Pixel Scroll 6/19/18 I Get No Glyphs From Sham Flames

(1) MEXICANX. The final four of 50 Mexicanx Initiative recipients have been announced by John Piciacio.

(2) DEEP DISH READING SERIES. Chicago’s Deep Dish SF/F reading series will resume at Volumes Book Cafe beginning in September. Here is the schedule:

September 6, 2018
November 8, 2018
March 7, 2019
May 9, 2019

Join us from 7 – 8:30 p.m. for a rapid-fire reading from the best of Chicago’s SF/F scene!

If you’re interested in reading with us, drop the SLF’s director, Mary Anne Mohanraj, a note — [email protected], with the subject line READING SERIES. We welcome beginners, emerging, and established writers, though if you have a book coming out next year, do let us know, as we’ll try to schedule you for a featured slot.

Co-sponsored by the Speculative Literature Foundation (www.speclit.org), SFWA (www.sfwa.org), and the Chicago Nerds Social Club (www.chicagonerds.org).

(3) BUILDING THIS WORLD. Malka Older’s talk on “Speculative Resistance” at #PDF18 is available on YouTube. Think about worldbuilding as an activist tool and a planner tool.

(4) NEWS TO THEM. We should be celebrating when someone is one of today’s Lucky 10,000 — A. Merc Rustad encourages the idea in a Twitter thread that starts here.

(5) IT’S WAR. Manchester, UK theatergoers can enlist for War With The Newts, with the campaign to be staged October 2-6.

The creators of smash-hit “Bin Laden: The One Man Show” bring you Karel Capek’s apocalyptic science-fiction satire re-imagined for a Europe of tomorrow. Global risk and technological revolution come together in this immersive experience from Knaïve Theatre. Fresh from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Witness the rise and fall of a new(t) capitalism. Deep in the bowels of an oyster-dredging vessel, an ocean of opportunity arises as a new resource makes contact. With live surround sound installation by sonic artist Robert Bentall.

At the discretion of The Company life jackets may be provided.

(6) CHECK THE BACK OF YOUR CLOSET. Yahoo! Finance advises “Your old video games could be worth serious cash”.

That’s right, those vintage consoles and games your mom dumped in the basement years ago could be worth some serious cash to the right buyer. Got a copy of “Nintendo World Championships 1990?” Then you’re looking at $100,000. But it’s not all about the cash. Many collectors are more interested in rounding out their personal game libraries, reliving the games they loved as children or simply exploring the history of the gaming industry first-hand.

(7) TIME TUNNELS. The New York Transit Museum’s exhibition “Underground Heroes: New York Transit in Comics” runs from June 21 through January 6, 2019.

New York’s rich visual vernacular is a colorful setting for illustrated stories, so it comes as no surprise that our iconic transportation system plays a starring role in comics and graphic novels. Drawing on satirical cartoons, comic strips and comic books from the 19th through the 21st centuries, Underground Heroes: New York Transit in Comics is a raucous ride through New York’s transit system from a range of visual storytellers. The exhibit includes such luminaries as Winsor McCay, Will Eisner, Bill Griffith, Roz Chast, Ronald Wimberly and Julia Wertz whose work demonstrates the influence that mass transit has on the stories that are irrevocably woven into the cultural fabric of New York City.

The Big Apple is often as important as the people (and creatures) in comics narratives, and the creators of these fantastic stories draw inspiration from the world around them. The transit system serves as the scene for heroic rescues, as secret lairs for supervillains, and as the site for epic battles of wills. Subways, railroads, streetcars, and buses can whisk heroes to far-flung corners of the city, or serve as a rogue’s gallery of unusual characters.

(8) SPACE FORCE. More Star Wars? “Trump Calls For ‘Space Force’ To Defend U.S. Interests Among The Stars” – NPR has the story.

President Trump Monday announced his intention to create a “space force” that would oversee the military’s activities off-world.

“When it comes to defending America, it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space,” Trump said at a meeting of the National Space Council, which oversees the nation’s space policy. “We must have American dominance in space. So important.”

“I’m hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a space force as the sixth branch of the armed forces. That’s a big statement,” the president continued.

