(1) VINTAGE. New art from Star Trek: Picard. What should we call this episode? “The Grapes of Wrath of Khan”? The big reveal on the story and characters of the new show will be at San Diego Comic-Con next week.
(2) MORE BEST TRANSLATED HUGO FEEDBACK. Taiyo Fujii commented about the proposal on Facebook.
Thanks for M. Barkley and Rachel S. Cordasco for proposing Best Translated Novel for Hugo, but I should say as a Japanese writer, It’s not necessary.
Hugo already honored 3 translated works without translated category, and we saw the translator of that works Ken Liu was celebrated on the presentation stage. This is why I respect Hugo and voters, who don’t cares the work is from overseas or not.
I worry if translated category is held, translated short forms will be ignored by s-s, novelette and novella which are fascinated category for new young non anglophone writers. We are trying to open the door to be just a writer with contributing short forms, and readers already saw our works, and voted for nomination. But if translated category was held, only novels are honored.
In fact, translated fiction category is set on literary award held in non anglophone country, then we Japanese couldn’t give prize for Three Body Problem as the best novel of Seiun Awards even if we hope to honor.
(3) LISTEN AND LEARN. Brenton Dickieson points out “7 New Audiobooks on C.S. Lewis: Michael Ward, James Como, Stephanie Derrick, Patti Callahan, Joe Rigney, Diana Glyer, Gary Selby” at A Pilgrim in Narnia.
Michael Ward, Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis (13 hrs)
I have argued that Dr. Michael Ward’s Planet Narnia is the most important resource for reading Narnia that has emerged in the new century. While one might argue with parts of Ward’s thesis–as I have done—Planet Narnia is a great book for providing close readings of Lewis’ greatest works in a literary way that invites us into a deeper understanding of the books behind the Narnian chronicles. I hope the publishers record The Narnia Code, the popular version of the Planet Narnia resource, but I am thrilled that they began with the magnum opus, Planet Narnia. Meanwhile, Audible also has Ward’s “Now You Know” audio course, “Christology, Cosmology, and C.S. Lewis,” a shorter but helpful resource for newcomers to the conversation. The audiobook reader, Nigel Patterson, is professional and even in tone.
(4) INTRODUCING NEWTON EWELL. Yesterday a commenter noticed that artist Newton Ewell was one of the NASFiC/Westercon guests who had no entry in Fancyclopedia 3. Overnight someone (“Confan”) decided rather than complain, they’d write one for him. It’s very good, and apparently there’s a lot to know about – Newton Ewell.
(5) TIL THEY ATE THEM. An unexpected discovery in the Crimea: “Early Europeans Lived Among Giant 300kg Birds”. I suspect this state of affairs lasted until dinnertime. [Via Amazing Stories.]
Early Europeans lived alongside giant 3-meter tall birds new research published on Wednesday explains. The bird species was one of the largest to ever roam the earth weighing in at a staggering 450 kg.
Bones of the massive, probably flightless bird were discovered in a cave in Crimea. “We don’t have enough data yet to say whether it was most closely related to ostriches or to other birds, but we estimate it weighed about 450kg,” says the study’s lead author Dr. Nikita Zelenkov. This formidable weight is nearly double the largest moa, three times the largest living bird, the common ostrich, and nearly as much as an adult polar bear.”
(6) MARTIAN CARAVANSARY. Slate has posted an interview with Robert Zubrin, Founder and president of the Mars Society and author of The Case for Space: “What Will Life On Mars be Like?”
Slate: How do you envision settling Mars will begin, and what will the early settlements look like?
Robert Zubrin: I think it will begin with an exploration, and then the establishment of a permanent Mars base to support exploration. Whoever is sponsoring this base, whether it’s the U.S. government, an international consortium of governments, or private groups, it’s going to be tremendously to their benefit to have people stay extra rotations on Mars because the biggest expense is transporting people back and forth. If it costs $100 million to send someone to Mars and back—and that’s a low estimate—it would be a no-brainer to offer someone $5 million to stay there an extra two years. So, I think you’ll start to see people staying extra rotations on Mars, just like there are some people who spend an extra rotation on trips to Antarctica. And then, relationships will form. And people will have children. And you will see the beginning of an actual settlement, a base.
