(1) NEGATIVE EXPOSED. The Hawaii Tribune Herald invites you to “Meet Powehi, the first black hole ever witnessed”:
The first image of a black hole, taken with the help of two Hawaii telescopes, was released today.
The supermassive black hole located in the center of Messier 87 galaxy was named Powehi, meaning embellished dark source of unending creation.
Astronomers consulted with Larry Kimura, of the University of Hawaii at Hilo’s College of Hawaiian Language, who sourced the name from the Kumulipo, a primordial chant describing the creation of the universe.
“It is awesome that we, as Hawaiians today, are able to connect to an identity from long ago, as chanted in the 2,102 lines of the Kumulipo, and bring forward this precious inheritance for our lives today,” Kimura said in a press release.
The two Hawaii telescopes involved in the discovery — James Clerk Maxwell Telescope and Submillimeter Array — are part of the Event Horizon Telescope project, a network of radio observatories around the world…..
(2) NEBULA CLARIFIED. SFWA’s Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy is now classified as a Nebula. This was not always so, as David D. Levine explains in his blog post “I am now officially a Nebula Award winner!” He first began to wonder if something had changed when he saw this tweet —
Suddenly I was Schroedinger’s Award Winner. Was I a Nebula winner or not? That depended on whether the change was deliberate and whether it applied retroactively. Not that it really mattered, of course. The award trophy is the same, and it means exactly as much or as little as it did before. But, for me, it would be huge if I could call myself a Hugo- and Nebula-winning writer. I always wanted to, and I had been disappointed to discover after winning the Norton that I couldn’t. But now I could. Or could I?
As Levine explains, the official answer is: Yes.
(3) LION KING TRAILER. Disney’s The Lion King opens in theaters on July 19.
Director Jon Favreau’s all-new “The Lion King” journeys to the African savanna where a future king is born. Simba idolizes his father, King Mufasa, and takes to heart his own royal destiny. But not everyone in the kingdom celebrates the new cub’s arrival. Scar, Mufasa’s brother—and former heir to the throne—has plans of his own. The battle for Pride Rock is ravaged with betrayal, tragedy and drama, ultimately resulting in Simba’s exile. With help from a curious pair of newfound friends, Simba will have to figure out how to grow up and take back what is rightfully his. The all-star cast includes Donald Glover as Simba, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter as Nala, James Earl Jones as Mufasa, Chiwetel Ejiofor as Scar, Seth Rogen as Pumbaa and Billy Eichner as Timon. Utilizing pioneering filmmaking techniques to bring treasured characters to life in a whole new way, Disney’s “The Lion King” roars into theaters on July 19, 2019.
(4) ALL BRADBURY ALL THE TIME. Fahrenheit 451 was Barnes & Noble’s bestselling trade paperback in March, according to the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog – “B&N Bestsellers in Science Fiction & Fantasy: March 2019”.
(5) 2020 INVITES SCHOLARLY SUBMISSIONS. CoNZealand, the 2020 Worldcon, has issued a “Preliminary call for papers” for its Science and Academic Stream. Guidelines at the link.
Paper, Panel and Round Table proposals are invited for the CoNZealand 2020 Science and Academic Stream, an academic convention traditionally included as part of the annual World Science Fiction Convention.
Contributions are sought for a multidisciplinary academic program that will engage audiences, including not only fellow academics but also many of the world’s top science fiction authors and a well-educated and highly engaged public. In addition to traditional academic research that engages science fiction as a subject of study, scholars are encouraged to present research on or about any academic or scientific subject that is likely to engage the imagination of this eclectic and forward-thinking audience.
Potential contributors should note that science fiction explores all aspects of the future of humanity, and academic presentations on the social sciences, humanities and the arts have historically been as popular as those on science and science-related topics.
(6) HEAR MARTHA WELLS. Nic and Eric interview award winning author Martha Wells about her Murderbot series and other works. The Wells interview starts at 36:43 in episode 190 of the All the Books Show.
(7) MARVEL HISTORY. TheHistory of the Marvel Universe arrives in July. A massive Marvel info dump? “This is not that,” says writer Mark Waid.
The Marvel Universe is a sprawling, interconnected web of rich history, dating back to its very beginnings…and now, it’s all coming together in a huge new story!
This July, Marvel invites readers to join legendary writer Mark Waid (Avengers No Road Home) and Exiles artists Javier Rodriguez and Alvaro Lopez for a brand-new tale in what is destined to become the DEFINITIVE history of the Marvel Universe!
