Tag Archives: Hildy Silverman

Pixel Scroll 12/29/23 My Mother Did-A Tell Me That I Go Pixel Scroll, And Read All The File Seven

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(1) This will be a short Scroll because I am heading north today to attend the birthday celebration of one of my nephews. I’m looking forward to it.

(2) THE FUTURE OR ALREADY STALEDATED? The New York Times answers its own rhetorical question in “A.I. Can Make Art That Feels Human. Whose Fault Is That?”.

This was the year — ask your stockbroker, or the disgraced management of Sports Illustrated — that artificial intelligence went from a dreamy projection to an ambient menace and perpetual sales pitch. Does it feel like the future to you, or has A.I. already taken on the staleness and scamminess of the now-worthless nonfungible token?

Artists have been deploying A.I. technologies for a while, after all: Ed Atkins, Martine Syms, Ian Cheng and Agnieszka Kurant have made use of neural networks and large language models for years, and orchestras were playing A.I.-produced Bach variations back in the 1990s. I suppose there was something nifty the first time I tried ChatGPT — a slightly more sophisticated grandchild of Eliza, the ’60s therapist chatbot — though I’ve barely used it since then; the hallucinatory falsehoods of ChatGPT make it worthless for journalists, and even its tone seems an insult to my humanity. (I asked: “Who was the better painter, Manet or Degas?” Response: “It is not appropriate to compare artists in terms of ‘better’ or ‘worse,’ as art is a highly subjective field.”)

Still, the explosive growth of text-to-image generators such as Midjourney, Stable Diffusion and Dall-E (the last is named after the corniest artist of the 20th century; that should have been a clue) provoked anxieties that A.I. was coming for culture — that certain capabilities once understood as uniquely human now faced computational rivals. Is this really the case?

Without specific prompting, these A.I. images default to some common aesthetic characteristics: highly symmetrical composition, extreme depth of field, and sparkly and radiant edges that pop on a backlit smartphone screen. Figures have the waxed-fruit skin and deeply set eyes of video game characters; they also often have more than 10 fingers, though let’s hold out for a software update. There is little I’d call human here, and any one of these A.I. pictures, on its own, is an aesthetic irrelevance. But collectively they do signal a hazard we are already facing: the devaluation and trivialization of culture into just one more flavor of data.

A.I. cannot innovate. All it can produce are prompt-driven approximations and reconstitutions of preexisting materials. If you believe that culture is an imaginative human endeavor, then there should be nothing to fear, except that — what do you know? — a lot of humans have not been imagining anything more substantial. When a TikTok user in April posted an A.I.-generated song in the style (and voices) of Drake and the Weeknd, critics and copyright lawyers bayed that nothing less than our species’s self-definition was under threat, and a simpler sort of listener was left to wonder: Was this a “real” song? (A soulless engine that strings together a bunch of random formulas can pass as Drake — hard to believe, I know….)

(3) RICK AND MORTY. Animation World Network is there when “Adult Swim Drops First Sneak Peek of ‘Rick and Morty: The Anime’”.

Adult Swim recently took to YouTube to reveal a sneak peek for Rick and Morty: The Anime, the upcoming 10-episode 2D animated series following Rick as he encounters multiple versions of himself from parallel universes.

Based on the Emmy-award-winning adult animated series, the anime adventure will debut on Adult Swim and Max. Director Takashi Sano (Tower of God) previously directed two anime shorts, Rick and Morty vs. Genocider and Summer Meets God (Rick Meets Evil), which received widespread fan and critical acclaim upon release. The Anime was greenlit last May….

(4) BOOK QUESTIONS. An excerpt from “By the Book – Interview: David Mamet” in the New York Times.

What book would you most like to see turned into a movie that hasn’t already been adapted?

The only book not adapted to the screen is the phone book. I tried, but only got as far as the title: “Funny Names, No Plot.”

What’s the last book you read that made you laugh?

“The Berenstain Bears Get Cancer.”

The last book that made you cry?

“Bambi.”

The last book that made you furious?

“The Wealth of Nations.”

Has a book ever brought you closer to another person, or come between you?

My wife once threw a book at me.

(5) TIPS FOR TEAMING UP. “Sharing the Spotlight: 6 Tips for Collaborative Storytelling” by Hildy Silverman at the SFWA Blog.

Sharing story creation and developmental duties with a writing partner might seem daunting, given that we authors tend to invest a certain amount of ego (to put it mildly) into our work. Writing alone, we can be possessive of our characters and staunch in our plans for their adventures. Yet co-authors must be willing to let some “darlings” die in order to successfully create a truly collaborative work—otherwise, hurt feelings and anger could ruin a promising authorial partnership.

In a previous post on this blog, Gareth L. Powell addressed the nuts and bolts of working with a co-author. Rather than rehashing his excellent advice, I am going to focus on the challenges of collaborating, and provide suggestions on how to proactively avoid bruised egos and hurt feelings.