(7) AUREALIS AWARDS. The 2019 Aurealis Awards are now taking entries:
The Aurealis Awards, Australia’s premier awards for speculative fiction, are for works created by an Australian citizen or permanent resident, and published for the first time between 1 January 2019 and 31 December 2019.
Full guidelines and FAQ can be found on the Aurealis Awards website:
(8) WESTEROS DISTINGUISHED. Everyone knows the Ninth Circuit marches to the beat of its own drummer – or is that to the pace of its own White Walkers? “Game of Thrones Night King storyline gets torched by federal judge”.
A federal appeals court’s opinion on Lindie Banks v. Northern Trust Corp. is — as one would expect from a case charging breaches of fiduciary duties — full of references to assets, investments and irrevocable trusts. Naturally, the Night King from Game of Thrones also makes a showing.
In the opinion filed July 5, Judge John B. Owens writes that the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit won’t discard a prior legal precedent “the way that Game of Thrones rendered the entire Night King storyline meaningless in its final season.”
(9) TORN OBIT. The actor with the best working name in Hollywood, Rip Torn, died July 9. CNN has the story: “Rip Torn, actor best known for ‘Men in Black’ and ‘The Larry Sanders Show,’ dies at 88”.
Rip Torn, an Emmy Award-winning actor who starred in “Men in Black” and HBO’s “The Larry Sanders Show,” has died, according to his publicist Rick Miramontez. He was 88.
Torn died Tuesday at his home in Lakeville, Connecticut with his family by his side, Miramontez said.
The actor had a seven-decade career in film, television and theater, with nearly 200 credits to his name.
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
- Born July 10, 1903 — John Wyndham. His best-known works include The Day of the Triffids and The Midwich Cuckoos, both written in the Fifties. The latter novel was filmed twice as Village of the Damned. Both iBooks and Kindle have an impressive selection of his novels though little of his short fiction is available alas. (Died 1969.)
- Born July 10, 1923 — Earl Hamner Jr. Though much better known for writing and producing The Waltons, he wrote eight scripts for the Twilight Zone including “Black Leather Jackets” in which an alien falls in love with a human girl and “The Hunt” where raccoon hunters enter the Twilight Zone. He also wrote the script of the Hanna-Barbera production of Charlotte’s Web. (Died 2016.)
- Born July 10, 1929 — George Clayton Johnson. He’s best known for co-writing with William F. Nolan the Logan’s Run novel, the source for the Logan’s Run film. He was also known for his scripts for the Twilight Zone including “A Game of Pool”, “Kick the Can”, “Nothing in the Dark”, and “A Penny for Your Thoughts”, and the first telecast episode of the original Star Trek, “The Man Trap”. (Died 2015.)
- Born July 10, 1931 — Julian May. She‘s best known for her Saga of Pliocene Exile (known as the Saga of the Exiles in the UK) and Galactic Milieu series: Jack the Bodiless, Diamond Mask and Magnificat. She also chaired the 1952 Worldcon in Chicago. (Died 2017.)
- Born July 10, 1941 — David Hartwell. Encyclopedia of Science Fiction describes him as “perhaps the single most influential book editor of the past forty years in the American science fiction publishing world.” I certainly fondly remember the The Space Opera Renaissance he co-edited with Kathryn Cramer. Not to mention that his Year’s Best Fantasy and Year’s Best SF anthologies are still quite excellent reading. (Died 2016.)
