Pixel Scroll 6/30/17 There’s A Million Ways To Scroll, Ev’ry One’s A Pixel

(1) AND ALL THAT ROT. Omnivorcious interviews “Mira Grant” and M.R. Carey in “The Scientific Case for Zombies”.

It turns out the idea of living dead—depending how you define both “living” and “dead”—may not be as far-fetched as it might seem. Some science fiction writers have found inspiration—and trepidation—in real-life parasites. We talked to two of them, Mira Grant and M.R. Carey, about their newest books and the concept of scientific zombies.

…Carey searched for a pathogen that met his criteria for the cause of the hungry epidemic, and realized that Cordyceps fit perfectly. It was also a unique choice. “At the time nobody had ever used a fungus as the vector for a zombie plague,” he says, though the creators of a console game called The Last of Us came up with the same idea independently, around the same time.

… Besides reading, Grant also “spent a lot of time on the phone with the CDC, which was an incredible amount of fun.” Grant savored the information she gleaned that way, but her friends “had to make new rules about what I was allowed to discuss over food,” so they didn’t lose their appetites.

(2) MITHER TONGUE. I don’t suppose the Scots laugh when they read this, do they, but my God… “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone finally arrives in Scots translation”.

Though still working on the translation, Fitt and his publisher released the opening paragraph, which reads: “Mr and Mrs Dursley, o nummer fower, Privet Loan, were prood tae say that they were gey normal, thank ye awfie muckle. They were the lest fowk ye wid jalouse wid be taigled up wi onythin unco or ferlie, because they jist widnae hae onythin tae dae wi joukery packery like yon.”

In his first adventure, Harry leaves the cruel Dursley family to attend Hogwarts wizarding school, which has long been understood to be based somewhere in the Scottish Highlands, where Scots speakers exist in their highest numbers.

(3) WU CAMPAIGN. Candidate for Congress Brianna Wu’s fundraising email says Our national tech policy is failing:

Something has to change. Our elections are being targeted by Russia, our shipping system was hijacked this week and congress continues to try to spy on you with your smartphone.  It doesn’t have to be this way. I have a plan

Just 15 people in the US House determine our nation’s tech policy on the Science and Technology Subcommittee.

Meaning just 8 votes control our policy on privacy, encryption, and net neutrality. The giant telecoms have a voice. Shouldn’t you?

Please contribute, so we can get Brianna Wu elected to US Congress in 2018, representing Massachusetts District 8!  Help fight for a braver, bolder Democratic party!

(4) DECLINE AND FALL OF THE GALACTIC EMPIRE. Will they succeed where others have failed? “Skydance Trying Asimov’s ‘Foundation’ As TV Series; David Goyer, Josh Friedman To Adapt”.

Isaac Asimov science fiction trilogy Foundation heavily informed Star Wars and many other sci-fi films and TV series, but for decades it has confounded Hollywood attempts at a straight adaptation. I’m hearing that Skydance, David S. Goyer and Josh Friedman are going to try to crack it. Skydance Television is closing a deal with the Asimov estate to try turning Foundation into a sprawling TV series.

… The biggest creative quandary, I’ve heard from those who tried to adapt Foundation, is that so many of Asimov’s themes found their way into George Lucas’s Star Wars that the challenge is to not appear to be ripping off one of Hollywood’s most successful film franchises, even though Asimov wrote his books 75 years ago. Considering that Lucasfilm continues to borrow from that mythology with myriad Star Wars sequels and spinoff films, perhaps a TV series is the best bet.

(5) QUALIFYING MARKET. Joe Stech, publisher/editor of Compelling Science Fiction, is delighted to report —

Compelling Science Fiction is now one of the few magazines worldwide that is considered a professional “Qualifying Market” by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America: Short fiction Qualifying Markets

SFWA is a wonderful organization that supports authors in a huge number of ways (our own publishing contract is adapted from SFWA’s model magazine contract). SFWA also hosts the annual Nebula Awards. While we have always paid professional rates, this recognition means that our published authors will find it much easier to use their publication in our magazine to meet SFWA membership requirements, because we have already been vetted.

(6) NOT JUST FOR COMPULSIVE READERS: Jason’s Featured Futures is back with another selection of stories (with links and comments) in the “Summation of Online Fiction June 2017”.

The twelve prozines of June produced thirty-eight stories and I read thirty-five of them at about 165K words. (Tor.com should have posted a fourth story on the 28th but didn’t. If it comes out today or tomorrow, I’ll update this post accordingly.) The random flukes of this month were a large number of honorable mentions (with not so many recommendations) which were mostly SF, half of which came from almost the entire issue of Compelling Science Fiction. Given that, I’ll basically do a mini-review of the whole issue after the lists.

(7) DEATH FROM ABOVE. Scientists have found what appears to be a 250-kilometer-wide crater near the Falkland Islands. Is it ground zero for Earth’s largest-ever extinction event? “Did a Planetary Society citizen scientist help find one of Earth’s biggest impact craters?”

About 66 million years ago, a 10-kilometer-wide hunk of rock smashed into Earth near what is now Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.

