European Fan Fund Administrators Matylda Naczyńska and Marcin “Alqua” Kłak announced April 6 that Joro Penchev of Buglaria has been voted the fund’s 2024 winner. Penchev will attend the 2024 Eurocon in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, from August 16-19.
Eighty votes were received, however, 14 lacked the voting contribution. The 66 valid votes came from a dozen different countries. Penchev achieved a majority in the second round of the runoff.
Jane Mondrup
Joro Penchev
No preference
Hold over
Total votes
1st Round
27
33
6
–
66
2nd Round
27
34
–
–
61
The total voting contributions received in various currencies were:
…In the upcoming relaunched Doctor Who Season 1 (2024), the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) will travel to the 1960s in the forthcoming episode “The Devil’s Chord,” and, at some point, cross paths with the Beatles….
… As Russell T. Davies says in the new Empire interview: “‘How would you do a Beatles episode without Beatles music?” Previous movies about the Beatles have faced similar problems. The 1994 biopic Backbeat — which chronicles the Beatles’ early days in Hamburg — features no actual Beatles music. Meanwhile, the 1979 movieBirth of the Beatles (helmed by Return of the Jedi director Richard Marquand!) used cover versions of most Beatles songs to avoid copyright issues of the time.
But, for Davies and Doctor Who, the copyright law problem became “the entire plot.” As Davies says, “I knew instantly you can never play Beatles songs on screen because the copyright is too expensive… That’s where the idea came from — copyright law!”
Could this mean the Doctor and Ruby will inspire alternate Beatles songs? Could the Beatles be getting by with a little help from their time-traveler friends? We don’t know the exact plot of “The Devil’s Chord,” but there’s a good bet that the Doctor will almost certainly inspire a classic Beatles song. We’ll just have to read between the lines to figure out which one.
(2) CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE FINALISTS. The Carol Shields Prize shortlist has been revealed. The award recognizes “creativity and excellence in fiction by women and non-binary writers in Canada and the United States”.
One of the finalists is a work of genre interest.
Birnam Woodby Eleanor Catton
In this eco-thriller, a guerilla gardening collective named ‘Birnam Wood’ (after Macbeth) meets an American billionaire. In his review for WHYY’s Fresh Air, John Powers writes, “this New Zealand-set book is a witty literary thriller about the collision between eco-idealism and staggering wealth.”
The other shortlisted books are:
Daughter by Claudia Dey
Coleman Hill by Kim Coleman Foote
A History of Burning by Janika Oza
Brotherless Night by V. V. Ganeshananthan
The winner gets $150,000 and a residency with Fogo Island Inn in Newfoundland, Canada. Each of the four runner-ups will get $12,500. The prize-winner will be announced May 13.
(3) INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE SHORTLIST. Based on the descriptions of the works at the website, there are no books of genre interest among the 6 that made the International Booker Prize 2024 shortlist today.
(4) 2023’S MOST-CHALLENGED BOOKS. From the American Library Association: “ALA Releases Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2023”. Publishers Weekly has the list. Based on the descriptions, none are sff works.
The Most Challenged Books of 2023
Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, for LGBTQIA+, and sexually explicit content.
All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson, for LGBTQIA+ and sexually explicit content.
This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson, for LGBTQIA+ and sexually explicit content.
…I’ve been especially interested in revisiting three of her strangest works—her vampire novel Fledging; “Bloodchild,”a short story about a colony of humans living alongside an insectoid race of aliens; and the Xenogenesis trilogy, which explores human’s post-apocalypse relationship with a bioengineering race of extraterrestrials called the Oankali. Across these stories, I see a recurring fascination with the reality of our bodies, our needs and frailties, and the way our bodily desires inextricably link us to each other.
In each of these stories, humans are less powerful than their nonhuman counterparts, whether that’s the tentacled, pheromone-exuding Oankali in Xenogenesis or the three-meter long, centipede-like Tlic in “Bloodchild.” But for all of their physical superiority, the nonhuman characters are desperately reliant on their relationships with humans. In Xenogenesis, the Oankali can exude chemicals that drug humans with a thought and heal with a touch. They manipulate their own genetic makeup and easily heal their own bullet wounds. Yet they depend on their human relationships in order to live. Oankali adolescents go into metamorphosis where they are comatose—profoundly helpless—and rely on their human partners to care for them. In Imago, the final book in the trilogy, a young Oankali begins to physically dissolve, unable to survive because it does not have human companions to ground it in a stable form. As the narrator notes, “We called our need for contact with others and our need for mates hunger. One who could hunger could starve.”….
AfroAnimation, the largest annual event featuring diverse and BIPOC animators and creators, announced today the honorees for the first AfroAnimation Summit Icon Awards…
…Icon Award honoree Kemp Powers, director of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, will headline the summit’s kick-off panel April 10, ‘Developing Original Stories and the Art of Diverse Storytelling.’ Pioneer Award honoree Camille Eden, Vice President of Recruitment, Talent Development & Outreach at Nickelodeon, will speak on the April 11 panel, ‘Unveiling the Untold Narratives of Women in Entertainment: Triumphs, Challenges, & Journeys.’
In addition, Bruce Smith, creator and executive producer of Disney+’s The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder, and Jermaine Turner, Director of Adult Genre Animation for Netflix, will be honored as industry pioneers at the AfroAnimation Icon Awards….
FRWD AwardsSemifinalists.(Celebrates the art of diverse storytelling in the film, new media, and streaming platform industries.)
Best Series:Castevania, The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder, Young Love, Scavengers Reign
Best Animation Feature: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Elemental, The Boy and the Heron, Craig Before the Creek
Best International Series: Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire, Iwájú, Kiya & the Kimoja Heroes, Supa Team 4
Best Animation Director: Kemp Powers (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse)
(7) M. JOHN HARRISON MEMOIR. Saga Press will publish author M. John Harrison’s anti-memoir Wish I Was Here on September 3, 2024.
What is an “anti-memoir”? M. John Harrison has produced one of the greatest bodies of fiction of any living British author, encompassing space opera, speculative fiction, fantasy, and magical and literary realism. Yet in WISH I WAS HERE, he asks, ‘Is there even an M. John Harrison and if so, where do we find him?’ This is the question the author asks in this memoir-as-mystery, turning for clues to forty years of notebooking: ‘A note or it never happened. A note or you never looked.’
Are these notebooks records of failed presence? How do they shine a light on a childhood in the industrial Midlands, a portrait of a young artist in counterculture London, on an adulthood of restless escape into hill and moorland landscapes? And do they tell us anything about the writing of books, each one so different from the last that it might have been written by another version of the author?
With aphoristic daring and laconic wit, this anti-memoir will fascinate and delight. It confirms M. John Harrison still further in his status as the most original British writer of his generation.
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born April 9, 1937 — Marty Krofft. (Died 2023.)
H.R.Pufnstuf. Who’s your friend when things get rough? H.R. Pufnstuf. Can’t do a little, ‘cause he can’t do enough
Who here didn’t grow up watching some of the shows created by the Krofft brothers? Well, this is the day that Marty Krofft was born, so I get to talk about their work. So let’s get started.
