Apex Magazine Reboots Annual Funding Campaign

Apex Publications’ Revive the Drive subscription campaign has begun, and through April 17 they’ll be working to raise $10,000 to fund Apex Magazine this year.

There are new reward tiers to unlock, original fiction to add to the January 2018 issue, and other incentives for you to participate – check out everything they have to offer at the Revive the Drive store.

Apex originally started its 2017 subscription drive last October, but after the election they ended it early despite not achieving their goal; that was not a good time to be pushing a drive. Now they’re starting again: they still need to make ends meet.

During the drive Apex Magazine subscriptions will be marked down to $17 for 12 issues.

As people subscribe and the total on their funding thermometer goes up, the staff will unlock the following reward tiers:

  • $500 – Polls will open for readers to vote for the cutest/best Apex animal mascot: Pumpkin versus Oz! (Expect loads of adorable pics on social media as the editors try to sway you to vote for their pet!) Also, Jason Sizemore and Lesley Connor will each donate $25 to the Humane Society
  • $1,000 – Apex will donate two short story critiques (one each from Jason and Lesley) to the ConOrBust auction, as well a membership to Imaginarium this October
  • $1,500 – Jason and Lesley’s It Follows debate goes live! Join the editors as they watch It Follows and live tweet the entire experience. If you’ve been following their conversations about the movie on Twitter, then you do not want to miss this! Date and time will be announced once this tier has been unlocked.
  • $2,000 – an original short story by Tade Thompson in the January 2018 issue
  • $2,500 – a poem to the January 2018 issue
  • $3,000 – a reprint to the January 2018 issue
  • $3,500 – Andrea Johnson will conduct a video interview with Jason Sizemore, asking him questions submitted by the readers
  • $4,000 – a nonfiction essay to the January 2018 issue
  • $4,500 – a second poem to the January 2018 issue
  • $5,000 – an original short story by Delilah S. Dawson in the January 2018 issue
  • $5,500 – podcast a second original story in the January 2018 issue
  • $6,000 – Apex donates a membership to ConFusion to ConOrBust
  • $6,500 – raise cover artist rates to $75
  • $7,000 – original artwork for all original fiction unlocked during the drive for the January 2018 issue
  • $7,500 – an original short story by Cherie Priest in the January 2018 issue
  • $8,000 – behind the scenes video with Jason
  • $8,500 – original artwork for all six stories in the January 2018 issue
  • $9,000 – a new print issue of Apex Magazine: SFFH #1
  • $9,500 – raise author rates to 7 cents per word
  • $10,000 – an original short story by Jacqueline Carey in the January 2018 issue
  • STRETCH GOAL!!! $15,000 – raise author rates to 8 cents per word and artist rates to $100!

Readers who already have a subscription can renew now for only $17 and add another 12 months to their existing subscription. Or make a donation of at least $5 and get a personalized Thank You! postcard from managing editor Lesley Conner—she has a stack of vintage sci-fi novel cover postcards that she’s just dying to share.

The easiest way to support the drive is to subscribe directly through Apex or by purchasing one of the many donated items offered exclusively during the drive, but anyone who prefers to subscribe through Weightless Books or Amazon can get their subscription counted toward the drive by emailing a copy of the receipt to Lesley at [email protected].

Apex Publications Announces Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling

upsidedown001-minFollowing a successful Kickstarter campaign, Apex Publications has released Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling edited by Jaym Gates and Monica Valentinelli. Over two dozen authors chose a tired trope or cliché to challenge and surprise readers through their work.

Each author in this collection has examined a specific trope or cliché that includes:

  • Chainmaille Bikini
  • The Magical Negro
  • The Super Soldier
  • The Chosen One
  • Guys Smash, Girls Shoot
  • Love at First Sight
  • Damsels in Distress
  • Heroine Loves a Bad Man
  • Yellow Peril
  • The Black Man Dies First
  • The Villain Had a Crappy Childhood
  • The City Planet
  • Prostitute with a Heart of Gold
  • The Singularity Will Cause the Apocalypse
  • First Period Panic
  • Girlfriend in the Refrigerator
  • Retired Pro’s “Last” Job

And each author tells what these tropes mean to them and what inspired their story.

Contributors include Maurice Broaddus, Adam Troy-Castro, Delilah S. Dawson, Shanna Germain, Sara M. Harvey, John Hornor Jacobs, Rahul Kanakia, Alethea Kontis, Valya Dudycz Lupescu, Haralambi Markov, Kat Richardson, Nisi Shawl, Ferrett Steinmetz, Anton Strout, Michael Underwood, and Alyssa Wong.

Upside Down is editor Jaym Gates’s (War Stories) second anthology with Apex Book Company, and it is the first for editor Monica Valentinelli.

Pixel Scroll 11/15/16 The Manhunt Extended Across More Than One Hundred Pixels And Eight Box Tick Scrolls

(1) NAMING CALLS. Katie Rask announced that the YA Award Survey has had over 1,200 entries so far.

(2) THE SHIRT OFF YOUR BACK. The gift-giving season approaches, so it’s time to pay another visit to the Litographs store, where you can pick up something from The Princess Bride movie, or Daniel Jose Older’s Shadowshaper, or quite a few other genre authors from Diana Gabaldon and Ellen Kushner to Kurt Vonnegut and H. P. Lovecraft.

