Pixel Scroll 9/1/20 Senpai
Noticed Me!

(1) GAME OF THRONGS. Netflix has ordered a series covering all three books in Liu Cixin’s trilogy — The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest, and Death’s End — reports Variety: “‘Three-Body Problem’ Series From David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, Alexander Woo Set at Netflix”.

There seem to be a lot of cooks hovering over the broth:

Benioff and Weiss executive produce under their Bighead Littlehead banner along with the company’s newly installed president, Bernadette Caulfield. [Rian] Johnson, Ram Bergman, and Nena Rodrigue executive produce via T Street Productions. [Brad] Pitt executive produces with along with Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner for Plan B Entertainment. [Rosamund] Pike and Robie Uniacke executive produce for Primitive Streak. Lin Qi, chairman of Yoozoo Group and The Three-Body Universe, and Zhao Jilong, vice president of The Three-Body Universe, also executive produce.

…Author Liu Cixin and accomplished sci-fi writer Ken Liu, who translated the English versions of the first and third books, serve as consulting producers.

The article quotes Liu Cixin:

“I have the greatest respect for and faith in the creative team adapting ‘The Three-Body Problem’ for television audiences,” said Cixin. “I set out to tell a story that transcends time and the confines of nations, cultures and races; one that compels us to consider the fate of humankind as a whole. It is a great honor as an author to see this unique sci-fi concept travel and gain fandom across the globe and I am excited for new and existing fans all over the world to discover the story on Netflix.”

(2) INTERNET ARCHIVE SUIT TRIAL SCHEDULED. Publishers Weekly is a fly on the courtroom wall when “Judge Sets Tentative Schedule for Internet Archive Copyright Case”. All the benchmark dates are at the link.

…The parties, barring a motion that would moot the schedule, are to be ready for trial on 48 hours notice on or after November 12, 2021.

…The copyright infringement lawsuit against the Internet Archive’s scanning and lending program was first filed on June 1 in the Southern District of New York by Hachette, HarperCollins, John Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random House, and is being coordinated by the Association of American Publishers.

(3) VOTERS BY THE YARD. “Biden campaign launches official Animal Crossing: New Horizons yard signs” reports The Verge.

…Since the start of the coronavirus outbreak in the US earlier this year, campaigns like Biden’s have been forced to entirely rethink how they organize voters. Instead of in-person rallies, Biden’s team has opted for live-streamed events and fundraisers along with socially distanced productions and interviews. The entire Democratic National Convention was held virtually earlier this month, with most guests streaming in over video software like Zoom to deliver speeches.

The Biden-Harris campaign released four sign designs for players to download, featuring the official Biden-Harris logo, Team Joe logo, the “Joe” Pride logo, and an image of aviator sunglasses shaded in red, white, and blue. Players will be able to access the designs in-game by scanning the design QR codes through the Nintendo Switch Online app.

Millions of people have picked up Animal Crossing: New Horizons since its initial release in March, and the Biden campaign is hoping to engage that large base with their new merch. “Animal Crossing is a dynamic, diverse, and powerful platform that brings communities together from across the world. It is an exciting new opportunity for our campaign to engage and connect Biden-Harris supporters as they build and decorate their islands,” Christian Tom, director of digital partnerships for the Biden campaign, said in a statement to The Verge. “As we enter the final campaign stretch towards November, this is one way we are finding new creative and innovative ways to meet voters where they are and bring our supporters together.”

(4) ZOOM IN BLOOM. Cora Buhlert wrote a NASFiC conreport and an overview of the growing phenomenon of virtual sff events: “Cora’s Adventures at the Virtual 2020 NASFiC and More Thoughts on Virtual Conventions”.

…The first panel I watched was “Fantasy for YA vs. Adults”, featuring Alma Alexander, Farah Mendlesohn, Sherwood Smith and Kathryn Sullivan. I picked this panel over the horror panel going on at the same time, because I knew and liked the panelists. There was some concern in the chat that the panelists were all white. And indeed, more diversity would have been nice, especially considering what a diverse field fantasy in general and YA in particular is.

