLOT – Éditions du Chat Noir
  • Les Beaux et les élus, by Nghi VO. Translated by Mikael CABON – Éditions L’Atalante

Prix Imaginales de la jeunesse (Fantasy) / Youth category (Fantasy)

  • Fleur de bastion et le renard masqué, tome 1 : Les loups de Hurlebois, by Jolan C. BERTRAND – Éditions l’École des loisirs
  • Pérégrine Quinn et la déesse du chaos, tome 1, by Ash BOND. Translated by Anne GUITTON – Éditions Casterman
  • La Tisseuse de vents, by Nina LAN – Éditions Didier Jeunesse
  • Greenwild, tome 1: Le monde derrière la porte, by Pari THOMSON. Translated by Thibaud ELIROFF – Éditions Pocket Jeunesse
  • Neige et poussière, by Adrien TOMAS – Éditions Rageot

Prix Imaginales de l’album relevant de l’imaginaire au sens large (de 3 à 6 ans) / Prix Imaginales for the album relating to the imagination in the broad sense (from 3 to 6 years old)

  • Bertha et moi, by Béatrice ALEMAGNA – Éditions l’École des loisirs
  • C’est bien, mon cœur, by Owen GENT – Éditions Obriart
  • Une aventure au royaume de porcelaine, by Katerina ILLNEROVA – Éditions Obriart
  • Un abri, by Adrien PARLANGE – Éditions La Partie
  • (Pas encore) une histoire de licorne, by Christine ROUSSEY – Éditions de La Martinière

Prix Imaginales de l’illustration (Fantasy) / Illustration (Fantasy)

  • Dragons & Merveilles, by Philippe-Henri TURIN (author and illustrator) – Éditions Gautier-Languereau
  • L’Encyclopédie du merveilleux : Les ogres et ogresses, by Étienne FRIESS (illustrator) and Cécile ROUMIGUIÈRE (author) – Éditions Albin Michel Jeunesse
  • Ether, by Étienne CHAIZE (author and illustrator) – Éditions 2042

Prix Imaginales de la bande dessinée (Fantasy, Science-fiction, anticipation…) / Prix Imaginales Comics Prize (Fantasy, Science fiction, anticipation, etc.)

  • La Cuisine des ogres, trois-fois-morte, by Fabien VEHLMANN (author) and Jean-Baptiste ANDREAE (illustrator) – Éditions Rue de Sèvres
  • Les Navigateurs, by Serge LEHMAN (author) and Stéphane DE CANEVA (illustrator) – Éditions Delcourt
  • La Route, by Manu LARCENET (author and illustrator) – Éditions Dargaud

Pixel Scroll 5/5/25 Piles Of Pithecanthropic Purple Pixels

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(1) JMS MOVES TO ENGLAND. J. Michael Straczysnki told Facebook followers he is pursuing his goal to write for British TV by becoming a Resident of the UK, which he is as of today.

…So it should come as no surprise that every year, when my agent and I have our “what goals should we set for the coming year” discussion, I’ve asked one question every time: “Is there any way I can produce a series in the UK and live there for a while?”

The answer, alas, has always been no, for the obvious reason that I’m not a British citizen or resident with a visa that would allow me to work in the UK. The closest I came was when we shot a big chunk of Sense8 in London. Rather than satisfy my desire to live and work in the UK, the experience only reinforced it.

Well, I finally decided to do something about it. Because that’s what dreams are for….

…Even though the outcome was far from certain, I made the decision to sell the house that has been my home for 25 years as a way of saying I’m committing to the path. Gave away or donated a ton of clothes and other stuff. If the visa went through, I wanted a fresh start, so I used much of what was left after selling the house to pay off debt accumulated during one pandemic, two strikes, and four years of paralysis in the film/TV business.

…As of today, I am officially a Resident of the United Kingdom. I can stay on indefinitely, can apply for full citizenship in three years, and finally, at long last, I am free to work for any studio, producer or network in the UK, from ITV to Channel 4, Britbox, Acorn…BBC….

…All of that being said, I’m not just leaving the US behind. My plan is to divide my time between both countries. In addition to looking after the Ellison Estate, there’s my ongoing comics work, several US-based projects that require my attention, and the possibility of more in the future, I want to launch some US/UK film and television co-productions, create series that can be shot in both places, and perhaps join arms with UK studios and networks already working to bring homegrown characters from comics and past TV series to an international audience.

But there’s that old joke: Q: How do you make God laugh? A: Tell Him your plans….

