(1) VENTURING BEYOND. In “Let’s talk about wonderful Indian science-fiction and fantasy novels”, Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Lavie Tidhar introduce Washington Post readers to an array of South Asian works.
Amitav Ghosh made history in 1997 as the first Indian author to win the Arthur C. Clarke Award, for “The Calcutta Chromosome.” But Ghosh is just one of many writers of must-read Indian science-fiction and fantasy novels. Thankfully, many of these books are becoming more available to American readers — let’s hope this trend continues.There are many traditions of science fiction in South Asia, in several languages. “Runaway Cyclone,” by the brilliant polymath Jagadish Chandra Bose, first published in 1896 and anticipating the concept of the “butterfly effect,” is one of the earliest examples of Indian science fiction. A fantastic introduction to the Tamil pulps is “The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction,” edited by Rakesh Khanna and translated by Pritham K. Chakravarthy. It really is a blast. A more recent anthology is “The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction,” edited by Tarun K. Saint, which includes several new translations….
(2) SIDE BY SIDE. [Item by Danny Sichel.] Music producer Andrew Huang has put up a video called “4 Composers Score The Same Show ft. Virtual Riot, Christian Henson, Tori Letzler, Mark Hadley”, which is exactly what the title implies: four different composers produce theme music for the intro sequence to a show about space exploration. As far as I can tell, “Spacetime” doesn’t actually exist. Not yet, anyway,
(3) ONCE AROUND THE BLOCK. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In the March 24 Financial Times, gaming columnist Tom Faber discusses “pervasive gaming” or games that take place in the real world.
In 2004 a group of students at New York University developed Pac-Manhattan, a physical simulation of the 1980s arcade game which took the grid of streets around Washington Square park as it stage. Five people dressed as Pac-Man and his neon ghost nemeses chased each other through the neighborhood, each communicating via walkie-talkie with a ‘player’ in a control room who gave advice on direction and speed. Excited passers-by couldn’t resist joining in, tipping off the ghosts that they had just seen Pac-Man slip away down a side-road.
One player found Pac-Manhattan such a tough workout that he felt sick. It didn’t take long for developers to realise that video games could be beneficial in getting people to exercise in real life, perhaps best articulated in the ‘exer-game’ Zombies, Run! This app turns your weekly jog into a gripping story of zombie outbreak as you listen to audio narratives that urge you to run faster to outpace the brain-hungry horde, pick up supplies for base camp, and unravel mysteries which include a cameo from writer Margaret Atwood.
(4) SHOULD DRAGON CON TAKE A STANCE? The discussion continues.
(5) A VERY BIG DEAL. After reading this Hollywood Reporter scoop, “George R.R. Martin Signs Massive Five-Year Overall Deal with HBO”, you might expect to see the streaming service renamed GRRM Max.
George R.R. Martin is founding a new content kingdom at HBO.
The Game of Thrones author just signed a massive overall deal to develop more programming for the network and its streaming service, HBO Max.
Sources say Martin’s contract spans five years and is worth mid-eight figures.
The news comes on the heels of a surge of Game of Thrones prequels being put into development. All told, the network has five projects based on Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy world in the development stage and one (House of the Dragon) that’s been greenlit to series.
The four-time Emmy winner is also developing for HBO the series Who Fears Death (an adaptation of Nnedi Okorafor’s award-winning 2011 postapocalyptic novel) and Roadmarks (an adaptation of Roger Zelazny’s 1979 fantasy novel), both of which he will executive produce.
(6) WHERE GOMER AND GOOBER TROD. So, it only took me 50+ years to notice this: “40 Acres” at Memory Alpha. (Hat tip to John King Tarpinian and Steven Paul Leiva.)
…The last time Star Trek utilized the backlot was for the filming of “The City on the Edge of Forever” on Friday 3 February 1967, where the “Mayberry” sets represented 1930 New York City. Several buildings and signs from The Andy Griffith Show can be seen in the episode, including Floyd’s Barber Shop.