Tip #1: Try before you buy (in)

Whether the other author is a longtime friend or merely a professional colleague, make sure you know what you are getting into before committing to a collaborative project. Read two or more stories they have written previously to discover whether they have a compatible style with yours and the fundamental skills to write at a professional level. You don’t necessarily have to love everything about their style, but you should not be so turned off that you cannot imagine finding common ground to create something new. You definitely should not find their work a chore to read as you mentally correct their every mistake…

(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born December 29, 1963 — Dave McKean, 58. So let’s talk about Dave McKean and let me state right upfront that I consider his most brilliant work to be his work with Gaiman on The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr Punch: A Romance. An absolutely stellar work — violent, horrifying, thrilling. But then Mr. Punch always scared me… 

Now let’s go back to the beginning of his career. Violent Cases with Gaiman was his first work back thirty-six years ago.  It was drawn in shades of blue, brown, and grey, but when it was first published by Escape Books, it was printed in black-and-white. Later editions have been printed in colour. 

Several years later, Grant Morrison wrote and he illustrated Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth (often called Batman: Arkham Asylum). It’s an absolutely brilliant look at Arkham Asylum, something neglected really in the comics. It’s considered one of Morrison’s best works. 

Remember Dustcovers: The Collected Sandman Covers? It was really fun to leaf through that work and look at the covers. 

He and Gaiman did four children’s picture books, of which I’ve enjoyed just two but of course your opinions will be different — those two were The Wolves in the Walls and Mirrormask. Now the children’s novels Coraline and The Graveyard Book are wonderful indeed. 

(Digression away from McKean for a moment. Gaiman narrates the telling of Coralline and need I say that it’s a magnificent reading indeed?  The Graveyard Book is now a full cast production with him as the narrator. End of digression.) 

I did not know ‘til now that he was a concept artist on the Neverwhere series. Very interesting. 

So he was the director of his Mirrormask film which Kurt Loder of MTV said of, “This one-of-a-kind fantasy film may be seen as a classic someday, possibly quite soon.” It garnered an eighty percent approval rating among audience members there. Nice. 

He’s been nominated and won far too many Awards to list them here so I’m singling out just these. He has been nominated five times for a World Fantasy Award and he won the award  once. His graphic novel Cages won a Harvey Awards for best Graphic Novel.

(7) POWER IN SMALL PACKAGES. CBR.com thinks you will be more surprised than will probably be the case when they roll out their list of the “10 Best Movies You Didn’t Know Were Originally Short Stories”. At least half of them are sff or genre-adjacent.

When the credits roll, it’s not surprising to see that a film was based on a novel. Some authors, like Stephen King, are prolific in writing books that go on to be adapted for the big screen. Something less common, however, is seeing a film that has been adapted from a short story….

10. Arrival

Arrival (2016) was adapted from the novella Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang, which appears in his collection, Stories of Your Life and Others. As most adaptations do, the film takes some liberties, like adding action in the third act, but beyond that, much of the main plot stays the same.

Arrival is a remarkably easy-to-follow story considering that the content follows a linguist learning an entirely new language from aliens and a physicist discussing refraction and mathematical theories, all mixed with the idea of non-linear time. Both versions of the story are heartbreaking in their own way and deserve to be appreciated in their respective forms.

(8) REMEMBER SF PROMISING FOOD PILLS? [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Well, here they come. Except, in reverse. OK, so the whole thing is still an idea in development. But it’s pig approved.  “This Vibrating “Pill” May Be the Next Best Thing For Weight Loss” reports Inverse.

Imagine a pill no bigger than a multivitamin vibrating in your stomach. If that’s got your mind in the gutter, better shift it to your gut: such tiny devices are very real and maybe the future of weight loss.

That’s according to research out of MIT, where engineers developed a battery-operated capsule-like device that’s supposed to make you feel full by stretching out your stomach using vibration. When the pill was given to pigs 20 minutes before a meal, the animals ate 40 percent less than they usually did, all the while their bodies released the usual prandial melange of hormones involved in insulin production and appetite suppression….

(9) FOR THE ANTIQUARIANS AMONG US. Mark Funke, Bookseller – mentioned here the other day in connection with the sale of the Dillon art for The Left Hand of Darkness – previously published a catalog – Science Fiction – to promote the sales of several dozen historic letters, documents and publications. The catalog is still online, though seems to have succeeded in its purpose of selling everything listed in it. Makes interesting reading.

[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian, for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Danny Sichel.]

Pixel Scroll 9/22/23 Brand New Pixels Right Off The Cosmic Assembly Line

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(1) FINALLY! MAX TO RUN FINAL HALF-SEASON OF DOOM PATROL. [Item by Daniel Dern.] According to Gizmodo, the long-overdue final half of the final season (Season 4) of Doom Patrol on MAX (aka HBO MAX, originally on DC’s streaming platform, yeesh) — the first half finished showing back in January — with, according to Gizmodo, “two episodes October 12, followed by a weekly drop through November 9.”

(While this is the first time actual drop dates have been announced, I’ll believe this is real only after I’ve seen ’em.)

Doom Patrol has been among my short-list favorites for comics-based live-action superhero/sf shows/movies:

  • Reason 3, history: I’ve been a DP fan since the group debuted back in June 1963, in DC’s My Greatest Adventure #80, for the modest price of twelve cents.

