Using an imaging spectrometer on MRO, researchers detected signatures of hydrated minerals on slopes where mysterious streaks are seen on the Red Planet. These darkish streaks appear to ebb and flow over time. They darken and appear to flow down steep slopes during warm seasons, and then fade in cooler seasons. They appear in several locations on Mars when temperatures are above minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23 Celsius), and disappear at colder times.
These downhill flows, known as recurring slope lineae (RSL), often have been described as possibly related to liquid water. The new findings of hydrated salts on the slopes point to what that relationship may be to these dark features. The hydrated salts would lower the freezing point of a liquid brine, just as salt on roads here on Earth causes ice and snow to melt more rapidly. Scientists say it’s likely a shallow subsurface flow, with enough water wicking to the surface to explain the darkening.
“We found the hydrated salts only when the seasonal features were widest, which suggests that either the dark streaks themselves or a process that forms them is the source of the hydration. In either case, the detection of hydrated salts on these slopes means that water plays a vital role in the formation of these streaks,” said Lujendra Ojha of Georgia Tech in Atlanta, lead author of a report on these findings published September 28 by Nature Geoscience.
Ojha and his co-authors interpret the spectral signatures as caused by hydrated minerals called perchlorates. The hydrated salts most consistent with the chemical signatures are likely a mixture of magnesium perchlorate, magnesium chlorate and sodium perchlorate. Some perchlorates have been shown to keep liquids from freezing even when conditions are as cold as minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 70 Celsius). On Earth, naturally produced perchlorates are concentrated in deserts, and some types of perchlorates can be used as rocket propellant.
For Ojha, the new findings are more proof that the mysterious lines he first saw darkening Martian slopes five years ago are, indeed, present-day water.
“When most people talk about water on Mars, they’re usually talking about ancient water or frozen water,” he said. “Now we know there’s more to the story. This is the first spectral detection that unambiguously supports our liquid water-formation hypotheses for RSL.”
"Under certain circumstances, liquid water has been found on Mars" – Jim Green, NASA Planetary Science Directorhttps://t.co/MvErxberG3
This animation simulates a fly-around look at one of the places on Mars where dark streaks advance down slopes during warm seasons, possibly involving liquid water. This site is within Hale Crater. The streaks are roughly the length of a football field.
[Based on NASA press release. Thanks to John King Tarpinian for the story.]
Copper Cylinder Award. Design created by Peter Halasz and Rebecca Simkin.
The winners of the fourth annual Copper Cylinder Awards have been announced by the Sunburst Award Society. The Copper Cylinder is an annual members’ choice award for Canadian literature of the fantastic.
Adult Award
The Back of the Turtle by Thomas King (HarperCollins Publishers, 2014).
Young Adult Award
The Door in the Mountain by Caitlin Sweet (ChiZine Publications, 2014).
The Back of the Turtle
The Door in the Mountain
Thomas King is an award-winning writer and photographer of Cherokee and Greek descent. His fiction includes Medicine River; Truth and Bright Water; One Good Story, That One; Green Grass, Running Water; and A Short History of Indians in Canada. A member of the Order of Canada and the recipient of an award from the National Aboriginal Foundation, Thomas King is a professor of English at the University of Guelph, Ontario.
Caitlin Sweet works for the Ontario government and the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies. She is the author of A Telling of Stars (Penguin, 2003) and its prequel, The Silences of Home (Penguin, 2005.) Her third novel, The Pattern Scars (ChiZine, 2011) was short-listed for the 2012 Sunburst Award, and won the 2012 CBC Bookie for Speculative Fiction.
Andy Samberg’s joke about my attending the first Emmy Awards ceremony made me curious about Emmy history. This year was the 67th Emmy Awards, and I turned 67 last Sunday, but until Andy appeared beside me I hadn’t actually connected the two. Pretty amazing.
For a few hours I entertained the amusing thought that they were perhaps giving out those first Emmys even as I was being born. Alas, that was not actually the case. Emmy and I may both be 67, but I actually came into the world a few months before her. The first Emmy ceremony took place on January 25, 1949, to honor work telecast during 1948.