(7) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.
- March 27, 1968 — On this day in 1968, Planet Of The Apes had it a full U.S. wide release after several smaller city wide openings. It was directed by Franklin J. Schaffner. It starred Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, James Whitmore, James Daly and Linda Harrison. The screenplay was by Michael Wilson and Rod Serling, and was somewhat based on Pierre Boulle‘s La Planète des Singes. It was not on the final Hugo ballot in either 1968 or 1969 for Best Dramatic Presentation, though it was met with critical acclaim and is widely regarded as a classic film and one of the best films of 1968. Audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes give it an 87% rating with over 117,000 having expressing an opinion!
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]
- Born March 27, 1901 – Carl Barks. If invention + execution + comedy isn’t the whole of greatness in comics – notice I presuppose there can be greatness in comics – it’s much, and that was Barks. Will Eisner called him the Hans Christian Andersen of comic books, which CB’s work with Donald Duck would be enough to sustain: invented Duckburg, Scrooge McDuck, the Junior Woodchucks, the Beagle Boys, Gyro Gearloose, and the duck adventure stories. Shazam, Inkpot, Disney Legends Awards. Academy of Comic Book Arts, Eisner, and Hearst Cartoon Halls of Fame. (Died 2000) [JH]
- Born March 27, 1917 – Stanley Meltzoff. A score of covers for us; outside our field, The Atlantic, Life, National Geographic, The Saturday Evening Post, Scientific American; became known for studies of marine life, particularly saltwater game fish. Here is The Demolished Man. Here is the May 55 Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Here is Revolt in 2100. Here is The War Against the Rull. Posthumous artbook Stanley Meltzoff. (Died 2006) [JH]
- Born March 27, 1935 – Race Mathews, age 86. Founding member of the Melbourne SF Club, with Membership No. 1. Went into politics, held Government office during Aussiecon 2 the 43rd Worldcon; read his speech here and here. Later reflections on SF in Victoria, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine 3. [JH]
- Born March 27, 1942 — Michael York, 79. I remember him in the Babylon 5 “A Late Delivery from Avalon” episode as a man who believed himself to be King Arthur returned. Very chilling. I also enjoyed him as D’Artagnan in the Musketeers films and remember him as Logan 5 in Logan’s Run. So what on his genre list that really impresses you? (CE)
- Born March 27, 1952 — Dana Stabenow, 69. Though better known for her superb Kate Shugak detective series, she does have genre work to her credit in the excellent Star Svensdotter space series. The latter is available at the usual digital suspects. (CE)
- Born March 27, 1953 — Patricia Wrede, 68. She is a founding member of The Scribblies, along with Pamela Dean, Emma Bull, Will Shetterly, Steven Brust and Nate Bucklin. Not to be confused with the Pre-Joycean Fellowship which overlaps in membership. Outside of her work for the the Liavek shared-world anthology created and edited by Emma Bull and Will Shetterly, there are several series she has running including Lyra (Shadow Magic), Enchanted Forest Chronicles and Cecelia and Kate (co-written with Caroline Stevermer). She’s also written the novelizations of several Star Wars films including Star Wars, Episode I – The Phantom Menace and Star Wars, Episode II – Attack of the Clones in what are listed as ‘Jr. Novelizations. (CE)
- Born March 27, 1962 – Kevin J. Anderson, age 59. A hundred thirty novels, some with co-authors including wife Rebecca Moesta, a hundred eighty shorter stories; anthologies; essays, letters, prefaces, reviews; interviewed in Clarkesworld, Galaxy’s Edge, Lightspeed, SF Chronicle, Vector. Geffen, Golden Duck Awards. Guest of Honor at Baycon 1999, Philcon 2004, Ad Astra 27, MidSouthCon 28, Rustycon XXX, Archon 34 (all with Moesta), OryCon 27, LepreCon 31, LibertyCon 26 – to name a few. [JH]