Their very first work was designing the puppets and sets for Banana Splits, a rock band composed of four animal characters for Hanna-Barbera. To get a look at them, here’s the open and closing theme from the show.
After working for Hanna-Barbera, they went independent with the beloved H. R. Pufnstuf, their first live-action, life sized puppet series. It ran a lot shorter than I thought lasting only from September to December of ‘69. Like everything of theirs, it ended up in heavy, endless syndication.
Next was The Bugaloos. This was a musical group, very much in keeping with the tone with Banana Splits. It was four British teenagers wearing insect outfits, constantly beset by the evil machinations of the Benita Bizarre. Here’s the opening song, “Gna Gna Gna Gna Gna” courtesy of Krofft Pictures.
Lidsville, their next show lasted but seventeen episodes, and I’ve no idea if the short longevity of their series, all of them, was planned or due to poor ratings. This show had two types of characters: conventional actors in makeup taped alongside performers in full mascot costumes. It was mostly stop motion in its filming.
Opening credits are here. The opening was produced at Six Flags Over Texas. The show was itself shot at Paramount Pictures film studio in Los Angeles.
Sigmund and the Sea Monsters lasted two seasons though it was aired over three years, the second delayed because a fire at the beginning of season two which destroyed everything. It’s about two brothers who discover a friendly young sea monster named Sigmund who refuses to frighten people. Poor Sigmund. This time you get a full episode as that is all Krofft Pictures had up, “Frankenstein Drops In”.
There’s two more series I want to note.
The first is Land of the Lost which was created though uncredited in the series by David Gerrold. So anyone know why that was? It was produced by Sid and Marty Krofft who co-developed the series with Allan Foshko. Lots of genre tropes here. A family lost in a land with dinosaurs and reptile men? It was popular enough that it lasted three seasons. And here’s the opening and closing credits for season three.
The very last pick by me is Electra Woman and Dyna Girlwhich lasted but sixteen episodes of twelve minutes. Despite the ElectraEnemies, their foes here being way over the top, this is SF though admittedly on the pulp end of things.
So they stayed active including doing rebooted versions of new versions of Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, H.R. Pufnstuf, Land of the Lost and Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.
Marty Krofft passed on from kidney failure on November 25, 2023, at the age of eighty six.
(9) COMICS SECTION.
Wallace the Brave demonstrates that not everyone appreciates interesting facts.
(10) VASTER THAN EMPIRES, AND MORE EXPENSIVE. Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis might be sff – which might matter more if the film can make it into theaters. Variety says it will premiere at Cannes. However, The Hollywood Reporter learned studios are not lining up to accept the film’s high-dollar marketing risk: “’Megalopolis’: Francis Ford Coppola’s Challenges in Distribution”.
…The project, which Coppola first began writing in 1983, cost a reported $120 million to make — funded in part by the sale of a significant portion of his wine empire (the 2021 deal was reportedly worth over $500 million). Clocking in at two hours and 15 minutes, the film follows the rebuilding of a metropolis after its accidental destruction, with two competing visions — one from an idealist architect (Adam Driver), the other from its pragmatist mayor (Giancarlo Esposito) — clashing in the process. References to ancient Rome — including Caesar haircuts on the men — abound…
… One source tells THR that Coppola assumed he would make a deal very quickly, and that a studio would happily commit to a massive P&A (prints and advertising, including all marketing) spend in the vicinity of $40 million domestically, and $80 million to $100 million globally.
That kind of big-stakes rollout would make Megalopolis a better fit for a studio-backed specialty label like the Disney-owned Searchlight or the Universal-owned Focus. But Universal and Focus have already tapped out of the bidding, sources tell THR….
… Why should some teenager enjoy perfect skin, a pain-free back, and functional joints when persons of my age could make much better use of these body parts? Yet such are the politically correct times in which we live that simply proposing, never mind implementing, mandatory organ1 donations is considered somehow controversial.
Science fiction can see past the squeamishness of short-term social fashions to the glorious world we might have if we were willing to apply technology in a socially responsible—which is to say, one that benefits the people in charge—manner. Consider these five classic tales….
One of the selections is –
The Reefs of Space by Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson (1964)
…Reefs features an intriguing deep space ecology in no way inhibited by plausible science. The use of political prisoners as involuntary organ donors is much more plausible….
(12) SPACE COWBOYS READINGS. Space Cowboy Books will host an online Flash Science Fiction Night on April 23 with Howard V. Hendrix, Ai Jiang, and Hailey Piper. These short science fiction readings (1000 words or less) are great way to learn about new authors from around the world. Starts at 6:00 p.m. Pacific. Lasts around half an hour. Register for free at Eventbrite.
If you’re looking for meteorites, here’s a tip: Go south. All the way south. And do it soon.
In some parts of Antarctica, there’s a good chance that what looks like a regular old rock could actually be a chunk of an asteroid, the moon, or even Mars. Roughly 60 percent of all known meteorites have been collected there.
But scientific sleuthing for such extraterrestrial material, which can shed light on how the solar system formed billions of years ago, will probably get more difficult in Antarctica in the coming decades. That’s because, as temperatures rise, thousands of meteorites will sink into the continent’s ice and disappear from sight every year, according to a new study published on Monday.
Antarctica’s meteorite largess isn’t because more extraterrestrial stuff is falling there, Cari Corrigan, a geologist at the Smithsonian Institution and a curator of the National Museum of Natural History’s meteorite collection, said.
Rather, meteorites simply tend to be more visible on the Antarctic ice sheet than they would be, say, in your backyard. “Your eye can pick out a dark rock on a white surface super easily,” said Dr. Corrigan, who was not involved in the new research….
(14) ON THE JOB. Here’s the trailer for “Monsters at Work: Season 2” with Ben Feldman, Billy Crystal, and John Goodman. The season premiered April 5 on Disney Channel, and on May 5 comes to Disney+.
(15) VIDEO OF THE DAN. [Item by Daniel Dern.] For the small Venn overlap who know both references: “Leslie Nielsen in Star Wars”.
[Thanks to Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Kathy Sullivan, Dann, Daniel Dern, 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 Andrew (not Werdna).]
The Trustees of The Tolkien Society have released the shortlist for The Tolkien Society Awards 2024. Members of the Society have until April 12 to cast their votes.
The Canadian Science Fiction & Fantasy Association Hall of Fame honors people who have over the past number of decades made a great contribution to the genre of Science Fiction and Fantasy. These include people who have made a contribution either professionally or as a fan, as writers, artists, musicians, scientists, publishers, editors, and organizers. Each year three people are selected for the Hall of Fame and have their name added to the Hall of Fame trophy.
For its innovative work with spreading literature to First Nations children in Australia, the Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF) today received the 2024 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.
Given annually, it is the largest in the world of its kind. The prestigious award comes with a cash prize of SEK 5 million (EUR 450,000).