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(3) LINGUISTICS IN SF. Rowan Hooper’s piece for New Scientist looks at the use of linguistics in Arrival to give a survey of how sf films have treated linguistics, with references to Contact and Interstellar — “The science behind the twisting alien linguistics of Arrival.

Science fiction thrillers usually send in gun-toting heroes like Will Smith or Tom Cruise to kick invading alien butt. Arrival is completely, wonderfully different: it sends in a linguist, played by Amy Adams.

“Language,” one character says, “is the first weapon drawn in a conflict.” The big question to ask the aliens: what is their purpose on Earth?

In Contact, the aliens used prime numbers as a Rosetta stone that could be used to decrypt their communication; in Close Encounters of the Third Kind they helpfully used five musical tones in a major scale, presumably because vibrating strings have the same harmonics in other parts of our galaxy.

(4) MR. SCI-FI NEEDS SPACE. Storage space, that is — anybody want to store a spaceship?

Writer-Director-Producer Marc Zicree needs your help! Part of the hero set of Space Command (half the floor) needs a free home! (The rest is in storage). He’s been working to get overhead down on costs such as rent, while he’s busy at work completing the two-hour pilot of Space Command and selling the show. Have some of your garage or yard free to give us some space for our spaceship floor? You can help!

 

(5) INTO THE WEST ONCE MORE. HBO has renewed Westworld reports the New York Times.

“Westworld,” an expensive sci-fi drama, had been sidetracked by development problems and its October debut was later than expected. Before it had its premiere, HBO executives were privately saying they were unsure if it would land with its audience. But landed it has. “Westworld” has regularly been the No.-3-highest-rated scripted TV show in cable, drawing nearly three million viewers each week. HBO said on Monday that after adding up additional metrics like DVR, HBO Go and HBO Now views, the show is averaging 11.7 million viewers per episode, a figure they said is higher than “Game of Thrones” and “True Detective” at similar points in their freshman seasons. And like the first season of “True Detective,” it has ignited a lot of commentary online.

(6) SERIES BASED ON ATWOOD NOVEL. Hulu is planning a 10-episode adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale.

Taking a cue from Netflix, Hulu isn’t slowing down with its original programming. Today, the streaming service announced that it’s ordered a full series adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood’s seminal sci-fi novel. It centers on a totalitarian society where the birth rate is falling, and fertile women are placed in sexual slavery as “handmaids” to help humanity repopulate. Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men, Top of the Lake) will star as Offred, a handmaid working in the home of a government official named The Commander. Her main goal? To find her daughter, all the while trying to deal with her low place in society.

(7) OUTRÉ LIMITS. Sheila Williams explains why the current issue of Asimov’s consists of all fantasy stories.

Welcome to our annual slightly spooky issue. The fall double issue is always long in the making. Throughout the year, we see stories that land a little outside Asimov’s, admittedly rather soft, parameters. While we do publish one or two stories in each issue that could be called fantasy, surreal fiction, or slipstream, our focus is primarily on science fiction. Of course I get a lot of traditional science fiction story submissions, but I see a lot of uncanny submissions, too. The average issue of Asimov’s rarely features ghosts, witches, or werewolves, so during the year I tend to set aside many of my favorite outré tales while I wait to lay out the October/November issue.

(8) I KNOW. The actress kept this news on ice for 40 years — “Carrie Fisher Reveals She Had an Affair With Harrison Ford on ‘Star Wars’: ‘It Was So Intense’”.

Carrie Fisher is finally going public with a secret she has guarded closely for 40 years: When she was 19, she and Harrison Ford, then a 33-year-old married father of two, had a whirlwind three-month affair while filming the original Star Wars in 1976.

“It was so intense,” the actress-author, 60, tells PEOPLE exclusively of the real-life romance die-hard fans of the franchise have wished for since Han Solo and Princess Leia captured hearts on-screen.

(9) POP CULTURE QUEST. The actor who convinced California to pass a law about authenticating collectibles now has turned his interest into a TV show — “Mark Hamill on Turning Professional Toy and Collectibles Explorer”.

Hamill has launched a new series, Mark Hamill’s Pop Culture Quest, on the recently-launched Comic-Con HQ subscription service – you can watch the first episode right now via DC Comics’ YouTube channel.

On the series, Hamill — an avid toy and memorabilia collector himself — travels to see different notable collections, from classic Godzilla and other Japanese-created toys kept in a fan’s home to the iconic Batman comics and items on display at DC Comics’ headquarters. I spoke to Hamill about how the series came to be, what it’s like for him to interview the subjects, and more, including his own personal history as a collector….

IGN: As we’re doing an interview right now, I’m curious, doing this show, do you enjoy getting to be the interviewer, having been on the other side of it so many times?

Hamill: Oh yes, absolutely. That’s part of the fun. I thought, “Boy, I could really get used to this.” You’re right. It’s role reversal. One thing that I discovered… Because you look at the schedule and it’s like, “We’re going to do a show about a guy who collects shoes!?” That doesn’t really grab me, but then you meet the person and it’s really the shared trait that all collectors have that you relate to and then you hear the personal stories of how they got started on whatever collection they have and that’s the connective tissue. So that’s part of the fun. I don’t personally collect some of these things, but I love seeing other people who do.

