(1) CON CRUNCH. Crunchyroll has announced it will launch a new anime convention called Crunchyroll Expo (CRX). The con will be held August 25-27 in Santa Clara, California at the Santa Clara Convention Center.
Assuming CRX is repeated in 2018 on a comparable weekend, it would take place in Santa Clara on the weekend following Worldcon 76 in the San Jose McEnery Convention Center on August 16-20, 2018.
It would be worse if CRX was going to precede the Worldcon (and far worse if it was on the same weekend), but there’s always a question of how much time and money fans in an area have to devote to conventions, and which one they’ll choose.
(2) ALWAYS TO CALL IT RESEARCH. Paste Magazine names “6 Classic Sci-Fi Stories That Inspired This Week’s Supergirl“.
- Invasion of the Body Snatchers Are your friends and loved ones acting strangely? Are they acting a bit too much like themselves? Are they too understanding, too calm, too patient, too willing to listen to you whine about how they’ve let you down without defending themselves? Bad news, my friend: They’ve been body snatched.
The Invasion of the Body Snatchers franchise encompasses several movies, thematic connections to multiple authors—including Robert Heinlein, whose 1951 novel The Puppet Masters provided the loose inspiration for the film version—and even a Bugs Bunny cartoon. (It’s called Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers, and it’s perfect.) All revolve around the paranoia that the people we know could one day be replaced by identical alien life forms with no discernable difference. So when M’gann, Winn, and later Alex turn out to be white Martians in disguise, those feelings of uncertainty and paranoia come straight out of the Body Snatchers bag of tricks.
Originally meant as a metaphor for communism and the Cold War—and, really, when was anything not originally meant as a metaphor for communism and the Cold War—Supergirl ups the ante on Snatchers by taking a more personal route. It’s a horrifying idea: That you could be spilling your most difficult-to-process and embarrassing feelings to a person you think is your closest friend, only to find out that the person literally isn’t who you think he is. Try hard not to think about it the next time you’re talking to your crush.
(3) OUTSIDE THE MILSF BOMB BAY. “Military science fiction doesn’t have to just be about space battles and glory,” says the blurb. “It can examine why we, as a culture, choose to make war—and how we can change.” Elizabeth Bonesteel discusses “The Future of War, Peace, and Military Science Fiction” at Portalist.
…And paradoxically, when we define soldiers as bigger than life, it makes it easier for us to point fingers if something goes wrong. They’re trained. They should know better. It can’t possibly be our fault.
It is our fault. It’s always our fault. War is a choice. But the more we blunt our perception of the people we send to do this work, the easier it is for us to abdicate responsibility for how serious the decision really is.
Fiction of all types is a game of what-ifs. Military science fiction takes a particular angle: What if this was what a futuristic military force looked like? What if this is what it was used for? What is it like for the soldiers themselves? Even the most jingoistic military science fiction puts the reader in the mind of a soldier, and that in itself is a humanizing act.
But I think more than humanizing the soldiers themselves, military science fiction has a role to play in illuminating why we choose war. As with all speculative fiction, the power lies in being able to set up an impossible scenario, and ask concrete questions about it. Government and military can be structured in any way at all, or even be at odds with each other—weapons are, after all, a uniquely dispassionate way of upsetting the balance of power. Add to this a government with complex motives for choosing to deploy their defenses, and you can examine our current society through an infinite number of lenses.
(4) MORE ON WAR. David Brin and Catherine Asaro respond to the question “Can science fiction help prevent a nuclear war?” at PRI.
Long before David Brin became a scientist and author, he practiced duck-and-cover drills in his elementary school classroom. And because the threat of nuclear war hung over his childhood, it has become a big part of his fiction.
“The teacher would be talking away, and suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, say, ‘Drop!’” Brin recalled. “That’s how much time you’d have if you noticed the flash of a nuclear blast.” He was so conscious of nuclear risks that he wanted his own fallout shelter. “I wanted my mother to buy a used tanker car from the railroad, and bury it in our backyard.”
In a recent conversation with Catherine Asaro, a physicist and sci-fi writer, Brin said his most famous book, “The Postman,” brought about a kind of catharsis for him. “I used that book, deliberately, to discharge a lot of the stress of having grown up all my life, wondering — is this the day mushroom clouds appear on the horizon?” Brin said.
