Reasons to Remember Bradbury

Born today in 1924: Truman Capote

John King Tarpinian tells the story:

Truman Capote was a copyboy (along with Harper Lee who was also known for a book or two and a neighbor in New Orleans of Truman’s) at Mademoiselle magazine in 1946. His job was to take rejected story submissions and return them with the rejection letter. One batch included The Homecoming which Ray Bradbury had submitted for the October 1946 Halloween issue. Truman read the story and loved it so much he took it back to the editor and insisted it be used, which it was. This was the first story of Ray’s in a mainstream publication. Truman and Ray are now resting at the same cemetery.

 

Dr. Jonathan R. Eller

Dr. Jonathan R. Eller

“Miracles of Rare Device: Treasure of the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies” reports on the exhibit of art and artifacts from IUPUI’s Bradbury Memorial Archive that ran from August 3 to August 28. Nearly one thousand people visited the exhibit in the university’s Campus Center Cultural Arts Gallery.

Bradbury’s desk, books, magazines, posters and photographs were displayed in the gallery, along with other mementoes the author collected during his lifetime.

Bradbury Center director, Dr. Jonathan R. Eller, narrates a video tour of the exhibit, “Treasures of IUPUI’s Center for Ray Bradbury Studies.”

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for the stories.]

Pixel Scroll 9/30 Bite Cycles

(1) Product placement. Would you like to guess what product is featured in The Martian?

Aston Martin, Omega, and Burberry will be among the brands proud to be associated with Spectre, the latest James Bond movie when it opens next month. But with product placement and promotional tie-ins now generating big bucks for movie-makers, brands eager to share a piece of the big-screen action now extend well beyond the usual suspects.

For proof, look no further than The Martian, the new sci-fi action adventure starring Matt Damon, which opens in the UK later this week complete with… an official potato. Though even this is not the most surprising in a recent series of increasingly bizarre promotional couplings.

…The end result is a promotional campaign for which the film studio used its connections with NASA to provide Albert Bartlett customers with an all-expenses-paid family trip to the Kennedy Space Center as a competition prize in a Martian-themed promotional campaign.

“They wanted exposure. They also knew that, while the film will have big appeal with single blokes, they needed a way to open it up to a wider, family audience,” Marcantonio explains. “Which means it makes sense at a number of different levels. Unlike when soft drinks companies tie up with just about any family movie they can find to reach kids, this tie-up is anything but spurious.”

Indeed. And for a more mundane reason, too. Because like the planet Mars, Albert Bartlett’s best-selling potato – the Rooster – is … red.

(2) Not all of the marketing has been a success.

Remember what I said the other day about not betting against David Gerrold when science fiction cinema is on the line?

His new Facebook post concerns The Martian.

So, here’s my review of The Martian…which I was supposed to see tonight.

The studio’s public relations department is run by idiots.

If you arrange a screening, and if you make passes available to hundreds of fans — warning them ahead of time that you have overbooked and nobody is guaranteed a seat is not an excuse. It’s a cop-out.

You don’t turn away a hundred or more people at the door and shrug it off and say, “Sorry.”

What you do is you say, “Let’s make it up to these people who came all this way and waited all this time.” You go to the management of the theater and say, “We want to schedule a second screening after the first one concludes so that no one goes home disappointed.” That not only gives you good PR with the audience but it helps generate good word-of-mouth three days before the film opens.

The movie might be good. I expect it will be. But the PR people just pissed off at least a hundred fans who waited two hours or longer in line. Not good. Just not good.

(3) Astronaut Clayton C. Anderson, who did get into a screening, wrote this review:

Having already read and enjoyed Weir’s excellent adventure, I was pleasantly surprised with the effective presentation of the novel on screen. Seeing beautiful Martian vistas, punctuated by mountainous terrain in variegated hues of orange, made it seem as if humans were already living there. The use of high-altitude and digitally accurate perspectives of the Martian surface pulled at my heart strings. And I loved that Andy Weir developed a relationship with NASA after publishing the novel, leading the push to involve the space program directly with Scott. The resulting emphasis on science provides an enjoyable balance between the film’s considerable entertainment value and its educational, inspirational, and technological references.

(4) A New Yorker cartoon contains the greatest proof yet of life on Mars….

(5) However, when Rush Limbaugh claims he’s unconvinced NASA found water on Mars, it’s not comedy, it’s tragedy.

RUSH LIMBAUGH: There’s so much fraud. Snerdly came in today ‘what’s this NASA news, this NASA news is all exciting.’ I said yeah they found flowing water up there. ‘No kidding! Wow! Wow!’ Snerdly said ‘flowing water!?’ I said ‘why does that excite you? What, are you going there next week? What’s the big deal about flowing water on Mars?’ ‘I don’t know man but it’s just it’s just wow!’ I said ‘you know what, when they start selling iPhones on Mars, that’s when it’ll matter to me.’ I said ‘what do you think they’re gonna do with this news?’ I said ‘look at the temperature data, that has been reported by NASA, has been made up, it’s fraudulent for however many years, there isn’t any warming, there hasn’t been for 18.5 years. And yet, they’re lying about it. They’re just making up the amount of ice in the North and South Poles, they’re making up the temperatures, they’re lying and making up false charts and so forth. So what’s to stop them from making up something that happened on Mars that will help advance their left-wing agenda on this planet?’ And Snerdly paused ‘oh oh yeah you’re right.’ You know, when I play golf with excellent golfers, I ask them ‘does it ever get boring playing well? Does it ever get boring hitting shot after shot where you want to hit it?’ And they all look at me and smile and say ‘never.’ Well folks, it never gets boring being right either. Like I am. But it doesn’t mean it is any less frustrating.

