Pixel Scroll 5/23/16 Ralph 124C41Pixel

(1) EMMA WATSON IS BELLE. The new Beauty and the Beast teaser trailer conveys the faintest hint of the movie’s remarkable cast.

Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” is a live-action re-telling of the studio’s animated classic which refashions the classic characters from the tale as old as time for a contemporary audience, staying true to the original music while updating the score with several new songs.

“Beauty and the Beast” is the fantastic journey of Belle, a bright, beautiful and independent young woman who is taken prisoner by a beast in his castle. Despite her fears, she befriends the castle’s enchanted staff and learns to look beyond the Beast’s hideous exterior and realize the kind heart and soul of the true Prince within.

The film stars: Emma Watson as Belle; Dan Stevens as the Beast; Luke Evans as Gaston, the handsome, but shallow villager who woos Belle; Oscar® winner Kevin Kline as Maurice, Belle’s eccentric, but lovable father; Josh Gad as Lefou, Gaston’s long-suffering aide-de-camp; Golden Globe® nominee Ewan McGregor as Lumiere, the candelabra; Oscar nominee Stanley Tucci as Maestro Cadenza, the harpsichord; Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Plumette, the feather duster; six-time Tony Award® winner Audra McDonald as Madame Garderobe, the wardrobe; Oscar nominee Ian McKellen as Cogsworth, the mantel clock; and two-time Academy Award® winner Emma Thompson as the teapot, Mrs. Potts.

 

(2) POUNDED IN THE POUND. “Chuck Tingle” has registered therabidpuppies domain and put up a website.

Hello my name is CHUCK TINGLE (worlds greatest author).

sometimes devilmen are so busy planning scoundrel attacks they forget to REGISTER important website names. this is a SOFT WAY of the antibuckaroo agenda but is also good because it makes it easy for BUDS WHO KNOW LOVE IS REAL to prove love (all). please understand this is website to take DARK MAGIC and replace with REAL LOVE for all who kiss the sky.  here are some links that make bad dogs blue very upset (as angry NORMAL men)

(3) FUTURE OF TREK FAN FILMS STILL CLOUDY. ScienceFiction.com feels that despite J.J. Abrams’ announcement that the Axanar lawsuit is “going away” it may not be that simple – and it may not clear the way for other fan films.

For CBS and Paramount, the issue seems to be far from over.  Per reports from Tommy Kraft, creator of the ‘Star Trek: Horizon’ fan film, made on the project’s Facebook page, CBS has contacted him within the last 30 days with a cease and desist on a sequel project that he was preparing to launch.

Kraft’s statement on the Star Trek: Horizon FB page begins:

Yesterday it was announced by JJ Abrams and Justin Lin that the lawsuit over the Axanar project would be “going away.” I’ve had many people ask if Federation Rising, the sequel to Horizon, will now happen. As some of you may know, we had plans to launch a Kickstarter for Federation Rising on April 23rd, but just days after announcing our plans, CBS informed us that we could not continue. After fact-checking the phone number and email address, I can confirm that it was absolutely CBS I spoke to.

Repeated attempts to communicate with CBS via phone and email since that incident have gone unanswered. As of this time, we’ve received no indication that we would be allowed to legally continue our plans to create Federation Rising and the poor reception to our original science fiction space film, Project Discovery, has indicated a decline in interest for crowdfunded films. This whole experience has left me disenchanted with the Star Trek fan film genre and uninterested in moving forward on Federation Rising even if we were told it would now be okay. So the question is: why?

Quite frankly, I’ve been quiet on this for some time but feel the need to speak out. The Axanar case caused a rift in the community and has led to many folks feeling wary of new projects. With the announcement that the lawsuit was going to “go away”, I became quite frustrated, much moreso than when CBS told me I could not move forward with Federation Rising. The reason is two-fold: Axanar should not get off so easy and it has come to my attention that CBS/Paramount had plans to drop the lawsuit for sometime but still told me not to continue with my sequel due to the legal troubles with Axanar.

Kraft seems far more angry at Axanar’s Alec Peters than CBS, for his post continues with a detailed history of Kraft’s involvement with the earlier Axanar movie in which Peters is heavily criticized.

(4) SWIRSKY CONFOUNDS BULLIES. You can too. “Guest Post by Rachel Swirsky: Confounding Bullies by Raising Money for LGBTQ HealthCare” on Ann Leckie’s blog.

Since I’m here on Ann’s blog, I’ll point out that if we reach our $600 stretch goal, she and I, along with writers John Chu, Adam-Troy Castro, Ken Liu, Juliette Wade, and Alyssa Wong, will write a story together about dinosaurs. I really want this to happen, so I hope we reach the goal. We’ve got about a week left to go!