Experts were quick to point out that President Trump cannot actually create a space force. A new branch of the military can only be established by an act of Congress — something that hasn’t happened since the Air Force was split from the Army in 1947.

The CBS News story “Trump directs Pentagon to create military Space Force” adds:

Mr. Trump provided no details and no timetable, but the establishment of a new branch of the military would be a major undertaking requiring extensive debate and congressional support.

The Pentagon’s chief spokesperson Dana W. White issued a statement suggesting the process will take some time.

“We understand the President’s guidance. Our Policy Board will begin working on this issue, which has implications for intelligence operations for the Air Force, Army, Marines and Navy. Working with Congress, this will be a deliberate process with a great deal of input from multiple stakeholders.”

In a letter to lawmakers last year, Defense Secretary James Mattis “strongly” urged Congress to reconsider a proposal to establish a separate “Space Corps,” saying it was “premature” to set up a new organization “at a time I am trying to reduce overhead.”

(9) SPEAK OF THE DEVIL. “Amazon Echo comes to Marriott hotels” reports the BBC. The fannish possibilities are endless…

Amazon’s digital assistant Alexa will be installed in some US Marriott-owned hotels, following a partnership between the two firms.

Its functions will include ordering room service, housekeeping and providing concierge advice, the firm said.

The Wynn Resorts chain in Las Vegas installed the Amazon Echo in around 5,000 hotel suites in 2016.

Marriott is reported to have considered both Alexa and Apple’s Siri.

(10) HOMEBUILT. “The $300 system in the fight against illegal images” is a story reminiscent of Gernbackian inventor SF — but for a cause that old SF probably couldn’t have discussed in print.

A security researcher has built a system for detecting illegal images that costs less than $300 (£227) and uses less power than a lightbulb.

Christian Haschek, who lives in Austria, came up with the solution after he discovered an image showing child sex abuse had been uploaded on his image hosting platform Pictshare.

He called the police, who told him to print it out and bring it to them.

However it is illegal to possess images of child abuse, digitally or in print.

“Erm… not what I planned to do,” Mr Haschek said.

Instead he put together a homegrown solution for identifying and removing explicit images.

Mr Haschek used three Raspberry PIs, powering two Intel Movidius sticks, which can be trained to classify images. He also used an open source algorithm for identifying explicit material called NSFW (Not Safe For Work), available free of charge from Yahoo.

(11) REVEALED. “And just look at that gorgeous cover by Reiko Murakami,” says JJ. Click through for a view — “A Smugglerific Cover: THE NINETY-NINTH BRIDE by Catherine Faris King”.

About the Novel

“Sister, would you please tell me a story?”

Dunya is fifteen when her father, the Grand Vizier, gives her over to the mad Sultan for his bride. Ninety-eight Sultanas before Dunya have been executed, slaughtered at the break of dawn following their first night with their new husband. But on her own wedding night, the ninety-ninth bride finds help from the mysterious and beautiful Zahra, who proposes to tell the Sultan a story…

The Ninety-Ninth Bride is a story of sisters and magic, and a kingdom on the brink of disaster.

(12) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • June 19, 1964The Twilight Zone aired its series finale, “The Bewitchin’ Pool,” written by Earl Hamner.

(13) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

  • Born June 19 – Zoe Saldana, 40. Both Guardians Of The Galaxy films, the entire Avatar film series, Star Trek series, and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl to name but a few of her genre films.
  • Born June 19 – Aidan Turner, 35. The Hobbit film trilogy, the BBC Being Human series, and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones film.

(14) DAMMIT, JIM, I’M A DOCTOR NOT A TEAMSTER. Syfy Wire says these comics will take us where no truck has gone before: “A new IDW comic is mashing up Star Trek and Transformers in the most glorious way possible”.

DW Comics, which has taken the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise on adventures with everyone from Doctor Who to Dr. Zaius, will be releasing a crossover comic titled Star Trek vs. Transformers. The four-issue miniseries is due out in September and will be written by John Barber and Mike Johnson, both of whom have written numerous Star Trek and Transformers comic book storylines.

