Pixel Scroll 2/13/18 Contents Of The Pixels May Have Scrolled During Flight

Editor’s note: A lean Scroll because I’m on the road overseeing my mother’s care and the motel wi-fi is deadly slow!

(1) DUANE AND MORWOOD APPEAL. Diane Duane and Peter Morwood have run into a financial shortfall, and are in danger of losing their house. Diane tweets about it, and points to an ebook sale:

Their ebookstore is https://ebooksdirect.co/

Duane details the background on her blog: “A Difficult Appeal” and concludes —

…What’s most infuriating (and mortifying) about all this is that if what’s happening now was instead happening in six or eight weeks, it’d be less of an issue, as Peter’s entire (newly revised) backlist will be coming online in paperback format at Amazon. But it’s happening now, and the truth is that without assistance, we won’t make it to the spring—not and keep our home. So, swallowing our corporate pride, it’s time to turn to the larger community and ask for help.

(2) FUNDRAISER FOR A BIG HEART FAN. Big Heart winner Samanda Jeude needs financial help – Marcia Kelly Illingworth explains —

Due to the recent passing of Don Dea Cook, and Samanda Jeude now in residence in a Canton nursing home, there will be a number of sales and auctions of their vast collection of books, art, and collectibles, with all proceeds going to the continuing care of Samanda.

For those younger fans who may not have known Don and Sam, they were very active in the Science Fiction community for many years.  Don/Dea was the Chair of the Atlanta in 1995 Worldcon Committee.  Samanda was the Founder of Electrical Eggs, which started the move toward access to conventions for people with different physical challenges. She spent the biggest part of her adult life working to help others. Now it’s our time to help her.

Sam has asked my husband Tim Illingworth and myself to coordinate the disposition of their collection. Our plan is to hold auctions at as many conventions as possible, as well as online auctions and fixed price sales. We are awaiting word from this year’s DeepSouthCon, ConCave in Kentucky later this month, where we hope to be able to hold the first auction.  After all, Samanda is a past winner of the Rebel Award.

We welcome any suggestions for venues, and volunteers for assistance.  With careful oversight and management, we should be able to take care of Samanda’s needs. If you have any further questions, please contact me via Messenger or email. This post is public, so please feel free to share it far and wide.  Thank you.

If you, or anyone else, have any questions, or suggestions for venues or methods, please feel free to email me. My email address is no secret.

[email protected]

(3) TOLKIEN EXHIBITION. The “Maker of Middle-Earth” exhibit will be on view at the Weston Library, Oxford from June 1-October 28, 2018.

Journey into Tolkien’s worlds in this once-in-a-generation exhibition…

Wizards, elves, hobbits and creatures: the life and worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien are revealed in this unique exhibition at the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford. Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth explores Tolkien’s legacy, from his genius as an artist, poet, linguist, and author to his academic career and private life….

Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth explores Tolkien’s amazing legacy from his genius as an artist, poet, linguist, and author to his academic career and private life. The exhibition takes you on a journey through Tolkien’s famous works, The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings, displaying an array of draft manuscripts, striking illustrations and maps drawn for his publications. Discover Tolkien’s early abstract paintings from The Book of Ishness, the touching tales he wrote for his children, rare objects that belonged to Tolkien, exclusive fan mail; and private letters.

This once-in-a-generation exhibition runs from 1 June to 28 October 2018 at the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford.

(4) MILÀN OBIT. Victor Milán died February 13 of myeloma complicated by pneumonia announced Patricia Rogers on Facebook.

Mark Lawrence summarized his career on Reddit’s r/Fantasy section:

In 1986 he won the Prometheus Award for his novel Cybernetic Samurai. More recently he wrote the Dinosaur Lords books.

He was a regular contributor to the George Martin’s Wild Cards series and Tor.com will have one of his Wild Cards short stories on their site tomorrow morning.

