(1) WHEN GRAVITY FAILS. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Chuck Jones’ rules for Coyote cartoons said it works best when gravity is what defeats him. Instead, the change in management at Warner Bros seems to be what has claimed his long-awaited film. The mixed live/animated Coyote Vs. Acme is rumored to have been consigned to the dustbin, despite being a finished product. There it will join Bat Girl and Scoob Holiday Haunt!, both already brought to an ignominious end by the Bros. “‘Coyote Vs. Acme’: Finished Live/Action Animated Pic Shelved Completely By Warner Bros As Studio Takes $30M Tax Write-off” – Deadline has the astonishing story.
In another maneuver by the David Zaslav-run Warner Bros Discovery to kill movies, we hear on very good authority that Warner Bros will not be releasing the live-action/animated hybrid Coyote vs. Acmewith the conglom taking an estimated $30M write-down on the $70M production. We understand the write-down for the pic was applied to the recently reported Q3.
This reps the third time that Zaslav’s Warner Bros has pulled the plug on a movie greenlit by the previous Warner Media administration; the other two being the Max destined Bat Girl and the animated Scoob Holiday Haunt!.
The difference here is that Coyote vs. Acme is a completed movie with very good test scores, 14 points above the family norm. We’re told that the cash-strapped Warners finds that it’s not worth the cost to release theatrically, or to sell to other buyers (and there are parties who are interested for their own streaming services; we hear Amazon kicked the tires). After reporting a mixed third quarter, the best means for Warners money is a tax write-off. At one point, Coyote vs. Acme was dated on July 21, 2023 for theatrical release before getting pulled; that date placed by the ultimate $1.4 billion grossing Warner Bros biggest hit of all-time, Barbie….
… Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck—who write together as James S.A. Corey—have nixed any return to the world of The Expanse, [but] they’re still working on sci-fi projects together, as today’s big announcement attests.
Fans can look forward to the arrival of The Mercy of Gods, a space opera trilogy “that sees humanity fighting for its survival in a war as old as the universe itself,” according to a press release from publisher Orbit. This book will kick off the Captive’s War trilogy, and it will be released August 6, 2024….
Just about every temptation for a hungry writer is here. Big bucks for the winners. Feedback on every submission from distinguished judges–at least, one assumes they’re distinguished, since they’re finalists for important literary awards. Monthly stipends! Consideration by literary agencies! What more could a contest offer, even if it does charge a $15 submission fee?
Well…
You’ll probably already have noticed some…oddities…both in the screenshot above and on the contest page. The mis-spelling of Hemingway, to start (plus, it’s PEN–it’s an acronym–not Pen). The curious absence of judges’ names. Guidelines that fail to state when winners will be announced and how they will be notified. An entry form with a copy-and-paste box for submitting your entry (have fun reading, no-name judges)….
…Black Mirror knock-offs are a scourge of the streaming era, which unfortunately incentivizes dressed-up spins on previous successes over truly cerebral or ambitious imaginations of the future….
(5) JEOPARDY! Last night’s episode of Jeopardy! devoted an entire category to science fictional worlds. Andrew Porter found these responses noteworthy.
Category: At a Loss for Worlds
Answer: Survivors escape to Bronson Beta in the 1933 Philip Wylie & Edwin Balmer novel “When” this happens
Wrong question: What is “When Tomorrow Comes”?
No one could ask, “When Worlds Collide”
Same category: It’s the real name of the planet referred to in the title of a 1965 Frank Herbert novel.
He bet it all, got it wrong: “What is Dune?”
Correct question: What is Arrakis?
Same category: At the end of Arthur C. Clarke’s “Childhood’s End” this world is destroyed.
John Coxon didn’t, Alison Scott would’ve done, and Liz Batty tried. We round up the rest of the news we didn’t talk about in Episode 95, featuring a discussion of how the Chengdu Worldcon went, and the much-anticipated reappearance of THE LIZ BAT. Listen here!
In the U.K., watching retailer John Lewis’ Christmas ad is as much of a festive ritual as decorating the tree or exchanging gifts. This year, with a different agency and marketing strategy, the brand is hoping to cement its role in both old and new holiday traditions.
The new ad, titled “Snapper,” follows the unusual tale of a Venus flytrap. While at a flea market with his family, a boy discovers a seed packet promising to grow into the “perfect Christmas tree.”
Instead, a carnivorous plant emerges from the soil. Though the boy loves Snapper, the mischievous plant causes disruption and is eventually banished outside after it grows too big for the house.
On Christmas morning, the boy leaves his family’s normal tree to bring a gift to the Venus flytrap. Snapper spits out confetti and gifts in return, inspiring the family to embrace an unconventional addition to the festivities. …
Astronaut Frank Borman, who commanded Apollo 8’s historic Christmas 1968 flight that circled the moon 10 times and paved the way for the lunar landing the next year, has died. He was 95.
Borman died Tuesday in Billings, Montana, according to NASA.
Borman also led troubled Eastern Airlines in the 1970s and early ’80s after leaving the astronaut corps….
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born November 9, 1921 — Alfred Coppel. Have I ever mentioned how much I love pulp? Everything from the writers to the artwork to the magazines themselves are so, so cool. And this writer was one of the most prolific such authors of the Fifties and Sixties. That he was also a SF writer is an added bonus. Indeed, his first science fiction story was “Age of Unreason” in a 1947 Amazing Stories. Under the pseudonym of Robert Cham Gilman, he wrote the Rhada sequence of galactic space opera novels aimed at a young adult market. Wiki claims he was writing under A.C. Marin as well but I cannot find any record of this. (Died 2004.)
Born November 9, 1924 — Lawrence T. Shaw. A Hugo Award-winning fan, author, editor and literary agent. In the Forties and Fifties, Larry Shaw edited Nebula, Infinity Science Fiction and Science Fiction Adventures. He received a Special Committee Award during the 1984 Worldcon for lifetime achievement as an editor. His Axe fanzine (co-edited with his wife Noreen) was nominated at Chicon III for a Hugo. (Died 1985.)
Born November 9, 1954 — Rob Hansen, 69. British fan, active since the Seventies who has edited and co-edited numerous fanzines including his debut production Epsilon. And he was the 1984 Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund delegate. His nonfiction works such as Then: Science Fiction Fandom in the UK: 1930-1980, lasted updated just a few years ago, are invaluable.
Born November 9, 1988 — Tahereh Mafi, 35. Iranian-American whose Furthermore, a YA novel about a pale girl living in a world of both color and magic of which she has neither, I highly recommended it. Whichwood is a companion novel to this work. She also has a young adult dystopian thriller series.
Born November 9, 1989 — Alix E. Harrow, 34. Winner at Dublin 2019 of the Best Short Story Hugo for “Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies” which also was nominated for a BSFA and Nebula Award. Other Hugo-nominated work: The Ten Thousand Doors of January was nomination at CoNZealand; “A Spindle Splintered” novella and “Mr. death” short story at Chicon 8; and “A Mirror Mended” novella this year. She has three excellent novels to date, The Ten Thousand Doors of January,The Once and Future Witches which was nominated for a WFA and the just released Starling House. She has a double handful of short stories not yet collected anywhere. More’s the pity.
The actor who played C-3PO in Star Wars said “it feels like it is time” to sell the costumes, props and scripts he kept from the iconic films.
Anthony Daniels, 77, is parting company with items from his personal collection via Hertfordshire-based auctioneer Propstore from Thursday.
The famous gold helmet he wore for his character in the first film from 1977 is estimated to sell for up to £1m.
Daniels said he was excited for his collection to “find a good home”.
“I realised I had these items and they’re not unloved but they are unlooked at – we don’t have them crowding the sitting room,” he said, explaining why he has chosen to sell the items now.
“Will I feel sad to part with them? No. I will enjoy the fact people will cherish and display them.”…
(12) FANHISTORY ART ZOOM ON YOUTUBE. Fanac.org’s two-part Zoom with a panel of fanartists now can be viewed on YouTube.
Part 1
Title: Evolution of Art(ists) (Pt 1 of 2): Grant Canfield, Tim Kirk, Jim Shull, and Dan Steffan
Description: In part 1 of this 2-part session, you’ll hear their “origin stories”, their influences, how they found science fiction fandom, and what they perceive as the unique benefits of fandom to young artists. You’ll find out why artists should avoid hecto, and torturous tales of justifying margins by hand. There are intriguing insights into adjusting one’s art to the reproduction medium, and how fandom helped people along, especially towards professional careers. Larger than life figures make their appearance, including several stories of Bill Rotsler.
There’s plenty more, including their views on Carl Barks, why Dan started “Lizard Inn”, Jim’s take on the slippery slope to having a fanzine too big to staple without an industrial stapler, Tim on his deep desire to tell stories, and Grant’s opinion of “Starling”. The fun continues in Part 2.
Part 2
Title: Evolution of Art(ists) (Pt 2 of 2): Grant Canfield, Tim Kirk, Jim Shull, and Dan Steffan
Description: In part 2 of this 2-part session, the fan art discussion continues, with more on professional careers as well. The conversation ranges from Tolkien’s house to Harlan Ellison’s house, from “The Last Dangerous Visions” to Bill Gibson, from Harlan Ellison stories to BNFs that had an impact. There are more Rotsler stories too. You’ll hear about silent jam sessions, “Esoteric Fan Art Tales”, and the impact that conventions had on artists who worked in isolation. A real treat is the slideshow of samples of our panelists’ art, with their live comments on what each piece represents.
Q&A starts about 45 minutes into the video, with comments as well as questions, including Ted White’s discussion of the impact of Mondrian’s work on modern magazine design. Lest you believe that fanzines are a thing of the past, the video wraps up with a plug for an upcoming paper fanzine by faned Geri Sullivan.
“After the alignment, the world will change forever. Everything will start over.” Dark Star Pictures has released an official US trailer for an indie sci-fi action thriller film from France titled The Gravity, made by filmmaker Cédric Ido. This intially premiered at the 2022 Toronto Film Festival last year and it already opened in France earlier this year. Finally set for a US release on VOD starting in November. A mysterious cosmic event upsets the Earth’s gravity and sets the sky ablaze in a red hue, creating chaos in a futuristic Parisian suburb. This French “genre-busting” thriller is more of a story about street culture in the suburbs, following a local band of teenagers and their feud with other residents in the area….
