Tag Archives: BSFA

Second Round of 2018 BSFA Awards Nominations Begins

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British Science Fiction Association members have until January 31 to help choose the BSFA Awards shortlists for works published in 2018.

In the first round of voting members nominated a longlist of 45 novels, 44 short stories, 15 items of nonfiction, and 27 artworks.

Once voters have determined the shortlist, BSFA members and members of the British national science fiction convention Eastercon will vote for the winners.

2018 RULES CHANGE: The criteria for the Best Novel award have changed this year. To match the other Awards, BSFA no longer requires that a novel be published for the first time in the UK or Ireland. Novels are eligible in the year of their first publication regardless of the place they were published.

Best Novel nominees:

  • Rachel Armstrong – Origamy (NewCon Press)
  • Andrew Bannister – Stone Clock (Bantam Press)
  • RJ Barker – Blood of Assassins (Orbit)
  • EM Brown – Buying Time (Solaris)
  • Pierce Brown – Iron Gold (Hodder & Stoughton)
  • Becky Chambers – Record of a Spaceborn Few (Hodder & Stoughton)
  • Andrew Crumey – The Great Chain Of Unbeing (Dedalus)
  • Juno Dawson – Doctor Who: The Good Doctor (BBC Books)
  • Aliette de Bodard – In the Vanishers’ Palace (JABberwocky Literary Agency)
  • Dominic Dulley – Shattermoon (Jo Fletcher Books)
  • Berit Ellingsen – Now We Can See the Moon (Snuggly Books)
  • Rachel Fellman – The Breath of the Sun (Aqueduct Press)
  • Daniel Godfrey – The Synapse Sequence (Titan Books)
  • Sam Hawke – City of Lies (Bantam Press)
  • Dave Hutchinson – Europe at Dawn (Solaris)
  • Simon Ings – The Smoke (Gollancz)
  • T Kingfisher – The Wonder Engine (Argyll Productions)
  • Mary Robinette Kowal – The Calculating Stars (Tor Books)
  • RF Kuang – The Poppy War (HarperVoyager)
  • Derek Künsken – The Quantum Magician (Solaris)
  • Rich Larson – Annex (Orbit)
  • Yoon Ha Lee – Revenant Gun (Solaris)
  • Roger Levy – The Rig (Titan Books)
  • Ling Ma – Severance (Text Publishing Company)
  • Ed McDonald – Ravencry (Gollancz)
  • Sam J Miller – Blackfish City (Orbit)
  • Patrick Ness – And the Ocean Was Our Sky (Walker)
  • Emma Newman – Before Mars (Ace Books)
  • Naomi Novik – Spinning Silver (Macmillan)
  • Malka Older – State Tectonics (Tor.com)
  • Gareth L Powell – Embers of War (Titan Books)
  • Christopher Priest – An American Story (Gollancz)
  • Elizabeth Priest – Concrete Faery (Luna Press)
  • Alastair Reynolds – Elysium Fire (Gollancz)
  • Adam Roberts – By the Pricking of Her Thumb (Gollancz)
  • Audrey Schulman – Theory of Bastards (Europa Editions)
  • James Smythe – I Still Dream (The Borough Press)
  • Anna Stephens – Darksoul (HarperVoyager)
  • Tasha Suri – Empire of Sand (Orbit)
  • EJ Swift – Paris Adrift (Solaris)
  • Tade Thompson – Rosewater (Orbit; first UK publication 2018)
  • Stuart Turton – The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (Raven Books)
  • Peter Watts – The Freeze-Frame Revolution (Tachyon Publications)
  • Aliya Whiteley – The Loosening Skin (Unsung Stories)
  • Jen Williams – The Bitter Twins (Headline)

Best Shorter Fiction nominees:

  • Nina Allan – The Gift of Angels: an introduction (Clarkesworld) – https://bit.ly/2CS47bX
  • GV Anderson – Crook’s Landing, by Scaffold (Nightmare #71) – https://bit.ly/2RxFTvR
  • GV Anderson – Waterbirds (Lightspeed #98) – https://bit.ly/2FcHTUG
  • Brooke Bolander – The Only Harmless Great Thing (Tor.com)
  • Beth Cato – The Library is Open (Daily Science Fiction) – https://bit.ly/2QqbOtK
  • Vajra Chandrasekera – When Leopard’s-Bane Came to the Door of Third Heaven (Liminal Stories #5) – https://bit.ly/2CRADej
  • Tina Connolly – The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections (Tor.com) – https://bit.ly/2LGjdqh
  • Aliette de Bodard – A Slow Unfurling of Truth (Shoreline of Infinity #11)
  • Aliette de Bodard – The Tea Master and the Detective (JABberwocky Literary Agency)
  • Malcolm Devlin – The Purpose of the Dodo is to be Extinct (Interzone #275)
  • Dilman Dila – Safari Nyota: A Prologue (AfroSFv3, ed. Ivor W Hartmann, StoryTime)
  • Hal Duncan – The Land of Somewhere Safe (NewCon Press)
  • Stephen Embleton – Journal of a DNA Pirate (AfroSFv3, ed. Ivor W Hartmann, StoryTime)
  • Alix E Harrow – A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies (Apex Magazine) – https://bit.ly/2QtcpL0
  • Rita Indiana – Tentacle (And Other Stories)
  • Allison Jamieson-Lucy – Sequestration; Vitrification (Strange Horizons) – https://bit.ly/2TAEOB3
  • Rich Larson – Meat And Salt And Sparks (Tor.com) – https://bit.ly/2CT90BG
  • Tim Major – Throw Caution (Interzone #276)
  • Nick Mamatas – A Night Out at a Nice Place (Apex Magazine) – https://bit.ly/2RfC4wh
  • Biram Mboob – The Luminal Frontier (AfroSFv3, ed. Ivor W Hartmann, StoryTime)
  • Ian McDonald – Time Was (Tor.com)
  • Samantha Mills – Strange Waters (Strange Horizons) – https://bit.ly/2SMZup3
  • Ian Muneshwar – Salt Lines (Strange Horizons) – https://bit.ly/2Fd4XBR
  • Daniel Mallory Ortberg – The Daughter Cells (The Merry Spinster, St Martin’s Press)
  • Erin Roberts – The Grays of Cestus V (Asimov’s Sept/Oct 2018)
  • A. Merc Rustad and Ada Hoffmann – I Sing Against the Silent Sun (Lightspeed #97) – https://bit.ly/2NiXEtX
  • Gabriela Santiago – Tamales in Space, and Other Phrases For the Beginning Speaker (Strange Horizons) – https://bit.ly/2xulA6I
  • Gavin Schmidt – Under the Sun (Motherboard) – https://bit.ly/2vgXmPn
  • Vandana Singh – Requiem (Ambiguity Machines, Small Beer Press)
  • Anna Stephens – Flesh and Coin (Art of War, ed. Petros Triantafyllou, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform)
  • Adrian Tchaikovsky – The Expert System’s Brother (Tor.com)
  • Natalia Theodoridou – Birnam Platoon (Interzone #278)
  • Natalia Theodoridou – The Names of Women (Strange Horizons) – https://bit.ly/2KdcZLE
  • Tade Thompson – Kaseem’s Way (Creatures: The Legacy of Frankenstein, ed. David Thomas Moore, Abaddon)
  • Tade Thompson – Yard Dog (Fiyah #7)
  • Lavie Tidhar – Talking to Ghosts at the Edge of the World (Infinity’s End, ed. Jonathan Strahan, Solaris)
  • Martha Wells – Exit Strategy (Tor.com) – https://bit.ly/2RuVnAZ (excerpt)
  • Aliya Whiteley – Territory: Blank (Interzone #277)
  • Fran Wilde – Ruby, Singing (Beneath Ceaseless Skies #261) – https://bit.ly/2Rd6tLx
  • Liz Williams – Phosphorus (NewCon Press)
  • Marian Womack – Kingfisher (Lost Objects, Luna Press)
  • JY Yang – The Descent of Monsters (Tor.com) – https://bit.ly/2SGr07K (excerpt)
  • Isabel Yap – Asphalt, River, Mother, Child (Strange Horizons) – https://bit.ly/2GWG3c1
  • Cristy Zinn – The Girl Who Stared at Mars (AfroSFv3, ed. Ivor W Hartmann, StoryTime)