(The $600 goal was met today. Check the following link to learn what the $700 stretch goal is….)

If you want the whole story behind the fundraiser, you can read it here– https://www.patreon.com/posts/posteriors-for-5477113. But here’s what I have to say today:

There’s advice I’ve heard all my life. You’ve probably heard it, too.

In elementary school, it was “ignore the bullies.” It never seemed to work…..

Bullies can hurt people. That’s what “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love” is about, and perhaps why it makes bullies howl. But you know what else it’s done? It’s inspired hundreds of people to come to me and tell me about their experiences being bullied as kids or being hated as adults, being pummeled or harassed, and how they’ve moved past it. How “Dinosaur” has been cathartic for them, has helped them realize they aren’t alone.

Bullies aren’t the only ones who can travel in groups. We have our bonding and our strength. And at its best, it can be fun, and silly. It can destroy hatred with humor and positive energy. It can emphasize kindness and compassion. I believe in the power of humor, and I believe in the power of people clasping hands to help other people.

Don’t get me wrong. Humor won’t stop the bullies either. We’re always going to have to spend our time walking carefully around some amount of crap on the carpet. But humor reveals that the emperor is not only naked, but not even an emperor—as often as not, he’s some poor, pathetic exiled criminal, dreaming of ruling the world with an army of poltergeists and toddlers.

(5) SCHOLARSHIPS FOR WRITING CLASSES. Cat Rambo is creating “New Plunkett Scholarships for my online classes”.

Going forward, each class has one slot that is the Plunkett slot, which is reserved for someone who couldn’t otherwise pay for the class. To apply for a Plunkett, mail me at catrambo AT gmail.com with the subject line Plunkett Application (class name/date). In the email, provide a brief statement regarding you want to take the class. Plunkett eligibility is self-determined and covers the cost of the class in full; it is based on whether or not you can afford to take the class otherwise. If you can’t but feel it would be helpful to you, I encourage you to apply. The name of the recipient remains private. I particularly welcome QUILTBAG and PoC participants. The Plunkett scholarships are named for Edward Plunkett, who wrote as Lord Dunsany.

Why am I calling them the Plunkett scholarships? Because it amuses me, and because that’s the name I gave the little press I’m using to self-publish some story collections. There’s some interesting class-based tensions coiled inside the Plunkett/Dunsany name and I figured that made it a good name for a scholarship whose criteria are economic.

Why am I doing it? Recently Keffy R.M. Kehrli paid for one of my classes for a student and it got me to thinking about it. F&SF has a rich tradition of paying it forward, and while I’m trying to do some of that with the SFWA Presidency, this is another way to help ensure a rich range of new voices in the field. I want these folks around to write wonderful fiction for me to read. So yep, this is a purely selfish move on my part.

(6) CATCH. There seems to be an extra page in Joe Hill’s encyclopedic knowledge of cinema.

(7) DESERT ISLAND BOOK. The question of the day from Baen.

(8) ALTERNATIVE HISTORY. Editor Glenn Hauman has launched an Indiegogo appeal to fund the Altered States of the Union anthology filled with stories that ask questions like these —

What if

  • New Amsterdam was merged into New Jersey instead of becoming New York?
  • Freed slaves were given the state of Mississippi after the Civil War?
  • Aaron Burr succeeded in invading Mexico?
  • Joseph Smith and his religious followers settled in Jackson County, Missouri?

The authors who will supply the answers are Debra Doyle & James D. Macdonald, Brendan DuBois, Malon Edwards, G.D. Falksen, Michael Jan Friedman, David Gerrold, Alisa Kwitney, Gordon Linzner, Sarah McGill, Mackenzie Reide, Ian Randal Strock, and Ramón Terrell.

The goal is $5,000

(9) TWO MISTAKES. Steve Davidson takes on Jim Henley and George R.R. Martin in “Hugo Gloom & Doom” at Amazing Stories.

The second mistake is in thinking that the Hugo Awards are a thing that is defined by its individual parts – the voting methodology, the ceremony, the lists, the shape of the award itself.

The Hugo Awards are a concept.  A self-referential celebration of Fannishness.  Changing how, or when, the awards are determined doesn’t negatively effect its character, so long as well-meaning Fans continue to participate in good faith – and despite the actions of those who have negative intentions.  The Hugo Awards are a belief in the rightness and goodness of Fanishness;  if, at the end of time, there are only two Fans left in the universe and they decide to host a Worldcon and vote for Hugo Awards, it will still be Worldcon, the awards will still reflect the traditions and history of Fandom and they will still retain their Fannish character.  (And it doesn’t take two Fans.  It only takes ONE fan to make something Fannish.)