…Artist Philip Murphy and colorist Leonardo Ito will be providing its distinct look, which will blend the unique aesthetic of 1973’s Star Trek: The Animated Series with 1984’s classic Transformers cartoon.

(15) WOMEN WRITERS OF THE SEVENTIES. James Davis Nicoll’s Tor.com series continues with the letter P: “Fighting Erasure: Women SF Writers of the 1970s, Part VIII”.

Katherine Paterson’s list of awards includes the Newbery, the National Book Award, the Hans Christian Andersen Award, and the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, among others. Her well-known novel Bridge to Terabithia, which helped inspire the Death by Newbery trope, is if not genre, then at least genre-adjacent. Bridge is strongly recommended to parents of children unduly burdened with excessive levels of joie de vivre.

(16) THE COMPETITION. Meg Elison reports Jason Sanford is kicking File 770’s ass. Well, it certainly makes more sense to send Sanford a buck for news that isn’t reported here than to reward Locus Online for posting news they found reading here.

(17) SPEAK, MEMORY. Wired says we have this to look forward to: “Now the Computer Can Argue With You”. The coming rise of our AI overlords now includes machine intelligence engaging in live formal debate with human debate champions… and maybe winning.

“Fighting technology means fighting human ingenuity,” an IBM software program admonished Israeli debating champion Dan Zafrir in San Francisco Monday. The program, dubbed Project Debater, and Zafrir, were debating the value of telemedicine, but the point could also apply to the future of the technology itself.

Software that processes speech and language has improved enough to do more than tell you the weather forecast. You may not be ready for machines capable of conversation or arguing, but tech companies are working to find uses for them. IBM’s demo of Project Debater comes a month after Google released audio of a bot called Duplex booking restaurants and haircuts over the phone.

IBM’s stunt Monday was a sequel of sorts to the triumph of its Watson computer over Jeopardy! champions in 2011. Project Debater, in the works for six years, took on two Israeli student debating champions, Zafrir and Noa Ovadia. In back-to-back bouts each lasting 20 minutes, the software first argued that governments should subsidize space exploration, then that telemedicine should be used more widely.

(18) QUICK SIPS. Charles Payseur gets to work on new releases in “Quick Sips – Uncanny #22 [June stuff]”.

Uncanny meets June with three stories and two poems and a decidedly dark tone. In these pieces people struggle with big issues. With systems and environments that are broken, that are hungry for blood. Where monsters and demons lurk. And they are settings where the characters are expected to accept their victimization, where if they struggle it will only hurt them more. Only, of course, these characters don’t accept that. Instead, they push back against these environments and when they meet someone who might have the power to change things, they seek to use that power. To convince it or take it in order to remake the world. Or to right a wrong situation. The stories are often violent, and uncomfortable, but they also shine with resilience and with care, and with the hope that things can get better. To the reviews!

(21) BOYCOTTING WENDIG. This protest has been just as effective as the Tor Boycott, wouldn’t you say? Chuck Wendig’s Twitter thread starts here.

(22) ENTRY LEVEL SUPERHERO. The Washington Post’s Sandie Angulo Chen interviews Huck Milner, who plays Dash Parr in The Incredibles 2: “‘Incredibles 2’ is a super first acting job for 10-year-old”.

Luckily for Huck, the filmmakers decided to replace the original voice actor, who is now in his 20s, with a more authentic-sounding 10-year-old’s voice. Back in fourth grade, Huck did the first audition, got a call for a meeting with the director, Brad Bird, and then received news so good, he thought it was a prank.

“I got the call that I had gotten the part, and I thought it was an April Fool’s joke, because my mom told me right around April Fool’s,” Huck recalled. “I really thought it was a joke.”

(23) EXPANDING UNIVERSE. Jennifer Maas, in “Alex Kurtzman Signs New Five-Year CBS-TV Overall Deal, WIll Expand Star Trek TV Universe” for The Wrap, says that Kurtzman has been named showrunner for Star Trek :Discovery and has his five-year pact to produce “new series, mini-series, and other content opportunities” related to Star Trek.

Under the agreement, CBS will have exclusive rights to produce all television content created and developed by Kurtzman’s new company, Secret Hideout, which is producing “Discovery.”