Meantime there five days remain in the Kickstarter to raise funds for “Space Command Forgiveness: Post-Production”. At this time fans have pledged almost $52,000 of the $60,000 goal.
[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Rich Lynch, Lise Andreasen, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Ersatz Culture, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Soon Lee.]
The ending to cult 1999 US film Fight Club has been removed for viewers in China, and replaced by a screen with a message saying the authorities won.
The original ending saw Edward Norton’s narrator killing his imaginary alter-ego Tyler Durden, played by Brad Pitt, before bombs destroyed buildings in the climax to a subversive plot to reorder society, dubbed Project Mayhem.
In China, before the explosions, a message now says the police foiled the plot, arrested the criminals and sent Durden to a “lunatic asylum”.
The new finale tells viewers: “Through the clue provided by Tyler, the police rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals, successfully preventing the bomb from exploding.
“After the trial, Tyler was sent to lunatic asylum receiving psychological treatment. He was discharged from the hospital in 2012.”
Director David Fincher’s film has recently been added to streaming platform Tencent Video, and Human Rights Watch described the changes as “dystopian”.
…The changes were flagged up on social media by outraged viewers who had previously seen pirated copies of the original.
It’s not uncommon for Chinese censor to make cuts to Western films, but it’s more rare for them to change an ending.
Some social media users made light of the new Fight Club ending.
Of course, that film’s not sff. They’re probably fine with ending to 1984 – the only problem is the whole movie that precedes it.
(2) BLEEP OF THE RINGS. Were there censors in Middle-Earth? “Billy Boyd and Dom Monaghan Talk Best LOTR Swears” in the latest episode of The Friendship Onion podcast (which you can access here.) Yahoo! Lifestyle sets up the preview:
In this clip, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan delightedly discover that The Lord of the Rings has a PG-13 rating in the United States. This means the movie could have contained a singular swear word. Of course, the movies didn’t actually make use of this ability. But Boyd and Monaghan, in true Merry and Pippin style, invite us to imagine the possibilities.
Their top choices? Gandalf saying, “F**cking fool of a Tuck.” Or Pippin say, “Oh, I’m really f**cking sorry, Gandalf.” And the best one, of course. the idea of Aragorn saying, “My friends, you f**cking bow to know one.” I admit that’s where I lost it. Nothing like the King of Gondor dropping a casual swear at the most emotional moment.
(3) PRATCHETT BIO ON THE WAY. It’s a big news day for Terry Pratchett fans. In the first of three items, the Guardian’s Alison Flood says Rob Wilkins, head of Pratchett’s literary estate, is producing an official biography of Terry Pratchett.
Rob Wilkins, Terry Pratchett’s former assistant and friend, is writing the official biography of the late Discworld author, which will move from his childhood to the “embuggerance” of the Alzheimer’s disease he was diagnosed with in 2007.
Pratchett was working on his autobiography when he died in 2015, but “following his untimely death from Alzheimer’s disease, the mantle of completing Terry Pratchett’s memoir was passed to Rob”, said publisher Transworld.
It will include “fragments” from the memoir Pratchett was working on before he died, the publisher added….
Terry Pratchett’s estate has authorised Jack Monroe to use the “Vimes Boots Index” as the name of her new price index, which is intended to document the “insidiously creeping prices” of basic food products.
The author’s daughter, writer Rhianna Pratchett, said her father would have been proud to see his work used in this way by the anti-poverty campaigner. Monroe was prompted to create her index after inflation jumped to 5.4% last week, and she found herself “infuriate[d]” that the index (the consumer price index or CPI) used for this calculation “grossly underestimates the real cost of inflation as it happens to people with the least”. She laid out how the prices of “value” product ranges in supermarkets had soared over the last decade – rice in her local supermarket had increased in price from 45p for a kilogram bag last year, to £1 for 500g, a 344% increase – and how the number of value products has shrunk. She was soon working with economists, charities and analysts to compile her own index….
Cast has been set for season two of Amazon and BBC’s Neil Gaiman fantasy series Good Omens, which remains in production in Scotland.
Reprising his role as Metatron is Derek Jacobi (Gladiator) and joining the cast for season two is his I, Claudius co-star Dame Siân Phillips (Dune).
Also returning this season in roles that span heaven, hell, and earth are the trio from The League of Gentlemen Mark Gatiss (Sherlock), Steve Pemberton (Killing Eve), and Reece Shearsmith (Inside No. 9).
Niamh Walsh (The English Game) returns, while joining in new roles are Tim Downie (Outlander), Pete Firman (The Magicians), Andi Osho (I May Destroy You), and Alex Norton (Pirates of the Caribbean).
However, neither Frances McDormand (God) nor Benedict Cumberbatch (Satan) will be back for season two.
Alice, which is due out in theaters March 18 via Roadside Attractions, is inspired by true events of Black Americans who remained enslaved after the Emancipation Proclamation. A blend of time travel, historical drama and revenge thriller, the movie is an ode to (and spin-on) Blaxpoitation films….
There’s this acknowledgment that Black people have limitations around time travel because they don’t have the same freedoms as now. But this movie doesn’t pull its main character into the past; it pulls her forward into freedom and the future. How does that make this film different than works with a similar storyline?
Yes, it’s set in the past, but it is pulling into the future. I think that’s a big thing. Where we start and then mostly live in the 1970s space, [which] still feels like now in a sense. Ultimately, that’s what the movie is saying. Things aren’t done and over just like that. Everything doesn’t just change. But you keep going, not in spite of but because of — like Alice. You keep going because of the Franks because of the Martin Luthers because of the Malcolm Xes. Also, it’s not going to be the same fight each time. I’m excited to see how people will unpack and digest that. When I think about the time travel in this film, it doesn’t feel like we are waiting in the back. And it’s being used in a way that reflects a mirror of us today. So many of us today are Frank. But then you look at Alice, who was just in the field, and you’re like, “What the hell am I doing?”
(7) WHAT’S THAT YOU SAY? [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Word of Mouth is a sort of whimsical philosophy-of-language radio show on BBC Radio 4. Yesterday’s episode – now available for downloading for a month (and on BBC Sounds thereafter, if you have an account) – sees a discussion on alien communication following first contact. Along the way they discuss the film Arrival and the novel Project Hail Mary. Word of Mouth, “It’s language, Jim, but not as we know it”.
Could aliens ‘speak’ in chemicals? Could they converse in electricity? Would they be able to hear us? In the absence of a Star Trek-style universal translator, how would you talk to an alien newly arrived on Planet Earth?
Dr Hannah Little is a science communicator, linguist and comedian. She joins Michael Rosen for some fascinating thought experiments on extraterrestrial communication and animal interactions closer to home. What might all this tell us about how human language first appeared, and why does it matter?
(8) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.
1994 — [Item by Cat Eldridge.] Twenty-eight years ago on PTEN, the Prime Time Entertainment Network, a syndicated network organized by Warner Brothers, the Babylon 5 series premiered. It was created by writer and producer J. Michael Straczynski and it followed the pilot film Babylon 5: The Gathering which aired a year earlier. It would run for five twenty-two episode seasons as planned plus six related films.
It generated a spin-off series, Crusade, but that only lasted thirteen episodes. Two other series were planned, The Legend of the Rangers and The Lost Tales, but neither got past the pilot.
Its cast was marked by tragedy with a number of the principal actors dying young including Mira Furlan, Richard Biggs, Jeff Conaway, Jerry Doyle, Andreas Katsulas and Michael O’Hare.
It won two Hugo Awards for “The Coming of Shadows” at L.A. Con III and “Severed Dreams” at LoneStarCon II. Neil Gaiman wrote an episode, “The Day of The Dead” which is on my frequent rewatch list. Harlan Ellison is the voice of Zooty in this episode.
Babylon 5 in revised print is streaming on HBO Max.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born January 26, 1918 — Philip José Farmer. I know I’ve read at least the first three Riverworld novels (To Your Scattered BodiesGo, The Fabulous Riverboat and The Dark Design) but I’ll be damned if I recognize the latter ones. Great novels those first three are. And I’ll admit that I’m not familiar at all with the World of Tiers or Dayworld series. I’m sure someone here has read them. I do remember his Doc Savage novel Escape from Loki as being a highly entertaining read, and I see he’s done a number of Tarzan novels as well. (Died 2009.)
Born January 26, 1928 — Roger Vadim. Director, Barbarbella with Jane Fonda in a leather bikini. That alone gets a Birthday Honor. But he was one of three directors of Spirits of the Dead, a horror anthology film. (Louis Malle and Federico Fellini were the others.) And not to stop there, he directed another horror film, Blood and Roses (Et mourir de plaisir) and even was involved in The Hitchhiker horror anthology series. (Died 2000.)
Born January 26, 1929 — Jules Feiffer, 93. On the Birthday list as he’s the illustrator of The Phantom Tollbooth. Well, and that he also worked on Eisner’s Spirit, starting in 1946 as an art assistant and later the primary writer til the strip ended in 1952, which helped get him into the Comic Book Hall of Fame. Let’s not overlook that he wrote The Great Comic Book Heroes in the Sixties which made it the first history of the superheroes of the late Thirties and Forties and their creators.
Born January 26, 1943 — Judy-Lynn Del Rey. Editor at Ballantine Books after first starting at Galaxy Magazine. Dick and Asimov were two of her clients who considered her the best editor they’d worked with. Wife of Lester del Rey. She suffered a brain hemorrhage in October 1985 and died several months later. Though she won a Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor after her death, her widower turned it down on the grounds that it only been awarded because of her death. (Died 1986.)
Born January 26, 1949 — Jonathan Carroll, 73. I think his best work by far is The Crane’s View Trilogy consisting of Kissing the Beehive, The Marriage of Sticks and The Wooden Sea. I know de Lint likes these novels though mainstream critics were less than thrilled. White Apples I thought was a well-crafted novel and The Crow’s Dinner is his wide-ranging look at life in general, not genre at all but fascinating.