- Born July 10, 1945 — Ron Glass. Probably best known genre wise as Shepherd Book in the Firefly series and its sequel Serenity. His first genre role was as Jerry Merris in Deep Space, a SF horror film and he’d later show up voicing Philo D. Grenman in Strange Frame: Love & Sax (“slated as the world’s first animated lesbian-themed sci-fi film”; look it up as it as an impressive voice cast) and he showed up twice as J. Streiten, MD in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Oh and he was on Voyager playing a character named Loken in the “Nightingale” episode. (Died 2016.)
- Born July 10, 1970 — John Simm, 49. The second of modern Masters on Doctor Who. He appeared in the final three episodes of series three during the Time of the Tenth Doctor: “Utopia”, “The Sound of Drums”, and “Last of the Time Lords”.
(11) COMICS SECTION.
- Wizard of Id comes up with a problem faced by witches in the land of Oz, one that never occurred to me before.
(12) TO AIR IS HUMAN. Galactic Journey’s Natalie Devitt attends a 1964 movie with a pre-Batman Adam West: “[July 10, 1964] Greetings from the Red Planet (The Movie, Robinson Crusoe on Mars)”.
The movie opens up aboard a spaceship carrying Commander Christopher Draper (played by Paul Mantee, appearing in his first film major film role), Colonel Dan McReady (Adam West, an actor commonly found on television westerns) and an adorable monkey named Mona. Things take an unexpected turn when they detect a meteoroid and are “forced out of orbital velocity to avoid collision with planetoid into tighter orbit of Mars.” As the situation worsens, the crew is left with no other option than to immediately attempt to land on the fourth planet. While fleeing the vehicle in their individual escape pods, Draper is separated from McReady and Mona.
Draper adapts to the conditions on the red planet, while searching for McReady and Mona. Even though he is part of the first crew on Mars, Draper learns quickly what it takes to survive. He finds shelter in a cave. For heat, Draper discovers yellow rocks that “burn like coal.” Heating the rocks not only keeps him warm, but also produces oxygen, which he then uses to refill his oxygen tank. Throughout the film, Draper keeps a careful audio record about all that he experiences, which provides a useful narrative device when things happen off-screen.
(13) BESPOKE. Vicky Who Reads mostly likes this one: “Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim: A Lush and Beautiful Fantasy with a Romance I Wasn’t Into”. (A little problem with the age difference between the couple, for one thing.)
I knew this was going to be good, but I definitely did not know just how good it would be.
Elizabeth Lim’s Spin the Dawn was a classic-style story with a lush and beautiful world and gorgeous prose. Featuring the classic “girl dressing as a boy” trope, a Project-Runway-esque competition, and a quest, Spin the Dawn weaves tradition and fantasy into a phenomenal story.
(14) LEND ME YOUR EARS. Joe Sherry is “Listening to the Hugos: Fancast” and opens with thoughts about the category itself.
…Fancast suffers from some of the same issues that many of the down ballot categories do, though perhaps “suffer” is the wrong word. There is a lot of institutional memory built in here for fancasts which are consistent year after year. With a core of listeners who are frequent participants in the Hugo Award process, it is not surprising to see a number of finalists come back year after year. I’ve said this about a number of other categories, but it does make me wonder a little bit about the health of the category, but on the other hand it does also give a snapshot of what the genre and fan conversation and communities may have looked like over a several year period. A positive takeaway, though, is that the only repeat winner was SF Squeecast in the first two years of the category. Both Be the Serpent and Our Opinions Are Correct are new to the ballot and are new to being a podcast.
(15) DEAD CON WALKING. Although Trae Dorn has eased back on his posting frequency, Nerd & Tie still comes through with fannish news scoops: “Better Business Bureau Calls Walker Stalker Events a ‘Scam’”.
Walker Stalkers LLC, which runs conventions under the Walker Stalker Con, Heroes & Villains, and FanFest names, has been having a bit of a rough patch when it comes to finances lately. We reported on this back in April, and while the company has made some effort to refund people for cancelled events and appearances, many might claim that it hasn’t been quite enough. Those issues seem to have come to a head though, as their problems are now becoming known outside of the geek community.
