By Tom Galloway: SF/fantasy/comics writer Alex Irvine won Wednesday’s episode of Jeopardy! with a whopping $26,000, and will defend his championship today. While he obviously did well, he made a horrible Daily Double wager. He got the final Daily Double … Continue reading
“The Future Is Here: California in Science Fiction” convenes at UC Irvine Thursday, April 4. Writers Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Gregory Benford, Sheila Finch and Steven Barnes will participate, and also scholars Catherine Liu, Sherryl Vint and Matthew Wolf-Meyer. The … Continue reading
(1) WAYS IN WHICH PRATCHETT IS STILL WITH US. Sam Jordison discusses “Pratchett power: from lost stories to new adaptations, how the late Discworld author lives on” in the Guardian. “Of all the dead authors in the world, Terry Pratchett is the … Continue reading
Worldcon Wayback Machine Introduction: Thirty years ago this weekend ConFrancisco, the 1993 World Science Fiction Convention, was held in San Francisco, California. I thought it would fun to compile a day-by-day recreation drawing on the report I ran in File 770, … Continue reading
(1) CULTIVATING HYBRIDS. Paul Kraus’ article on “Hybrid Conventions” begins with a statement of philosophy wrapped in the definitions of major terms. Then Kraus lists what’s needed to make a hybrid convention successful. When the COVID-19 Pandemic hit, all of … Continue reading
(1) FROM FANFIC TO THE TOP. [Item by Steven French.] One to watch out for: after debuting with Boy Parts, ‘a mischievous satire’, and following that up with Penance, based on horrific true events, Eliza Clark is planning a third … Continue reading
(1) UKRANIAN BRADBURY TRANSLATOR MOURNED. [Item by Susan de Guardiola.] It’s being reported that Ukrainian researcher/editor/translator/”culturologist” Yevhen Gulevich (Gulevych), who, among other things, was the translator of Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, was killed fighting at Bakhmut in … Continue reading
(1) ADOBE FIREFLY. [Item by Mike Kennedy.]The Verge is reporting “Adobe made an AI image generator — and says it didn’t steal artists’ work to do it”. The difference from others? Supposedly no copyrighted material was used to train the … Continue reading
(1) BRANDON SANDERSON V AUDIBLE. Brandon Sanderson’s “State of the Sanderson 2022” published on December 22 featured revelations about his efforts to use his market leverage to curb the greed of Audible, Amazon’s dominant audiobook seller. The four “secret project” … Continue reading
The winners of the Asimov’s 36th Annual Readers’ Awards Poll were named earlier this month by editor Sheila Williams. BEST NOVELLA A blessing of Unicorns; Elizabeth Bear A Rocket for Dimitrios; Ray Nayler Glitch; Alex Irvine Light Up the Clouds; Greg Egan The Realms … Continue reading