The impact created a global dust cloud that snuffed out the sunlight, leading to the demise of 80 percent of Earth’s plants and animals—including most of the dinosaurs. A 200-kilometer-wide crater buried near the city of Chicxulub is all that’s left. It’s ground zero for one of the world’s most notable extinction events.

But throughout Earth’s history, there have actually been five major extinction events. The largest of these occurred about 250 million years ago, when a whopping 96 percent of life on Earth died. Scientists aren’t sure what caused the event, known as “the Great Dying.” If it was a Chicxulub-sized impact; no one has ever found the crater.

Until possibly now.

A trio of scientists—one of whom is funded by The Planetary Society—thinks they may have found it. Off the coast of South America, near the Falkland Islands, there appears to be a 250-kilometer-wide crater buried under ocean sediment. An upcoming paper in the August edition of the peer-reviewed journal Terra Nova suggests it was formed by a massive asteroid or comet bigger than the one that hit Chicxulub.

(8) TODAY’S DAY

Asteroid Day

A global awareness event where people from around the world come together to learn about what we can do to protect Earth from an asteroid impact. Did you know that, as you’re reading this, there are likely one million near-Earth asteroids large enough to do severe damage if they hit Earth? We don’t have to go the way of the dinosaurs. Learn more about what we can do to reduce the threat:

 

(9) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • June 30, 1971Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was released.
  • June 30, 1972 — The fourth film in the series — Conquest of the Planet of the Apes — premiered theatrically.

(10) COMIC SECTION. John King Tarpinian calls your attention to Bizarro for June 30.

(11) DISNEYLAND. When the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland is updated the bride auction scene will be going away. However, the iconic redhead will still be around – as a pirate helping to rob the townspeople. According to the Orange County Register:

The pirates will no longer be saying “We wants the Redhead” in Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland after the auction scene undergoes a modification in 2018.

The Walt Disney Company plans to make changes to the auction scene in the classic attraction at Disneyland, Walt Disney World and Disneyland Paris in the coming year, according to Suzi Brown, spokeswoman for the Disneyland Resort.

While the scene has long been a favorite of many Disney fans, it has occasionally been the brunt of criticism for what some believed to be a “sexist” approach to women. Years ago, the scene that comes after the auction scene, which used to have pirates chasing women, was changed to pirates chasing women for food, and one where a woman was chasing a pirate.

When asked about the sexism Brown said, in a statement, “We believe the time is right to turn the page to a new story in this scene, consistent with the humorous, adventurous spirit of the attraction.”

In the auction scene, the Redhead will become a pirate, helping the Auctioneer gather valuables from the townspeople to auction off to the pirates.

The first version of the attraction to receive the new scene will be at Disneyland Paris next month, with the two domestic parks receiving it within the next year or so.

There was nothing amusing or cute about what real-life pirates did when they sacked a town, so in the midst of a musical horror fantasy about such an event it’s interesting where they think they need to redraw the line in 2017 to keep people from being reminded of that.

(12) URB APPEAL. Andrew Porter noticed you can now buy a condo in Detroit where the 1959 Worldcon (Detention) was held. If that idea appeals to you.

When the Fort Shelby became a Doubletree Hotel in 2008 on the first ten floors, the developers used tax credits to turn the 56 units above into apartments. Now that the time has passed for the credits, the apartments can be turned into condos, and a few of them have already listed.

They start at $280,000 for a one-bedroom and go up to $570,000 for a three-bedroom on a higher level. Six penthouses will also be available on the 21st floor, and those will run from $350,000 to $815,000.

According to the Loft Warehouse, the listing firm, four are ready now and another 19 are in the pipeline for the year as apartment leases run out.

(13) FRED AND WILMA SELL THEIR HOUSE. After dropping a million from the asking price, “‘Flintstones’-style house in California sells for $2.8M”.

A California house designed to resemble a home from the Flintstones cartoon sold for nearly $3 million after multiple price drops.

Judy Meuschke of Alain Pinel Realtors said the unique property sold for $2.8 million in May after arriving on the market for a price of $4.2 million in 2015.

The property features a rounded, stone-like exterior with grey and orange walls, closely resembling the cavelike homes in the Flinstones’ home of Bedrock City.

 

(14) ONE MILLION BC. More information about the forthcoming Marvel Legacy.

It all starts with MARVEL LEGACY #1.

Journey to the dawn of time, as Marvel introduces you to the first Avengers from 1,000,000 BC – when iconic torch-bearers such as Odin, Iron Fist, Starbrand, Ghost Rider, Phoenix, Agamotto, and Black Panther come together for the startling origin of the Marvel Universe, in MARVEL LEGACY #1 on sale this September in comic shops everywhere!

MARVEL LEGACY #1 isn’t simply a history lesson,” says SVP and Executive Editor Tom Brevoort. “Rather, it’s the starting gun to a bevy of mysteries, secrets, and revelations that will reverberate across the Marvel Universe in the weeks and months to come! No character, no franchise will be untouched by the game-changing events that play out across its pages. Jason and Esad pulled out all the stops to fat-pack this colossal issue with as much intrigue, action, surprise, mystery, shock, and adventure as possible!”

