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Pixel Scroll 12/22/22 Although It’s Been Said Many Times, Many Ways, Scrolling Pixels To You

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(1) PHILADELPHIA READ’EM. On January 18, 2023 the Galactic Philadelphia Literary Salon, curated by Lawrence M. Schoen and Sally Wiener Grotta, will host Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki and C.S.E. Cooney as they read from their latest work, and “converse with them and other guests in an informal and engaging salon-style conversation.” This will be an in-person event at The Rosenbach Museum & Library – full details and registration cost at the link.

(2) KINDRED FOR TV. NPR’s program The 1A tells how “Octavia Butler’s ‘Kindred’ is being discovered by new readers, and now viewers”. At the link, listen to a conversation with Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Kindred’s executive producer and writer.  

Imagine suddenly being pulled back in time, without warning or explanation. Where is the place you’d least like to go? 

In the 1979 novel “Kindred,” author Octavia Butler sent her main character – a Black woman – back to the antebellum south of the 1800s.  Dana lands amongst her ancestors, who were owned as slaves.  

The sci-fi book is a modern classic – a cornerstone of afro-futurism that made waves in a genre dominated by white men. “Kindred” is still being discovered by new readers today – and by viewers.  

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins adapted “Kindred” into a new FX series of the same name on Hulu, which premiered Dec. 13. Jacobs-Jenkins is a talented writer in his own right, having received the 2014 Obie Award for Best New American Play for “Appropriate” and “An Octoroon.”

He’s also a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama, and was the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius Grant.” His previous TV production credits include the 2019 HBO series “Watchmen” and the Prime Video sci-fi series “Outer Range.”

(3) IN A WORLD WHERE. According to Gizmodo, “Court Case Ruling Could Make ‘Deceptive’ Trailers Legally Actionable”.

When two fans of Ana de Armas rented Yesterday after seeing de Armas in the trailer, only to realize at the end of the movie that her part had been cut, they were so unhappy that they went to court over it. And won. In a rather bizarre Free Speech case, a federal judge has ruled in favor of movie-goers over the protests of Universal Studios, saying that studios cannot release “deceptive movie trailers.”

The two de Armas fans, Conor Woulfe and Peter Michael Rosza, each paid $3.99 to rent Yesterday, an alternate-history speculative film about the disappearance of The Beatles, on Amazon Prime. de Armas’ part was cut after filmgoers responded that they didn’t enjoy the fact that the main character’s love interest (played by Lily James) had competition in the form of de Armas’ character. Woulfe and Rosza are seeking “at least $5 million as representatives of a class of movie customers,” according to Variety….

(4) OCTOTHORPE. Episode 73 of the Octothorpe podcast is “A Magic Cave Full of Games”. Listen at the link.

John Coxon is going to Sweden, Alison Scott is going to Australia, and Liz Batty isn’t moving back to Europe. We discuss Smofcon, Eurocon, Mastodon, and bacon lardons. (The last one is a lie.) We also chat about the Fan Funds and do picks (which don’t rhyme).

(5) HEAR FROM KEN MACLEOD. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Moid over at Media Death Cult has just interviewed Ken MacLeod

But we over at SF2 Concatenation have Ken’s science heroes… “SF author and zoologist Ken MacLeod cites the scientists and engineers born in the 20th Century who have influenced him.”

 I’m not really a scientist who became a science fiction writer. I’m a science fiction reader who tried to become a scientist, because science fiction made science cool. At school my progress in mathematics hit a brick wall at calculus, and in physics at electronics. So at university I chose biology — then the least mathematical of the sciences — and specialised in Zoology….

(6) WOOSTER MEMORIES. In “Martin Morse Wooster’s Front Row Seat” Reason’s Thomas W. Hazlett delivers an affectionate farewell.

… Martin devoured entire libraries as after-dinner mints, emerging ever more curious about what great work of history, politics, biography, economics, sports, or science fiction (pardon me, “S.F.”) to hoist next. He cherished baseball, exhibits, museums, stage plays, conventions, the science of beer making, free market capitalism, and the United States. He was bogged down neither by car payments nor dependents. He lived richly on a tidy budget, zipped about on public transport, viewed every parade, and devoured each spectacle. When he paid for a movie, he would always—his sister, Ann-Sargent Wooster, informs me—insist on sitting front row…. 

On the epic fall of the Soviet bloc, Wooster wrote frequently. In a 1989 Reason column introduced by Irving Kristol’s observation that “In Washington, people don’t read enough magazines,” it was game on. 

“This may be true in Washington,” noted Martin, “but out here in Silver Spring, we read magazines by the truckload… Once each day, the factory whistles blow, the police officers stop traffic, and the double-wide tractor trailers lumber chez Wooster with the day’s reading matter.”…

(7) CHRIS BOUCHER (1943-2022). Writer and script editor Chris Boucher, who contributed milestone moments to Doctor Who and Blake’s 7, died December 11. The Guardian paid tribute.

… Having quickly made his mark on Doctor Who in 1977, he was recruited the following year as script editor of Blake’s 7, Terry Nation’s series about a gang of outlaws fighting against a corrupt Federation in the future. Responsible for commissioning and then polishing the scripts, Boucher capitalised on the bristling dynamic between the central characters, highlighted by his gift for caustic dialogue, and exploited the programme’s morally grey areas to give it dramatic complexity.

Among the scripts he wrote himself was the shocking 1981 finale, in which he killed off the whole cast, in a manner emblematic of the show’s flawed protagonists, dour outlook and uncompromising tone….

…Braden’s Week (1968), Dave Allen at Large (1971) and That’s Life (1973) used his material, and he secured himself an agent who pitched him to Doctor Who. He was well versed in science-fiction literature, so his first contribution, The Face of Evil (1977), had a bold concept: a misprogrammed spaceship computer thinks it is God, and so embarks on an exercise in eugenics involving its stranded crew. The story (originally entitled The Day God Went Mad: a tad strong for the BBC) also introduced a new companion for Tom Baker’s Doctor: instinctive, intelligent tribal warrior Leela (Louise Jameson) and contains one of Boucher’s great lines: “The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common, they don’t alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views.”