Talking of the chat, unlike other recent virtual conventions, NASFiC opted not to use the Zoom chat, but have the Discord chat side by side with the panel. From the POV of an audience member, this was a lot better than having to switch between Discord and Zoom in different tabs/windows. Though I’m not sure how it was from the POV of a panelist, since panelists and moderators can more easily see questions, when they are asked in the Zoom chat…

(5) MASTERING DUALITY. Sarah Gailey’s Personal Canons series continues with “Abhorsen”.

…When I first read the Abhorsen books, I was very young, and I was just starting to grapple with questions of identity, duality, and choice. Bound up in those questions was a larger, overarching question of worth. I felt certain that if I didn’t answer those questions about myself correctly, I’d lose some degree of goodness. Bit by bit, parts of me would tarnish; I’d become Bad, and there would be no place in the world for me. That feeling was too much. I couldn’t face it.

But in Garth Nix’s books, I saw that perhaps the answers could be more complicated than I realized. In Sabriel, I saw that feeling afraid and unprepared didn’t have to mean surrender, so long as I could be resourceful and stubborn. In Lirael, I saw that it’s possible to survive the crushing feeling that life is unsurvivable.

(6) NYRSF 30TH SEASON. The New York Review of SF Readings Series, hosted by Jim Freund, kicks off its new season virtually on September 8 with a reading by Michael Swanwick. More info at the link: “NYRSF Readings: Swanwick/Dozois ‘The City Under the Stars’”

This reading marks the beginning of our 30th Season! Sadly, we cannot all join together for a fete, but over the course of time, we’ll figure something out. We wish to experiment with simulcasting the reading on our traditional home here on Facebook, but also try simulcasting it on YouTube. We’ll be testing this through the week so be sure to check back here to find out where to log in.

On Tor.com, Michael Swanwick wrote:
“Almost a quarter century ago, Gardner Dozois and I published “The City of God,” now the first half of this novel. It ended with a slam, seemingly precluding any sequels. But over the decades Gardner and I talked over what might come next. We planned to write two more novellas, “The City of Angels” and “The City of Men,” which would tell one long, complete story. One with a happy ending.

Don’t laugh.

Yes, Gardner could be a bleak writer. Yes, the novella was dark even for him. But he had an uplifting idea for how the book would end. We discussed it often. We were midway through the second novella and aiming at that happy ending when, without warning, Gardner died.

I knew I would never write that third novella without his input, his genius. Nevertheless I wanted the world to see this genuinely happy ending. So I changed the direction of the work in progress, combined both novellas, divided them into chapters, and made of them a novel I think Gardner would have been pleased with.

The ending is exactly what Gardner envisioned all those decades ago. A happy one. For everyone.

When I wrote the last words of it, I cried.”

(7) NOT TOO LATE TO TUNE IN. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.]“Arthur Charles Clarke discusses science fiction” at the Studs Terkel Radio Archive is a 1959 interview Studs Terkel conducted with Clarke where Clarke discusses his novels Childhood’s End and Earthlight, explains why he thought sf was not escapist, and said that “I’m a moral vegetarian, although I hate vegetables.”

(8) OKAY BOOMER. “Can You Recognize These Guest Stars On Star Trek: The Original Series?” John King Tarpinian got 9 of 11. I got 10. It helps if you’ve watched too much Sixties television.

We gathered some of our favorite guest stars from Star Trek: The Original Series. They are famous faces from classic television. See if you can match them to their popular roles. Good luck!

(9) DINO MITES. “‘Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous’ Trailer: Netflix Unleashes Look At New Dreamworks Animation Series, Launches Interactive Site”Yahoo! Entertainment has the story.

…The series trailer (watch it above) sets up the premise of Camp Cretaceous: A group of six teenagers are trapped at a new adventure camp on the opposite side of Isla Nublar. When the events of the film unfold and dinosaurs are unleashed across the island, each kid realizes their very survival rests on the shoulders of themselves and their fellow campers. Unable to reach the outside world, the six teens will go from strangers to friends to family as they band together to survive the dinosaurs and uncover hidden secrets so deep they threaten the world itself.

Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous premieres September 18 on Netflix.