Kurtzman’s new deal comes after he split with his longtime producing partner Roberto Orci and their K/O Paper Products banner. Heather Kadin, formerly of K/O, will join Secret Hideout as president of television. Kadin previously worked at Warner Bros. and ABC, where she was instrumental in the development and production of such hit series as “Lost,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” and “Alias.”

(24) CAPTAIN SIR PAT. Rumors say that Star Trek, under Kurtzman, might venture someplace man has gone before:

The Hollywood Reporter claimed on Tuesday (June 19) that Sir Patrick Stewart is attached to a brand new Star Trek series in development at CBS that will see him reprise his Next Generation role as Picard.

The project is reportedly one of several Star Trek series and miniseries that are being developed by Star Trek: Discovery showrunner Alex Kurtzman as part of his newly-signed multi-year production pact with CBS.

THR notes that the Picard series is in very early development, and might not happen at all, so it’s probably best that fans of The Next Generation don’t get their hopes up for a return of the Holodeck quite yet.

[Thanks to JJ, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, Chip Hitchcock, Martin Morse Wooster, Mike Kennedy, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Jon Del Arroz Threatens to Sue Worldcon 76

Jon Del Arroz, who last month was banned from attending this year’s Worldcon in San Jose, has created a GoFundMe titled “Make WorldCon Great Again” which explains:

… In January 2018, WorldCon, the premier science fiction writers convention, openly discriminated against libertarians and conservatives in the field by banning Jon Del Arroz, a popular Hispanic science fiction writer, in an unprecedented move because he is outspoken political figure. Their claim was that Del Arroz “intended to violate their code of conduct.”

Del Arroz is asking donors for $10,000 to fund a lawsuit in retaliation:

Pursuing his rights on his behalf and for others who may be discriminated against on similar grounds will be expensive. Filing the lawsuit will cost around $1,000 and if there are depositions, motions, or experts, it could cost more than $10,000. It’s a lot of money to be able to exercise rights to speak without fear of illegal retaliation and discrimination and to associate with other members of the science fiction community and writing peers, but it needs to be done so others in the future can speak safely.

Please help Jon Del Arroz in his fight for civil rights for libertarian-conservatives everywhere in these troubling times. As a thanks, everyone who donates will receive a free novella e-book as a thank you.

Curiously, although the GoFundMe was created a week ago, as of this moment it still has yet to receive its first donation.

In January, Worldcon 76 advised its staff to have no further discussion on Jon Del Arroz because attorneys were getting involved.

Now Del Arroz has started publicizing his lawsuit threat by contacting writers, even (or perhaps especially) those that have criticized his past record of harassment. A. Merc Rustad received a copy and posted this reaction:

Pixel Scroll 12/22/17 Well, Those Books Kept Coming And They Don’t Stop Coming

(1) ADVANCED CREATURE ACCOUNTING. If there had been a test I would not have passed…

(2) LIGHTING UP THE NIGHT SKY. Excitement this evening in California caused by the SpaceX Iridium 4 launch out of Vandenberg. Per Gregory Hart:

Successful orbital insertion for deployment of the fourth set of Iridium communication satisfied l satellites. First stage was maneuvered to crash into the ocean safely and it looked like controlled burn backs helped in positioning. They did not want to recover the first stage this time as it had been previously flown in June.

(3) KGB. See all the photos taken by Ellen Datlow at N.K. Jemisin and Christopher Brown’s Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading on December 20 — here.

Chris and Nora

(4) DOWNSIZING, BRIGHT REVIEWS. Rush and watch these productions before critics talk you out of it. Oops, too late….

NPR’s Andrew Lapin calls Downsizing: A Tone-Deaf, Less-Than-Incredible Shrinking Satire”:

It’s the rare movie that seems to execute every part of its concept absolutely wrong; a narrative, tonal, visual and sociopolitical fiasco the likes of which haven’t been seen in many moons.

And Chris Klimek says Bright (from Netflix) is “perfectly, stubbornly mediocre” in “Will Smith Plays Cops-And-Monsters In Unremarkable ‘Bright'”

…the scenes of Smith and Edgerton driving around on patrol, bickering like all the Murtaughs and Riggses and Crocketts and Tubbses and Cagneys and Laceys who’ve sat in cars together on stakeout since the First Age of Middle-Earth — lo, they cast a mighty spell of pure adequacy.