Nashville’s WSMV is reporting that the Better Business Bureau is now openly warning people to avoid Walker Stalkers LLC run events.
(16) IS IT REAL? BBC asked — “Midsommar: What do film critics in Sweden think?” Beware the occasional spoilers.
Swedish film reviewers are giving a cautious welcome to Midsommar, a horror film about a bizarre pagan festival in a remote part of Sweden.
Directed by Hereditary’s Ari Aster, the film stars Florence Pugh and Jack Reynor as an American couple who travel to Harga village in Halsingland to observe the midsummer ritual that takes place there only once every 90 years.
The film – which was actually shot in Hungary – has been getting strong reviews since it opened in the US earlier this month. It currently has an 83% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
One critic, IndieWire’s David Ehrlich, tweeted that Midsommar would “do for Swedish pagan rituals what Psycho did for showers”.
The film opened in Sweden on Wednesday and the first reviews have been appearing in the Swedish press. So what do the critics there think?
(17) REALITY CHECK. Be fair – everyone’s seen mermaids and knows, uh, never mind… NPR relates that “Disney Cable Channel Defends Casting Black Actress As New ‘Little Mermaid'”.
When Disney announced that Halle Bailey, a teen actress and one-half of the singing group Chloe x Halle, had landed the role of Ariel in the forthcoming live-action remake of The Little Mermaid, some people on social media went bonkers.
But not over the fact that it’s 2019 and the Danish fairy tale tells the story of a young female creature who loves singing and wearing a seashell bikini top and eagerly gives up her voice in exchange for a romance with a good-looking guy. Nor are critics outraged by the kind of message that narrative conveys to young children.
Instead, certain circles of the Internet are aghast that the ingenue cast by Disney is black.
The complaints run along the lines of: “The actress should look like the real Little Mermaid!” By which they presumably mean the white-skinned, blue-eyed cartoon character in the 1989 blockbuster film. The hashtag #NotMyAriel quickly began trending on Twitter, and since the announcement last week, scores of fans have pledged to boycott the film.
For days the company remained silent regarding the controversy, but Freeform, a cable network owned by Disney and on which Bailey appears as a cast member on Grown-ish, issued a statement on Instagram clarifying that, “Ariel…is a mermaid.”
(18) SHAKE IT ‘TIL YOU BREAK IT. “Satellite photos show California earthquake leaves scar on the desert” – BBC has lots of photos, satellite and other.
The strongest earthquake to hit California in two decades left a scar across the desert which can be seen from space, new pictures show.
The 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck on Friday at a depth of just 0.9km (0.6 miles), creating a fissure near its epicentre about 240km north-east of Los Angeles.
It was felt as far away as Phoenix, Arizona – more than 560km south-east.
…The crack in the desert – captured in before and after pictures released by Planet Labs – opened close to the epicentre of the quake near the town of Ridgecrest.
(19) TWO FAMILY TREES. BBC encounters the “Earliest modern human found outside Africa”.
A skull unearthed in Greece has been dated to 210,000 years ago, at a time when Europe was occupied by the Neanderthals.
The sensational discovery adds to evidence of an earlier migration of people from Africa that left no trace in the DNA of people alive today.
The findings are published in the journal Nature.
Researchers uncovered two significant fossils in Apidima Cave in Greece in the 1970s.
One was very distorted and the other incomplete, however, and it took computed tomography scanning and uranium-series dating to unravel their secrets.
The more complete skull appears to be a Neanderthal. But the other shows clear characteristics, such as a rounded back to the skull, diagnostic of modern humans.
What’s more, the Neanderthal skull was younger.
(20) SPACE COLLECTIBLES. On July 16-189, Heritage Auctions continues with the third round of Neil Armstrong memorabilia: “The Armstrong Family Collection III Space Exploration Signature Auction”.