While I missed some issues/runs during the 1970s (when I thought I was done reading comics), I de-gafiated in time for fabulous mind-blowing runs starting with Grant Morrison, followed by Rachel Pollack, and others.

(Here’s the cover.)

The initial team consisted of Rita “Elastigirl” Farr, Larry “Negative Man” Trainor, and Cliff “Robotman” Steele, led by doctor/scientist-in-a-wheelchair Niles “The Chief” Calder.

(As opposed to Marvel’s X-Men, who started in their eponymous comic dated September 1963. (Reminder, comic issue dates often weren’t the same as “when released.”) (The DP Wikipedia page discusses some of the “plagiarism? coincidence” questions.)

  • Reason 2, respectful faithfulness to canon, versus teeth-gnashing gratuitous/disrespectful changes. The characters and plots come from all eras, heroes (and villains), and plots arcs, going back to Mento, Beast Boy, General Immortus, the Brain & Monsieur Mallah, and Garguax, through Flex Mentallo, Crazy Jane, Danny The Street, Coagula, and Casey “Space Case” Brinke.

That said, the creators haven’t hesitated to explore and extend characters’ backstories and development. Our heroes (and villains) bring a lot of baggage, and it gets unpacked.

  • Reason 1, this is a mind-blowingly great show. Plots, acting, visuals, ideas, and dialogue. A lot of heart. And a great cast, including Timothy Dalton, Alan Tudyk, Matt Bomer, Brendan Fraser, Diane Guerrero (to name the ones I’m familiar with).

Note, a fair amount of “adult language.” (Not at the level of The Boys, though.) Given the predicaments, all justified.

Plus the flying vampire butts, who we’ve previously seen singing/performing “Shipoopi” (from The Music Man).

I’m excited.

(2) CHENGDU WORLDCON UPDATES. [Item by Ersatz Culture.]

I think this needs someone more versed than me in Chinese culture/cuisine/promotional merchandise to fully explain…  As far as I can tell, for 158 yuan – around $21 USD – you get a gift box containing two jars of different types of bean paste, a mecha-panda figurine, a mobile phone ring holder (?) and 2 ribbons.

The branding is mainly associated with “the 6th Chengdu International SF Convention”, which seems like it was due to be held in November 2021, but got cancelled due to the pandemic, and hasn’t been rescheduled.  However, the packaging does also say “A Tribute to the 2023 Chengdu World Science Fiction Convention” and “Originating from the 2023 Chengdu World SF Convention site”, but I don’t think that it’s official Worldcon merchandise.

Estimated shipping date is 10th October; there’s a link to a purchase page at the Weibo link.

  • Two posts about the SF-themed tunnels that lead to the SF museum/con venue

One of these was mentioned in the 2023-09-15 Scroll, but it turns out there are three newly constructed SF-themed tunnels leading to the con venue, although currently only one is open to traffic, with the other two due to open in October.  

Red Star News has a couple of posts about them; yesterday they had an article going into detail about them [Chinese only], and today they posted a video: “Red Star Video: In Chengdu Drive into the ‘tunnel’ and look up at the ‘starry sky’”.

(3) TRIO OF WARNINGS. At Writer Beware, Victoria Strauss posts three “Cautions: Babelcube, Barnes & Noble Book Order Scams, Audiobook Order Scam (Featuring a Fake Non-Profit)”. Here’s an excerpt of the third warning:

Audiobook Order Scam (Featuring a Fake Non-Profit)

This one comes courtesy of 20/Twenty Literary Group, a fake literary agency with a roster of imaginary agents that does all the things that real agencies don’t, and none of the things they do.

Its latest gambit: an audiobook order scam.

The author is contacted by one of 20/Twenty’s imaginary agents with an offer to re-publish the author’s book–for a fee, naturally. Shortly afterward…surprise! The author gets a call from a Jennifer Lim, who claims to represent a society for the blind. Jennifer wants to order 5,000 audiobooks to be distributed to the society’s members! Naturally, 20/Twenty can oblige. The cost is steep–but oh, those royalties!…

(4) IS THEIR LOVE REAL? “Is The Creator the best science fiction movie of 2023 – or is AI controlling the hype?” – the Guardian’s Ben Child raises suspicions.

…Ahead of any official reviews of the AI-centric piece, studio 20th Century has allowed select critics to tweet their opinions, and the consensus seems to be that this could be the discerning sci-fi fan’s movie of the year. To reach that level for me, Edwards would have to deliver a film on a par with Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 (2009), Alex Garland’s Ex-Machina (2014) or Grant Sputore’s I Am Mother (2019). These films were full of vim and verve and imagined future worlds so rich and detailed that you can imagine never-ending sequels spinning off into infinity – perhaps the mark of all great celluloid sci-fi….

…Are studios using artificial intelligence to handpick journalists who are statistically more likely to provide positive hype? If it’s not happening already, it almost certainly will be soon. In the meantime, let’s hope Edwards’ film really is the zeitgeist-defining AI flick we’ve all been waiting for. If mankind is going down, the least we can expect is to do so while drinking in the finest tech-inspired entertainment human civilisation has ever delivered….

