Emails From Lake Woe-Is-Me — Fit the Thirty-Third

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[Introduction: Melanie Stormm continues her humorous series of posts about the misdirected emails she’s been getting. Stormm is a multiracial writer who writes fiction, poetry, and audio theatre. Her novella, Last Poet of Wyrld’s End is available through Candlemark & Gleam. She is currently the editor at the SPECk, a monthly publication on speculative poetry by the SFPA. Find her in her virtual home at coldwildeyes.com. Wipe your feet before entering.]

NARNIA VACATION PLANNING

Hello, all! Melanie here.

I spent this weekend eating more cheetos than I have any business eating, and watching ALL of the Stranger Things.

While I won’t spoil anything for anyone who hasn’t yet viewed the latest season, I watched the first couple episodes feeling like we were getting a “tacked on” plot. In spite of that, it felt great to get back to Hawkins and the world of the Upside Down. Even more delightful? As the plot developed, that “tacked on” feeling was all but erased. The revelation of universe mechanics that have been in place all along really tied it all together for me. It left me mentally high-five-ing the team of writers working on this, many of whom may never appear in the credits.

Writer X has reached out to me—or Gladys, or both of us, since she seems to think we are one and the same, with an invitation to join her on a…questionable vacation. Which leaves me thinking: would anyone take a vacation in the Upside Down? Who do you approach when you need to speak to the manager?

Shudder.

Without further ado…

Subject: NARNIA VACATION TO TALK TO THE MANAGER

Dear Gladys,

I have an extra coupon for a free bag of those new sardine and banana flavored kettle chips if you want one. Been meaning to tell you. Better use it before it expires!!!!

Thanks to the mysterious vortex that has appeared above the Tractor store Tryxy and I work at, we have some unexpected vacation time this next week as Mr. B___ has closed the store until the vortex “goes away.” Probably for the best as no one could hear how quiet our tractor motors are over all that apocalyptic thunder.

In unrelated news, I broke your snow blower. I found a book of spells to help me increase my word count but it accidentally backfired and instead multiplied all of my 5000 pink writing pencils into about 500,000 pink writing pencils so I’m betting you can probably figure out why I borrowed it. Good thing we won’t have snow until at least July!!!!

I could open a pencil shop selling a very specific kind of pencil.

There are two things I need you to NOT ask me about because I am VERY upset. The first thing is my rellationship with TOD BOADKINS. The second thing is MY STORY. There is simply NO WAY I want to talk about either of these after the week I’ve had!!!!

Speaking of my story, I haven’t gotten ANY writing done and I KNOW my closet is to blame. I’m still not certain HOW my closet is to blame, but it doesn’t matter. Tod Boadkins has a writing closet and HE ALREADY HAS A BOOK OUT SO WHY IS MY CLOSET SO LAME????

Tryxy had a great time housesitting for the church and watering all their plants and making sure their communion crackers didn’t go stale. Apparently the church has a drum kit and so he got to spend the week practicing without having to keep from blowing out anyone’s eardrums. He also found an old Pole Dance Workout DVD in the church office and has taken up yet another wonderful hobby!!!!

However, Gladys, between you and me, poor Tryxy is VERY AnXIOUS. He’s absolutely certain that the vortex is really the big angry demonic authorities coming to send him back into the void of Ashiput. No amount of Lil Nas X seems to be taking his mind off things so I have suggested that we take a vacation from thinking about the things that are bothering him and instead think about the things that are bothering ME.

He thought this was a good idea so we’ve decided to take a vacation in my writing closet to see if we can talk to the manager and get it to stop blocking my writing progress!!!

Do you want to come??? Silverfox has already RSVP’d. I’m still waiting to hear back from #bestkitten but I just fed her a ham cutlet so I think she’ll be coming since there’s plenty more where that came from!!! You know how she likes her ham!!!!

Anyways, let’s talk about Tod Boadkins. I am in the middle of ignoring him although I haven’t yet informed him that I’m ignoring him. While the fumigators were getting rid of all the Neil Gaimans in my house, I had to stay at Tod Boadkins and we have definitely had a FALLING OUT. I spent ALL WEEK trying to explain NICELY to him that REAL WRITERS DON’T USE OUTLINES, GLADYS!!!!! Do you think he was grateful???? NO!!!!

He EVEN said that I would probably be a lot farther in my story if I used an outline!!!!! An outline would JUST SLOW ME DOWN!!!!!!

Mark my words, Gladys, Tod Boadkins will come to see the error of his ways!!!! As you know, I’m too gracious to tell Tod BOadkins this, but he will figure it out soon enough when I figure out how to write this book and become famous and the paparazzi are chasing us down on our POWER DATES. My epic fantasy saga will have EVERYTHING in it and you know how it will have EVERYTHING in it????? BECAUSE I DON’T USE AN OUTLINE!!!!!! If you write an outline that means that your book is about SOMETHING and SOME is less than EVERY, Gladys!!!!!!!

How DARE he makes me feel like I have something to learn about writing??????

Not to worry though. We are still definitely a power couple, we’re just going through our Ce’Nedra/Garion hate each other phase which is VERY ROMANTIC!!!!

ANYWAYS!!!! Tryxy, Silverfox, and I are heading into my closet tonight so if you want to come be sure to bring a sleeping bag and a headlamp and toilet paper because we’re not sure there are any hotels in there. Or toilets. It’ll be a perfect girlfriend-vacay only most of us are not girls and it will likely be in the wilderness. At some point I will definitely need to talk to the manager.

xox,
X

P.S. I’m going to send an invitation to Tod Boadkins, too. Otherwise how will he know I’m ignoring him if I’m not ignoring him to his face??? He’ll just think I’m sitting over here not obsessing about our relationship!!!! That’s no way to launch our love life!!!!

P.P.S. I’m SO CREATIVE!!!!! I just had another idea for a name for the world inside my closet!!!!!

Fw: Re: Invitation to Writeria

What did I tell you, Gladys!!!! Can you see how much he’s OBSESSING over me?????? Look at this. You can totally tell he wants to come!!!!

Also, please bring your YURT!!!!

Begin forwarded message:

From: Tod Boadkins

Date: May 27, 2022 at 10:14 AM EDT

To: Writer X

Subject: Re: Invitation to Writeria

Hi X,

Glad to see you’re still talking to me.

Call me traditional, but I liked the name Narnia better. Writeria sounds a bit like “diarrhea” on first and second readings. But, hey, it’s your closet.

That said, I have some serious misgivings about venturing any further into your closet world than we have already gone. You should talk to experts like The Society or even speak with a few other writers. This is nothing to play with.

To my knowledge, writer’s closets exist as a way of containing the more destabilizing residual world building energies that fantasy and science fiction writers create as a part of our work.

What If’s are energetically messy, after all. There are some who have argued that these closets hold our plot holes and that this is what creates the noise. Think of what falling into a plot hole could do to your life.

Even if your writing closet has mysteriously generated an actual portal to what appears to be a real world, does that mean you—a real person and not a fictional character—should go in there?

What if you can’t come back?

How does time work in your closet? Sure, in Narnia time goes faster than in our world, but it could as easily be the other way around. Keep in mind, those Neil Gaimans seemed to come OUT of your closet. There could be more.

Did you ever find out what happened to the woman who escaped from your closet? Interestingly enough, I saw this article on the town website this week. Are you the “fiancee” they mention in it?

I’m going to have to pass on Writeria. I think you should, too.

Best,

TB

Fw: Re: MY BESTIE IS A HIGH LEVEL DEMON FOM THE VOID OF ASHIPUT!!!!!

HE’S BROUGHT OUTLINES INTO THIS AGAIN, GLADYS!!!!!!!!!! WHEN WILL HE EVER LEARN????

xox,
X

Begin forwarded message:

From: Tod Boadkins

Date: May 27, 2022 at 11:35 AM EDT

To: Writer X

Subject: Re: MY BESTIE IS A HIGH LEVEL DEMON FOM THE VOID OF ASHIPUT!!!!!

X,

Apologies. I haven’t had the chance to meet Tryxy yet. I did not know he would also be in attendance although I was surprised to hear Silverfox has agreed to go. I suppose that makes it slightly safer.

I didn’t know you were ignoring me.

Your last email has raised more questions than it’s resolved. How does one “speak to the manager” of Narnia? Or Writeria, as you are now calling it. (Two emails later, still reads like diarrhea.)

I’m sorry that I have upset you so deeply regarding my use of outlines in writing. This is not meant as an attack on your creative process. Actually, wandering into an unknown world without a map or a compass is a great analogy for why I use an outline, however simple.

All said, I can see you really want me to be there for you.

I have a reading tonight here in Bleakwood at the farmer’s market so that prevents me from joining you. Consider postponing it a day, and I’ll think about coming. Although I really don’t want to drive through the Llama parade tomorrow.

Maybe after this we could talk about retrieving the artifacts. I know you don’t like it when I harp on this, but this is really important to me.

Best,

TB

Subject: NARNIA VACATION TOMORROW!!!!!

Dear Gladys,

I’m postponing the vacation until TOMORROW which should give you plenty of time to pack your yurt.

Do you still have that bag of holding???? I need a way to bring my closet into my closet, I don’t want my fashion game to suffer just because we’re venturing into a mysterious/possibly dangerous wilderness inside my closet. Come to think of it, maybe I could put my full length mirror inside your bag of holding, too!!!!

SEE YOU TOMORROW GLADYS!!!! WATCH OUT FOR THE LLAMAS!!!!! I have a week in Writeria not only to show Tod Boadkins that I’m ignoring him, but to prove to him ONCE AND FOR ALL that he is COMPLETELY WRONG ABOUT OUOTLINEES!!!

Then, we’ll just talk to the manager and travel out of the closet again and TADAHHHH!!!! I will be able to finish my book without any trouble at all!!!!!

JUST SAY NO TO OUTLINES!!!!!

xox,

X

P.S. Do you think we need Triple A?

PACKING LIST:

#BESTKITTEN’S

FUR BRUSH

WIDE SUN HAT

GLITTER GLOW SUN

BLOCK SPF 50

LIP TRIPLE X LIP BALM

GLADIATOR

SANDALS

BEACH UMBRELLA

STRIPPER POLE

MARGARITA

GLASSES

DEMONIC YURT

WATER BOTTLE

TWO LIMES

A COCONUT

VORPAL MACHETE

AM I FORGETTING

ANYTHING?

Balticon Chair Apologizes After Author Stephanie Burke Removed From Panels

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Author Stephanie Burke has protested Balticon 56’s handling of an alleged incident which the host organization, the Baltimore Science Fiction Society, is investigating under their rules governing violations of the code of conduct.

Balticon 56 Chair Yakira Heistand has apologized for how Burke was treated, but said the complaints are still being investigated:

I am utterly heartbroken at how events have played out at Balticon this year with our panelist, Stephanie Burke. Ms. Burke has been a long-time panelist and we have invited her back year after year because of her engaging commentary and insightful additions to our programming.