History of the Marvel Universe will reveal previously unknown secrets and shocking revelations, connecting all threads of the past and present from the Marvel Universe! From the Big Bang to the twilight of existence, this sweeping story covers every significant event and provides fresh looks at the origins of every fan’s favorite Marvel stories!
“We’ve seen Marvel histories and Marvel encyclopedias and Marvel handbooks, and I love that stuff. I absorb them like Galactus absorbs planets,” Waid told Marvel. “This is not that. There’s information here, but there’s also a story. The Marvel Universe is a living thing, it is its own story, and we’re trying to approach it with some degree of heart to find the heart in that story so it doesn’t read like 120 pages of Wikipedia.”
(8) THORPE OBIT. The South Hants Science Fiction Group reports that Geoff Thorpe (1954–2019) was discovered dead at home last week. Here’s their announcement, courtesy of Terry Hunt:
We are sorry to hear that long-time SHSFG member Geoff Thorpe passed away last month. He discovered fandom later in life when longtime UK fan Fran Dowd met him online on Library Thing and convinced him that he might enjoy SF conventions. He attended the 2005 Worldcon in Glasgow and was subsequently introduced to the SHSFG. He joined the group in 2006 becoming a regular, active member hosting Book Club meetings and Christmas parties. He remained a con-goer, attending Eastercons and World Cons as well as a host of smaller cons in the UK and continental Europe.
He also represented Cambridge University and England in domestic and international Tiddlywink competitions.
Thorpe began commenting at File 770 in 2012, and was involved in a number of discussions about WSFS rules.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
- Born April 10, 1939 — Max von Sydow, 90. He played Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the Never Say Never Again and Ming the Merciless in Flash Gordon. He shows up in the Exorcist II: The Heretic as Father Lankester Merrin while being King Osric in Conan the Barbarian. Dreamscape sees him being Doctor Paul Novotny while he’s Liet-Kynes the Imperial Planetologist in Dune. He was Judge Fargo in Judge Dredd (and yes, I still like it), in Minority Report as Director Lamar Burgess, Sir Walter Loxley in Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood and finally in Star Wars: The Force Awakens as Lor San Tekka.
- Born April 10, 1953 — David Langford, 66. And how long have you been reading Ansible? If he’s not noted for that singular enterprise, he should be noted for assisting in producing the second edition of the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, not to mention some 629,000 words as a principal editor of the third (online) edition of the Encyclopedia of SF, and contributed some eighty thousand words of articles to the Encyclopedia of Fantasy as well.
- Born April 10, 1957 — John Ford. Popular at Minicon and other cons where he would be Dr. Mike and give silly answers to questions posed to him while wearing a lab coat before a whiteboard. His most interesting novel I think is The Last Hot Time, an urban fantasy set in Chicago that might have been part of Terri Windling’s Bordertown series but wasn’t. (Died 2006.)
- Born April 10, 1992 — Daisy Ridley, 27. She had the lead role of Rey in the Star Wars sequel films, starring in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Star Wars: The Last Jedi. She charmingly voiced Cottontail in Peter Rabbit. Though not genre, she is Mary Debenham in the most recent Murder on the Orient Express which I’m looking forward to seeing. Her first film, Scrawl which is horror, is due to be released this year.
(10) COMICS SECTION.
- There’s an inescapable logic to this death at Rhymes with Orange.
- Bizarro envisions a scene at the Camelot Home for the Aged.
(11) PLAYING THE PERCENTAGE. In the Washington Post, Michael Cavna says that Olivia Jaimes, a year after taking on Nancy, has turned Nancy into a character that Rhymes With Orange cartoonist Hilary Price describes as “100 percent geek, 0 percent meek.” But Jaimes isn’t making enough money from “Nancy” to quit her day job: “’Nancy’ and artist Olivia Jaimes continue to make the comics page ‘lit’ one year in”.
“I’d actually recommend people think very critically about it before making a go at a career in comics,” Jaimes says. “You don’t have to make the thing you love your job. Prioritize your own emotional well-being above ‘making it’ in any classical sense.”
(12) DEL ARROZ STIRS THE POT. JDA really did try to sign up for the Nebula Conference, I’m told —
JDA also made time today to fling poo at the Nebula Conference program – “The Nebula Conference Panels Are Listed And It’s Hilarious” [Internet Archive link].
I’d definitely say the panel highlight is “Managing a career through Mental Illness” something that is at least very useful for all of SFWA’s leadership from my experiences with them.