…“I don’t think that fear has gone away,” said Asaro, who has written many “hard science fiction” novels about space, technology and the military. In her opinion, readers today are even more aware of the dangers that society faces. But she believes the fear of catastrophe no longer centers on nuclear weapons.
“It’s increased, to the point where it’s not just nuclear winter anymore,” Asaro said. In recent years, many sci-fi writers have explored the dangers of climate change, cyberwarfare and advanced artificial intelligence.
(5) PRATCHETT SPECIAL AIRS SATURDAY. Boing Boing has the story — “The BBC will air a docudrama on Terry Pratchett’s life and his struggle with Alzheimer’s” .
Paul Kaye plays Pratchett in Back in Black, based on Pratchett’s unfinished autobiography; it will air on Saturday.
The doc covers the frustrations, discrimination and discouragement that Pratchett encountered as a working class pupil with a variety of speech impediments, and on what Neil Gaiman called Pratchett’s ‘quiet rage’, which fuelled him to literary stardom and enabled him to write seven novels even as Alzheimer’s stole his mind.
The irreverent trailer hints at a programme that will treat Pratchett with the kind of anger and compassion he brought to his own work and life.
(6) ASK HURLEY. Kameron Hurley participates in a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session today at 8 p.m. EST, which will be over by the time you read this but the transcript will be online.
Be sure to stop by my Reddit AMA! Ask me anything now, I answer tonight at 8pm EST https://t.co/Qttt8YQIVT pic.twitter.com/hvDnzEyRMF
— Kameron Hurley (@KameronHurley) February 9, 2017
(7) JUST SAY KNOW. And Hurley has a new blog post – “Yes, You Can Say No to Your Editor(s)”. Well, if you’ve negotiated your contract correctly…
Listen. I’m going to tell you a secret, which you should already know if you’re a pro writer, but is especially useful for new writers to hear. Nobody tells you what to write in this business. They may say, “Hey, I’d like to see a space opera from you,” or “Hey, you know, the gay guy dies here and that’s not a great trope. Sure you want to do that?” but no one will make you change anything. I mean, if you really can’t come to an agreement, you can publish that shit up on Amazon tomorrow, easy peasy. I know writers who actually argue with their copyeditors in the manuscript comments, and this always makes me roll my eyes. Why are you arguing? You’re the author. It will say in your contract, if you and your agent are diligent, that no changes can me made to the manuscript which you don’t approve of. That’s a pretty standard clause that has been in all of my contracts. Now, if you’re like, “I totally want to load a bunch of typos in this book!” you could also, even, do that for stylistic reasons! I know, it’s amazing.
(8) CRAWFORD AWARD. Charlie Jane Anders has won the 2017 Crawford Award for All the Birds in the Sky.
The award will be presented at the 38th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts taking place March 22-26 in Orlando, Florida.
(9) DS9 REMEMBERED. The makers of a documentary about Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are crowdfunding some production costs through Indiegogo. They’ve raised $114,777 of their $148,978 goal with a month to go.
Now, over twenty years later, fans all over the world are rediscovering Deep Space Nine and embracing the show with an enthusiasm rivaling the affection they feel for any other Star Trek series. Critics are even calling the show the Jewel in the Crown and the best of the Star Trek franchise. A devoted sci-fi fan might rightly ask themselves; “What the hell happened?”
Our documentary film, What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, will take a detailed look at this historic series and consider the reasons Deep Space Nine went from a family outcast to a Star Trek mainstay. The film will also contain a “what if” segment in which the original writers brainstorm a theoretical 8th season of the show.
Spearheaded by original show-runner Ira Steven Behr, directed by Adam Nimoy (For the Love of Spock), and with a handful of key interviews already ‘in the bag,’ the #DS9Doc now needs YOUR HELP to reach completion by finishing filming, editing, and post-production.
(10) TODAY’S DAY
Crack cultural researcher John King Tarpinian assures me this is Pizza Day. Quoting his source —
History of Pizza Day
You can say that Pizza Day started in the 10th century in Naples, Italy. This is when records first show the presence of pizza….