Boucher was immediately hired to write the very next story, The Robots of Death. A fusion of Agatha Christie, Isaac Asimov and Frank Herbert, it became more than a sum of its parts thanks to Boucher’s sardonic exchanges (“You’re a classic example of the inverse ratio between the size of the mouth and the size of the brain”), well-drawn characters, world-building through dialogue and hard sci-fi concepts. Augmented by a strong cast, excellent direction and striking art deco design, the story is still regarded as among Doctor Who’s very best. Image of the Fendahl (1977) is a spooky synthesis of modern technology and ancient horror with some shocking moments and amusing characters (“You must think my head zips up at the back,” says one)….

(8) MEMORY LANE.

2000 — [By Cat Eldridge.]

Ready for a really happy story? Well we have one for you.

It starts out because J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up or Peter and Wendy,  lived near the hospital, and was well known for donations to charity as he lived rather simply. He is listed as first donating to the hospital in 1908, and became more familiar with the hospital’s work after he hired a personal secretary, Lady Cynthia Asqueth, whose father was the chairman of the hospital board. 

However when the hospital had asked Barrie to help with a fundraising campaign in 1929 by making a generous donation in order to purchase a vacated lot, he declined. That’s not the end of the story as two months later he announced that he would give the copyright of Peter Pan to the hospital. Of course the hospital was rather grateful to say the least. 

(These arrangements should have expired in 1987, fifty years after the death of Sir James Barrie. But special measures were made in the Copyright Designs & Patents Act (1988), so that a single exception was made for the ongoing benefit of the hospital.) 

A year after Great Ormond Street Hospital was given the rights to Peter and Wendy, Barrie asked the hospital to stage it in a ward for the sick children. The production was considered a wonderful affair by all involved and has become a tradition that still continues today. 

There are many Peter Pan tributes within the children’s wing including a cafe and stained windows, some of which we will return to at another time, but today a bronze statue of Peter Pan and Tinker Bell outside the hospital entrance is what were interested in.

A statue of Peter Pan stands at the entrance to the hospital, blowing fairy dust at all visitors, young and old. It was sculpted by Diarmund O’Connor and was unveiled by Lord Callaghan on July 14, 2000. Tinkerbell, who is actually a separate statue, was added to Peter’s uplifted arm in 2005. Tinkerbell is officially London’s smallest statue.

The combined statue bears this inscription:

Peter Pan

In grateful memory of Sir James Barrie (1860 – 1937) for his gift to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and in warm appreciation of the exceptional support of Audrey and James Callaghan.

The Tinker Bell statue once it was carefully attached to the Peter Pan was unveiled by the Countess of Wessex on September 29th, 2005. Although a later addition, it was part of the original conception back in 1999 when Peter was commissioned, but dropped at the time as being too ambitious. It is a credit to Peter’s popularity that the issue was redressed.

Why such a simple addition was considered too ambitious is a mystery. She is a rather simple sculpture after all. Here’s Tinkerbell by herself.

I don’t usually give you two versions of a statue but it’s rare that we get to see the clay version of it. So here is that version in the sculptor’s studio.

And here’s the final bronze state as it is in the garden outside the Hospital. 

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born December 22, 1917 — Frankie Darro. What I’m most interested that it was he inside Robbie the Robot in Forbidden Planet. (He did not do the voice you heard on film, that was done by Marvin Miller who in-studio replaced what was done originally.) Other than showing up on Batman as a Newsman in two episodes, and The Addams Family as a Delivery Boy in one episode, I don’t think he had any other genre roles at all. Well, he was Lampwick, the boy who turns into a donkey in Pinocchio. That should count too. (Died 1976.)
  • Born December 22, 1944 — Michael Summerton. One of the original Dalek operators, his work would show up in three First Doctor stories, “The Survivor”, “The Escape” and “The Ambush”. He’s interviewed for “The Creation of The Daleks” documentary which is included in the 2006 The Beginning DVD box set. According to his Telegraph obit, he was the last survivor of the original four operators of the Daleks. So, you don’t need to get past their paywall, here’s the Who part here: “After a lean period, he was excited to be offered a part in a new BBC science fiction series. His agent told him he would not need to learn any lines for the casting, and when he arrived at the BBC workshops he was asked to strip down to his underpants and sit in what appeared to be a tub on castors. Summerton (who was one of the four original Daleks) was instructed in how to move this apparatus about, the director saying: ‘We want to test this prototype for maneuverability. We want you to move forwards, backwards, sideways. Quickly, slowly.’ Presently the director lowered a lid over him with a plunger sticking out of it. Summerton found himself in total darkness. He would later relate: ‘When the lid went on I knew my career as an actor was over.’” (Died 2009.)
  • Born December 22, 1951 — Tony Isabella, 71. Creator of DC’s Black Lightning, who is their first major African-American superhero. That alone is enough reason to him in Birthdays. He also created Mercedes “Misty” Knight, an African-American superhero at Marvel Comics who’s played by Simone Missick in the various Netflix MCU series. 
  • Born December 22, 1951 — Charles de Lint, 71. I’ve personally known him for some twenty-five years now and have quite a few of his signed Solstice chapbooks in my possession. Listing his fiction would take a full page or two as he’s been a very prolific fantasy writer so let just list some of my favorite novels by him which would be Forests of The Heart, Someplace To Be Flying, Seven Wild Sisters and The Cats of Tanglewood Forest. You’ll find my favorite chapter from Forests of The Heart here.
  • Born December 22, 1962 — Ralph Fiennes, 60. Perhaps best-known genre wise as Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter film franchise, he’s also been M in the Bond films that just wrapped up and started with Skyfall. His first genre role was as Lenny Nero in Strange Days, one of my favorite SF films. He went on to play John Steed in that Avengers films. If you haven’t seen it, he voices Lord Victor Quartermaine in Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Run now and see it!
  • Born December 22, 1965 — David S. Goyer, 57. His screenwriting credits include the Blade trilogy which I like despite their unevenness in storytelling, the Dark Knight trilogy, Dark City, Man of Steel, and its sequel Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (which is horrid). Let’s see what else is there? Well there’s there’s a Nick Fury film and two Ghost film which are all best forgotten… Oh, he did The Crow: City of Angels. Ouch. Series wise, he’s been involved in FlashForward, Constantine, Da Vinci’s Demons which is a damn strange show, Krypton, Blade: The Series, Threshold, FreakyLinks and a series I’ve never heard of, Sleepwalkers. 
  • Born December 22, 1978 — George Mann, 44. Author of the Newbury & Hobbes Investigations, a steampunk series set in a alternative Victorian England that I’ve read and enthusiastically recommend. He’s also got two Holmesian novels on Titan Books that I need to request for reviewing, Sherlock Holmes: The Will of the Dead and Sherlock Holmes: The Spirit Box. And yes I see that  he’s written a lot more  fiction than I’ve read by him so do tell me what else is worth reading  by him. 