(5) RAPP OBIT. Tom Rapp (1947-2018). Joel Zakem writes —

I was saddened to learn that one of my favorite musicians, singer and songwriter Tom Rapp from the band Pearls Before Swine, passed away on February 11. While I can only recall two songs that have SFF connections, I believe both are based on favorites of yours.

First, from their second album, “Balaclava” (!968) this adoption of some of Tolkien’s most famous lines (extra credit for knowing the meaning of the album title):

 

And this Bradbury-based number from 1970’s “The Use Of Ashes”.

 

(6) I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING. Rose Eveleth, in the podcast Flash Forward, has an episode called “You’ve Got  Brainmail” where she interviews author Ramez Naam, sf scholar Roger Luckhurst, and the etiquette columnist of the Boston Globe about such questions as the history of telepathy, whether brain to brain interfaces are possible, and what happens when your first wedding invitation is sent telepathically.

(7) MORE 1976 WORLDCON VIDEO. The FANAC Fan History Project has posted another video from the Video Archeology project, “Fifty Amazing, Astounding, Wonderful Years, a talk by James Gunn.”

MidAmeriCon, the 34th World Science Fiction Convention, was held in Kansas City in 1976. It was also the 50th anniversary of the first science fiction magazine. In this video, Professor Gunn talks about the impact of the magazines on science fiction and the creation of fandom. There’s also an entertaining description of the responses of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne to each other, a brief account of how to create a science fiction writer, and a sense of what the field was like in the early days, all delivered with charming wit. This essay later appeared in Gunn’s “Inside Science Fiction”, published by Scarecrow Press. (1992). The material is brought to you by the FANAC Fan History Project, with video from the Video Archeology project.

 

(8) RESEARCH ALREADY DONE. I didn’t think this was news. In fact, I’m sure crusading journalist (and frequent blockee) Jon Del Arroz has written about it quite often, in the process convincing people it’s the right choice.

(9) NOT MAXWELL’S SILVER HAMMER. Marvel’s Thor will tee up a new hammer in the next Avengers movie:

Thor Ragnarok had Chris Hemsworth lose his trusty hammer, Mjolnir, but the God of Thunder will get a NEW one in Avengers Infinity War and we have our first look! Jessica has the reveal (WITH SPOILERS) on today’s Nerdist News!

 

[Thanks to Marica Illingworth, JJ, Cat Eldridge, John King Tarpinian, Chip Hitchcock, Martin Morse Wooster, Carl Slaughter, Joel Zakem, Rose Embolism, Danny Sichel, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew.]

80 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 2/13/18 Contents Of The Pixels May Have Scrolled During Flight

  1. 5) RIP. Tom Rapp and his band Pearls Before Swine were among the artists that were rediscovered during the late 90s (when the musical underground got into all things obscure from the 1960s). His music was gorgeous and his lyrics were above the pale–“There Was A Man” is probably my favorite popular song about Jesus Christ. At least he got some of the attention that he deserved when he was most active.

  2. Paul Weimer notes On the other hand…I saw firsthand that blocking a certain individual led to that individual telling all of their feed that I had done so, which led to a flood of that individual’s followers and friends demanding to know why I had engaged in such perfidy. So yeah…

    I’m convinced that they really and deeply believe that their fiction is damn good that it should be read by everyone, and that their viewpoints on, well, everything should be heard by everyone. So anyone who says their fiction is worth reading is wrong, and everyone who doesn’t step right and listen to their bully pulpit is doing them great harm.

  3. I’m looking for a story and I hope someone here can help. Sarah Pinsker’s “Wind Will Rove” has reminded me of another story and it’s driving me crazy that I can’t remember it. I think it’s only a few years old and was probably a short story. It’s similar to Wind Will Rove in that it was about a piece of music and how it was remembered through time and into the future. Ring any bells for anyone?

  4. Moment of Meredithness: There’s a new Humble Book Bundle. This time it’s a bunch of SF from Angry Robot. The top tier includes An Accident of Stars by Foz Meadows so for only $15 you can get 20 DRM-free books and pretend to be Camestros while you read them.