(6) GeekTyrant says this is the 10-foot inflatable Jabba the Hutt you’re looking for.

ilvr_sw_jabba_the_hut_inflatable

Here’s something that’s sure to piss off your neighbors: a ten-foot long, six-foot tall inflatable Jabba the Hutt, perfect for decorating your front lawn or as the centerpiece for that Star Wars-themed party you might be planning. You can bring it with you to wait in line for The Force Awakens, use it as a Home Alone-style distraction to make potential robbers think a large alien lives in your home…the possibilities are too numerous to entertain in one sitting.

“I say put a Santa hat on him and put him in the front yard,” is John King Tarpinian’s advice.

Or give him his own radio show.

From ThinkGeek for $169.99.

(7) Elizabeth Bear lets readers in on the drafting process…

(8) Rights to Heinlein’s “The Man Who Sold The Moon” have been acquired by Allen Bain’s firm Bainframe. It will be developed for television.

More details on Deadline.com:

Bain (Two Men In Town, Revenge Of The Green Dragons) founded Bainframe to tell stories that have “the power to inspire people to dream of a better tomorrow.” This is the shingle’s second rights buy, following Octavia E. Butler’s Dawn. 

…The Man Who Sold The Moon tells the tale of Delos D. Harriman, a businessman possessed by a dream to take humanity off-Earth. As a young entrepreneur, he starts a private space company to colonize the moon and create the home he never had. He is driven to the brink while single-handedly ushering the entire human race to its next evolutionary step.

“This story is inspiring because the private space race is happening now and will become a reality within a decade. This is not some far flung science fiction yarn. It is something we are going to experience in our lifetime,” says Bain. The timing coincides with yesterday’s announcement by NASA of strong evidence there is flowing water on Mars. “The Man Who Sold the Moon allows us to imagine how the space race will play out, but at its core it’s really a gripping portrait of a complex character with an impossible dream.”

Bain notes that Harriman’s journey is reminiscent of the current crop of space pioneers like Richard Branson (Virgin Galactic), Jeff Bezos (Blue Origin) and Elon Musk (SpaceX) who has credited Heinlein as an inspiration.

(9) WisCon posted a report in June about the results of the first con run under its new anti-abuse policy.

This year was the first convention where we had a formal procedure in place for what to do when individuals attending WisCon violate the code of conduct described in our anti-harassment policy. The policy is intended to be flexible to allow for different situations, but its basic idea is that if somebody reports a harassing behavior to Safety, the person responsible can be issued a warning and asked to do something differently (such as staying away from a place or person). If warnings aren’t attended to or harassing behavior escalates, the policy describes a few more options, including –– in the worst case scenario, which we hope to avoid –– that Safety and Chairs in consultation with available Anti-Abuse Team members can make a collective at-con decision to ban someone from WisCon.

Now that the convention is over, Safety has handed off their at-con reports to the full Anti-Abuse Team, which is reviewing reports that are still open post-con and evaluating how well the policy performed on- site. Here’s how things looked in our first year:

  • 11 issues relating to the anti-harassment policy were reported to Safety.
  • 4 attendees were issued warnings for harassing behaviors.
  • 1 disruptive non-member was escorted off the premises by hotel staff.
  • 1 person was banned, after several warnings, in response to reports both from multiple departments and from the hotel –– some relating to patterns of behavior going back several years.

(10) Curbed has a report on a film adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s High Rise coming to film festivals.

The novel begins with a truly surreal opening line—”later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog”—and the story explores a societal breakdown similar to of-the-moment entertainment franchises such as The Walking Dead. But in J.G. Ballard’s 1975 High-Rise, the subject of a new film adaptation starting to make the festival rounds this month, the enemy isn’t some virus or the undead. The residents of a new London high-rise slowly regress and devolve into tribal infighting not due to some outside force altering their environment, but because of the environment itself. The tower becomes a character in the story, written as a symbol of the meticulous (and ultimately very fragile) class systems built up by society.

(11) Wired has interviewed David J. Peterson about his new book in “How To Invent A Language, From The Guy Who Made Dothraki”.

Some Conlangers Want to Keep Their Hobby Arcane

Peterson recognizes there are “definitely some negative aspects” to the growth in conlang popularity. He cites linguistic pioneer J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Lord Of The Rings as an example of the community’s instinct toward self-protection. “There were some people who reacted negatively [when LOTR was published] because they knew conlang would start to get more attention, and they didn’t want that,” he says. Until recently, the community has been a supportive niche for people with a very specific interest. But as television shows and films with created languages continue to pop up in more places, it’s no longer as heavily guarded.

His Book Aims to Codify Conlang Knowledge For Posterity

Constructed languages have existed for centuries, but the advent of the internet brought with it the listserv that created a true community of peers. Since then, the community has grown hugely—but as the internet has changed, a new generation of conlangers on various social networks has become more spread out and unaware of each other. “I’ve met dozens of conlangers on Tumblr, all new, all young, who have no idea that each other exist,” he says, “because they’re with the mass kind of shouting into the wind.” None of them know about the old conlang listserv, and now it’s an antiquated form of digital communication, so “they don’t want to bother with that.” Peterson worries about redundancies that would arise from the lack of connection. “They’re inheriting a kingdom they really don’t know the history of, and know nothing about,” he says. They’re reinventing every single wheel we already perfected.” The Art Of Language Invention is a way of bridging the gap between the old and new conlangers by becoming a codex of sorts, preserving knowledge of constructed language much in the same way ancient languages have been preserved throughout history.

[Thanks to Mark sans surname, Andrew Porter, Ansible Links, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Will R.]

WisCon Memories in 40×40

WisCon is turning 40 and has begun a retrospective series about the con that created a home for those interested in science fiction and feminism.

WisCon: 40×40 will reminisce about one or two past conventions each week. Chris Wallish of the SF3 Communications Committee is actively looking for submissions. “Anyone who’s interested in writing about a particular WisCon can email me directly (to the comms chair email address) to enquire.”