(10) COMICS SECTION.

  • Bizarro has the surly version of a childrens’ book hero.

(11) COPYRIGHT OFFICE REVOKES DECISION. “AI-Created Comic Has Been Deemed Ineligible for Copyright Protection” reports CBR.com.

The United States Copyright Office (USCO) reversed an earlier decision to grant a copyright to a comic book that was created using “A.I. art,” and announced that the copyright protection on the comic book will be revoked, stating that copyrighted works must be created by humans to gain official copyright protection.

In September, Kris Kashtanova announced that they had received a U.S. copyright on his comic book, Zarya of the Dawn, a comic book inspired by their late grandmother that she created with the text-to-image engine Midjourney. Kashtanova referred to herself as a “prompt engineer” and explained at the time that she went to get the copyright so that she could “make a case that we do own copyright when we make something using AI.”…

(12) TOP GRAPHIC NOVELS OF 2022. “Beaton’s ‘Ducks’ Tops PW’s 2022 Graphic Novel Critics Poll” proclaims Publishers Weekly.

Kate Beaton’s widely acclaimed debut graphic memoir Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands (Drawn & Quarterly) has topped PW’s annual Graphic Novel Critics Poll for best work of the year by a significant margin, receiving nine votes from PW’s panel of 15 critics. This is Beaton’s second time winning the poll; she won in 2011 for Hark A Vagrant.

Beaton’s adroitly told personal narrative is a bracing exposé of the sexism and misogyny women face working in the nearly all-male oil fields, as well as a plaintive and incisive critique of the industry’s destructive impact on the environment. Nevertheless, Beaton’s personal story is balanced with humor and rich with canny, wry vignettes of her crusty work colleagues, rendered along with breathtaking depictions of the desolate landscape of the oil fields. One of very few women working in the male-dominated work force, Beaton tracks the two years she spent working various jobs (such as handing out wrenches at a tool crib) in Northern Canada’s remote oil fields, while depicting the lives of her co-workers—all of them separated from family and home lives….

…Indie publishers secured top positions overall in this year’s poll, with second place a tie between two titles that received four votes each: Keeping Two by Jordan Crane (Fantagraphics) and the graphic memoir The Third Person by Emma Grove (Drawn & Quarterly).

(13) THE BLUES. “Don’t give up, never surrender,” is not everyone’s motto. “Edie Falco Assumed Avatar 2 Flopped After Filming Part 4 Years Ago” is what People heard.

Edie Falco didn’t realize when her appearance in Avatar: The Way of Water would be hitting movie theaters.

The 59-year-old actress shot her scenes four years ago and just assumed the movie had been released and potentially flopped since she hadn’t heard anything, she admitted while visiting The View on Friday.

“The second Avatar, the one that’s coming out, I think I shot four years ago,” she shared at The View roundtable. “And then I’ve been busy, and doing stuff, and somebody mentioned Avatar, and I thought, ‘Oh, I guess it came out and didn’t do very well,’ cause I didn’t hear anything.”

The actress continued: “And then somebody recently said, ‘Avatar is coming out.’ “

“Oh, it hasn’t come out yet?” she remembered asking, getting laughs from the audience. “I haven’t seen the new one, so I’m excited.”

Talking more about the film, in which she plays one of the few human characters, the Nurse Jackie actress admitted she was a little disappointed when she found out who she’d be playing.

“Well, I wanted to be blue,” she said, laughing. “I was excited – I was going to be blue and very tall… I didn’t get either of those things.”

(14) BEST PICTURES. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Today’s Nature has open access loads of James Webb pics: “JWST’s best images: spectacular stars and spiralling galaxies” (example attached of Neptune).

Also open access best science pics of the year: “The best science images of 2022”. Example attached of an insect turned into a zombie by fungus. And the Tonga volcanic explosion from space

(15) REST IN DUST. “NASA’s InSight Mission Dies After 4 Years of Listening for Marsquakes” – the New York Times has the “obituary”.

…For months, mission managers have been expecting this as dust accumulated on the lander’s solar panels, blocking the sunlight the stationary spacecraft needs to generate power.

InSight, which arrived on the surface of Mars more than four years ago to measure the red planet’s seismological shaking, was last in touch on Dec. 15. But nothing was heard during the last two communication attempts, and NASA announced on Wednesday that it was unlikely for it ever to hear from InSight again.

“I feel sad, but I also feel pretty good,” said Bruce Banerdt, the mission’s principal investigator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in an interview. “We’ve been expecting this to come to an end for some time.”

He added, “I think that it’s been a great run.”

InSight — the name is a compression of the mission’s full name, Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport — was a diversion from NASA’s better known rover missions, focusing on the mysteries of Mars’s deep interior instead of searching for signs of water and possible extinct life on the red planet…. 

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, John King Tarpinian, Hampus Eckerman, Daniel Dern, SG Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Chris Barkley, Andrew Porter, and Michael Toman for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Anna Nimmhaus.]

Pixel Scroll 3/9/18 Now Scroll It! Into Shape! Pixel Up! File Straight!

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(1) SUBTITLE THIS. Not very sff, but the replies to John Hornor’s tweet are absolute gold.

Among other responses –

(2) WRINKLE IN TIME REACTIONS. Two NPR views: the straight by Linda Holmes: “Oprah In The Sky, With Wisdom: The Earnest, Imaginative ‘A Wrinkle In Time'”

There is a part of a filmgoer who is exhausted by an avalanche of stuff — much of it forgettable, much of it created by committee, much of it branded within an inch of its life and all of it subject to commercial expectations that are either indifferent or hostile to art — that says, “I cannot get on board with a film that delivers wisdom through a giant, glowing Oprah.”