The Daily Beast is even more brutal: “Netflix’s ‘Bright’ Is a $90 Million Steaming Pile of Orc Sh*t”:

Bright is a misnomer on two levels. First of all, the majority of Netflix’s new $90 million original movie takes place at night and in fairly dingy rooms, and that, in combination with how the whole production is lit, means that most of the action is obscured and visually unintelligible. Secondly, there’s nothing about this movie that’s an inherently good idea—or rather, very generously speaking, maybe the story could have made some valid points about the state of race relations in America with a little more thought. But as things stand, Bright plays like the kind of movie a kid might make up (“And then this happens! And then this happens!”) if they were given a very rough overview of American history and then told to write a script about it. It’s almost worse that that’s not the case—scratch that, it is worse—but we’ll get to that.

(5) THEIR MILEAGE VARIED. On the other hand, the BBC lists Downsizing as one of the year’s 10 best (along with 3.5 other genre films):

  1. Downsizing

Despite its title, Downsizing sees Alexander Payne’s ambition growing to vertiginous heights. His specialism is wistful comedies (Sideways, Nebraska) set in a recognisable contemporary US, but his latest film is an apocalyptic science-fiction mind-bender set at some unspecified point in the future, in the US and beyond. Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig play the Midwestern couple who wonder whether they should cut their living costs by being shrunk to the size of Barbie dolls but this droll premise is just the beginning. As soon as you think you can see where it’s going, Downsizing ventures somewhere startlingly new instead.

(6) THE BOMB. Talking about his novel The Berlin Project, Gregory Benford describes where alternate history branches off in “Making A Better World War II”.

Everybody loves success, so historians have papered over the fact that when we developed the atomic bomb we made a decisive bad judgment that cost over half a billion dollars of 1940s dollars and delayed the war’s end by about a year.

The bad decision came in 1942 from General Leslie Groves, who directed the Manhattan Project, which was the U.S. R&D program to develop the first nuclear weapons. To make uranium suitable for an atomic bomb, you must enrich it up to weapons-grade, so that it is almost pure U-235, the element’s most fissile isotope. Groves chose to pursue gaseous diffusion over an alternate concept—Karl Cohen and Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner Harold Urey’s centrifugal separation—to enrich uranium up to weapons-grade.

We now know that was a huge mistake. Karl and Harold Urey said so then.

If we had stuck with centrifugal separation for another six months we would’ve solved its engineering problems, without question.

(7) IT’S A BASEBALL THING. Surely all Filers in Philadelphia would enjoy the excitement of science fiction and the wacky hijinks of the Phillie Phanatic together in one memorable film! MLB.com identifies “The weirdest and best National League gifts you can buy this holiday season”, and one is genre —

The material is only as good as the teacher. Fortunately for all of us, this Christmas the teacher can be … the Phillie Phanatic. Yes, underneath all that green fur is a creature that wants to show us history. Move over, Bill and Ted: This is the movie for me.

The Phillie Phanatic loves the Phillies, but he loves world history, too. When his new time travel helmet arrives in the mail, the Phanatic doesn’t just learn about history, he lives it! With the help of his friend, Larry, the Phanatic goes back in time to help cavemen invent the wheel, becomes king for a day, outduels an evil knight, signs the Declaration of Independence, cracks the Liberty Bell and stumbles into many other wacky adventures with his time travel helmet. What time period is his favorite? Only real Phillies fans know the answer!

(8) FOR SOME VALUES OF RUINED. How can we expect anybody to “have yourself a merry little Christmas” now? “‘Christmas is ruined’: Outrage as Cadbury drops old favourite Fudge from selection boxes”Evening Standard has the story.

Chocolate fans have reacted with fury after Cadbury dropped the beloved fudge bar from its festive selection box.

The old favourite has been replaced by a dairy milk oreo bar, leading some to claim that “Christmas is ruined”.