(10) NAME CHANGE. Seattle’s EMP is now Museum of Pop Culture—MoPOP.

As of Saturday, November 19, EMP will officially be named Museum of Pop Culture—MoPOP. As you know, our museum encompasses so much more than music, and as we look toward the future, MoPOP reflects the entirety of the museum and where we are headed.

Spanning science fiction, fantasy, horror, fashion, sports, and video games, MoPOP reflects our vision for curating, exploring, and supporting the creative works that shape and inspire our lives. While the name of the museum is evolving, our mission remains the same: to bring genuine human experience and perspective to pop culture through our exhibits, programs, and events that invite exploration and inspire creativity.

We are so excited to showcase the breadth of the museum and celebrate pop culture in all its diversity with our Pop Culture Party, an all-day fest that is free to the public this Saturday. Admission includes entry to all MoPOP galleries—including Star Trek: Exploring New Worlds—and will feature live music, architectural tours, pop culture games, and more fun for guests of all ages.

(11) SUBSTANDARD DANCE. Cemetery Dance has been delisted by SFWA.

Please note that, as of November 1, 2016, Cemetery Dance is no longer a SFWA-qualifying market. In 2014, SFWA increased the standard of payment from 5¢/word to 6¢/word, and this publication has not increased its pay rate to keep pace. In addition, payment for stories is capped at $250, regardless of length. Cemetery Dance was alerted in September about the issue and their upcoming de-listing and has declined to raise its rates or change the story cap. Should the magazine change its policy to meet SFWA standards, it will be reinstated to our qualifying list.

(12) THE EXPLANATION. Charles Stross thinks there are no coincidences and all the disparate parts should fit together, rather like a Tim Powers novel played out in real life.

What happened last week is not just about America. It was one move—a very significant one, bishop-takes-queen maybe—in a long-drawn-out geopolitical chess game. It’s being fought around the world: Brexit was one move, the election and massacres of Dutarte in the Philippines were another, the post-coup crackdown in Turkey is a third. The possible election of Marine Le Pen (a no-shit out-of-the-closet fascist) as President of France next year is more of this stuff. The eldritch knot of connections between Turkey and Saudi Arabia and Da’esh in the wreckage of Syria is icing on top. It’s happening all over and I no longer think this is a coincidence.

Part of it is about the geopolitics of climate change (and mass migration and water wars). Part of it is about the jarring transition from an oil-based economy (opposed by the factions who sell oil and sponsor denial climate change, from Exxon-Mobil to the Kremlin) to a carbon-neutral one.

Part of it is the hellbrew of racism and resentment stirred up by loss of relative advantage, by the stagnation of wages in the west and the perception that other people somewhere else are stealing all the money—Chinese factories, Wall Street bankers, the faceless Other. (17M people in the UK have less than £100 in savings; by a weird coincidence, the number of people who voted for Brexit was around 17M. People who are impoverished become desperate and angry and have little investment in the status quo—a fancy way of saying they’ve got nothing to lose.)

But another big part of the picture I’m trying to draw is Russia’s long-drawn out revenge for the wild ride of misrule the neoconservatives inflicted on the former USSR in the 1990s.

(13) GRIM FAIRY TALE. Easier to understand is M.A.M.O.N. (Monitor Against Mexicans Over Nationwide), “a satirical fantasy sci-fi shortfilm that explores with black humor and lots of VFX the outrageous consequences of Donald Trump´s plan of banning immigration and building an enormous wall on the Mexico – US border.”

(14) FIRST ROBOTS. Jim Meadows writes:

A college radio station in my town is airing a student production adapted from the play “R.U.R.” by Karel Capek, credited for coining the word ‘robot’.

The play, “Airing Robots” is being broadcast today and tomorrow (Tuesday & Wednesday) on WPCD, 88.7 FM in Champaign, Illinois. The station streams at its website, http://wpcd.parkland.edu/index.html

The play aired today at 10 AM Central Time, and will repeat today at 6 PM and Wednesday at 12 PM and 8 PM.

The production is the culmination of two different Communications classes at Parkland College, a public community college in Champaign.

Here’s a link to an article in Parkland’s student newspaper, the Prospectus, which actually does a fair job of summarizing key elements of the play

One aspect of “Airing Robots” and its source material Geiken finds interesting is the type of robots featured: androids as opposed to cog-and-gear machines.

“[T]he robots of R.U.R are not your typical mechanical robots that you might imagine for this sort of early sci-fi story, but more akin to cyborgs or androids made from organic matter. The robots of R.U.R. are more like the ‘Cylons’ of the 2004 version of ‘Battlestar Galactica,’ or the cyborgs of the ‘Terminator’ movie series,” he said.

?apek, who was a highly-political writer, wrote “R.U.R.” in 1920, when Europe was feeling the effects of the Russian civil war and the end of World War I. According to Czech writer and biographer Ivan Kilma, ?apek wrote the play in response to many of the societal and technocratic utopian ideas that were spreading around Central Europe at that time.