(2) RHYSLING AWARD NEWS. The Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) has announced the “2025 Rhysling Award Finalists”, 50 short poems and 25 long poems.

A short poem finalist is Pat Masson’s “The Last Valkyrie” from Forgotten Ground Regained 2. Paul Deane tells the story behind that poem’s publication and Rhysling eligibility in this Bluesky thread.

(3) PULITZER PRIZES 2025. The New York Times has the “Pulitzer Prizes: 2025 Winners List”. Complete list at the link, which bypasses the paywall. There are no winners of genre interest, however, File 770 has taken an interest in James because it has in common with Julia, based on 1984, the concept of retelling a classic from another character’s point of view.

FICTION

“James,” by Percival Everett

Mr. Everett’s book won for “an accomplished reconsideration of ‘Huckleberry Finn’ that gives agency to Jim to illustrate the absurdity of racial supremacy and provide a new take on the search for family and freedom,” the committee said.

Finalists “Headshot: A Novel,” by Rita Bullwinkel; “The Unicorn Woman,” by Gayl Jones; “Mice 1961,” by Stacey Levine

(4) KGB. Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel present Daryl Gregory and Carol Gyzander on Wednesday, May 14, 2025, at 7:00 p.m. Eastern. Location: KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street, New York, NY 10003. (Just off 2nd Ave, upstairs.)

Daryl Gregory

Daryl Gregory is a Seattle writer whose latest novel is When We Were Real, which Kirkus in a starred review called “a marvel.” His books and short stories have been translated into a dozen languages and have won multiple awards, including the World Fantasy, Shirley Jackson, and Crawford awards, and have been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, Edgar, and other awards. His ten other books include the novels Revelator and Spoonbenders, the novellas The Album of Dr. Moreau and We Are All Completely Fine, and the collection Unpossible and Other Stories. He also teaches writing and is a regular instructor at the Viable Paradise Writing Workshop

Carol Gyzander

Carol Gyzander is a two-time Bram Stoker Award® nominee who writes and edits horror, weird fiction, and science fiction—with strong women in twisted tales that touch your heart. She has stories in Weird Tales 367, Weird House Magazine, Under Twin Suns, and numerous other publications. Carol edited and contributed to the Stoker-nominated Discontinue If Death Ensues: Tales from the Tipping Point (Flame Tree Publishing), including her poem “Bobblehead,” which is nominated for a Rhysling Award. She’s Co-Chair of HWA NY Chapter and co-host of their Galactic Terrors online reading series. Follow her on Instagram @carolgyzander.

(5) SOMEBODY STILL WANTS TO RUN A WORLDCON? The Brisbane in 28 Worldcon bid woke from its ordinary social media slumber to leave this announcement on Facebook today:

Our apologies for being so quiet, we’ve been busy trying to organise ourselves for Seattle, and then a Federal Election happened. We plan on being more visible again from this point on.

Our bid is currently for Thursday the 28th of July to Monday the 31st of July, 2028. This is on the weekend following the total eclipse that will be passing through Australia on Saturday the 22nd of July, 2028.

We do plan on having a presence in Seattle for this year’s Worldcon, but the current situation is making that challenging. However, even if we are not there in person, we have people willing to handle things on our behalf, so we will have a presence there.

(6) ON THE TUBE. Camestros Felapton continues his 2025 Hugo review series with a Dramatic Presentation: Long Form finalist: “Hugo 2025: I Saw the TV Glow”.

… I Saw the TV Glow is billed as horror and while it contains a bunch of disturbing ideas and images it is not what I would regard as a frightening film. That’s not a criticism of the film just an indication that it sits in its own place rather than comfortably within one genre category. Of course, depending on your own life experiences (and particularly teenage experiences) this film may hit very differently….

(7) NEA PULLS PLUG ON GRANTS. “NEA Begins Terminating and Withdrawing Grants” reports Publishers Lunch (behind a paywall). (And the agency itself is getting the ax says Publishers Weekly.)

The National Endowment for the Arts began terminating and withdrawing grant offers on Friday night, after President Trump proposed cutting NEA funding from the government budget. Many small publishers, magazines, and publishing-related organizations lost funding.

The Community of Magazines and Literary Presses (CLMP) tells PL that they reached out to all fiscal year ’25 Grants for the Arts round one grantees in the literary/arts publishing category. “Of the 51,” said executive director Mary Gannon, “I’ve heard from 40 so far and all 40 have had their grants ‘terminated’ or ‘withdrawn.’ Some have already received payments, but not all.”