Right now, well-meaning Fans, for whom there is no question of the character of the awards, are exhibiting true Fannishness by voluntarily working on methods designed to address the issues that have arisen over the past couple of years.  They do this out of love for the awards and, by extension, love for Fandom.  NOTHING can change or diminish that.  As long as that love remains, the Hugo Awards will retain their character.

You’ll need to read the post to find out what the first mistake is….

(10) SAY IT AIN’T SO. Can it be that some movie superheroes don’t look exactly as they do in comic books? Where is my forehead cloth?

The outfit featured in Deadpool set the new standard, and both Black Panther and Spider-Man’s costumes in Captain America: Civil War look fantastic. But for every comic-accurate costume, there are plenty more page-to-screen adaptations that are just…wrong.

 

(11) FINDING LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE. Frontiers of Science and Science Fiction plans a live online panel May 27.

How will we discover life in the universe? What are the cosmos’ biggest unknowns? How do scientific discoveries inspire and transform the stories we tell? Join sci-fi authors Larry Niven, Kim Stanley Robinson, Connie Willis, Allen Steele, Charlie Stross, Joe Haldeman and Harry Turtledove and a panel of the scientists and engineers of the Hubble and Webb space telescopes as they explore the places where their worlds collide.

Get insight into the scientific and creative processes as they discuss topics ranging from why we can’t seem to find evidence of intelligent aliens to the ways that science happens in real life.

The panel will be livestreamed May 27 at 11:15 a.m. ET on Frontiers of Science and Science Fiction (YouTube), and archived for viewing later on the HubbleSite YouTube channel.

(12) YAY PLUTO. Continuing insights from flyby data: “Scientists make huge discoveries on Pluto”.

It’s been nearly a year since New Horizons blasted past Pluto and sent back incredible images and groundbreaking data, but because of its incredible distance from the Earth, data is still coming in at a trickle, and it’s leading to new discoveries about the planet on a regular basis.

For example, a new study published earlier this month in the Journal of Geophysical Research — Space Physics found that Pluto behaves less like a comet and more like a planet in the way it interacts with solar wind — a big deal considering the fact that just a few years ago Pluto was demoted from its former status as the ninth planet in our solar system.

(13) CLARKE CENTER. The La Jolla Light has a recap of the first lecture in the Clarke Center’s “Science Fiction Meets Architecture” series, which featured Kim Stanley Robinson and Usman Haque — “Sci-fi meets architecture in the Clarke Center. What would it be like to live in 2080 London?”

Robinson warned those gathered that sea levels are rising even faster than scientists thought they would. “This is one of the greatest problems that humanity faces,” he said, noting America might end up with some of its major cities — like New York and Miami — halfway under water, becoming a “Super Venice, Italy.”

Robinson explained that the problem stems from melting ice in western Antarctica and Greenland, an unstoppable process once it gets going.

He is also worried that the ice from eastern Antarctica will also begin to melt to compound the problem.

Robinson mentioned one possible solution; building 60 huge pumping stations that would pump the melting ice water back up onto the Antarctic bedrock for refreezing.

His presentation was followed by a “Telesmatic” lecture slideshow by architect Haque that came over the Internet from London in real time. Haque is a founding partner of Umbrellium and Thingful, and has won awards from the Design Museum UK, World Technology, Japan Arts Festival, and Asia Digital Art Association.

Haque prefaced his talk with the statement, “I tend to work in the here and now. I don’t usually speculate about many years into the future,” and went on to clarify that he doesn’t consider his work to be “speculative,” which typically produces ironic, tongue-in-cheek designs. He calls his type of futuristic architecture “participatory design,” because “it has no final images or outcomes, but rather designs a system that enables others to produce outcomes.”

(14) SOMEWHERE OVER. This installment of What If by xkcd starts with a Star Wars-related question — “Tatooine Rainbow”.

Since rainbows are caused by the refraction of the sunlight by tiny droplets of rainwater, what would rainbow look like on Earth if we had two suns like Tatooine?

(15) SADDLE UP. Fast work by Camestros Felapton. Mere minutes after Castalia House announced its new Peter Grant western novel, Camestros was pitching a parody cover to Timothy the Talking Cat.

[Camestros] Look what I made you! [Timothy] Not interested.