(5) GENRE CONTENT INDEED. Fascinating article: “I’m a fake brand, in a fake world: The secrets behind designing a great fictional brand for TV and film” at It’s Nice That.

Duff Beer, Dunder Mifflin Paper, Wonka Candies, Barbie merchandise… We’ve seen countless made-up brands transcend seamlessly from the screen into the real world. So what’s the key to their success? We chat to the graphics team behind the Barbie film, Wes Anderson’s go-to graphic designer, motion designer and 3D artist Lorenzo Bernini, and Adult Swim’s president Michael Ouweleen….

…When it comes to the make-up of fictional brands, Erica notes how, if done correctly, they can make the stylised world feel like a real place, and can become a playground for the characters to fully express themselves within the storyline. In Asteroid City, for instance, all of the roadside cafes have menus written on the facade, because cars don’t have time to stop for a menu. “The cafe is the canvas of the menu board,” she says. Additionally, one of the characters named Shelly constantly carries a book entitled Invisible Spectrum Elemental Surface Atomic Spectroscopy. There’s also a Girl Scout character who’s always walking around with her Jam Krispies. “Often the brands have a purpose for existing in the script. It’s about understanding what the purpose of that action prop is, and what they’re trying to say about a particular character.”…

(6) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to join Hildy Silverman for a Georgian feast in Episode 207 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.

My guest this time around is Hildy Silverman, perhaps best known for having been the Editor-in-Chief of Space and Time Magazine from 2005 through 2018. But she’s also a writer of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and the interstitial spaces between. Her short stories have appeared in such anthologies as The Dystopian States of America, Bad Ass Moms, Release the Virgins, Baker Street Irregulars, and most recently, Three Time Travelers Walk Into.

Hildy Silverman

In 2013, her short story “The Six Million Dollar Mermaid,” which appeared in the anthology Mermaids 13: Tales from the Sea, was a finalist for the WSFA Small Press Award. In 2020, she joined the Crazy 8 Press authors collective, which publishes novels and anthologies by its membership. She is a past president of the Garden State Speculative Fiction Writers and has frequently pontificated with me on the science fiction convention circuit.

We discussed the kindergarten incident which taught her all she ever wanted to do was write, how to keep writing when the whole world is telling you to stop, what she learned early on from such literary lions as Sue Miller and Jayne Anne Phillips, the lunch that changed her life, why she loves writing for themed anthologies (and how to do it right), what made her decide to take over as editor and publisher of Space and Time magazine, how to beat the odds of the slush pile, the ways being an editor helped her become a better writer, how she’s managed to collaborate without killing her writing partner, and so much more.

Scott Edelman is raising money to upgrade his podcasting equipment. Between auctions and listener donations, he’s at about the 60% mark. Plenty of fun stuff still up on eBay here.

(7) TENTACLED TEASER. Variety fills readers in about the forthcoming series: “Squid Game The Challenge Trailer; Netflix Sets November Premiere”. November 22, to be precise.

…“Squid Game: The Challenge” will see 456 contestants from around the world battle it out through various challenges based on the Korean game show in the scripted series, as well as introducing some new games.

Only one winner will take home the $4.56 million cash prize….

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born September 22, 1917 — Samuel A. Peeples. Memory Alpha says that he’s the person that gave Roddenberry the catch phrase he used to sell Trek to the network: “[As] fellow writer Harlan Ellison has credited him with the creation of one of the most famous catch phrases in Star Trek-lore, ‘[Gene Roddenberry] got “Wagon Train to the stars” from Sam Peeples. That’s what Gene said to me. They were at dinner and Sam Peeples, of course, was a fount of ideas, and Gene said something or other about wanting to do a space show and Sam said, “Yeah? Why don’t you do Wagon Train to the stars?”’” (Died 1997.)
  • Born September 22, 1939 — Edward A. Byers. Due to his early death, he has but two published novels, both space operas, The Log Forgetting and The Babylon Gate. EOFSF says “Byers was not an innovative writer, but his genuine competence raised expectations over his short active career.” There’s no sign his double handful of stories was collected, though his two novels are in-print. (Died 1989.)
  • Born September 22, 1954 — Shari Belafonte, 69. Daughter of Harry Belafonte, I first spotted her on Beyond Reality, a Canadian series that showed up when I was living in upstate Vermont. You most likely saw her as Elizabeth Trent in Babylon 5: Thirdspace as that’s her most well-known genre performance. 
  • Born September 22, 1957 — Jerry Oltion, 66. His Nebula Award-winning Abandon in Place novella is the beginning of the Cheap Hyperdrive sequence, a really fun Space Opera undertaking. Abandon in Place was nominated for a Hugo at LoneStarCon 2 (2013). The Astronaut from Wyoming was nominated for a Hugo at Chicon 2000
  • Born September 22, 1971 — Elizabeth Bear, 52. I’m only going to note the series that I really like but of course you will add the ones that you like. First is her White Space series, Ancestral Space and Machine, which I’ve read or listened to each least three times.  Next up is the sprawling Promethean Age series which is utterly fascinating, and finally The Jenny Casey trilogy which came out at the usual suspects several years ago.
  • Born September 22, 1982 — Billie Piper, 41. Best remembered as the companion of the Ninth and Tenth Doctors, she also played the dual roles Brona Croft and Lily Frankenstein in Penny Dreadful. She played Veronica Beatrice “Sally” Lockhart in the BBC adaptation of Philip Pullman’s The Ruby in the Smoke and The Shadow in The North. 
  • Born September 22, 1985 — Tatiana Maslany, 38. Best known for her superb versatility in playing more than a dozen different clones in the TV series Orphan Black which won win a Hugo for Dramatic Presentation (Short Form), for its “By Means Which Have Never Yet Been Tried“ episode, She received a Best Actress Emmy and more than two dozen other nominations and awards. She’s playing She-Hulk in a Marvel series. 