(15) PULLMAN’S MATERIALS. Entertainment Weekly interviews the author: “Golden Compass’ Philip Pullman on returning to His Dark Materials”.

Golden Compass author Philip Pullman surprised millions of fans late last year when he announced that he would be returning to the world of the immensely popular His Dark Materials trilogy.

His three new books — the first set 10 years before the original trilogy and the next two coming after the events in those books — will once again transport readers to Lyra’s Oxford. The first volume in the companion Book of Dust trilogy is La Belle Sauvage (for which you can exclusively see the cover below), which centers on Malcolm Polstead and is in fact named for his canoe, which will become a central part of the story. But fans needn’t worry, as not only will Lord Asriel (and his daemon Stelmaria) definitely make an appearance in the book along with baby Lyra Belacqua (the main protagonist of the best-selling books), but careful readers of the previous books may remember that Malcolm himself had had a brief appearance in them….

This new trilogy has an interesting timeline. What inspired you to make the first book in this companion trilogy more of a prequel to the original trilogy, as opposed to a sequel like the two proceeding books?

The story I found myself telling had a beginning that closely involved Lyra, but it happened when she was about six months old. Then came an interval, during which some of the consequences of the first part were worked out in the story of His Dark Materials, when she was about 11 or 12. But other things were still lying in the ground, waiting to germinate. About 10 years after the events in His Dark Materials, the first shoots of those other things begin to emerge from the ground. But because they’re not really a consequence of His Dark Materials, I don’t want to call them a sequel; and because I don’t like the word “prequel,” I didn’t want to call the first book by that word. So I call The Book of Dust an “equel.”

(16) RESERVATIONS MADE. There is no end in sight for superhero movies. SyFy has the story: “Fox schedules 6 more Marvel movies from 2019-2021”.

If you thought Fox was slowing down on movies based on Marvel Comics properties, the 2018 slate, featuring New Mutants on April 13, 2018, Deadpool 2 on June 1, 2018, and X-Men: Dark Phoenix on November 2, 2018, probably put that thought to bed. If even that plan didn’t show you their dedication to the franchise, well, this should: 20th Century Fox has reserved release dates for 2019, 2020, and spring 2021 marking six Marvel movie releases in just 21 months.

New Fox/Marvel movies will hit theaters on June 7, 2019, November 22, 2019, March 13, 2020, June 26 2020, October 2, 2020, and March 5, 2021. The production house has not indicated at all whether those will be X-Men or Fantastic Four films, the two properties they currently own film rights to from Marvel Entertainment. This is a common practice in the blockbuster release category nowadays;

(17) FLYING CLOUD. “This enormous Chinese blimp could replace satellites”. The link leads to a BBC video.

There’s a new type of airship called the Cloud, and it has a silver lining. (It’s also a giant, floating communications hub.) Finn Aberdein goes to watch a nerve-wracking flight with its maker KuangChi Science.

(18) THE WONDER WOMAN WHO MARRIED A MAN. It’s cosplay. In “The ultimate fantasy wedding: Wonder Woman weds Deadpool at Awesome Con”, the Washington Post’s Megan McDonough talks about how Megan Mattingly and Adam Merica got married at Awesome Con, and how her Wonder Woman gown was stitched together by three female cosplayers in 48 hours.

They decided right away that a full cosplay wedding, right down to the dress, would suit them best. By that point, Megan had accumulated a following in the cosplay community (she has more than 45,000 followers on Instagram) and founded the local group DC CosGeeks. She also didn’t want a repeat of her first wedding, which was much more conventional.

(19) LIFE CYCLES. Artis Lives on Vimeo is a fun cartoon promoting the Amsterdam Royal Zoo.

[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster, Chip Hitchcock, Jason, JJ, Cat Eldridge, John King Tarpinian, Daniel Dern, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Steve Davidson.]

2016 Ursa Major Awards

Image by EosFoxx

The 2016 Ursa Major Awards were announced on June 30 at Anthrocon in Pittsburgh. The Ursa Major Awards, for the best anthropomorphic works of the past calendar year, are presented by the Anthropomorphic Literature and Arts Association (ALAA) in twelve categories, and are voted upon by the public on the Ursa Major Awards website, Ursa Major Awards website.

There were 1,446 votes this year, most from the U.S. but some from throughout the rest of the world. Below are listed the winners and nominees of the 2016 Ursa Major Awards.