Born January 26, 1960 — Stephen Cox, 62. Pop culture writer who has written a number of books on genre subjects including The Munchkins Remember: The Wizard of Oz and Beyond, The Addams Chronicles: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about the Addams Family, Dreaming of Jeannie: TV’s Primetime in a Bottle and The Munsters: A Trip Down Mockingbird Lane. I’ll admit to being puzzled by his Cooking in Oz that he did with Elaine Willingham as I don’t remember that much for food in the Oz books…
Born January 26, 1979 — Yoon Ha Lee, 43. Best known for his Machineries of Empire space opera novels and his short fiction. His most excellent Ninefox Gambit, his first novel, received the 2017 Locus Award for Best First Novel. His latest novel is Tiger Honor, the sequel to Dragon Pearl.
(10) JUPITER’S LEGACY, VOUME 5. [Item by Daniel Dern.] Volume 5 of Jupiter’s Legacy now available on Hoopla (and elsewhere). If you enjoyed the multi-generational superhero Jupiter’s Legacy series (alas, only one season) on Netflix (I did), and/or the comic book series originally titled Jupiter’s Children) that the show is based on (ditto), written by Mark Millar and (mostly) illustrated by Frank Quitely, you’ll be happy to know that Volume 5, collecting issues 1-6 of the 12-issue “Requiem” arc, is (as I discovered last night) on Hoopla (free, to library patrons of Hoopla-participating libraries). (Also available in physical-book and electronic editions, e.g., on Kindle.)
I’m enjoying it — three issues in so far, and relieved to discover it’s slated for 12 issues, since I don’t see things wrapping up by this volume’s end.
(11) JUST LOOKING. Abigail Nussbaum lists “The Books I’m Looking Forward to in 2022” at Lawyers, Guns & Money. Though she confesses there’s not necessarily an overlap between anticipation and actual reading:
… But as the experience of the last few years has shown, the most anticipated books list isn’t a reading plan (I think I’ve read fewer than half of the books I listed last year) so much as it is a snapshot of the literary year to come. And it’s a reflection of one’s own reading history—my copy of Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life has sat unread on a shelf for more than six years, so I can’t participate in the ebullience and/or disdain that has greeted the news of her new novel, To Paradise. On the other hand, when authors I’ve reviewed and championed, like Isaac Fellman or Rachel Hartman, announce new books, I feel invested in advertising that fact and widening their readership circle….
Giving a pretty undeniable hint of what he is up to, Daniels shared a photo of himself in a motion capture suit at Ealing Studios, London, on his Instagram account, with the caption “Finally, a new suit – that fits!.” The actor included the hashtags #c3po, #starwars and #iamc3po, leaving it in do doubt that he is clearly getting ready to bring Threepio back to the screen once again, although the use of the mo-cap technology would suggest that this could possibly be a CGI-version of the droid, which could tie into the new Disney+-bound A Droid Story.
Oh, the call came in about 9:16 Is this IT? Help. I need you It tried to log on on me machine And there’s nothing but dark all o’er my screen
Reboot says I! But I canna reply Til ye filled out form A-1-5! Tis’ on our site But nothing works! I canna help you connect unless you connect Pull down the menu and hit select!
American billionaires are funding companies to create fusion energy which uses super magnets to harness the energy of the stars and create a clean source of energy.
As WBUR’s Bruce Gellerman reports, one start-up in Massachusetts recently received an $1.8 billion infusion from Bill Gates, George Soros and others.
(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In “Honest Trailers: Eternals,” the Screen Junkies say that many scenes in the film abandon the green screen and “go beyond the farthest reaches of a nerd’s imagination: outside” but that the film will appeal to someone whose “idea of fun is watching ten people debate the trolley problem for 2 1/2 hours.”
[Thanks to Andrew Porter, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Steven French, Chris Barkley, Daniel Dern, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Alan Baumler, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Soon Lee.]
(1) 55 YEARS AGO TODAY. Cora Buhlert has written an article about Franco-Belgian-Dutch comics for Galactic Journey: “[NOVEMBER 18, 1965] HUMOUR, HEROES AND HISTORY: THE COMICS OF FRANCE, BELGIUM AND THE NETHERLANDS”. Cora did a lot of research: “While I read all of those comics as a kid (my Dad worked in the Netherlands and Belgium and while my Dutch was never good enough for novels, comics were no problem), I rarely paid attention to artists and writers nor did I have any idea what was published when and where.” She knows now!
…The comics heart of Europe undoubtedly beats in France and Belgium. For here, comics are considered not disposable entertainment for kids, but a genuine art form. Belgian comics artist Maurice De Bevere, better known as Morris, referred to comics as “the ninth art”.
US comic books only focus on a single character or group. The French-Belgian industry is different, since it focusses on anthology magazines, which contain several different serialised comic strips. The most popular comics are later collected in books known as albums.
Three comic magazines dominate the French-Belgian-Dutch market. The Belgian magazines Spirou (Robbedoes in Flemish) and Tintin (Kuifje in Flemish) and the French magazine Pilote. All three have their own distinct style and voice….
(2) WINDOW ON CHENGDU. At Black Gate Francesco Verso pulls out all the stops for the Chengdu in 2023 Worldcon bid: “Guest Editorial: Let’s Welcome the Future… in China”. A successful Italian sff author, Verso also is Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Future Fiction, “a multicultural project, publishing the best SF in translation from 8 languages and more than 20 countries.” He has edited an international SF anthology for the Chinese publisher Guangzhou Blue Ocean Press that was to be distributed to Chinese high schools and universities in 2019.
…Reading Chinese SF gave me a feeling of freshness and cautious optimism; a unique “sense of wonder” permeated many of the stories I read. From climate change to inter-generational scenarios, from android caregivers to futuristic market forces, Big Data and of course the traditional Chinese culture updated to contemporary flavors, the ideas came from a rapidly changing society living them today. To quote Han Song, “You simply need to open a window in China to see a preview of the future.”
The same applies for Science Fiction Conventions. I’ve had the honor and privilege to attend many meetings organized by fandom in collaboration with various institutions (both public and private ones) from Beijing to Chongqing, from Shenzhen to Chengdu.
These conventions are nothing like we’ve seen and experienced in the West.
Thousands of passionate fans, hundreds staff, tens of Special Guests from China and the rest of the world displayed an expertise and enthusiasm which struck me from the very first time, at the 4th International SF Convention of Chengdu in 2017 (see Black Gate‘s report here). During many panels, there were real-time interpreters from Chinese to English and from English to Chinese to help with communication. No guest was left alone and a true sense of community (already strong in all SF conventions) was circulating from morning to night events.
Three years have since passed and I’ve visited China six times to participate in events like the first Asia Pacific SF Convention and the National Chinese SF Convention in Beijing (see Locus Magazine’s report here), the 5th International SF Convention of Chengdu (see Black Gate‘s report here), the opening ceremony of the Fishing Fortress Center of Science Fiction of Chongqing. I can fairly say the following without fear of being proved wrong: No other country can benefit from such a rich past and an innovative present as China.
No other country – from fandom to scholars, from magazine to publishing houses, from conventions to academic meetings – is investing so much energy and passion in Science Fiction as China.
No other country has the level of support – including public sector grants, private institutions funding and fan staff – as China.
That’s an incredible leverage to use for boosting Science Fiction in a highly-populated country that has come to realize that it will shape a relevant part of the future awaiting the whole world.
The committee of the Chengdu bid for the 2023 WorldCon is doing an excellent job to prepare for the event. They are showing the beauty of the city, its many historical traces, such as the Three-Star Piles, the Water Conservancy project of the Qin Dynasty, the poets of the Tang Dynasty and of course the pandas!
(3) SECOND, ER, SIXTH CHANCE. “Academy Museum Gives Debbie Reynolds Her Due as a Costume Conservator” – finally. The New York Times has the story. Tagline: “When the ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ actress was alive, the film academy turned up its nose at her fabled costume collection. Now it has gone to her son with hat in hand.”
… The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences turned her down — five times. Reynolds quoted an uninterested David Geffen in her 2013 memoir as once saying, “Why don’t you just sell that stuff?”
In debt, she finally had no other choice, auctioning Marilyn Monroe’s ivory-pleated halter dress that blew upward in “The Seven Year Itch” for $4.6 million and Audrey Hepburn’s lace Royal Ascot number from “My Fair Lady” for $3.7 million — prices that shocked moviedom’s aristocracy and proved Reynolds had been right. Also sold, in some cases to anonymous overseas collectors, were Charlton Heston’s “Ben-Hur” tunic and cape, the acoustic guitar Julie Andrews strummed in “The Sound of Music” and every hat that Vivien Leigh flaunted in “Gone With the Wind.”
Now, four years after she died at 84, there has been a plot twist in the Debbie Reynolds costume collection saga, one that she would undoubtedly find both maddening and satisfying: The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, set to open on April 30 and costing $482 million, finds itself caring about her collection — at least the part that is left, which includes iconic costumes she wore in movies like “Singin’ in the Rain.” Also remaining are screen garments created for Mary Pickford, Deborah Kerr and Cyd Charisse, as well as rare memorabilia from classics like “The Wizard of Oz” and “The Maltese Falcon.”
… So far, Fisher has agreed to lend the Academy Museum one item from his own collection: a set of seven Bausch and Lomb Baltar lenses used by Gregg Toland, the fabled “Citizen Kane” cinematographer. But Fisher, 62, said more items would come, as long as the Debbie Reynolds Conservation Studio exists on the museum’s lower level next to the Shirley Temple Education Studio.