(9) COMICS SECTION.

  • Bizarro illustrates a tangled legal phrase.
  • Dork Tower shows us the kind of letter a warrior writes, just before a big battle. Big franchise alert.
  • The Argyle Sweater finds a crew member with a complaint about a Star Trek photo booth.

(10) EPIC COSPLAY PHOTOS. Bored Panda arrays “105 Of The Best Cosplay Costumes We’ve Ever Seen”. See photos at the link.

Includes an example of extreme dedication – the black plastic suit of “#7 My Catwoman Cosplay From 1992 ‘Batman Returns’”.

SaintElena added: “I experience almost everything the same as Michelle [Pfeiffer], unfortunately. If I spend more than 2 hours in this suit actively moving, then I can get heat stroke. If I’m not moving very actively, then I can break the stay in the suit up to 4 hours.”

(11) POLICE ROBOTS IN NYC ARE NOW A REALITY. [Item by Francis Hamit.] This isn’t what Asimov envisioned when he wrote the Three Laws but it’s close.  I invested in Knightscope in 2017 for several reasons.  Reading science fiction led me to make Robotics one of my beats as a trade magazine journalist.  I was once the West Coast Editor for ROBOTX News.  Economic circumstances made me transition from Real Estate broker to Security Captain, a temp gig that became a 20 years career while also continuing to be a professional writer.  So I understood instantly what Knightscope’s robots could add to the equation.  They extend the range and presence of human guards.  Security has never been a well-respected business, sort of the Rodney Dangerfield of corporate life but that’s changing because of all of the flashmob thieving and mass shootings.  It has evolved to a very serious part of corporate life with a strong moral center, led by a new generation of military and police veterans.

Knightscope is now a public company and trades under KSCP on the NASDAQ.  The share price has been under attack by trolls and short sellers for most of that time.  That gave me the opportunity of increasing my shares by a factor of ten at a very low price this year. So I’m not claiming to be objective.  It’s a very high risk investment but this NYPD trial is a tipping point.

(12) FEAR REVERED. The Chicago Sun-Times’ Richard Roeper looks back to the beginning: “‘The Exorcist’ at 50: Some things to look for in the classic that elevated horror”.

…When I’m asked about the scariest movie I’ve ever seen, there’s no asterisk, no hesitation, no wavering: It’s “The Exorcist.” I’ve never been as mesmerized, as terrified, as ain’t-no-way-you’re-sleeping-tonight shocked, as I was when I first saw William Friedkin’s demonic, head-turning, supernatural horror film at the Dolton Theater in the spring of 1974. (Warner Bros. actually released the film on Dec. 26, 1973 — the day after Christmas, how about that — but I had to wait for a second-run showing with the more user-friendly $1 admission price.)…

“The Exorcist” became the first pure horror film to be nominated for the best picture Oscar and continues to be a major influence on the genre to this day.In memory of Friedkin’s death last August and in anticipation of the 50th anniversary of the film, we’re getting a theatrical re-release and a 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray and Digital edition of “The Exorcist” that includes the Original Theatrical Version and the Extended Director’s Cut, which incorporates 11 extra minutes of footage and ends with a certain exchange that offers a slightly more hopeful note.

(13) TRAIN UP ON THIS TOOL FOR WRITERS. “Decoding the Submission Grinder” is a $20 course offering at Reach Your Apex. Scheduled for Saturday, September 23 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern.

This class will show you how to use The Submission Grinder—the donation-supported web app for writers—to enhance your submission process. Find new publishers for your work that meet your criteria, track your submissions, track your income and expenses, set reminders for yourself, and more.  This course will help beginners and intermediate users get the most out of the tool to enhance their submission process. This course will be taught by David Steffen; co-founder, owner, data administrator, and developer of The Submission Grinder.

(14) WHO HYPE. “Doctor Who shares new pics of David Tennant’s Doctor reunited with Donna” – Radio Times makes sure we don’t miss them.

…The BBC has released some exciting new stills from the upcoming Doctor Who 60th-anniversary specials – showing David Tennant’s Doctor reunited with Catherine Tate’s Donna Noble….