- Born March 27, 1969 — Pauley Perrette, 52. Though she’s best known for playing Abby Sciuto on NCIS, she does have some genre roles. She was Ramona in The Singularity Is Near, a film based off Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. Next up is the most excellent Superman vs. The Elite in which she voices Lois Lane. Let’s see… she had a recurring role on Special Unit 2 as Alice Cramer but I never watched that series so I’ve no I idea what it was. (CE)
- Born March 27, 1970 – Gina Ochsner, age 51. A novel, two shorter stores for us. Outside our field, stories in Glimmer Train, The Kenyon Review, The New Yorker, Ploughshares, Tin House. Grub Street Book Prize, Shirley Jackson and Flannery O’Connor Awards, Kurt Vonnegut Prize. [JH]
- Born March 27, 1971 — Nathan Fillion, 50. Certainly best known for being Captain Malcolm “Mal” Reynolds in Firefly ‘verse. An interesting case of just how much of a character comes from the actor I think. In his case, I’d say most of it. He voiced Green Lantern/Hal Jordan in Justice League: Doom, Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox and Justice League: Throne of Atlantis, The Death of Superman and Reign of the Supermen. Oh, and he appeared in a recurring role in Buffy the Vampire Slayer as Caleb. (CE)
- Born March 27, 1981 – Liliana Colanzi, Ph.D., age 40. Four short stories, one collection available in English. Premio Internacional de Literatura Aura Estrada. Co-editor of Latin American Speculative Fiction. Teaches at Cornell. [JH]
(9) COMICS SECTION.
- Lio finds that “real” robots scoff at sitcom robots.
(10) FALCON 9 BLAZES BACK INTO ATMOSPHERE. [Item by rcade.] Video shot in Cannon Beach, Oregon, Thursday night shows the spectacular breakup of an object coming back to Earth as a girl asks, “Mom, are we OK?”
Ars Technica senior space editor Eric Berger reports that it was the second stage of the SpaceX Falcon rocket breaking up three weeks after the launch put 60 Starlink satellites in low-Earth orbit. “A Falcon 9 rocket making an uncontrolled re-entry looked like an alien armada”.
The entire mission was nominal, except for a problem with the rocket’s second stage. Typically, within an orbit or two of launching, the Falcon 9 rocket’s Merlin vacuum engine will relight and nudge the second stage downward so that it harmlessly re-enters Earth’s atmosphere into the Pacific Ocean. …
However, there was not enough propellant after this launch to ignite the Merlin engine and complete the burn. So the propellant was vented into space, and the second stage was set to make a more uncontrolled re-entry into the atmosphere.
(11) WRITING CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. John Scalzi is auditioning a sentence for his new book.
(12) LEFTOVER CANDY. [Item by Dann.] Mark “Minty” Bishop has a “10 things” video about the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. He managed to have most of his list be things that I had not already heard about this classic movie. “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”.
(13) PAN, TEXT AND MOVIE COMPARED. [Item by Dann.] The Disney Story Origins podcast has released a two-episode review of Peter Pan. Author and podcaster Paul J. Hale compares the classic movie with the book and the play written by JM Barrie. He, perhaps unwittingly but probably not, also provides some illumination on the Disney movie Hook. As always, Paul provides an extensive bibliography for those that want to read a bit more.
- 18a – Peter Pan Part 1 (2 hours 32 minutes)
- 18b – Peter Pan Part 2 (1 hour 58 minutes)
(14) JUPITER’S LEGACY. SYFY Wire has revelations about a new series in “Mark Millar teases Jupiter’s Legacy at WonderCon 2021”.
Earlier this week, we reported on some quotes from Mark Millar about Netflix‘s upcoming television adaptation of his seminal comic book: Jupiter’s Legacy. Millar, who created the IP with artist Frank Quitely, teased the sheer scope of the show, stating: “The story starts in 1929 and runs until the end of time. It runs through all time and space and explains the mystery of human existence.” He also described the project as “the greatest superhero epic of all time.”