The new interactive site, live now, invites users to experience a behind the gates look at Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous. At CampCretaceous.com, users can tour the campgrounds, get up close with dinosaurs, check out tree top cabins and a zipline, among other adventures.

(10) GOSPEL OR BLASPHEMY? Chris Mooney, in “You Don’t Have To Be A Genre Writer To Explore Genre” on CrimeReads, says his desire to put sf elements in a suspense novel led him to explore other works that combine sf and suspense, including novels by Colson Whitehead, Margaret Atwood, and Sir Kazuo Ichiguro.

…Sometimes when you mix things together, the results are amazing, even spectacular. As I was writing Blood World, I realized that almost of my all-time favorite books—the ones that had the greatest impact on me—were from authors who successfully incorporated elements from more than one genre. And now, it’s mid-August, the height of vacation season, and if, like me, you find yourself stuck in your backyard on a “staycation,” or lucky enough to live near a beach, you can do no better than these definitive, intelligent, page-turning, genre-bending classics.

(11) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

  • September 1, 1950Dimension X’s “The Roads Must Roll.” Based on the Robert Heinlein story that first was published in Astounding Science Fiction in the June 1940 issue, it would first be broadcast on this date on NBC  in 1950. It would win the Retro Hugo for Best Novella at MidAmericon II, the same year that OGH won another Hugo for Best Fan Writer. Jason Bolander, Norman Rose and Karl Weber were the cast. You can listen to it here. (CE)

(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]