[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Daniel Dern, Ersatz Culture, Lise Andreasen, Francis Hamit, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cat Eldridge.]

Pixel Scroll 9/5/18 With This Simple Trick You Can Scroll Wild Pixels From Home

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(1) DOCTOR WHO AIRDATE SET. The BBC has announced “Doctor Who to land on Sunday 7 October 2018” (in Great Britain).

The Woman Who Fell to Earth

The last time viewers saw the Doctor, she was falling from her TARDIS so it’s about time for the Doctor to land. This time it’s all change, as Doctor Who is moving to Sunday nights, launching on Sunday 7 October….

Never before in the show’s history has an entire series descended to earth on a Sunday. This year marks a brand new era with a new Showrunner, a new Doctor, new friends and a whole host of new monsters – so it’s only fitting that the new Time Lord will land in a new time zone on BBC One.

And BBC America will air Doctor Who in a parallel time slot.

BBC AMERICA’s Doctor Who is blazing a global trail to match Jodie Whittaker’s revolutionary first season as the Doctor. The network’s US premiere will start at the same time as the UK debut on-air on Sunday, October 7th (time to be announced), followed by a special encore in its new regular primetime evening slot. For the run of the season, Doctor Who will premiere regularly on BBC AMERICA on its new marquee night on Sundays.

(2) BBC’S HORIZON. SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie spotted this video, just put up on BC iPlayer for a month: “The Horizon Guide to AI”. He says, “It’s a historical-to-present perspective.  Great to see SF and old voices and faces from the past like Arthur Clarke and Isaac Asimov.”

The BBC’s Horizon programme began in 1964, and since then has produced films looking at computer technology and the emergence of ‘artificial intelligence’.

Our dreams always begin with ideology and optimism, only for this optimism to be replaced with suspicion that AI machines will take over. However, as the Horizon archive shows, throughout each decade once we have learnt to live with the new emerging technology of the time, the pattern begins again. We become once more optimistic, before becoming fearful of it. The dream for decades had been for a computer with AI to be embedded within a humanoid robot, but just as scientists began to perfect machines with these qualities, something happened nobody expected.

Today, AI systems power our daily lives through smart technology. We are currently experiencing a level of fear about the power of AI, but will we enter the next decade optimistic about all that AI can deliver – or fearful of its ability to control vast areas of our lives?

(3) SPACE AND TIME COMING TO AN END. Hildy Silverman announced the long-lived magazine will fold: “The Future: An Update on Space and Time”.

This is a difficult post, but one that must be made. After 52 years of continuous publication, first under founder Gordon Linzner and over the past 12 years me, Space and Time will cease publication in 2019. I haven’t made this decision lightly, but after looking at all possible alternatives, there is simply no path forward. I cannot afford to keep the magazine going financially or make the time commitment necessary to keep it running….

For now, the current plan is to produce two more issues — one before the end of 2018 (#132)  and one final in 2019 (#133), which will use up our stock of accepted fiction and most of our accepted poetry. Any poets whose work we don’t ultimately use will be notified so they can resubmit their work elsewhere.

(4) BIGFOOT GETS THE BOOT. You couldn’t make this up: “Bigfoot researcher’s lawsuit tossed out by Canada court”.

A Canadian court has dismissed a Bigfoot-believer’s lawsuit claiming British Columbia failed in its duty to recognise that sasquatches exist.

Todd Standing tried to get the province to acknowledge that the giant, ape-like figure was “an indigenous mammal living within British Columbia”.

He also claimed the province infringed on his fundamental rights regarding his concern for the creature.

The province argued the civil claim lacked “an air of reality”.

(5) PRATHER OBIT. Washington Science Fiction Association frequenter Rebecca Prather died August 24 at her nursing home in Vienna, Virginia.

Samuel Lubell said, “She loved traveling the world, photography, and Mensa. Prather celebrated her 80th birthday on August 16.”

(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born September 5, 1912  — Frank Thomas. Author of The Disney Villain. Given that it was printed by Hyperion Books which is owned by Disney, I’m not expecting it to be very terribly critically written.
  • Born September 5, 1942 — Nancy A Walker. Author of Feminist Alternatives: Irony and Fantasy in the Contemporary Novel by Women.
  • Born September 5 — Frank Cioffi, 67. Author of Formula Fiction? An Anatomy of American Science Fiction, 1930-1940.
  • Born September 5 — Carolyne Larrington, 59. Author of The Land of the Green Man: A Journey Through the Supernatural Landscapes of the British Isles and Winter is Coming: The Medieval World of Game of Thrones.

(7) COMICS SECTION.

(8) THE CONSPIRACY. It’s happening in the Denver Airport.

(9) FREEDOM OF CHOICE. Adri Joy is worried about spoilers for the first book in this review of book two in Tim Pratt’s series – if you’re not worried, read the review! At Nerds of a Feather — “Microreview [Book]: The Dreaming Stars by Tim Pratt”.