Best Non-Fiction nominees:

  • Nina Allan – Time Pieces column 2018 articles (Interzone)
  • Claudie Arseneault – Constructing a Kinder Future (Strange Horizons)
  • Mike Ashley – Introduction to Moonrise: The Golden Age of Lunar Adventures (British Library Publishing)
  • Ruth EJ Booth – Noise and Sparks column 2018 articles (Shoreline of Infinity)
  • Liz Bourke – Sleeps With Monsters column 2018 articles (Tor.com) – http://bit.ly/2lBE3rQ
  • Vajra Chandrasekera – Rupture & Complicity: The 2018 Arthur C. Clarke Award Shortlist (Strange Horizons) – https://bit.ly/2QvN8Qz
  • Will Davies (ed.) – Economic Science Fictions (Goldsmiths Press)
  • Aliette de Bodard – On motherhood and erasure: people-shaped holes, hollow characters and the illusion of impossible adventures (Intellectus Speculativus blog) – https://bit.ly/2FeeyZc
  • Andy Hedgecock – Future Interrupted column 2018 articles (Interzone)
  • Erin Horáková – Erin Groans: A Gormenvast Review of Every Adaptation of Mervyn Peake’s Titus Books (Strange Horizons) – https://bit.ly/2zyiZcN
  • Nick Hubble, Esther MacCallum-Stewart and Joseph Norman (eds) – The Science Fiction of Iain M. Banks (Gylphi)
  • Polina Levontin – Scientists in Nigerian Science Fiction (in The Evolution of African Fantasy and Science Fiction, Luna Press)
  • Robert S Malan – Portrayals of South Africans in Popular Entertainment: Bad Accented Baddies, Prawns and Black Panther (in The Evolution of African Fantasy and Science Fiction, Luna Press)
  • Laura Miller – Ursula K. Le Guin and the Three Obstacles (Slate) – https://bit.ly/2QtoLTx
  • Adam Roberts – Publishing the Science Fiction Canon: The Case of Scientific Romance (Cambridge University Press) – https://bit.ly/2GYQbBd

Best Artwork nominees:

[Thanks to Mark Hepworth for the story.]

2018 BSFA Awards Nominations Open

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The British Science Fiction Association invites its members to nominate for the 2018 BSFA Awards (see the official website for details).

Clare Boothby explains a major rules change that makes it possible now to nominate books published anywhere.

This year we’re making a change to the BSFA Award rules for Best Novel. To bring it into line with all the other awards, we are dropping the publication location requirement for novels. Previously novels were only eligible if they were published for the first time in the UK or Ireland (or solely in e-book format). From this year, novels are eligible in the year of their first publication, regardless of where they were published.

Because occasionally a book can still be hard to find in the UK when it’s only been published elsewhere, novels may also be eligible in the year of their first UK/Ireland publication, at the awards administrator’s discretion.

We’re making this change for several reasons, but in general terms we’re doing it to keep awards eligibility in line with the books that British fans are reading and talking about. Publishing availability has changed dramatically since the rule was written. Books published only in the US are now much more widely available in the UK, which means some books never get a formal UK publication even though they’re really easy to get hold of in the UK. Publishing models are also changing, and it’s getting harder and harder to tell what “counts” as UK publication.

And of course it isn’t the big names who are affected by this, which means that as a side-effect we’re narrowing our focus unnecessarily and ruling out some really great books, often by British authors or authors living and working in Britain. That’s the main motivation behind this change; we want to keep the novel award as relevant and interesting as the novels we’re all reading.