  • Born September 1, 1875 Edgar Rice Burroughs. Bradbury declared him “the most influential writer in the entire history of the world.” Now I’d not necessarily disagree or agree with that statement but I would note that he has largely fallen out of public notice once again. So what’s your favorite works by him? The Barsoom stories are mine. (Died 1950.) (CE)
  • Born September 1, 1928 – Shelby Vick.  Edited Planetary Stories 2005-2017.  Edited a new (i.e. 2013, centuries after the original) volume of Sindbad stories (with E. Erdelac & E. Roberts; unable to resist the spelling “Sinbad”), writing one.  A score of short stories around then.  Leading fan since the 1940s.  Introduced Lee Hoffman (to some of us, after this incident, “Hoffwoman”), to Bob Tucker.  Started WAW with the Crew in ’52 bringing W.A. Willis to Chicon II the 10th Worldcon.  Organized, if that word may be used, Corflu 16 (fanziners’ con; corflu = mimeograph correction fluid, once indispensable); brought as a guest to Corflu 29.  Rebel Award.  (Died 2018) [JH]
  • Born September 1, 1942 C. J. Cherryh, 78. I certainly think the Hugo Award-winning Downbelow Station and Cyteen are amazing works but I think my favorite works by her are the Merchanter novels such as Rimrunners. Anyone familiar with “Cassandra“,  the short story she won a Hugo for at Seacon ‘79? What’s it part of? (CE) 
  • Born September 1, 1943 – Filthy Pierre, 77.  So unassumingly and widely helpful for so long he was at length given the Big Heart (our highest service award) and more locally made a Fellow of NESFA (New England SF Ass’n; its service award).  With Marilyn Wisowaty (as she then was; also F.N.) compiled The Blackdex and Bluedex indexing SF prozines.  FP being a filker is often at hand during an SF con and, when waiting is, inspires song, accompanying us on the current version of the Filth-O-Phone.  Made the well-named Microfilk, an early filk index.  Filk Hall of Fame.  Invented the Voodoo Message Board.  Fan Guest of Honor at Albacon 2010, Baltcon 52.  Under a transparent pseudonym has conducted the SF Conventional Calendar for Asimov’s since 1977.  [JH]
  • Born September 1, 1951 Donald G. Keller, 69. Editor and critic. Co-edited Phantasmicom with Jeff Smith (1969-1974). A contributor to The New York Review of Science Fiction in the early Nineties which is where his “The Manner of Fantasy” essay appeared. He also edited The Horns of Elfland anthology with Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman. Inactive genre wise for a decade now other than being a member of the editorial board of Slayage, the online Encyclopedia of Buffy Studies. (CE) 
  • Born September 1, 1952 – Brad Linaweaver.  Productive pro writer found lovable by many because of or despite proclaimed libertarian opinions.  A dozen novels, five dozen shorter stories, some with co-authors.  Artbook anthology Worlds of Tomorrowwith Forrest J Ackerman.  Interviewed William Tenn for Riverside Quarterly.  Two Prometheus Awards.  Phoenix. Heinlein’s brass cannon bequeathed to him.  (Died 2019)
  • Born September 1, 1954 – Larisa Mikhaylova, Ph.D., 66.  Editor, critic; translator including Cadigan and Le Guin.  Editor-in-chief, Supernova.  Organizer of conferences on Ivan Yefremov, co-ordinator of preparing his Complete Works.  Biography of HE in J. Francaville ed., Harlan Ellison.  “Shore Leave Russia” on Star Trek fandom in Russia, Eaton Journal of Archival Research in SF.  Academic Secretary, Russian Soc. Amer. Cultural Studies.  [JH]
  • Born September 1, 1961 – Jacinta Escudos, 59.  Mario Monteforte Toledo Central American Prize for Fiction.  Collection, The Devil Knows My Name (in Spanish, i.e. El diablo sabe mi nombre).  Anthologized in And We Sold the RainLovers and ComradesYou Can’t Drown the Fire.  Widely known outside our field.  Blog here (in Spanish).  [JH]
  • Born September 1, 1964 Martha Wells, 56. She’s has won a Nebula Award, a Locus Award, and two Hugo Awards, one for the “All Systems Red” novella at WorldCon ‘76, and the other for her “Artificial Condition“ novella at Dublin 2019.  Impressive. And she was toastmaster of the World Fantasy Convention in 2017 where she delivered a speech called “Unbury the Future”. Need I note the Muderbot Diaries are a truly amazing reading? (CE)
  • Born September 1, 1967 Steve Pemberton, 53. He’s on the Birthday List for being Strackman Lux in the most excellent Eleventh Doctor stories of “Silence in the Library” and “Forest of the Dead” but he has other genre credits including being Drumknott in Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal, Professor Mule in the Gormenghast series and Harmony in the Good Omens series as well. (CE) 
  • Born September 1, 1974 Burn Gorman, 46. Best known for his roles as Owen Harper in Torchwood , Karl Tanner in the Game of Thrones, Philip Stryker in The Dark Knight Rises and also as Hermann Gottlieb in Pacific Rim and the sequel Pacific Rim: Uprising. Like so many of his fellow Torchwood performers, he’s been active at Big Finish where he’s been in nine Torchwood stories to date. (CE) 
  • Born September 1, 1978 — Yoav Blum, 42.  Software developer and author.  First novel translated (from Hebrew), The Coincidence Makers.  Ranks Guards! Guards! about the same as Winnie-the-Pooh.  [JH]

(13) COMICS SECTION.

  • Ziggy listens to an outburst about an unfair evolutionary advantage.
  • Off the Mark comes up with one of those times when you shouldn’t count on Superman to save your life.
  • The Far Side asks Doctor who?
  • The Far Side illustrates a science fictional parenting problem.

(14) LIPTAK’S SEPTEMBER GUIDE. Andrew Liptak teases “22 science fiction and fantasy books to check out this September” on the Readling List.

….I’ve been in a bit of a reading rut in recent weeks, but one book that I’ve been enjoying is The Human Cosmos: Civilization and the Stars by Jo Marchant. It’s out today, and Marchant takes a slightly different tack on the history of astronomy: she looks at not how humanity discovered the stars and planets, but how it impacted our development as a civilization. It’s an excellent example of multidisciplinary history, looking at archeology, science, mathematics, and of course, astronomy. I highly recommend it.

If you’re looking for other books coming out this month, here are 22 science fiction and fantasy ones hitting stores that you should check out.

(15) THE STICKS HAVE BEEN HEARD FROM. SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, who has been without the internet most of the time during the pandemic, broke out of isolation to update “Concatenation Science Communication News”.

CoVID-19 / SARS-CoV-2 Lockdown — Please Note  Both Science Com and SF² Concatenation are in digital lockdown, but much is continuing as usual.  So stakeholders and those who liaise with either should note the following carefully.