Interestingly, those first awards were strictly a local matter: a Los Angeles award, for shows broadcast in the LA media market. Not at all national. The first winner — for “Most Popular Television Program” — was a show called PANTOMIME QUIZ. A drama called THE NECKLACE won for “Best Film Made for Television,” and Shirley Dinsdale won as “Most Outstanding Television Personality.” She was a ventriloquist with a dummy named ‘Judy Splinters.’
(2) Brad R. Torgersen, in “A matter of canon” at Mad Genius Club, has a good handle on the importance of canon to fans’ relationships with successful franchises. He questions why Star Trek and Star Wars have sometimes gone astray.
See, respecting the canon isn’t just a matter of preserving timelines or sequences of events; though this is a huge part of it. Respecting the canon also means respecting what it is that fuels the enthusiasm of the people who watch your TV show, go to see your movies, or pick up and read your books.
I remember in the mid-1990s when it was revealed that neither Paramount Pictures, nor Viacom (the parent of Paramount) considered any of the many Pocketbooks Star Trek novels to be canonical, in terms of the movies and TV shows. That was a rather serious blow to me, as a fan. I’d read several dozen of those very same Pocketbooks novels, and considered some of them to be among the finest works of science fiction I’d ever encountered — they were that good. Written by top-notch SF/F authors who were doing terrific storytelling within the Star Trek framework. Then, ruh-roh, the corporate powers behind the franchise revealed that the Pocketbooks novels didn’t count. I was rather upset by this, as a fan. Both because of the time and money I’d invested, and because of the fact some of those Pocketbooks Star Trek novels were every bit as good as, if not better than, the movies and TV episodes of the time. Who were Paramount and Viacom to tell me, the fan, what was legit, or not?
Some books haunt the reader. Others haunt the writer. The Handmaid’s Tale has done both.
The Handmaid’s Tale has not been out of print since it was first published, back in 1985. It has sold millions of copies worldwide and has appeared in a bewildering number of translations and editions. It has become a sort of tag for those writing about shifts towards policies aimed at controlling women, and especially women’s bodies and reproductive functions: “Like something out of The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Here comes The Handmaid’s Tale” have become familiar phrases. It has been expelled from high schools, and has inspired odd website blogs discussing its descriptions of the repression of women as if they were recipes. People – not only women – have sent me photographs of their bodies with phrases from The Handmaid’s Tale tattooed on them, “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum” and “Are there any questions?” being the most frequent. The book has had several dramatic incarnations, a film (with screenplay by Harold Pinter and direction by Volker Schlöndorff) and an opera (by Poul Ruders) among them. Revellers dress up as Handmaids on Hallowe’en and also for protest marches – these two uses of its costumes mirroring its doubleness. Is it entertainment or dire political prophecy? Can it be both? I did not anticipate any of this when I was writing the book.
WILSON: The show was nominated for a dozen Emmys and received critical acclaim for its unprecedented realism. It’s set in Dodge City, the hub of frontier cattle drives, with a reputation as a lawless town. Many of the main characters are no longer alive. Dennis Weaver, who played Chester Goode, passed away in 2006. Amanda Blake, who played the beloved Ms. Kitty, died in 1989 and James Arness, whose towering frame and distinctive voice made the character Marshal Matt Dillon shine, passed away four years ago….
Curiously, two actors now famous in the science fiction genre played characters with rhyming names in bit parts on Gunsmoke (not in the same episodes).
WILSON: Bruce Boxleitner played the character Toby Hogue in 1975.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BRUCE BOXLEITNER: It was totally character-driven, but it was about a character. It wasn’t about the last sunset or the last cattle drive.
Among them was a question about some of the unexpected impact that encountering alien life out amongst the stars could have on a space colony—and how Robinson thought the meeting might play out:
[Robinson:] “I do think it might be possible than an alien life form could co-exist with Terran life and the two just kind of pass each other by. But mainly life tries to live by converting other things to energy, so other things can look like food to it. And Terran immune systems are very powerful. Allergic shock kills many people, and it seemed to me possible that an alien would have that effect on our immune systems, either correctly or incorrectly, in terms of diagnosing a threat.
“If that happened, some people would panic. It would become not just a medical question but a political question. Who do we trust, what do we trust? What’s safest? People aren’t rational in that situation, or, some are and some aren’t, and they can fight.
“I think the scenario in the book is quite plausible. But I admit what you say, in other situations, the alien-Terran interaction need not be so bad.”