R.U.R. was first performed in 1921, Kilma states.

(15) ROSEWATER. Rosewater by Tade Thompson is a new release from Apex Publications. Thompson lives and works in the south of England. His first novel Making Wolf won the 2016 Kitschies Golden Tentacle award for best debut novel.

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Between meeting a boy who bursts into flames, alien floaters that want to devour him, and a butterfly woman who he has sex with when he enters the xenosphere, Kaaro’s life is far from the simple one he wants. But he left simple behind a long time ago when he was caught stealing and nearly killed by an angry mob. Now he works for a government agency called Section 45, and they want him to find a women known as Bicycle Girl. And that’s just the beginning.

An alien entity lives beneath the ground, forming a biodome around which the city of Rosewater thrives. The cities of Rosewater are enamored by the dome, hoping for a chance to meet the beings within or possibly be invited to come in themselves. But Kaaro isn’t so enamored. He was in the biodome at one point and decided to leave it behind. When something begins killing off other sensitives like himself, Kaaro defies Section 45 to search for an answer, facing his past and comes to a realization about a horrifying future.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, Andrew Porter, and Carl Slaughter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Niall McAuley.]

Stay Crazy

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By Carl Slaughter: Erica Satfika’s Philip K. Dick-inspired debut novel is out next month. The art and jacket copy are ready. Preliminary reviews on Goodreads are mostly 5 star. I have to say, the plot is refreshingly different. Interesting cover too. What’s that the protagonist is holding in her hand as if it were a raygun? A blowerdryer!

Erica Satifka’s File 770 interview.

PRAISE

“Had Philip K. Dick lived through the riot grrrl and the collapse of the American industrial economy, Stay Crazy would be his memoir. Erica Satifka is a prophet.”

Nick Mamatas, author of Sensation and I Am Providence.

JACKET COPY

After a breakdown at college landed Emmeline Kalberg in a mental hospital, she’s struggling to get her life on track. She’s back in her hometown and everyone knows she’s crazy, but the twelve pills she takes every day keep her anxiety and paranoia in check. So when a voice that calls itself Escodex begins talking to Em from a box of frozen chicken nuggets, she’s sure that it’s real and not another hallucination. Well … pretty sure.

An evil entity is taking over the employees of Savertown USA, sucking out their energy so it can break into Escodex’s dimension. When her coworkers start dying, Em realizes that she may be the only one who can stop things from getting worse. Now she must convince her therapist she’s not having a relapse and keep her boss from firing her. All while getting her coworker Roger to help enact the plans Escodex conveys to her though the RFID chips in the Savertown USA products. It’s enough to make anyone Stay Crazy.

Cover by Nick Brokenshire

Stay Crazy is scheduled for release on August 16. Pre-order from Apex Book Company.

Pixel Scroll 6/22/16 Careful With That Scroll, Eugene

(1) PRINCESS AWOL. Yahoo! Movies side-eyes this disturbing pattern – “’Moana’ Teaser: A Brief History of Disney Omitting Princesses From Princess Movie Trailers”. Moana doesn’t show up until :38 of this teaser trailer –

This all began after 2009’s The Princess and the Frog underperformed at the box office. That film had a few notable issues — like a meandering story, in which the princess spent most of her time being a frog — but per the Los Angeles Times, Disney execs came to the conclusion that The Princess and the Frog didn’t attract an audience because boys didn’t want to see a movie about princesses.

With that in mind, Disney Animation’s next princess-centric feature went through an image makeover. Instead of Rapunzel, it would be called Tangled, and the marketing would center on the princess’ love interest Flynn Rider. Here’s the first trailer, released in 2010, which barely includes Rapunzel at all.

(2) ANOTHER COUNTY HEARD FROM. Ashley Pollard dissents from the belief that Mary Shelley is the founder of British science fiction. She names her candidate in a post for Galactic Journey “[June 22, 1961] Home Counties SF (A Report From The UK)”.

Let me explain my title to you.  The British Home Counties surround London, where I live, and consists of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, Surrey, and Sussex.  I mention this apropos of probably the most well known of Britain’s science fiction novels: the apocalyptic War of the Worlds by Herbert George Wells.

The story is a veritable march through the Britain’s heartland, describing how the Martian tripods march from Woking in Surrey to Essex, wrecking all that’s nearest and dearest to the heart of the British people.  Though I should point out that this was a very English-centred story (Scotland, Wales and Ireland are left out), and regarding the rest of the world or our former colonies, Wells has little to say.

War, arguably, was where British science fiction was born.  I say “arguably” because Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein can probably lay claim to being the first British SF story; however, its roots seem to me to be more firmly in Gothic Horror.  I believe that Wells set the scene for British SF in a way that Shelley’s story has so far not.  Though perhaps now that we are in the swinging sixties, her influence will be felt more as women’s emancipation moves forward.

(3) KEEP ON BANGING. ScreenRant loves the music from Suicide Squad.

In case it wasn’t obvious from the excellent music choices for all of the trailers so far, Suicide Squad‘s soundtrack is set to be a major feature of the film. The full soundtrack listing for Suicide Squad: The Album has already been released, and features music by Panic! At The Disco, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Eminem, as well as a song called “Purple Lamborghini” which was written specifically for the film by Skrillex and Rick Ross.