The biscuit-based newcomer joins the wispa, crunchie, double decker, dairy milk and chocolate buttons in the selection box, which costs £2.99.

Fans of the boxes, which are a popular Christmas gift, have taken to Twitter to lambast Cadbury over the controversial move.

(9) JINGLE HELL. What is Adam Roberts thinking?

(10) BARKS’ FAMILY PORTRAIT. A painting by one of the most famous Walt Disney Studios artists of all time helped Heritage Auctions’ Dec. 9-10 Animation Art Auction in Beverly Hills, California clear more than $1.5 million.

More than a dozen bidders pursued a Carl Barks “Family Portrait” Uncle Scrooge and Disney Ducks Painting #73-15 with Handwritten Letter (1973) until it finally hammered at $68,712.50. The entire Duck family “posed” for the legendary Disney artist, with Donald Duck surrounded by Uncle Scrooge McDuck (a Barks creation), Grandma Duck, Daisy Duck, Gladstone Gander, and in front, Donald’s nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie.

(11) TWO COMICS ARTISTS DIE. The ranks of women comics artists have been depleted by two recent deaths. Vu Nguyen reports

One of the few women in comics, Annie Goetzinger, has died today (20 December 2017).  She was 66, according to la-croix.com.

Goetzinger is a French illustrator, known for her research and attention to detail. Her  earliest works were illustrations for short comic stories published in French comic magazines like Pilote, Charlie Mensuel and Fluide Glacial. Goetzinger’s first graphic novel, Casque d’Or, won her two awards at the 1977 Angoulême International Comics Festival.

“When I started, I did not know there were so few girls making comics. … I didn’t care; I always felt like kind of a maverick.”

Also, another woman artist: Lona Rietschel, from Germany, passed away at the age of 84 on 19 December 2017 (as mentioned by tagesspiegel.de).  Rietschel started her career as a fashion artist and animator at DEFA studios, before relocating to Berlin.  There, she applied to work for the long-running German/Europe’s monthly comic book Mosaik.  She was originally hired as only an illustrator, but she eventually started creating characters for the magazine, including  The Digedags.

In May 2013, Rietschel won the PENG! Prize for her work at the Comicfestival München.

(12) ASTRONAUT OBIT. NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless, the first person to fly freely and untethered in space, died December 22. He was 80.

He was famously photographed in 1984 flying with a hefty spacewalker’s jetpack, alone in the cosmic blackness above a blue Earth. He traveled more than 300 feet away from the space shuttle Challenger during the spacewalk.

(13) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • December 22, 1932 The Mummy seen for the first time in theaters.
  • December 22, 1933 Son of Kong premiered.

(14) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY

  • Born December 22, 1951 – Charles de Lint

(15) NOT TO BE MISSED. See a canvass of top titles in Starburst’s Books of 2017”:

As 2018 and all its potential looms ever closer, it’s about this time of year that we have a quick look back at some of the more interesting books that came out in 2017. We aren’t going to stand on ceremony here.  This is a mixed list of stuff that caught our eye over the year, each one chosen because it delighted us in some way. To start off with, let’s mention Jeanette Ng’s Under the Pendulum Sun, a notably dense yet utterly absorbing tale of two Victorian Era Christian Missionaries head into the land of fairies to bring god to godless. It’s wonderfully bleak and though it’s hardly poolside holiday reading, it’s rather fun. Speaking of light reading is Andy Weir’s Artemis. Weir is best known for his book The Martian, which got turned into a movie featuring Matt Damon. Artemis is more of the same; believable science fiction (this time set in a moon base), slight less believable characters and lots of friendly science to go with the fiction. Bubblegum it may be, but it’s delicious bubblegum that feeds your brain.

(16) MEMORIES AND EXPECTATIONS. Adam Troy-Castro launched a Facebook discussion of Jon Del Arroz’ tweets about applying for SFWA membership and plans to wear a bodycam in the SFWA Suite:

If you’re a reasonably normal person who happens to earn professional credits as a science fiction writer — two subsets which may sound mutually exclusive, but which are not — then your dream, if attending Worldcon, *should* be, normally is, getting to meet and befriend all the iconic writers whose imaginations informed yours.