Jeanne Gomoll

Jeanne Gomoll

The first post in the series is by Jeanne Gomoll, who was present at the creation.

Both Jeanne Gomoll and Janice Bogstad had been impressed by an event that happened during the previous year’s Worldcon (MidAmericon 1). Susan Wood had struggled and succeeded in getting a single “Women and SF” panel scheduled, though the concom frankly didn’t expect many people to actually attend and therefore placed it in a tiny, out-of-the-way room. As it turned out, there was a rather huge number of people interested in it, and the 100 or so folks who had managed to squeeze into the room, or who had stood around outside the room trying to hear what was being said inside, stuck around in the lounge outside the panel room for several hours afterwards, talking with one another and networking. Victoria Vayne proposed A Women’s Apa during that extended conversation. And Jeanne and Jan began to talk about a convention where there would be more than a single “women and SF” panel. WisCon 1 programming got kickstarted in that lounge and many women left it intent on making new kinds of cons, publications, and networks.

***

Everyone on the first WisCon concom contributed program ideas. In fact, in the early years, there was no separate department that managed programming. Many panels were inspired by articles written for Janus and/or rehearsed in the group’s monthly public meetings. The group met weekly at Nick’s Bar on State Street; in addition, the group produced a monthly program at UW’s Union South, advertised in the campus press. Members volunteered to present (For example: “Your First Time…Reading SF” and “Will the Real James Tiptree, Jr. Please Stand Up!”); I designed flyers for these events and they were posted on campus kiosks. Many group members found one another through these events and eventually joined the concom. The best of those monthly presentations were turned into WisCon programs. For many years, the task of creating programming was shared by everyone on the committee. Most planning meetings devoted significant time to brainstorming and refining program ideas. Although I love the crowd-sourcing process used by WisCon nowadays, I sometimes miss the camaraderie of those early meetings when it felt as though we were inventing WisCon.

Pixel Scroll 9/29 What Color is Your Parvo Shot?

(1) Today’s birthdays —

1547 – Miguel de Cervantes, author of that famous tome about the old windmill tilter

1942 – Madeline Kahn, a signature comedic actress of the 1970s, who appeared in Paper Moon, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, High Anxiety and many more films.

(2) The 30th anniversary of Back To The Future means a new chance to sell a Blu-ray release, and to help market it Christopher Lloyd is back in character as Doc Brown in an exclusive short video. Go to the link to watch a new trailer.

Lloyd has donned his lab coat and white wig once again to play the mad scientist in a brand new original short film ‘Doc Brown Saves The World!’ that’s being exclusively released in the ‘Back To The Future 30th Anniversary Trilogy’ box set on 5 October.

Little is known about the plot of the new short story, but we can see that the famous time-travelling DeLorean DMC-12 will feature heavily. The new box set will also gather the trilogy of time-travel comedies starring Michael J Fox. the entire ‘Back To The Future: The Animated Series’, plus hours of bonus content all together for the first time.

(3) Jamie Todd Rubin has already done the groundwork for one source of 1941 Retro Hugo nominees.

As he explains in “The Retro Hugo Awards for 1941 at MidAmeriCon II”

Next summer at MidAmeriCon II–the 74th World Science Fiction Convention–among the awards given out will be the Retro Hugo awards for 1941. The award will cover stories published in 1940. I have a particular interest in this award because a few years ago, when I was taking my Vacation in the Golden Age, I read, and wrote about, every story that appeared in Astounding Science Fiction from July 1939 – November 1942. That means that I read and commented on every story that appeared in 1940 issue of Astounding.

Rubin lists his favorite stories from the 1940 issues of ASF:

  1. “Final Blackout” by L. Ron Hubbard1 (April, May, June 1940)
  2. “Requiem” by Robert A. Heinlein (January 1940)
  3. “Cold” by Nat Schachner (March 1940)
  4. “The Stars Look Down” by Lester Del Rey (August 1940)
  5. “The Mosaic” by J. B. Ryan (July 1940)
  6. “If This Goes On–” by Robert A. Heinlein (February 1940)
  7. “Butyl and the Breather” by Theodore Sturgeon (October 1940)
  8. “Fog” by Robert Willey2 (December 1940)
  9. “One Was Stubborn” by Rene La Fayette3 (November 1940)

(4) British Eastercon attendees are invited to help decide the con’s future by completing a questionnaire. (For more info about the process, read the FAQ.)

We’re hoping that a wide variety of people will be filling in this questionnaire, so we start by asking what you know about Eastercon, and why people go to Eastercons. Then what you think works or doesn’t work, and whether you have any suggestions for improvement. Then about issues, and some suggestions people have already made to deal with them. Finally, we’ll ask whether you would like us to keep in touch, and because no matter how hard we try we can’t capture everything, you have the opportunity for a final comment.The results will be published on our website, and discussed both at Novacon and at next year’s Eastercon. You do not have to provide any personal details unless you want to, and if you do your participation will be kept strictly confidential.

We hope this will take you no more than about 15 to 20 minutes to complete. Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.

To fill it out, visit: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ndMn5Soj0FHE4Gkj-XjUbVgFM9w8Ma5PvgvND9g8WZE/viewform?c=0&w=1&usp=mail_form_link

(5) A new Rick Riordan series – my daughter has already announced she is waiting for the minutes to tick past so she can buy the Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard: The Sword of Summer. Bibliofiend has an exclusiveread the first five chapter free. [PDF file]

(6) The 2015 MacArthur Genius Awards are out. Better check and see if your name is there.

(7) Europa SF reports the winners of the 16th Swedish Fantastic Short Story Contest. Article (and where needed, translation to English) by Ahrvid Engholm.

The Fantastic Short Story Competion (“Fantastiknovelltävlingen“, in Swedish) has been running yearly since the year 2000, and is dedicated to stories of science fiction, fantasy and horror. It is probably Sweden’s oldest at present; at least one short story contest that used to be older has folded.