With regards to “Purple Lamborghini,” we already know that Skrillex and Rick Ross filmed a music video with Jared Leto in his Joker costume – the song is, after all, named after his vehicle of choice. However, this isn’t the only tie-in music video to be released for the movie; twenty one pilots have just released their own, featuring the soundtrack song “Heathens,” which is set in Belle Reve (the maximum security prison where Task Force X are held before they are recruited by Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller) and features a few fragments of new footage from the movie.

Now Twenty-One Pilots is in the mix.

(4) EATING THE FANTASTIC PODCAST. Scott Edelman invites one and all to “Eavesdrop on my lunch with Linda Addison in Episode 11 of Eating the Fantastic”.

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Linda Addison

We talked of how someone who earned a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics transforms into a four-time Bram Stoker Award winning writer, the way a chance encounter with Grand Master Frederik Pohl during a New York is Book Country Festival helped her make her first sale to Asimov’s, why this acclaimed horror poet has now decided to go from micro to macro and write a science fiction trilogy, and much more.

(5) NO CLINGING VINE. “’Gotham’ Casts New Grown-Up Poison Ivy for Season 3 Of Batman Backstory Series” says Deadline.

Transformed to a 19-year old, Ivy “Pamela” Pepper isn’t playing Selina Kyle’s sidekick anymore. With the Ted 2 actress now taking on the role, a newly confident and empower Pepper will be moving towards her poisonous persona and Bruce Wayne.

When we last saw her on Season 2 of Gotham, the foliage focused orphan who would become Batman villainess and eco-terrorist Poison Ivy was played by Clare Foley. Well, that’s about to change for Season 3 of the Fox series as Ivy has grown up and will now be portrayed by Maggie Geha, it was revealed today

(6) SHOUTING YOURSELF HORSE. Engaged by the discussion here of the huge battle in a recent Game of Thrones episode, Vox Day devoted a post to “The military geniuses at File 770”

It’s clear that neither the producers of the episode, nor Aaron, has any idea how cavalry was, and is, used on the battlefield. It is a secondary arm; it is the infantry that is “the queen of the battlefield”. Hollywood likes horses because they are exciting and dramatic, but one should never allow oneself to be misguided into thinking that the tactics one is seeing on the screen are even remotely reasonable, let alone realistic or historically plausible.

(7) UP ABOVE THE WORLD SO HIGH. TimeOut Los Angeles sounds skeptical — “Dinner in the Sky, coming to LA in July, dangles diners 15 stories in the air”.

Dinner in the Sky, an aerial dining experience that takes place 150 feet above ground level, launched in Belgium in 2006 before swiftly bringing its gravity-defying dinners to cities around the world (Rome, Athens, Kuala Lumpur and Cape Town, to name a few). On July 1, Dinner in the Sky is making its LA debut and will continue hoisting ballsy diners via crane from the comfort of LA Center Studios in Downtown LA throughout July. Once in the air, a small staff will serve a four-course meal with a view, cooked up by chef Keven Lee (the Hollywood-based chef currently owns a private events company called My World on a Plate).

The actual elevated contraption looks like some kind of inverted roller coaster ride, with diners strapped into bucket seats and a waitstaff securely fastened with harnesses. Still, after hearing about this arguably insane endeavor, a couple crucial questions were raised in our office:

What if you have to pee?

What if you have to puke?

What if you drop your fork?

What if you get drunk and start a fight with your dining partner? There is literally nowhere to cool off.

If none of the above fazes you, maybe the pricetag will: the whole experience starts off at $399,

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY GIRLS

  • June 22, 1947 – Octavia Butler
  • June 22, 1949 – Lindsay Wagner

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY

  • June 22, 1958 — Bruce Campbell

(10) THE MIGHTY AMAZON. You can stop wondering who will play the President in Supergirl it’s Lynda Carter.

While the United States argues about whether the next president should be Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders, at least we know DC Comics’ fictional world is in good hands.

The CBS TV series “Supergirl” (moving to The CW) announced today that Lynda Carter — best known for her role in the “Wonder Woman” TV series from ’70s — will be running the country (and hopefully having Supergirl’s back) as the president of the United States in the show starting in season 2, according to Variety.

(11) NIGHT OF GIANTS. The video has been posted of Stephen King’s visit with George R.R. Martin earlier this month in Santa Fe.

(12) HEALING ARTS. Nicola Griffith will have everyone wanting to sign up for her same medical plan

JJ asks, “But is the nurse named Dalek?”

(13) CHARM AND POISON. Entertainment Weekly eavesdrops as “Ricky Gervais and Jiminy Glick trade insults on Maya & Marty”.

Ricky Gervais never misses the chance to excoriate his fellow Hollywood celebrities, but he may have met his match in Jiminy Glick. Gervais sat down with Martin Short’s fat-suited celebrity interviewer on this week’s episode of Maya & Marty, and was immediately thrown into the deep end. First, Glick called him “Steve Carell,” and then said he only remembered Gervais’ name because it sounded like “gingivitis.”

“It’s like a talking egg,” Gervais said of Glick. “Humpty Dumpty came to life.”