“My mother was one of the most forgiving people ever,” Fisher said. “She would never want me to hold a grudge just because I have knowledge of all the missed opportunities — how the people running the academy in the past were never willing to step up and support her. She would have wanted me to share these important artifacts with future generations. So, as long as they are properly recognizing my mother for her contribution to this discipline, I agreed to provide access to whatever I have access to.”…
… Think beyond the obvious. Sure, you want reviews and other events, but there might be angles that you’re not considering. My book is historical fantasy set in a garden over 400 years. Our list included the usual outlets such as the British Fantasy Society, but we knew we could expand from there. Because the book is historical, we put organisations such as the Historical Novel Society on the list. I also remembered that I used to go to the Garden History Museum in London when I was a student and had a slight correspondence with the director, so I put him and the museum on the list along with National Trust houses near me with inspirational gardens and giftshops in hopes of maybe getting the book on those shelves.
Go local. Smaller towns (and some larger ones) love stories about locals. If your town has a paper, send a press release. If you work in a different town, send one there, too. Writing a release takes some practice, but there is plenty of advice on the ‘net. Small stories about me showed up in the paper where I live and the paper in my work-town, along with a magazine in my work-town. From those, I’ve sold several copies out of the local book shop….
Considering the sequel already cost $200 million, Warner Bros. likely expected a massive payday and was hoping to wait out the pandemic so audiences worldwide (specifically domestically) could pay for it.
But with another wave of COVID-19 predicted, the domestic theatrical window seems even more in jeopardy. This will be an interesting development and could signal further changes for delayed 2020 blockbusters like No Time to Die, Black Widow and Fast and Furious 9.
Very Sad news. A friend Amy Carpenter, aka Amycat, has passed away. She was a fixture at convention dealer’s rooms selling books as Book Universes. She will be missed.
The cause of death was not posted. However, just two weeks ago Carpenter wrote on Facebook about a trip to the ER for “what seems to have been a small heart attack.”
The author of the cult classic novel The Dice Man, in which a bored psychiatrist travels to some very dark places when he lets “the dice decide” his options, has died at the age of 87.
George Powers Cockcroft, who published The Dice Man in 1971 under the pseudonym Luke Rhinehart, died on 6 November, his publishers confirmed to the Guardian.
…The author of 11 books, most recently Invasion, a novel in which furry aliens come to Earth to have fun, Rhinehart remains best known for The Dice Man. Published in 1971, it was seemingly an autobiography, telling of a psychiatrist named Luke Rhinehart who decides to roll a dice each time he has to make a decision.
I knew a guy at LASFS who said he did this for awhile, too.
(8) LONG OBIT. [Item by Steven H Silver.] Artist and author Duncan Long (b.1949) died on December 31, 2016. His death was unreported here at the time. Long wrote the Spider Worlds trilogy and three other novels. His art appeared on the covers of Asimov’s, The Leading Edge, and the Steven Barnes collection Assassins and Other Stories. He also served as the art director for the revamped Amazing Stories.
(9) MEDIA ANNIVESARY.
1980 — Forty years ago, Ray Bradbury was given the Gandalf Grand Master Award for life achievement in fantasy writing. The Gandalf Award was created and sponsored by Lin Carter and the Swordsmen and Sorcerers’ Guild of America, an association of fantasy writers including John Jakes, Poul Anderson, Fritz Leiber, C. J. Cherryh, Tanith Lee and Roger Zelazny to name but a few of the members. (Much of their work is collected in the Flashing Swords! anthology series.) J. R. R. Tolkien, recently deceased, was given the first such Award, and the other recipients were Fritz Leiber, L. Sprague de Camp, Andre Norton, Poul Anderson, Ursula K. Le Guin and C. L. Moore.
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]
Born November 18, 1922 – Edward C. Connor. Known as “Ecco”. Took over the Fanewscard from Tucker in the mid-1940s, ran it for a year with Frank Robinson. Famous for a Post Office (as it then was) adventure with Ecco’s zine S.F. Echo; that and more here. (Died 1999) [JH]
Born November 18, 1923 – Alan Shepard. First American in Space. Piloted the Apollo lunar module Antares to the most accurate landing of the Apollo missions. Hit two golf balls on the Moon. Moon Shot with Deke Slayton and two journalists. Two (nonconsecutive) terms as Chief of the Astronaut Office. Not fiction, but the right stuff. More here. (Died 1998) [JH]
Born November 18, 1936 – Suzette Elgin. Founded the SF Poetry Ass’n; its Elgin Awards (one for chapbook, one for full-length, annually) named for her. Edited Star*Line three years. SF Poetry Handbook by her, with Mike Allen & Bud Webster helping; an SF Site review here. A dozen novels, another of shorter stories (“Lo, How an Oak E’er Blooming” was translated into German as Siehe, die Eiche blüht ewig, another time as Und ewig blühet die Eiche, both titles missing the allusion to Es ist ein Ros entsprungen), three dozen poems; many essays in Star*Line and elsewhere. If SF prose is hard, SF poetry is harder. Or easier. Or – let’s go to the next birthday notice. (Died 2015) [JH]
Born November 18, 1946 — Alan Dean Foster, 74. There’s fifteen Pip and Flinx novels?!? Well the first five or so were superb. Spellsinger series is tasty too. Can’t say anything about his Stars Wars work as I never got into it. (CE)
Born November 18, 1950 — Michael Swanwick, 70. I will single out The Iron Dragon’s Daughter and Jack Faust as the novels I remember liking the best. His short fiction is quite excellent, and I see both Apple Books and Kindle have the most excellent Tales of Old Earth collectionwith this lovely cover. (CE)
Born November 18, 1950 — Eric Pierpoint, 70. I’d say that he’s best known for his role as George Francisco on the Alien Nation franchise. He has also appeared on each of the first four Trek spin-offs. And he’s got a very impressive number of genre one-offs which I’m sure y’all tell me about. (CE)
Born November 18, 1952 – Doug Fratz. Aerosol scientist and fan. Known for his zine Thrust, later renamed Quantum, then merged with SF Eye. Many reviews there, on SF Site, and in NY Rev SF. More about him here. (Died 2016) [JH]
Born November 18, 1953 — Alan Moore, 67. His best book is Voice of the Fire. Though the first volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is very close. Pity about the film. His worst work? The Lost Girls which is genre in an odd manner. Shudder. I’m also fond of The Ballad of Halo Jones and Swamp Thing as well. (CE)
Born November 18, 1961 — Steven Moffat, 59. Showrunner, writer and executive producer of Doctor Who and Sherlock Holmes. His first Doctor Who script was for Doctor Who: The Curse of Fatal Death, a charity production that you find on YouTube and I suggest you go watch now. He also co-wrote The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, a most excellent animated film. He has deservedly won four Hugo Awards. (CE)
Born November 18, 1966 – Madelyn Rosenberg, 54. A dozen books, plus articles, poetry (this one has butter-shined stars). Outside our field, here frinstance is an interview with Doc Watson. “I write because I love telling other people’s stories as well as my own.” [JH]
Born November 18, 1972 – Lisa Olstein, 48. Four books of poetry and a chapbook The Resemblance of the Enzymes of Grasses to Those of Whales Is a Family Resemblance. Hayden Carruth Award. Guggenheim Fellowship. Pushcart Prize. Here is “Radio Crackling, Radio Gone”. [JH]
Born November 18, 1981 — Maggie Stiefvater, 39. Writer of YA fiction, she currently has three series, The Dreamer trilogy, The Wolves of Mercy Falls, and the quite superb Raven Cycle. With her sister, Kate Hummel, she writes and records a piece of music for each novel she releases. These are released in the form of animated book trailers. (CE)
ANTHONY DANIELS: Here’s the thing, go to YouTube and watch a bit of it, because it’s there. You will be amazed and not in a good way. And go to the back end of it, the end. That’s when myself and Carrie and Mark and Harrison came on. That’s the Star– that’s the real Star Wars. But go through some of the other bits, and you will be astounded that the producers were brave enough to use the title “Holiday Special” because it’s normally– it sets off sirens and heart attacks.
Such a weird experience that you had to laugh at it. And it’s in my book “I am C-3PO– The Inside Story,” where I talk about, in fact, I detail what it was like on the set with these Wookiees, basically treading on things because they couldn’t see in the dark and the dry ice, and how I was only there for three or four days. And I just laughed and laughed as we drove away from the studio because it had been a kind of very gentle nightmare.
…Last month, Apple TV+ became the new home to the beloved Peanuts holiday specials. That sparked an outcry from viewers who were accustomed to annually tuning in on network TV. Apple offered each special to stream for free for a handful of days, but that didn’t stop online petitions from gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures.
On Wednesday, Apple bowed to the backlash, announcing it had teamed up with PBS for ad-free broadcasts of “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” (on Nov. 22) and “A Charlie Brown Christmas” (on Dec. 13).
Both specials will also be available for free during three-day windows on Apple TV+ (Nov. 25-27 for “Thanksgiving” and Dec. 11-13 for “Christmas.”) For subscribers, the specials will be available beginning Nov. 18 and Dec. 4, respectively.
During an appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers this week, the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend star, 33, shared footage from her delivery room when she gave birth to her daughter in late March with husband Dan Gregor. In the video, Bloom sings the lyrics to “Space Jam” (by the Quad City DJ’s for the 1996 movie of the same name) while laying on her hospital bed.
“You know, I was making a labor playlist, and I was like, ‘What’s going to make me happy? And what’s going to make my vagina muscles wanna push a baby out?’ There was only one answer,” she joked to Meyers.
Jamie Lee Curtis made a terminally ill fan’s dream come true.
The actress virtually officiated the wedding of 29-year-old Anthony Woodle and his girlfriend, Emilee, one hour before he passed away. Woodle, a horror movie fanatic who loved the Halloween franchise and holiday, was diagnosed with stage IV esophageal cancer last year. Emilie opened up about her late husband’s final moments to Charleston’s The Post and Courier.
Woodle, an aspiring director, was diagnosed with cancer on Halloween 2019, three years after proposing to Emilee on his favorite holiday. As his condition worsened over the last year, Woodle got connected to Curtis through Rough House Productions, the local South Carolina based production company reviving the Halloween franchise. They talked about the new movie, his health and how he planned to get married soon. Curtis said that she’s ordained and offered to officiate their wedding, per the paper. Arrangements were made for Sept. 13.