To the many numismatists who may be reading this newsletter, here is a unique piece for your consideration: a Gemini 8 Flown United States 1864 Large Motto 2¢ Piece, graded MS 61 BN by NGC and encapsulated by CAG (Collectibles Authentication Guaranty) . This coin was supplied by an Ohio coin dealer to Neil Armstrong who took it with him on the mission, “carried in a specially sewn pocket in my pressure suit.” As you may know, Gemini 8 performed the world’s first orbital docking in space but it nearly ended in disaster when one of the Orbit and Maneuvering System thrusters stuck in the on position causing an uncontrollable tumbling. Armstrong was somehow able to control it and bring the craft in for a successful emergency landing. This coin, for many years on loan from the Armstrong family to the Armstrong Air & Space Museum in Wapakoneta, Ohio, is extensively provenanced by the dealer and also Neil Armstrong’s father.
Another amazing item is Neil Armstrong’s Personally Owned and Worn Early Apollo-Era Flight Suit by Flite Wear with Type 3 NASA Vector Patch. I can’t imagine a better (or rarer) item for display purposes, a real museum piece. And, to go with it: Neil Armstrong’s Personal NASA Leather Name Tag.
[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, JJ, Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day ULTRAGOTHA.]
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The Internet is for scrolls
The Internet is for scrolls
Grab your socks and tick that box
The Internet is for scrolls!
He scrolled the noble Pixelkivis
Of the posts he scrolled him fifth-ses
Scrolled them with the fan folks inside
Scrolled them with the mundanes outside.
18
I gather a lot of people have never seen aerial photos of dry lakes before. There wasn’t any water there to go anywhere. (The cracks from the quake are impressive.) Also, the USGS shows the 7.1 on Friday at a depth of 8km. (The one on Thursday was 10.7km down.)
He wrote of cursing Kiva Lagos,
Of her schemes he wrote in sequels
Wrote of Emperoxes and review with peers,
Wrote of Emperoxes become seers
I mean, technically we’ve posted con news at the same rate as we used to on Nerd & Tie, we just stopped posting news about anything else 😛
17) Some people need lives.
Clickity
10) John Simm also played Detective Inspector Sam Tyler in the great BBC time travel (and it turns out nsgreyvsr) show Life on Mars. Life on Mars and its sequel Ashes to Ashes (in which Simm does not appear) were two superlative shows that seem strangely forgotten a little more than ten years on.
@4: Somehow I’d gotten this idea of Ewell not having been around so far back. I wonder if I ran into him at a Disclave or Balticon, given that the article says he was active around DC when I was going.
@5: I suspect this state of affairs lasted until dinnertime. I suspect that depends on whether these birds were as vicious as (e.g.) cassowaries, which you do not want to mess with; I suspect the techniques used to tackle ostriches are of limited use when applied to something with three times the mass.
@6: I would hope that nobody would be stupid/cruel enough to have children without watching several life cycles of test animals to see how permanent low-G affects them; adults can do exercises, but what will happen to infants, to whom one can’t explain the need to work harder than obviously necessary? I’d love to see a colony be possible, but I find Zubrin’s it-will-just-happen insouciance a bit much.
@10: I’m impressed Kindle has any of Wyndham’s works in print; I was trying to find out about rights 30 years ago and got thoroughly run around. Among notable works, I’d also point to The Chrysalids (Rebirth in the US) (for both its damning of bigotry and its use in a Jefferson Airplane song) and Trouble with Lichen (probably sexist to today’s readers, but condemning the sexism of its time).
also @10: I liked the Pliocene Exile and the first prequel (Intervention), but found the Milieu trilogy too far gone in odd-reading theology. (She may have been citing a mainstream unconventional thinker rather than somebody really radical, but that didn’t prevent the theology/philosophy from overwhelming the story.)
The BBC reports that Researchers have found a way to purify water and produce electricity from a single device powered by sunlight — a big win when generating power conventionally needs lots of water, and desalinating water conventionally needs lots of power.