“Thank you, first of all, because I’m a big fan of that guy,” Glick said.

Glick responded by taking issue with Gervais’ British accent, comparing him to Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins and pirates.

“You know it’s not an accent I’m putting on? This is my accent,” Gervais said.

(14) APEX NOVELLA. E. Catherine Tobler’s novella The Kraken Sea has been released by Apex Publications.

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Fifteen-year-old Jackson is different from the other children at the foundling hospital. Scales sometimes cover his arms. Tentacles coil just below his skin. Despite this Jackson tries to fit in with the other children. He tries to be normal for Sister Jerome Grace and the priests. But when a woman asks for a boy like him, all that changes. His name is pinned to his jacket and an orphan train whisks him across the country to Macquarie’s. At Macquarie’s, Jackson finds a home unlike any he could have imagined. The bronze lions outside the doors eat whomever they deem unfit to enter, the hallways and rooms shift and change at will, and Cressida – the woman who adopted him – assures him he no longer has to hide what he is. But new freedoms hide dark secrets. There are territories, allegiances, and a kraken in the basement that eats shadows.

As Jackson learns more about the new world he’s living in and about who he is, he has to decide who he will stand with: Cressida, the woman who gave him a home and a purpose, or Mae, the black-eyed lion tamer with a past as enigmatic as his own. The Kraken Sea is a fast paced adventure full of mystery, Fates, and writhing tentacles just below the surface, and in the middle of it all is a boy searching for himself.

(15) CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RAY BRADBURY READ. Steven Paul Leiva is urgently looking for proposals for this Bradbury-themed event August 22 in Downtown Los Angeles.

To be considered as a reader you must submit a proposal for a reading of a five-minute-or-under excerpt from one of Bradbury’s many works. The excerpt can come from any of Ray’s published prose and verse writings and should have a central theme, coherence, and completeness about it. More than one excerpt or poem can be read, as long as their reading time does not exceed five minutes. Excerpts from plays and screenplays will not be accepted.

You must submit your excerpt in a typed, double-spaced Word or PDF document. The date you are submitting the document should be at the top of page one, along with your name and contact information. Before the text of the excerpt, list the work it is from and, in the case of a story, essay, or poem, the collection you found it in. After the excerpt, you are more than welcome to add a few words of why you chose the excerpt and what it means to you.

Readers will be chosen based on what excerpts will make for the best possible program of readings for the afternoon, with a balance between the types and tones of Bradbury’s writings. In the case of duplicate excerpts proposed, if an excerpt is included in the program, the first submission of that excerpt will be chosen.

Submissions will be accepted between June 1 and July 15. Submissions should be sent as attachments to an email sent to Steven Paul Leiva at [email protected]. Readers will be chosen and informed by August 8.

The readers will be chosen by Steven Paul Leiva, the director of the Ray Bradbury Read.

Ray Bradbury Read 8 22

(16) WORLD’S LARGEST NERF GUN. Speaking of weapons civilians don’t need, Mark Rober’s gun, which is powered by a 3000 psi paintball tank, shoots darts made from pool noodles and toilet plungers.

BONUS SILLINESS. This comes via Jim Rittenhouse —

Krypto via jim rittenhouse

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, and Scott Edelman for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Rob Thornton.]

Kickstarter for “Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling”

UpsideDown001 COMP2

Apex Book Company has launched a Kickstarter appeal to fund Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling.

Edited by Monica Valentinelli and Jaym Gates, the anthology’s concept “highlights the long-standing tradition of writers who tackle tired tropes or clichés prevalent in popular media and twist them to tell fresh and interesting stories.”

Each author in this collection has examined a specific trope or cliché that includes:

  • Chainmaille Bikini
  • The Magical Negro
  • The Super Soldier
  • The Chosen One
  • Guys Smash, Girls Shoot
  • Love at First Sight
  • Damsels in Distress
  • Heroine Loves a Bad Man
  • Yellow Peril
  • The Black Man Dies First
  • The Villain Had a Crappy Childhood
  • The City Planet
  • Prostitute with a Heart of Gold
  • The Singularity Will Cause the Apocalypse
  • First Period Panic
  • Girlfriend in the Refrigerator
  • Retired Pro’s “Last” Job

The anthology features cover art by award-winning artist Galen Dara, and includes speculative stories from Maurice Broaddus, Anton Strout, Shanna Germain, Sara Harvey, Delilah Dawson, John Hornor Jacobs, Rahul Kanakia, Alethea Kontis, Haralambi Markov, Sunil Patel, Kat Richardson, Nisi Shawl, Alyssa Wong, and many others.

The Kickstarter raised $2,596 of its $10,000 goal on the first day.

Pixel Scroll 2/15/16 Cause Pixels Like Us, Baby We Were Born To Scroll

(1) STAR WARS VIII. Cameras are rolling for the next chapter of the Star Wars saga, written and directed by Rian Johnson.

(2) THAT WAS THE FUTURE THAT WAS. A 1983 cover of BYTE.

Byte videotext cover

And if I squint real hard, will one of the options say, “I’ll be back”?

(3) EYE SING THE BODY ELECTRIC. A mere $3.50 on eBay!