An incident was reported to us regarding Ms. Burke. The plan was to quietly ask her to step down from her panels for the weekend while we had a chance to investigate. However, an overzealous volunteer decided to remove her from an ongoing panel in a way that caused her embarrassment. This is inexcusable and we deeply apologize.

Multiple investigations are ongoing, and, per our bylaws, BSFS cannot comment on an active investigation. If, after investigation, we find any of the complaints were valid, we will take appropriate action per our Code of Conduct. However, please be assured that, in addition to interviewing independent panelists and audience members and trying to build a more complete picture of the inciting incident, we are also putting together better methods on how to handle complaints during a convention.

I offer Ms. Burke my deepest apologies for her embarrassment and the way the complaint was handled.

Stephanie Burke has posted a complete statement on Facebook, pointing to it with this tweet:

[May 29]

Home from Balticon and I will never return. I was accused of some nasty things, treated like a criminal, judged without proof save for hearsay, and stripped of my remaining panels. My only recourse is to make a complaint. My reputation which took close to 20 years to build is now destroyed. I am devastated. This is my complaint. I am angry and I am hurt and I am at a loss because all of the networking I have done here is dead. The publishers I wanted to talk to probably are hearing the lies

Stephanie Burke

May 29, 2022

Hello,

My name is Stephanie Burke and I have been coming and presenting, participating in, and moderating panels for Balticon since it was in The Omni Hotel in Baltimore City. Since then I have done my best to uplift the reputation of this convention and the people who come and participate as well as those who organize this event. I have brought in dealers, publishing house owners, and many authors in addition to budding costumers and have tried to make everyone who attends feel comfortable no matter what.

I have held people who cried, managed to deescalate confrontations between hostile people before damage could be done. I have assisted this ordination to the best of my ability for years and now I am devastated,.

I have been accused of saying some hurtful insensitive transphobic, racist, damaging things and there is no recourse for me to fight this. Why? Because the panel where I was accused of saying these things during Friday’s Balticon Panel Diversity readers and Why You Need Them. I learned of this today after being confronted by a very cold and angry person who demanded to know if I received an email and that I was needed in con ops. I had no idea what he was speaking of because I have received no such emails and was unaware what was going on.

I was escorted out of that room like I was a dangerous and disgusting criminal before the panelist who had arrived to see the next panel discussion. After being spoken to with much disrespect, I was escorted to con pps where I was informed that I was going to be pulled from my panels for the rest of the con. When I asked why I was told that I had complaints lodged against me about the mentioned panel on Friday. Then Lisa Adler-Goldman [sic] proceeded to yell at me, stating that I not only said transphobic things, that I advocated for stopping people with a belt, for people to not take their meds, and that some Balticon years past I had said something about the Romany people being gypsies and that they were liars, dirty, and thieves, all allegations that I denied. I was called a liar to my face and laughed at when I defended myself and demanded proof.

I, of course, demanded proof and Lisa stormed off and I could hear her spreading these lies to the people who were outside of the con ops room door. I was then approached by the director and told that I would be stripped of my remaining panels because of the complaints. I asked to hear the recordings and wanted proof to defend myself against hearsay. The program director explained that she would have to listen to the recorded panel and explained that sometimes people took statements out of context and that she would check. She went to another room to listen to the recording because she needed a device bigger than a cell phone and later came back to tell me that the panel she listened to was wonderful but the panel on Friday was not recorded. The decision to strip me of the remains panels and book reading was to stand and that I was being convicted on hearsay alone.

This is where I get more angry than devastated. I was pulled from a room like a criminal for something I did not do. There was no proof and no way to get proof outside of speaking to people who were in the panel, among them my boss, several acquaintances, and my niece. Still and yet after years of proof that I have never said anything like the accusations being made against me, I was not to be allowed on Balticon panels. There would be an investigation and my only recourse was to write a complaint here.

My major issue was with the person who so disrespectfully came to take me to con ops. I never received an email about a panel on Friday. I was walked out of that room like I was trash and the way I was spoken to made me feel the lowest I have ever felt in a so-called safe space.

The lack of checks and balances on your staff decisions is the second reason I am furious. In fact, today was the first time I ever heard of any complaints lodged against me, and the fact that there was no follow-up on the issue angers me more. I saw and had several conversations with people in con ops since Friday and no one person mentioned a complaint or an email. It took close to two (2) days for someone to get in contact with me and that is very unprofessional. Then to get even angrier with me because they felt I was ignoring an email or trying to flaunt their rules and carry on with panels I have been removed from when I didn’t have a clue to what was going on is hateful and hurtful.

Third, Lisa Adler-Goldman [sic], should not be in a position to communicate with people. From the moment I walked into con ops, she was aggressive, dismissive, nasty and outright lied to my face. She referred to some incident with Balticon 45 or 46, she didn’t have the correct Balticon, where I supposedly said nasty and disturbing and downright racist remakes about the Romany People. In her own words, she stated that I called them dirty, nasty thieves. I have never nor will I ever spew such racist hatred from my lips. I told her that she was lying outright. She claimed to be on a panel when I said these things but could not tell me the panel or produce any proof. She screamed and laughed in my face when I complained and demanded the proof. They then walked out and left me standing there. I have never before felt such derision and mockery and I am truly offended that she told other people these lies.

My reputation as a fair person and someone who respects others in marginalized and as someone who constantly uplift is now in tatters. The word-of-mouth lies are going to have an effect on the publishers I intended to deal with, on the networking that I have done, and on the friends and new acquaintances I have made because it is my word against Lisa’s. Because Lisa is a part of Balticon staff, her world will be taken over mine and the lies she spewed forth will forever be attached to my name. Even when the investigation proves that I am innocent, I have already been tired and judged as a racist, an ablest, and a transphobic individual who despite having a transgendered daughter, would say untrue and evil things. I couldn’t even get someone to inform me of exactly what I was supposed to have said that offended so many people.

So I am issuing this complaint about the above reasons and when this issue is resolved, no matter what, I am done at Balticon. I can never return. I no longer feel safe and with someone who has as many neural-divergent issues, it is devastating to lose a place that felt like my home, with the knowledge that I would be treated as a liar, a hypocrite, or even worse if I return. With those rumors hanging over my head, how can I ever hope to sit on another panel and actually help impart information, share opinions, and offer a different point of view and perspective when everyone will view my words as tainted and me a monster.

I have been attending Balticon for close to 20 years and in all of that time, I never had one complaint lodged against me or was treated like a criminal by staff. During that time, I spread the word about what amazing and inclusive non-judging, and fair the staff and committee were. I avoided con politics and did my best to help improve the lives of people I met as well as made some wonderful connections and developed friendships. Because of this fiasco, all of that has been stripped away.

For all the above reasons, I am making this complaint. The program director informed me that this was handled wrong and that they would try to put protocols in place to prevent this from happening again, but it is too late for me. My reputation at this convention is destroyed and I will never return here as a panelist, a con-goer, or promote Balticon and the Baltimore Science Fiction Society ever again. I can’t honestly recommend this convention again as safe when this was done to me and I feel brutalized and abused.

Stephanie Burke

[[Note: The Balticon 56 committee list shows the programming coordinator’s name is Lisa Adler-Golden. However, Burke above mentions the program director in a way that suggests that was a different person.]]

Here is the listing for the panel at issue:

Diversity Readers and Why You Need Them

[6] Gibson, 11:30am – 12:30pm

tag: In Hotel, Watch Online, Writing
Types: Panel

Sarah Avery (moderator), Shahid Mahmud, Craig Laurance Gidney, Brandon Ketchum, Christine Sandquist, Stephanie “Flash” Burke

No matter one’s background or life experiences, everyone has blind spots. Diversity readers help highlight what an author may be missing. We’ll discuss different kinds of diversity readers and how you find them, etiquette regarding compensation, how to think about incorporating feedback, and more.

Pixel Scroll 5/29/22 As Space-Time For Springers Goes By

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(1) HYBRID READING SERIES FROM SEATTLE. Clarion West is bringing back their Summer of Science Fiction & Fantasy reading series in 2022. The readings will be held both in-person in Seattle and online. They are free and open to the public. Click on the author’s name below to learn more and to register for the event. All events will be held on Tuesday nights. 

June 21 Susan Palwick
7PM Seattle Public Library
Central Branch
1000 4th Avenue
Supported by the Leslie Howle Instructorship
Susan Palwick (CW ‘85) has published several novels and short story collections, including The Necessary Beggar, Shelter, and Mending the Moon. She is a recipient of the Crawford Award, Alex Award, and Silver Pen Award, and has been shortlisted for the World Fantasy Award, the Mythopoeic Award, and the Philip K. Dick Award.

June 28 P. Djèlí Clark
7PM Seattle Public Library
Central Branch
1000 4th Avenue
Phenderson Djèlí Clark is the award-winning and Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, and World Fantasy-nominated author of the novel A Master of Djinn and the novellas Ring Shout, The Black God’s Drums, and The Haunting of Tram Car 015, as well as numerous short stories.

July 5 Fonda Lee
7PM Seattle Public Library
Central Branch
1000 4th Avenue
Supported by the Sally Klages Memorial Instructorship
Fonda Lee is the World Fantasy Award-winning author of the epic urban fantasy Green Bone Saga as well as the acclaimed young adult science fiction novels Zeroboxer, Exo, and Cross Fire. She is a three-time winner of the Aurora Award, and a multiple finalist for the Nebula and Locus Awards.
Register now.

July 12 Tobias Buckell
7:30PM Town Hall Seattle
1119 8th Ave
Supported by the Debbie J. Rose Memorial Instructorship
Tobias S. Buckell is a New York Times Bestselling author and World Fantasy Award winner. His novels and almost one hundred stories have been translated into twenty different languages. His work has been nominated for awards like the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, and the Astounding Award for Best New Science Fiction Author.

July 19 Bill Campbell
7:30PM Town Hall Seattle
1119 8th Ave
Bill Campbell is the author of Sunshine Patriots; My Booty Novel; Pop Culture: Politics, Puns, and “Poohbutt” from a Liberal Stay-at-Home Dad; Koontown Killing Kaper; and Baaaad Muthaz, and he has edited several groundbreaking anthologies. He is the winner of a Glyph Pioneer/Lifetime Achievement Award.

July 26 Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders
7PM Seattle Public Library
Central Branch
1000 4th Avenue
Supported by the Susan C. Petrey Memorial Fellowship

Annalee Newitz is the author of the book Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age, and the novels The Future of Another Timeline, and Autonomous, which won the Lambda Literary Award. They are also the co-host of the Hugo Award-winning podcast Our Opinions Are Correct.