The show’s ensemble cast doubled down on that bold sentiment during a virtual WonderCon panel released Friday.
“I feel like this is the ultimate [superhero story] because it’s so detailed and you get to stay with these characters — with all their flaws — for over a hundred years,” said Mike Wade, who plays the role of Fitz Small/The Flare, the heart and soul of the world’s greatest team of heroes known as The Union. “It’s like an evolution of the genre. I don’t think there’s any going back after Jupiter’s Legacy.”…
Ben Daniels (Walter Sampson/Brain-Wave, older brother of Josh Duhamel’s Sheldon Sampson/The Utopian) added that there’s some real “gravitas” to the story. “It’s first and foremost a drama,” he said, “and then suddenly, we are superheroes as well. But it’s the drama of it all that is really strong … these characters are all shades of gray and it’s really exciting to see how that becomes a metaphor for America. But then it’s much more universal well … It feels really fresh and current. It feels like it could be written now with the state of the world.”
(15) A LITTLE MISTAKE. CrimeReads’ Olivia Rutigliano reminds everyone about “That Time Scientists Discovered a Creature in Loch Ness and Then Realized It Was a Sunken Prop from The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes”.
I just wanted to remind you all of the time, in 2016, when a Norwegian organization called Kongsberg Maritime sent a high-tech robot down into Loch Ness to scan the depths, and it sent back sonar scans of a creature that looked exactly like the Loch Ness monster. Sadly, very sadly, this turned out to be a model of the Loch Ness Monster built for Billy Wilder’s film The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, which had accidentally sunk into the Loch during filming in 1969….
(16) VIDEO OF THE DAY. In “The Snyder Cut and The Power of Fandom” on YouTube, the Royal Ocean Film Society notes the Snyder Cut is the latest episode of fans demanding director’s cuts or continuing series (remember the campaign for Jericho?) but that the Snyder Cut fracas shows “there are more fans now and they’re louder than ever before.”
[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, Cat Eldridge, Danny Sichel, Andrew Porter, rcade, Dann, Rob Thornton, John Hertz, Michael Toman, John King Tarpinian, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Soon Lee.]
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FIRST
Second!
Still binge watching Law and Order: Criminal Intent.
Closer – let me file it in your ear, say the words you want to hear
Pre-Fifth!
Fifth?
Let’s don’t be shy. It’s okay to leave an actual comment!
8) I don’t know if “impresses” is really the correct word, but one of my first acquaintances with Michael York would have been in the 1977 Island of Dr. Moreau. (Which I assume I saw on TV at some point after 1977.)
8) My favorite Michael York movie is The Last Remake of Beau Geste, but I can’t think of a way to claim that as genre.
(4) the new law aligns Georgia closer with international voting integrity norms – a good thing, in my opinion.
(5) anything to avoid finishing your magnum opus, eh GRRM ?
5) George R. R. Martin is never going to actually finish writing Game of Thrones.
@Cat Eldridge: I am also doing that! In my case just started because Peacock did not used to work on Linux and they seem to have fixed that.
You may have noticed a recent twitter meme where the stuck cargo ship is incorporated into famous passages of fiction. I haven’t noticed any genre ones yet. (I’m sure they’re out there, but not in my timeline.) This was the first thing that came to mind:
“Look,” whispered Chuck, and George lifted his eyes to the canal. (There’s always a last time for everything.)
In the Suez Canal, without any fuss, the ships weren’t going out.
Edit: I take back no genre entries. Someone did the opening to Neuromancer.
Loved that, Jack!
4) Could they even move a convention that size?
Give me a long enough pixel and a place to scroll…
@Kit, 5) — It’s quite possible that George has said everything he personally wanted to say with the story, and is flogging himself to try and finish it without having any real interest anymore.