Prior to CoVID-19 / SARS-CoV-2, neither abode being connected to the internet was not a problem (not even required) as regular internet access was available at college, volunteer work offices as well as learned society Fellows rooms’ and public libraries’ cybercafes (plus even hotels when travelling).  However, with SARS-CoV-2, access to these has ceased.  This means no e-mail communication since 20th March 2020 and this will not resume until we get a vaccine and restrictions are lifted. So if you have e-mailed, now you know why you have not had a response.

All other (non-e-mail) communications are working fine…

More news at the link.

He also tweeted assurance that there will be an autumnal edition of SF2 Concatenation as contributors have been snail-mailing contributions in on memory sticks.

(16) C.S. LEWIS MOVIE TO COMMENCE FILMING. “Production Begins Next Month for New C.S. Lewis Motion Picture” reports Narniafans.

… The material that this movie is based upon is Max McLean’s one man stage play that chronicles the Narnia author’s journey from atheism to Christianity… Although a filmed from the stage version of this production is already available on DVD, the new movie version will be entirely different with a full cast shooting at historic locations from C.S. Lewis’s life.

“The difference about this play is it’s going to be on location all over Oxford. We have full access to Maudlin College, The Kilns, the church, [and] various other places that are mentioned in the play. Instead of it being a one person show, it’s going to be a multi-actor show. I’ll play the older Lewis, we’ll have a boy Lewis, a young Lewis in his 20’s, cast his mother, his father, Tolkien, Barfield, Kirk, among others, and that is going to begin shortly.”

 In March 2020 the entire world of Fellowship for Performing Arts came to a complete standstill. The New York based theatrical organization had been selling 2,000 tickets a week for their four productions, but that quickly dropped to 0 tickets a week and there is no expectation that live theater will resume until 2021. More than 30 FPA shows have been canceled because it is far too dangerous to hold any public gatherings in the United States.

“Since our plays have all shut down, we’ve moved up our feature film adaptation of C.S. Lewis’s conversion story. That was designed to be a 2021/2022 project, well we’ve moved it up to September and October of this year. I’ll be leaving tomorrow for the UK to begin shooting in mid-September (I have to quarantine for two weeks before we begin shooting).”-Max McLean

Norman Stone is the producer of this movie. This award-winning British director also directed Shadowlands (1985), C.S. Lewis: Beyond Narnia (2005), and The Narnia Code (2009).

(17) WILL CROWDFUNDING LET THEM MAKE THEIR TEASER TRAILER? The Kickstarter for “BAÏDIR – the animated series”, a space-opera animated series, looks to be far from funding, having raised only $29,266 of its $35,968 goal and the appeal ending September 6.

This is an epic, modern, ecological, and family fable…

It tells the initiatory path of a hero willing to do anything to locate his sister, and thus restore the family’s lost balance. It is also a story that echoes a much broader collective quest. At stake: restoring our planet’s lost environmental equilibrium.

Baïdir is a series designed to span three parts, each composed of 8 episodes of 26 minutes. The genre varies from adventure to science fiction with a good dash of fantasy.

Born from the imagination of Slimane Aniss, then enriched by the graphic universe spun by Charles Lefebvre and Thierry Rivière, Baïdir got its first teaser in 2009. Several years later, in 2012, the concept for the series was purchased by a first production studio. This resulted in a second teaser being hatched. Then several years after that, Andarta Pictures managed to acquire the rights to the work. At long last, work could begin on building the narration and the universe, thus allowing it to take shape for the television screen.

Baïdir is a project that has garnered quite a lot of interest during its various development phases. There is a massive amount of fan art on social networks. This crowdfunding campaign will allow us to breathe life into this whole universe and to tell the story of Baïdir and his friends at last.

(18) ALIEN LIFE. The American Museum of Natural History will present online the “2020 Isaac Asimov Debate: Alien Life” on Wednesday, September 9, 2020.

Join Neil deGrasse Tyson, the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium, and a panel of experts for a livestream debate and question-and-answer session to discuss how life may have formed on Earth and explore what alien life might look like elsewhere in the universe.