Best Anthropomorphic Motion Picture

Winner

  • Zootopia (Directed by Byron Howard, Rich Moore, and Jared Bush; February 11)

Runners-Up (in descending number of votes)

  • Finding Dory (Directed by Andrew Stanton and Angus MacLane; June 17)
  • Sing (Directed by Garth Jennings and Christophe Lourdelet; December 21)
  • Kung Fu Panda 3 (Directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson and Alessandro Carloni; January 29)
  • The Secret Life of Pets (Directed by Chris Renaud and Yarrow Cheney; July 8)

Best Anthropomorphic Dramatic Short Work or Series

Winner

  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (Directed by James Thiessen, Jim Miller, Tim Stuby, and Denny Lu; Season 6 episodes 1 to 143 [TV])

Runners-Up (in descending number of votes)

  • The Lion Guard (Directed by Howy Parkins; Season 1 episodes 1 to 22 [TV])
  • Bunnicula (Directed by Jessica Borutski, Maxwell Atoms, Robert F. Hughes, Matthew Whitlock, and Ian Wasseluk; Season 1 episodes 1 to 8 [TV])
  • Littlest Pet Shop (Directed by Joel Dickie, Steven Garcia, and Mike Myhre; Season 4 episode 10 to Season 4 episode 26 [TV])
  • Petals (Directed by Andrea Gallo and Alvaro Dominguez; November 29 [student film])

Best Anthropomorphic Novel

Winner

  • My Diary, by Fredrick Usiku Kruger, Lieutenant of the Rackenroon Hyena Brigade, by Kathy Garrison Kellog (The Cross Time Cafe; April 2)

Runners-Up (in descending number of votes)

  • Sixes Wild: Echoes, by Tempe O’Kun (FurPlanet Productions; June 30)
  • Dog Country, by Malcolm F. Cross (Amazon Digital Services; March 28)
  • Fracture, by Hugo Jackson (Inspired Quill; September 1)
  • The Origin Chronicles: Mineau, by Justin Swatsworth (Dolphyn Visions; June 14)

Best Anthropomorphic Short Fiction

Winner

  • 400 Rabbits, by Alice “Huskyteer” Dryden, in Gods With Fur (FurPlanet Productions; June 30)

Runners-Up (in descending number of votes)

  • A Gentleman of Strength, by Dwale, in Claw the Way to Victory (Jaffa Books; January 24)
  • Questor’s Gambit, by Mary E. Lowd, in Gods With Fur (FurPlanet Productions; June 30)
  • Marge the Barge, by Mary E. Lowd, in Claw the Way to Victory (Jaffa Books; January 24)
  • Sheeperfly’s Lullaby, by Mary E. Lowd, in GoAL #2 (Goal Publications; March 27)

Best Anthropomorphic Other Literary Work

Winner

  • Gods With Fur, ed. by Fred Patten (FurPlanet Productions; June 30 [anthology])

Runners-Up (in descending number of votes)

  • Claw the Way to Victory, ed. by AnthroAquatic (Jaffa Books; January 24 [anthology])
  • ROAR volume 7, ed. by Mary E. Lowd (Bad Dog Books; June 30 [anthology])
  • The Muse, by Alex Cockburn (Rabbit Valley Publishing; March [background booklet for Lucid’s Dream])
  • Hot Dish #2, ed. by Dark End (Sofawolf Press; December 1 [anthology])

Best Anthropomorphic Non-Fiction Work

Winner

  • The Art of Zootopia, by Jessica Julius (Chronicle Books; March 8 [book; making of feature film])

Runners-Up (in descending number of votes)

  • Fursonas (Directed by Dominic Rodriguez; May 10 [documentary film])
  • 17 Misconceptions About Furries and the Furry Fandom (Culturally F’d #23; February 11 [podcast])
  • CSI: Fur Fest; The Unsolved Case of the Gas Attack at a Furry Convention, by Jennifer Swann (VICE Media; February 10 [Internet])
  • Burned Furs and How You Perceive Porn (Culturally F’d: After Dark; October 6 [podcast])

Best Anthropomorphic Graphic Story

Winner

  • TwoKinds, by Tom Fischbach (Internet; January 6 to December 25)

Runners-Up (in descending number of votes)

  • Swords and Sausages, by Jan (Internet; January 10 to December 25)
  • Lackadaisy, by Tracy J. Butler (Internet; Lackadaisy Sabbatical to Lackadaisy Headlong)
  • Lucid’s Dream, by Alex Cockburn (Rabbit Valley Publishing; March)
  • Endtown, by Aaron Neathery (Internet; January 1 to December 30)

Best Anthropomorphic Comic Strip

Winner

  • Housepets!, by Rick Griffin (Internet; January 1 to December 30)

Runners-Up (in descending number of votes)

  • Savestate, by Tim Weeks (Internet; January 6 to December 28)
  • Carry On, by Kathy Garrison (Internet; January 1 to December 30)
  • Kevin & Kell, by Bill Holbrook (Internet; January 1 to December 31)
  • Doc Rat, by Jenner (Internet; January 1 to December 29)

Best Anthropomorphic Magazine

Winner

  • Dogpatch Press, ed. by Patch Packrat (Internet; January 4 to December 20)

Runners-Up (in descending number of votes)

  • Fur What It’s Worth (Podcast; Season 5 episode #8 to Season 6 episode #8)
  • InFurNation, ed. by Rod O’Riley (Internet; January 1 to December 31)
  • Flayrah, ed. by crossaffliction and GreenReaper (Internet; January 1 to December 29)
  • Fangs and Fonts (Podcast; episodes #57 to #72)