Is that cynicism? Perhaps, but it’s cynicism that is earned. What Ava DuVernay’s adaptation of A Wrinkle In Time asks is that this cynicism be temporarily laid down so that you can, in fact, be deeply moved by wisdom delivered by a giant, glowing Oprah.

If you do, it’s a profoundly satisfying, imaginative and beautiful film.

And the slant by Bob Mondello: “‘A Wrinkle In Time’ Will Delight Target Audience That Doesn’t Have Too Many Wrinkles”.

Director Ava DuVernay has a light touch with these early scenes, though she gets seriously bogged down in special effects as the film goes on. In 1962 when “A Wrinkle In Time” was published, critics noted the Christian theology of author Madeleine L’Engle, comparing her to “Narnia” creator C.S. Lewis and wondered if the book’s challenge to conformity could be read as a Cold War allegory about communism. No one’s likely to do that this time.

(3) MORE WRINKLES. The Verge’s Tasha Robinson also isn’t a fan: “A Wrinkle in Time isn’t for cynics — or adults”.

The new Disney film adaptation A Wrinkle in Time, directed by Ava DuVernay (an Oscar nominee for the 2015 historical feature Selma and the 2017 documentary 13th), pays a lot of lip service to that awkwardness but never convincingly captures it. L’Engle’s brand of weirdness can be ugly and unsettling, as her characters suffer physical abuse, fight their own uncontrollable rages, or just spout oddball jargon, oblivious to the ways they’re alienating or offending other people. The film is unmistakably the Disney version of the story, with anything potentially problematic or offensive sanded off and replaced with soft, pastel CGI. It’s a pretty take on the story, but it’s also a frustratingly safe and squishy one. It’s infinitely well-intentioned, full of warm self-affirmation and positivity, and absolutely nothing about it feels emotionally authentic enough to drive those messages home.

(4) BETRAYAL BY DESIGN. The Washington Post’s Michael O’Sullivan, in “Beloved books can turn into terrible movies. Will ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ beat the odds?”, interviews A Wrinkle in Time screenwriter Jennifer Lee, who explains how she updated Madeleine L’Engle’s novel to appeal to contemporary sensibilities.

Ritesh Batra put it best. When I interviewed the director of “The Sense of an Ending,” the 2017 film based on Julian Barnes’s Man Booker Prize-winning novel, the filmmaker told me that the best — and most liberating — advice he ever got was what Barnes told him: “Go ahead and betray me.”

The real question for anyone adapting a book, Batra explained, is not to ask, “What do I want people to see on-screen?” — i.e., plot, action, etc. That’s the easy part. Rather, it’s “What do I want people to feel?”

I proposed the theory — that feeling trumps seeing — to Jennifer Lee, whose “Wrinkle” screenplay (co-written with Jeff Stockwell) forms the basis of director Ava DuVernay’s new film. “It’s funny,” Lee said. “That’s exactly what I say about the approach we took.” Lee’s previous credits include co-directing and writing the Oscar-winning movie “Frozen,” based on a story by Hans Christian Andersen.

The challenge of book adaptation, Lee explained over the phone — particularly when the book’s audience is children, who carry attachments to favorite books for years — is that readers fill in missing details with their imaginations and that a movie “chooses for you.” An additional problem is the fact that film is collaborative: a product not just of words on a page, but also of makeup artists, costumers, casting agents, production designers and, if you’re lucky, a director with the vision to unify it all. There is only so much that a writer can nail down.

(5) STOP STEALING, PLEASE. Looks like it’s time for Disney to write someone a big check: “Artist claims Disney stole his work on a series of album covers and used them for the new Han Solo movie posters”.

An artist has accused Disney of stealing artwork he did on album covers and using it for the posters for Solo: A Star Wars Story.

The retro-styled character posters for the latest Star Wars movie came out in February along with the trailer and feature vintage pop-art style that also include shots of the different characters.

But the posters look almost completely identical to album covers created by Hachim Bahous, who shared the comparisons on his Facebook.

(6) LIBRARIANS WHACKED.  The Hollywood Reporter says “‘The Librarians’ Canceled at TNT” but the series might show up again somewhere else.

TNT is closing the book on The Librarians.

The Turner-owned cable network has canceled the drama from showrunner Dean Devlin. Devlin broke the news Thursday, noting that he would look to find a new home for the series that originally started as a TV movie on the cable network.

“Just got the official call. TNT has canceled #TheLibrarians— I will immediately begin the process of trying to move the show elsewhere. Please keep your fingers crossed for us!” he wrote.

The fantasy-adventure drama was developed by John Rogers and based on The Librarian by David Titcher. Rebecca Romijn starred in the drama with Noah Wyle recurring and executive producing the series alongside Devlin, Mark Roskin and John Rogers.

(7) IT COULD BE YOU. Applications for new HSS/NASA Fellowships are being taken until April 1 – see “Fellowships in Aerospace History”

Pending renewal of funding, the Fellowships in Aerospace History are offered annually by the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) to support significant scholarly research projects in aerospace history. These fellowships grant the opportunity to engage in significant and sustained advanced research in all aspects of the history of aerospace from the earliest human interest in flight to the present, including cultural and intellectual history, economic history, history of law and public policy, and the history of science, engineering, and management. NASA provides funds to the American Historical Association, the History of Science Society, and the Society for the History of Technology to allow each association to award a fellowship. Applications will be entered into consideration for all three fellowships.

(8) GALACTIC PHILADELPHIA. The next Galactic Philadelphia event on April 10 will  feature Sam J. Miller and Samuel Delany.

(9) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to polish off a Persian dinner with David Mack in Episode 61 of his Eating the Fantastic podcast.

David Mack

David’s written more than 30 novels, including the Star Trek Destiny and Cold Equations trilogies. He was also responsible for several episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. His newest novel is The Midnight Front, a World War II-era epic fantasy which is the first book in the Dark Arts series of secret-history novels.