“Oh my God! I can be in the same room with David Gerrold or Robert Silverberg or George R.R. Martin or Raymond E. Feist or Ursula K. Le Guin or Steve Barnes or (in treasured memory), Octavia Butler, Daniel Keyes, Harry Harrison, Kit Reed, Richard Matheson and Hal Clement!”

You can name the younger names, too, but if you care, there’s a certain generation of writers, young or old, who are icons to you, and it matters to you, and that is one reason you want to go.

This guy looks forward to walking into the SFWA Suite and knowing that they couldn’t lock him out, and indeed he looks forward to wearing a bodycam to entrap people into treating him like shit so he can prove they’re all a bunch of assholes.

A year out…this is what he anticipates with glee.

This is what gives him the tinglies….

Several writers answered with sentimental reminiscences about their first visit to the SFWA Suite at a Worldcon, including a long one by Jim Wright about Sasquan.

(17) JDA AND SFWA. A. Merc Rustad wrote a series of tweets about JDA’s SFWA application, which starts here.

(18) RESIGNS FROM THE EMPIRE. T.R. Napper says no more Star Wars for him – “Glory to the Empire”.

George Lucas, on the other hand, was like Vader. When he started out, young and idealistic, he did some amazing things. As he got older, and the call of his own hubris became too strong, he turned to the dark side. We got Ewoks. Then Gungans. And Midichlorians. And: “NOOOOOOOOOO!” But even then, at his worst – and his worst was terrible – at least he was still capable of originality. Lucas, like Vader, and unlike the Empire, could be redeemed. Just stick him in his toy room in Skywalker Ranch, pew pew pew! And let someone else write and direct his intellectual property. You know, like they did with Empire Strikes Back.

No more. I’ve given up on Star Wars because my people, the Rebellion, are making independent movies like Moonlight, or Whiplash, or The Rover, or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, or Memento, or Animal Kingdom. At the bigger end of the scale, they’re taking risks with movies like Blade Runner 2049.

There will be no more risks taken with Star Wars. There’s just the brand and its components, rearranged by filmmaking algorithm, once per year, forever. Kinda takes the magic out of it all.

(19) THE EMPIRE STRIKES OUT. “Stalking, First Order style,” says JJ.

(20) ANOTHER RASH OF ONLINE BIGOTRY. Newsweek reports “Racist Attacks Against Kelly Marie Tran Posted to Rose Tico’s ‘Wookieepedia’ Page”. Examples of the attacks are at the link.

Writer Bryan Young, who posted a screenshot of the racist attacks on Twitter, told Newsweek that he was alerted to the changes by a friend on Tuesday.

Wookieepedia admins have removed the vandalism, closing off Rose’s page for editing. A history of the edits to the page, with attached IP addresses, is still publicly available, though the edit in question has been removed. Young told Newsweek the IP address attached to the edit in the screenshot is 64.203.14.213. The user has been blocked from using Wookieepedia or any other FANDOM wikis.

“FANDOM has a zero tolerance policy for vandalism, inclusive of racism and harassment,” the company said in a statement provided to Newsweek. “The wiki admins take this very seriously and took the steps to resolve this situation as quickly as possible, including escalation to our team, and subsequent lockdown. This lockdown will remain for the foreseeable future and we will be closely monitoring activity on this wiki.”

(21) PUT A CORK IN IT. Vintages are swirled together in these Middle-Earth mixes — “You shall not pass (on a glass)! Warner Brothers collaborates with winemaker on a limited-edition collection of four Lord of the Rings-themed WINES”. Here’s an excerpt from the Daily Mail’s description of these concoctions.

The 2015 Aragorn Appellation Lussac – St. Émilion Contrôlée is $25 and features a blend of 80 per cent Merlot, 15 per cent Cabernet Franc, and 5 per cent Malbec. It is described as ‘rich, concentrated and built to last,’ while the site boasts, ‘If ever there was a wine fit for a king as mighty and honorable as Aragorn, this is it.’

The 2016 Galadriel Bordeaux Blanc white wine is $18 and has flavors of grapefruit, lemon, and lemongrass.