On the day of the ceremony, Woodle turned for the worse. Curtis got on the phone and Woodle’s family gathered around. He was unconscious in bed with Emilee by his side. The actress expressed joy, sadness and said she felt honored as she began the ceremony at 10:30 p.m.
(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. in “Honest Game Trailers: Plasmophobia” on YouTube, Fandom Games says that Plasmophbia lets you pretend to be a ghost hunter from a cheap cable series of 20 years ago and thrill to having a ghost take you over and make your body act “like a baby who’s failed depth perception.”
[Thanks to Steven H Silver, JJ, John Hertz, Andrew Porter, Michael Toman, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, and Martin Morse Wooster for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Peer.]
The Sad Puppies always predicted, for their own vindictive reasons, that the time would come when the internet fell on me. I never disagreed. I knew they were right. Today was that day.
(1) SAVING BOOKSTORES. In his latest e-newsletter Barry Hoffman, Publisher of Gauntlet Press, included this news about aid to crisis-affected indie bookstores:
James Patterson has donated $500,000 in partnership with the American Booksellers Association to help Independent bookstores (#SaveIndieBookstores).
Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, Mass., launched a GoFundMe campaign earlier this week after being closed to the public since March 17.
Annie Philbrick, owner of Bank Square Books in Mystic, Conn., and Savoy Bookshop & Cafe in Westerly, R.I., launched a GoFundMe campaign. Philbrick and her team are looking to raise $100,000, and raised over $10,000 on the fundraiser’s first day. Funds raised will go to payroll, utilities, liabilities and rent.
The Bookworm of Edwards in Edwards, Colo., launched a GoFundMe page. In the days since, store owner Nicole Magistro has managed to raise more than $62,000 out of a $75,000 goal. Since launching the campaign and appealing to customers, Magistro reported, online sales have jumped tremendously.
I’m a movie extra, paid for something like 30 different productions since 2008, and this turned out to be my favorite day on set…
… The movie came out in 2012, and I think the DVD came out in 2013. I love to listen to director’s commentary, which, for this movie, was both the director, Christopher McQuarrie and the star, Tom Cruise. When this scene came up, they both made a point of saying how hard the Pittsburgh extras worked on this movie!! So what was another reason this scene was my favorite scene – not only was I in it, but I got to suggest three bits of business that the director used!
(3) SOMTOW’S LISTENING GUIDE. Somtow Sucharitkul lists “Programming on OperaSiamTV.com that MIGHT be of interest to my friends in science fiction community” — all times GMT+7 (Thailand Time)
Thursday 8 pm with reruns midnight, Friday morning 8 am, 12 noon: by popular request, the Ultimate Star Wars Symphony Concert once again (this is all Thursday for L.A.)
Friday (Good Friday) 8 pm and 12 am plus 8 am and 12 noon a production of “Jesus Christ Superstar” from Bangkok, directed by Somtow
Saturday (for Passover) – first broadcast of Somtow’s opera about the Holocaust, Helena Citrónová 8 pm, 12 am, 8 pm, 12 noon
Sunday (Easter) same times — Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony
Monday (Songkraan, Thai Buddhist New Year) — marathon run of the first seven works in Somtow’s “Ten Lives of the Buddha” noon and midnight (this will run around 10 hours) — this probably has some interest in the fantasy crowd
(4) FOWL PLAY DELAYED. Shelf Awareness reports –
Disney has pulled its upcoming film Artemis Fowl, based on Eoin Colfer’s fantasy novels, from theatrical release and will debut the movie exclusively on its Disney+ streaming service sometime this summer. The Wrap reported that the move “comes as all theatrical releases are being shuffled around and delayed–some by as long as a year–while movie theaters remain closed during the coronavirus pandemic.”
Many of [Jeff] Kinney’s familiar haunts are shuttered during the pandemic — including An Unlikely Story, the bookstore and cafe he owns in town. (Closed for nearly three weeks, the store had to cancel even Hillary Clinton’s scheduled tour stop.)
“Theoretically, the coronavirus quarantine shouldn’t affect a cartoonist’s productivity, because we’re experienced at working from home,” Kinney says. But “I’ve lost all my spaces in which I could generate ideas.”
So, he now spends his workdays parked at the local cemetery. Even his supplies and goodies support his creative routine.
(6) FISH IN A BARREL. National Review’s Jack Butler made me click, which I guess was the whole point. “Isaac Asimov’s Comforting Technocratic Fable”. Tagline: “The sci-fi great’s Foundation novels are an unrealistic depiction of free will, civilization, and crisis management.”
As leaders and those they govern struggle to confront the global challenges of COVID-19, wouldn’t it be nice if a hologram from the past spontaneously appeared with a pre-recorded message telling us exactly what to do? In Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novels, that’s exactly what happens. First serialized as novellas in the sci-fi magazine Astounding Stories between 1942 and 1950 and published as proper novels in the early ’50s, the first three books in the Foundation series provide a superficially comforting tale of technocratic triumph. But they suffer from a failure in their central conceit that both renders the works fundamentally flawed and limits their utility for our own confusing time….
(7) KGB. Ellen Datlow and Matt Kressel announce:
Due to the NYC Coronavirus shutdown, there will be no in-person reading at the KGB Bar. Instead, we will live stream readings with April’s authors, Michael Cisco and Clay MacLeod Chapman on YouTube on April 15th, 2020, 7pm Eastern Time.
If you wish to support the KGB Bar during the shutdown, you may do so here.
Michael Cisco
Michael Cisco published ten novels including The Divinity Student, The Great Lover, The Narrator, Animal Money, andUnlanguage, and a short story collection called Secret Hours. His short fiction has appeared in: The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases, Lovecraft Unbound, Black Wings, Blood and Other Cravings, The Weird, The Grimscribe’s Puppets, andAickman’s Heirs, among others. He teaches at CUNY Hostos.
Clay McLeod Chapman
Clay McLeod Chapman is the author of The Remaking, Nothing Untoward, Commencement, and several other novels. He has written the films The Boy, Henley, and Late Bloomer. In the world of comics, he is the writer for Marvel’s ongoing series Scream: Curse of Carnage, as well as Iron Fist: Phantom Limb, Lazaretto, Self Storage, Edge of Spider-Verse, and American Vampire, among others. For more information, check out his website: www.claymcleodchapman.com
(8) THE WINTER LINE. George R.R. Martin said this was coming in “Crossovers and Cameos”. Now you can see a clip on YouTube.
I got a message from my friend Jonah Nolan last week. Jonah is one of the creators and showrunners of HBO’s WESTWORLD, along with his wife Lisa Joy, and he told me to be sure to catch Sunday’s episode, there might be something that would amuse me.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born April 8, 1912 — John Carnell. British editor well regarded for editing New Worlds two different times. He also edited Science Fantasy starting in the Fifties. After the magazines were sold off to another publisher, he left to create the New Writings in Science Fiction serieswhich ran until his death. Damien Broderick and John Boston have a two volume history of him entitled Building New Worlds, 1946-1959: The Carnell Era. (Died 1972.)
Born April 8, 1933 — Cele Goldsmith. She was editor of Amazing Stories and Fantastic from 1958 to 1965 during which time Zelazny, Le Guin and Disch had their first published stories appeared in those magazines. She has given a special Hugo at Chicon III for editing AmazingStories and Fantastic. (Died 2002.)
Born April 8, 1942 — Douglas Trumbull, 78. Let’s call him a genius and leave it at that. He contributed to, or was fully responsible for, the special photographic effects of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Blade Runner, and directed the movies Silent Running and Brainstorm. And Trumbull was executive producer for Starlost.
Born April 8, 1967 — Cecilia Tan, 53. Editor, writer and founder of Circlet Press, which she says is the first press devoted to erotic genre fiction. It has published well over a hundred digital book to date with such titles as Telepaths Don’t Need Safewords and Other Stories from the Erotic Edge of SF/Fantasy (Wouldn’t Bester be surprised to learn that. I digress), Sex in the System: Stories of Erotic Futures, Technological Stimulation, and the Sensual Life of Machines and Genderflex: Sexy Stories on the Edge and In-Between. She has two series, Magic University and The Prince’s Boy.
Born April 8, 1974 — Nnedi Okorafor, 46. Who Fears Death won a World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. Lagoon, an Afrofuturist novel, was followed by her amazing Binti trilogy. Binti won both a Nebula Award and a Hugo Award for best novella. Several of her works have been adapted for video, both in Africa and in North America.
Born April 8, 1981 — Taylor Kitsch, 39. You’ll possibly remember him as the lead in John Carter which I swear was originally titled John Carter of Mars. He also played Gambit in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and was Lieutenant Commander Alex Hopper in Battleship which was based off the board game.
(10) COMICS SECTION.
Today’s Lio comes with a tip of the hat to H.G. Wells.
Nancy’s April Fools Day explanation of who (or what) she really is was too good to miss.
…Now, however, with the justifiable closure of these conventions due to the COVID-19 outbreak, it’s unclear how much we really need these super conventions. We’ve already started to see a trend of major studios skipping them. Marvel and Sony opted out of these events for the past couple years, and it’s not a stretch to say they might reconsider attending in the future.
As digital media has expanded, the convention model has become more and more antiquated. Today, companies can draw the same amount of hype with an online trailer release and press conference as they used to by premiering a trailer at Comic Con — and the online trailer is a lot less hassle. It also allows studios to control how much gets out about their upcoming releases, lets them limit press access and saves them the embarrassment of a poor fan reaction at a live show.
What’s better than getting a pizza delivered at home during the time of the coronavirus pandemic? How about a pizza delivered by an ageless vampire family, complete with mysterious clues and puzzles to solve along with those slices?
That’s precisely the idea behind Vampire Pizza, a new at-home interactive food experience in Los Angeles that has been designed specifically for this current COVID-19 quarantine life. The idea is simple: a ghost kitchen pizza company partners with experiential artists and producers who are also stuck at home to create a one-of-a-kind character and clues-based game that gets delivered to a customer’s doorstep this weekend. It’s basically dinner and a (personal) show.