Sunday’s eclipse is special as it follows three other total lunar eclipses in the past 18 months (usually you don’t get that many in a row) and the moon will be at its closest point in its orbit to Earth, making it slightly bigger in the sky than usual — an event popularly known as a “Supermoon.”
The LRO has been observing Earth’s satellite since 2009, and wasn’t designed to operate during eclipses. The solar-powered spacecraft would switch off almost everything until sunlight returned again. But as controllers became experienced with the drops in power during LRO’s time in shadow, they got comfortable enough to turn on one instrument: the Diviner.
“Ideally we want to measure the full range of temperature variation during the eclipse,” Noah Petro, the deputy project scientist for LRO, told Discovery News. Petro is based at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
(8) Old Neckbiter is back on the big screen October 25 when Fathom Events delivers a Dracula Double Feature with a twist – the double bill is the 1931 English and Spanish language versions of Dracula. However, the Spanish version was filmed sequentially on the same sets, with a different cast, rather than dubbed, and is claimed by some to be the superior work. Also part of the event is a specially produced introduction from Turner Classic Movies that will give insight into both of these 1931 vampire-horror films.
Kirk and McCoy are trapped in time while an alien infestation threatens the Enterprise.
(11) The Palm Restaurant opened in New York in 1926, near the headquarters of the King Features Syndicate, and the place attracted a lot of cartoonists who drew their own creations on the walls in exchange for their meals. Now the property has changed hands and the art is gone.
What the fuck is wrong with people? This was the original Palm restaurant, 90 years old, gorgeous, storied, beloved, its walls covered in caricatures hand-drawn by some of America’s most celebrated cartoonists. This was a one-of-a-kind treasure, never to be reproduced. You can’t buy this kind of uniqueness, it has to grow organically and mature over time–over a century of time. But we’re living in a fucked up city where fucked up people do fucked up things like destroy art, culture, and history–all in one fell swoop if they can manage it–just to replace it with something banal and miserable from the monoculture of the day.
For starters: social justice warrior? Really? I mean, okay, sure, your definition is pretty ironic: (informal, derogatory) a person who expresses or promotes socially progressive views. “How dare they,” I can hear you saying. That’s fine. And I guess we can all agree that anyone who uses that term unironically is… well, you know.
Which brings me to the next term: fatberg. Fatberg?! Really? According to you, it’s a “a very large mass of solid waste in a sewerage system, consisting especially of congealed fat and personal hygiene products that have been flushed down toilets.” I get the wordplay–iceberg, fatberg–but… was there really a need for this? Do people run into fatbergs on a daily basis, so much so that they need a portmanteau to cover it? What are kids even doing these days? Oh, pro tip: don’t image search that.
What’s that, Collins? Yeah. Yeah, you have a good point. Awesomesauceis pretty old. Kids have been saying that for years now. Same goes for its buddy weak sauce.
[Thanks to Will R., Andrew Porter, JJ, Gerry Williams, Michael J. Walsh, Greg Hullender, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Anthony.]
(1) Pablo Vazquez has identified himself as another San Juan in 2017 NASFiC bid committee member — he is one of the bid chairs — so you can add his name to the list.
The formal launch is at ContraFlow/DSC in New Orleans next weekend. There is a Facebook page – San Juan in 2017.
(2) A great read about trying to make a game based on Lovecraft that wasn’t so dismal as to be unplayable – “Lovecraft on the Tabletop”.
The story of the development of this tabletop RPG of Lovecraftian horror, soon to be renamed Call of Cthulhu, is one of the more fascinating and inspiring case studies in the annals of gaming history. The end result reverberates to this day not only through the world of tabletop gaming but also through its digital parallel.
The revised reconstruction of Tablet V yields text that is nearly twenty lines longer than previously known.
The obverse (columns i-ii) duplicates the Neo-Assyrian fragments which means the Epic tablet can be placed in order and used to fill in the gaps between them. It also shows the recension on Tablet V was in Babylonia, as well as Assyria and that “izziz?ma inappat? qišta” is the same phrase that other tablets being with.
The reverse (columns v-vi) duplicates parts of the reverse (columns iv-vi) of the late Babylonian tablet excavated at Uruk that begins with the inscription “Humb?ba pâšu ?pušma iqabbi izakkara ana Gilg?meš”.