The Indigenous Literacy Foundation seeks to increase reading and highlight the value of all people’s own languages and stories. In its reading promotion work, ILF emphasizes the importance of First Nations children seeing themselves, their culture and their language reflected in the books they read.
‘The importance of all people’s own languages and stories is the foundation for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation’s shining work among First Nations peoples in Australia. Their innovative activities, which build on respect, collaboration and sensitivity, are an inspiration for reading promotion work around the world,’ says Boel Westin, chair of the jury for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.
The jury’s motivation:
”With curiosity and respect, Indigenous Literacy Foundation works with reading and storytelling among First Nations children in Australia. In close collaboration with Communities, they highlight the value of all people’s own languages and stories. By spreading books and stimulating reading, storytelling and creativity, Indigenous Literacy Foundation builds the desire to read and fosters pride, self-confidence and a sense of belonging. Every child has the right to their language and their stories.”
About the Indigenous Literacy Foundation
The Indigenous Literacy Foundation was formed in 2011 to encourage reading and promote literacy by securing access to good literature for First Nations children of Australia. ILF’s reading promotion work is based on collaboration with and commitment from local Communities. Through various programs they offer book packs to children and families in First Nations Communities around Australia and on the Torres Strait Islands, translate books, organize reading out loud activities, and support the publication of children’s books that have been created in Communities. Today, ILF works in 427 First Nations Communities all over the Australian continent.
ILF emphasizes the importance of First Nations children finding themselves, their culture and their languages reflected in the books they read. With trust and respect for each Community and its unique conditions, traditions and wishes, and in cooperation with Community residents, ILF promotes reading for pleasure, education, the creation of new stories and the preservation of language. ILF’s innovative, creative work is an inspiration – not only for reading promotion among First Nations peoples, but also for work with children in other social groups whose stories, languages and experiences are not recognized by the majority society.
ILF is the fourth reading promotion group to receive the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, after Banco del Libro (2007), the Tamer Institute (2009) and PRAESA (2015), and the third Laureate from Australia, after Sonya Hartnett (2008) and Shaun Tan (2011).
Given every other year by IBBY, the awards recognize lifelong achievement and are presented to an author and an illustrator whose complete works have made an important, lasting contribution to children’s literature.
The criteria used to assess the nominations included “the aesthetic and literary quality as well as the freshness and innovation of each nominee’s work; the ability to see the child’s point of view and to stretch their curiosity; and the continuing relevance of the work to children and young people.” The Award is based on the entire body of work.
The Author’s Award has been given since 1956, and the Illustrator’s Award since 1966. The winners each receive a gold medal and a diploma.
2024 AUTHOR WINNER HEINZ JANISCH
Heinz Janisch maintains that “nothing is too small for literature”. He was born in 1960 in Burgenland not far from the Hungarian border and now lives in Vienna. According to the Jury, Janisch is a master of the short-form story that leaves room for the readers’ imagination. Although many of his works are humorous, even sometimes absurd, he has a philosophical element to his writing that often makes his books profound. His simple texts are meaningful, and the saying “less is more” can be applied to the 2024 author winner. His writing is universal, and it appeals to children and young people everywhere. Additionally, his contribution to literature is enormous, not only through his writing, but also by his many readings, workshops on literary and creative writing for children and adults, including creative workshops for disabled young artists. Janisch’s writing is nuanced with many layers, which makes it universal, as well as uplifting.
2024 ILLUSTRATOR WINNER SYDNEY SMITH
Sydney Smith said in an interview with Prof. Deirdre Baker in April 2022, “listening … is more in line with how I approach stories” when he is illustrating the texts of others and as well as illustrating his own stories. Smith was born in 1980 in rural Nova Scotia and has now returned to the province with his family after living for several years in Toronto. The jury noted that Smith’s work is like a visual narrative or a short musical memory, which echoes his statement that listening is how he approaches stories. He uses seemingly simple techniques to tell the story—really a result of intense practice. His modest but authentic characters are sympathetic as well as gentle. He uses colour to introduce nature, smells and drama to each book. The saying “less is more” can also be applied to every one of his works as he strips away the superfluous to express emotions. Smith is a truly universal artist.
(1) ANGRY ROBOT BRINGS ON ECLIPSE OF STORYWISE. [Item by Anne Marble.] Angry Robot Books announced a one-week open submissions period that begins April 22, and several posts down in their thread they also said they would be using a submissions portal named Storywise to help them sort through their submissions. In their image, they explain a little more and point out that it’s not generative AI.
Angry Robot provided more information about Storywise here: “Storywise and Open Submissions FAQ’s “ [Internet Archive copy]. It included information on how authors can opt out of Storywise being used in their submission.
For obvious reasons, people are worried. People are pointing out that the Storywise platform can have biases. (And because it’s software, you can’t see those biases.) While it’s great that it’s not generative AI, does that mean writers can still trust it? For example, how do authors known what Storywise will do with their submissions? Others think its fine because it’s not generative AI — it’s just AI being used as a tool. Some have pointed out that slush readers are often unpaid, so that this is not taking away jobs. (But does that apply to slush readers working for book publishers?!)
Here is a quote-tweet by Vajra Chandrasekera with lots of information about Storywise. (Thread starts on X.com here.)
Angry Robot subsequently removed the posts to social media about their open submissions, and walked back the announcement with respect to Storywise, saying they will resume using their inbox system.
Editor’s note: Adrian Moher has a good roundup about the controversy at Astrolabe Digest: 040824. (Moher provided the link in his social media.)
(2) ON THE WAY TO THE CENTERLINE. Rich Lynch snapped this photo of the view from Interstate 87, in the middle of Adirondack Park while on his way to witness today’s eclipse. (Click for larger image to read sign).
No pictures of the event itself, though. “I don’t have any eclipse photos on my iPhone.” But Rich says, “It very much did exceed my expectations, even with the sun having to burn its way through a thin cloud layer.”
(3) STOKERCON 2024 ADDS GOH. Rob Savage was announced today as StokerCon 2024’s fifth Guest of Honor.
Rob Savage initially gained attention at the age of 19 when he wrote, directed, produced, and edited the low-budget romantic drama film Strings (2012), he later became more widely known for his work in horror films and has since co-written and directed lockdown horror hit Host (2020), co-written and directed Dashcam (2021), and directed Stephen King adaptation The Boogeyman (2023).
This year’s Librarian’s Day on Friday, May 31, 2024, once again offers fantastic programming featuring the conference’s guest authors on timely topics and more. Librarian’s Day ticket holders ($60) will have access to the Dealers Room and other areas of the full conference throughout the day.
For a second straight year Motor City Furry Con attendees were forced to be evacuated from their hotel due to a threat.
The nature of the threat was not clear, but officials with the convention confirmed Sunday the Ann Arbor Marriott Ypsilanti at Eagle Crest in Ypsilanti was evacuated around 9 a.m.
The “all clear” was given around 12:30 p.m. and the final day of convention activities resumed.