Among the institutions impacted were Open Letter Books, which publishes literature in translation; literary magazine N+1, which lost a $12,500 grant; Hub City Press, which lost $25,000; and Deep Vellum, which lost $20,000; Milkweed Editions, which lost $50,000; Electric Literature, which lost $12,000; Nightboat Books, which lost $30,000; McSweeney’s Literary Arts, which lost $25,000, and many more. (Find a growing list here.)…

(8) NASA PROPOSED BUDGET. “White House Announces Plans to Rip Up NASA’s Moon Program” – Futurism has the stats.

The Trump administration has released its proposed budget for next year, revealing massive budget cuts that could deal NASA’s space exploration and science efforts a devastating blow.

The agency’s budget would be slashed by 24 percent year over year, a difference of $6 billion, which is the biggest single-year cut in US history, according to the Planetary Society.

While space and Earth science funding would face massive lacerations, human space exploration could see its budget increase by roughly $1 billion in “new investments for Mars-focused programs,” according to the proposal, highlighting Trump’s desire to plant a flag on the Red Planet.

Notably, the Trump administration proposes canceling NASA’s “grossly expensive and delayed” Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule after Artemis 3, the first attempt to return astronauts to the Moon’s surface in over half a century, which is tentatively scheduled for 2027….

(9) BEWARE: THIS IS A THUNDERBOLTS* SPOILER. According to The Independent: “Thunderbolts: Marvel fans react to ‘spoiler’ New Avengers title change”.

…At the end of Thunderbolts*, CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) announced the group’s rebrand as The New Avengers. A graphic on screen after the film’s post-credits scene then informs cinemagoers that “The New Avengers will return”.

Now, posters for Thunderbolts* appearing in cinemas and on billboards around the world have been updated to reveal its new title: The New Avengers.

This development also reveals the meaning of the asterisk featured at the end of the original title, which was part of a carefully orchestrated publicity stunt….

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

May 5, 1979 — Catherynne Valente, 46.

By Paul Weimer: Reading Catherynne Valente for me started with Palimpsest. The idea of a map on people’s skin, pieces transmitted by sex, was a little out of my comfort zone. But the dream/faerie reality of the titular city, accessible after nights of passion, entranced me. Valente’s work was lush, gorgeous, vivid, fey, The writing was poetic in language and form, a puzzle like the map on the visitors’ skin.  

Catherynne Valente

I was enchanted by her work, even if it wasn’t my usual. I skipped into and Valente’s work here and there rather than making her a solid must-buy. Sometimes for my own personal reading, a little Valente was enough. It’s as if her work was too potent for me to consume continually.  But I enjoyed Six Gun Snow White, and Deathless, particularly. 

And then there’s Space Opera. 

Space Opera is glorious, and was glorious to me, who is not immersed into the world of Eurovision, which it borrows shamelessly from. Space Opera is part of the branch of Space Operas in the same realm that Cat Rambo and Valerie Valdes and Lavanya Lakshminarayan play in: Frothy, fun, and light, and yet with hidden depths. Character focused and oriented science fiction space opera, and yet interesting and intriguing worldbuilding. Space Opera is the leading edge of this slice of space opera, and even someone with Amusia can and does enjoy it.  

Sadly, for me, the follow-up, Space Oddity, charitably didn’t live up to the first.  But I expect that I will get the urge to taste the potency of Valente’s work again in the future. Like that map in Palimpsest, I will be irresistibly drawn to the faerieland of her work once more.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

(12) LOTR EAGLES RETURNING TO THE ROOST. “New Zealand airport to remove Hobbit-themed eagle sculptures” – BBC has the story.

For more than a decade, a pair of Hobbit-inspired eagle sculptures have cast a watchful eye over visitors at New Zealand’s Wellington Airport.

But the giant birds will be unfastened from the ceiling on Friday to make way for a new mystery exhibit, airport authorities said.

The eagles appear as messengers in JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, which were adapted to film by New Zealand’s Sir Peter Jackson.

The spectacular New Zealand landscapes featured in Mr Jackson’s films are a consistent draw for tourists, who are greeted at the airport by the eagle sculptures.

“It’s not unusual to see airborne departures from Wellington Airport, but in this case, it will be emotional for us,” Wellington Airport chief executive Matt Clarke said in a statement.

The giant eagles will be placed in storage and there have not been long-term plans for them.