  5. @Lorien Gray I believe you’re looking for “The High Lonesome Frontier,” by Rebecca Campbell.

  6. 1) I must have read Book of Night With Moon aloud to my kid at least a dozen times. And all the YW books, many of them as they came out. For years. Luckily I think the kid came out pretty damn fine, or I’d have to go complain at Duane (and Tolkein) about the results.

  7. Heather Rose Jones on February 14, 2018 at 8:28 pm said:
    So, um, *shuffles feet nervously and taps microphone* I have a new Alpennia story out in the Lace and Blade 4 anthology as of today. In case anyone was interested.

    I’m on it!
    (Nice looking series, wonder how I missed it.)

  8. Ingvar: It’s academic. “Happy Fun Scroll” was used last year, thought up by, well, a really clever guy admired by all.

  9. (8) RESEARCH ALREADY DONE. Uh . . . what? Okay. So what? I don’t know how Twitter works, but meh. And I doubt it’s “all conservative SF authors” but more like “jerks.”

    @Mister Dalliard: Thanks for mentioning the new Humble Bundle! Ooh, two of the ones in tier 1 are on my list, and I’ve been meaning to check out Meadows’s book, and several others look interesting, and so, hmm, I am being drawn in. 😉 (Now to obsess on how much to pay, which probably means any amount I decide on is less than I should.)

  10. Well, not only is T.C. McCarthy an idiot, he is also a deliberate liar. He’s posted this on Twitter:

    I’m chuckling at comments like this on #file770: “I blocked T.C. on twitter because he supported 1 of the #sadpuppies; you can’t reason with them.” I’ve never met these folks-who’re doing the digital equivalent of fingers-in-ears “blah blah.” But I’m the 1 you can’t reason with.

    And yet no one here said any such thing.

    You know someone is totally pathetic and desperate for attention, when they have to make up lies about Filers blocking them to feel important. 😀

  11. Interesting. I wonder if that post is in this thread, or it’s somewhere that only TC can see it?

  12. Maximillian: Interesting. I wonder if that post is in this thread, or it’s somewhere that only TC can see it?

    Someone called him on it on Twitter, and this was his response:

    It’s an amalgam of multiple #file770 characters. JJ, Soon Lee, Mike – the whole gang. I actually did chuckle. There’s one thing about file770: these are devotees to SFF and their cause.

    In other words:

    T.C. McCarthy: I lied. I made it up.

  13. I suppose I should be flattered to be namechecked in a comment that is wrong on more than one level. Not only did I not say anything like what T.C. McCarthy suggested, but I have not blocked them either.

    Shorter me: LOL WUT?

  14. JJ on February 18, 2018 at 8:31 pm said:
    Someone called him on it on Twitter, and this was his response:

    It’s an amalgam of multiple #file770 characters. JJ, Soon Lee, Mike – the whole gang. I actually did chuckle. There’s one thing about file770: these are devotees to SFF and their cause.

    In other words:

    T.C. McCarthy: I lied. I made it up.

    He has a really interesting persecution complex thing going on. He literally has to make up mean things for other people to have hypothetically said about him.

  15. Well, he’s now saying that he didn’t make up the quotes, he just ‘aggregated’ what people really said. Which is… technically true. The words all appeared in posts here. Maybe not in that order, or in posts about him, but IN AGGREGATE he’s telling the truth. For certain values of ‘truth’.

  16. Maximillian: Well, he’s now saying that he didn’t make up the quotes, he just ‘aggregated’ what people really said. Which is… technically true. The words all appeared in posts here. Maybe not in that order, or in posts about him, but IN AGGREGATE he’s telling the truth. For certain values of ‘truth’.

    Well, if you call pulling random words out of a dictionary and making a quote out of them a value of “truth”, yeah — but I don’t.

    I call that what it is: a lie. T.C. McCarthy is a baldfaced liar.

  17. Pingback: Top 10 Posts for February 2018 | File 770

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