There’s probably enough background in The Dreaming Stars to make it accessible to anyone who hasn’t already read the first book. We are re-introduced to the Liars and the now-expanded White Raven gang, who have spent the months since the end of The Wrong Stars getting progressively more bored in close confinement with each other. The book fills us in very effectively on the rest of the backstory too – the now not-so-mysterious (but still quite mysterious) Axiom, the fate of Meditreme Station, the relationships among the main characters and their respective histories with sociopathy-inducing brain spiders, and the other events that have led to our multi-temporal heroes hanging out on their cool but limited zero-g asteroid base.

(10) SERIES LAUNCHER. And Adri Joy has high praise for the new Robert Jackson Bennett book: “Microreview [Book]: Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett”.

Rarely does a book instil such a sense of excitement in me as the first ten percent of Foundryside, the first in a new trilogy by Robert Jackson Bennett. The book wastes no time throwing us right into the action with Sancia, a mysterious thief in the middle of a job that appears to be going terribly wrong. Sure enough, within pages, Sancia has accidentally burned down the docks of Tevanne and has most of the city’s authorities out looking for her. More importantly, however, she has discovered that the mysterious object she has been asked to locate is a magical key that can open any lock, and which she is able to have direct conversations with thanks to her own mysterious and unique abilities. By the time Sancia and her buddy Clef (who is a boy key, a fact which is actually questioned and has an in-universe justification beyond “of course this inanimate object is of the default gender!”) are making their way through magical doors that <SPEAK IN OSTENTATIOUS CAPITALS ABOUT THEIR LIFE MISSIONS>, I was absolutely hooked, and while Foundryside certainly gets darker from this point, I never lost sight of that initial hit of wonder from the world Bennett has developed….

(11) THOSE WERE THE DAYS. John Scalzi’s twenty-year blogging anniversary marathon continues with “1998/2018: Whatever 20/20, Day Five: Social Media”.

Was it fun in 1998? I think it was, but in regard to blogs in particular, it was more that it was exciting. There was a sense of being on a frontier of sorts — a place not yet colonized and so a place of invention, or reinvention, if you wanted that instead. We were doing things that were never done before! (In fact they had been done before, many times, in many other media, but they were never done on the Web, in html, so.) There was status conferred just for being out there in the wild, with your online journal the only signpost around for figurative miles. The blogosphere was still (barely) small enough in 1998 that you could read everyone and keep up with their doings. The full blossoming and influence of the blogosphere was still most of a decade away at least, but it seemed like something could happen there.

(12) CONGRATULATIONS, THAT’S HORRIBLE. Alex Doyle’s “Groan Up Comedy” details his efforts to win the “Punday” competition at Callahan’s Place during Worldcon 76.

…What they tell me is that the rules for this sort of thing vary, but in this case, a topic will be given and the participants have 30 seconds to start delivery of the pun. If somebody already used that pun, reusing it disqualifies you. Everybody will line up and the mic gets passed down the line. If you’re at the start of the line the field is wide open, but you’ve got to think fast. If you’re at the end, you’ve got time to work your material, but somebody ahead might snipe it out from under you. As topics change, the mic starts at the other end of the line and the last participant becomes the first so the abuse averages out. Pro tip: sit in the middle.

As a bonus, should any pun be awful enough, the author will get awarded a Spider Robinson trading card by a judge dressed as the character Callahan. A number of these will get handed out, and for suitably terrible puns, but honestly I was too preoccupied to remember all but one of them. Later, I would recall that it was:

Contestant: “Hey Callahan – get me a beer and a hot dog!”
Callahan: “Why?”
Contestant: “It’s the 200th anniversary of Frank-n-stein.”

(13) CAPTAIN MARVEL. Entertainment Weekly brings a first look of Brie Larson as Captain Marvel (“Brie Larson takes flight as Captain Marvel on this week’s EW cover”).

There’s a bright new star in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Captain Marvel leads the cover of Entertainment Weekly’s new issue, with an exclusive first look at Brie Larson’s Air-Force-pilot-turned-intergalactic-hero.
Film fans know Carol Danvers only as the mysterious person paged by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) in the last scene of Avengers: Infinity War, and she’ll appear in the still-untitled Avengers 4, presumably to help beat up on Thanos. But before that, she’s got her own story to tell — and EW has all the exclusive intel on her upcoming solo film.
When Captain Marvel hits theaters March 8, 2019, it’ll be the 21st entry in the MCU — and the first to star a solo female superhero. In the past decade, the MCU has assembled a diverse lineup of female heroes, from witches and warriors to widows and wasps. But never before has a woman headlined her own story — until Captain Marvel, the part-Kree, part-human pilot who made her comics debut back in 1968.

(14) COMICSGATE INFIGHTING. Jon Del Arroz’ website was down for a couple of days. The reason? — “Hit By A Hacker Attack”. [Internet Archive link.]

What happened was, someone hacked into my hosting account. They purposefully took down the website and tried to lock me out. I had to go through a number of hoops yesterday to restore the account, and I believe we are safe again with precautions I’ve now put into place, but it’s very disconcerting, especially given the timing of the attack.