Best Anthropomorphic Published Illustration

Winner

  • Tracy J. Butler, cover of Anthrocon 2016 Souvenir Book

Runners-Up (in descending number of votes)

  • Teagan Gavet, cover of Gods With Fur, ed. by Fred Patten (FurPlanet Productions, June 30)
  • Iskra, “Autumn”, FurAffinity, October 22
  • Jenn ‘Pac’ Rodriguez, cover of Claw the Way to Victory, ed. by AnthroAquatic (Jaffa Books, January 24)
  • Dolphyn, “Hey Baby, You’re the Cat’s Meow!” in Anthrocon 2016 Souvenir Book

Best Anthropomorphic Game

Winner

  • Major \ Minor (Developer: Klace; Publisher: Steam; October 11)

Runners-Up (in descending number of votes)

  • Pokémon Sun & Moon (Developer: Game Freak; Publishers: Nintendo and the Pokémon Company; November 18)
  • Overwatch (Developer and Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment; May 24)
  • Stories: The Path of Destinies (Developer and Publisher: Spearhead Games; April 12)
  • Bear Simulator (Developer and Publisher: Farjay Studios; February 26)

Best Anthropomorphic Website

Winner

  • Fur Affinity (Internet [furry art & discussion])

Runners-Up (in descending number of votes)

  • E621 (Internet [furry art & discussion])
  • WikiFur (Internet [furry wiki])
  • The Furry Writers’ Guild (Internet [FWG news & discussion])
  • Culturally F’d, ed. by Arrkay and Underbite (YouTube [furry history & sociology])

Next year’s presentation venue will be at the FurDU convention, May 4-6, 2018, in Surfers Paradise, Queensland, Australia. In addition, the Ursa Major Awards are adding a thirteenth category beginning this year, for Best Anthropomorphic Fursuit, but with special rules. See the UMA website.

What Are The Best Twilight Zone Episodes?

By Carl Slaughter: As ranked or discussed in the video essay Top 10 Best Twilight Zone episodes, by Watch Mojo.

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet

Time Enough at Last

The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street

Eye of the Beholder

To Serve Man

The Masks

The Hitch-hiker

It’s a Good Life

Five Characters in Search of an Exit

Living Doll

The Invaders

Walking Distance

The Howling Man

The Obsolete Man

Nick of Time

Pixel Scroll 6/29/17 Strong Enough for a Scroll, But Made for a Pixel

(1) IN TIMES TO COME. Stephanie Lai’s eye-opening post about strategies for coping with microaggressions on panels and elsewhere at sff cons, “Continuum: First Aid for paper cuts”, is not merely advice, it may be a forecast of what will be happening at cons in the immediate future.

Interrupting micro aggressions in a social setting

Sometimes micro aggressions happen in a panel, but sometimes they occur in the bar or in a conversation or in passing. No Award recommends a few techniques. These are applicable to both the people being aggressed at, and those friends who want to have our backs.

For the extremely non-confrontational or when you just don’t have the patience, go the non-sequitur and change the subject: “Do you like cats? Would you like to look at pictures of mine? Please tell me in detail about your pets.” Always have your cat pictures ready to hand for quick whipping out. You can do this one, I believe in you.

A bit more confronting: “Gosh, I wouldn’t have said that.”

Really lean on in to it: “Wow, that’s an anecdote. How would you relate that to the topic we’re talking about?”

Go for it: “Wow, that’s racist.” “Wow, do you think that’s appropriate?” “Wow, don’t ever talk to me ever again.” GO FOR IT. Make it uncomfortable. They already have.

Please manage this institutionally

This note is specifically directed at my white friends who want to fix the thing. It is also applicable if you are some other sort of not-marginalised voice, such as if you are straight. When you find something that needs to be fixed, please understand that it cannot be fixed by my friend, it has to be fixed by the convention committee. It cannot be fixed by my friend because that’s not how institutional change works. And when we talk about micro aggressions, when I talk about micro aggressions, I’m talking about institutionalised racism.

It’s nice that I have your friendship — and I really value it — but what I really want is the promise of the institution, not the individual.

(2) SPUFFORD INTERVIEW. Gavin Edwards interviewed “Francis Spufford: The Benign Dictator” for Barnes & Noble Review. Spufford, has many sff devotees because of Red Plenty, and such a rich and entertaining discussion of long-ago Manhattan is well worth reading. Gavin Edwards is the New York Times-bestselling author of many books, most recently The Tao of Bill Murray.

BNR: So how did you end up writing about Manhattan in the 1740s?

FS: A random effect of visiting New York: suddenly realizing that once you got down below the grid, the southern tip was strangely like the city of London, down to the same street names. And like the city of London now, also burned down by great fires. So you’ve got a pre-modern net of lanes with enormous glass temples of international finance growing out of them. And I thought, heavens, this is still haunted by the city that was.

I got a photocopy of an eighteenth-century street map and tried to walk lower Manhattan to see if it was still there. And it kind of is, apart from the fact that the shoreline has gone outwards about a block all the way round. There’s nothing above ground level so far as I could see, apart from the tombs in Trinity Church and Bowling Green — which has the same railing around it, although the crowns were snipped off the top with the Revolution….