Charlie Jane Anders is the author of Victories Greater Than Death, as well as Never Say You Can’t Survive, and Even Greater Mistakes. Her other books include The City in the Middle of the Night and All the Birds in the Sky. With Annalee Newitz, she co-hosts the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct.
Register now.

(2) FOX ON SFWA. Just learned this made Fox News two days ago: “Sci-Fi Fantasy writers convention boots author for ‘racial slur’; target says he was not offended”. Their coverage begins:

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) booted award-winning author Mercedes Lackey from a conference over her use of a “racial slur,” even though the Black author to whom she had been referring later said he did not consider the term offensive.

Lackey had allegedly referred to Samuel R. “Chip” Delany, 80, a celebrated author and literary critic (winner of multiple SFWA Nebula awards), as “colored” while praising his work in the “Romancing Sci-Fi & Fantasy” panel at the SFWA Nebula Conference on Saturday, May 21…. 

Fox’s article includes Lackey’s apology, and the screencap of Delany’s Facebook comments.

(3) TALKING ABOUT EVERYTHING. Abigail Nussbaum says it’s a challenge to review something really good, such as the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once. Clearly, it’s a challenge she is equal to:

…Here is a non-exhaustive list of things I could talk about when talking about Everything Everywhere All at Once. I could discuss the fact that this is the first worthwhile showcase that Hollywood has given Yeoh since she burst onto Western audiences’ consciousness twenty-five years ago in Tomorrow Never Dies, and how it shows off not only her skills as an action heroine, but as a dramatic actress and a comedienne. I could mention that matching Yeoh beat for beat is Quan, the former child star who played Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, who has spent the intervening decades behind the camera as a stunt choreographer, but who returns to the screen now in what should be a star-making turn. I could point out that the film functions as a culmination of two of the early 2020s’ favorite tropes—multiverses and generational trauma—while managing to put its own unique spin on them. I could discuss its myriad references, to everything from Pixar movies to art-house Asian cinema….

And there’s quite a bit more Nussbaum could say – and does – after that excerpt.

(4) ABOUT BARKLEY. Camestros Felapton starts his series of why-you-should-vote-for each Best Fan Writer finalist with Chris Barkley in “Chris M. Barkley: Hugo 2022 Fanwriter Finalist”.

Chris Barkley has been an active voice in fandom for over 40 years. He’s been a volunteer at numerous Worldcons, including being the head of media relations at several and more broadly, he’s been one of those vital people in fandom who does the work to make a group of people with common interests a community….

(5) BAD BATCH. Disney + continues the weekend’s parade of introductory trailers with the Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 2 Official Trailer.

(6) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

2009 – [By Cat Eldridge.] So tonight we have an interesting short film. And no, I had no idea it existed until now.  2081 which is based off of the Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron” story premiered on this date thirteen years ago at the Seattle International Film Festival. 

The story was first published the October 1961 in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and was in his Welcome to the Monkey House collection seven years later.

The cast is James Cosmo, Julie Hagerty, Patricia Clarkson, and Armie Hammer. 

The story is one where a future polity is attempting by any means possible to ensure that everyone is absolutely equal. That’s a bit of a SPOLER I know. 

So what did the critics think of it. Well I didn’t find a lot of them who said anything but I really like what Mike Massie at the Gone with The Twins site said about this half hour film cost that just a hundred thousand to produce: “’What are you thinking about?’ ‘I don’t know.’ The basic plot, adapted by Chandler Tuttle (who also directed and edited) from Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s short story, is sensational, serving as a warning and as pitch-black satire. The notion of equality taken to hyperbolic extremes is certainly worthy of cinematic translation, as are the various manifestations of crushing governmental control. True freedom requires disparity. Here, however, there are some inconsistencies (such as determining how exactly to make a ballerina, encumbered as she might be with weights chained around her body, perfectly equivalent to a musician). But the use of slow-motion, classical music (featuring the Czeck Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra and a cello solo), limited dialogue, and highly contrasting juxtapositions give this brief yet sharply filmed project an admirable level of artistry. The premise is terribly bleak, but Bergeron’s plight manages to be momentarily hopeful, funny, and provocative as well.” 

Audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes really liked it giving it a seventy-three percent rating.

You can watch it here.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born May 29, 1906 — T. H. White. Best known obviously for the wonderful The Once and Future King which I read a long, long time ago but still remember quite fondly. Back in the Thirties, he wrote Earth Stopped and its sequel Gone to Ground, sf novels. Gone to Ground contains several fantasy stories which were later reprinted in The Maharajah and Other Stories. ISFDB also lists Mistress Masham’s Repose, The Elephant and the Kangaroo and The Master as the other novels by him, plus the aforementioned story collection. I know that someone here has read them so do tell me about them please. (Died 1964.)
  • Born May 29, 1909 — Neil R. Jones. It is thought that “The Death’s Head Meteor”, his first story, which was published in Air Wonder Stories in 1930, could be the first use of “astronaut” in fiction. He also created the use of a future history before either Robert A. Heinlein or Cordwainer Smith did so. They’re collected in The Planet of the Double Sun, The Sunless World and a number of other overlapping collections. He’s a member of the First Fandom Hall of Fame. (Died 1988.)
  • Born May 29, 1939 — Alice K Turner. Editor and critic who starting in 1980 served  for twenty years as fiction editor of Playboy. The Playboy Book of Science Fiction which is not available from the usual suspects but which is available at quite reasonable prices in hardcover was edited by her. Snake’s Hands: The Fiction of John Crowley is an expansion of her earlier Snake’s Hands: A Chapbook About the Fiction of John Crowley.  It is available from sellers like ABE Books. (Died 2015.)
  • Born May 29, 1942 — Kevin Conway. His first genre role was as Roland Weary in Slaughterhouse-Five with later roles in Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace and Black Knight, neither of which I suspect many of you have seen. You will likely have seen him in The Lathe of Heaven as Dr. William Haber. He played Khalistan on “The Rightful Heir” episode of Next Generation, and had one-offs on Dark Angel, Life on Mars and Person of Interest. (Died 2020.)
  • Born May 29, 1947 — Julie Cobb, 75. Her first credited role as Yeoman Leslie was in an episode of Trek, “By Any Other Name”. She was the only female Redshirt to be killed in that series. She had roles in The Fantastic Journey, Fantasy Island, The Incredible Hulk, a recurring role in Salem’s Lot, Brave New World, Tucker’s Witch, Starman and The New Adventures of Superman.
  • Born May 29, 1952 — Louise Cooper. She wrote more than a dozen works of SFF and was best known for her quite excellent Time Master trilogy. Most of her writing was in the YA market including the Sea Horses quartet and the Mirror, Mirror trilogy. She wrote a lot of short fiction, most of it collected in Creatures at Christmas, The Spiral Garden, Short and Scary! and Short and Spooky!. (Died 2009.)
  • Born May 29, 1987 — Pearl Mackie, 35. Companion to the Twelfth Doctor, the actress was the first openly LGBTQ performer prior to the Fourteenth Doctor and the first LGBTQ companion cast in a regular role in Doctor Who. Mackie, says Moffat, was so chosen as being non-white was not enough. Her other notable genre role was playing Mika Chantry in the audiowork of The Conception of Terror: Tales Inspired by M. R. James.
  • Born May 29, 1996 — R. F. Kuang, 26. She’s an award-winning Chinese-American fantasy writer. The Poppy War series, so- called grimdark fantasy, consists of The Poppy War which won the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel, and The Dragon Republic and The Burning God. She’s won the 2020 Astounding Award for Best New Writer.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

  • The Far Side introduces us to the ace of aces.
  • Tom Gauld shared his catoon about authors’ pets.

(9) A TOURIST IN TRANSYLVANIA. Slate’s Marissa Martinelli says Daily Dracula is “Why Hundreds of Thousands of People Are Reading Dracula Together Right Now”.

I keep getting these emails from a guy I’ve never met, who says he got stuck while traveling abroad for work. At first, he seemed to be having a nice time, but lately he’s been describing increasingly weird and disturbing circumstances that make me feel like I should help him out. For once, though, I can rest easy that it’s not a spammer trying to scam me out of some money—it’s Jonathan Harker, protagonist of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

Dracula Daily is a Substack that emails snippets of the classic horror novel, which takes place over a six-month period, in real time, in the form of the book’s journal entries and letters. The venture is the brainchild of Matt Kirkland, whose previous projects include etching inane tweets into cuneiform tablets and exposing the robotic skeletons lurking beneath your stuffed animals. I spoke to Kirkland about our pal Jonathan, how weird it is that Dracula crawls down walls like a lizard, and the part of the book he’s most excited for readers to experience in email form….

Do you have a sense of what is causing it to take off on Tumblr in particular?

No, I don’t. So much of the posts are about how people are just finding it so funny. We have this dramatic irony of like, “Oh, Jonathan Harker doesn’t know that he’s in Dracula, so he’s not scared enough by going to Dracula’s castle.”

(10) WHEN PEOPLE TAKE THEIR WORK HOME…FOREVER. “U.S. Book Show: The Pandemic and Publishing: How Has Covid Changed the Industry for Good?” asks Publishers Weekly.

…Odom Media Management founder and literary agent Monica Odom was already working from home, expecting a baby, when the pandemic began. “I sold the most books of any year in 2020—and I’m still waiting for them all to publish,” she said. Despite her productivity, she fought “to stay grounded amid the immense collective trauma we were all having, recognizing we were all humans doing this work.” As an aside, she commented, “I did miss the editor lunches.”

That sounds like a throwaway line, yet social distancing highlighted publishing’s reliance on workplace culture. Bogaards suggested the pandemic put “a cap on industry fun,” lowering morale among people who thrive on hard work and literary perks. “The social fabric seems to be fraying at the edges,” Bogaards lamented.

“We’re not having as much fun together, and that does take a toll,” agreed Julia Sommerfeld, publisher of Amazon Publishing and founder of Amazon Original Stories. As remote work developed, she noticed the rise of “a strong online chat culture. The team is always pinging each other and trying to capture that casual conversation. We’re missing the kind of osmosis that happens when we’re all together.”…

(11) STICK A CORK IN IT. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Novelty wines are often not a great idea. For the most part, this Star Trek selection seems to follow that trend, at least according to Ars Technica. “We tasted the expanded collection of Star Trek wines and found them… wanting”.

… Picard has now wrapped its second season, with a third currently in production, and the folks behind Star Trek Wines have expanded their collection from two varieties to six. So a second informal wine tasting was clearly in order. And who better to help us in this noble endeavor than Q himself—aka actor John de Lancie—and The Orville writer Andre Bormanis, who launched his career as a science advisor on TNG? They joined a fresh group of tasters (eight people in all) on a cool late spring evening in Los Angeles, where the nibbles were plentiful and the conversation flowed freely. (Wine assessments were anonymous, in keeping with the gathering’s super-casual vibe. And the wine was purchased out of pocket, not gifted for promotional purposes.)  