… To make matters worse, isolation often goes hand in hand with the strain of monotony. The Norwegian-built ship Belgica was the first to overwinter in the Antarctic during its epic 1898 voyage. Despite facing numerous challenges, Frederick Cook, the onboard doctor, was particularly struck by the problem of isolation and monotony. “We are imprisoned in an endless sea of ice, and find our horizon monotonous. We have told all the tales, real and imaginative…time weighs heavily upon us as the darkness slowly advances,” was his grim description. Allegedly, one crewmember was so fed up he jumped ship proclaiming that he was going to walk home to Belgium across the ice!
(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “Every C3PO Costume Explained By Anthony Daniels” on YouTube is a 50-minute documentary done for WIRED in which Daniels describes every costume he wore in the nine Star Wars films and includes a lot of rare behind-the-scenes footage.
[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Chip Hitchcock, JJ, Cat Eldridge, Martin Morse Wooster, John King Tarpinian, Michael Toman, Rich Horton, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day David Shallcross.]
(2) PODCAST FINDER. The Cambridge Geek compiled a great
tool for podcast listeners: “All
of 2019’s Audio Drama/Fiction Podcast Debut Releases”. The various
tabs include several for genre, such as Science Fiction – over 100 entries – plus
Superhero and Urban Fantasy.
Right, here’s the big list of every new Audio Drama/Fiction/RPG show I found that debuted in 2019, sorted by genre. I think it contains 660 shows. It’s probably a fair chunk of data, so I’ve taken the embedded episodes out – you’ll have to look at a show itself to have a listen.
Instead, at the other end of the decade, ebook sales seem to have stabilized at around 20 percent of total book sales, with print sales making up the remaining 80 percent. “Five or 10 years ago,” says Andrew Albanese, a senior writer at trade magazine Publishers Weekly and the author of The Battle of $9.99, “you would have thought those numbers would have been reversed.”
And in part, Albanese tells Vox in a phone interview, that’s because the digital natives of Gen Z and the millennial generation have very little interest in buying ebooks. “They’re glued to their phones, they love social media, but when it comes to reading a book, they want John Green in print,” he says. The people who are actually buying ebooks? Mostly boomers. “Older readers are glued to their e-readers,” says Albanese. “They don’t have to go to the bookstore. They can make the font bigger. It’s convenient.”
Ebooks aren’t only selling less than everyone predicted they would at the beginning of the decade. They also cost more than everyone predicted they would — and consistently, they cost more than their print equivalents. On Amazon as I’m writing this, a copy of Sally Rooney’s Normal People costs $12.99 as an ebook, but only $11.48 as a hardcover. And increasingly, such disparities aren’t an exception. They’re the rule.
(4) TOP SFF BY POC FROM 2018. Rocket Stack Rank catches
up with its annual “Outstanding SF/F by People of Color 2018”, with 65 stories that were that were finalists
for major SF/F awards, included in “year’s best” SF/F anthologies, or
recommended by prolific reviewers in short fiction.
Eric Wong says, “Included are some observations obtained from pivoting
the table by publication, author, awards, year’s best anthologies, and
reviewers.”
Stories by People of Color make up 18% of SF/F awards finalists with 18 stories out of 101 award-finalist stories from the 2018 Best SF/F. Two stories each won two awards in their respective categories.
As for RSR, we recommended 16 stories (4 award worthy), were neutral on 14 stories, and recommended against 6 stories (view by RSR rating).
(5) HEAD OF THE CLASS. The Oxford Mail, while spotlighting a photo gallery about the famed sff author, typoed his name in the headline. And you thought that kind of thing only happens at a certain well-known news blog…
The scene, which Disney cut to preserve a PG-13 rating in the conservative nation, was the first overt appearance of gay characters in the “Star Wars” franchise.
A brief kiss between two female characters was removed from screenings of “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” in Singapore, a country with restrictive laws against gay people.
Though lasting just a few seconds and hardly a major plot point, the kiss between two minor characters was notable as the first overt appearance of gay characters in a “Star Wars” film. Disney cut the kiss to preserve the film’s PG-13 rating in Singapore, according to reports.
Apparently the people who made this infernal movie are having to digitally retouch it as it’s in theaters, due to some last-minute suggestions, like that Judi Dench’s character Old Deuteronomy (unquestionably a cat) should not suddenly, for a single shot, have a human hand with a wedding ring on it.
Martin Scorsese‘s daughter is poking fun at the filmmaker following his comments about the Marvel franchise.
On Christmas Eve, Francesca Scorsese showed off the many gifts she got for her dad, which she hilariously wrapped in Marvel wrapping paper.
“Look what I’m wrapping my dad’s xmas gifts in,” Francesca wrote over the Instagram Story photo of the presents, which are adorned with comic book images of The Hulk, Captain America and many other super heroes.
Francesca’s timely joke comes a month after Scorsese, 77, made headlines for saying Marvel films are “not cinema.”
(10) TODAY IN HISTORY.
December 26, 1954 — The very last episode of The Shadow radio serial aired. It was the program’s 665th installment and the episode was “Murder by the Sea” with Bret Morrison as The Shadow (Lamont Cranston) and Gertrude Warner as Margot Lane. This is the final episode of The Shadow to be aired on the Mutual Broadcasting System.
December 26, 1959 — In Japan, Battle In Outer Space premiered. It was produced by Toho Studios, best known for Godzilla. Directed by Ishiro Honda and featuring the special effects of Eiji Tsuburaya, the film had a cast of Ryo Ikebe, Koreya Senda and Yoshio Tsuchiya. It was released in the Stateside in an English-dubbed version by Columbia Pictures a year later where it was a double feature with 12 to the Moon. Reception in the States as usual praised the special effects and panned the acting. Rotten Tomatoes reviewers currently deciedly don’t like it giving a 37% rating.
(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born December 26, 1791 — Charles Babbage. Y’ll likely best know him as creator of the Babbage Machine which shows up in Perdido Street Station, The Peshawar Lancers, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage webcomic, and there’s “Georgia on My Mind“ a novelette by Charles Sheffield which involves a search for a lost Babbage device. The latter won both a Nebula and a Hugo Award for Best Novelette. (Died 1871.)
Born December 26, 1903 — Elisha Cook Jr. On the Trek side, he shows up as playing lawyer Samuel T. Cogley in the “Court Martial” episode. Elsewhere he had long association with the genre starting with Voodoo Island and including House on a Haunted Hill, Rosemary’s Baby, Wild Wild West, The Night Stalker and Twilight Zone. (Died 1995.)
Born December 26, 1926 — Mark R. Hillegas. ESF claims that he was one of the first to teach a University level course in SFF which he did at Colgate in 1961. The Future as Nightmare: H G Wells and the Anti-Utopians and Shadows of Imagination: The Fantasies of C S Lewis, J R R Tolkien and Charles Williams are his two works in the field. The former is listed in Barron’s Anatomy of Wonder as part of a core collection of genre non-fiction. SFRA awarded the Pilgrim Award. (Died 2000.)
Born December 26, 1929 — Kathleen Crowley. She retired from acting at forty so she has a brief career. She appeared in only a limited number of genre roles, one being as Nora King in in early Fifties Target Earth, and Dolores Carter in Curse of The Undead, a Western horror film. She also played Sophia Starr twice on Batman. (Died 2017.)
Born December 26, 1951 — Priscilla Olson, 68. She and her husband have been involved with NESFA Press’s efforts to put neglected SF writers back into print and has edited myriad writers such by Chad Oliver and Charles Harness, plus better-known ones like Jane Yolen. She’s chaired a number of Boskones.
Born December 26, 1953 — Clayton Emery, 66. Somewhere there’s a bookstore with nothing but the novels and collections that exist within a given franchise. This author has novels in the Forgotten Realms, Magic: The Gathering and Runesworld franchise, plus several genre works including surprisingly Tales of Robin Hood on Baen Books. Must not be your granddaddy’s Hood.
Born December 26, 1960 — Temuera Morrison, 59. Ahhhh clones. In Attack of the Clones, he plays Jango Fett. In Revenge of the Sith, he came back in the guise of Commander Cody. See no spoilers?
Born December 26, 1961 — Tahnee Welch, 58. Yes the daughter of that actress. She’s in both Cocoon films as well in Sleeping Beauty which was filmed in the same time. Black Light in which she’s the lead might qualify as genre in the way some horror does.
Born December 26, 1970 — Danielle Cormack, 49. If it’s fantasy and it was produced in New Zealand, she’s might have been in it. She was in Xena and Hercules as Ephiny on recurring role, Hercules again as Lady Marie DeValle, Jack of All Trades, one of Kage Baker’s favorite series because, well, Bruce was the lead, as she was Raina in recurring role, Samsara on Xena in amother one-off and Margaret Sparrow in Perfect Creature, an alternate universe horror film.
“Sit back and have a giggle at your cat ‘doing human things’ and help keep them away from clawing your favorite sofa!”
“These cardboard playhouses come in various humorous designs; the Tank, the Catillac, the Fire Engine, Plane, and for those kitties with a bit more style, the Cabin and Tepee.”
Riley Howell, 21, was praised as a hero by police officials, who said “his sacrifice saved lives.” Howell charged and tackled the gunman who opened fire in a classroom on campus in April. Police said his actions stopped the gunman from shooting more people. Ellis Parlier, 19, was also killed in the attack, and four other students were wounded.
Howell, who was a Star Wars fan, is now being honored by Lucasfilm with an entry in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker — The Visual Dictionary, which was published this month.
According to The Charlotte Observer, the newly released book named a character after him: “Jedi Master and historian Ri-Lee Howell,” who is credited with collecting “many of the earliest accounts of exploration and codifications of The Force.” Jedi Master Howell also has an entry on Wookieepedia, the Star Wars wiki.
The movie version of Cats has failed to live up to expectations at the box office, taking just $6.5m (£5m) at the North American box office.
The $100m (£77m) film, which was expected to make double that amount, debuted fourth on the US chart, with the new Stars Wars movie on top.
In the UK and Ireland, it grossed £3.4m, having been panned by critics.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, an updated print of Cats was sent out to cinemas on Friday.