The venue for our dinner was Orchard Market and Cafe, a wonderful Persian restaurant recommended by recent guest of the show Norman Prentiss. Norman had told me that the Chicken Fesenjune was one of his favorite things in the whole world, and now that I’ve been there, I can can tell you—he had good reason to say that. Believe me, the food there was wonderful, and I’ll be going back whenever I can.

David and I discussed the weird ways his life entwined with the famed comic book artist who shares his name, how worrying about the details of Star Trek canon helped him when it came time to unravel the secret history of WWII, the way a near-death experience led to him working for the Syfy Channel, why it was so important for necromancers to pay a heavy price for the magic they choose to wield in his new novel The Midnight Front, how not making a pitch to a book editor resulted in him selling TV scripts to Star Trek, his unabashed love for the Beat author Richard Brautigan, the reason that after 27 Trek novels and a ton of other tie-in work he’s chosen to publish his non-franchise breakout book now, and much more.

(10) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • March 9, 1979 — Roger Corman’s film Starcrash debuted.
  • March 9, 1984:  Stephen King adaptation Children of the Corn premieres in theaters.
  • March 9, 2007:  Comic adaptation of the 300 opens.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

  • JJ finds a familiar figure visiting the shrink in Bizarro.
  • And in another Bizarro, sees an unexpected way to hack Alexa.
  • Chip Hitchcock passes along a real groaner from Rhymes With Orange.

(12) FORGET THAT LONELY GARRET. Jeff Goins’ podcast The Portfolio Life hosts “123: How Community Will Help You Become a Better Writer with Diana Glyer”.

In this episode, Diana and I discuss:

  • Who the Inklings are, and why this group still matters today.
  • The dynamics and quirks of literary groups.
  • How community can positively influence your work.
  • Why people believed the individuals within the Inklings were immune to influence from each other.
  • The pervasive myth of the solitary genius.
  • How great art and writing is forged in community.
  • Why writing is not a momentary flash of genius, but a slow and steady work of art.
  • What you need to know about the transactional nature of writing.
  • Steps you can take to build your own literary group.

Quotes and takeaways

  • We are mesmerized by the end of the story, but we forget about the beginning.
  • To build community, you have to take a risk and share your work with others.
  • Start small when you build a community of support.
  • Loneliness will leave you feeling empty, but community will help you sustain your work.

(13) HITCHHIKER AT 40. The BBC is celebrating Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with a new series based on Eoin Colfer’s Hitchhiker novel Hexagonal Phase. Catch the first episode here.

Ars Technical’s Jonathan M. Gitlin says give it a listen:

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy deserves a special place in the geek pantheon. It’s the story of hapless BBC radio editor Arthur Dent, his best friend Ford Prefect, and the adventures that result when Prefect saves Dent when the Earth is unexpectedly destroyed to make way for a galactic bypass. Written by the late, great Douglas Adams, HHGTTG first appeared as a radio series in the UK back in 1978. On Thursday—exactly 40 years to the day from that first broadcast—it made its return home with the start of Hexagonal Phase, a radio dramatization of the sixth and final book of an increasingly misnamed trilogy.

… So I’m happy to report that this latest installment doesn’t disappoint. And even better, unlike the BBC’s TV content, it’s not geoblocked or behind any kind of paywall. So go on, what are you waiting for—the coming of the Great Prophet Zarquon?

(14) CLASS IS IN SESSION. Cat Rambo has been working on promotional graphics lately —

(15) COMPASS CASTING. From Andrew Liptak at The Verge we learn: “Logan star Dafne Keen will play Lyra in the BBC’s adaptation of The Golden Compass”.

The BBC has lined up its star for its upcoming adaptation of Philip Pullman’s novel, The Golden Compass: Logan star Dafne Keen, reports Deadline (via io9). The King’s Speech director Tom Hooper will also helm the 8-part series.

(16) A TANGLED WEB. Dr. Janelle Shane is at it again: “SkyKnit: How an AI Took Over an Adult Knitting Community” in The Atlantic.

Janelle Shane is a humorist who creates and mines her material from neural networks, the form of machine learning that has come to dominate the field of artificial intelligence over the last half-decade.

Perhaps you’ve seen the candy-heart slogans she generated for Valentine’s Day: DEAR ME, MY MY, LOVE BOT, CUTE KISS, MY BEAR, and LOVE BUN.

Or her new paint-color names: Parp Green, Shy Bather, Farty Red, and Bull Cream.

Or her neural-net-generated Halloween costumes: Punk Tree, Disco Monster, Spartan Gandalf, Starfleet Shark, and A Masked Box.

Her latest project, still ongoing, pushes the joke into a new, physical realm. Prodded by a knitter on the knitting forum Ravelry, Shane trained a type of neural network on a series of over 500 sets of knitting instructions. Then, she generated new instructions, which members of the Ravelry community have actually attempted to knit.

(17) BLOWN UP, SIR! Peter Blumberg, in “‘Zombie Go Boom’ Attack on YouTube Ad Policy Is Ruled a Bust”, on Bloomberg, says that the owners of the YouTube Zombie Go Boom channel, in which as many as ten million people a month delight in watching imaginary undead creatures explode, tried to sue Google when they declared that ad revenue for the site would fall from $500 a day to $20 because some advertisers declared the site offensive.  But Judge Edward Chen said that Google was under no legal obligation to share any ad revenue with the site.

The freedom to produce a YouTube channel dedicated to bashing the undead doesn’t come with a guarantee of steady income.

So said a judge in ruling Wednesday that Google’s video-sharing website isn’t responsible for taking a big bite out of the revenue that was flowing to the owners of the wildly popular “Zombie Go Boom” channel.

(18) GRINCH TRAILER. Benedict Cumberbatch will voice The Grinch, due in theaters at Christmas.

For their eighth fully animated feature, Illumination and Universal Pictures present The Grinch, based on Dr. Seuss’ beloved holiday classic. The Grinch tells the story of a cynical grump who goes on a mission to steal Christmas, only to have his heart changed by a young girl’s generous holiday spirit. Funny, heartwarming and visually stunning, it’s a universal story about the spirit of Christmas and the indomitable power of optimism. Academy Award® nominee Benedict Cumberbatch lends his voice to the infamous Grinch, who lives a solitary life inside a cave on Mt. Crumpet with only his loyal dog, Max, for company. With a cave rigged with inventions and contraptions for his day-to-day needs, the Grinch only sees his neighbors in Who-ville when he runs out of food.