Sunday’s evacuation comes a year after attendees were evacuated from the same hotel due to an emailed bomb threat. Ultimately, there were no injuries or any explosives found last March.
The Motor City Furry Con is a convention for people who “appreciate the anthropomorphic lifestyle,” according to a report from The Detroit Free Press.
The Detroit Free Press article also noted, “Event attendee Scoops took to social media to celebrate the second year of being an evacuee.”
— Scoops! plushieyeen.bsky.social (@SpoonsScoops) April 7, 2024
(5) SLOWLY WE TURNED, STEP BY STEP. “Caeciliusinhorto” has written an impressive perspective piece synthesizing all the news items that comprise “The 2023 Hugo Awards fuckup” for Reddit’s r/HobbyDrama.
… After much discussion, the general consensus seemed to coalesce around a combination of two or three explanations: firstly, active censorship by the Hugo administrators, possibly due to pressure from the Chinese government (national or local); secondly, incompetence; and perhaps thirdly, weird nominator behaviour (possibly including organised voting blocs). For a while things stalled there: the data was obviously wrong, the most plausible explanation seemed to be some combination of cock-up and conspiracy, and there was no prospect of anyone finding out anything more.
Behind most every tech billionaire is a sci-fi novel they read as a teenager. For Bill Gates it was Stranger in a Strange Land, the 1960s epic detailing the culture clashes that arise when a Martian visits Earth. Google’s Sergey Brin has said it was Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, the cyberpunk classic about hackers and computer viruses set in an Orwellian Los Angeles. Jeff Bezos cites Iain M. Banks’ Culture series, which unreel in an utopian society of humanoids and artificial intelligences, often orchestrated by “Minds,” a powerful AI. Elon Musk named three of SpaceX’s landing drones after starships from Banks’ books, a tribute to the role they played in turning his eyes to the stars.
Part of this makes sense. Science fiction widens the frontiers of our aspirations. It introduces us to new technologies that could shape the world, and new ideas and political systems that could organize it. It’s difficult to be an architect of the future without a pioneer’s vision of what that future might look like. For many, science fiction blasts that vision open.
Yet these tech titans seem to skip over the allegories at the heart of their favorite sci-fi books. Musk has tweeted, “If you must know, I am a utopian anarchist of the kind best described by Iain Banks.” Yet in Banks’ post-scarcity utopia, billionaires and their colossal influence are banished to the most backward corners of the galaxy.
Recently, I interviewed six of today’s foremost science-fiction authors. I asked them to weigh in on how much impact they think science fiction has had, or can have, on society and the future….
The interview subjects are N.K. Jemisin, Andy Weir, Lois McMaster Bujold, David Brin, Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross. Here’s a quote from Stross:
Charles Stross: Yes, the entire current AI bubble is exactly that. The whole idea of AI has been turned into the centerpiece of a secular apocalyptic religion in which we can create superhumanly intelligent slaves that will solve all our knottily human intellectual problems, then work out how to liberate our pure soul-stuff from these clumsy rotting meatbags and upload us into a virtual heaven. And right now, some of the biggest tech companies out there are run by zealots who believe this stuff, even though we have no clear understanding of the mechanisms underlying consciousness. It’s an unsupported mass of speculation, but it’s threatening to derail efforts to reduce our carbon footprint and mitigate the climate crisis by encouraging vast energy expenditure.
“Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” dominated the domestic box office again, looming large over newcomers “Monkey Man” and “The First Omen.”
Warner Bros. and Legendary Entertainment’s monster tentpole added $31.7 million from 3,948 theaters in its second weekend of release. Ticket sales dropped a standard (for a tentpole of its size and scale) 60% from its mighty $80 million debut and stand at $132 million domestically and $361 million globally.
First-time director Dev Patel’s action thriller “Monkey Man” nabbed second place with $10.1 million from 3,029 venues, while Disney and 20th Century’s supernatural prequel “The First Omen” trailed at the No. 4 spot with a muted $8.4 million from 3,375 locations….
… Writer Mark Frost told the BBC’s Late Show that part of the inspiration behind the character was the show’s co-creator and director David Lynch.
“I tried to base that character on David to some extent,” said Frost. “A lot of his quirkiness and attention to detail, which are things that David has in great abundance, sort of came to the surface with that character. I guess his interest in people’s obsessions, and characters who are obsessed with something, are pretty common with other things he’s done.” …
…“I don’t know when I started thinking about Snoots but I’d do these drawings of Snoots and then a story started to emerge,” Lynch told us in a rare interview. “I got together with Caroline and we worked on a script. Just recently I thought someone might be interested in getting behind this so I presented it to Netflix in the last few months but they rejected it.”
Lynch was philosophical about the reasons for that decision: “Snootworld is kind of an old fashioned story and animation today is more about surface jokes. Old fashioned fairytales are considered groaners: apparently people don’t want to see them. It’s a different world now and it’s easier to say no than to say yes.”
Thompson described the storyline to us as “wackadoo”: “It takes my breath away how wacky it is. The Snoots are these tiny creatures who have a ritual transition at aged eight at which time they get tinier and they’re sent away for a year so they are protected. The world goes into chaos when the Snoot hero of the story disappears into the carpet and his family can’t find him and he enters a crazy, magnificent world”….
Star Trek: Discovery‘s long-awaited fifth season finally debuted this week on Paramount+, and it marks the beginning of the end for the series. ComicBook.com recently had the chance to chat with some of the show’s cast, and they opened up about saying goodbye to their characters in the final season. Doug Jones (Saru) revealed how he said farewell to the character he began playing in 2017, and it involves an iconic song…
“Oh yeah,” Jones said when asked if he was able to keep any part of Saru after the show finished filming. “I wasn’t gonna let that go. Yeah. My final time taking Saru off, I did not cut him up and throw him across the room at all,” he added, referencing the famous story of René Auberjonois throwing his Odo mask at the showrunner at the end of Deep Space Nine. “I held him on my hand and we were playing a Whitney Houston song and I sang ‘I Will Always Love You’ to him and somebody was recording it. So I hope that’s out there somewhere.”…
(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born April 8, 1974 — Nnedi Okorafor, 50. Tonight we have Nnedi Okorafor, a truly phenomenal writer.
She’s Nigerian, and has coined two words to describe her literary focus, Africanfuturism, and Africanjujuism. The latter word identifies the Afrocentric subgenre of fantasy fiction that draws on African spiritualities and cosmologies. Cool.
Let’s start with some of her work as comic book writer. The LaGuardia series that she wrote for was published by Berger Books. The collection won a Graphic Story Hugo Award at ConZealand, and her Black Panther: Long Live the King was nominated at Dublin 2019. She did other work in the Panther universe as well — Shuri in which Black Panther is missing and she has to find him (great story), Wakanda Forever and Shuri: Wakanda Forever
I started there as I love her writing in this medium. Now let me pick my favorite novellas and novels by her.