The most interesting piece of information provided by this new source is the continuation of the description of the Cedar Forest:
Gilgamesh and Enkidu saw ‘monkeys’ as part of the exotic and noisy fauna of the Cedar Forest; this was not mentioned in other versions of the Epic.
Humbaba emerges, not as a barbarian ogre, and but as a foreign ruler entertained with exotic music at court in the manner of Babylonian kings. The chatter of monkeys, chorus of cicada, and squawking of many kinds of birds formed a symphony (or cacophony) that daily entertained the forest’s guardian, Humbaba.
The aftermath of Gilgamesh and Enkidu’s slaying of Humbaba is now better preserved.
The passages are consistent with other versions and confirm what was already known. For example, Enkidu had spent some time with Humbaba in his youth.
(4) Sigourney Weaver is in the Ghostbusters reboot – a cameo, presumably, but nobody has revealed whether she’s reprising her original character.
(5) “Bing Watney Home!” is not a File 770 typo, though you could be pardoned for thinking so.
Bing Maps is doing “real time” tracking of Astronaut Mark Watney’s journey across Mars to the Schiaparelli Basin, a stage in the effort to rescue and bring him back to Earth.
And Microsoft is promoting itself and The Martian movie with a contest called “Hacking Mars”.
It’s the year 2035. Astronaut Mark Watney is stranded on Mars. The best minds on Earth are joining together to help him survive. What would you do? One small, unmanned spacecraft will carry the winning solution to Mars.
Check out how to #HackMars and bring Watney home. Submit your design for a chance to win $25,000 and a trip to Microsoft to experience HoloLens. Deadline for submissions is October 13, 2015, 11:59PM EST.
A primal human motivation is survival. We all have physiological needs like air, water, and food.
Mark Watney finds himself stranded on Mars. He has no way to contact Earth or his crew. It’ll be four years before a manned mission can reach him. Watney doesn’t have nearly enough food to last that long. He has to make a decision, survive on Mars or perish.
Mars is incredibly cold, unpredictable, and has many ways that it threatens human life. If an emergency comes up Watney must either solve it or die.
For this challenge, design a solution that helps Watney sustain the basic things that every human being needs to survive. This could include ways to grow food, filter air, and produce water.
Historical records suggest that Gherardini, who spent her last years in the Sant’Orsola convent in Florence, was laid to rest at the site. On Thursday, researchers announced that carbon-14 dating showed the bones they found in the convent date from around the time that Gherardini died, in 1542, when she was 63.
“I’m convinced it is her,” Silvano Vinceti, an art historian who led the research team, told The Telegraph.
The next stages of the investigation will prove highly challenging. Some scholars say that as dozens of bodies were buried beneath the convent over several decades, the remains could belong to someone else. So, DNA samples will need to be taken from the bone fragments and compared with DNA extracted from the remains of two of Gherardini’s children. Those remains have been badly damaged by flooding in the tomb in the Basilica of Santissima Annunziata in Florence.
And even if the bones are proved to belong to Gherardini, scholars are divided over whether she really was the model for the “Mona Lisa.” The absence of a skull has also thwarted efforts to reconstruct the face of the noblewoman, making it nearly impossible to compare it to the painting.
Your mileage may vary, but I find this to be nothing more than a grotesque job of grave robbing. The notion of finding a skull to reconstruct in order to compare it with the face in the painting seems a pretty dim piece of scientific wishfulness – as if the reconstruction could surpass the work of a painter who had the living subject available.
(7) Amanda S. Green devotes a whole post on Mad Genius Clubdisputing John Scalzi’s analysis of the Author Earnings Report but refuses to link to his post, drawing all her Scalzi quotes from Chris Meadows’ TeleRead article instead. Is this some kind of pretentious purity ritual? Like people who will only quote Vox Day based on what’s transcribed here? I’m not a big fan of laundered quotes. If you want to reference the person, link the primary source. You’ve quoted the guy – his words are in your head. You get no credit for cooties avoidance.
“‘Stuff your eyes with wonder,’ he said, ‘live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.’”
“We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.”
“Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things.”
“We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.”
“I spent three days a week for ten years educating myself in the public library, and it’s better than college. People should educate themselves – you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of ten years, I had read every book in the library and I’d written a thousand stories.”
“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”
“I’m never going to go to Mars, but I’ve helped inspire, thank goodness, the people who built the rockets and sent our photographic equipment off to Mars.”