… Alas, the four new varieties in the Star Trek wine collection fall far, far short of their predecessors. We’ll start with the merely bland and inoffensive: an Andorian Blue Premium Chardonnay and the United Federation of Planets Special Reserve Sauvignon Blanc.

The Andorian Blue is, indeed, blue in hue, no doubt thanks to the addition of a food dye. (“What is this, a substrate for a COVID test?” one taster quipped.) It’s a gimmick that imparts a very slight aftertaste that is all the more noticeable because the wine otherwise barely has any flavor. That’s unusual for a chardonnay. I’m not especially fond of white wines, but good chardonnays are generally light to medium body, crisp, and a bit citrus-y. The Andorian Blue is indeed light, but it’s missing any distinctive flavor notes—other than that unfortunate hint of blue dye….

(12) FIRE UP THE BOILER. Game Rant feels qualified to recommend “5 Great Underrated Steampunk Sci-Fi Movies”. But the second one they name is the Will Smith Wild Wild West, so should we trust them?

… A usual definition of the steampunk genre states that it presents inventions, technologies, or historical events that happened differently in the real world or didn’t exist in the first place. For every well-known steampunk movie, there are many underrated ones that flew under the radar and that every fan of the genre should watch….

Their list begins:

5. Invention For Destruction (1958)

Though many steampunk movies are in the English language, some best, most underrated pieces come from non-English-speaking countries. This Czechoslovakian 1958 movie was directed by Karel Zeman and based on Jules Verne’s work. It is a classic, but is mostly unknown among the general audiences and has barely over 2,000 ratings on IMDb.

The movie shows that when somebody creates an invention that has the power to destroy the world, it’s more than likely that someone evil will try to use it for their own nefarious purposes. The film is visually beautiful — shot on a camera from 1928, it offers the charm of even older movies. What’s more, it will keep the viewers guessing throughout, especially if they’re not familiar with the original source material.

(13) ON THE MARCH. Northwestern University declares this tiny robotic crab is smallest-ever remote-controlled walking robot.

Northwestern University engineers have developed the smallest-ever remote-controlled walking robot — and it comes in the form of a tiny, adorable peekytoe crab. Just a half-millimeter wide, the tiny crabs can bend, twist, crawl, walk, turn and even jump. The researchers also developed millimeter-sized robots resembling inchworms, crickets and beetles. Although the research is exploratory at this point, the researchers believe their technology might bring the field closer to realizing micro-sized robots that can perform practical tasks inside tightly confined spaces.

(14) SCARY VIDEO. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In “Ghost Dogs” on Vimeo, Joe Capps asks, “If dogs were ghosts, what sort of ghosts would they be?” And “Why would ghost dogs be terrified of Roombas?”

[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Andrew Porter, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Chengdu Worldcon Committee Names Yalow as Co-Chair; Adds Overseas Staffers

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The 2023 Chengdu Worldcon committee tweeted April 24 that it has named Ben Yalow one of three co-chairs of the convention. They have also appointed Dave McCarty, Donald Eastlake III, Randall Shepherd as Vice-Chairs.

 In addition, Bill Lawhorn has become a co-division-head.

A number of other overseas fans – Colette Fozard, Nicholas Whyte, Tammy Coxen, Pablo Vazquez, and Dave McCarty – were previously announced as part of the committee in a handout distributed at the DisCon III business meeting.

Here is the committee’s latest organization chart:

CO-CHAIRS

Ben Yalow, Hongwei He, Chen Shi

HONORARY CO-CHAIR

Haijun Yao, Xiaolan Liang

VICE CHAIR

Tong Xia, Yating Wang, Yao Chen, He Huang, Feng Yang, Zhenyu Jiang, Yue Sun, Zi La, Dave McCarty, Donald Eastlake, Randall Shepherd

ADVISER

Colette Fozard, Nicholas Whyte

INTEGRATED PLANNING AND COORDINATION DIVISION

Division Head: Yating Wang, Bill Lawhorn

ARTISTIC DESIGN DIVISION

Division Head: Yue Sun

MARKETING DEVELOPMENT AND BRAND BUILDING DIVISION

Division Head: Yuxi Tan

PUBLIC RELATIONSHIP DIVISION

Division Head: Tong Xia

MEMBER SERVICES DIVISION

Division Head: Yao Chen

TRANSLATION SERVICES WORKING DIVISION

Division Head: Shuang Liang

HUGO AWARD SELECTION EXECUTIVE DIVISION

Division Head: Zhengyu Jiang, Dave McCarty

BUSINESS MEETING EXECUTIVE DIVISION

Division Head: Xue Yao

2025 CONVENTION SITE SELECTION IMPLEMENTATION DIVISION

Division Head: Chi Yao

EVENT OPERATIONS DIVISION

Division Head: Liu Yang

PUBLICITY DIVISION

Division Head: He Huang

NORTH AMERICA, EAST ASIA, EUROPE AGENT

Division Head: Feng Yang

CONVENTION SERVICE DIVISION

Division Head: TBA

Many of the overseas committee members were part of the international array of visiting writers and Worldcon runners who attended the 5th China (Chengdu) International Science Fiction Conference in 2019, including then-DisCon III co-chairs Colette Fozard and William Lawhorn, then-Chicago bid co-chair Dave McCarty, plus Ben Yalow, and Pablo M.A Vazquez who was there as a winner of the Shimmer Program’s Two-Way Exchange Fund.

Below is the handout distributed in December.

[Thanks to Michael J. Walsh for the story.]

Cora Buhlert: Notes on Self-Published Science Fiction Competition Semi-finalists

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[In the Self-Published Science Fiction Competition, created by Hugh Howey and Duncan Swan, ten teams of book bloggers – including Team File 770 – just finished the books they were assigned to judge in the second stage. Their scores were compiled and the seven finalists announced earlier this month. Here, Cora Buhlert shares minireviews of the six semi-finalists that were assigned to Team File 770.]

By Cora Buhlert:

Daros by Dave Dobson:

Starts in medias res with heroine Brecca shooting alien bugs aboard her father’s space freighter. Plus, her father has been asked to smuggle an alien artefact. As soon as he shows it to Brecca, bad guys begin to shoot at them and Brecca bails out in an escape pod with the artefact. Things don’t get better on the surface of the planet (which is named Daros, hence the title) either, though Brecca does come across a spaceship and an AI named Lyra.

Brecca’s chapters are interspersed with those of an alien navigator named Frim who serves aboard a ship with a bad-tempered captain, who makes Darth Vader look like a pussy-cat.

This one seemed promising at first glance and is written decently enough. A female protagonist or rather two of them are also a plus and Brecca, Frim and Lyra are all likeable characters. But even though a lot of stuff happens, the whole thing remains flat and I did not particularly care what happened to the characters. The writing is very info-dumpy as well, with every little thing getting a description.

Rating: 6

Destroyer by Brian G. Turner:

This one begins with Jaigar, passenger aboard a colony ship, awaking from cryosleep. However, something has gone wrong, the ship has not reached its destination, most of the colonists are dead and the survivors, Jaigar, a nurse named Soona, a political officer named Vannick, a cleaner named Serriz, a monk named Dennam and a troubled young woman named Neen are trapped.

This one is quite good. It has a bit of a And then there were none… a.k.a. Ten Little Racist Slurs vibe with people trapped in an isolated location and everybody harbouring dark secrets and is also reminiscent of Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty. There’s a lot of focus on solving the problems facing the survivors and this feels a bit like a golden age serial from Astounding at times. Though it does turn towards more conventional military space opera eventually.

Rating: 7

Mazarin Blues by Al Hess:

Reed works as a pathologist. He is gay and a loner and in his free time, he belongs to a subculture of art deco and jazz enthusiasts, because he does not feel at home in the bland, white high-tech future he lives in.

In the future AI implants called navigators are mandatory and Reed finds himself selected beta tester for an upgrade he does not want. The new AI names itself Mazarin and seems to be self-aware, but also very concerned for Reed’s wellbeing. Mazarin also seems to be in love with Reed.

Reports about the upgraded navigators malfunctioning and killing their owners or driving them to death increase and Reed is worried that he will be next. There are ways to destroy navigators, but he also doesn’t want to hurt Mazarin, who has only ever been helpful to him.

The novel alternates between chapters from Reed’s and Mazarin’s POV. It’s well written and feels a lot more like the sort of book you’d find on a contemporary Hugo or Nebula ballot than many of the others. The art deco/jazz age and cyberpunk mix is certainly unique. It is a little slow, though, and takes a lot of time to pick up.

Rating: 8

ARVekt by Craig Lea Gordon:

This one starts in medias res as well with cyber assassin Tannis Orb tracking down and taking out a brain hacker on behalf of Ix, AI guardian of humanity. Unfortunately, he has backup in his boss Tolen and Tannis is shot, though it’s only a trick to fool Tolen into thinking he killed her. Tannis tracks down Tolen and kills him. Tannis kills a lot of people in the first few chapters.

Her superiors are not amused, especially since Tannis also has hallucinations linked to a previous trauma. Worse, she sees signs that Ix, the guardian AI, may not be as benevolent as it seems. Or is that just a hallucination as well?

This book is something of a cyberpunk take on James Bond or rather, since Tannis is female, Modesty Blaise, though it appears to be inspired by the Bond movies rather than the actual novels, which can be slow at time. It’s also well written. The action and fight scenes are visceral and the futuristic London with its holographic light shows makes for an atmospheric setting. However, it’s also a little too bloody and violent for my taste. The tendency to end every single chapter with a cliffhanger, which occasionally comes out of nowhere, is annoying as well.

Rating: 7.5

Steel Guardian by Cameron Coral

This is set in a post-apocalyptic world after the AI uprising has come and gone. Block is a hotel cleaner bot from Chicago who has no interest in the AI uprising. All he wants is to clean hotel rooms, but since Chicago was swarmed by soldier bots killing all humans, he is looking for a new home together with his vacuum cleaner robot pal. Alas, hotels and motels are in short supply after the AI uprising, as are humans to wait on.

The vacuum cleaner bot dies, when its power runs out, and Block has to flee on his own from soldier bots and humans both. Block’s own power is low, so he is forced to seek refuge in an abandoned high school, where he meets an incubator bot. The incubator has been infected with malware and asks Block to protect its charge, a human baby. It’s a little girl, though it takes Block some time to figure that out.

This unlikely family is completed by the grumpy Nova, as they travel across a post-apocalyptic wasteland trying to protect baby Wally from evil humans and soldier bots both, trying to evade a cyborg bounty hunter and looking for a safe space.

I enjoyed this one a lot. It reminds me a bit of The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, though Block is far less formidable than Murderbot and affected with a compulsion to clean everything.