The Binti trilogy is an extraordinary feat of writing and my favorite reading experience by her. The “Binti” novella which leads it off won a Hugo at MidAmeriCon II. Then came the “Binti: Home” novella which was nominatedfor a Hugo at Worldcon 76 and the final “Binti: The Night Masquerade” novella to date which was nominatedfor a Hugo at Dublin 2019.
Lagoon is a deep dive in Nigerian mythology including Legba in the forefront here, in what is a SF novel as aliens and humans come together to form a new postcapitalist Nigeria. Neat concept well executed, characters are fascinating and the story is done well.
Just days before its debut, Falloutlooks to be assured a second season thanks to a $25 million tax credit from California.
Officially, Amazon has not said yet that the Prime Video series is coming back, but, with some hints from executive producers Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan recently, it is pretty clear the money is doing the talking here. Receiving one of the largest allocations ever from the program for a relocating series, the LA-set post-apocalyptic drama is among a dozen shows awarded $152 million in incentives.
Primetime prequel NCIS: Origins, the Noah Wyle starring The Pitt, plus the Ryan Murphy executive produced Dr. Odyssey starring Joshua Jackson, and Grotesquerie starring Emmy winner Niecy Nash also were awarded credits through the California Film Commission run $330 million annual program – as you can see below….
… Of course, being awarded the tax credits, even big bucks like what Fallout has reaped, is no guarantee a project will go forward. The allocations are conditional on certain timelines being met, and a number of films and shows, like Season 2 of Amazon’s spy saga Citadel, have dropped out of the program after getting a green light….
(14) FILM CENSORSHIP. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Though not SF in itself, this half-hour radio programme, Screenshot, will be of interest to anyone over here in Brit Cit who are fans of fantastic films. It explains how Britain ranks its films for age suitability. Those in the rebel colonies are not ignored as there is a section comparing Britain’s system with that in the US. It seems we get a better deal over here. Meanwhile, along the way Kim Newman (co-master of ceremonies at the 2005 Hugo ceremony) gets a name check.
As the British Board of Film Classification publishes its new guidelines, Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode delve into the long, chequered history of film censorship and classification in the UK.
Mark speaks to BBFC President (and original Strictly Come Dancing winner) Natasha Kaplinsky about her role, and about her reaction to the new guidelines. And he discusses the Board’s controversial history, and some of its most notorious decisions, with ex-BBFC Head of Compliance Craig Lapper.
Ellen talks to director Prano Bailey-Bond about her debut film Censor, which was inspired by the ‘video nasty’ moral panic of the 1980s. And pop culture critic Kayleigh Donaldson talks her through some of the differences between the BBFC and its US equivalent, the MPA Ratings Board.
… “We’ve got all the technology we need,” says Ben Lamm, chief executive of the firm, based in Dallas, Texas.
“It is just a focus of time and funding. But we are 100% confident [we can bring back] the Tasmanian tiger, the dodo, and the mammoth.”
The science behind the project is simple: Work out the genes that make an extinct animal what it is, and then replicate those genes using the DNA of a close existing relative….
… So after around 4,000 years of extinction, when could we see the return of the mighty mammoth – a creature that fell victim to human hunting and the changing conditions brought about by the end of the last Ice Age.
“We are well into the editing phase,” says Mr Lamm.
“We don’t have mammoths yet, but we still feel very good about 2028.”…
(16) STAND BY FOR MANIACAL LAUGHTER. “Animaniacs in Concert” will be presented at Pepperdine in Malibu on April 19. Buy tickets at the link. Learn more about the show itself at their website: “Animaniacs – IN CONCERT”.
Join the leading voice cast of Animaniacs—the iconic animated Warner Bros. series created and produced by Steven Spielberg—for a “zany, animany and totally insaney” evening as they perform the world-famous songs backed by projections from the beloved cartoon TV series. The live show celebrates the creative inspiration behind the songs with lots of audience interaction and never-before-told behind-the-scenes insider stories shared by the show’s original Emmy-Winning composer Randy Rogel and iconic voice actors like Rob Paulsen (Yakko) and Maurice LaMarche (The Brain) to some of the most unforgettable characters in the history of animation. Special guest Nancy Cartwright joins for this performance. Nancy, of course, is Bart Simpson, a lead character in a “globally known property,” as well as Mindy in Animaniacs, from “Mindy and Buttons.”
[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Lise Andreasen, Daniel Dern, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Igvar.]
[Introduction: Melanie Stormm continues her humorous series of posts about the misdirected emails she’s been getting. Stormm is a multiracial writer who writes fiction, poetry, and audio theatre. Her novella, Last Poet of Wyrld’s End is available through Candlemark & Gleam. She is currently the editor at the SPECk, a monthly publication on speculative poetry by the SFPA.]
PAUL REVERE PRESCHOOL & CRAFT BREWERY
Hello, All! Melanie here.
In previous weeks, our friend Writer X has thrown herself into boosting the music career of her BFF and high-ranking teenage demon Tryxy. When last we heard from them, the band DemonKitty (a band consisting of Tryxy and his adorable cat #bestkitten) had the opportunity to travel to Boston to perform for an A & R rep at a music label.
This is an exciting opportunity for any band, but the music industry is a lot like the publishing industry; it delivers highs and lows, sometimes simultaneously.
Tryxy and #bestkitten’s hopes were dashed when they learned that Arnold Rolfson had no interest in their band but was looking for talented musicians to play his original music.
It wasn’t all bad. Arnold Rolfson later extended the opportunity for DemonKitty to come back to Boston and play for a local preschool. My old music mentor used to tell me, “No matter what happens, always play the gig.”
Without further ado…
Subject: DemonKitty is Shipping up to Boston!!!!!
Dear Gladys,
No one was expecting the ghoul attack. In fact, we spent most of the day worried about how DemonKitty’s show at Paul Revere Preschool & Craft Brewery in Boston was going to go. No matter what we were worried about, it turns out we were worried about the wrong thing.
It all started two weeks ago when I got an unexpected text from Arnold Rolfson, the A & R rep for the Yankee’s Suck Label, asking if DemonKitty would be up for opening for local Boston band The Womp Rats at a preschool.
I don’t trust that Arnold Rolfson, Gladys. Not as far as I can throw him. And I’ve been power-walking with weights so I’m pretty sure that’s at least three or four feet. Not that my boyfriend, award nominated fantasy writer Tod Boadkins, will let me test that theory!!!!!
Anyhoo, I’m sure you’re dying to know how my writing is going. Lately, I haven’t been writing much fiction, but I have been writing in my journal a lot and doing this thing I call Word Vomit. Basically, I set my timer for twenty minutes and I write EVERYTHING that comes to my mind whether or not it makes sense. So basically it’s like an email.
Back to the Preschool show!!!
So Tryxy was really excited that Arnold Rolfson invited DemonKitty to open up for The Womp Rats. After all, it would be DemonKitty’s very first show NOT IN NEW HAMPSHIRE!!! And when we were in Boston two weeks ago, we drove by a methadone clinic where we saw an elder god administering medication to someone wearing a Womp Rats t-shirt, so this band is FAMOUS!!!!!!