This year the contest received 117 entries, and the jury decided to distribute the prize money of 2000 Swedish crowns (just under €200) to the following three winners. Titles given in Swedish with English translations and some comments from the jury are added:

First prize: “Bläcklingar” (“Inklings”) by Fredrik Stennek. “A fine tale in the succession of HC Andersen… A portrait of a society collapsing under censorship and oppression…but humour and longing for freedom is bigger. It raises questions of freedom of the press and freedom of opinion“.

Second prize: “Hon” (“She”) by Eva Ullerud. “A wonderfully creepy story… When the threat is close, really close, it easily becomes invisible, but even creepier.”

Third prize: “Götheborg” (“Gothenburg”) by Dennis Jacobsson. “An alternate history explaining why the ship Götheborg went under in the 1700’s. The atmosphere is as thick as the wool in the woolen clothes of the characters, the danger as tangible as the smell of gunpowder on gundeck, and the curiousity of the reader picks up wind.”

Five stories – By Jonas Bengtsson, Emanuel Blume, Lisa Hågensen, Hanna Kristoffersson and Jens Mattsson – also received honourary mentions by the jury, consisting of the sf/f authors Niklas Krog, Pia Lindestrand and Karolina Bjällerstedt Mickos. All stories were judged without author identification.

(8) Lela E. Buis called a story to the attention of select Twitter readers.

Here’s her description of David Levithan’s Every Day.

Every Day was published in 2013 and received the Lambda Award for Best LBGTQ Children’s/Teen Book. It went on to feature on the New York Times Bestseller List. This means my opinion isn’t unusual, either from the literary community or the fan community. However, this book never made a ripple in the SF&F community because SF&F isn’t something Levithan normally writes.

(9) NASA has some thoughts about how difficult it would be to send humans to Mars.

(10) The agency also helped celebrate National Coffee Day.

(11) Kameron Hurley might be overdue for a few convention Guest of Honor invites.

https://twitter.com/KameronHurley/status/648874752631775232

https://twitter.com/KameronHurley/status/648879242730713088

(12) Hurley also tweeted a link which ultimately takes readers to G. Derek Adams’ guest post on This Blog Is A Ploy about how to sell your books in a way that actually sells books, but doesn’t make you feel like a shyster.

(13) Amanda S. Green agrees that she was quote laundering. Too bad she can’t admit that without first strawmanning a false accusation about something I never said.

First of all, I had someone (and I will let you guys guess where they came from) basically accuse me of not having read Scalzi’s post that I referred to in my Saturday blog. The entire basis for this person — as well as the condemnation from the referring blog — seems to be because I didn’t link to the Scalzi post. Instead, I linked to Teleread. Well, let me set the record straight. I did read the original post. I didn’t link to it because I know the readers here on MGC have the ability to google and find the original source if they want to read it. Teleread had excerpted the parts I wanted and I happened to also agree, for the most part, with what Chris Meadows had to say. So, that is what I linked to.

There are basically two reasons why I don’t link to a post. The first is as I stated above. I know our readers here can go find the original if they want to. The second is when I don’t want to send additional traffic their way.

(14) The X-Files is returning as a six-episode event series in 2016. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson will also be back as Mulder and Scully.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Kressel and Bolander Headline NYRSF Readings on October 6

Brooke Bolander

Brooke Bolander

The New York Review of Science Fiction Readings 25th Anniversary Season continues with Brooke Bolander and Matthew Kressel as guests. The location is The Commons Café at 388 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. Doors open 6:30 p.m. $7 suggested donation.

Brooke Bolander writes weird things of indeterminate genre, most of them leaning rather heavily towards fantasy. Her work has been featured in Lightspeed, Strange Horizons. Nightmare, and the upcoming anthologies Aliens: Recent Encounters and Help Fund My Robot Army.

Matt Kressel

Matt Kressel

Matthew Kressel is a multiple Nebula Award finalist and World Fantasy Award finalist. His first novel, King of Shards, debuts October 13. His fiction has or will soon appear in such markets as Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Nightmare, io9.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Interzone, Apex Magazine, and the anthologies After, Naked City, The People of the Book, Launch Pad, and many other markets. Alongside veteran editor Ellen Datlow, he co-hosts the Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series in Manhattan.

Amy Goldschlager

Amy Goldschlager

Guest curator Amy Goldschlager is an editor, proofreader, and book/audiobook reviewer. She has worked for several major publishers, and has also contributed reviews and features to the Los Angeles Review of Books, Locus, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, ComicMix, and AudioFile magazine.

The full press release follows the jump.

Continue reading

Hallmark Has Been Naughty and Nice This Year

Hallmark’s 2015 line of science fictional Keepsake Ornaments includes one of the most grotesque ever offered.

It’s the Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan™ Mr. Spock and Captain Kirk The Needs of the Many Ornament goes for $29.95.

star-trek-ii-the-wrath-of-khan-the-needs-of-the-many-spock-and-captain-kirk-ornament-root-2995qxi2587_1470_1

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few…or the one. Press the button on this Keepsake Ornament to hear the final farewell between Captain Kirk and Spock, who gave his life to save the U.S.S. Enterprise.

Click to hear the actors’ dialogue.

Merely bizarre is the Star Wars ™: The Empire Strikes Back ™ There Is No Try Yoda ™ and Luke Skywalker ™ Ornament priced at $32.95.

As one of the greatest Jedi Masters in galactic history, Yoda™ did not believe in “try.” Press the button to hear the diminutive warrior and the young Luke Skywalker™ in an unforgettable scene from Star Wars™:

star-wars-the-empire-strikes-back-there-is-no-try-yoda-and-luke-skywalker-ornament-root-3295qxi2569_1470_1

Listen to Yoda’s advice here.

That Hallmark is counting on Darth Vader for comic relief tells you all you need to know about corporate America. Check out the Star Wars ™ Holiday Darth Vader ™ Ornament.