BNR: There’s a line in the musical Hamilton that New York City is “the greatest city in the world.” While that’s flattering to Broadway audiences, I don’t think most people in the eighteenth century thought of New York as the greatest city in the world.

FS: They didn’t. The strange thing is that it was urban in feeling, even though there was hardly any of it. But Philadelphia was the financial center; New York was this slightly provincial place that exported flour to slave plantations down in Barbados and Jamaica. And in return, turned sugar into rum. Not cosmopolitan. On the contrary, rather suspicious and narrow, Anglo and Dutch and African and very suspicious of the outside world, particularly if it spoke French.

In some ways, satisfyingly the opposite of everything you associate with New York City now. Very small rather than huge, ethnically exclusive rather than a vast melting pot. Very pious rather than being possibly one of the secular places on earth. Very closed and paranoid about the outside world rather than open and curious. And yet, to my fascination, I could still see a recognizable New York?ness in the New York of the 1740s. Even when you can walk end to end in ten minutes, even when everybody in it thinks they’re British or Dutch, there is still something about it as a deal-making city living on its wits, already sure that it’s the center of something, even if they don’t know what yet.

And at his own blog Gavin Edwards put up a bonus bit where he talks about why Red Plenty is appealing to sci-fi fans: “The Golden Age of Francis Spufford”.

(3) LOOKING BACK. Steve Mollmann of Science’s Less Accurate Grandmother reviews The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers” before moving on to the author’s Hugo-nominated sequel.

I also felt very uncomfortable with the way the majority of the crewmembers impose their moral views on one character and their way of life, in a book that was otherwise about celebrating the joys of multiculturalism and (what I guess you might call) multibiologism. I don’t think the book sufficiently made the case that a particular character was being exploited to justify what was done to them against their will.

(4) HALFWAY MARK. The B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog makes its picks of “The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 2017 So Far”.

These 25 novels represent the finest SFF this still young year has to offer. They’re smart, scary, uplifting, terrifying, thrilling, prescient, unforgettable. At the bookstore, at least, it’s been a very good year…so far. Here’s looking at six months’ worth of the best science fiction & fantasy books of 2017.

One of them is –

Six Wakes, by Mur Lafferty A locked-room mystery nestled comfortably inside a big-idea sci-fi premise, Lafferty’s latest is a interstellar page-turner, building a compelling future world of human clones and interstellar travel, and rewriting the rules of the crime novel accordingly. Societal and climate collapse drives humanity to send 2,000 cryo-frozen people to a distant, Earth-like planet on a ship crewed by six criminals who volunteer to be cloned again and again as they shepherd their precious cargo to its final destination. Every time the crew is cloned, they maintain their collective memories. When they wake up at the beginning of the novel, however, their former bodies are dead—brutally murdered in various ways; the ship is in shambles (gravity is off, the controlling artificial intelligence is offline, and they’re off-course); and their memories (and all other records) have been erased. The six have to clean up the mess—but they also have to figure out who killed them and why, and how to survive within a paranoid pressure-cooker of a ship. Lafferty steadily ramps up the tension from the jarring first pages to the nail-biting conclusion. We dare you to stop reading it. Read our review.

(5) SENSE8 NOT ENTIRELY DEAD. SciFiStorm reports Sense8 will return, at least temporarily…

After getting canceled by Netflix earlier this month with some things unresolved, Lana Wachowski, via the official Sense8 Twitter account, explained why she hasn’t said much, but also why she is talking now

(6) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • June 29, 1979 Moonraker was released.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY

  • Born June 29, 1920 – Ray Harryhausen

Harryhausen receiving his Oscar:

(8) BEEP BEEP KA-CHING. The Associated Press, in “‘Star Wars’ R2-D2 Droid Sells for $2.76M at Auction”, reports that auctioneer Profiles in History sold an R2 D2 made from “parts” of droids used in the Star Wars films for $2.76 million.

A Darth Vader helmet and a Luke Skywalker lightsaber sold for lower sums says The Wrap:  

Other “Star Wars” items that were up for auction include Mark Hamill’s “Luke Skywalker lightsaber used in the first two films, which sold for around $450,000 and original concept art by Tom Jung that were used to inspire the movie posters. A Darth Vader helmet from the original film sold for $96,000.

(9) GENRE IN ASIA. In another post at No Award, Stephanie Lai contrasts Western and Asian horror writing in “Continuum: SFFH with Asian characteristics”.

We talked a lot about how horror is not considered a genre when you think about Asia, in large part because the things that are classified as horror in the west are actually just a daily part of life. The telling of ghost stories is very social. We talk about them all the time, like a description of the car that overtook us at the lights or the reason we rejected that house in the cul-de-sac, like the aunty who always compliments your hair.