Personally, I was worried about the venue. Arnold Rolfson stressed me out talking about how DemonKitty has to bring their A game.
He said: “These are very discerning three-year olds. They’re tired of Baby Shark. They want something even more distilled. I just so happen to have written a song that I know would kill it for DemonKitty and, if you ask nicely, I’ll let them play one of my originals.”
I was very stressed out. How was I going to keep from sporking Arnold Rolfson in the ear if he keeps trying to bogart DemonKitty for his own stupid music?? And how was DemonKitty supposed to play for a bunch of discerning preschoolers??? DemonKitty’s music isn’t for everyone. It’s only for the most sophisticated and artistic of listeners like myself.
But Tryxy wasn’t worried. “Half of our songs are just meowing, and we have a cat in the band, and we vomit rainbows at the end. If that doesn’t win preschoolers over, nothing will.”
It turns out, I was entirely worried about the wrong thing, and I’m not talking about the Cthulhu Cultist Parade that was all over the news that morning because Boston officials issued a Cthulhu Manifestation Advisory.
We drove down to Boston and dropped my boyfriend, award nominated fantasy writer Tod Boadkins, off at the John Quincy Adams High School & Cannabis Dispensary because he was asked to host a writing workshop for teens this week. Then, we set off to Paul Revere Preschool & Craft Brewery but GPS accidentally rerouted us to Abigail Adams Middle School & Vape Supply Warehouse.
Tryxy was clutching his knees with anxiety. We had lost an ENTIRE hour with the GPS accident and he was sure we were going to get to the school late and make a very bad impression on the Womp Rats. He had bought a Womp Rats t-shirt for them to sign. Then, to make matters worse, we couldn’t find parking ANYWHERE NEAR THE SCHOOL.
It turns out, there was nothing we could do about the Womp Rats. The second I drove through the gym doors and parked on the indoor play gym, Arnold Rolfson came up to us and told us that the Womp Rats were threatening not to play because they were unhappy he had booked DemonKitty as their opening act.
It turns out The Womp Rats had requested a band called “Lieger Tiger” to open for them. Apparently Lieger Tiger is a high brow free form jazz act that uses only bear horns and fingernails on chalkboards for all their sounds. The Womp Rats thought that if a “bunch of nobodies like a demon and a cat” opened for them, that they’ll stop pulling in better venues.
That was CRUSHING. And when I saw the look on Tryxy’s face, I very nearly kidnapped all three members of the Womp Rats and tied them up in an industrial trash compactor where they could be crushed for crushing my BFF, but my boyfriend, award nominated fantasy writer Tod Boadkins, promised me that if I refrain from hurting anyone for a full week, he’s got a romantic surprise for me!!!!
Anyhoo, we muscled through the situation and started setting up Tryxy’s drum kit when the preschool administrator came running into the gym saying that students were being kept in their classes until the Cthulhu Cultist Parade passed by and we could be reasonably assured that the kids wouldn’t be eaten by a god-monster before the busses came.
I don’t know why Boston gets so up in arms about Cthulhu. Everyone knows that Cthulhu rarely attacks Suffolk County. IT’S ESSEX THAT HAS TO WATCH OUT!!!!!
THEN, it turns out the school had to delay the show even more because, after the Cthulhu cultists passed, it was time for the children to attend some special Touch and See craft activity called “How to Grow a Callous on Your Liver and a Chip on Your Shoulder For Young Bostonians.”
So the show was delayed by a whole HOUR. Every single minute, Tryxy got more anxious that the Womp Rats would make good on their threat not to play at all, and he even began to doubt himself!!!!
Sure enough, the clock struck three and about one hundred preschoolers were released into the play gym like a pack of Juicy-Juice fueled piranhas. That’s when Tryxy began to crash his cymbals and beat his drums like he’d never play again.
The CROWD WENT WILD!!!! They sang their hits “Ninevah Burns In My Soul,” “Meow,” and “Meow Meow” TWICE because the kids ate it up. You should’ve seen the little preschooler’s faces light up when Tryxy worked his magic and he and #bestkitten opened up their mouths like they were going to throw up and rainbows of light streamed out of their mouths over the gym!!!!!
There was NO WAY the Womp Rats could follow that.
And luckily for them, they didn’t have to. Because everyone knows that Boston’s problem isn’t with Cthulhu. Boston’s problem is with Ghouls. Ghouls are always taking over the North End and the T. And it just so happens that Paul Revere Preschool and Craft Brewery is near the North End and that’s when about thirty ghouls barreled through the broken gym doors I’d driven through and carried off the Womp Rats and about sixty growlers of Belgian White.
The finalists for the 15th annual Xingyun Awards for Chinese science fiction have been announced by the World Chinese Science Fiction Association. Winners will be revealed at a ceremony to be held in Chengdu, Sichuan, China on May 18, 2024.
BEST NOVEL 2023
Gods of the Earth: Return of the Dead, by Fenxing Chengzi (Shenzhen Publishing House; Science and Fantasy Growth Foundation)
The City in the Well, by Liu Yang (People’s Literature Publishing House)
Cosmo Wings, by Jiang Bo (People’s Literature Publishing House; 8-Light Minutes Culture)
The Age of God Making, by Yan Xi (Sichuan University Press; Science Fiction World)
BEST NOVELLA 2023
“The Fleeting Gravity of Words”, by Zhou Wen (Visiting the Stars: Chinese Stories of Flying to the Outer Space)
“The Solar System on Set: The Teahouse at the End of the Universe”, by Shuang Chimu (Shanghai Literature, No. 4 2023)
“Our Martians”, by Bao Shu (Visiting the Stars: Chinese Stories of Flying to the Outer Space)
“The Salt Bridge”, by Liang Ling (Lighting up Mars: Collection of Winning Stories from the 6th Lenghu Awards)
BEST SHORT STORY 2023
“Lake Breezes that Brush Over the Palace of Moon”, by Wanxiang Fengnian (Visiting the Stars: Chinese Stories of Flying to the Outer Space)
“A Window with a View”, by Bao Shu (Non-Exist SF, January 24 2023)
“Let the White Deer Roam”, by Cheng Jingbo (Science Fiction World, November 2023)
“City of Choice”, by Gu Shi (Beijing Literature, July 2023)
BEST TRANSLATED WORK 2023
Babel, by R.F. Kuang, translated by Chen Yang (CITIC Press)
The Kaiju Preservation Society, by John Scalzi, translated by Gen Hui (New Star Press)
SF Soul: Autobiography of Komatsu Sakyo, by Komatsu Sakyo, translated by Meng Qingshu (Sichuan Science & Technology Press; Science Fiction World)
Escape from the Future, by Kobayashi Yasumi, translated by Ding Dingchong (Yilin Press)
BEST NON-FICTION 2023
Unlocking the Future: The Urban Imagination in Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction, by Luo Xiaoming (Shanghai Bookstore Publishing House)
Gazing at the Stars: My Personal Encounter with Chinese Science Fiction, by Yang Xiao (Sichuan People’s Publishing House; Science Fiction World)
“Impressions of Chinese SF Practitioners on Foreign SF Culture: A Brief Analysis of the History of Introducing Foreign SF Culture”, by RiverFlow (Zero-Gravity SF, No. 12)
Chinese Science Fiction: An Oral History, Vol.1-Vol.3, edited by Yang Feng (Chengdu Times Publishing House; 8-Light Minutes Culture)
BEST REVIEW 2023
“From the Valleys to the Stars: Ursula K. Le Guin’s Speculative Anthropology”, by Jiang Weihe (The Beijing News, September 22 2023)
“The Curve of Human Destiny and the Poetics of Humanity: Reading ‘Last and First Men’”, by Shuang Chimu (Imagining Science: Reading SF Literature Classics)
“A Specter of the Anthropocene is Haunting: A Review of Mark Bould’s ‘The Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate Catastrophe Culture’”, by Lyu Guangzhao (Science Writing Review, Issue 1 2023)
“‘Journey to the West’: An Atypical Segment of the Science Fiction Community”, by Xi Xia (Literature Press Wechat Official Account, April 4 2023)
BEST NEW WRITER 2021-2023
Lu Hang*
Qi Ran*
Wang Cencen*
Wang Xiaohai**
(*Finalists in their 3rd year of eligibility, **Finalist in his 1st year of eligibility)
[Thanks to Feng Zhang and the World Chinese Science Fiction Association for the story.]