This Keepsake Ornament features Darth Vader™ in a Christmas sweater and Santa hat. Come close to the tree: The Dark Lord ornament will sense your movement and deliver a Christmas message.

star-wars-holiday-darth-vader-ornament-root-1995qxi2757_1470_1

Visit the product page to watch Darth’s demostration video. These are the jokes, Jedi!

Apart from these gag gifts, there are Keepsake Ornaments fans will enjoy receiving.

The Star Wars ™ : A New Hope C-3PO ™ and R2-D2 ™ Ornament ($17.95).

This permanently bickering yet inseparable pair of mechanical droids proved their loyalty to their Rebel friends throughout the Galactic Civil War, and even saved the day a time or two. Now, C-3P0™ and R2-D2™ are back as the 19th installment of the Keepsake series as seen in “Star Wars™: A New Hope™.”

star-wars-a-new-hope-c3po-and-r2d2-ornament-root-1795qx9219_1470_1

The Star Trek ™ Lieutenant Nyota Uhura™ Ornament ($14.95).

As communications officer aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, the sharp, dependable Lieutenant Nyota Uhura finds herself to be the sixth ornament in the Star Trek Legends series.

star-trek-lieutenant-nyota-uhura-ornament-root-1495qx9227_1470_1

The Marvel Avengers: Age of Ultron Iron Man Ornament ($14.95)

He lives! He walks! He conquers! When eccentric billionaire inventor Tony Stark suits up in his armor as the invincible Iron Man, he is unstoppable.

marvel-avengers-age-of-ultron-iron-man-ornament-root-1495qxi2667_1470_1See even more science fictional and pop culture references at Hallmark’s Keepsake Ornaments site.

[Thanks to David Doering for the story.]

Yesterday

By John Hertz: While looking for something else I came across Vanamonde 469 (May 7, 2002) with these notes of the Millennium Philcon (59th World Science Fiction Convention, August 30 – September 3, 2001, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). You might like to see them. Some of you already have.

* * *

In the Fanzine Lounge, I saw Skyhook 24 (1957), where Damon Knight called “genre” a snob word. I’m not sure if this is plus ça change or plus c’est la même chose.

I awoke in time to hear a Jane Austen appreciation panel at 11 a.m. on Friday. Connie Willis said Austen villains make us uncomfortable because we could be them. Richard Garfinkle said she could fine-tune her satire. Lois McMaster Bujold said social embarrassment could be keener than death. Amy Thomson had been reading Sense and Sensibility (1811) aloud with her husband in the bathtub. Willis said Austen made good people interesting. Ellen Asher said Dickens was like Liszt to Austen’s Mozart. Willis said nothing would have been “gained” by Austen’s “moving on” to “wider” spheres: nothing was missing; nobody was missing; she wrote of the human heart. People stood in the aisles.

Noon and “What makes a good stage costume?” with Sandy & Pierre Pettinger, Sandy Swank. I said, get over the threshhold of the theater of the mind. P. Pettinger said, stay in character. S. Pettinger said, humor can run across body type. I said, develop a sense of event. Janet Anderson in the audience said, put shine where you want the eye to see; make other places where the eyes rests; use quiet space. P. Pettinger said, in a group some characters must be less important, must recede. I said, if thirty actors fall to their knees and cry “Your Majesty”, the audience feels “He’s the King.”

At 2 Regency dancing, left off the program grid. I’d been given until 5. A spy, thank Roscoe, flew in after we started, to tell me Toastmaster Esther Friesner would hold a fencing class there at 4; she arrived, and at 4:00, just as she raised the magic cheeble wand, the last notes of “The Congress of Vienna”, our closing dance, sounded.

Back to my hotel room, shared with Fred Patten and Art Widner, to put on white tie for the Chesley and Retro-Hugo ceremonies. I was the accepter for Kelly Freas, who couldn’t attend. At the Art Show reception Bob Eggleton said Godzilla, like our older brother, would beat up mankind, but stop anyone else.

Sitting next to Ray Nelson and Eleanor Wood for the Retro-Hugos, I exulted with her when Heinlein did the hat trick: Farmer in the Sky, “The Man Who Sold the Moon”, Destination Moon. Jack Speer, wonderfully showing and wisecracking about repro technique during the fanzine awards (“We were rugged then), failed to remove a Ditto cushion. Afterward he admitted to me “I used to do that.” Me too. He asked “In what way are you a teacher?” I said, “Well, I teach Regency dancing.” He said “Is that all?” Friesner closed reciting “The star in the wind is a word” (W. Kelly, “For the Mother of Kathyrn Barbara”, see e.g. Ten Ever’-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Years with Pogo p. 91, 1959).

Greg Bear gave a tribute to Poul Anderson. You don’t see retro-Nobels, he said; we look backward because we can look forward. SF tells us life is an adventure. Nothing displeases jaded journalists like enthusiasm. Bjo Trimble he called the Secret Mother of Fandom, acknowledging her as his recruiter, in an Art Show when he was 16. He said his writing swung between extremes of Clarke and Bradbury, and he met Anderson going either way.

The Los Angeles for ’06 Worldcon party was in Room 770. Ben Yalow, who’d made sure parties would be there, later said he only heard Roger Sims and me notice. At the Japan for ’07 Worldcon party Inoue Hiroaki gave me a hachimaki [headband] for Kelly. I found Victor Gonzalez drinking Anchor Steam Beer, a mighty credential.

Pixel Scroll 9/28 One Scroll To Live

(1) If film criticism ever becomes a duel to the death, people will say, never bet against David Gerrold when cinematic science fiction is on the line…. See his new review on Facebook.

All right, so let’s talk about SNOWPIERCER, a brilliantly produced movie that ultimately fails in the two most important ways a science fiction film can fail.