Eye Sing

Twilight Zone Prop Reproduction From the only Twilight Zone episode, scripted by Ray Bradbury, I Sing The Body Electric comes a Facsimile UnLimited original – entitled: Eye Lettuce, it represents one of the eyes available for the fabrication “Grandma”.

(4) RONDO NOMINATING OPEN. If you’re a fan who’s enjoyed James H. Burns’ columns for File 770, affirming that you’d like to see him as a nominee for this year’s Rondo Awards could make a difference.

Check in at the Classic Horror Film Board’s Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards threads “For Best Blog or Online Column: James H. Burns at File 770” and “The Geography of Eden” for “Best Article”. While a nomination apparently is not decided by raw numbers, enthusiastic comments are likely to help,

(5) APEX ACQUISITION. Apex Publications has acquired Yours to Tell: Dialogues on the Art & Practice of Writing by Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem, and expects to release the book in 2017.

Yours to Tell is a writers guide to fiction based on Steve and Melanie’s writing processes and experiences they’ve had teaching fiction, including two stints at the annual Odyssey Writing Workshop in New Hampshire.

About Yours to Tell, Steve says, “The book consists of a series of dialogues in which we discuss a number of topics on the writing of fiction, a method which we developed while teaching and continued to use for various articles and columns on both genre and non-genre writing. This is a unique approach for a writing guide, and has the advantage of presenting two different, but complimentary points of view for the basic issues of craft and encouragement which face all writers, whatever their level of skill and experience. We made this guidebook dense with practical information, empowering for new writers desiring a path for learning the craft, and inspiring even for those with more experience but wanting a fresh and encouraging view of the fiction writing process.”

(6) RECOGNIZING THE LESSON. “GUNN: ‘Hollywood Will Misunderstand The Lesson’ Of DEADPOOL’s Success” is the warning quoted by a Newsarama story.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 director James Gunn has come out with a very positive review of 20th Century Fox’s Deadpool, but warns that some in Hollywood already have misguided reasons on why the film is a success.

“I love Deadpool even more – the film is hilariously funny, has lots of heart, and is exactly what we need right now, taking true risks in spectacle film,” Gunn posted on Facebook.

However, Gunn takes issue with the perception of an unnamed studio executive who stated (via Deadline) that Deadpool succeeded because “The film has a self-deprecating tone that’s riotous. It’s never been done before. It’s poking fun at Marvel. That label takes itself so seriously, can you imagine them making fun of themselves in a movie? They’d rather stab themselves.”

“Come on, Deadline,” said Gunn, going on to state that saying Marvel wouldn’t poke fun at itself is “rewriting history.”

“Let’s ignore Guardians for a moment, a movie that survives from moment to moment building itself up and cutting itself down – God knows I’m biased about that one. But what do you think Favreau and Downey did in Iron Man? What the f*** was Ant-Man??!”

Gunn goes on to say that he worries studio executives will learn the wrong lessons from Deadpool.

Deadpool was its own thing. THAT’S what people are reacting to. It’s original, it’s damn good, it was made with love by the filmmakers, and it wasn’t afraid to take risks.”

(7) TODAY IN HISTORY

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY

  • Born February 15, 1954 – Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons.

(9) CONTINUED NEXT SLATE. Vox Day posted his slate for another Hugo category – “Rabid Puppies 2016: Best Related Work”.

The preliminary recommendations for the Best Related Work category:

  • Appendix N by Jeffro Johnson.
  • Between Light and Shadow: An Exploration of the Fiction of Gene Wolfe, 1951 to 1986 by Marc Aramini.
  • The Story of Moira Greyland by Moira Greyland.
  • Safe Space as Rape Room by Daniel Eness.
  • SJWs Always Lie by Vox Day.

(10) OCCURRING IN NATURE. The weekly science journal Nature for at least a decade has run an SF short story on the last page of each issue. The story in the February 4 issue was Robert Reed’s “An investment for the future.”

Nature’s brief background statement about author Reed says —

Affiliations

Robert Reed is the author of several hundreds stories and a few novels. He won a Hugo before it was controversial. He lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.

(11) FAVORITE SON. Jim C. Hines pleads for equal time for the “Adventures of Michigan Man”.

From time to time, I see people collecting headlines about the wacky adventures of “Florida Man.” I decided to take a look and see what my home state’s “superhero” has been up to lately…

Two of his ten amusing examples:

(12) KEYBOARD KOMEDY. Meanwhile, Ohio Man was surprised when his fingers didn’t type what his brain commanded.

(13) DREAM LOUDER. At The Space Review, Dwayne Day’s article “In space no one can hear you dream” discusses the importance of entertainment set in outer space.

Space enthusiasts, particularly those who have a vision of humanity spreading out into the solar system and establishing settlements, have had a difficult time convincing anybody other than a small group of true believers of the legitimacy of their cause. To have a broader impact they need as much help as they can get, particularly in the form of mass entertainment that can shape the popular culture and influence the general public, making settlement seem not fantastical or crazy but instead acceptable, as simply another step in human evolution….

The Expanse is the closest depiction of what space settlement advocates must see when they dream—and yet it is not a very positive vision of the future….