[Based on the press release.]

2017 BSFA Awards

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Photo by Ruth EJ Booth

The BSFA 2017 Awards were presented at Follycon, the 69th Eastercon, in Harrogate on March 31.

Best Novel

  • Nina Allan – The Rift (Titan Books)

Best Shorter Fiction

  • Anne Charnock – The Enclave (NewCon Press)

Best Non-Fiction

  • Paul Kincaid – Iain M. Banks (University of Illinois Press)

Best Artwork

JOINT WINNER

  • Jim Burns – Cover for The Ion Raider by Ian Whates (NewCon Press)
  • Victo Ngai – Illustration for ‘Waiting on a Bright Moon’ by JY Yang (Tor.com)

 

Pixel Scroll 3/26/18 You Know How To Pixel, Don’t You Steve? You Just Put Your Files Together And Scroll

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(1) BANKS WITH AND WITHOUT THE M. Abigail Nussbaum’s latest column for Lawyers, Guns & Money is “A Political History of the Future: Iain M. Banks”.

In this installment of A Political History of the Future, our series about how science fiction constructs the politics and economics of its future worlds, we discuss the late, great SF author Iain M. Banks, and specifically his Culture series.

Iain M. Banks died in 2013, and his last work of science fiction was published in 2012. In the context of this series, one might even argue that the last book Banks published that is relevant to our interests was Look to Windward (2000), or maybe The Algebraist (2004). There are, however, two reasons to go back to Banks in 2018. The first is that last summer, the University of Illinois Press’s Modern Masters of Science Fiction series (edited by Gary K. Wolfe), which produces short studies about important mid- and late-20th century science fiction authors, published what is to my knowledge the first complete critical study of Banks’s life and work. Iain M. Banks, by the Hugo-nominated British critic Paul Kincaid (by next week we will know whether he’s been nominated a second time for this volume), is both a biography of Banks’s life and his writing career, and an analysis of the themes running through his work. It is essential reading for any Banks fan.

(2) THIS SPACE NOT INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK. Farah Mendlesohn’s book about Heinlein now has a title.

One of the comments I’ve frequently made, is that in some ways I have been channelling the great man himself. Verbosity, intemperance, etc etc. But nowhere has this been truer than my inability to come up with a title. Heinlein had a terrible ear for titles. Most of his stories were titled by magazine editors, and most of his adult novels were titled by Virginia. His original title for Number of the Beast, for example, was The Panki-Barsoom Number of the Beast, or even just Panki-Barsoom.

So I did what Heinlein did and outsourced the problem, in this case to many friends on facebook.

And the title is…..

The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein.

With a release date in March 2019.

(3) A WAY. In “Mountain and Forest” Nick Stember analyzes “the Tao of Ursula K. Le Guin.”

For science fiction fans, the fact that The Left-Hand of Darkness owes a debt of inspiration to Taoism is nothing new, of course. As early as 1974 Douglas Barbour was pointing out parallels in Le Guin’s earlier books in the Hainish cycle, and Le Guin herself said as much in  interviews. Perhaps more surprising is the fact that Le Guin’s last novel in the Hainish cycle, The Telling, was directly inspired by the Cultural Revolution:

I learned that Taoist religion, an ancient popular religion of vast complexity and a major element of Chinese culture, had been suppressed, wiped out, by Mao Tse-tung…In one generation, one psychopathic tyrant destroyed a tradition two thousand years old…And I knew nothing about it. The enormity of the event, and the enormity of my ignorance, left me stunned.

(4) SUSPICION. The authorities spent the day grilling two writers:

(5) DON’T BOTHER ME BOY. And yet they let this one go Scot-free! Richard Paolinelli, borrowing a page from Lou Antonelli’s book – the one printed on a thousand-sheet roll – tried to embroil Camestros Felapton with the Aussie cops:

(6) PRO TIP. This is the way professional writers handle feedback, says Cole McCade in “The Author’s Guide to Author/Reviewer Interactions”. Strangely enough, calling the cops isn’t on his list.