What criteria do we use to classify life as we know it? Should the criteria be revised as we look for life on other worlds? The debate will bring together scientists from different fields–Nathalie A. Cabrol of the SETI Institute, Vera Kolb of the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute, Carol Cleland of the University of Colorado, and Max Tegmark of MIT–to share their creative ideas for what forms life might take in an extraterrestrial environment and what these predictions can teach us about life on our own planet.

(19) HO, HO PHO. Archie McPhee has “Ketchup, Shiitake And Pho Candy Canes” ready for the holiday season – whatever holiday that may be. (“National Flash on Your Carpet Day”?) Wait – they seem to think it’s Christmas!

This year’s Archie McPhee candy canes are here! We’ve got three crazy flavors to make your Christmas more delicious than ever. Ketchup Candy Canes are fresh-from-the-bottle candy that tastes just like America’s favorite condiment. Shiitake Mushroom Candy Canes have a mushroom flavor that will make Christmas morning even more fungus than usual. And, finally, Pho Candy Canes are un-pho-gettable! 

I hope Santa leaves the antidote within reach!

(20) RU A ROBOT? Daniel Dern calls it “The best CAPTCHA I’ve seen to date”.  From FB’s Concellation group.

[Thanks to N., John King Tarpinian, Lise Andreasen, Contrarius, Michael Toman, JJ, Cat Eldridge, John Hertz, Martin Morse Wooster, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mike Kennedy, Daniel Dern, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day O. Westin.]

41 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 9/1/20 Senpai
Noticed Me!

  1. 12) One of my favorite Martha Wells novels is Death Of The Necromancer, a barely disguised fantasy take on the world of Holmes but with Moriarity as the hero with his merry band of rogues. It’s great fun and very well executed.

  2. (20)
    well, there are some squares with a dust cloud that looks kind of like a Klingon bird of prey…..

  3. (8) I got them all, effortlessly – I think I should attempt to get my wife to try it, although (or perhaps because) she crossed her lifetime threshold for Trek long ago. Well-chosen stills, I have to say, especially Teri Garr and Yvonne Craig.

  4. 12) I read and enjoyed some of the Tarzan books when I was a kid, mainly in ‘60s Ballantine paperbacks, but nothing else by Burroughs until I sampled the first Mars novel in ebook form, much later. Surely nobody young reads him now.

  5. 12) I very much enjoyed Cherryh’s Fortress of time series. More protagonists should try out this books approach to prophecy- don’t fight it, fulfill it in a way that suits you.

  6. Bonnie McDaniel notes that Burn Gorman was also in The Expanse Season 4.

    Missed him there but I’ll admit I’ve not watched a single bit of the series as I’ve immensely enjoyed listening to them. I tend not to watch series based on works that I’m fond of as they usually change them too much for my liking. I’ll take something original like Torchwood or Farscape.

    Now playing: Commander Cody’s “Hot Rod Lincoln”

  7. With Camp Cretaceous: “Issla” Nubar? Not “Aisle-a: Nubar?
    With Max McLean: I saw him in THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS and reviewed MARTIN LUTHER ON TRIAL, which he co-wrote, here. So I’m glad he’s got a project.

    With the Arthur C. Clarke interview, I’d like to thank the show “The Big Broadcast” on WAMU in Washington. They broadcast a compiilation show Terkel did in 1962 of various of his guests promoting peace. One of the clips was from Clarke, so I looked and there was the interview.

  8. (8) Only eight of the eleven, but that’s mostly down to the fact a bunch of the shows mentioned never played in the UK, so knowing the name of the actor wasn’t much help.

  9. 4) Thanks for the link.

    8) I got 6 out of 11, but I also had to guess at some points, because a lot of these people were in 1960s family sitcoms I never watched, since they never aired over here.

    12) I’ve been a huge fan of Burn Gorman even since before Torchwood, ever since I saw him in an episode of the Inspector Lynley Mysteries, where he played the son of a murder victim and gave an amazingly intense performance. Unfortunately, he often plays villains and rarely survives to the end of the movie/series. Which is why I’m happy that he survived not one but two Pacific Rim movies, did not play a villain and even got a hint of romance in the second one.