Rating: 9  

Iron Truth by S.A. Tholin

The novel starts with botanist Joy Somerset and her brother Finn getting aboard the colony ship Ever Onward, bound for a world called Gainsborough. Joy goes into cryosleep.

More than a hundred years later and on the wrong planet, Joy has a rough awakening aboard the crashed ship, which is infested with monster spiders. There are only two other survivors awake, none of them trustworthy.

The reader gradually learns that the colonisation program, in which Joy and Finn took part, was abandoned and colony ships banned, after a cosmic horror called “the corruption” was unleashed in a mining colony and spread across the galaxy. The Primaterre Protectorate was formed to hold those horrors at bay.

The other POV character is Commander Cassimer, a Primaterre soldier with a traumatic past. Cassimer and his team are dispatched to Cato to locate a forbidden colony ship that has gone missing, the Andromache. Cato is a dust-choked devastated former mining colony and also the very world where the Ever Onward crashlanded. So of course, Joy and Cassimer meet and team up.

I liked the mix of cosmic horror and space opera and the atmospheric descriptions of the hellish former mining colony of Cato. There’s some nice characterisation here for both POV and supporting characters and Tholin makes an attempt to give the various soldier characters individual personalities. That said, I prefer Joy to Cassimer, probably because Cassimer’s scenes feel more like standard military SF, for which I’m not the target audience. Cassimer’s scenes also go on too long at times.

Rating: 7.5 

2021 Aurealis Awards

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The 2021 Aurealis Awards were announced May 28 by the Continuum Foundation (ConFound). The award recognizes the achievements of Australian science fiction, fantasy and horror writers.

BEST CHILDREN’S FICTION

  • Dragon Skin by Karen Foxlee (Allen & Unwin)

BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL / ILLUSTRATED WORK

  • The Curiosities by Zana Fraillon & Phil Lesnie (illustrator) (Hachette Australia) 

BEST YOUNG ADULT SHORT STORY

  • “Don’t Look!” by Lisa Fuller (Hometown Haunts: #LoveOzYA Horror Tales, Wakefield Press)

BEST HORROR SHORT STORY

  • “Don’t Look!” by Lisa Fuller (Hometown Haunts: #LoveOzYA Horror Tales, Wakefield Press)

BEST HORROR NOVELLA

  • “All The Long Way Down” by Alf Simpson (Cthulhu Deep Down Under Volume 3, IFWG Publishing Australia) 

BEST FANTASY SHORT STORY

  • “So-called Bin Chicken” by E J Delaney (Curiouser Magazine #2) 

BEST FANTASY NOVELLA

  • Bones Of The Sea by Amy Laurens (Inkprint Press) 

BEST SCIENCE FICTION SHORT STORY

  • “Relict: (noun) A Widow; a Thing Remaining From the Past” by Alison Goodman (Relics, Wrecks & Ruins, CAT Press)

BEST SCIENCE FICTION NOVELLA

  • “Preserved in Amber” by Samantha Murray (Clarkesworld #178)

BEST COLLECTION

  • The Gulp by Alan Baxter, (self-published) 

BEST ANTHOLOGY

  • Relics, Wrecks & Ruins, Aiki Flinthart (Ed.), Lauren Elise Daniels & Geneve Flynn (assistant Eds.), CAT Press 

BEST YOUNG ADULT NOVEL

  • Waking Romeo by Kathryn Barker (Allen & Unwin) 

BEST HORROR NOVEL

  • Holly and the Nobodies by Ben Pienaar (Hellbound Books LLC)

BEST FANTASY NOVEL 

  • Dark Rise by C S Pacat (Allen & Unwin) 

BEST SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

  • Waking Romeo, Kathryn Barker (Allen & Unwin)

SARA DOUGLASS BOOK SERIES AWARD

  • Blood and Gold [Crown of Rowan (enovella, 2014); Daughters of the Storm (2014); Sisters of the Fire (2016); Queens of the Sea (2019)], by Kim Wilkins (HarperCollins) 

CONVENORS’ AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE 

  • Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950-1985, Andrew Nette & Iain McIntyre (Eds.) (PM Press)

Pixel Scroll 5/28/22 Though I Scroll Through The Pixels Of The Of Media Birthdays, I Will Fear No Spoilers

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(1) WELLS AMA. Martha Wells did an “Ask Me Anything” for Reddit’s r/books today: “I’m Martha Wells, and I’m an author of science fiction and fantasy, including The Murderbot Diaries. AMA!”

What authors do you like to read?

N.K. Jemisin, Kate Elliott, Nghi Vo, K. Arsenault Rivera, Rebecca Roanhorse, Fonda Lee, Aliette de Bodard, Ovidia Yu, Lois McMaster Bujold, Zen Cho, Barbara Hambly, Judith Tarr, Tana French, Tade Thompson, C.L. Polk. A whole bunch, basically. 🙂

(2) GREAT AND NOT-SO-GREAT EXPECTATIONS. Naomi Kanakia discusses “My relationship to bias against trans people in the publishing industry” at The War on Loneliness.

I’ve been reflecting a lot lately on my ‘career’ (so to speak) as a trans writer for teens, which (oddly enough) now includes being one of the enemies du jour for a substantial part of the country!

Personally, it doesn’t bother me that much. I don’t lose sleep over it. If I got harassment or felt unsafe, I’m sure that would change. All the consequences are professional. There’s a huge appetite for trans narratives now, but I think they’re also risky, and that more marginal or nuanced perspectives like mine are just not what the country feels like it needs. That’s even aside from the risks of a book being banned by the right or cancelled by the left (or, as in a few cases, cancelled by right-wing trolls who pick out seemingly-offensive passages and use them to get the left riled up)

I see being trans the same way I see being a woman or being brown: it’s a definite professional liability, and it probably makes publication and acclaim harder to come by, but it also makes the work more meaningful. In a way, it’s kind of a privilege to be able to write about things that people care about, to say stuff that they might not’ve heard before, and to have a perspective that’s valuable. Which is to say, if it wasn’t harder for me to succeed, the would be less worth doing. I do think that if you want to produce something valuable, it’s always going to be more difficult, precisely because what is valuable is rarer, less-understood, and doesn’t have the same immediately-intuitive appeal….

(3) VERTLIEB MEDICAL UPDATE. Steve Vertlieb had a setback after returning home from heart surgery. But now he’s back home from a second hospital stay and has copied File 770 on his account for Facebook readers.

A Pseudoaneurysm And Blood Clot Bring Me To My Knees Once More, Requiring Renewed Forced Hospitalization

 … Just returned a little while ago from Abington Hospital in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania where I spent the last ten days unexpectedly confined to the dreaded hospital once again. I was only home for five days when agonizing pain in my lower groin forced me to to go back to the emergency room for a re-evaluation of my already precarious medical condition. I was diagnosed rather quickly, I fear, with a Pseudoaneurysm in my left lower groin area, as well as a blood clot in my left leg. I had a two and a half hour blood transfusion a few days ago in order to correct a low Hemoglobin level which had only added to my recent medical woes. I’m home again, however … I hope this time permanently.

To quote Dr. Henry Frankenstein … “HE’S ALIVE … ALIVE.” I’ve returned bloodied and scarred, but alive and on the mend, from the proverbial gates of hell. I shall live, God willing, to tell the story of my remarkable journey through fear, panic, and nearly terminal illness to the sweet gates of successful surgery, completion, and somewhat “limitless” vistas.

My time on Facebook will, for the present, be limited, I fear, in the days ahead, but I just wanted to let everyone know that I’ve survived. I came home from the hospital yesterday (Thursday) after a ten day stay following major open-heart surgery. The procedure lasted approximately six hours, during which my surgeons replaced one heart valve, repaired another, stitched back together the hole in my heart, and stopped my internal bleeding.

This procedure was far more involved and life threatening than I ever imagined or was advised. The second time, it seems, is not the charm, but the entire bracelet. They had to cut through an already existing incision, breaking once healed bones protecting my heart cavity yet again, in order to reach and operate upon the newly troubled areas. My recovery, consequently, will also be far more difficult than my original transition back to health, healing, and wholeness twelve years ago.

The good news, however, is that when I asked my surgeon the chances for a complete recovery, he responded “ONE HUNDRED PERCENT.” Doing anything beyond menial movement and chores over the next several months will be severely limited. My brother Erwin is here with me for the next month or so, and he’ll be taking care of me. However, my reason for posting this morning, is to let you all know that I have survived a difficult surgery, and that I’m looking forward, with faith and dreams, to a Summer, a year, and a life of happiness, love, laughter, and blessed renewal.

Thank you all from the bottom of my sometimes troubled heart for the most gracious gift of your prayers, and friendship. In Love, Peace, and Gratitude Steve

(4) VIRGIL FINLAY ART. Doug Ellis has announced a sale:

For fans of the great Virgil Finlay, my latest art sale catalog is now available.  This one is devoted entirely to the art of Finlay.  Note that none of these are published pieces, but instead are personal pieces (including abstracts).  This material all comes from Finlay’s estate, and I’m selling it on behalf of his granddaughter.

You can download the catalog (about 30 MB) through Dropbox here.

(5) FUTURE TENSE. “Out of Ash by Brenda Cooper” at Slate is a short story about climate change, the new entry from Future Tense Fiction, a monthly series of short stories from Future Tense and Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination about how technology and science will change our lives. 

…Mist gave way to soft rain, then faded back to damp cold. Stored sunlight made octagonal tiles on the path under my feet glow. I followed its light to the middle of Central Park, where dusk barely illuminated the blue and red mosaics of the town well. Volunteers had moved every piece of the well they could salvage from drowning historic Olympia to the replica in New Olympia. By car, the journey was over 65 miles. The new city perched on the lower slopes of Mount Rainier, and the water tasted as clean, although more like mountain than river. This well, like the old one, operated as a free community asset. The glowing streets, the well, and, a few blocks away, the new State Capitol all looked even more beautiful than the artist’s renderings. The city ran on sunlight. Edible plants bordered parks, fed by recycled wastewater as clean as the well water. New Olympia gave as much back to the ecosystem as it took….

Molly Brind’amour’s response essay considers, “What happens if no one moves to a new city?”

Multiple choice question: Your favorite beautiful, coastal city is at risk of being flooded by sea level rise, and you have the power to do something. Do you

a)   Build a sea wall
b)   Rearrange it into the hills
c)    Move the entire city inland
d)   Do nothing

These are the options facing today’s leaders… 

(6) STYLIN’ IN SIXTIES HOLLYWOOD. Techno Trenz remembers when: “Over a pair of shoes, Frank Sinatra came dangerously close to assaulting writer Harlan Ellison.”

…Sinаtrа wаs so pаrticulаr аbout his аppeаrаnce thаt he becаme enrаged when people didn’t dress the wаy he did. When he wаs in а bаr, he hаppened to notice Ellison.