“Don’t worry about things. Don’t push. Just do your work and you’ll survive. The important thing is to have a ball, to be joyful, to be loving and to be explosive. Out of that comes everything and you grow.”
“I don’t believe in being serious about anything. I think life is too serious to be taken seriously.”
“You’ve been put on the world to love the act of being alive.”
[Thanks to Will R., and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Will R.]
Hosted by the Pomona Public Library and community partners, the one-day celebration of reading takes place on the Civic Center Plaza in Pomona, CA with activities for all age groups as well as community tables.
Author Jonathan Lethem will hold a conversation about his work, focusing on its relationship to California and music and film.
Local publisher Pelekinesis will be in attendance featuring David Scott Ewers (author of Petrichor and former Pomona resident), Allen Callaci (author of the forthcoming Heart Like a Starfish, librarian, and singer in the band Refrigerator), Sean Pravica (author of the forthcoming Stumbling Out the Stable), and Kevin Ausmus (author of Crossed Paths, former Pomona mayoral candidate, and singer in the band Desperation Squad).
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin columnist David Allen (author of Pomona A to Z) will attend.
Latino Baseball Panel, moderated by Richard Santillan
11:00 am – 12:30 pm
Jonathan Lethem, moderated by Sam Sousa
1:00 – 2:30 pm
LA Science Fiction/Fantasy Society Panel, moderated by Steven Paul Leiva
Guests: Larry Niven, Harry Turtledove, Jerry Pournelle, John DeChancie, Tim Powers
2:45 pm – 4:00 pm
Panel Discussions in the Library Conference Room
Why Children Should Read Comic Books
Guests: Marv Wolfman, Todd McCaffrey
12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Latino Author Panel
1:15 pm – 2:45 pm
Writing History: Books that Document the Pomona Valley
Moderated by David Allen
Guests – Bill King, Mickey Gallivan
3:00 pm – 4:30 pm
(1) Here are three science fiction and fantasy birthdays to celebrate on September 25.
Born 1951: Mark Hamill
Born 1930: Shel Silverstein
Born 1952: Christopher Reeve
(2) Plans are afoot to launch a San Juan in 2017 NASFiC bid at DeepSouthCon, which will be held next weekend. Source: committee member Warren Buff, who is working on the facilities. The website is mostly private at the moment.
NASA will detail a major science finding from the agency’s ongoing exploration of Mars during a news briefing at 11:30 a.m. EDT on Monday, Sept. 28 at the James Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The event will be broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency’s website.
Taking part in the news conference will be Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA Headquarters; Michael Meyer, lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters; graduate student Lujendra Ojha of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta; Mary Beth Wilhelm of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California and the Georgia Institute of Technology; and Alfred McEwen, principal investigator for the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
I don’t see Mark Watney’s name in there anywhere…
(4) On April 7, 2016, LASFS will welcome Hugo, Nebula, and Aurora winning author Robert J. Sawyer who will read from his new novel, Quantum Night. The book will be published by Ace Books on March 1. Kudos to President Matthew B. Tepper for lining up the engagement.
(5) Today in History
September 25, 1959 Hammer Films’ take on The Mummy premieres in England.
(6) The Nerdist alerts fans to updates in German artist Dirk Löchel’s online poster featuring hundreds of science fictional star ships ranging from Star Trek to Mass Effect.
A high-res version can be downloaded from the artist’s Deviant Art site, where he also discusses the updates in detail including such frequently asked questions as…
Q: Why isn’t the Death Star/CSO Carrier/V’Ger/other large ship on the chart?
A: For reasons of image quality and chart organisation, only ships between a minimum of 100 meters and 24000 meters are applicable for this chart, sorry. Arbitrary? Yes! But I had to draw the line somewhere.
Q: And where’s TARDIS?
A: It’s both too large and too small for the chart.
(7) J. C. Carlton in “How To Create Your Own Monsters” appeals for people to sympathize with Vox Day, linking to a long list of insulting things people have said about Vox over the years. Because, Carlton thinks, what Vox has orchestrated with the Hugo Awards is all their fault.