  10. Speaking of Clarke, he was adored by the British expatriate community when I was resident there in Sri Lanka in the Eighties. He was well known if seldom seen in the capital city of Columbo where he was then living at least part time. I met one chap who had met him when Clarke was scuba diving down on the the south coast despite Clarke living with the limitations of post-polio syndrome.

    And yes I visited the region that got fictionalised into the setting of The Fountains of Paradise. Sri Dalada Maligawa, The Temple of The Tooth, is there.

  11. (8) Only eight of the eleven, but that’s mostly down to the fact a bunch of the shows mentioned never played in the UK, so knowing the name of the actor wasn’t much help.

    Same here. Most of those family sitcoms never aired in Germany either.

  12. 12) I’ve read … most Burroughs — all of the Barsoom and Venus and Pellucidar and all or nearly all Tarzan, plus a fair number of his standalone or very short series; I still enjoy his work, mostly, although these days I’d be very judicious about recommending him.

    Cherryh is my favorite SF (as opposed to fantasy, in this case) writer, bar none — primarily the Merchanter/Union/Alliance/Chanur books and the Morgaine books. Someday I’ll actually read some Foreigner. The story “Cassandra” is a standalone unconnected to any of her existing universes; based on the title, you can probably make some shrewd guesses about it.

    Love Martha Wells and need to get caught up with Murderbot, and go back and revisit Ile-Rien.

    Birthday of an associational nature: Harold Lamb (September 1, 1892 – April 9, 1962) whose fiction was primarily historical (often set in the steppes of central Asia) and who was a huge influence on Robert E. Howard; and he also wrote a couple of “lost race” stories, for better or for worse — the one that springs to mind, Marching Sands, was pretty racist even by the standards of the time.

  13. Only five of eleven. Not so much that I didn’t know the Star Trek as that I’m a bit young for some of the other series mentioned.

  14. I mentioned a couple days ago that I was rereading some Burroughs. It occurs to me that there are some of his novels I never have read, even while rereading others. I read all the original Ace books (not all the ones they published a few years later), and I read a lot of the Ballantines, but not the last few Tarzan and Mars ones. Well, his earlier books are the better ones, so I don’t mind reading them again. Even most of these early ones I haven’t read in quite a while. Halfway through The Outlaw of Torn now.

    I was looking back at the Ace publishing schedule. They started publishing Burroughs in late 1962, and I bought my first one in 1963. I was 12. I spent a long, long time looking at the ones available, trying to decide which one to buy. (I was in the book section of a department store.) I think I had 12 to choose between. (Ace published 36 between 1962-64.) Oddly enough, I selected Tarzan at the Earth’s Core, even though the three earlier Earth’s Core books were also there. While I loved reading, and had a long list of books I had enjoyed, this was on a whole different level for 12-year-old me.

    My allowance was like ten or fifteen cents a week (doesn’t that sound ridiculous now?), so I couldn’t just buy a new book whenever I wanted. I read Tarzan at the Earth’s Core over and over until I had another 40 cents, when I had to go through the agonizing selection procedure again. A Fighting Man of Mars. Now I had two books to read, in tandem, over and over again, until I could afford Tarzan the Invincible. Then I read those three…

    I could quote the beginning of TatEC by that summer. Not any longer, but I know it starts something like “Tarzan paused and sniffed the air.”

    I’m glad I can still tap into those days and enjoy these books even now.

    I don’t imagine he reads File 770, but just in case, happy birthday to Don Keller. I was 15 when we met, and I guess 18 when we published our first fanzine together.

  15. Burn Gorman was also in five episodes of FOREVER, the 2014 series starring Ioan Gruffudd as centuries-old immortal Henry Morgan, now working as a doctor in modern-day NYC. Gorman first appeared as Morgan’s psychiatrist, later revealed to be the first and oldest immortal.

    8) 7 out of 11

  16. @HelenS: “‘Maudlin College’? What a sad mistake.“

    If that’s indicative of the standard of their research…

  17. 12) Most days my favorite Burroughs is “When Did I Stop Wanting to be President?”, though there are passages in Naked Lunch and Junky that are pure—oh. Not that Burroughs.