B-but…I read a bad review of my book!

Then stop reading your goddamn reviews.

…all right. Okay. I know you won’t. I still read my reviews sometimes, I just don’t talk about it. And I generally try to stay on the positive ones; they’re a good pick-me-up. Even those, though, I don’t talk about.

That’s the thing. You can read reviews all you want, but you can’t engage with them save for in very specific circumstances. Don’t like a review on GoodReads. Don’t flag it for removal unless it actually meets the guidelines, such as posting derogatory things about you as a person/author rather than reviewing the book. Don’t comment on the review. Don’t send your fans to comment on the review defending you. (I actually have a policy in my street team that anyone caught attacking negative reviewers gets booted from the group.) Don’t seek out tweets about your book and reply to them (particularly if you or the book aren’t mentioned by name; if you’re stalking reviewers on social media for the idlest sideways mention of your book, that’s fucking creepy and intrusive). If you happen to have friendly conversations with a reviewer, do not bring up their review or try to chat about it.

You know why?

Because reviews are not for you.

They’re for other readers.

(7) EXPLOITATION. At the SFWA Blog, John Walters is irate about “The Egregious Practice of Charging Reading Fees” – although his examples are from outside the sff field —

The sad state of affairs in the field of literary magazines is that a high percentage now charge reading fees. The amounts range from two dollars to five dollars or more, but the average is three dollars. They justify it in all sorts of ways. Some, to avoid the stigma of charging reading fees, call it a handling fee or a software fee. Evidently they haven’t heard that many email services are free. Some, even as they ask it of writers, say outright: This is not a reading fee. Yeah, right. As if calling it by another name makes it all better. Several sites explain that if you were to send the manuscripts by mail you would have to spend at least that much in postage, so send that postage money to them instead. Most modern magazines and anthologies are getting away from postal submissions anyway, both as a money saver and to protect the environment, so that argument doesn’t make any sense.

(8) BSFATUBE. The British Science Fiction Association’s publication Vector has branched out to producing YouTube videos. Here’s the first one:

Glasgow-based DJ Sophie Reilly, aka ‘Sofay’, talks about her love of science fiction and the connections that exist between some of her favourite records and novels such as Ursula Le Guin’s ‘The Left Hand of Darkness’ and Stanislaw Lem’s ‘Solaris’…

 

(9) CARRINGTON OBIT. Actress Debbie Lee Carrington has died at the age of 58:

She began her acting career in 1981, appearing in the Chevy Chase-starring comedy, Under the Rainbow. Later, Carrington landed a role in Return of the Jedi, famously playing the Ewok who consoles another Ewok that was blown up by a landmine. She ended up starring in The Ewok Adventure and Ewoks: Battle for Endor as Weechee, Wicket’s older brother. Carrington was also an advocate for the rights of people with disabilities in Hollywood and also had a degree in child psychology, which earned her much respect in the industry along with her giant body of work. Mike Quinn, who worked with Debbie Lee Carrington on Return of the Jedi, had this to say.

“So sad to hear of the passing of a fellow Return Of The Jedi performer Debbie Lee Carrington. She was an advocate for actors with disabilities and had a degree in child psychology. She had done so much, not only as an Ewok but was inside the costume for Howard The Duck, appeared in Total Recall, Grace & Frankie, Dexter, Captain Eo, the list goes on… Way too young. She was a real powerhouse! My condolences to all her family and friends at this time.”

(10) CAMERON OBIT. SF artist Martin G. “Bucky” Cameron died unexpectedly on March 26.

For over 35 years he worked as a professional artist. He was the first 3D artist at the Lucasfilm games division. Other game companies he worked for included NAMCO, Broderbund, and Spectrum Holobyte. He also did art for magazines including Analog and Penthouse, and for myriad companies.

His recent project was creating a shared Steampunk world with Robert E. Vardeman. The first issue came out in February.