The trade paper reported that the film’s director, Tom Hooper, had ordered re-edits to his film with “some improved visual effects”.
…Hooper, who made Oscar-winning film The King’s Speech, has been open about the fact that he only just managed to finish his CGI-heavy movie before its world premiere in New York.
At the event, Hooper told Variety it was completed in a 36-hour sprint on the Sunday.
Click looks at the visual effects involved in the hit BBC show His Dark Materials.
Russell Dodgson of visual effects company Framestore spoke with Al Moloney about how technology is used to create some of the most memorable scenes from the series including a dramatic bear fight.
Russia has successfully tested a country-wide alternative to the global internet, its government has announced.
Details of what the test involved were vague but, according to the Ministry of Communications, ordinary users did not notice any changes.
The results will now be presented to President Putin.
Experts remain concerned about the trend for some countries to dismantle the internet.
“Sadly, the Russian direction of travel is just another step in the increasing breaking-up of the internet,” said Prof Alan Woodward, a computer scientist at the University of Surrey.
Sub-zero temperatures, dinner from a tin, an icy shower for emergency use only – Kit Adams is all set for Christmas in Antarctica.
Forget chestnuts roasting by an open fire. Not for him hot water or mains electricity.
But Kit, 26, from Newcastle, County Down, cannot believe his luck.
Spending Christmas in a hut thousands of miles from home is bliss…even when top of the chores is scrubbing penguin poo from the doorstep.
The County Down man and his friends are overwintering in remote snowy wastes on an island the size of a football field.
But when that remote piece of earth is home to a colony of Gentoo penguins, it’s paradise.
…Kit is one of a team of five – two Britons, an Irishman; a Scot and a Finn – from the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust (UKAHT) who are spending five months at Port Lockroy on Goudier Island, Antarctica.
He is a mountaineer and adventurer by inclination but in Port Lockroy, he is also a postmaster.
…As well as stamp duties, the intrepid volunteers are also observing the penguins, how they meet; find a mate; build a nest, hatch and dispatch their chicks.
They will make an important contribution to a long-term scientific study of the penguin colony to better understand the impact of environmental changes on the site.
Guidelines state they must stay five metres from the penguins, but Kit said: “On an island the size of a football pitch this isn’t always possible.”
… “The Rise of Skywalker,” released last week, is a muddled and aimless homage to previous films in the series. Its countless callbacks to the older films feel like an effort to “make ‘Star Wars’ great again,” though it does manage to deliver a few liberal-sounding messages. Call it the Joe Biden of “Star Wars” movies.
To continue the analogy, you might say that “The Last Jedi,” “The Force Awakens,” and “Rogue One” are in the Barack Obama tradition. They gave fans truly diverse casts and grappled in a relatively nuanced way with the class and race conflicts that have hovered at the margins of every “Star Wars” story.
They also made fans of the early movies livid. Some used social media to demand that Disney stop with the politically correct storytelling, while others launched racist attacks on the Vietnamese-American actress Kelly Tran, who plays the engineer Rose Tico in two of the films….
…The secret, Mathew believes, is to separate the brain and the spinal column in one piece that will be introduced into a new body. This cuts out, so to speak, what Mathew considers the most daunting obstacle. If you never have to sever the spinal cord at all, you don’t have to solve any of the thorny problems created by all of the different proposed solutions before now.
There’s an inherent downside to Mathew’s idea, even if it were to become feasible in the next 10 years. If a surgery can only successfully be performed on people with intact spinal columns, that rules out one of the major suggested goals of such a transplant, which is to restore mobility to people with disabling spinal injuries who are trying to reverse them….
(22) GETTING INSIDE OF HEAD OF C-3PO. In the Washington Post, Thomas
Floyd has an interview with Anthony Daniels about his autobiography I Am
C-3PO. Daniels talks about how he didn’t use a ghostwriter and how
much of Return of the Jedi was directed by George Lucas “by
proxy” because Richard Marquand couldn’t control the set. “C-3PO
actor Anthony Daniels talks ‘The Rise of Skywalker,’ his new memoir and four
decades of Star Wars”.
Q: The book also confirms long-standing speculation that “Return of the Jedi” director Richard Marquand struggled to command the set, leading Lucas to direct much of the film “by proxy.” Why did you want to share your perspective on that situation?
A: Because there has been so much speculation over the years. I am giving my point of view, and hopefully not in an over-elaborated way. Marquand was an unfortunate experience because, really, he should have had the courage to leave the set. It was an uncomfortable situation. He was a man who was clearly out of his depth with responsibility for other people. I didn’t put this in the book, but I remember hearing Harrison Ford was reportedly amazed, and in fact rather angry, to hear that Marquand claimed to have helped him with his performance of Han Solo, and that’s just ridiculous.
… This is kind of a big deal when humans have known about the brain’s tendency to break down after death for so long that even the ancient Egyptians knew it had to go during the mummification process. There was no point in trying to preserve it like some other organs (never mind that the heart was believed to be the epicenter of thinking back then). It seems that an organ that can’t be mummified would never stay intact long enough to fossilize, but what appeared to be a stain on the Alalcomenaeus fossil that was recently dug up was found to be its brain.
…An Alalcomenaeus brain doesn’t exactly look like a human brain. It really has no resemblance to a human brain at all, but is more of a central nervous system that mirrors those of many extant arthropods, with an elongated brain structure that runs from its head to its upper back. Neural tissue connects to the creature’s four eyes and four pairs of segmented nerves. More nerves from the brain extend all the way down its back.
(24) MUSIC OF THE SPHERES. Since the Scroll took yesterday
off there wasn’t a chance to share this clever bit, the “Star Wars Epic Christmas Medley |
Carol of The Bells & Imperial March.”
[Thanks to Olav Rokne, JJ, Cat Eldridge, Martin Morse Wooster, Eric
Wong, Chip Hitchcock, Andrew Porter, Contrarius, John King Tarpinian, StephenfromOttawa,
Bill, Steve Davidson, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit
goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Anna Nimmhaus.]
“Hey Daisy, how did you figure out how to do alien accent?” another staffer asked.
“You mean this British accent?” Daisy Ridley, who plays Rey, responded.
After a staffer asked what he would do with the Force, Billy Dee Williams (who plays Lando Calrissian) mimicked a choking action like the one used by Darth Vader in the Skywalker saga. The staffer then pretended to be choked.
Filming the scene was made even more challenging by the use of loud wind machines. Hamill not only couldn’t hear Vader body actor David Prowse say his lines, but couldn’t even hear himself and had to go off visual cues of Prowse moving in his suit. In fact, Hamill says that one of the biggest Star Wars original trilogy secrets is that more than half the dialogue was recorded in post-production due to all the intrusive noises from smoke and wind machines, prop effects, and even clunking robots. “C-3PO doesn’t sound like metal, he sounds like fiberglass,” Hamill notes.
After filming the scene, the fake twist — that Obi-Wan killed Luke’s father — leaked to a British tabloid. “These newspapers were offering 20,000 notes for anybody that got a good Star Wars leak,” Hamill says. “We couldn’t even keep that [the fake twist] a secret for a week. I was secretly delighted.”
…The sequence starts with an encounter on the bridge that was shot mostly in camera with puppets and full-scale components of the bridge built on a soundstage (one of roughly 110 miniature sets, including a full miniature bridge, that were constructed for the movie). The bridge was built of clear casting urethane resin in order to achieve the look of the ice without its turning yellow, explains production designer Nelson Lowry.
As the pursuit heats up, the bridge collapses. There were 64 individually rigged ice blocks that could be independently controlled for the shot in which the bridge begins to break. The actual destruction of the bridge was digitally created in the computer, and the puppets were composited into the action. Before it’s over, some are dangling from a rope, trying to gain safe footing. Butler says this was one of the toughest scenes Laika has ever tackled, and the artistry and heart-racing story have garnered Laika a slew of nominations, including multiple Annie Awards and a Golden Globe.
(5) DECADE’S TOP SFF PICTURES. The Daily Dot picked
only one Marvel production for its list of “The
10 most important sci-fi films of the 2010s”, leaving plenty of room
for less obvious selections like this one –
6) High Life (2018)
Want to feel disturbed and alarmed? Well, High Life is the film for you. Acclaimed French indie director Claire Denis ventured into sci-fi territory for her English language debut, casting Robert Pattinson as the lead in a gut-churning thriller about a group of convicts in a claustrophobic spaceship. Pattinson plays the convict Monte, co-starring with Juliette Binoche as the ship’s creepy and sexually aggressive doctor, along with an ensemble cast including Andre 3000, Mia Goth, and a baby. Although if you sign up for this film based on the posters showing Robert Pattinson hanging out with an adorable toddler, you’ll be in for a nasty surprise. This gripping drama features sporadic but intense violence, explicit sex, and a dread-inducing descent into certain death. Both a commentary on incarceration and a straightforward space thriller, High Life riffs on the tropes of other trapped-in-a-spaceship movies like Alien and Event Horizon, while still feeling thoroughly memorable in its own right.
(6) #ET TOO. At CrimeReads, Damien Angelica Walters
explored “How
Women Authors Are Reshaping the Horror Genre” — “The boogeyman
in the closet isn’t an amorphous shape in the dark—It’s someone we know and
trust.”
The Monsters We Pass on the Street
I mentioned earlier that more than half the women killed in 2017 were murdered by their intimate partners or family members. Not a day goes by where I don’t see an article about a woman being abused, assaulted, or killed. It’s terrifying and what’s even more frightening is how commonplace it is. Violence against women by men is the backdrop to countless books, television shows, both fictional and not, and movies.
In My Sister, The Serial Killer, Oyinkan Braithwaite turns this on its head, creating feminist catharsis with her unexpected reversal. Korede’s younger sister, Ayoola, is beautiful and charming. She also has a penchant for killing her boyfriends, relying on Korede to help her clean up the mess. Korede doesn’t have to fear Ayoola, but she protects her. Until the doctor Korede works with and is secretly in love with meets and falls for Ayoola, forcing Korede to make a choice: do you stand by the monsters when they’re one of your own?