(13) HPL HONORED WITH FOSSIL. “Scientists Discover 430 Million-Year-Old Sea Cucumber”. They named it after something in Lovecraft – but if this is supposed to be a monster, it’s not very big!
Because of its many tentacles, the new organism was named Sollasina cthulhu, in honour of the monster from the works of Howard Lovecraft., according to the CNET portal.
The remains of organism were found at a site in Herefordshire, UK. The size of the organism did not exceed 3 cm, and the scientists discovered that the remains were 430 million years old.
(14) SPIN YOUR FATE. Archie McPhee offers the “What Would Bigfoot Do?” notebook for $7.95.
Bigfoot spends a lot of time alone, just thinking, as he wanders through the forest. As with anyone who has done that much self-reflection, he’s got a lot of wisdom. So, when you’re confused about what to do next, you could do worse than asking, “What would Bigfoot do?”
(15) INTRO TO RPG. Chris Schweizer tells a neat D&D story. Thread starts here.
(16) A PROMISE THEY MIGHT KEEP. According to NPR, “Facebook Promises To Stop Asking You To Wish Happy Birthday To Your Friend Who Died”. I know it’s always a red-letter day for me when all of my FB friends with birthdays are still around to enjoy them.
On Facebook, people linger long after death.
A friend’s photo might pop up on a timeline. A child’s video might show up in Facebook “Memories,” highlighting what happened on this date in years past. Sometimes these reminders bring a smile to the faces of friends and family left behind.
But Facebook’s algorithms haven’t always been tactful. Unless someone explicitly informs Facebook that a family member has died, Facebook has been known to remind friends to send birthday greetings, or invite a deceased loved one to an event.
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg on Monday announced that the social network will use artificial intelligence to determine when someone has died, and stop sending those kinds of notifications. Sandberg didn’t explain exactly how the new artificial intelligence features will work, but a Facebook spokesperson told NPR the company will look at a variety of signals that might indicate the person is deceased. The spokesperson wouldn’t provide details on what those signals may be.
(17) DIANA DISHES. “Why Dame Diana Rigg ‘loves to be disliked'” – I’ll bet you didn’t know that.
As Game of Thrones returns for its final series, Dame Diana Rigg – aka Olenna Tyrell – looks back on her time with the hit HBO show.
She may have had many of the best lines on Game of Thrones, but Dame Diana Rigg says she has not watched the series “before or since” she appeared in it.
Accepting a special award at this year’s Canneseries TV festival in France, the British actress said she “hadn’t got a clue” about what was happening on the show.
Olenna left at the end of the last series by drinking poison – a death scene she said was “just wonderful”.
“She does it with dignity and wit, and wit is not often in final death scenes,” says the actress, who will celebrate her 81st birthday in July
(18) FAMILY REUNION. ComicsBeat pointed out teaser for the animated Addams Family, to be released October 11.
Give it a look-see below, and if it sends ya, you’ll be able to see it on Halloween (very apropos). The Addams Family stars Isaac, Charlize Theron, Chloë Grace Moretz, Finn Wolfhard, Nick Kroll with Bette Midler and Allison Janney
[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster, John King Tarpinian, Chip Hitchcock, Charon D., Mike Kennedy, JJ, Cat Eldridge, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jack Lint.]
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@9: those are all good costarring roles for von Sydow; he was the lead in Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, which is definitely genre.
@9 ctd: I think everyone has their own set of favorite Ford novels — or oscillates among them depending on the phases of everything. This is hardly surprising; as Gaiman pointed out in the forward to Ford’s first collection (NESFA Press, but out of print), Ford never did anything twice — so there’s a lot of variety in his work, but he never developed a wide following. The Dragon Waiting is probably the most ambitious work he finished, but it’s more appreciable if you know lots of late-medieval history and legend.
@13: typo alert: “if this is supposed to be a moster”
@14: and another: “what would Bigfood do?”. Is this a bad day for big[footed] monsters?
Edit: first! and the “Aunt Alice” thread is fascinating in many ways, including the number of people who apparently didn’t know….
Chip Hitchcock: Thanks for catching those typos. Appertain yourself a double of your favorite beverage!
(9) Mike’s “Scholars of Night” is also very good – if you can find a copy. It’s a suspense/thriller, so arguably SF.
16) Coming up soon: Facebook suggesting condolences for people who are still alive.
P J Evans says Mike’s “Scholars of Night” is also very good – if you can find a copy. It’s a suspense/thriller, so arguably SF.
Ok, I’ll nibble. So how is a suspense/thriller genre?