 

(19) FLYING CARS. Here’s your flying car (finally) — if you have the money: “Have you ever dreamed of flying in your car?” This BBC video shows Transition and other cars live.

(20) SPEED OF FRIGHT. MIT researchers find fake news ‘travels faster’:

A study of 126,000 rumours and false news stories spread on Twitter over a period of 11 years found that they travelled faster and reached more people than the truth.

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology also found that fake news was more commonly re-tweeted by humans than bots.

They said it could be because fake news tends to be “more novel”.

The most common subject matter was false political news.

Other popular topics included urban legends, business, terrorism, science, entertainment and natural disasters.

(21) UNDER CONSTRUCTION. This video at the Disney Blog takes you on a flyover of the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge construction site at Disney World.

While the highly anticipated Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge lands won’t debut to Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort guests until 2019, eager fans can take a voyage over the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge construction site – right now!

At Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, guests will be transported to the planet of Batuu, a remote outpost on the galaxy’s edge that was once a busy crossroads along the old sub-lightspeed trade routes. Here, guests will find themselves in the middle of the action at two attractions that take detail and immersion to the next level: one that lets guests take the controls of Millennium Falcon on a customized secret mission, and an epic Star Wars adventure that puts guests in the middle of a climactic battle between the First Order and the Resistance.

(22) BUCKMINSTER FULLER. The once well-known futurist makes a comeback, sort of, in The House of Tomorrow, in theaters April 27.

16-year-old Sebastian Prendergast has spent most of his life with his Nana in their geodesic dome home tourist attraction where she raises him on the futurist teachings of her former mentor Buckminster Fuller in hopes that one day Sebastian will carry Fuller’s torch and make the world a better place. But when a stroke sidelines Nana, Sebastian begins sneaking around with Jared, a chain-smoking, punk-obsessed 16 year old with a heart transplant who lives in the suburbs with his bible-thumping single father Alan and teenage sister Meredith. Sebastian and Jared form a band and with his Nana’s dreams, his first real friendship, and a church talent show at stake, Sebastian must decide if he wants to become the next Buckminster Fuller, the next Sid Vicious, or something else entirely.

 

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, JJ, Juliette Wade, Martin Morse Wooster, Chip Hitchcock, Mlex, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Joe H.]

Pixel Scroll 9/5/17 For Sale: Baby Pixels. Never Scrolled

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(1) GAME OF TINGLES. Zoe Quinn has posted a new trailer for Tingle, her dating simulator game based on the works of Chuck Tingle. Dual Shockers has the story — “Tingle Gets a New Pre-Alpha Trailer Featuring a Ton of Actors and Personalities”. May not be safe for work. Unless your boss is a unicorn.

The dating simulator looks incredibly strange. The trailer features a moving butt plaque, horse masks, terribly drawn male genitalia, puzzles, mini-games, and lots more. You can check it out down below. While the game could definitely be considered not safe for work, Quinn is including options that’ll make Tingle less raunchy.
 

(2) PRATCHETT ON DISPLAY. This is the event publicized by running over Pratchett’s hard drive with a steam roller… The “Terry Pratchett: HisWorld” exhibit at the Salisbury Museum (in Salisbury, England) runs from September 15 until January 13.

This is an exclusive major exhibition based on the extraordinary life of Sir Terry Pratchett, the creative genius behind the Discworld series. Follow his journey to becoming one of our best known and best loved writers. This unique exhibition will include artwork by the man himself and treasured items owned by Sir Terry which have never previously been on public display. Also featured will be over forty original illustrations by Paul Kidby, Sir Terry’s artist of choice.?

(3) HEAR SF IN PHILLY. When the new SFWA-sponsored Galactic Philadelphia reading series begins October 24 the readers will be –

Gardner Dozois
Lara Elena Donnelly

Gardner Dozois was the editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine for almost twenty years, and also edits the annual anthology series The Year’s Best Science Fiction, which has won the Locus Award for Best Anthology more than any other anthology series in history, and which is now up to its href=”http://amzn.to/2xLXXFN”>Thirty-Fourth Annual Collection. He’s won the Hugo Award fifteen times as the year’s Best Editor, won the Locus Award thirty-one times, including an unprecedented sixteen times in a row as Best Editor, and has won the Nebula Award twice, as well as a Sidewise Award, for his own short fiction, which has been most recently collected in When the Great Days Come. He is the author or editor of more than a hundred books, including a novel written in collaboration with George R.R. Martin and Daniel Abraham, Hunter’s Run, and, in addition to many solo anthologies, the anthologies, Songs of the Dying Earth, Warriors, Dangerous Women, and Rogues, all co-edited with George R.R. Martin, the last two of which were New York Times bestsellers. Coming up is a major solo fantasy anthology, The Book of Swords. He has been inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, and won the Skylark Award for Lifetime Achievement in Science Fiction. Born in Salem, Massachusettes, he now lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Lara Elena Donnelly is the author of the glam spy thriller Amberlough, and its upcoming sequels Armistice and Amnesty. Her short fiction and poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming from Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, Mythic Delirium, Nightmare, and Uncanny. She is a graduate of the Alpha and Clarion workshops, and a past winner of the Dell Magazine Award. In the summer, Lara is onsite staff at the Alpha SF/F/H Workshop for Young Writers. She lives in Harlem, but exists virtually on most social media platforms as @larazontally, and on her website at laradonnelly.com

The venue will be the Irish Pub, located at 2007 Walnut Street, Philadelphia 19103, a block west of Rittenhouse Square, and start at 7:30 p.m. [H/T to SF Site News.]

(4) THE END OF CINEMATIC HISTORY. In Washington, D.C., people are invited to watch “My Favorite Movie with Francis Fukuyama: Children of Men”.

Join Francis Fukuyama for a screening and discussion of Children of Men, the haunting 2006 adaptation of PD James’ dystopian novel (directed by Alfonso Cuarón) set in 2027, when all women have become infertile and humanity is facing extinction.