Mia spoke about finding Australians and people in general less superstitious when she moved to Australia; nobody saying ‘excuse me’ to ant hills. She BEAUTIFULLY described ghost stories as being stories about neighbours you never acknowledge but you know are there. It’s true. I talk a lot about how the unspoken spirits and ghosts rule my family life (the ghosts of Alzheimer’s and accidents; the spirits of bankruptcy and the fire in the oven that never lights first try). It’s a bit like following superstitions just in case, which Mia, Devin and I all agreed we do; but it’s a bit like knowing the ghosts believe in you.

(10) 90 MINUTES LIVE. Videos of two author interviews from 1978 have been posted to YouTube.

Harlan Ellison

Kurt Vonnegut

(11) SF AUTHOR CARD GAMES. Darrah Chavey is here to introduce Filers to Buddyfight, a Japanese and English card game, of the general genre of Magic: The Gathering or (more accurately) Yu-Gi-Oh!.

What makes this card game more interesting to us is that several of the card characters are the last names of SF authors. So you could put together a game deck consisting of (Arthur C.) Clarke, (Ray) Bradbury, (Ursula) Le Guin, (Robert) Heinlein, (Brian) Aldiss, (Edgar Rice) Burroughs, (Andre) Norton, (Robert F.) Young, (James) Tiptree, (George Alec) Effinger, and (Alfred) Bester.

Each of the characters comes with a “flavor text”, which seems to play to the author. Tiptree is saying “Hehe, I wonder what I should write next…”, and Burroughs says “I’ll survive anywhere as long as I have this sword with me.”

At the following link are sample images of some of the author cards. The Bradbury and Effinger cards are shown below. I have no doubt George Alec Effinger would have been pleased to see himself represented as a figure in a deck of magic game cards.

(12) CHAMBERS. I don’t think I mentioned the announcement earlier this month of Becky Chambers’ next novel, coming out in 2018:

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Darrah Chavey, Martin Morse Wooster, and Elizabeth Fitzgerald’s Earl Grey Editing blog for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day clack.]

2017 Australian Fairy Tale Society Award

Dr. Belinda Calderone

Academic Dr. Belinda Calderone, outgoing president of the Australian Fairy Tale Society, is the recipient of the inaugural Australian Fairy Tale Society Award, given for an outstanding contribution to the field of Australian Fairy Tales.

The perpetual award trophy was designed by Spike Deane.

Calderone was also presented with an original painting by Erin-Claire Barrow to take home.

SDCC and SLCC Ask Judge To Decide Comic Con Mark Litigation

San Diego Comic-Con International has been trying control the term “Comic-Con” term for decades. In August 2014 they filed suit in U.S. District Court against the owners of the Salt Lake City Comic Con claiming the name of Salt Lake City’s event is too similar. The San Diego con claimed SLCC had piggybacked on its “creativity, ingenuity, and hard work,” and by using the Comic Con name “intended to suggest, mislead and confuse consumers into believing that the Salt Lake Comic Con convention is associated with, authorized by, endorsed by or sponsored by SDCC.”

The judge, as is commonly done, prodded SDCC and SLCC to have settlement discussions and resolve the case without trial. This month the Salt Lake City defendants (which includes Dan Farr Productions [DFP], and Dan Farr and Bryan Brandenburg as individuals) traveled to San Diego to give depositions leading up to a final settlement conference. SLCC’s Bryan Brandenburg subsequently told the Associated Press there was no compromise forthcoming from court-mandated conference. SDCC says they’ll only accept SLCC licensing the name “comic con” for a fee. Read “substantial fee.”

The AP reports that San Diego Comic-Con declined specific comment on the case, though they said Utah organizers’ position is “without merit.”

Salt Lake City Comic Con has now moved for summary judgment, calling on the court to render a decision on the existing record. SLCC’s primary argument is that SDCC has no rights to the generic term “comic con.” And if that’s not enough, mark history shows SDCC abandoned efforts to register “Comic Con” in favor of the hyphenated name “Comic-Con” and since SLCC does not use the hyphenated term in its name there is no infringement.

If summary judgment is not granted, or does not resolve all issues (as happened when a court issued a decision in the Dr. Seuss/ComicMix suit) the case could go to trial in the fall.

Brandenburg has continually appealed to the public, colorfully asking for “support from the community and all the powers of the Universe to bring victory to us in this case.” Three weeks ago he posted on Facebook the arguments in his defense; he asserts that the facts therein “are undisputed.”

1) Comic-Con International does not have a trademark for “Comic Con”. They tried to get it in 1996 but Chicago Comicon and Motor City Comic Con opposed the trademark and San Diego abandoned it. https://goo.gl/QXXSul Here is the DEAD trademark https://goo.gl/nWcByy

2) San Diego did not originate the name “comic con”. By the 1960’s, American (and British) comic book collectors were gathering for events that they called comicons, comic cons, comic conventions. In 1966, three comic cons were held in New York City alone, where comics originated. It wasn’t until 1970 that the Golden State Comic Book Convention was organized…and it wasn’t until later that it was called Comic-Con International.