Just read the entire run of the ‘15 Martian Manhunter series on the DC Universe service. Really neat to do so on the iPad which replicated a look of a graphic novel very nicely.
9) It would be more difficult to find something by Ford which I don’t love! I can’t even think of a short story or poem I wouldn’t happily re-read, let alone a novel. Very talented and sadly neglected.
bookworm1398 says Coming up soon: Facebook suggesting condolences for people who are still alive.
When I was still alive but dying repeatedly, the Hospital reported to the City that I had died permanently, so my cats needed to be seized and taken to the animal shelter. I learned this from the Animal Control Officer who emailed me to apologise as my landlord told her I still alive do this didn’t happened but her check on the cats did reveal the oldest one had a brain tumour and they put him to sleep.
9) Just bought a first edition hardback version of The Dragon Waiting and looking forward to finally reading it. The Long Hot Time was also really good, though I never understood its relationship to the Borderlands series (if any).
@Cat
One major character sees and hears what happened in the past when he holds/reads documents. (Game-playing also comes in, in various forms. Several characters are gamers.)
Rob Thornton says Just bought a first edition hardback version of The Dragon Waiting and looking forward to finally reading it. The Long Hot Time was also really good, though I never understood its relationship to the Borderlands series (if any).
The story as I was told it was that he wanted to write a Bordertown novel but Terri Windling for reasons that were never made clear to me wasn’t keen on the idea of him doing so. So friends close to him told me that he took the Bordertown novel that he did write, removed the identifying markers and got this version published instead.
JDA–so that “Thot Patrol” as his company is pure thot patroll. As Mahatma Gandhi didn’t say, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
Also, am I the only one totally “blah” about the Lion King remake? It seems especially pointless and unnecessary.
(13) I VERY much hope that scholars and history will not be very kind to JDA. His tissue thin arguements, poor thought processes and laughable attempts at self promotion should be required reading for anyone interested in the types of people who were actively perpetuating the culture wars of the eartly 21st century. He proudly wears his angst and discord like a badge of honor, much to his discredit.
(9) I was one of two keyboard accompanists for the Grimm Cabaret at Boskone, and looked forward to meeting Ford, who I sorta knew from Making Light. I had about three words with him (“Thanks” “A pleasure!”) before folks bore him off on their shoulders. Oh well, says I, there’s always next year.
(13) Just goes to show even Cthulu had to grow into its role.
@ Cat Eldridge
Thanks!
@P J Evans:
I guess I’ll have to reread (oh, the horror!); I got the past-seeing as entirely the character’s imagination (or deduction — part of the mystery is fragments of Elizabethan times) rather than ESP. The gaming is definitely there, but I don’t see it as genre — they’re playing Diplomacy, not something genre. However, I note that it is also forward-techno, like The Hunt for Red October — hot new defense systems and a computer that can make somewhat-accurate social projections — so it might be genre by that count. I really wish I’d asked Mike what he thought he’d done; I wouldn’t have gotten a straight answer but the wandering would have been fascinating and probably enlightening.
@Rob Thornton: The Last Hot Time takes the premise of Borderlands and nails it down; there are borders in all of the surviving cities rather than in one city that deliberately can’t be matched to any real-world city(*), but the drift of elves into human territory is very much Borderlands, and a couple of the characters created by Borderlands writers appear.
(*) according to a member of the ~collective I asked; I no longer remember which one.
@Cat Eldridge: it’s not clear to me that Windling didn’t like the idea of Ford participating in the world she’d built; the problem was that the world was intended to be somewhat YA, which at the time meant something like a PG (or maybe PG-13), but what Ford came up with was R (or worse by then standards — the Grey movies have made clear standards have since shifted). Windling was quite vocal (at a WFC some years later) at her unhappiness with the entanglement that saw print, perhaps not helped by the world-breaking fact the lead realizes at the end.
@Darren Garrison: no. Granted that I didn’t bother seeing the original, but it’s not clear to me that the live remake will contribute even as much new as (e.g.) the live Cinderella did.
@Darren
No – I don’t see any need for a new “Lion King” movie, especially one that’s intended to look like “live action”. (But then I don’t get the point of 3-d animated stuff either. Flat animation works fine.)
1) The Black Hole of Sauron.
9) Max Von Sydow has a ridiculous amount of genre films behind him, but from a swedish perspective, I’d like to mention The Apple War about evil germans who come to a small swedish village with the intent to build a Deutschneyland and how some of the locals use magic to stop the project.