This is the latest installment of our “My Favorite Movie” series featuring thought leaders hosting their favorite movies, and short conversations about them. Professor Fukuyama is a senior fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute and the author of The Origins of Political Order and The End of History and the Last Man.

The screening of Children of Men will take place at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, September 19th at Washington, D.C.’s Landmark E Street Cinema at 555 11th Street NW.  If you would like to attend, please RSVP to [email protected] with your name, email address, and any affiliation you’d like to share. You may RSVP for yourself and up to one guest. Please include your guest’s name in your response. Seating is limited.

(5) FILER ON PODCASTLE. Congratulations to Heather Rose Jones, who has a brand new original short story out from Podcastle.org today, “Hyddwen.” Check it out.

Morvyth, the daughter of Rys, had no desire for a husband because of the passion and the love she had for Elin, the Lady of Madrunion. And after what we spoke of above–sending the gull as love-messenger to her, and the trick with the sack at the wedding feast, and sending the Irishman away empty-handed–Morvyth came to live at Llyswen. And there they spent three years in happiness and joy.

(6) ANN LECKIE, CHEESE EVANGELIST. There’s an uptick in interviews with Ann Leckie’s next book coming out this month: “Hugo Award–winner Ann Leckie talks new book, sci-fi politics, and Provel cheese” in St. Louis Magazine. Lots in here about the Imperial Radch series, and women winning all the Hugos this year – but no tea recommendations! Firm opinions about cheese, though….

St. Louis is home to a not-small number of award-winning creators—and BookFest St. Louis plans to gather them, along with writers from around the nation, in September.

Not least among those authors is space opera writer Ann Leckie, whose Ancillary Justice is the first novel to win the “triple crown” of the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke science fiction awards. The book’s Imperial Radch trilogy went on to grab additional Locus awards and prestigious nominations. Leckie will speak at a science fiction panel with fellow writers Charlie Jane Anders, Annalee Newitz, and Mark Tiedemann.

The September 23 event precedes the following Tuesday’s release of her fourth novel, Provenance, a standalone that’s set several years after the Imperial Radch trilogy and will feature new characters and star systems….

Is there anything around here that you’re a big fan of?

…I find myself often, when I’m travelling and talking to other writers from other places, telling them that they absolutely have to try St. Louis–style pizza. I don’t know what’s wrong with the people who are like, “That’s not even pizza!” Well it is; it’s just not the pizza that you’re used to, right? So I’ve been trying to spread the word about St. Louis–style pizza.

Spread the Provel gospel.

Yes. It’s made in Wisconsin only for the St. Louis pizza market. That’s what Wikipedia said. It’s only—there’s no other use for Provel cheese except us. It’s made almost exclusively for the St. Louis pizza market.

Writer’s note: NPR confirms Wikipedia’s story.

Nowhere else?

Nobody else knows what Provel is. Isn’t that kind of amazing? Which is I think part of why when people encounter that, and it doesn’t act like the cheese that they’re used to—not only is it not the cheese they’re used to on pizza; it’s a completely foreign cheese. So it’s like… [She pulls a face.] But they’re just wrong. It’s wonderful.

I thought you’re one of few who have that opinion. But a decent enough number, apparently.

I mean, it’s our pizza. You have to take it on its own terms. You can’t say, “This isn’t New York style, this isn’t Chicago style,” because it’s not. It is what it is.

(7) ROBBY ON THE BLOCK. William Malone has announced he’s selling Robby the Robot.

ROBBY GOES OFF to COLLEGE. I’m sure this will come as a shock to some of you. I just wanted to let all my friends know that after much thought and consideration, I have decided to put the Original Robby the Robot and his Car up for auction. This is not a hasty decision by any means. It’s actually something I’ve been thinking about for some time. I’ve had Robby for over 37 years and have enjoyed seeing him everyday and having coffee with him every morning (though he always preferred an STP Daiquiri to espresso). While I’ve tried to make Robby available to be seen and enjoyed as much as possible, I’ve come to realize his proper place is in a museum. I’m hoping this is where he’ll wind up. Robby is an icon and a star and just a plain good guy (err robot). Over the years, I’ve always tried to look after his best interests and he certainly has been good to me. I feel like I’ve never really owned Robby, I’m just his caretaker. It’s time for the next part of his journey. He will outlive us all.

Robby will be on sale at the New York Bonhams/TCM auction in November.

(8) SMOKE YOU CAN SEE FOR LIGHTYEARS. TV Line warns “The Orville Review: Seth MacFarlane’s Somber Sci-Fi Dud Crashes and Burns”.

Consider this a red alert to TV fans everywhere: Are you expecting Seth MacFarlane’s new Fox series The Orville to be a fun Star Trek parody packed with wall-to-wall jokes? Two words of advice: Abandon ship.

Despite what Fox’s official site claims, The Orville — premiering this Sunday at 8/7c — is not a “hilarious comedy.” It’s not even a comedy. Yes, there are a few Family Guy-esque punchlines scattered throughout, but as bafflingly as this sounds, The Orville is mostly a straightforward drama… and not a very good one, at that. Riddled with sci-fi clichés and paralyzed by a grim self-importance, MacFarlane’s shiny new vessel ends up being a colossal dud that not only fails to take flight, it short-circuits before it even gets out of the docking bay.

(9) HISTORY FROM ANOTHER PLANET. Star Wars: Episode IX director Colin Trevorrow has been cut loose:

Lucasfilm and Colin Trevorrow have mutually chosen to part ways on Star Wars: Episode IX. Colin has been a wonderful collaborator throughout the development process but we have all come to the conclusion that our visions for the project differ. We wish Colin the best and will be sharing more information about the film soon.

The Hollywood Reporter heard this from unnamed sources:

Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that script issues have continued to be a sore spot throughout Episode IX’s development, with Trevorrow having repeated stabs at multiple drafts. In August, Jack Thorne, the British scribe who wrote the upcoming Julia Roberts-Jacob Tremblay movie Wonder, was tapped to work on the script.

Sources say that the working relationship between Trevorrow and Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy became unmanageable. Kennedy, who had already been through one director firing/replacement on the Han Solo spinoff movie, was not eager for a sequel and tried to avoid this decision.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

  • There is a school of thought that if you need to use a bookmark, you don’t have a first-rate mind. Today’s Drabble shows the down side of that. Thanks to John King Tarpinian for the laugh.
  • He also recommends today’s installment of Brevity, a terrible pun which made me laugh (don’t they all?)