If you look at last week, I wrote a blog calling out a certain “game designer” and on the other front, the comic book movement I’ve been integral in getting going both took more heat than ever before — with a bunch of randos coming out and blasting me and others personally– and blew up internally with an outrage mob which isn’t healthy at all.

I don’t know who the culprit is, but it’s likely from one of those groups, and I know the attack means I’m very well over the target, and what I’m doing here is VERY effective.

(15) AND IF YOU CUT ME. “The tree that bleeds… metal?”. The colored sap is eye-catching. Absorbing some metal may protect against insects.

Heavy metals like nickel and zinc are usually the last thing that plants want to grow next to in high concentrations.

But a specialised group, known as hyperaccumulators, have evolved to take up the normally toxic metals into their stems, leaves and even seeds.

Researchers have been studying Pycnandra acuminata in particular – a tree that grows on the island of New Caledonia in the south Pacific.

(16) ALL ASHORE THAT’S GOING ASHORE: “Monster iceberg’s pivot and turn” — it’s finally starting to head out to sea.

The monster Antarctic iceberg A-68 looks finally to be on the move.

For 13 months after breaking away from the White Continent’s long peninsula, the trillion-tonne block did little more than shuffle back and forth on the spot.

But now its southern end has swung round almost 90 degrees, indicating the berg has been caught in ocean currents.

The approaching southern summer should only assist its anticipated slow drift northwards, experts say.

(17) THE ANSWER MY FRIEND. BBC reports “Urban wind turbine wins UK James Dyson award”. It can capture wind from any direction — which is where wind usually comes from around buildings….

The O-Wind Turbine aims to capture inner-city wind and turn it into electricity in cities struggling to produce enough renewable energy for increasing populations.

The portable, low-cost device can be attached to the sides of buildings.

The two inventors said they hoped the energy produced could be plugged into the home or the electricity grid.

(18) IT’S ALL IN THE WRIST. JJ is giving odds: “10 to 1 says that there’s already cat martial arts fanfic.”

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Mike Kennedy, JJ, Martin Morse Wooster, Carl Slaughter, Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, Rich Lynch, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Peer.]

Celebrate Space and Time Magazine’s 50th Anniversary on 7/12

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The New York Review of Science Fiction Readings will host Space and Time Magazine’s 50th Anniversary Celebration on July 12. The magazine’s Hildy Silverman and Gordon Linzner will be joined by featured participants Linda Addison, Daniel Braum, Katherine Hasell, and Jack Ketchum.

The event takes place in The Brooklyn Commons at 388 Atlantic Avenue. Doors open 6:30 p.m.

Gordon Linzer
Hildy Silverman
Barbara Krasnoff

To celebrate the Golden Jubilee for the world’s longest-running small press sf/fantasy fiction magazine, Barbara Krasnoff will interview founding editor/publisher Gordon Linzner and current editor/publisher Hildy Silverman. Contributors Jack Ketchum, Daniel Braum, Katherine Hasell, and poetry editor Linda Addison will do readings, and cover artist Alan F. Beck will display his artwork.

Gordon Linzner is the founder and editor emeritus of Space and Time Magazine. He is the author of three novels and scores of short stories in F&SF, Twilight Zone, and other magazines and anthologies; his latest appears in the new anthology Altered States. Hildy Silverman is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Space and Time Magazine. She is also the author of numerous works of short fiction, including The Six Million Dollar Mermaid for which she was a finalist for the 2013 WSFA Small Press Award (Mermaids 13, French, ed). In the “real” world, she is a Digital Marketing Communications Specialist at Sivantos, Inc..

Linda Addison
Daniel Braum
Katherine Hasell
Jack Ketchum

Linda D. Addison, award-winning author of four collections, including How To Recognize A Demon Has Become Your Friend, the first African-American recipient of the HWA Bram Stoker Award, and a member of CITH, HWA, SFWA and SFPA. Her site: LindaAddisonPoet.com

Daniel Braum is the author of the collection The Night Marchers and Other Strange Tales. He has a story forthcoming in Space and Time Magazine. His website is Blood and Stardust.

K.L Hasell (Katherine) is an animator, actor, writer and editor who lives and works in NYC.  She once made a weeping willow laugh. She never wears a watch because time is always on her side.

Dallas Mayr, better known as Jack Ketchum, is the recipient of four Bram Stoker Awards and three further nominations. Many of his novels have been adapted to film. In 2011, Ketchum received the World Horror Convention Grand Master Award for outstanding contribution to the horror genre.

Alan F. Beck

Alan F. Beck

Alan F. Beck has been an artist, designer and illustrator for over 30 years. His numerous awards and honors include two Chesley Award nominations and a Hugo Award nomination. He recently published a children’s book The Adventures of Nogard and Jackpot and is the creator of the Mouseopolitan Museum of Art.

Barbara Krasnoff has sold over 30 pieces of short fiction to a wide variety of publications (including Space and Time Magazine) and is working on a novel. She is currently Sr. Reviews Editor for Computerworld, and a member of the NYC writers group Tabula Rasa. She lives in Brooklyn, NY. Her website is BrooklynWriter.com.

The full press release follows the jump.

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