Each eagle weighs 1.2 tonnes (1,200kg) with a wingspan of 15m (49ft). Riding on the back of one of the birds is a sculpture of the wizard, Gandalf.

Made of polystyrene and with an internal steel skeleton, each eagle has hundreds of feathers, the longest one measuring 2.4m (8ft).

While the iconic eagles will soon be gone, not all is lost for fans of the franchise: Smaug the Magnificent, the dragon in The Hobbit, will continue to be displayed at the check-in area….

(13) TODAY’S THING TO WORRY ABOUT. [Item by Mark Roth-Whitworth.] End of the world coming… well, it is, about a billion years from now. “Neither climate change nor meteorites – NASA confirms that the end of life on Earth will be due to loss of oxygen, according to Toho University study – here’s when it will happen” at El Adelanto de Segovia.

If you’re worried about the end of the world, you can scratch asteroids and climate change off the list of final threats —at least in the very long term. According to new research from Toho University in Japan, supported by NASA modeling, the slow fade of life on Earth won’t come with a bang. Instead, it’ll happen with a lack of breathable air.

That’s right: the distant future of Earth won’t end in fire or ice, but in something far more subtle: oxygen loss. And while that sounds ominous, you can relax. This isn’t something that will affect you, your children, or even your great-great-great-great-grandchildren. In fact, the end is about a billion years away, give or take a few hundred million….

(14) REVIVAL TRAILER. “SYFY Debuts First Trailer for Highly Anticipated Image Comics Adaptation” at ComicBook.com.

The first trailer for SYFY’s upcoming adaptation of the fan-favorite Image Comics title Revival has been officially released online. The trailer provides people with a basic overview of the general premise; a rural Wisconsin town has to adjust to a startling new reality when the dead mysteriously come back to life. What sets Revival apart from similar zombie-themed titles is that the “revived” appear and act as they did before they passed away. At the center of the story is Officer Dana Cypress (played by Melanie Scrofano), who has to make sense of it all as the town’s residents struggling coming to terms with the situation….

(15) CITY IN FLIGHT. “Starbase: Elon Musk’s SpaceX launch site becomes an official Texas city” reports AP News.

The South Texas home of Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket company is now an official city with a galactic name: Starbase.

A vote Saturday to formally organize Starbase as a city was approved by a lopsided margin among the small group of voters who live there and are mostly Musk’s employees at SpaceX. With all the votes in, the tally was 212 in favor to 6 against, according to results published online by the Cameron County Elections Department.

Musk celebrated in a post on his social platform, X, saying it is “now a real city!”

Starbase is the facility and launch site for the SpaceX rocket program that is under contract with the Department of Defense and NASA that hopes to send astronauts back to the moon and someday to Mars.

Musk first floated the idea of Starbase in 2021 and approval of the new city was all but certain. Of the 283 eligible voters in the area, most are believed to be Starbase workers….

(16) SHOCKING NEW TASTE. “Scientists unveil RoboCake with edible robots and batteries” claims New Atlas.

Researchers from Switzerland’s École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) have formed an unlikely collaboration team with pastry chefs and food scientists to create the RoboCake, currently on show at Osaka’s Expo 2025.

But this is a cake with a bit of a twist. Sitting atop the elaborate piece are edible robotic bears, which are reported to taste like pomegranate gummies, which have an internal pneumatic system that provides movement for their limbs and head. And, yes, these little dancing robots are completely edible….

… Not to be outdone, IIT researchers have made the world’s first edible rechargeable battery, using a recipe of vitamin B2, quercetin, activated carbon and chocolate.

“These batteries, safe for consumption, can be used to light the LED candles on the cake,” said Valerio Galli, a PhD student at IIT. “The first flavor you get when you eat them is dark chocolate, followed by a surprising tangy kick, due to the edible electrolyte inside, which lasts a few seconds.”…

(17) SQUID GAME 3. Courtesy of Gizmodo: “The End Is Here in the First Trailer for Squid Game 3”.

…What was up with that baby cry at the end there? And what game could possibly be coming with everyone getting their team out of a giant gumball machine?

We don’t know and that’s just the tip of the iceberg for all these questions. We love to see how 456 (Lee Jung-jae) is brought back into the game and that the story from the boat, and of the Front Man, will continue. In fact, everything has to wrap up here because the show’s creator, Hwang Dong-hyuk, has said this is the end….

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Michael J. Walsh, Jim Janney, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jack Lint.]