(11) WATCHING STINKERS. List Challenges says these are “100 of the Worst Movies Ever” and gives you a chance to add up how many you’ve seen. Apparently I’ve done a pretty good job of sparing my eyeballs, having seen only 15 out of 100. (Was Down Periscope really that awful? I wouldn’t tell you to hurry and see it, but I know I didn’t throw my popcorn box at the screen either.)

(12) HARASSMENT SURVEY. Jess Nevins has published the results of his “Sexual Harassment in the Science Fiction & Fantasy Communities Survey”.

The science fiction and fantasy community has a problem: sexual harassment and sexual predation by men.

I put up a survey recently on the subject. The results, while not surprising, were nonetheless sobering. Of 802 respondents:

  • 24% had been sexually harassed at a convention.
  • 35% had witnessed sexual harassment at a convention.
  • 40% had a family member, friend, or colleague who had been sexually harassed at a convention.

In addition to overall numbers, he collected anecdotal information.

… Some of the victims of harassment refuse to go to specific conventions any more, whether because of that convention’s weak anti-harassment policies, the weak response by the convention’s staff to complaints about harassment, or because a harasser is a regular participant of that convention. Some of the victims refuse to go to any conventions now, because of their negative experiences. Some of the victims are no longer comfortable at conventions unless they are in the presence of a male partner or friend or group of friends. Some of the victims have developed PTSD as a result of being harassed.

(13) MULTITUDES ATTEND DRAGON AWARDS. They may be blurry photos taken with a phone, but they are clear enough to show the number of fans present for the Dragon Awards.

View post on imgur.com

(14) CLOSEUP OF THE EUGIE AWARD. This is a much better picture than I was able to find the other day.

(15) WHO CROSSES THE POND. Hold it, that sounds like an episode plot, not geography. The news story is: ATB Publishing has started shipping copies of Red, White and Who: The Story of Doctor Who in America by Steven Warren Hill, Jennifer Adams Kelley, Nicholas Seidler, Robert Warnock,  Janine Fennick and John Lavalie.

In this book you’ll find the rich history of everything DOCTOR WHO in the USA—from American TV Guide listings of Canadian broadcasts in 1965, through the Dalek movies, the early struggles of the Public Broadcasting System, the BBC sales attempts, the official debut on American television in 1972, the explosion in popularity among US viewers in 1979, the twentieth anniversary celebration in 1983, the conventions, the books, the merchandise, the fan clubs, the video releases, the games, the USA Tour, and every imaginable fan activity including cosplay, fan films and audios, PBS pledge drive volunteering, websites, podcasts, and much more, to the new heights of success, popularity, and fandom participation in the 21st century. It’s an enlightening and entertaining journey for everyone who admires DOCTOR WHO…and not just for American fans, but devotees around the globe.

(16) THEY KEPT WATCHING THE SKIES. Now they know which star they were looking at: “Scientists recover nova first spotted 600 years ago by Korean astrologers”.

On a cold March night in Seoul almost 600 years ago, Korean astrologers spotted a bright new star in the tail of the constellation Scorpius. It was seen for just 14 days before fading from view. From these ancient records, modern astronomers determined that what the Royal Imperial Astrologers saw was a nova explosion, but they had been unable to find the binary star system that caused it—until now. A new study published today by the journal Nature pinpoints the location of the old nova, which now undergoes smaller-scale “dwarf nova” eruptions. The work supports that idea that novae go through a very long-term life cycle after erupting, fading to obscurity for thousands of years, and then building back up to become full-fledged novae once more.

“This is the first nova that’s ever been recovered with certainty based on the Chinese, Korean, and Japanese records of almost 2,500 years,” said the study’s lead author Michael Shara, a curator in the American Museum of Natural History’s Department of Astrophysics.

(17) FANTASTIC FICTION AT KGB. Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel will present Katherine Vaz and Chris Sharp at the next gathering of Fantastic Fiction at KGB on September 20.

Katherine Vaz

Katherine Vaz is best known for her fictional chronicling of the stories of the Portuguese in America, often with a magical-realism twist. Her novels include Saudade, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and Mariana, selected by the Library of Congress as one of the Top Thirty International Books of 1998. Her collections Fado & Other Stories and Our Lady of the Artichokes & Other Portuguese-American Stories have won, respectively, a Drue Heinz Literature Award and a Prairie Schooner Book Prize. She’s taught fiction as a Briggs-Copeland Fellow at Harvard and was a Fellow of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She’s a frequent contributor to the anthologies of Ellen Datlow (and Terri Windling), plus a story in the upcoming Mad Hatters and March Hares.

Chris Sharp

Chris Sharp is the author of Cold Counsel, a human-free, post-Ragnarok, dark fantasy romp and The Elementalists, a YA epic about dragons and climate change—with new installments coming soon to both series. His articles have appeared in Tor.com, and he also writes extensively for feature films and episodic television. Prior to moving to MA and committing full time to writing, he worked as an independent film/commercial producer in NYC. His photography has appeared in New York Times Magazine, his drawing in the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and some of the films he produced have won awards at festivals around the world.

The readings begin 7 p.m. on Wednesday, September 20th, 7pm at KGB Bar (85 East 4th Street (just off 2nd Ave, upstairs.) in New York.

(18) SEASONAL BREW. It’s the right time of year for New Belgium Brewing to send its Voodoo Ranger Atomic Pumpkin Ale to market.

Enough with the run-of-the-mill pumpkin beers. I’m not interested in an ale that takes cues from a frozen coffee drink, and neither are you. That’s why I made Atomic Pumpkin. Does it really feature Habanero peppers? Yep! What about Saigon Cinnamon? Ding! I round it all out with a hearty malt bill that makes for a spicy brew that puts the “Fun” back in Pumpkin. (Spelling was never my strength). — Voodoo Ranger

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, DMS, Carl Slaughter, Mark-kitteh, Rebecca Hill, Craig Glassner, Michael J. Walsh, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kip W.]</a<>