Life is not entertainment and entertainment is not life. But space advocates need popular entertainment to provide positive depictions of humanity’s future in space, not negative ones. They need a culture that is not hostile to their religion, and so far they haven’t gotten that, not even from the most sophisticated portrayal of solar sci-fi to date. Dying of asphyxiation or starvation on Ceres is not an appealing vision, and none of these examples of popular entertainment have provided a satisfactory explanation of why humanity should spread out into the solar system. So far popular entertainment is not helping. Perhaps somewhere right now a space advocate is penning the next great movie about humans moving beyond low Earth orbit, one where the achievement may involve struggle, but where the payoff is greater than simply survival against all odds. After all, survival is a heck of a lot easier by simply staying on Earth.

(14) DEPRESSION ERA MARS. BoingBoing reproduces the colorful alien tableaux from the astonishing “Psychedelic Space Alien themed Art Deco style 1931 high school yearbook” produced by Los Angeles University High School.

(15) MARS MY DESTINATION. Motherboard has the story about how “Britain’s Mapping Agency Made a Map of Mars”.

We’ll need maps when we go to Mars, too. At least, that’s the thinking behind British mapping organisation Ordnance Survey’s new map of the Martian landscape, which presents an otherworldly location in a format earthly ramblers will find familiar.

“There’s certainly no reason why you couldn’t imagine a future where someone might actually use a map on Mars in the same way that they would use a map on Earth,” said cartographic designer Chris Wesson, who made the map of a patch of Martian topography 3672 by 2721 km across, to a scale of 1:4 million.

(16) MARTIANS NEED PHONES TOO. This 1995 ad for AT&T stars Ray Walston who played a Martian living on Earth in the 1960s TV series My Favorite Martian which is the in-joke

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Dave Doering, Martin Morse Wooster, Mark Olson, and Will R. for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Steve Davidson.]

Apex Magazine Subscription Drive

Apex_2015 Sub Drive_600x400Most of Apex Magazine’s content can be read free, but producing a monthly publication that features both seasoned pros and new writers costs money. Right now Apex Publications is raising support through a subscription drive that will last until November 13.

We want to offer our content on our website – and will continue to do – so that everyone can experience the soul of Ursula Vernon’s “Pocosin”, the haunting beauty of Damien Angelica Walter’s “Not My Monkeys, Not My Circus: The Elephant’s Tale”, the devastation of Rachel Swirsky’s “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love”, and the heart-pumping action of Rich Larson’s “Going Endo” but subscriptions and individual issue sales pay our authors and artists.

The goal for the 2015 Apex Magazine Subscription Drive is $5,000.

To help reach this goal, incentives have been added along the way which will make the January, 2016 issue of Apex Magazine (#80) better and better.

The ToC for Issue 80 already includes new stories from Ursula Vernon, Lettie Prell, and Jennifer Hyke, poetry by Samson Stormcrow Hayes, Zebulon Huset, Anton Rose, and Greg Leunig, and a nonfiction article by Lucy A. Snyder. The cover art is by Matt Davis.

As intermediate goals are reached, features will be added to the issue:

  • $500 – A 5th piece of original poetry
  • $1,000 – A new short story by Chikodili Emelumadu!
  • $2,000 – Interview with Chikodili Emelumadu
  • $2,500 – A 6th piece of original poetry
  • $3,000 – Interview with Ursula Vernon
  • $4,000 – A second reprint exclusive to the Apex Magazine eBook/subscriber edition
  • $5,000 – A new novelette by Ursula Vernon, set in the same universe as her Nebula award winning story “Jackalope Wives”!
  • $6,500 – Stretch Goal! We will open to short fiction submissions on December 1st, 2015, rather than January 1st, 2016.

Here are the different ways to financially support the magazine.

Preorder Apex Book of World SF 4

ApexSFBK4frontComing at the end of August is the fourth volume in Apex Publications’ World SF series, The Apex Book of World SF 4. The stories are the selections of debut editor Mahvesh Murad, with series editor Lavie Tidhar.

Mahvesh Murad writes for multiple publications and hosts the Tor.com podcast Midnight in Karachi. She was born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan, where she still lives.

Works range “from Spanish steampunk and Italian horror to Nigerian science fiction and subverted Japanese folktales, from love in the time of drones to teenagers at the end of the world.”

Preorders are now being taken, with a special preorder price of $15.

Or, get all four anthologies in The Apex Book of World SF series, with new covers designed by Sarah Anne Langton, as a bundle for only $50.

Apex Delivering Upside Down This Fall

Apex Publications will bring out Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling, an athology edited by Jaym Gates and Monica Valentinelli, in Fall/Winter 2015.

The anthology will highlight the long-standing tradition of writers who identify tropes in science fiction, fantasy, and horror and twist them into something new and interesting. Maurice Broaddus, Shanna Germain, Laura Anne Gilman, Sara Harvey, John Jacob Hornor, Rahul Kanakia, Haralambi Markov, Sunil Patel, Kat Richardson, Nisi Shawl, Lucien Soulban, Wrath James White, and Alyssa Wong will be among the contributors.

The anthology will be Gates’s second collection from Apex and Valentinelli’s first. A Kickstarter and open submissions period are also planned for this fall.

The full press release follows the jump.

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