Pizza made its mark on America in 1905. In New York City, a pizzeria called Lombardi’s created the spark that would light hearts across the country from then until now — and with no conceivable end in sight! Amazingly, they are still in business! If you want to taste that first real pizza to hit American shores, head over to Little Italy in Manhattan and check them out.
(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY
- February 9, 1928 — Frank Frazetta
(12) FROM PHONE AGE TO STONE AGE. The BBC asks “What if the internet stopped working for a day?”. Sounds tempting to me… And I love that the name of the researcher is “Borg.”
…For a start, the impact to the economy may not be too severe. In 2008, the US Department of Homeland Security asked Borg to look into what might happen if the internet went down. Borg and his colleagues analysed the economic effects of computer and internet outages in the US from 2000 onwards. Looking at quarterly financial reports from the 20 companies that claimed to be most affected in each case, as well as more general economic statistics, they discovered that the financial impact of an outage was surprisingly insignificant – at least for outages that lasted no more than four days, which is all they studied.
“These were instances where enormous losses were being claimed– in the hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars,” Borg says. “But while some industries like hotels, airlines and brokerage firms suffered a bit, even they didn’t experience very big losses.”
(13) ENDLESS REPLAY. Be your own “grateful dead” concert. Nerdist reports “A Company Will Press Your Ashes into a Working Vinyl Album”. Sounds like something Connie Willis would list in that section of her GoH speech about things science fiction predicted (that everyone in the audience recognizes it didn’t.)
When the final track of your life finishes playing, how would you like to be remembered? Do you want to be buried and forgotten like a bad solo album? Or would you like to be encased for posterity like a big platinum record? Or maybe you hope to continue being heard, like a legendary musician that lives on forever. Well, if you hope to have your song play long after you’ve left the recording studio of life, there’s a way for that to happen–literally–by having your ashes pressed into a vinyl record.
(14) LATE SHOW SF NAME-DROPPING. While bantering with Paul Giamatti, Colbert reels off a library’s worth of his favorite sf writers – begins at the 6:28 mark in this clip from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (CBS-TV). Authors mentioned include Asimov, de Camp, Dick, Ellison, Heinlein, Kuttner, Niven, Cordwainer Smith, Tolkien, Vance…
(15) BILL IS BACK. And Netflix has got him.
Bill Nye – science guy, educator, mechanical engineer, and curator of curiosity – returns with a new show. Each episode of Bill Nye Saves the World tackles a specific topic or concept through lively panel discussions, wide-ranging correspondent reports from a crackerjack team, and Bill’s very special blend of lab procedure and sly personality.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Petréa Mitchell, JJ, Standback, Chip Hitchcock, Andrew Porter, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Stoic Cynic.]
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First!
Alternative First!
I’m just glad to be in the first hundred.
As a New Yorker, I welcome Pizza Day each year. The varieties from Connecticut to South Jersey are all quite decent. Chicago has a tomato pie masquerading as pizza but still good for what it is. Detroit has a pretty good local variety of pizza. The rest of the country — not so much. Anything on the West Coast with bamboo shoots or pineapple is an abomination. Don’t put pineapple on pizza. It’s just wrong.
The pixels in the scroll go round and round,
Round and round,
Round and round.
Paul_A
I felt like that until I tasted one. Several people have objected to pineapple on pizzas today. Not just their pizza: anybody’s pizza!
ticky
So…if a Scotsman makes a pizza… 😀
As a left-coaster, I take comfort in the fact that Italians are probably as horrified by a New Yorker’s idea of “pizza” as a New Yorker is by mine. 😉
(Somehow, we need to work in a discussion of Scalzi and burritos here, but I’m not quite sure how to introduce the idea smoothly.)
I haven’t been to a worldcon, but I’ve been to regional SF cons and to anime cons and I’m not totally sure of how much overlap there’s going to be in the fanbases. (if nothing else, I would expect they’d draw different age cohorts…)
Don’t put pineapple on pizza.
It’s excellent on pizza with sausage or ham. No tomato sauce, though.
Although there will surely be some impact upon Worldcon 76 because of that gate show, I am more worried about the number of non-US Worldcon members who will not attend because they are afraid to travel to the USA.
(14) I was lucky enough to have conversations with Paul Giamatti when he would visit the, now closed, Mystery & Imagination Bookshop whenever he was in town on business.