It is definitely not a crime to give someone a drink on a hot day while they wait to vote in this bit of international, but the thought of an eight hour wait to vote is unthinkable.
Miles Carter: the new law aligns Georgia closer with international voting integrity norms – a good thing, in my opinion.
The new law is a blatant attempt at voter suppression. The international voting norms are that people are able to walk in and vote and walk out again. The U.S.’ many-hour waiting lines and insufficient polling stations and voting booths — which will be exacerbated by this new law — align with voter suppression in third-world, authoritarian countries. Genuinely democratic countries do not subject their citizens to this sort of grueling trial in order to vote.
And making it a crime to offer humanitarian aid to voters waiting in line? That is a blatant violation of all kinds of norms.
This new Georgia law is a travesty. It’s voter suppression, and it’s racist and classist, because it disadvantages people who cannot take time off from their jobs to spend a whole day waiting in line.
But then I’m sure that you’re well aware of that, and that’s why you support it.
@Miles Carter
Thats an interesting interpretation of that law. But I guess, you cant imagine that most other democratic countries see the voting laws in most US states as deeply undemocratic. I helped in a local election in Berlin and one rule is that the state have to organise things that you have a maximum waiting time of (IIRC) 15 minutes.
Georgia in total has about 2200 polling stations, Berlin alone has 1779.
Putting hurddles to make it harder to vote is a US-thing.
Thats Capitalism for you. The mid-8-figure payment would be the reason behind it, not procrastination.
(Waiting now for Mike to call the next scroll “A kingdom”)
@mike
Funny enough, went to go back and then got distracted by other things, so my placeholder became the comment
Re voter laws. Indeed, “aligned with international norms” I bet doesn’t include long voter lines or not allowing to give out food and drink to those in line.
6) I didn’t watch enough of the Andy Griffith Show…but I do remember wondering just how weirdly retro and unurban, even supposedly for 1930 NY, how City on the Edge of Forever looked. (much less so than, say A Piece of the Action)
Meredith moment: Greg Bear’s Eon trilogy is available from the usual suspects in a single volume for four ninety nine.
Patrick Morris Miller asks Could they even move a convention that size?
On short notice? Highly doubtful. Not even if Pandemic restrictions weren’t in place. It’s hard during normal times as any Con planners can tell you to find space to hold an event of any size.
MeTV used to run ads mashing up Star Trek and “The Andy Griffith Show” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzmhdVE0G3Q
Do you know what would align America more with international voter norms.
1. No registration, I get a letter to my home, where and when I can vote, I can (if I want) vote per mail, it’s a bit more complicated but if I am not lazy not a great much.
2. A place to vote near my home. (In my case in walking distance) It’s in a school.
3. No votersupresion.
4. Either the parlament votes for the president or the majority does. The current system is very unice American.
5. Voting on a sunday.
I can’t think of a second fith in the moment.
Miles Carter says the new law aligns Georgia closer with international voting integrity norms – a good thing, in my opinion.
No, it doesn’t. It goes counter to almost every Western polity in terms of what they have on their books now. So no, Miles you are wrong. But you are way more often than not.
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@Cat
And the majority party in the legislature controls voting: who votes, where, when, how. (That hasn’t been getting notice, but it’s the critical part.)
The Pixel on the Edge of Scrollever
The Georgia law allows the state election supervisors (currently Republican) to remove local election supervisors and replace them with people of their choice. The “no food or drink” part is blatant in its malice, but I think this is more insidiously damaging.
P J Evans says And the majority party in the legislature controls voting: who votes, where, when, how. (That hasn’t been getting notice, but it’s the critical part.)
Subject to what the Courts say. There’s been several cases already filed to overturn what has been done and it is likely that the State legislation does run afoul of federal election law.
8) I had a paperback copy of The Vampire Lestat, with the vampire portrayed on the cover. I’m pretty sure it was based on Michael York.
(11) Does this mean that Dick van Dyke’s character from Mary Poppins is putting in an appearance in Scalzi’s new novel?