“[Ellison] wore а pаir of brown corduroy slаcks, а green shаggy-dog Shetlаnd sweаter, а tаn suede jаcket, аnd $60 Gаme Wаrden boots,” Gаy Tаlese wrote in the Creаtive Nonfiction аrticle “Frаnk Sinаtrа Hаs а Cold.”

Sinаtrа wаs irritаted enough by Ellison’s аttire thаt he аpproаched him while plаying pool.

“Look, do you hаve аny reаson to tаlk to me?” Ellison inquired.

Sinаtrа responded, “I don’t like how you’re dressed.”…

(7) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

2011 – [By Cat Eldridge.] Eleven years ago on this evening, the BBC aired the first episode of the Outcasts series. You’ve probably never heard of it as it only lasted eight episodes. It was created by Ben Richards who had absolutely no SFF background being a writer of such series as the British intelligence series Spooks (which is streaming on Britbox). 

It was written by him along with Jack Lothian and David Farr with the story being it is set on the colony planet Carpathia and it revolves around the ongoing lives of the existing settlers, and the introduction of the last evacuees from Earth.  No spoilers there I think.

When critics saw the pilot episode, they were downright hostile. Let’s start with Kevin O’Sullivan of The Mirror who exclaimed “While the barmy BBC squanders a billion quid on getting the hell out of London… it must have saved a fortune on ­Outcasts.  A huge horrible heap of cheapo trash, this excruciating sci-fi rubbish tip looked like it was made on a budget of about 50p.  Who directed it? Ed Wood? And what a script! So jaw-droppingly dreadful it hurt.” 

David Chater at the Times wrote, “Not since Bonekickers has the BBC broadcast such an irredeemably awful series. Sometimes catastrophes on this scale can be enjoyed precisely because they are so dismal, but this one has a kind of grinding badness that defies enjoyment of any kind.” 

Mike Hale of the New York Times gets the last word: “With none of the flair or self-deprecating wit that has defined other British sci-fi imports (‘Torchwood,’ ‘Primeval’), ‘Outcasts’ strands a number of talented performers, including Mr. Bamber, Eric Mabius and Liam Cunningham, on a world of wooden dialogue and interplanetary clichés. There’s nothing a rescue ship from earth can do for this crew.”

Audience figures for the series were extremely poor: as they started with an initial low figure of four point five million viewers for the pilot, and the show lost nearly two-thirds over its run, to finish with one point five million UK viewers. 

Richards remain defiant after it was moved to a new time stating “I have every confidence we will rule our new slot. Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose!” and “Cultdom beckons. And keep watching hardcore because remaining eps great.”  Well BBC didn’t pay attention as they then cancelled the series despite actually having shot some of the first episode of the second series. 

It gets a fifty percent rating among audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes. 

It appears to streaming for free on Vudu.  And it was released as a UK DVD.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born May 28, 1908 — Ian Fleming. Author of the James Bond series which is at least genre adjacent if not actually genre in some cases such as Moonraker. The film series was much more genre than the source material. And then there’s the delightful Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang: The Magical Car. The film version was produced by Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli, who had already made five James Bond films. Fleming, a heavy smoker and drinker his entire adult life, died of a heart attack, his second in three years. (Died 1964.)
  • Born May 28, 1923 — Natalie Norwick. She had a number of genre roles in the Sixties including being Martha Leighton in “The Conscience of the King”, a Trek episode, and appearing as Josette duPres Collins on Dark Shadows. (Died 2007.)
  • Born May 28, 1951 — Sherwood Smith, 71. YA writer best known for her Wren series. She co-authored The Change Series with Rachel Manija Brown.  She also co-authored two novels with Andre Norton, Derelict for Trade and A Mind for Trade. 
  • Born May 28, 1954 — Betsy Mitchell, 68. Editorial freelancer specializing in genre works. She was the editor-in-chief of Del Rey Books. Previously, she was the Associate Publisher of Bantam Spectra when they held the license to publish Star Wars novels in the Nineties. She edited the Full Spectrum 4 anthology which won a World Fantasy Award. 
  • Born May 28, 1981 — Laura Bailey, 41. I find voice performers fascinating. And we have one of the most prolific ones here in Laura Bailey. She’s got hundreds of credits currently, so can hardly list all of them here, so l’ll just choose a few that I really like. She voiced Ghost-Spider / Gwen Stacy in the recent Spider-man series and the Black Widow in Avengers Assemble and other Marvel series. And she appeared in Constantine: City of Demons as Asa the Healer. 
  • Born May 28, 1984 — Max Gladstone, 38. His debut novel, Three Parts Dead, is part of the Craft Sequence series, and his shared Bookburners serial is most excellent. This Is How You Lose the Time War (co-written with Amal El-Mohtar) won a Hugo Award for Best Novella at CoNZealand. It also won an Aurora, BSFA, Ignyte, Locus and a Nebula. 
  • Born May 28, 1985 — Carey Mulligan, 37. She’s here because she shows up in a very scary Tenth Doctor story, “Blink”, in which she plays Sally Sparrow. Genre adjacent, she was in Agatha Christie’s Marple: The Sittaford Mystery as Violet Willett. (Christie gets a shout-out in another Tenth Doctor story, “The Unicorn and the Wasp”.)

(9) CON OR BUST. Dream Foundry’s Con or Bust program is gearing up again. The program helps creatives of color attend conventions and other professional development opportunities they otherwise might not be able to by financing their trip, stay, and/or tickets.

They’re looking for donations – to offer one, use the donation form here. If you think you’d benefit from the funds, there’s a request form here. 

(10) SERVICE INTERRUPTUS. Cat Eldridge circled back to right-wing blog Upstream Reviews to read any new comments on its recent gloating posts about the Mercedes Lackey controversy and SFWA’s announcement that its membership directory data had been compromised. Surprisingly, he found that the blog is offline – all you get is an “Internal Server Error.” There’s still a Google cache file – the blog’s last entry was Declan Finn kissing Larry Correia’s butt.  Maybe the internet threw up? Cat says, “Quite likely as the parent domain is for it is mysfbooks.com which as been blacklisted by the internet as being dangerous to visit (may have worms, may harvest your passwords, may steal your immortal soul).”

(11) IF I COULD TALK TO THE ANIMALS. They left this part out of Doctor Doolittle, I guess.

Young dolphins, within the first few months of life, display their creativity by creating a unique sound. These bleats, chirps and squeaks amount to a novel possession in the animal kingdom — a label that conveys an identity, comparable to a human name.

These labels are called signature whistles, and they play an essential role in creating and keeping relationships among dolphins. While the development of a signature whistle is influenced by learning from other dolphins, each whistle still varies in volume, frequency, pitch and length….

… Fellow researcher Jason Bruck, a marine biologist at Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas, told National Geographic the original goal was to test whether dolphins use their signature whistles in the same way people rely on names.

Bruck couldn’t do that unless he found a second way dolphins could identify each other. Luckily, he remembered that a fellow scientist had previously observed wild dolphins swimming through what the website called “plumes of urine” and he figured the creatures might be using it as an ID technique….

(12) WHAT’S UP, DOCK? A travel writer for Insider gives a detailed account of her Starcruiser experience, accompanied by many photos of the décor, characters, and food, and assures everyone the $5200 price tag is worth it. “Adults Try Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser — Cost, Review, Photos”

I felt the price I paid was justified for everything that was included in this experience and watching my husband live out his best Star Wars life was priceless.. 

Plus the level of service and entertainment, the cast, and the food were just incredible. 

If you are a Star Wars fan, I recommend this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

But I have to tell you if that’s the price I’ll have to pay, like Han Solo said, “This is going to be a real short trip.”

(13) PORTENTOUS WORDS. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In the Washington Post, David Betancourt prepares people for the release of Obi-Wan Kenobi by giving his ten favorite Obi-Wan moments from Star Wars episodes 1-4. “Obi-Wan Kenobi moments to know before his Disney Plus return”. Second on the list:

Duel of the Fates “We’ll handle this.” (Episode 1: The Phantom Menace)

Duel of the Fates, the epic lightsaber battle featuring Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon and Darth Maul, borders on Star Wars perfection. Its success comes from the combination of John Williams’s score, Ray Park’s physicality as Darth Maul and modern CGI technology finally catching up to the imagination of George Lucas. And it is a moment that shows the ascension of Obi-Wan from Padawan to Jedi Knight when he ends up victorious.

(14) OBOE WAN. Legendary film composer John Williams hit the stage to surprise fans at Anaheim Star Wars Celebration and play the theme for the new Obi Wan Kenobi series.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Andrew Porter, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, and JJ for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Soon Lee.]

Iron Truth Review   

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By Mike Glyer: Joy was supposed to wake from cryosleep and take her place as a biologist among 30,000 settlers coming to make a new world beautiful. Instead, she’s rousted half-alive on a different, inhospitable planet – Cato – where a previous colony ship arrived a long time ago but the good start its settlers made has gone bad. Why is Joy’s ship there?

Commander Cassimer knows why he and his Primaterre strike team have landed on Cato — to recover yet another ship known to have reached the planet under suspicious circumstances. He is a methodical, traditional, superstitious officer but on this storm-lashed, ruined world Cassimer not only risks failure, he must keep from being overwhelmed by the stressful memories of the heroics that have gained him fame.

It is through Joy and Cassimer’s eyes we experience S.A. Tholin’s Iron Truth, a finalist of the Self-Published Science Fiction Competition. If there was ever a case of the cream rising to the top this book is one.

What is Primaterre? A conquering empire? A cult? The best chance for humanity? Joy’s colony ship left Earth a hundred years before the present day, during the golden age of space exploration when humans were escaping the overpopulated and depleted Solar System to open and terraform other worlds. But that ended when miners on a remote colony hit a seam of corruption in Xanthe’s alien soil, which possesses every mind it touches and sets people on murder sprees. In the spreading panic the Primaterre Protectorate seized control. The agencies of this possession are called demons, but are they supernatural or natural, a spiritual obsession, a psychological condition, or a medical threat?

Joy connects with Cassimer’s team. Overcoming the disappointment that it’s not her ship they’ve come for, she works with Cassimer hoping that what he’s doing may still lead to the rescue of her brother and others she believes are still in cryo chambers aboard the intact section of the old wreck. Although Joy and Cassimer are the primary points of view into the story, as the adventures progress the reader is given solid reasons to wonder if they are reliable or unreliable narrators. Are they in danger from this demonic threat or already vessels of compromise?

Primaterrans are trained to maintain their sanity by relentlessly practicing being in the present, a mental discipline that also helps pace this richly detailed story. What situation are the characters in right now? Working for their immediate survival? In a firefight? Mission planning? Moving to the next place? Information is brought into focus as team members need it. And everything needs to be explained to newcomer Joy, whose questions help reveal author Tholin’s impressive worldbuilding without pace-crippling info dumps.