I’ll take the easy one first — the audience will suspend disbelief, they will not suspend common sense.

The idea here is that the Earth has frozen over. The only survivors are living on a train that circles the globe endlessly.

1) The Earth is frozen over because scientists have decided to put something called CW7 in the atmosphere to halt global warming. They do it with chem trails. It works too well. The planet gets too cold, everything freezes down so cold you’ll freeze to death in minutes.

Now, look — whatever that CW7 stuff is — you’re gonna have to put several million tons of it into the atmosphere to cools down the planet. That’s a lot of chem trails. It’s going to take a long time. Years. Decades perhaps. Even if you could retro-fit every jet plane in the world on its next scheduled maintenance, it would still take millions of miles. And you would think that as soon as the temperature gradients start falling too fast, not matching the projections, the scientists — or whatever agency behind it — would stop the process to evaluate the results. But no — whatever this CW7 is … bam, it freezes everything to a giant planet-sized popsicle.

2) Where did all that water come from? Even in this planet’s worst ice ages, there wasn’t enough H2o to make enough snow to cover every continent. ….

Unfortunately … even as an ALLEGORY this thing doesn’t work.

That’s the second and much bigger failure…..

(2) A killer review like that leads indirectly to the sentiment expressed in “Why Peter Capaldi Said No To Extra Doctor Who”.

It seems like eons pass in between series of Doctor Who. As with many shows which only run 10 or so episodes in a season, they’re over so quickly, and then there’s another year or more of wait before the show comes back. It turns out that the BBC would love to see more Doctor Who as much as fans would. However, the cast and crew, led by Peter Capaldi himself, have said no to requests for more episodes. The reason, according to Capaldi, is that while they could make more episodes, what they couldn’t do is make more good episodes.

(3) David Brin turns his thoughts to “Sentient animals, machines… and even plants!” at Contrary Brin.

In Brilliant Green: the Surprising History and Science of Plant Intelligence, plant neurobiologist Stefano Mancuso and journalist, Alessandra Viola, make a case not only for plant sentience, but also plant rights. Interesting, though science fiction authors have been doing thought experiments about this for a long time, e.g. in Ursula LeGuin’s novel “The Word for World is Forest” and in my own “The Uplift War.” Jack Chalker’s “Midnight at the Well of Souls” portrayed sentient plants, as did Lord of the Rings.

There is a level where I am all aboard with this.  Ecosystems are webs of health that combine fiercely interdependent predation/competition with meshlike interchanges of sight/sound/chemicals that clearly manifest types of cooperation, even communication…. as I elucidated in “EARTH.”

On the other hand, I also step back to see the qualities of this book that transcend its actual contents, for it fits perfectly into the process of “horizon expansion” that I describe elsewhere.  A process of vigorously, righteously, even aggressively increasing the scope of inclusion, extending the circle of protection to the next level, and then the next. See also this Smithsonian talk I gave about the never-ending search for “otherness.”

(4) And look for Brin to be in residence at Bard College in October.

David Brin, a scientist, a science fiction author and a commentator on the world’s most pressing technological trends, is in residence at the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College from Oct. 5 to Oct. 25.

As part of Brin’s fellowship, he will mentor selected Bard students on their fiction and nonfiction writing. He will also offer a number of lectures and discussions. On Sept. 30, at 11:30 a.m., Brin will talk with Hannah Arendt Center Academic Director Roger Berkowitz and “Roundtable” host Joe Donahue on WAMC radio.

On Oct. 7 at 5 p.m. in Reem-Kayden Center 103, Brin will speak about his book, “The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose between Privacy and Freedom?,” with Berkowitz. On Oct. 14 at 7 p.m. in the Bertelsmann Campus Center’s Multipurpose Room, he will attend a debate on “National Security is More Important than the Individual Right to Privacy.”

Bard College is located in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.

(5) Cheryl Morgan advises on “Writing Better Trans Characters” at Strange Horizons.

Trans people are a big thing these days in equality circles. People are asking what they can do to help the trans cause. Quite simply, the most important thing cis people can do for the trans community right now is to accept us as fully human; not as something to be gawped at and whispered over, not as a clever metaphor with which to discuss gender, but as ordinary people just like you. For cis writers, that means putting us in their stories.

I reject the idea that trans characters should only be written by trans people because cis folk are bound to get it wrong. While there are some really fine trans writers, there simply aren’t enough of us in the world to do what is needed. We have to be part of all fiction, not just fiction that we write ourselves.

(6) Kim Stanley Robinson defended his notion of future technology in Aurora as part of an article about science fiction realism for the Guardian.

Robinson makes no apology for the 21st-century tech of his 26th-century explorers, arguing that progress in science and technology will asymptotically approach “limits we can’t get past”.

“It’s always wrong to extrapolate by straightforwardly following a curve up,” he explains, “because it tends off towards infinity and physical impossibility. So it’s much better to use the logistic curve, which is basically an S curve.”

Like the adoption of mobile phones, or rabbit populations on an island, things tend to start slowly, work up a head of steam and then reach some kind of saturation point, a natural limit to the system. According to Robinson, science and technology themselves are no exception, making this gradual increase and decrease in the speed of change the “likeliest way to predict the future”.

(7) Les Johnson’s guest post about putting together a mission to Mars on According To Hoyt suits the current Mars-centric news cycle very well.

Since I work for NASA and have looked extensively at the technologies required to send people to Mars, I am often asked how close we are to being able to take such a journey. [DISCLAIMER: The very fact that I work for NASA requires me to say that “the opinions expressed herein are my own and do not reflect the views of my employer.”] Basing my opinion solely on information that is publicly available, the answer is… not straightforward. Let me break it into the three areas that Project Managers and Decision Makers (the ones with the money) use when they assess the viability of a project in an attempt to explain my answer.