@jayn
I’m expecting election results there that have the Republicans getting 90% of the vote. (Like the old Soviet elections.)
Andreaw (not Werdna): That’s a great mashup commercial — very funny!
(8) Special Unit 2 was one of many shows launched off the success of The X-Files and focused on a Chicago police team operating in secret to monitor, control and occasionally thwart the activities of mutants with supernatural powers. Ms Perrette played the department’s public relations advisor.
George does not only care about the money. He could have wrapped the series up in an abrupt and unsatisfactory conclusion, and gotten paid. George wants to do it right. The obvious problem is the scope and complexity has gotten out of hand. It’s a tough road to hoe, as they say.
“Castle” the TV show with Nathan Fillion as a mystery writer was genre adjacent a few times; most notably when Castle dresses as a “space cowboy” for Halloween and for an episode set at a SF convention.
DragonCon?
Having run several conventions, the idea that you could change site and the like on a convention this size for less than a few years out is not believable. The call may or may not make someone feel good, but it will not happen. Covid-19 may cancel the FTF convention, but that’s an independent issue.
Perhaps you could encourage people not to vote for the Dragon Awards, a more practical objective. (I do not advocate this, but sometimes advice will lead you to think of a better idea.)
@Tom Becker: GRRM could hire a competent co-author who can give the help he needs to finish, under his supervision. His resistance to doing that or to designating someone to finish the series if he can’t chaps my hide a bit.
@jayn: Is Lisa Tuttle busy these days? I think she’s the only one Martin has collaborated with before.
Yes, this.
In Germany, you don’t have to register to vote, but are automatically registered once you turn 18 and get a letter notifying you when and where to vote. If you want to vote by mail, you have to contact the respective election authorities in your town (which are independent from political parties) and they’ll send you the vote by mail documents.
Also, everybody who’s a German citizen over 18 (or EU citizen for local elections) can vote. People who committed crimes in the past and even people who currently are in prison can still vote, because they’re still citizens.
If you vote in person, your polling station is in walking distance. It’s usually some kind of public building like a school or a sports facility. Mine is the local primary school. You can’t go to any polling station, though, you have to go to the one specified in the voting notification you got. If elderly or disabled people have problems reaching the polling station, there’s a driving service or they can vote by mail. And yes, elections are always on Sundays, when most people don’t have to work. And those who do have to work can vote by mail.
At the polling station, you rarely have to wait for more than a few minutes. You do have to present your ID, but since every German is required to have a passport or national ID card anyway, that’s not a huge hurdle. The pollworkers will then strike through your name in the voter list and give you the ballot. Though personally I never had to present my ID, because one of the pollworkers is a now retired kindergarten teacher who knows everybody in town and has known you since you were three. If a polling station does not have a Frau Hoppe at hand, you do have to present your ID.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen food and drink handed out at polling stations, though I doubt it would be illegal. But then, no one needs to hand out food and drink, because people only have to wait a few minutes.
Voter fraud is vanishingly rare, though our own far right parties have taken on the unsavoury habit of screaming “Voter fraud” every time an election doesn’t go their way. When voter fraud happens, it’s mostly cases of nurses or relatives filling out ballots for disabled care home residents and voting not what the person wants (and sometimes, the person in question has dementia) but what they want. The only conviction of voter fraud in Germany I can think of involved two nurses voting on behalf of a whole care home for the husband of one of the nurses.
There also was a case a few years ago where a teenager hacked into the computer system of the registration authority and made herself two years older, because she wanted to get a driver’s licence. As a result, she was automatically issued a voting notification and was able to vote at 16. I doubt this had any impact on the outcome.
@jayn: I get it that people are way past impatience. But is someone else writing under George’s direction going to be the same as George’s writing himself? And who would that be? If it’s an A-list author, which it should be, shouldn’t they be writing their own stories? If there were a simple answer that would be sure to work, it probably would have been done by now.