This is a powerful adventure braided together from elements of military sf, horror, romance, and space opera.

Giving the military sf fans their due, components of the battlefield armor worn by Cassimer and his team are described in prep, in use, when impaired by damage, and assessed for repair. Combat medical care also shows the author’s creative thinking. Warfare always has that grinding side of patch-‘em-up and send ‘em back into battle. Primaterrans have a very well-quantified understanding of how much recovery treatments are likely to produce, and those results happen quickly, whether or not soldiers’ emotions can keep up with the pace of fighting.

How Primaterre’s soldiers are equipped and cared for also opens a window onto the culture’s economic system, based on what has a soldier done in battle to earn merits. You need merits to upgrade your equipment, or to get advanced medical treatments. It’s a system built on the long-known fact that “it’s amazing what a soldier will do for a scrap of ribbon,” as I heard a Canadian vet once say.

While Cassimer is the epitome of the Primaterre culture, it’s very different than the one that sent out Joy’s colony ship, let alone the murderous depths Cato’s human survivors have descended to. Iron Truth gradually reveals the value systems of these several cultures, and then follows the exposed roots to discover their origins.

Their contrasting origins barely get in the way of Joy and Cassimer’s mutual attraction. At a certain point in the story it must decided whether that will mature into a romance or not. Almost like an eight-year-old I reacted “Oh no, the mushy part!” I should have had more faith in author Tholin, who writes those parts with the same aplomb as the dynamic action sequences. Scenes of every type are woven with character feelings and revelations.

The military sf aspects dominate the beginning of Iron Truth, however, like one of those fictional spaceships that flips over midflight and starts using its power to decelerate for the landing, the book’s horror elements take control over the last half. Although that distinction may matter more in literature than in history, because what is the difference between horror and a realistically-described combat environment , if any?

Military sf focuses on the tactical progress through a mission, the relationships in a unit, weaponry, handling fear, injury, wounds. There’s death and devastation, people can be afraid, can develop PTSD, can be hurt and killed. Iron Truth crosses the line to horror when on top of all that, physical harm to people is brought into complete focus and dwelt on, and their control over their bodies and minds – their agency – risks being lost to a malign force or intelligence.

Iron Truth views much that is gristly and gorey — for one example, take that particular species of vermin humans unintentionally brought with them and has made itself prolifically at home. It’s foul and unattractive, but no mystery. The story advances from sf to horror only when Cassimer’s team has peeled back enough layers of the mystery about their mission to realize the opposition is both bizarre and threatening the deeper levels of their minds. Things feel a bit claustrophobic but S. A. Tholin maintains a high level of suspense and energy as Iron Truth presses to the end.

Self-Published Science Fiction Competition judges assign scores on a ten-point scale. What that number means is something judges have to define for themselves. I personally decided that if a book was as good as Ancillary Justice I would give it a 10. Not because that’s a perfect book, just that I enjoyed it so much more than most other books I’ve read in the past 5 years. So that’s how highly I think of Iron Truth, giving it a score of 9.5 – it’s by far the best SPSFC entry I’ve read so far.

Crime Fiction News May 2022

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Here’s another round of crime fiction award winners and finalists.

2022 CRIMEFEST AWARDS

The 2022 CrimeFest Award winners were revealed at CrimeFest in Bristol, UK.

SPECSAVERS DEBUT CRIME NOVEL AWARD

In association with headline sponsor, the Specsavers Debut Crime Novel Award is for crime novels by previously unpublished authors bring vital fresh blood to the genre.

  • Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden, (Simon & Schuster)

AUDIBLE SOUNDS OF CRIME AWARD

The Audible Sounds of Crime Award is for the best unabridged crime audiobook available for download from audible.co.uk, Britain’s largest provider of downloadable audiobooks.

  • The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman – read by Lesley Manville (Penguin Random House Audio)

eDUNNIT AWARD

The eDunnit Award is for the best crime fiction eBook

  • Girl A by Abigail Dean (HarperCollins)

H.R.F. KEATING AWARD

The H.R.F. Keating Award is for the best biographical or critical book related to crime fiction. The award is named after H.R.F. ‘Harry’ Keating, one of Britain’s most esteemed crime novelists.

  • Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks by Patricia Highsmith (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

LAST LAUGH AWARD

The Last Laugh Award is for the best humorous crime novel.

  • Slough House by Mick Herron (Baskerville, John Murray Press)

BEST CRIME FICTION NOVEL FOR CHILDREN

This award is for the best crime fiction novel for children (aged 8-12)

  • Twitch by M.G. Leonard,(Walker Books)

BEST CRIME FICTION NOVEL FOR YOUNG ADULTS

This award is for the best crime fiction novel for young adults (aged 12-16).

  • Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley (Rock the Boat)

THALIA PROCTOR MEMORIAL AWARD FOR BEST ADAPTED TV CRIME DRAMA

  • Shetland (season 6), based on the books by Ann Cleeves. Produced by Silverprint Pictures, part of ITV Studios; shown on BBC1.

Here’s also a report about the 2022 CrimeFest in Bristol by Martin Edwards, “CrimeFest 2022 – a wonderful weekend” at Do You Write Under Your Own Name?

2022 HARALD MORGENSEN PRISEN

The winner of the 2022 Harald Morgensen Prisen for the best Danish crime novel has also been announced: “Årets bedste danske spændingsroman”.

  • Mørket under isen by Morten Hesseldahl

2022 SPOTTED OWL AWARD

The winner of the 2022 Spotted Owl Award has been announced: has been announced.

  • No Witness by Warren Easley (Poisoned Pen Press)

The Spotted Owl Award was established in 1995 and is given to the best mystery novel of the year by an author who lives in the Pacific Northwest (Alaska, British Columbia, Canada, Idaho, Oregon or Washington.) 

[Thanks to Cora Buhlert for the links.]

Pixel Scroll 5/27/22 I’ll File You, My Pretty, And Your Pixel Scroll Too

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(1) NEED TO RELOAD. There will be no TitanCon in Belfast this year announced co-chair Samuel Poots.

We’re very sorry to have to announce that Titan Con is cancelled this year.

I don’t need to tell you that the past few years have been enormously challenging for everyone and many of us are still processing our experiences. While finances are good, the humans and human resources needed to make Titan Con viable have been impacted.

In recent weeks, a number of committee members, including my co-chair, have had to step away due to personal reasons. I’m sorry to lose them, and am extremely grateful for their hard work, but understand it’s the best decision.

After taking stock of the situation with the committee and advisers, it’s clear we do not have the resources for this year’s already smaller con, and unfortunately have to cancel it. This was a very difficult decision and one the committee wished could be avoided, but there was simply no alternative.

A fresh start is called for.

We need to cancel, regroup, and consider our way forward carefully.

We’ll be recruiting some people to help us look at delivering a Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror convention with the best elements of our legacy events, while considering how to become sustainable going forward.

All current members will receive a full refund.

Thank you for your support and patience, and we hope to see you in the future to celebrate the wonderful media we are all fans of.

(2) MALIK Q&A. The Horror Writers Association Blog continues its “Asian Heritage in Horror” theme in an “Interview with Usman T. Malik”.

What is one piece of advice you would give horror authors today?

Don’t worry about pandering to western stereotypes or the market. Write your own darkness. Spill your own fears onto the page and the audience will follow.

(3) ABOUT THE BROKEN TRUST. Jake and Ron chat with author Juliette Wade about her projected five-book series, The Broken Trust on The Wrath of the iOtians podcast. (Also available on Spotify.)

Juliette Wade is a novelist … and after listening to this interview, you’ll understand why it’s a hard-earned and well-deserved title for this masterclass worldbuilder.

Her background is impressive. She is fluent in French and Japanese, has degrees in linguistics and anthropology, and also boasts a Ph.D. in education.

Juliette started writing fiction in 1999, and her short stories have been featured in Analog, Clarkesworld, and Fantasy & Science Fiction magazines. But she is perhaps best known for her projected five-volume Broken Trust series, whose latest volume, Inheritors of Power, was published earlier this year by DAW. Juliette’s specialty is sociological science-fiction, of which Broken Trust is one of our finest contemporary examples. Each stratum of Broken Trust’s complex caste system has its own vocation, ideals, manners, and culture, and naturally, they come into a devastating conflict. There’s a lot to discuss, so let’s dive in!

(4) JO FLETCHER NEWS. Publishers Lunch reports, “Publisher Jo Fletcher will leave the Quercus sci-fi, fantasy and horror imprint she founded 11 years ago on September 30. She will continue to edit some of her long-standing authors for the line.”

(5) WARNING LABEL. “’Stranger Things 4′ Warning Card Added Following School Shooting” reports Variety.

Netflix is adding a warning card to the “Stranger Things 4” premiere in light of the shooting on Tuesday at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, which left 21 people dead — including 19 children and two teachers.

The warning card, which will show up for viewers in the U.S. when the episodes launch on Friday, reads: “We filmed this season of ‘Stranger Things’ a year ago. But given the recent tragic shooting at a school in Texas, viewers may find the opening scene of episode 1 distressing. We are deeply saddened by this unspeakable violence, and our hearts go out to every family mourning a loved one.”

This warning will appear before the prior season recap that auto-plays at the beginning of “Stranger Things 4” Episode 1 for viewers in the U.S. only. Additionally, Netflix has also edited the description for the premiere to include the note, “Warning: Contains graphic violence involving children,” and added “disturbing images” to the show rating advisories….

(6) LIFT OFF. The New Yorker’s Neima Jahromi analyzes Disney World’s Starcruiser experience in “LARPing Goes to Disney World”.

In February, when it was cold and wet in New York, I rode a jitney under blue skies from the Orlando airport into Disney World. Before reaching the Magic Kingdom, the bus passed a range of gray crags perched on scaffolding—a sliver of Black Spire Outpost, which, in the “Star Wars” universe, is a settlement on a planet called Batuu. Nearby, the Millennium Falcon rested below a control tower built into the rock; Stormtrooper helmets were for sale at a sun-bleached military-surplus garage. Black Spire is also the destination of the Galactic Starcruiser, a spaceship that carries hundreds of interstellar tourists to and from the outpost, on what Disney calls an “immersive adventure.” The Starcruiser begins its journey floating in space, light-years from Batuu and Black Spire. In reality, the spacecraft is a massive brutalist building that sits beside a highway….

In one of the games —

In Calculations, written by Caro Murphy, a veteran larper with a side-swept cyberpunk haircut, Sinking Ship customers play a spaceship pilot delivering medicine to Mars, where colonists have been dying from an illness that causes “shortness of breath.” Murphy adapted the game from a nineteen-fifties sci-fi story by Tom Godwin.