@Cora Buhlert — I loved Life on Mars! And do plan to watch Ashes to Ashes one of these days; unfortunately, it (A2A) never got a DVD release in the US, so as far as I’m aware, you can’t watch it without a region-free DVD player.
@Joe H.
That’s a pity. But as I said, Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes seem unjustly forgotten these days.
British TV had a lot of great SFF shows between approx. 2005 and 2012, but except for Doctor Who and its spin-offs, no one talks about them anymore.
Also in the news: Space-tourism biz Virgin Galactic going public after merger. Not as gutsy as an IPO, but an interesting step.
(2) Taiyo Fujii is kind of the Japanese Andy Weir. He writes near-future science fiction with serious science, but he is not overly serious about his characters. I’ve read Gene Mapper and Orbital Cloud in English translation and both were thought-provoking and a lot of fun. I’d like to see his work get more exposure in the anglophone fan community. I wouldn’t be surprised if some year it made it onto the Hugo ballot.
@Cora Buhlert — Conveniently, I do have the region-free DVD player (purchased primarily so that I could watch Charlie Jade) and the Ashes to Ashes set, so I’m good, but I realize most people won’t go to that much trouble.
I’m also mildly cranky that we never got a US release of the second season of Hex (although again I have the British version); and there was also a series called Strange that starred Jeffrey Coyle (from Coupling) that I’d love to lay my hands on someday.
(10) My favorite David Hartwell memory was his Worldcon Guest of Honor interview at Anticipation. He used his entire time to talk about his fannish friendship with Paul S. Williams and just how great a guy Paul was.
Ron Glass also appeared in the story ‘Eye of Newton’ (original story by Joe Haldeman) in the 80’s era Twilight Zone reboot, along with Sherman Hensley. Glass played the demon summoned accidently by Hensley working out a mathemetical equation.
I encountered Glass at GenCon the year before he died, and I recalled that episode. What I remembered most was that he had to wear contacts for the role, and I asked if they were hard contacts, because he looked uncomfortable wearing them. He just nodded and said “yes”.
Also, I just ordered the VanderMeers’ Big Book of Classic Fantasy, and I’m pretty sure my Kindle weighs more now than it did before I downloaded it.
Today is also Fred Gwynne’s birthday (1926, died 1993); he’s best known for his portrayal of Herman Munster.
Genre-adjacent birthdays today: Nikola Tesla (1856, d. 1943) and Don “Mr. Wizard” Herbert (1917, d. 2007).
@Tom Becker: I quite liked Gene Mapper (haven’t read Orbital Cloud). Maybe he needs better titles.
Re TASFIC and Julian May ….
Check out the Executive Committee for the convention: http://www.fanac.org/worldcon/Chicon/w52-pbk.pdf .
Lots of interesting advertisements, including one from the Science-Fantasy Writers of America, which seems to be of 4E’s ideas. With the last advertisement from Shasta announcing their unpublished novel contest … oh boy. (see http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/shasta_publishers)
5) The source link included in the linked article seems to go to the wrong place, but googling the species name reveals a Popular Mechanics article with a link to a summary in Nature.
Lots of interesting stories today!
1) “A Boy and His Dog”.
@Chip Hitchcock: Yeah, if those big birds were anything like Phorusrhacidae, aka the “Terror Birds”, who also grew to be upwards of 3m, I’d say the big question is: who was eating whom?
Having a beak doesn’t mean you’re not a genuine dinosaur! 🙂
(2) MORE BEST TRANSLATED HUGO FEEDBACK. In fairness, a Best Translated Novel category wouldn’t have anything to do with the short form categories. I doubt anyone would stop nominating translated short works just because there was a new category those works were not eligible in (not being novels). Anyway, good to see feedback from translated authors, like Taiyo Fujii and the person who commented in another Pixel Scroll (IIRC) with his thoughts, as a translated author and member of SFWA.