No wait, I’ve got it! George should pull in his old best friend Howard Waldrop. The series won’t be finished, but we’ll get an amazing alternate history short story in which it was.
David Shallcross asks Is Lisa Tuttle busy these days? I think she’s the only one Martin has collaborated with before.
She been rather inactive these past few years but she did published a collection this year, Dead Hours of Night, that collected some material from the Eighties to now. Her last novel, The Silver Bough, was fifteen years ago.
jayn says GRRM could hire a competent co-author who can give the help he needs to finish, under his supervision. His resistance to doing that or to designating someone to finish the series if he can’t chaps my hide a bit.
Martin has no obligation to anyone, other than possibly his publisher, to finish anything. If he decides tomorrow to walk away from the series, that’s his right. Or if he takes another five years to finish off the series, same thing.
Cora Buhlert,
My polling place is ten minutes is normally ten minutes walking distance away though I voted from from my flat via the post because of the multiple knee surgeries this past year.
If I had voted in person, I wouldn’t have needed an ID as the process here in Maine is the poll worker asks me for my name, and they check me off the voting register. They then hand me the ballots and referenda.
That’s it. Oh and the State is considering automatic voter registration for everyone who turn eighteen years of age. The legislation is pending now.
I don’t expect DragonCon could up and pull stakes at such short notice–this year. But using Gen Con Indy’s response to the 2015 Indiana “religious freedom bill” as a model…
https://associationsnow.com/2015/03/gen-con-considers-leaving-indianapolis-over-religious-freedom-bill/
https://exhibitcitynews.com/indiana-to-lose-gen-con-over-religious-law/
…they could certainly put the governor on notice that they are beginning the process of moving to another state.
It wouldn’t be nothing.
@Cat Eldridge–The process you describe is the same as here in Massachusetts. Which [cough, cough] makes sense.
Here, at least, you do have to show ID the first time you vote in a new location. I don’t know if that’s also true in Maine.
Just a few years ago, in the neighborhood I’d lived in for nearly two decades, I considered my polling location to be in walking distance. That was with my energetic, outgoing Addy, who is gone. Five years later, with Addy gone and both Dora and I getting older, in a neighborhood that just doesn’t feel the same, my new polling place feels too far to walk, though I suspect it’s closer.
Cora Buhlert: I thought your description of how Germans vote was interesting.
I know an Israeli-American who told me she didn’t understand why ID wasn’t required in the US, because in Israel you have to show your ID before you vote. The Israeli “ballot” is a symbol with the party you vote for, which you put in a box.
@Mike: Glad you liked it.
By the way, I ran across this review of the Ellery Queen (actually Avram Davidson) novel “On the Eighth Day” https://www.superdoomedplanet.com/blog/tag/ellery-queen/ which reminds me that having that as the first Ellery Queen novel I read gave me an unusual introduction to the series.
Lis Carey says The process you describe is the same as here in Massachusetts. Which [cough, cough] makes sense.
Here, at least, you do have to show ID the first time you vote in a new location. I don’t know if that’s also true in Maine.
I’ve never had to present an ID anywhere I’ve voted. But then I’ve always lived in states that were controlled by Democrats who believe in people actually voting.
Cliff: I had a paperback copy of The Vampire Lestat, with the vampire portrayed on the cover. I’m pretty sure it was based on Michael York.
It could be — York narrated the audiobook, which came out in 2000, so perhaps Rice specified that she had him in mind when they designed the UK cover in 1986.
George Phillies: Perhaps you could encourage people not to vote for the Dragon Awards, a more practical objective.
That would be meaningless. Nobody really cares about the Dragon Awards, they have no prestige, and they certainly have no economic impact on the state of Georgia.
As Nicole says, it would probably take at least a couple of years to find a suitable alternate location in another state, but if DragonCon gave Georgia notice they would be doing so, that would have serious economic implications for the state of Georgia.