[Camestros] But it is the new old-genre. The happening place for aspiring alt-right cat-based publishers.

[Timothy] It’s just not my thing….

[Camestros] Vox is doing one. See https://voxday.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/brings-lightning-by-peter-grant.html The Boycott-Tor-Books guy is writing it. Manly men with guns!  Manly American men with guns!

[Timothy] (sigh) What’s that thing on the cover.

[Camestros] A walrus – you LIKE walruses. They’ve got whiskers.

(16) PETER GRANT. On the other hand, Peter Grant is delighted with Vox Day as his editor: “Why did I publish through Castalia House?” at Bayou Renaissance Man.

Lightning_480 COMP

Vox was my editor in getting the book ready for publication.  He stated up front that he wanted to ‘make a good book better’, not try to remake it in his image, or make it into something it wasn’t.  I found him a very effective editor indeed.  He went through my manuscript and made many proposed changes, averaging two or three per page, but did so on the basis that these were his suggestions rather than his demands.  I was free to accept or reject each of his proposed changes.  In about two-thirds of cases, I went along with his proposals.  They did, indeed, make the book better.  In the remaining third of cases, I went with what I’d originally written, or re-wrote a few lines, because I felt it fitted in better with my vision for the book and what I hope will be the series into which it will grow.  Vox accepted that with aplomb.  The man’s a gentleman.

There will doubtless be those who’ll be disappointed that I’ve chosen to publish with a man, and a publishing house, that they regard with the same revulsion as the Devil regards holy water.  To them I can only say, go read what my friend Larry Correia had to say about Vox last year.  I endorse his sentiments.  I don’t share all – or possibly even most – of Vox’s opinions, but then he’s never asked me to share or support them in any way, shape or form.  He’s merely tried to be the best editor he can be, and help me be the best writer I can be.  I’ll be damned if I condemn him because of past history or exchanges to which I wasn’t a party, and in which I had no involvement at allNot my circus, not my monkeys.  I certainly won’t demand that he embrace political correctness.  As you’ve probably noted from my blog header, that’s not exactly a position I embrace myself!

(17) MORE BOOM, MORE DOOM. Here’s the Independence Day: Resurgence official International Extended Trailer #1.

(18) RETRO RACHEL. Here’s Rachel Bloom at the 2011 Worldcon singing “Season’s of Love” …in Klingon!

Rachel Bloom’s performance at Renovation, the 69th World Science Fiction Convention. She was at the convention because her song “F*** Me Ray Bradbury” was nominated for a Hugo award.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, Will R., Vox Day, and Tracy Vogel for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Steve Davidson.]

211 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 5/23/16 Ralph 124C41Pixel

  1. @Nigel: I’m waiting for the movie adaptation. I hear it’s going to be shot in 3SV.

  2. Is it in his contract that Grant call Beale “Vox Day”? ::eyeroll:: Also: Western? Yawn. Although I liked that MacLaine-Eastwood movie okay, “Two Mules for Sister Sara.”

    (18) RETRO RACHEL. Methinks it should be “Seasons of Love” (no apostrophe, unless that’s a Klingon affectation?).

    @Various (most recently, PhilRM): Thanks for the groans.

    @JJ: Quantum Night didn’t sound up my alley, but I may need to read the sample and reconsider, it sounds like. Re. Kowal’s novella, it has a bunch of typos and that’s on purpose? Uh, that’ll probably annoy the heck outta me regardless – thanks for the trigger warning, heh. (I won’t mention Borderline, as it’s already on my list!)

    If it had been a novel, I’d still be drinking two days later.

    But it sounded like you wanted her to developt it into a novel! Wait, do we need to stage an intervention???

    @Earwormers: Just the name “Radio SFWA” makes me think of Queen’s “Radio Gaga” and then that’s all I hear.

    @Niall McAuley: LOL, anyone who makes an “Oklahoma!” reference is all right by me! 🙂 Hmm, MAC II is in Kansas City:

    I got to Kansas City on a Thursd’y
    By Frid’y I had learnt a thing or two
    ‘Cuz up to them I didn’t have an idee
    Of what the modern WSFS had come to!
    I counted twenty SJWs goin’ by in packs
    Almost ev’ry time I took a walk. . . .

    @Joe H.: Part of the description of Wilderness at that link makes it sound like a Chuck Tingle novel (“…two tortured men who, accompanied only by hard memories….”). 😀

  3. I’m a thread late, I know, but hey ebook sale:

    Katherine Kurtz’s Camber of Culdi (Legends of Camber of Culdi #1) is on sale in some U.S. ebookstores for $2.99 from Open Road Media (despite the name, they use DRM). I am a big fan of this series – really, of most of the Deryni books she wrote, but this was the first book I read, so it has a special place in my heart. Secondary-world quasi-historical fantasy. Others have written about this under-appreciated/under-remembered series (e.g., Joe Sherry over at “Nerds of a Feather”).