(8) MARK YOUR CALENDAR:  April 3, 2016 will be the next Vintage Paperback Show in Glendale, CA at the Glendale Civic Auditorium from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. STILL $5.00

(9) Editors Eugene Johnson and Charles Day have started an Indiegogo appeal to fund their Drive-In Creature Feature anthology from Evil Jester Press.

Get in line. Buy a ticket, and take a trip to the DRIVE-IN CREATURE FEATURE. Where the monsters from the classic films from the 1950’s to 1980’s shined on the large iconic sliver screens. Where the struggle between human and monsters came alive for the fate of the world. Monsters created from an experiment gone wrong, legendary beasts long asleep, now awaken by melting humans, visitors from a far off world that aren’t as friendly as they appear. Monsters like giant parasitic bugs and ancient sea beasts on the prowl. A mysterious plague turning the homeless population into Moss people. A government sponsored monster goes toe-to-toe with a monster of Celtic myth. and many more are included.

Intriguing tales by some of the best names in horror, including New York Times Best selling authors and comic book writers, Jonathan Maberry, S.G. Browne,  Elizabeth Massie, Ronald Kelly, William, F. Nolan, Lisa Morton, Joe McKinney, Jason  V. Brock, Weston Ochese , Yvonne Navarro, including cover art by Cortney Skinner…

 

drive in creature feature(10) Alamo Drafthouse has commenced its touring food and film event honoring the 50th anniversary edition of Vincent and Mary Price’s A Treasury of Great Recipes.

During the months of September and October, Alamo Drafthouse locations nationwide will host THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES Feast, featuring a screening of the Vincent Price classic paired with a delectable multi-course feast using recipes from the book. Topping each evening off, Victoria Price – daughter of Vincent and Mary – will be in person sharing memories of her father before the film with her multi-media presentation “Explore, Savor, Celebrate: Life with Vincent Price.”…

In 1965, Mary and Vincent Price published A Treasury of Great Recipes — now regarded as the one of the world’s most beloved cookbooks. The book features recipes collected by Vincent and Mary at restaurants around the world, including original menus from classic restaurants and photographs by the great William Claxton. It has come to be regarded as “one of the most important culinary events of the 20th century” (Saveur Magazine) and was recently named the eighth most popular out-of-print book of any kind by Booklist. The 50th anniversary edition incorporates the original edition, unchanged and in its entirety, along with a new Foreword from Wolfgang Puck and A Retrospective Preface from Victoria.

Here are links to the rest of the schedule — San Antonio, TX – 9/28, Austin, TX – 9/29, Richardson, TX – 9/30, Kalamazoo, MI – 10/6, Kansas City, MO – 10/7, Littleton, CO – 10/14, Ashburn, VA – 10/20, Winchester, VA – 10/22, Yonkers, NY – 10/26.

(11) Vox Popoli has posted a political cartoon by Red Meat and Vox Day about the nonrelease of 2015 Hugo nominating data, “Cabal? What Cabal?”

(12) Dave Freer has an axiom about who it’s important for a writer to please in a post at Mad Genius Club.

That is something that many authors fail to grasp – and not just new ones. I recently read a diatribe by Adam Troy Castro – who missed this completely (He was attacking John Wright, who seems to be engaging his readers… who aren’t part of his publisher’s tribe). I quote: “has been abusing his publisher in public and attacking his editors as people” which is a bad thing, according to Castro “being an asshole to the people who give you money is not a good career move.”

The latter part of that is certainly true. What Castro seems to have failed to figure out is that the money doesn’t actually come from the publisher. It comes from readers – the subset of the public who love your work. If you abuse them, you’re dead. If your publisher abuses them (which is a fair assessment)… lose your publisher. Reassure your readers that this is not your attitude.

(13) Myke Cole, in “You are not crying in the wilderness”, tells why he writes.

Here’s the thing about writing: It’s really hard. It’s a LOT of work. You do most of this work alone and then you send it away and you have absolutely no idea whether it’s reaching anyone or not, how it’s being received, whether or not it means to others what it means to you. I have said before that I am no Emily Dick­enson. I write to com­mu­ni­cate, to receive a signal back from the array I am con­stantly sending out in the world.

I write to not be alone.

(14) Alex Pappademas shreds the new Muppets series in “A Rainbow Rejection” at Grantland.

The most fanciful thing about ABC’s muppetational but seldom celebrational The Muppets is that the late-night talk show behind whose scenes it takes place has a female host. In this regard, I support its vision. I support nothing else about The Muppets except the pilot’s use of the great Jere Burns, drier than a silica gel packet as always, in a B-plot in which he refuses to accept his daughter’s interspecies relationship with Fozzie Bear. His issue seems to be more about Fozzie being a bear than being a Muppet — at dinner, he makes snide comments when Fozzie compliments the salmon — but in a broad-stroke sense, I am with Burns on this one. I guess I’ve found the one marriage-equality hypothetical on which I’m a fuming mossback conservative: Turns out I am opposed to the sexualization of the Muppets and therefore to the implication that humans and Muppets1 can or should miscegenate.

This puts me roughly on the same team as the fainting-couch wearer-outers at the Donald Wildmon front group One Million Moms, who took a break from their courageous war on homofascist breakfast cereal and sinfully delicious lesbian yogurt on Monday to declare a fatwa on the new Muppets as “perverted” based solely on the ads — particularly the one that promises “full frontal nudity” and features Kermit the Frog in a casual locker-room pose. A clock that stopped in 1955 and should be thrown in the garbage because it’s an insanely and attention-hungrily homophobic clock is still right twice a day: There is nothing good about this ad, and perhaps you should not be in the Muppet-selling business if you can’t sell the Muppets in 2015 without adding the implication that Kermit fucks, let alone that Miss Piggy wants to fuck Nathan Fillion.

(15) Marc Scott Zicree has posted a new Mr. Sci-Fi video about the Profiles in History room at Monsterpalooza that showed items from his collection that will be going up for auction tomorrow.