I’ve been thinking about this topic idly in my skull for quite some time, and since there are no real good places to put it—less than an essay, more than a tweet—I figured a good test of my discipline would be drafting it for a newsletter. So here’s me rambling about one of my favourite idle obsessions: the 2010s CBS procedural Elementary, in particular why its portrayal of the relationship between Holmes & Watson is one of my favourites. BIG SPOILERS, of course that goes without saying, but you’re already here, so…
… “You don’t hear this so much anymore, but back in the day, conservatives had this sort of slippery slope dang baloney argument about ‘if we let gay people get married then what’s next? You gotta marry a tree? Are you going to marry a dang dinosaur?’ And I think that I always heard those arguments and I always thought why not? What would be wrong with someone marrying whoever, whatever, how many different people, different combinations. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, as long as you’re talking about consenting adults, the world would be a much better place if you took this conservative nightmare to the extreme, it would actually probably be more of a utopia.
“And so the Tingleverse in general, is kind of that conservative nightmare realized in that actually, it would be a really beautiful place full of love, and acceptance. And so, from the very first story, it is an unusual combination of lovers. But you realize if you read the book, ‘Oh, actually, that’s a really wholesome, beautiful, wonderful place that conservatives seem to just be terrified of.’”…
(3) “TRAD PUBLISHING IS LITERALLY FAILING AT DOING ITS JOB”. Lili Saintcrow cuts loose about the current WTF state of traditional publishing — “We Gotta Talk About (Trad) Publishing”. (Saintcrow’s fireworks are inspired by Lorraine Wilson’s analysis, “Is there a book submission arms race”, an article that Saintcrow praises as “perfectly lovely and … a hundred percent accurate”.)
…Publishing has always been an awfully exploitative business. For a long while the level of fuckery in trad pub was low enough for plenty of writers to make a reasonable gamble by submitting by the rules and building a career, but this is no longer the case. Which is not solely or even mostly a function of the pandemic, mind you–the problems were already there well before 2020 rolled around, but conditions since ~2016 have absolutely poured jet fuel on the fire and now we’ve got a multiple-alarm blaze. (You could even trace the problems to Amazon’s strong-arming, or further back to Reagonomics, but that’s a whole ‘nother blog post.)
The Big Five/Four have already offloaded the brute work of marketing onto individual authors, hollowing out their own marketing departments in order to line C-suite pockets. Now the crunch has reached editorial departments, where even salaried folk traditionally protected from a lot of industry bullshit are being ruthlessly overworked, underpaid, and just generally mistreated. (No, this is not a “pity the poor editors” screed, just a fact.) Consequently a lot of folk are leaving, and those who remain–or the shiny new ones coming in, thinking they’re going to score a good job–find it impossible to pick up the slack. The article linked above is absolutely correct that editors at the big houses are now being used as draft-horse project managers, which does not work with novels or nonfiction books. It just…doesn’t….
And there’s a lot more at the link.
(4) IN THE YEAR 2025. The 2025 UK Eastercon – named Reconnect — will be held April 18-21, 2025 in Belfast, co-chaired by James Bacon and Tommy Ferguson, with Deputy Chair Jo Zebedee. Get more information at the Eastercon Belfast website.
(5) GLASGOW 2024 PUBLISHES NEW PROGRESS REPORT. Glasgow 2024 today published Progress Report 4 (their fifth; the first was numbered as Progress Report 0). Anyone can download the PDF file from the Glasgow 2024 website.
The cover for Progress Report 4 (PR4), ‘Badger Finds A Charmawow’ is by Chris Baker (a.k.a. Fangorn), one of the Guests of Honour.
PR4 includes news from all areas including:
An update from Convention Chair Esther MacCallum-Stewart
Our updated membership rates including rates for day tickets
Further news and updates from all Divisions as the convention comes ever closer.
PR4 also features a look back at the London Worldcon of 2014, the final entry in their history of British Worldcons.
(6) WILL GLASGOW CAP ATTENDING MEMBERSHIPS? Progress Report #4 includes this information:
… Our current projections are for between 6,500 and 8,000 purchased in-person registrant types (including 1- and 2-day tickets). This upper number, if everyone turns up, is probably above the maximum holding capacity for the site. So, there is a chance we may need to cap in-person attending registrant purchases, if we are not to get overcrowded. So, we are advising folk to join as early as possible to avoid this possibility effecting your enjoyment of the convention….
(7) TEXAS-SIZED COLLECTION. Morgan Dawn recommended Bluesky readers watch a 2022 video about the “Huge Science Fiction and Fantasy Collection”, which explores the sff collection at the Texas A&M Library, and takes viewers back to the early days of the university’s Cepheid Variable club and their annual AggieCon.
Michael Magee, 33, won this year’s Nero debut fiction award for Close to Home, now out in paperback, as well as last year’s Rooney prize for Irish literature (previously awarded to Anne Enright and Claire Keegan). Set in west Belfast, where Magee grew up, the book follows Sean, a working-class graduate who falls foul of the law as he struggles to make a life in the shadow of violence both political and domestic….
What did you read growing up? In my later teens I had a very good English teacher who gave me Barry Hines’s A Kestrel for a Knave, which was the first instance where I’d read something that reflected my own reality. I didn’t grow up in a bookish house and didn’t start reading in my spare time outside education till I was about 12 or 13. Lord of the Rings was my gateway drug. As a teenager I wrote a ripoff of it, drawing maps that I dabbed with wet teabags and burned at the edges to age them. But I did all this on the shy! You couldn’t be seen reading books in the company I was keeping. As a young man I felt impelled towards toughness, inexpressiveness, which was at odds with who I was, and who I am. It took me a very long time to disentangle myself from that.