(7) TODAY IN HISTORY.
Shoot, this was a big day for sff in 1984!
December 14, 1984 — 1984 premiered in limited released in the art house circuit. It would get a general circulation release the next year. Starring John Hurt, Richard Burton, Suzanna Hamilton and Cyril Cusack, critics loved it with Ebert calling saying Hurt was “the perfect Winston Smith”. It currently has a 71% rating among reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes.
December 14, 1984 — Runaway premiered. Starring Tom Selleck, Cynthia Rhodes and Gene Simmons, it faired quite poorly as it was up against The Terminator, The Search for Spock, and 2010: The Year We Make Contact. It got not so great reviews from critics and garnered a 44% rating from reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes.
December 14, 1984 — Dune premiered. Directed by David Lynch of later Twin Peaks fame, starring Francesca Annis, Linda Hunt, Sting, Kyle MacLachlan and a cast of thousands, it did poorly at the box office and was treated badly by critics. Reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes however give a 66% rating. It would place in fourth in AussieCon Two voting with 2010: Odyssey Two winning that year.
December 14, 1984 — John Carpenter’s Starman premiered. Starring Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen, it did very well at the box office and critics loved it as well. Bridges earned was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, making this the only film by Carpenter to receive an Academy Award nomination.
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge *yay*]
Born December 14, 1916 — Shirley Jackson. First gained public attention for her short story “The Lottery, or, The Adventures of James Harris” but it was her The Haunting of Hill House novel which has been made her legendary as a horror novelist as it’s truly a chilling ghost story. I see that’s she wrote quite a bit of genre short fiction — has anyone here read it? (Died 1965.)
Born December 14, 1920 — Rosemary Sutcliff. English novelist whose best known for children’s books, particularly her historical fiction which involved retellings of myths and legends, Arthurian and otherwise. Digging into my memory, I remember reading The Chronicles of Robin Hood which was her first published novel and rather good; The Eagle of the Ninth is set in Roman Britain and was an equally fine read. (Died 1992.)
Born December 14, 1929 — Christopher Plummer, 90. Let’s see… Does Rudyard Kipling in The Man Who Would Be King count? If not, The Return of the Pink Panther does. That was followed by Starcrash, a space opera I suspect hardly no one saw which was also the case with Somewhere in Time. Now Dreamscape was fun and well received. Skipping now to General Chang in Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country. Opinions everyone? I know I’ve mixed feelings on Chang. I see he’s in Twelve Monkeys which I’m not a fan of and I’ve not seen The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus yet.
Born December 14, 1960 — Don Franklin, 59. He’s best known for his roles in seaQuest DSV as Commander Jonathan Ford, Seven Days as Captain Craig Donovan, and as one of The Young Riders as Noah Dixon. No, the last isn’t remotely genre but it was a great role.
Born December 14, 1964 — Rebecca Gibney, 55. She was in Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot, and was also in King’s Nightmares and Dreamscapes mini-series. She also had one-offs in Time Trax, Farscape and The Lost World, all of which were produced either in Australia or New Zealand, convenient as she’s New Zealand born and resident.
Born December 14, 1965 — Theodore Raimi, 54. Though he’s known for being in whatever his brother Sam Raimi has done including a fake Shemp in The Evil Dead, a possessed Henrietta in Evil Dead II, and Ted Hoffman in the Spider-Man film franchise, I remember rather him from him being Joxer on Hercules and Xena, a role I wasn’t that fond of.
Born December 14, 1966 — Sarah Zettel, 53. Her first novel, Reclamation, was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award in 1996, and in 1997 tied for the Locus Award for the Best First Novel. Writing under the alias of C. L. Anderson, her novel Bitter Angels won the 2010 Philip K. Dick award for best paperback original novel. If you’ve not read her, I’d recommend her YA American Fairy Trilogy as a good place to start.
(9) COMICS SECTION.
Tom Gauld goes Christmas shopping with a bookworm at The Guardian.
While in the most recent few years LEGO has strayed from the theme’s roots with unique garage and diner builds, this year the company is going back to the basics for a delightful multistory bookstore. Comprised of 2,504 bricks, this model was inspired by houses in Amsterdam, bringing the European aesthetic into brick-built form in a distinct way.
Doubling down on the modular nature, this set features to independent buildings that can be rearranged throughout your city. Fittingly for this LEGO kit’s namesake, the bookstore is the larger of the two Creator Expert models. It sports a brick-like brown facade complemented by stonework accenting.
London’s underground transit system, known as “The London Underground” or “The Tube,” started running in 1863. Its iconic symbol, a patriotically colored bar-and-circle roundel, was first plastered on the city’s subterranean walls in 1908 and has gone through several iterations since. Until now, each new draft of the logo has been a variation on the same theme—all solidly red and blue, with only slight changes to the proportions and weight of the letters. Recently, however, British-Ghanaian artist Larry Achiampong has reimagined the traditional transit symbol to reflect the rich and diverse African diaspora that makes up roughly 44% of London’s population.
This large-scale logo redesign is a public commission from Art on the Underground, a visual arts showcase funded by Transport for London, which “seeks to consider the possibilities of alternate histories,” according to a statement. “Pan African Flag for the Relic Travellers’ Alliance” exists as a part of the showcase’s 2019 program “On Edge,” which encourages artists to create works that explore themes of unity, utopia, and belonging, inspired by the United Kingdom’s likely departure from the European Union…
The classic red, white, and blue symbol has been around since 1908. It’s time for a tune-up. https://t.co/g8SYhq501b
…Dune takes place on a desert planet called Arrakis, one of many feudal worlds ruled over by galactic stewards, and the only natural source of a highly valuable substance known as “spice.” Timothée Chalamet (Call Me By Your Name) will also star as Isaac’s on-screen son Paul Atreides, while Rebecca Ferguson (Mission: Impossible – Fallout) will play his concubine Lady Jessica. The wider ensemble cast will include Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy), Josh Brolin (Endgame), Zendaya (Euphoria) and Jason Momoa (Aquaman).
“There are some things that are — for lack of a better word — nightmarish about what you see,” Isaac continued. “There’s just this kind of brutalist element to it. It’s shocking. It’s scary. It’s very visceral… And I know that definitely between Denis and myself and Chalamet and Rebecca Ferguson as the family unit, we really searched for the emotion of it. I’m beyond myself with excitement. I think it’s good to feel cool, unique, and special.”
For a brief period in the late 1990s, it was one of the busiest categories in book publishing.
As the decade wound down, more and more people became agitated about the Y2K bug—also known as the millennium bug and the year 2000 problem–which stemmed from programmers having conserved precious bytes by storing years as two digits. (For instance, “80” instead of “1980.”) When 1999 turned into 2000, aging software reliant on such space-saving dates wouldn’t be able to tell the new year from 1900. And that raised the specter of much of the code that ran the world failing—possibly, the theory went, in disastrous ways. Power grids might be knocked out. Banks could fail. Food shortages and mass unemployment might lead to riots. Any semblance of normalcy could take years to return.
Enter a profusion of books dedicated to helping people plan for this techno-doomsday….
The Avon Fantasy Reader was an important Pulp reprint anthology (taking its contents from Weird Tales, Thrilling Wonder, The Blue Book, Adventure and Wonder Stories) that ran for eighteen issues from 1946 to 1952. It had a Science Fiction companion that ran for three issues before both were combined into The Avon Science Fiction and Fantasy Reader for two more final issues. Edited by Donald A. Wolheim, it featured many Sword & Sorcery tales by Robert E. Howard and others. It also ran Cthulhu Mythos Horror and Space Opera style Science Fiction. For Complete Contents.
The covers for the series were also important, as they were some of the best Fantasy art to appear besides the original Pulps….
(18) BEHIND THE GOLD MASK. Bill Bradley, in “Anthony
Daniels On That NSFW ‘Star Wars’ Image And Why He Wanted C-3PO To Die” on Huffington Post, has an
interview with Daniels, who gives his thoughts on Baby Yoda, the naughty C-3PO
trading card, and how he’s satisfied but of course can’t explain what happens
to his character in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
Since you were around when Yoda was originally created, what are your thoughts on Baby Yoda?
Ah, Baby Yoda. It had to happen. It had to happen just before Christmas. Baby Yoda is the thing, maybe the toy of the month, the year, whatever. Yoda is such an adored character created by Frank Oz, and obviously now we are looking back at origins.
Do we need a smaller wookiee? I don’t know. I love the inventiveness with “Star Wars,” the creative inventiveness that “Star Wars” has fostered over the years, whether it’s with the technicians or with fans. And of course, some of the fans now work on the movies because their abilities are so great. Baby Yoda is cute, gorgeous, but I would warn the public that Baby Yoda is not just for Christmas. It’s a responsibility.
(19) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “Santa Claus” is an episode of Good Bad Flicks where they
revist the 1959 classic Mexican film where Santa lives in a castle in outer
space, has Merlin as his sidekick, and beats Satan by shooting him in the butt
with a dart from a blow gun.
[Thanks to JJ, Martin Morse Wooster, Andrew Porter, John King
Tarpinian, Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, N., Michael Toman, and Mike Kennedy
for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of
the day Bill.]
By Chris Barkley: Actor Anthony Daniels’ book tour in support of his newly published memoir, I Am C-3PO: The Inside Story, stopped at Joseph Beth Booksellers in Cincinnati, Ohio Wednesday evening.
The
brief question and answer period was highlighted by a question from a very
young fan who demanded to know why C-3PO interrupted the kiss between Leia and
Han in The Empire Strikes Back. (Answer: It was not his fault, it was in
the script!)
The
event was attended by several hundred enthusiastic fans, with many of the
attendees in full cosplay mode. (Note: The author was dressed in chinos, a
dress shirt, a leather jacket topped off with an NPR baseball cap. DON’T JUDGE
ME!)
Daniels’
famous co-star, R2D2 was also on hand to amuse, amaze and pose for pictures
with fans…
[Photo of Daniels taken by Paul Glasser, all others by Chris
Barkley.]