As an aside if you are a baseball fan you might know who his father was. If not, look it up. 🙂
10)
In the early 90’s, I made my first trip to London (my second was 2014 Worldcon). While there, my brother and I walked by a brand new pizza shop, where they were handing out flyers. I took one.
The flyers were explanations in painstaking detail on the etiquette and procedure on how to place a call for a pizza delivery.
Growing up in NYC as I did, I could only laugh at this notion, until it occurred to me later that was my pizza privilege talking.
On behalf of St. Louis, I apologize for the pizza
I wonder how the pineapple haters feel about chocolate pizza?
Mmmmm…. Hawaiian pizza…. ham and pineapple….. mmmmmmm
Sadly I’m not allowed to eat pizza all that often.
Regards,
Dann
Don’t put pineapple on pizza.
What the heck is it with people who are so emphatically anti pineapple on pizza? From a culinary perspective it makes absolute sense. Salt (Cheese) + sweet (Pineapple) + savory (tomato and whatever else) = awesomeness.
Regarding Internet outages, at Amazon.com, there’s annually a very high volume period near Christmas when everyone is on high alert because outages cost “millions of dollars per minute.” I represented my VP at the annual “War Team” meetings for three years. (Think of a meeting held every morning from late October to mid December at 8:00 AM sharp that goes over every aspect of the operation the way NASA does during a space launch.)
So one year, someone in my organization (not my own team, thank God), made a mistake that caused all sales to stop for 90 minutes. (Customers could purchase, but they couldn’t check out.) I was pleased to be able to report that despite the disaster, sales for the day were unaffected.
People scratched their heads and asked “how?” The answer was that nearly all the customers affected simply waited for the site to come back up. For a couple of hours after the outage, we handled nearly double the volume–what had already been record volume–and the site just handled it.
I think a four-day outage really would be a catastrophe for Amazon, but, again, probably not to the degree people think. In the real world, people can just put things off by a few days with little or no change in the final outcome.
Sadly I’m not allowed to eat pizza all that often.
Me neither. (I used to make greens-and-mushrooom pizza, with plenty of mozzarella, no tomatoes.) Along with a bunch of other stuff that I will be missing.
My personal favorite pizza is from a place called George’s back home in Austin, MN. Nice, thin crust, cut in squares, and they do a Greek pizza with feta cheese and gyros meat that is to die for. (Although stick with the tomato sauce, not the tzadziki.)
I also have a Black Sheep just down the street from me (Neapolitan-style in a coal-fired oven), and Giordano’s (Chicago chain) just opened up nearby, so I have access to both ends of the bell curve.
Pineapple on pizza is wrong, wrong, wrong. The herbs in the sauce fight with the flavor of the pinapple! It’s heartbreaking.
Pixel Scroll is my name
770’s my nation
Cyberspace my dwelling place
The File’s my destination
@bookworm1398: I had no idea chocolate pizza exists. If it’s on a regular, savoury pizza I feel exactly the same way about that as I feel about pineapple on pizza.
Incidentally, I, too, have some strong opinions about food, including pizza!
Just wanted to get that off my chest.
Anything but that flimsy New York pizza. So many foodies bloviating about how great it is, then they show you a floppy crust all oily with a few bits of topping. Feh. NOT Pizza.
Crust that supports the toppings, meat, sauce, cheese, token herbs, garlic. THAT is pizza, not your foldy slice rubbish. If that offends you, feel free to come out to Hawaii and show me otherwise. I’ll put you on the futon.
@Cattfish on behalf of Chicago, we have no right to judge your awful pizza given our massive cheese puddings.
@5: Is that Kaye’s impression of Pratchett? It doesn’t sound like Pterry; if it’s Kaye, we can hope the rest of the program is better.
@Paul Weimer: getting pizza delivered in the UK is no trivial matter, according to The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.
Al the Great and Powerful on February 9, 2017 at 8:55 pm said:
Stuffed pizza? Where you get filling as well as topping, and lots more crust?
3) I enjoyed Elizabeth Bonesteel’s Central Corps series a whole lot, though I wouldn’t classify it as military SF.