Low budget, weird, funny and stupid in just the right way. Very swedish.
While of course tastes vary, and in a widely-varied oeuvre (if only it were larger!) people can find many things, at the same time we have to face facts: anyone who doesn’t think that The Dragon Waiting is Ford’s masterwork is just objectively wrong.
(HH,OS)
Rob Thornton: Just bought a first edition hardback version of The Dragon Waiting.
I think you have to be extremely familiar with English history and the stories of Richard III and Edward IV for that to be an impressive reading experience. I’m not, and I was seriously underwhelmed when I read it a couple of years ago. Which made me sad, because I thought Ford’s two Star Trek novels were absolutely brilliant.
So Dave Langford is another of the ’53 vintage, like OGH and myself. I’m in good company.
Hampus- I saw The Apple War a couple of times at cons, dubbed in English. Quirky low-budget fun.
Great scroll title!
Arooga to Jack Lint! Steel Nina forever!
@JJ: All I did was read Shakespeare’s Henry VI trilogy and see Richard III performed, and that was plenty to make The Dragon Waiting an impressive experience for me. As a bonus, I got to see Shakespeare grow and mature as an artist.
Thanks to Cat Eldridge for the birthday mention. Typo alert: my contribution to the Encyclopedia of Fantasy was 82,000 rather than 8,000 words, and I’ve done a few other things since then, including some 629,000 words as a principal editor of the unmentioned third (online) edition of the Encyclopedia of SF. Not a patch on John Clute’s 2.6 million words, I admit.
Lordy I wish Mike had a literary executor who didn’t hate us.
Possible typo in (9), the entry for Daisy Ridley: “Shone had the lead role of Rey” perhaps should be “Shone in the lead role” (because she certainly did shine in the role!)?
(2) Here’s to David D. Levine and his Nebula win.
13) I wonder why he even wants to go to the Nebula conference, considering he’s not an SFWA member and has no interest in the panels. Why doesn’t he just save the money and go to 20booksto50K instead, if he prefers their approach.
Never mind that writing through mental illness is a very suitable topic for a writer’s conference.
I’ve never warmed up to The Dragon Waiting, have Web of Angels sitting there for a rainy day, still can’t find The Scholars of Night, and have a loaner paperback and a small stack of remaindered hardcovers of The Last Hot Time for gifts.
The wife prefers Growing Up Weightless. She’s smarter than me, too.
OK, y’all are just never going to let me rest until I actually read some of these John M. Ford books I own, are you?
(And I just ordered a copy of The Last Hot Time off of Amazon.)
David Langford says:Thanks to Cat Eldridge for the birthday mention. Typo alert: my contribution to the Encyclopedia of Fantasy was 82,000 rather than 8,000 words, and I’ve done a few other things since then, including some 629,000 words as a principal editor of the unmentioned third (online) edition of the Encyclopedia of SF. Not a patch on John Clute’s 2.6 million words, I admit.
My bad. I’ll rewrite the entry and have Mike use it instead.
nickpheas says Lordy I wish Mike had a literary executor who didn’t hate us.
Care to explain that slightly cryptic statement?
Cat: Ford died without a will and not married to his partner, so rights to his literary estate went to his family — who have chosen not to allow any of his work go back in print, or for his last, mostly-finished novel to see print in any form. As a result the only ones of his works that can still be printed are the work-for-hire Star Trek ones.
Cat Eldridge: Care to explain that slightly cryptic statement?
John M. (Mike) Ford died young and intestate, and the rights to all of his creative works were inherited by family members who apparently regard his SFFnal writing career as shameful and something to be buried and forgotten.
Pocket Books owns the rights to his Star Trek tie-in works, and Tor kept his works which they published in print, thus maintaining their rights, so you can still get those in print or in e-book. But almost everything else is only available in old print editions through used-booksellers, and Ford’s estate owners will not give permission for any new editions. 🙁
13) Sollasina cthulhu reminds me of that Buffy The Vampire Slayer episode where the gang spends the entire time worrying about a terrifying demon, only to discover at the end that the mysterious inscription under its picture means (Rot13) Npghny Fvmr.
@Chris Barkley, in re. JDA: at his current level of notability, I very strongly suspect that if historians remember him at all, it will be in a footnote. It’s possible that he will do something splashy enough to remain relevant to posterity as an example of early 21st century reactionary demagoguery, but he hasn’t managed it yet.
And, frankly, I can’t think of a more appropriate fate.