‘The most noble and powerful of the Elves is honored by this high-toned wine, a Bordeaux Blanc with piercing citrus flavors and remarkable concentration.

‘Just as Galadriel is revered by all those graced by her presence, this impressive white is a true testament to her strength and wisdom, imbuing an immediate sense of devotion with its graceful palate. Take a sip and fall under its ethereal spell,’ the site states.

(22) KITSCHIES. These are the 2017 Kitschies judges who have been announced so far:

RED TENTACLE & GOLDEN TENTACLE

Leila Abu El Hawa

Leila runs the Post Apocalyptic Book Club… She was a judge for the Clarke Awards in 2015-16 and in her spare time works in the fashion industry. @dystocalypse

Jon Courtenay Grimwood

Jon Courtenay Grimwood was born in Malta and baptised in the up-turned bell of a ship. …He also, for 5 years, wrote a monthly SF&Fantasy column for the Guardian. Two times winner of the BSFA Award for Best Novel, with Felaheen and End of the World Blues. …Moskva, written as Jack Grimwood, was his most recent. Its sequel, Nightfall Berlin, is due Autumn 2017. @joncg

Joshua Idehen

Joshua Idehen is a poet, teacher and musician. A British born Nigerian, Joshua was the founder of one of the most successful poetry events in London, Poejazzi. …He is premiering a live show with Band City, ‘Last Night’, about London’s closed clubs. @benincitizen

Ewa Scibor-Rilka

…With a degree in English & Philosophy, she’s previously spent her time running a sci fi & fantasy section of a central London bookshop, working on conventions, surviving said conventions, and writing about popular nerd culture for The Mirror’s UsVsThem project. …@EwaSR.

Alasdair Stuart

Alasdair Stuart is the owner of Escape Artists, the digital publishing company behind Escape Pod, Pseudopod, Podcastle and Cast of Wonders.  …Read his work at alasdairstuart.com, or follow him at @AlasdairStuart on Twitter for professional enthusiasm, film analysis, the occasional food blog and more.

(23) WATCHING BY NIGHT. No need for any theological arguments about Die Hard’s place in the holiday pantheon when you just admit what you’re doing. Tor.com contributors came up with this list of “Our Favorite Non-Holiday Films to Watch Over the Holidays”, one that concludes with Leah’s preference for doing trilogy marathons —

We began with the obvious and tackled the Star Wars Trilogy. And lo! The 27th dawned, and I felt better than I had in any previous year. And thus a new tradition was born, and we tried Back to the Future, the first three Thin Man movies (those are the good ones) and then the one that stuck: The Lord of the Rings. Obviously, LOTR was already something of a holiday tradition anyway since the movies came out in December, but in a purely shallow way, watching all three movies while stuffing yourself with leftovers is the perfect way to ease back into regular, non-Christmas time. On a more serious note, since Christmas, at its heart, is about celebrating light in the darkness, what better scene to watch than the lighting of the beacons?

(24) FOR SOME VALUES OF “SAFETY.” There’s an app for that? “Reindeer hunted by wolverines get safety app”.

Reindeer, who fall prey to wolverines, wolves and lynx, are being fitted with sensors to protect them.

It makes it easier for herders to track the animals across the remote Lapland forests where they roam.

Sensors around the necks of the female reindeer are linked to the herders’ smartphones, allowing them to rescue hurt animals more quickly and identify the cause of death for those killed.

(25) NEVER TELL ME THE ODDS. In response to complaints, “Apple changes rules on app ‘loot boxes'”.

In the updated guidelines, Apple said any in-game mechanism that rewards players with “randomised virtual items” must list the odds of receiving each type of item. In addition, it said, customers must be informed of these odds before they buy the boxes or rewards.

Many games offer extras to players that can change the appearance of the game, introduce new characters or bestow power-ups that help people as they play.

Some titles let people buy loot boxes with in-game funds they generate by playing or by spending real money to purchase the game’s virtual cash.

The controversy over the crates was thrown into sharp focus last month with the release of the Star Wars Battlefront II game, which used them extensively.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, JJ, Ed Fortune, Carl Slaughter, Martin Morse Wooster, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories, Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Camestros Felapton.]