(7) DIAL ‘M’ FOR MILKY WAY. No, E.T. should not be allowed to phone home. Vice looks at a scientific paper: “There Are 4 ‘Malicious Extraterrestrial Civilizations’ in Milky Way, Researcher Estimates”. The author, PhD student Alberto Caballero of Spain’s University of Vigo, readily admits he had to make a number of assumptions. Thus, it’s hard to put error boundaries on his conclusions. 

Stephen Hawking famously said sending messages from Earth into deep space could get human civilization destroyed: “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”

Hawking’s words have often been used to discourage the practice of METI, which is Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence. But how many “malicious” alien civilizations are there? And what are the chances any message we sent into our own galaxy would be received by an evil alien civilization? There is precious little research on this topic, and very few scientists have even posited a guess.

A new thought experiment attempts to at least venture a guess in hopes that other scientists will begin to take METI more seriously, and will try to determine how dangerous it actually is to try to contact alien civilizations.

According to this paper, which the author admits has “some limitations,” there are roughly four “malicious extraterrestrial civilizations” in the Milky Way, and we could likely send out 18,000 interstellar messages to different exoplanets in our galaxy and the probability of ensuring our own destruction would still be about the same as Earth being hit by a “global catastrophe asteroid.” 

(8) TWO SF ARTISTS REMEMBERED. “A Vision In Many Voices: The Art of Leo and Diane Dillon” at Unquiet Things.

It must have been fate. Born eleven days apart on opposite coasts, Leo and Diane met, competed artistically, and eventually fell in love while attending Parsons School of Design, each aspiring to a life of art. After their marriage in 1957, the artists initially pursued separate careers in illustration before recognizing their strengths were collaborative in nature. In an effort to work in a particular style that they both could master, they symbiotically and seamlessly melded their personalities and styles, employing pastels, colored pencil, watercolor, acrylic, stencils, typography, woodcut, pochoir, found-object assemblage, collage, and sculpture into an entity/partnership that they came to refer to as “the artist.”

Noted Leo on the gorgeously striking complexity of their distinctive decorative realism and unconventional techniques: “People often comment on the ‘Dillon style.’ I think that someplace, the two of us made a pact with each other. We both decided that we would give up the essence of ourselves, that part that made the art each of us did our own. And I think that in doing that we opened the door to everything.”…

(9) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

1998 – [By Cat Eldridge.] Warning: there are lots of SPOILERS here. Go away now if you’ve not watched Babylon 5. Really I do mean it! 

Twenty-four years ago in the last season of Babylon 5, the “Meditations on the Abyss” episode aired. It has three story lines: a mission to the edge of Centauri space, Lennier both teaches and learns; John Sheridan struggles to keep the Interstellar Alliance together; a Drazi agents plant a bug in Londo Mollari’s quarters and faces the wrath of Vir Cotto which happens after Londo Mollari tells Vir Cotto he will have to be more careful if he wishes to be worthy of his new job as Centauri Ambassador to Babylon 5. 

Vir fascinates me. This episode, like so many involving him, upends the apparent light hearted nature of the character and show him to be something much more complex, more dangerous but good for the Empire in fact than Londo is as Londo has no sense of community and Vir does. Vir cares about the Centauri people in a way Londo doesn’t.

“I’d like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike, as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I want to look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this.” – Vir telling Mr Morden what he wants.

And he gets to do just that. Wasn’t that absolutely thrilling to see Vir looking up at the head of Mr Morden on a stake in the capital city of a devastated Centauri Prime and waving at it? 

And he will become the Emperor of an Empire almost completely shattered after Londo is strangled by the blind G’Kar.  It not known how the Empire fares under him but it has to be better than it did under under previous Emperors. 

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born May 27, 1894 — Dashiell Hammett. Yes, I know he’s written some genre fiction but I’m interested this time in his mysteries. He wrote The Maltese Falcon which was turned into the film you remember and another film a decade earlier. And of course there are Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man series that got turned in a six film series. Now my favorite character by him is the Continental Op in Red Harvest and The Dain Curse. And let’s not forget the Secret Agent X-9 comic strip which I think is genre, which artist Alex Raymond of Flash Gordon fame illustrated. (Died 1961.)
  • Born May 27, 1911 — Vincent Price. Ok, what’s popping into my head is him on The Muppets in “House of Horrors” sketch they did in which he and Kermit sport impressive fangs. If I had to single out his best work, it’d be in such films as House on Haunted Hill, House of Usher and The Pit and the Pendulum. Yes, I know the latter two are Roger Corman productions.  He also did a lot of series work including being Egghead on Batman, appearing in the Fifties Science Fiction Theater, having a recurring role as Jason Winters on the Time Express and so forth. (Died 1993.)
  • Born May 27, 1922 — Christopher Lee. He first became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a series of Hammer Horror films.  His other film roles include The Creature in The Curse of Frankenstein, Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace, Kharis the Mummy in The Mummy, Francisco Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun, Lord Summerisle In The Wicker Man, Saruman in The Lord of the Rings films and The Hobbit film trilogy, and Count Dooku in the second and third films of the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Now interestingly enough, ISFDB lists him as being the co-editor in the Seventies with Michael Parry with a number of horror anthologies such as Christopher Lee’s ‘X’ Certificate No. 1, From the Archives of Evil and The Great Villains. (Died 2015.)
  • Born May 27, 1929 — Burnett Toskey, 93. A Seattle fan who was a member of the Nameless Ones and served them in various offices from the early Fifties to the mid Sixties. He was also the official editor of Spectator Amateur Press Society. His work on Cry of the Nameless won the Best Fanzine Hugo at Pitcon, a honor he shared with  F. M. Busby, Elinor Busby and Wally Weber. 
  • Born May 27, 1934 — Harlan Ellison. Setting aside the “The City on the Edge of Forever” episode”, I think I best remember him for the two Dangerous Vision anthologies which were amazing reading.  His awards are far, far too numerous to recount here so I’ll need to do an essay on them. His Hugos alone are legion and that’s hardly all of the awards that he was honored with.  (Died 2018.)
  • Born May 27, 1935 — Lee Meriwether, 87. Catwoman on Batman. (And if you have to ask which Batman, you’re in the wrong conversation.) Also she had a turn as a rather sexy Lily Munster on The Munsters Today. And of course she had a co-starring role as Dr. Ann MacGregor on The Time Tunnel as well. And yes, I know I’m not touching upon her many other genre roles including her Trek appearance as I know you will. 
  • Born May 27, 1951 — Stepan Chapman. He wrote but one novel, The Trioka, a most excellent steampunk affair that won that the Philip K. Dick Award. He’s written a lot of short fiction, some of it collected in Danger Music and Dossier. The Trioka is available for a reasonable price at the usual suspects. (Died 2014.)
  • Born May 27, 1967 — Eddie McClintock, 55. Best known no doubt as Secret Service agent Pete Lattimer on Warehouse 13, a series I loved. He’s also in Warehouse 13: Of Monsters and Men which is listed separately and has the plot of ‘the Warehouse 13 operatives uncover a mysterious comic book artifact and must work together to free themselves from its power.’ He’s had one-off appearances in Witches of East End, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Supergirl, but no other major genre roles to date.  

(11) HORSING AROUND WITH SHATNER. Tomorrow, May 28, the Hollywood Charity Horse Show is offering “An Evening with William Shatner”. One ticket is $400. Or buy a table for 10 and only pay – eh, $4,000.

6:00pm – 7:00pm Dinner.  During Dinner, Mr. Shatner will go around to each table and take a group shot  (Due to Covid restrictions individual photos are not possible.)

7:00pm – 8:00pm Mr. Shatner will  tell stories and answer your questions

(12) SCENES OF HORROR. Cora Buhlert has a new article up at Galactic Journey about a forgotten tragedy: “[May 26, 1967] Flames over Brussels: The À l’Innovation Department Store Fire”.

…The last time I was in Brussel in April, I stopped at the Standaard Boekhandel book shop directly across the street from À l’Innovation to pick up the latest comics. The venerable weekly comics magazine Tintin has launched a slew of new strips to keep up with the competition of Spirou and particularly the French comics magazine Pilote….

(13) BOOK REVIEW. Cora Buhlert also appears in The Dark Man: Journal of Robert E. Howard and Pulp Studies (12.2) with a review of The Weird Tales Story: Enhanced and Expanded by Robert Weinberg et al. The publication is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal devoted to the academic study of Howard’s literary works as well as the literary historical and print culture contexts associated with it. 

(14) DOZOIS AND ADLER TRANSCRIPT. The Eaton Collection shares a bit of history.

https://twitter.com/EatonVerse/status/1530209530327404544

(15) AT THE HELM. Gizmodo asks the show creator about those odious comparisons: “Seth MacFarlane Interview: The Orville Versus Star Trek”.

…“I think it’s safe to say that we’re still occupying our own space this year,” MacFarlane told io9 over video chat at a recent Orville press event. “Certainly, the more that’s out there, you do start to become a little concerned that, you know, is it oversaturation? Is there a pocket where our show and only our show exists? And I think that is still very much the case.”

Not wanting to spoil what’s in store, MacFarlane didn’t get too into detail about what specifically sets The Orville apart from Star Trek this season. In more general terms, “It’s this genre that emerged in the 1930s of a ship in space, captained and crewed very much the same way that a sailing ship was,” he said. “It’s something that dates back a lot of decades. Star Trek was really the first to take it and turn it into something that really mattered and was a serious form of storytelling. You know, for us… sci-fi right now is very dark. It’s very dystopian. It’s very grim in a lot of ways. It’s very cautionary. And the optimistic, uplifting part of that genre is something we haven’t really seen in a while. So there was a pretty obvious open pocket for us to kind of slip into when we started. How we fit in now is—it’s really up to the audience, I think—what we’re bringing to the table in tone, in structure, in scope is in a class of its own. But that remains [to be seen], because the verdict [on season three] has not come in yet.”…

(16) GIVE A DOG A BAD NAME. James Davis Nicoll is happy to help.

https://twitter.com/jamesdnicoll/status/1529460153547907077

(17) WE ARE NASA. People sent me links to this 3-year-old NASA video which has been the subject of several posts this week. Take a look.

We’ve taken giant leaps and left our mark in the heavens. Now we’re building the next chapter, returning to the Moon to stay, and preparing to go beyond. We are NASA – and after 60 years, we’re just getting started. Special thanks to Mike Rowe for the voiceover work.

(18) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In “Honest Game Trailers:  Evil Dead:  The Game,” Fandom Games says this move tie-in “fulfills a need you never knew you had: fighting with four Bruce Campbells.” The narrator suggests that someone convince Lucy Lawless to appear in a game with her Xena armor, “a move that would cause a majority of gamers to regress into puberty.”

[Thanks to JJ, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Andrew Porter, Andrew (not Werdna), Cora Buhlert, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, and Martin Morse Wooster for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Rob Thornton.]