    ETA: Another author with an alliterative name, Diane Duane (and husband Peter Morwood), has all her ebooks on sale for 25% off (DRM-free), for example, the 9-volume Young Wizards series. FYI.

  4. Rose Embolism I now want to do an alien invasion story which isn’t so much a concerted invasion, as a swarm of aliens picking out valuable places to homestead, and killing any human who protests. If national armies try to remove them, a troop of blue-suited aliens show up to defend the homestead and kill any dangerously savage humans.

    Don’t forget to have the humans suffer a plague that wipes out 80% of them just before the alien settlers show up, which the aliens take as proof that the humans are savages who aren’t really using the land anyway.

  5. @Steve Davidson There is still no evidence that Tingle is not in league with puppies.

    I’m a paranoid sort myself, and considered that as a remote possibility until this tweet on May 5:

    IMPORTANT: cant go to hugos award so to thwart devil plans, true buckaroo ZOE QUINN (name of @unburtwitch) has agreed to accept award for me

    That means he’s in contact with Zoe Quinn, and she seems happy about the experience (changed her Twitter handle to True Buckaroo & calls Chuck her friend). Do you think it’s likely that any of the rabids are capable of doing so much as asking Zoe Quinn for the weather without harassing her?

    Further evidence: Chuck Tingle’s publishing history goes back to early 2015 (at least), so it is prior to the reveal of Voxman devil plans. If Tingle is secretly one of the devil men, he would have to have started writing surreal, humorous, SFinal gay porn more than a year ago and kept it up at a steady clip just to maintain the persona.

    More evidence: Tingle’s Internet persona is high dada, and he expresses himself in a distinctive scrambled syntax. But his prose is actually very straightforward. Being able to write in more than one “voice” is more literary sophistication than any of the rabids have yet displayed.

    Still more evidence: His use of slang terms and nicknames, like “Voxman” and “devil plans” and “buckaroo” is catchy and original, which is also more skill than any of the rabids have yet displayed.

    Final bit of evidence: I haven’t read the nominated story yet, but I did listen to Mark Oshiro read “Slammed in the Butt by my Hugo Nomination” and was pleasantly surprised. The whole thing was ridiculous, yes, but the writing was clear and vivid and sometimes very funny. It skirted a a difficult line between being obviously self-aware of its own ridiculousness, and just being sincerely ridiculous. Simply as a story, it was far better than many of last year’s puppy picks, and certainly better than anything written by Voxman.

    I suppose it’s possible that Voxman goes into Fight Club-esque fugue states in order to write fun, straightforward, non-judgmental, lighthearted, surreal gay SF and maintain an upbeat dada web presence. But that’s what it would take, I think.

    Anyway, I thought I’d share the thought process by which I concluded that Mr. Tingle, whoever he really is, is a true buckaroo and not a devilman in hiding.

  6. @James Davis Nicoll:

    I was very amused to see in a more recent Wright book sent to me for review an offhanded comment that Godel had been disproved.

    @princejvstin:

    Godel *disproved*? HOW?

    That was about my reaction. I mean, the whole point of Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem is that any system of logic complex enough that you can construct an arbitrary statement prover within it cannot be both self-consistent and complete: you can always construct a statement that says something along the lines of ‘the prover will prove this to be false’, which is undecidable by the given prover.

    It’s a fundamental limit on systems of logic. It’s basically the same thing as the Church-Turing Thesis on the Halting Problem in computers: no computer can tell with 100% certainty whether any arbitrary program is guaranteed to halt because you can always create a program that says ‘halt if the halting tester says I won’t halt’.

    It’s not possible to ‘disprove’ it without throwing out formal logic at the start. Which, given that Wright might be one of those ‘all logic descends from God’ types, he may have done.

  7. The idea of Chuck Tingle being an agent of the Puppies makes as much sense as Captain America being an agent of HYDRA.

    (And speaking of weird interpreations of America, thanks to Mike for posting the crowdfunding campaign for Altered States of the Union, and to the F770 readers who have already pitched in. We’ll be announcing a few more authors being added to the mix shortly.)

  8. @JimHenley: I’ve been trying to figure out which would tick people off more: Cap saying “Hail Hydra” or saying “Vote Trump”. I think I need to run a poll.

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