Regarding pizza, I don’t mind Pizza Hawaii, as pineapple and ham pizza is called around here, though I normally eat other types. But many Americans are weirdly purist about whatever they consider proper pizza, unlike Italians who have a much better claim to being purist about pizza.
@Chip Hitchcock: Getting a pizza delivered in the UK isn’t that difficult anymore. Unless you want a nice pizza, that is.
(5) I love Pratchett’s unique combination of equal measures of rage and joy. Wish I could see the programme.
Our Science Fiction-bookstore got this question from a customer today:
Anyone recognize this?
The worst pizza that I have ever seen was in north Italy, in my hometown: my darling niece ordered a pizza topped by tomato sauce (hopefully marinara) and FRENCH FRIES!!! The horror…
(9) I’m torn on this. I dearly love DS9, and the idea of a documentary or a retrospective makes my heart leap. On the other hand, I don’t know what I’d be looking forward to, that hasn’t already been covered a million times in the last twenty years. I feel like maybe I’m getting too old for nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake? 😛
I hope it does well and makes an awesome production, though. 🙂
Swedish pizza is of the Neapolitan kind, but in a Swedish dialect. We don’t have any large pizza chains, so there are like 10 000 pizzerias which all want to have their own specials.
A typical pizza place has around 60 different pizzas on the menu and you don’t buy them in slices, it is always a whole pizza of around 12″ in diameter. There specials can be anything from the rational to the majestic.
Pizzeria Parken in Örebro has these ingredients on their special pizza:
Tomato sauce! Cheese! Ham! Shrimp! Tuna! Salami! Mushrooms! Meat Sauce! Onions! Pineapple! Bacon! Mussels! Banana! Curry! Eggs! Pepperoncini! Bell Peppers! Crab-stick! Cayenne Pepper! Olives! Pork Tenderloin! Garlic! Pico de Gallo! Pickled Green Chili! Jalapeno! White Kebab Sauce! Taco spice mix! Gyros! Bearnaise Sauce! Sliced Tomatoes! Shredded Iceberg Lettuce! French Fries! Asparagus! Chicken! Gorgonzola! Leeks! Squash! Corn! Feta! Tzatziki! Red Onion! Parmeggiano!
In the north, there are also pizzas with hamburger meals in them.
Francesca:
How about this one?
@Joe H
When I first came to Minnesota and was presented with a pizza cut into squares…I was mightily, mightily confused.
@Chip
That’s right, I had forgotten that. I don’t think I had read it at that point, or else the incident would have been even funnier at the time.
There is thread about Giants in Gene Wolfe’s Wizard Knight book(s), but that is from 2005.
My standard pizza order is beef, sausage, bacon, Canadian bacon, and pineapple, made with barbecue sauce. (I have nothing against pepperoni, but I have to swap something out of the chain’s normal build to add pineapple, and pepperoni’s my least favorite of those meats.) Sometimes, if I’ve got a discount code and want to bring the delivery fee down a notch in relation to the food cost, I’ll add a second the same way but with tomato sauce. I’ll put the tomato-sauce one in the fridge for the next day (or two), along with the uneaten part of the BBQ version.
There’s just something about the cooked pineapple that sets off the meat flavors wonderfully. Makes a lot more sense to me than peppers, olives, or mushrooms! And yes, when I get the leftovers out of the fridge, I eat ’em cold, just like God intended.
But then, my go-to beverage of late has attracted a couple of raised eyebrows: a one-liter bottle that’s half-pink lemonade and half-fruit punch. The lemonade adds some bite that sparks up the punch, and the punch adds some flavor depth to the lemonade. Best of all, I get the sugar-free drink mixes for about a dime each. Less than a buck a gallon ain’t half bad! (And before someone suggests coffee or tea, I’m not a fan of either one.)
@Catfish St Louis style pizza needs no apologies. It is delicious. I’ll be happy to take your share, preferably Imos.
I used to be horrified at the idea of pineapple on pizza until I tried it. It’s quite good.
I’m up for nearly any style of pizza, with any wild toppings. I’m super interested in the ways the idea of pizza changes and the ways it stays the same, as different places adopt it. It’s pretty awesome to see.
@Rev.Bob
And yes, when I get the leftovers out of the fridge, I eat ’em cold, just like God intended.
Amen.