  18. (1) The first 15 minutes of each episode will consist solely of the opening credits.

    (8) 11/11, a sure sign of my misspent youth. However, that entitles me to geek out the Klingons didn’t have a warbird painted on their ventral hull, and the Romulans had a Cloaking Device first. The Klingons got/stole the tech later (“Military secrets are the most fleeting of all”).

    (20) Doug quipped: “At least they didn’t ask which ones contained Romulan warbirds.” and that posits that a correct answer could be “All of ’em!”

    I am the OK boomer.

  19. @Steve Green and HelenS
    I’d give the reporter/interviewer a pass on that one. They heard “Maudlin”; they wrote “Maudlin”.

    Max McLean, who needed to, did do the research.

  20. (8) 7 out of 11, including a couple of lucky guesses. Never even heard of most of the sitcoms. I would have done a lot better if the questions actually asked who the actor was rather than what random other thing they were in.

    Burn Gorman was also in series one of The Man in the High Castle.

  21. Burroughs, Cherryh, and Wells all on the same day — a banner birthdate!

    Tarzan is one of my early standout book memories. The scenes with the apes first killing the father and then picking up the baby, and then the whole fish-out-of-water schtick, really got to me. And after that I eagerly devoured the Barsoom books. Gateway books! That was somewhere between 7-13 years of age, probably 10-12 — I remember which house I was living in when I read those.

  22. @Cat Eldridge

    The Expanse show is pretty faithful to the books so far. Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck are writers on the show as well. As a fan of the books first, I’ve definitely enjoyed the show. The actors have been amazing in bringing the characters to life.

  23. Donald G. Keller: he’s also notable for having founded and operated Serconia Press in the 1980s (along with myself), which published books of essays and reviews about sf: two by Brian Aldiss, one by Samuel R. Delany, and two by John Clute, including his first collection. Don did all the typesetting and some of the book design (though most of the design was done by John D. Berry) and was most responsible for getting Clute into print. (I handled the business end.)

  24. @m.c. simon milligan: And indeed, William S. Burroughs was a grandson of the founder of Burroughs Corporation, hence the title of one of his books, The Adding Machine. (His parents had the great luck to sell their stock just before the 1929 crash.)

  25. 1) Well, the first 7/8 of the series should be pretty good.

    @Rob Thornton: Death of the Necromancer has been on my TBR pile for a while. The Murderbot series is great, but I love the Books of the Raksura even more.

  26. Yup, Cherryh and Wells alone would make this a hard-to-beat birthday day for me, and throwing in Burroughs, who was a lot of fun for his day, doesn’t hurt.

    Cherryh is definitely one of my all-time favorites! Though, to be honest, I didn’t really care for Downbelow Station. But Cyteen left me completely sans socks. And its sequel, Regenesis, while not quite up to the same standard, really added a lot to the story. That pair may be my favorite duology in all of SF.

    As for TV, my mom refused to have one in the house in the sixties. But for a brief while (about three years), we went out to visit friends once a week to see the new episode of Star Trek when it came out. And for someone who didn’t like TV, she was sure quick to jump on Bjo’s bandwagon when it came time for the famous letter-writing campaign! 🙂

  27. I love Cyteen almost unreservedly. My one reservation being that a lot of the richness of the book is really incumbent on having read Downbelow Station, maybe Merchanter’s Luck, the Chanur books and, particularly, 40,000 in Gehenna in order to understand the full implications of what’s going on.

  28. @Joe H, I agree completely. When I first get a new Cherryh book I read it for the story. Then I reread it slowly to catch the clues and hints for the broader connectedness to the the rest of the Cherryhverse.

  29. Mmm, I don’t know. It’s fun knowing the background to some of the things that come up in Cyteen, but I’m not sure it adds much more than a moment of recognition. (With the possible exception of the events in 40,000 in Gehenna. But even there, the details that are relevant to the story of Cyteen are explained in Cyteen well enough to get you by.)

    That said, I usually do recommend starting with some of the lighter books in the series, because Cyteen is a pretty deep, information-dense package that can be intimidating if you have zero familiarity with the setting. So I guess I’m not really disagreeing.

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