(16) The Mets, one day after clinching the National League East, had their rookies take the super hero “hazing” to another level… Or, rather, they removed another level…

new-york-mets-rookies-underwear

[Thanks to James H. Burns, Andrew Porter, the other Mark, SF Site News, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kendall.]

2015 Harvey Award Winners

harvey_winner_logo1

The 2015 Harvey Awards were presented at the Baltimore Comic-Con on September 27.

The Harvey Awards are given annually to the creators and publications receiving the most votes from the industry’s comics professionals and publishers. The award is named for Harvey Kurtzman (1924-1993), cartoonist, writer, editor and founder of Mad Magazine.

One rarely hears from a dissatisfied award winner. The exception is Chip Zdarsky, who was voted a Special Award for Humor in Comics for his work on Sex Criminals. He wrote on his Tumblr page:

The fact that I was nominated for a humor award for SEX CRIMINALS without the writer of said series, my beloved chum, Matt Fraction, is wrong. On every level. I pointed this out to the Harvey Awards and told them I wished to have Matt on the ballot with me, or to remove me completely, and they declined to do either.

They said, and I quote; “We believe any collaborative process which the creators believe is equally divided makes this difficult.  It’s unfortunate this is not a judgment call for us to make – but it’s not.”

Except for the fact that it is. They created a category designed to highlight individuals, sometimes out of a team, with no recognition of what has been contributed and by whom. The writer of our comic supplies 90% of the humor! This is the Harvey Awards’s category, so the ultimate judgement call is theirs.

The 2015 winners are:

Best Writer

  • Mark Waid, Daredevil, Marvel Comics

Best Artist

  • Fiona Staples, Saga, Image Comics

Best Cartoonist

  • Terry Moore, Rachel Rising, Abstract Studios

Best Letterer

  • Jack Morelli, Afterlife With Archie, Archie Comic Publications

Best Inker

  • Danny Miki, Batman, DC Comics

Best Colorist

  • Dave Stewart, Hellboy In Hell, Dark Horse Comics

Best Cover Artist

  • Fiona Staples, Saga, Image Comics

Most Promising New Talent

  • Chad Lambert, Kill Me from Dark Horse Presents, Dark Horse Comics

Best New Series

  • Southern Bastards, Image Comics

Best Continuing or Limited Series

  • Saga, Image Comics

Best Syndicated Strip or Panel

  • Dick Tracy, Joe Staton and Mike Curtis, Tribune Media Services

Best Anthology

  • Dark Horse Presents, Dark Horse Comics

Best Graphic Album — Original

  • Jim Henson’s The Musical Monsters Of Turkey Hollow, Archaia/BOOM! Studios

Best Graphic Album — Previously Published

  • Mouse Guard: Baldwin The Brave And Other Tales, Archaia/BOOM! Studios

Best Single Issue or Story

  • “Breaking Out”, Dark Horse Presents #35, Dark Horse Comics

Best Domestic Reprint Project

  • Steranko Nick Fury Agent Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Artist’s Edition, IDW

Best American Edition of Foreign Material

  • Blacksad: Amarillo, Dark Horse

Best Online Comics Work

  • The Private Eye, Brian K. Vaughan, Marcos Martin, and Muntsa Vicente

Special Award for Humor in Comics

  • Chip Zdarsky, Sex Criminals, Image Comics

Best Biographical, Historical, or Journalistic Presentation

  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Ultimate Visual History, Andrew Farago, Insight Editions

Best Original Graphic Publication for Young Readers

  • Lumberjanes, BOOM! Box (BOOM! Studios)

Special Award for Excellence in Presentation

  • Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream, Andrew Carl, Josh O’Neill, and Chris Stevens, Locust Moon Press

Ditto Reborn!

By R. Graeme Cameron: The fanzine fan’s relaxacon, Ditto 20, will be held Friday, September 30 to October 2, 2016 in conjunction with VCON 41, in a site to be announced in the Vancouver Lower Mainland Region in British Columbia, Canada.

Nothing set in stone yet, but one thing is for sure, in addition to the hotel bar/restaurant there will be a “wet” hospitality suite running throughout the combined convention.

To attend VCON 41/Ditto 20 it will be necessary to purchase a VCON membership and, if coming from out of town, to book a room at the hotel.

VCON membership rates and hotel fees TBA as soon as determined. Ability to purchase VCON memberships online and book rooms at the special VCON discount rate online will be announced as soon as both options go live.

Ditto 20 membership fee not yet determined. Since it is intended that Ditto attendees receive a Ditto Badge, a Ditto program book, and possibly a commemorative fannish anthology in addition to the VCON badge and program book, it is likely at least a nominal Ditto membership will be charged on top of (but separately billed) from the VCON membership to help defray costs. Ditto membership fee to be determined through consultation with fen interested in attending. Might be as low as $20 or even $10. A token fee. Or maybe no fee. Advice sought.

What is required is that potential attendees register now or ASAP their intent to attend Ditto 20 so that the Chair R. Graeme Cameron, can figure out how many people will be involved. This will greatly impact Ditto program planning.

Typically Fridays are devoted to socializing. Saturday usually involves a single and limited track of programming. VCON will provide a room for this. Sunday?

Tentative program items envisioned include:

  • A Ghoodminton demo or tournament.
  • A fanzine Auction.
  • A fan-fiction play or movie script read aloud by participants.
  • A gelatin printing demo.
  • Two or three panels, lectures or presentations on fanzine topics.

The Chair is open to any and all selections, and above all offers to present or participate in whatever events are decided on.

Remember that Ditto is traditionally a light-hearted fannish-fun event and not meant to be at all sercon.

Think of it as a week-long party.

Contact rgraeme(at)shaw.ca to communicate your ideas and/or join the list of people intending to attend the convention (memberships come later). No doubt there will be much discussion on Facebook as well.