The greater tragedy of John M Ford’s estate is that he did write a will, but he did it wrong. It wasn’t a holographic will, it wasn’t legal in the state he died in.
If you have any intellectual property at all–from a zine to a blog, to knitting patterns, 3D printing patterns, or a vast literary pile o’ books–get a proper will drawn up! One that is legal in your state. Update it as your circumstances warrant. Pick a sympathetic literary executor. Make sure the heirs you pick get the benefit you want them to have.
http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/SIMPLEWILL.pdf
It’s not even “a literary executor who didn’t hate us”–if the will Mike had written had been legally valid, the rights to his work would have gone to someone who wanted them to stay in print.
I am not a lawyer, but I think a will with a clear “I leave everything to $Specific_Person”” would have made a big difference whether or not it named a separate literary executor.
@David Goldfarb: I love The Dragon Waiting so much I can barely discuss the novel rationally. It’s hard to believe Ford was only twenty-seven when he wrote it.
The Dragon Waiting the book that launched a major Shakespeare kick for me and made me a fan of Richard the III – both the play and the real man. I need to see if there’s a good play recording. And reread The Daughter of Time.
I’ll admit The Dragon Waiting is not to everyone’s taste (and I don’t love all his other works either), but that’s to be expected. And the fact we all like end enjoy different things is a feature, not a bug.
@various: and I live in a state where holographic wills are not valid.
A few weeks ago I finally found my mother’s will… more than two years after it would have been useful, and it wasn’t even signed, witnessed, and notarized anyway, so it still wouldn’t have helped. It was good to have the confirmation that I had ended up carrying out her wishes anyway.
@various: I’m pretty sure Yeshua bar Yosef would tell JDA that he’s being an a-hole.
9) John Ford is the patron saint of 4th Street Fantasy convention here in Minneapolis. He comes up often in discussion on panels, and every few years, they have a panel explicitly about his work. Lots of the people have personal connections and memories of him. And the story of his estate is an absolute tragedy, agreed.
As for me, The Dragon Waiting is probably my favorite Ford.
JJ says Pocket Books owns the rights to his Star Trek tie-in works, and Tor kept his works which they published in print, thus maintaining their rights, so you can still get those in print or in e-book. But almost everything else is only available in old print editions through used-booksellers, and Ford’s estate owners will not give permission for any new editions. ?
So what’s out of print now? What did Torvhave that they’re keeping in print?
It’s unclear how much Mike’s surviving immediate family despised his career as a whole and how much they were so upset by the presence of sex in some of his books that they haven’t read the rest to see whether there’s anything they could let back into print; informal reports of their religious slant suggest the latter. One distressing side effect of this is that his friends don’t even know where he’s buried. (Whether this could be remedied with today’s tech is unclear; the info may or may not ever have been put online, and if online may be behind a privacy firewall.) I regret not speaking to the aunt who showed up at the friends’ memorial in Minneapolis; I hope somebody thanked her coming, but I don’t know whether the family listened to any of her report of how much he was loved and respected.
There was a lot of good Mike stuff that never made it to print; the various oddments that he put on Making Light are linked via several pages starting here.
(16) sounds like an interesting premise for a story. What if AI decides that you are dead and filters you out of the living world.
Prematurely.
Regards,
Dann
A monarch’s neck should always have a noose around it. It keeps him upright. – The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
I particularly recommend Mike’s poem 110 Stories http://nielsenhayden.com/110.html which I read at least once a year (on the date it makes most sense to do so).
@Andrew: Simply being reminded of the existence of that poem is enough to make me weepy.
@Cora: “Never mind that writing through mental illness is a very suitable topic for a writer’s conference.”
For sure, and moreover, it’s a topic that del Arroz might well find helpful and I do not mean that in the derogatory way that he meant it. I mean that 1. everything I’ve seen of him both online and in person suggests to me that we may have some things in common in terms of mood and anxiety– in other words while I hate his approach to virtually everything, I can kind of identify on some level, and I know those things can make creative work very difficult; and 2. even if I’m wrong about that, I bet he knows people who have illnesses he doesn’t understand or doesn’t want to acknowledge, because so many people do, and he could stand to develop a little empathy. It is sad that he’s more interested in being a dick.
@cora 13) I wonder why he even wants to go to the Nebula conference, considering he’s not an SFWA member and has no interest in the panels. Why doesn’t he just save the money and go to 20booksto50K instead, if he prefers their approach.
I very much doubt that he does want to go. I think what he wants is for them to tell him no, and then he’ll make bank on his outrage and victimhood.