You must run into people who knew you back then. Of course, all the time. There’s a disbelief at how I’ve ended up – I ask myself the same question – and also a kind of piss-taking, which is completely deserved: “Still writing your wee books, Mick, are ye?”…
… For a number of months in 2020, Disney was almost entirely reliant on Disney+ and it came into its own. As people were stuck indoors during lockdown, the popularity of the platform surged and was hailed as Disney’s white knight. It was almost unthinkable that it could actually end up bringing the company to its knees but that is exactly what happened over the following years.
As subscriber numbers soared far beyond Disney’s forecasts, the Mouse got drunk on its own success and ploughed billions of Dollars into exclusive Disney+ content. By the time it was released, there was a vaccine for covid and the pandemic had receded. Consumers were left picking up the tab for blockbuster furlough payments creating a global cost of living crisis that endures to this day. It led to people cutting their streaming subscriptions and left Disney with a loss-making platform….
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born April 7, 1934 — Ian Richardson. (Died 2007.) I do these Birthdays by seeing who I recognize and then doing a deep dive to see how interesting a given individual is. It’s not just what they did in our community that interests me but what they’ve done else as well. And Ian Richardson had an interesting career both here and elsewhere.
Ian Richardson
Where to start? He was at the right age, just about fifty, when he played Holmes in The Sign of Four and The Hound of the Baskervilles, a pair of made for television films. He also starred in BBC’s Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes playing Arthur Conan Doyle’s mentor, Dr. Joseph Bell.
What next? How about him being in Brazil? (I had to watch it three times before I liked it.) He plays Mr. Warren, works in a rabbit-warren style place, a maze of Endless Corridors. A perfect bureaucrat he was.
He’s the Narrator of Dark City which was nominated for the Hugo Award at Aussiecon Three the year The Truman Show won.
In Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, he’s Polonius. In the play by Shakespeare, Polonius is a verbose, faltering and pathetic old man whose servile devotion to Claudius renders him untrustworthy in the eyes of Hamlet. Here he portrays that character perfectly. Yes, I do love the film.
He’s The Wasp in Alice Through The Looking Glass. You really, really need to see the yellow wig that they gave to represent him being a wasp.
Ian Richardson as the Wasp in a Wig and Kate Beckinsale in Alice Through the Looking Glass (1998).
He’s in From Hell as Sir Charles Warren, an actual historical figure, an Officer in the British Royal Engineers who was one of the first archaeologists.
Finally he’s in thatMidsummer’s Night Dream. You know the one that Ian Holm, Helen Mirren, Diana Rigg, David Warner and Judi Dench in it? He plays Oberon here.
Wait, though, as I do feel obligated to note his two extraordinary performances outside the genre. He played Tory politician Francis Urquhart in the House of Cards series — oh so magnificently — and he was British spy Bill Haydon in the Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy series.
(13) THEY MADE THE SHIP THAT MADE THE KESSEL RUN. [Item by Steven French.] Atlas Obscura tells us the genre connection of Wales’ “Pembroke Dock Heritage Centre”.
THERE WAS SOMETHING DIFFERENT ABOUT the last ship to leave Pembrokeshire’s massive dock complex.
Following the success of the original Star Wars film in 1977, director George Lucas wanted a full-scale model of Han Solo’s fabled spaceship, the Millennium Falcon, for the filming of the next installment in the series, The Empire Strikes Back.
The job of constructing the 88-foot vessel fell to a team working out of the historic maritime dock complex at Pembroke Dock, Pembrokeshire…
From the late 1980s through the 1990s, Klingon Lt. Cmdr. Worf was one of the most visible characters on the popular TV shows Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Actor and pilot Michael Dorn, who was cast as Worf, made the character his own and ended up appearing in 276 episodes, the most of any other cast member in the Star Trek franchise’s history.
To Dorn, morphing into Worf each day was a lengthy process because of the amount of makeup and prosthetics required to bring the character to life. But when the cameras stopped rolling, it wasn’t the starship Enterprise that drew Dorn’s attention, it was a Cessna 172 Skyhawk. But there was a problem.
You see, Michael Dorn likes airplanes that go fast. Really fast. After moving through a few general aviation airplanes, he began buying and flying a long list of former U.S. military fighter jets. This desire to go fast also explains why he drives a Tesla Model X P100D today. “It has ‘Ludicrous’ mode,” Dorn says. “I live for on-ramps!”…
The list of aircraft Michael has owned includes:
Civilian aircraft
Cessna 172
Cessna 310
Cessna 340A
Citation 501SP
SOCATA Trinidad TB-20
Beechcraft Baron 55
Military (or military-grade) aircraft
HA200 Saeta (Spanish and Egyptian Air Forces)
Lockheed T-33 (USAF, USN, Japanese Air Self-Defense Force, German Air Force)
North American F-86C (USAF, Japan Air Self-Defense Force, Spanish Air Force, Republic of Korea Air Force)
North American Sabreliner 40A (USAF, USN, & USMC operated military configurations)
Lockheed F-104 Starfighter (USAF, German Air Force, Turkish Air Force, Italian Air Force)
…Moondust is a huge problem. Apollo astronauts were vexed by the sharp-edged powder, which got under their fingernails and into their noses, lungs, mouths, and eyes. Apollo 12’s Alan Bean said residual dust in the LM cabin “made breathing without the helmet difficult, and enough particles were present… to affect our vision.” The stuff is like “silty sand… [but] sharp and glassy,” according to the Lunar Sourcebook. Coughing and itching are nuisances, but simulated long-term exposure, in one study’s words, revealed “significant cell toxicity in neuronal and lung cell lines in culture, as well as DNA damage.” Mitigating the dust is a significant challenge, but astronauts and their equipment could be protected with invisible electrodes that activate what researcher Carlos Calle calls an “Electrodynamic Dust Shield”—shifting electric fields that keep the dust from sticking to a surface…
(16) NASFiC ECLIPSE. Joseph T. Major reminds us about a previous celestial experience:
In 2017, too late to do anything about it, Mike Glyer had an interesting thought. Why not have NASFiC in Nashville, during the August 21 eclipse? But Ken Moore, the man who could have organized it, had died in 2009.
Nevertheless, there was a possibility. Bob Embler annually held Outsidecon, where fans got in tent and socialized. What was so important about that?
Every year, in Kelly, Kentucky, there is Little Green Men Festival, commemorating the close encounter there in 1955. In 2017, the Festival ran a day over, so the flying saucer people could see the eclipse. And they stayed in tents, too, because hotel bills were $300 a day and a minimum of three days’ stay.
If Mike and Bob had got together, they could have organized a Kelly Outdoor NASFiC bid for the 18th through the 21st. Now that would have been better than the San Juan NASFiC.
[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Dann, Bruce D. Arthurs, Kathy Sullivan, 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 Jon Meltzer.]