The puppy kickers had every opportunity to put a hand out and create some sort of consensus with Larry and the rest of the Sad Puppies. They could have listened to what the puppies were saying and taken a more even handed stance. Above all they could have avoided the fiasco of no awarding the Hugo Awards. Instead they treated the puppies with abuse and disparagement, conducting yet another campaign of destruction. But they aren’t hitting Vox the Count working against them. All they have managed to do is create yet more Counts and hasten their own destruction.
(8) Al Harron explains why he is now a former contributor to The Cimmerian blog in “Matters of Importance” on A Wilderness of Peace.
[Leo Grin on The Cimmerian] “The Cimmerian Blog has been defunct for half a decade, but now that one of our former bloggers has been exposed as an SJW, we feel impelled to rise from our slumber to declare that we stand 100% against SJWs and their travelling freakshow of interlocking fetishes and predatory abuses.
As a now-confirmed SJW, Barbara Barrett is hereby EXPELLED from this blog. We have struck her prose from every post, and her face from every picture. Let her name be unheard and unspoken among us, erased from the memory of our august fellowship, for all time. So let it be written. So let it be done.“
Barbara Barrett is a friend, a colleague, and an erudite scholar. I wrote to Leo stating, in no uncertain terms, that if anyone on The Cimmerian was to be expelled, their prose struck, their faces scored out, their very names unheard and unspoken, for the “crime” of criticism, then they must do exactly the same to me.
I campaign for Scottish independence. I took great pride in our movement’s peaceful, positive message in the face of immense opposition. That opposition had the might of the entire UK Establishment at its back, seeking to crush anything that could threaten their dominion over these isles and their resources. Everyone in the movement has a story about being intimidated, being abused, being threatened. My mother has been physically assaulted three times in the past few years. The car was trashed, the windshield cracked, property vandalised and stolen. Grown men and women have screamed obscenities in my face, my mother’s, the children in my family. I have been called every name under the sun: “Nazi,” “Fascist,” “Taliban,” “Racist,” “Scum,” “Evil.” I do not need to have my name associated with the likes of Vox Day.
Yet I put up with the intimidation and abuse and threats, because some things are worth the struggle. Some things are that important. And frankly, I had spent too long being silent on the matters of Gamergate and Rabid Puppies, because I didn’t feel it was my place. I didn’t want to stick my neck out. But after three years campaigning for independence and facing down all the power of Westminster, I find myself completely unafraid and resolutely unphased by the schisms of fandoms – and it makes choosing sides a lot easier. What fear, what power, could they hold over me, given what I have just experienced?
So, to remove any doubt: I advocate the cause of social justice. I denounce the activities of Vox Day and his supporters. And I publicly express my support, unequivocally and without reservation, for my friend and fellow Robert E. Howard scholar, Barbara Barrett.
Final Blackout is generally considered both a golden age classic and perhaps the best story Hubbard turned out. Typewriter In the Sky is an early example of alternate realities and the “author as god” concept.
Absent the reading I still need to do, I think the stand-outs in this list are Slan, Gray Lensman and If This Goes On… (though I’ve only read that in the fix-up Revolt in 2100).
Walking through the West End in the rain.
He was looking for a place called the Odeon Leicester Square.
Gonna go see The Martian on screen.
Aaoooooo!
Filers of London!
Aaoooooo! (Repeat)
If you see him reading on a train,
Better not ask its name.
Little old lady downloaded a jillion ebooks in shame.
Filers of London again.
Asoooooo!
Filers of London!
Aaoooooo! (Repeat)
He’s bleary-eyed alright, cause he’s blogging all the night.
And lately he’s been reading in the shower.
Better stay away from him
Or he’ll list some more books, Jim
But look at that tbr tower!
Asoooooo!
Filers of London!
Aaoooooo! (Repeat)
It’s a plot worthy of a comic book. In some alternative universe, Nicolas Cage might have have been Superman.
Back in the ’90s, Warner Bros had greenlit Superman Lives, a moodier take on the Man of Steel mythos to be produced by Jon Peters, directed by Tim Burton, and starring Cage, then hot off an Oscar win for Leaving Las Vegas. The team caught the fascination of the comic zeitgeist, until an unfortunately-timed shot of a droopy-eyed Cage in superhero garb leaked and fan support soured. Two years, three scriptwriters, and a slew of concept art and costume tests later, the project was dead.