(8) WESTEROS DISTINGUISHED. LOL, I can hear the “NOT THAT I’M BITTER” loud and clear from that judge. 😉
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS. Even though I monitor new SFF audiobooks at Audible.com, I still occasionally search on Jullian May’s name in case an audiobook of “Pliocene” #2 somehow sneaks by me. I’m not sure I knew (or at least, not sure I remembered) that she chaired a Worldcon. Cool! Anyway, I greatly enjoyed the “Pliocene” series and found the later prequels interesting, but didn’t warm to them quite as much, I admit.
(11) COMICS SECTION. LOL, I never thought of that. Maybe it doesn’t rain in Oz. 😉
@Kip Williams: “The Internet is for scrolls . . .” 🙂
Also @Chip Hitchcock: you just named my two favorite Wyndhams, so thanks.
Gotta say, since I started keeping chickens, I am now convinced the asteroid is the only reason mammals ever got anywhere. Watching several chickens take apart a lizard is…um…instructive. (Also grisly.) They’re dumb, they’re easy prey, they’re squawky and flappy and silly…and they are also goddamn terrifying predators at their particular scale.
The farther you scale it up, the worse it gets. Great Blue Herons have killed wildlife rehabbers before, they’re basically a spring-loaded javelin with a body attached. I would stay reeeeeally far away from that giant bird.
But, but, but — “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”!
(1) The Grapes of Wrath of Khan is good.
I have also seen Make It Sauvignon online.
How about The Vinyard Light ?
I am pleased to see that the dog is not carrying Picard’s comm badge as I first thought, he just has a Starfleet themed dog tag with his name on it:
No. 1
@Mike Glyer–But the rainbow is in Kansas, not Oz.
@Lis – but isn’t Kansas in monochrome!?
“But the rainbow is in Kansas, not Oz.”
There was a deleted scene from the film where Dorothy sings a reprise while trapped in the Witch’s castle, only to break down partway through. (Having heard the audio, I see why they cut it — it’s a pretty harsh moment.)
There are more scrolls in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your pixelology.
10: UK Kindle shows up two Wyndham short fiction collections, Consider Her Ways and The Seeds of Time. Consider Her Ways was certainly about when I was discovering JW as a teenager, though I’m not sure I’ve ever read them. It’s not like his novels are long, even by the standards of the early 80s, and I preferred something with a bit more to it. Also my parents had the core books on the shelf.
It looks to me as though the estate is more interested in getting the ‘classic’ works available than editing a new ‘Complete Short Fiction’
5) This is also reminding me I should reread Jane Gaskell’s Atlan books one of these years.
nickpheas notes UK Kindle shows up two Wyndham short fiction collections, Consider Her Ways and The Seeds of Time. Consider Her Ways was certainly about when I was discovering JW as a teenager, though I’m not sure I’ve ever read them. It’s not like his novels are long, even by the standards of the early 80s, and I preferred something with a bit more to it. Also my parents had the core books on the shelf.
It looks to me as though the estate is more interested in getting the ‘classic’ works available than editing a new ‘Complete Short Fiction’
The stateside IBooks and Kindle have those too which leave some fifty six stories not available in digital form. That’s a shame.
RedWombat says The farther you scale it up, the worse it gets. Great Blue Herons have killed wildlife rehabbers before, they’re basically a spring-loaded javelin with a body attached. I would stay reeeeeally far away from that giant bird.
I’ve dealt with geese and they can deliver a very nasty bite, so I cannot even imagine what these could do. Let alone the damage a kick from their talons could do. No thank you.
17) Would that casting in a Disney movie was my greatest issue in life.
Hmm. On the one hand, it has snowed in Oz, so that seems possible. On the other hand, it was a witch that made that happen, and the Lion noted that the weather was unusual. (And the song about The Merry Old Land gives an impression of perpetual ease that seems incompatible with snowy weather.)