Bob:
But then, my go-to beverage of late has attracted a couple of raised eyebrows: a one-liter bottle that’s half-pink lemonade and half-fruit punch.
Well, its not terribly far from an Arnold Palmer (half lemonade, half iced tea), so that doesn’t really raise my eyebrows. 🙂
I’ll have cold pizza for breakfast,
Warm Coke to wash it down. (Aaaah)
Maybe a couple of onion rings
Will make this meal well-rounded.
I’ll have cold pizza for breakfast.
In a pinch cold spaghetti will do.
But there’s nothing in the world that I like better
Than eating cold pizza with you.
You mean Pizza isn’t usually folded in half, dipped in batter and deep fried?
I’m going to say this once – loudly – so PAY ATTENTION!
“Pizza” consists of dough, tomato-based sauce and cheese. That’s it. Period, done, end of story.
Over the years, it has become traditional to ADD some “toppings” to a “Pizza” (dough, tomato-based sauce and cheese) such as sausage or pepperoni, mushrooms and even tiny little (disgusting bones, scales and all) fish.
These are called “toppings” because they are added on top of the PIZZA (dough, tomato-based sauce and cheese), which maintains its traditional form throughout the process.
Without those three traditional base ingredients, you may call it whatever you want, but it is not a “pizza”. Things on top of dough without tomato sauce should be familiar, they’re variously called “sandwiches:, “grinders”, “subs”, “hoagies”….
It is this imprecision of language that has led directly to today’s opening story: when one is consistently allowed to call things something they are not…..
@Hampus
That volcano pizza looks interesting. I think Steve is lowballing the calories in that thing.
Is that something from the north of Sweden?
Regards,
Dann
This suddenly reminds me of a science fiction story I read once. It was written by a kid in fourth or sixth grade, and was in some kind of display at the Coliseum Mall in Hampton (there may be a quiz later) of creative works from area school kids. The story was called “PIZZAS FROM ANOTHER PLANET” (capitalization in original).
Basically, the pizzas invaded Earth, in search of “toppings” (quotes in original). It reminds me that my assigned writings in grade school were well received, even by the class thugs and bullies. I found that our student assistant in the office actually knew the kid who wrote it, and asked him if he could get me a copy of it, which sadly never came to pass. All I remember now is a passage where the narrator and a friend were realizing the full horror of the situation: “I fainted! He fainted! It was a fainting day in the Neighborhood.” I don’t remember how it all came out, but I suspect it ended with someone eating pizza. Because how could it not?
One of the first stories I remember writing, in second grade, involved a trip to the Moon. “To get to the moon, I went east of Fort Collins on Highway 14 (a laugh line, because ‘east of Fort Collins on Highway 14’ was how you got to the Charco Broiler, according to their radio ads) and just kept going.” It might have been the same story that was related to the narrator’s pet worm, Henry, who sat on the arm of the chair, until the narrator got up, putting his hands on the chair arms.
Well. If anyone out there has “PIZZAS FROM ANOTHER PLANET,” I’d love to have a copy. I already tried Google, just in case.
Yep, from Piteå. Kind of a small place, but nice nature around. Was there earlier this year. But forgot about the Pizza.
Well, this is a good opportunity to link to “The Perfect Food”, one of my old blog posts from 2007, wherein I discuss pizza. I also explain pizza’s important connection to the Star Trek universe, and why you probably don’t want to try Klingon Pizza.
At one of my jobs in a software development shop, a favorite pizza combo was pickled jalapeno and pineapple. I tried it and the sweet/acid/heat combo was actually pretty good.
Zadok the Scroll and Nathan the Pixel anointed Solomon KzinMy grandparents were Sicilian. They were very clear and emphatic that what we have in America and call pizza is an Italian-American creation, not Italian. As such, like any good immigrant, it can mix with other things–so while the pizza of the northeast is obviously the best, there’s nothing wrong with putting ham and pineapple on it, for those that like it.
Mind you, the reaction to putting that stuff on their pizza would not have been pleasant.
Many (39!) years ago my family were camping in between Rome and Naples, in a camp site with a very fine rolling hot Pizza Oven.
Across the camp site is heard, in a piercing American accent “Gee, Mom, they have Pizza in Italy too!”