For this fourth episode of Strange Stuff From My Study, I dig into my collection to show you a pair of extremely special and extremely relevant-to-the-season items: Halloween decorations that once belonged to the Great Scribe of Halloween himself, Ray Bradbury.
(15) And while we’re in this eldritch neighborhood, The Last Witch Hunter trailer looks fairly horrifying.
(16) Did Ridley Scott just pull the rug out from under Neill Blomkamp’s Alien sequel? A September 24 news report says Scott just revealed the title of Prometheus 2 to reporters – and it’s not Prometheus 2.
During an interview with HeyUGuys, the 77-year-old filmmaker – and director of the original ground-breaking ‘Alien’ movie – revealed the rather surprising title.
“Actually, really it’s going to be called Alien: Paradise Lost,” he said. “So Prometheus 2 is not really what it’s going to be… it’s going to be Alien: Paradise Lost.”
Alien: Paradise Lost heads to cinemas on May 30 2017.
(17) A 7-minute video, To Scale: The Solar System, shows how “On a dry lakebed in Nevada, a group of friends build the first scale model of the solar system with complete planetary orbits: a true illustration of our place in the universe.”
[Thanks to J.W. Ocker, JJ, Mark-with-no-last-name, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Will R.]
In the science fiction field, sausagefest is a term prone to be found in comments on reviews about all-male anthologies, or conversely, in approving remarks about projects like Women Destroy SF.
That a Sausagefest might be a literal thing, much less of benefit to women, is news.
In October 2010, at Archon, a sci-fi, fantasy, gaming and media convention, Sausagefest took place… Archon takes place during the first weekend in October, which also happens to be Breast Cancer Awareness Month. When I was in the process of turning our site pink, something we’ve done for the past few years to support awareness, I had the thought of collecting donations as part of the party. So on Saturday evening of the con, we ate, we drank and we collected over $500 in donations
Sausagefest 6 will take place at Archon 39, October 2-4. There will be sausage. And ale. And perks for donors.
What You Get
You get a warm and fuzzy feeling knowing that you helped build awareness of Breast Cancer and Sausage.
Also, there are some great perks you can pick up along the way.
Perk Levels
Bologna – $5 – With a donation at this level, you’ll get your name listed on the donor page along with a link back to your site.
Hot Dog – $10 – With a donation at this level, you’ll get a custom SausageFest pink wristband with black writing. You will also receive a Bologna level perk.
Pepperoni – $30 – With a donation at this level, you’ll get a custom SausageFest T-shirt. You will also receive a Hot Dog level perk. (In the US, add $5 for shipping, see below for international shipping information.)
Summer Sausage – $30 – With a donation at this level, you’ll get a custom SausageFest black drawstring backpack. You will also receive a Hot Dog level perk. (In the US, add $5 for shipping, see below for international shipping information.)
Salami – $30 – With a donation at this level, you’ll get a custom SausageFest Ale glass. You will also receive a Hot Dog level perk. (In the US, add $5 for shipping, see below for international shipping information.)
Chorizo – $60 – With a Donation at this level you’ll get a SausageFest Hoodie or you can pick two of the Pepperoni (T-shirt), Summer Sausage(backpack), or Salami(Ale Glass) level perks. You will also receive a Hot Dog level perk. (In the US, add $5 for shipping, see below for international shipping information.)
Andouille – $100 – With a donation at this level, you’ll get a set of two SausageFest Ale glasses and a SausageFest Hoodie or two SausageFest T-shirts. Other mix and match options available. Tony will be in contact when you place your donation to get or order. You will also receive a Hot Dog level perk.
Kielbasa – $250 – With a donation at this level, Your name or logo will appear on the flyers displayed throughout Archon advertising SausageFest 5. You will also receive an Andouille level perk.
The event organizers predict “People will have fun. People will give. And hopefully, in a place and at a time they wouldn’t normally expect, they’ll be made aware of breast cancer.”
Emperor Stardust and the Eunuchs of the Forbidden City bring you “Radio SFWA.”
Henry Lien says, “I wrote this recruitment anthem for the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, to be performed at the Nebula Awards Ceremony in May 2016.”
And he told his Facebook readers, “A video will follow in about a month with me demonstrating the dance steps, including spelling out the letters “S F W A” over the chorus with my arms.”
(The text of the lyrics can be found by clicking “show more” at the song’s YouTube page.)