@ Joe H
There is a good quality run of Strange on Youtube. I am not sure the ending quite lives up to the first episodes, but it is fun (especially Ian Richardson and Tom Baker) and eerie, isn’t it?
(1) You know, you think you’ve learned your lesson. You’ve been hurt so many times -Voyager, Enterprise, Discovery- you’re out! No more. But then something like this drops.
Star Trek, I want to give us another try. I’m ready to love again.
Robinson Crusoe on Mars: :as the film goes on it gets less and less scientific.. Adam West is in the film, but he gets knocked off early.
@RedWombat When I was young, I was given a bounty at one point for shooting English Sparrows (invasive species, killed and drove off the Bluebirds, etc). One day I shot one and it went down in the middle of the chicken coop. There was a mad stampede, and then this scene that really belonged in a cartoon, just noise and a cloud of dust. After a minute or so, the chickens went on about their day. And there was literally /nothing/ left of the English Sparrow.
(1) Kind of sad to see the cruel tradition of ear pointing continues in the 20-whatever century.
(5) So another meaner version of a chocobo. I think we should get to work on bringing them back.
(6)I think Zubrin’s getting ahead of himself, given we don’t even know yet whether humans can live long term in Mars’ .4g gravity. And having children is an even bigger unknown. We might want to know these things before we spend billions on a Mars colony.
The again, given how Americans are willing to toss away billions on nonsense like the F35 and Littoral Combat Vessel, we may well spend the money on a Mars colony and then say “Oops!”
The Asia, Americans
Miles Carter says You know, you think you’ve learned your lesson. You’ve been hurt so many times -Voyager, Enterprise, Discovery- you’re out! No more. But then something like this drops.
Star Trek, I want to give us another try. I’m ready to love again.
Tastes as always vary. I never warmed to Voyager but for the most part liked Enterprise and find Discovery fascinating and am very much looking forward to the thousand year leap they’re taking. Though Picard could indeed be quite interesting in its own right.
Right now, I’m listening to Stross’ Empire Games which is one of the most info dump dense reads I’ve ever had. I’m hoping that Deep State , the next volume, dails back quite a bit on that aspect.
It continues to have one great mystery that the spy masters in the deep state of our time line seem to be overlooking…
edit: Last line of comment 1 should be “For Scrolls, Scrolls, Scrolls!” This matches the scheme of the specific verse I was going for. It bugged me for the last half hour of being at the gym today, and I resolved to fix it when I got home. Have done.
Whew.
I didn’t think of that. It just seemed to me that if there was a land “way up high” on the other side of the rainbow, they ought to be able to see it from there too. And if houses from Kansas can fall in Oz, why not raindrops? Still, you may be right.
@Tom Becker: I don’t know whether I missed that interview, or was just too wiped by then (2 days of setup, too much of it improvised, followed by the Ford memorial). My main Hartwell-at-Anticipation memory was the size of the rack I was asked to create (out of leftover Art Show pieces) to hang the hundreds of ties in his collection. (I don’t remember whether the tie with the goldfish in it was included.)
@OGH: (piling onto others’ remarks) An Oz rainbow, if it existed, wouldn’t be visible from elsewhere, as Oz is surrounded by extensive desert. Yes, I’m being a nerd.
@rochrist: as someone too often woken up by what may be English Sparrows, I loved that story.
@Cat Eldridge: I’ve dealt with geese and they can deliver a very nasty bite, so I cannot even imagine what these could do. Let alone the damage a kick from their talons could do. No thank you. And geese can be relatively tolerant (if you’re not threatening their goslings, as some stupid suburbanite on the Boston Common almost found out). Swans, on the other hand, are pure mean.
Shh, you’re harshing my squee!
(But yes, I remember. I saw that movie when I was, what, 10 years old?)
Oh yeah. In the fall of 2001 I spent 6 weeks living in a neighborhood in Northern California where half a dozen geese roamed freely. And when I saw the gaggle coming, I got out of their way!