3) In the 1990’s, SDCC had decided it should OWN the generic cultural terminology and began to process a series of applications for register marks but claimed they used the phrase and mark “exclusively” according to trademark applications. This was a false claim that was made on their trademark applications as there were many comic cons by this time and they did not originate the term.

4) Comic-Con, “Comic Con” and “Comic-Con” are generic and the trademark office should revoke SDCC’s trademarks not only because they are used generically in popular culture, but because their trademarks were obtained by falsely claiming exclusive use of the marks. They are generic because these terms identify a type of event, not any particular event or producer.

5) Furthermore, SDCC abandoned any rights it might have had by granting a naked license to at least one major comic con event. This means the license did not have sufficient oversight or controls. They also did not police said trademarks between 1995 and 2014 with comic cons all over the country that were non-affiliated and non-licensed.

6) “Comic Con” is not only generic in fact and by abandoned trademark application, but when Salt Lake Comic Con applied for the trademark for “Salt Lake Comic Con”, the attorneys at the TRADEMARK OFFICE RULED that a trademark could not be obtained because both “Salt Lake” and “Comic Con” were descriptive.

7) Salt Lake Comic Con has never used “Comic-Con” to describe it’s convention, but that doesn’t matter because many events around the country and the world use “comic-con” as part of their name and until SDCC filed their lawsuit in 2014 against SLCC they did NOT make most if not all of the comic-cons change their name, sign a license agreement or adhere to any type of standards or oversight. When they were forced to abandon the trademark for “comic con”, they then secured “comic-con” and have used it from that point forward.

8) “Comic Con” is generic and unprotectable. “Comic Con” simply denotes a comic con. Comic con is a noun indicating what an event is, not whose event it is. Even Wikipedia states “Comic con is any comic book convention.”

9) Salt Lake Comic Con relied on the fact that the “comic con” trademark was abandoned combined with the fact that every comic con outside of SDCC we talked with had no agreement with SDCC and asserted that “comic con” was generic.

10) SDCC’s trademarks should be canceled because they did not originate the term “comic con” AND they obtained them by falsely claiming exclusive use.

He has also made available redacted copies of SLCC’s latest court filings.

While litigation is always emotional, some say what really got SDCC’S goat was having the Salt Lake Comic Con’s garish “Tony Stark”-like Audi driving around downtown San Diego during their Comic-Con in 2014. The suit was filed a month later.

[Thanks to Dave Doering and Kate Hatcher for the story.]

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle – Official Trailer

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle comes to theaters December 20.

In the brand new adventure Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, the tables are turned as four teenagers in detention are sucked into the world of Jumanji.  When they discover an old video game console with a game they’ve never heard of, they are immediately thrust into the game’s jungle setting, into the bodies of their avatars, played by Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, and Karen Gillan.  What they discover is that you don’t just play Jumanji –Jumanji plays you.  They’ll have to go on the most dangerous adventure of their lives, or they’ll be stuck in the game forever…

 

Scott Edelman Named World Fantasy Con 2018 Guest of Honor

Scott Edelman

Congratulations to Scott Edelman, newly-added World Fantasy Convention 2018 guest of honor, joining the previously announced slate of Tom Kidd, Michael J. Walsh, and Aliette de Bodard.

Edelman began his career as an assistant editor and writer for Marvel Comics in the ‘70s. In addition to writing comic books and trade paperbacks, he edited its fan magazine FOOM! In 1976, he became a freelance writer for both Marvel and DC on a range of books.

He edited Science Fiction Age for its entire eight-year run from 1992 to 2000. He worked for the Syfy Channel for more than thirteen years, editing Science Fiction Weekly, SCI FI Wire, Sci-Fi Universe and Sci-Fi Flix. He also edited SCI FI Magazine, previously known as Sci-Fi Entertainment.

Edelman has had more than 85 short stories published in magazines, anthologies and several highly regarded short story collections. He has been a Stoker Award finalist seven times in the fiction categories, and a Hugo Award finalist for Best Editor four times, in 1996, 1997, 1998, and 1999.

He won the Sam Moskowitz Award for outstanding contributions to the field of science fiction fandom in 2004.

Currently Edelman hosts a podcast, Eating the Fantastic, in which he interviews writers and others over a good meal. His most recent short story collection, Liars, Fakers, and the Dead Who Eat Them (Written Backwards) was published in March 2017. For more information on Edelman, visit his blog at his blog.

The World Fantasy Convention 2018 will be held at the Marriott Renaissance Harborplace Hotel in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, Nov 1 – 4, 2018.

Sci-Fi Videos That Explain It All To You

By Carl Slaughter: (1) Origins of Assassins Creed, and. why the game is much more popular than the movie.

(2) What Culture counts 49 WTF moments in Suicide Squad.  With a run time of 123 minutes, that’s about one WTF moment every 2.5 minutes.

(3) Michael Keaton’s 8 major contributions to the Batman movie franchise.

(4) Looper evaluates and ranks every Joker performance.

(5) 8 Little Known Facts That Made Christian Bale’s Batman Awesome

(6) Star Trek Continues adds a female character to TOS.

(7) Dick Tracy TV show intro. The intro was animation, but the show as live action.