MT Davis adds, “Martin was usually known as ‘Bucky’ at the Cons he attended and was part of the Sacramento/Bay Area Fan nexus that went into the computer Gaming industry as it rose in the late 80’s early 90’s. Very congenial and always cordial accepting of almost all.”

(11) TODAY’S YESTERDAY’S DAY

It’s Tolkien Reading Day!

Tolkien Reading Day is held on the 25th of March each year.

It has been organised by the Tolkien Society since 2003 to encourage fans to celebrate and promote the life and works of J.R.R. Tolkien by reading favourite passages. We particularly encourage schools, museums and libraries to host their own Tolkien Reading Day events.

Why 25 March?

The 25th of March is the date of the downfall of the Lord of the Rings (Sauron) and the fall of Barad-dûr. It’s as simple as that!

(12) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • March 26, 1985 – Outer Limits was reincarnated for TV.
  • March 26, 1989 – Quantum Leap made its TV premiere.
  • March 26, 2010 – Hot Tub Time Machine appeared in theaters.

(13) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY

  • Born March 26, 1931 – Leonard Nimoy

(14) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY VACCINE

On March 26, 65 years ago, Dr. Jonas Salk announced he had successfully tested a vaccine against polio. Look back at Dr. Salk’s achievement.

Alan Baumler comments, “If you are wondering ‘Who is the model for the heroic scientist who saves the world?’ as seen in thousands of SF stories, it is probably him.”

From the Wikipedia:

Author Jon Cohen noted, “Jonas Salk made scientists and journalists alike go goofy. As one of the only living scientists whose face was known the world over, Salk, in the public’s eye, had a superstar aura. Airplane pilots would announce that he was on board and passengers would burst into applause. Hotels routinely would upgrade him into their penthouse suites. A meal at a restaurant inevitably meant an interruption from an admirer, and scientists approached him with drop-jawed wonder as though some of the stardust might rub off.”

For the most part, however, Salk was “appalled at the demands on the public figure he has become and resentful of what he considers to be the invasion of his privacy”, wrote The New York Times, a few months after his vaccine announcement.

(15) CAPTAIN MY CAPTAIN. Not much about superhero movies has to make logical sense, but there’s an odd reason why this development does. Inverse reports that “‘Captain Marvel’ Will Bring Back Two ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ Villains” who audiences have already seen killed off.

Captain Marvel may be the 22nd movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but thanks to its Nineties setting, it’s chronologically the second film in the series, following Captain America’s World War II setting. That means that MCU characters who died in recent movies would still be alive during Captain Marvel’s time, and Marvel revealed on Monday that three somewhat unexpected deceased characters will be appearing in the upcoming film.

In a posting announcing the start of principal photography on Captain Marvel, starring Brie Larson as the titular hero, Marvel announced that Djimon Hounsou, Lee Pace, and Clark Gregg would all make appearances in the upcoming film. Hounsou and Pace played Guardians of the Galaxy villains Korath the Pursuer and Ronan the Accuser, respectively, while Gregg played the beloved Agent Coulson in the MCU’s Phase One (and continues to play the character on the TV show Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)

(16) OH BRAVE NEW WORD. Tor.com’s Emily Asher-Perrin investigates “What We Mean When We Call Something ‘Shakespearean’”.

It does seem a term that falls into two categories: (a) a term used to denote high quality, or (b) a term used to denote a certain type of story. Sometimes it is used to indicate both of these things at the same time. But we see it everywhere, and often reapplied past the point of meaning. When Marvel Studios released the first Thor film in 2011, it was heralded as Shakespearean. When Black Panther was released earlier this year, it was labeled the same. Why? In Thor, the characters are mythological figures who speak in slightly anachronistic dialects, and family drama is the three-dollar phrase of the hour. Black Panther also contains some elements of family drama, but it is primarily a story about royalty and history and heritage.

So what about any of this is Shakespearean?

(17) APOSTLE TO THE CURMUDGEONS. What do Ambrose Bierce and the fashion magazine Cosmo have in common? Doctor Strangemind’s Kim Huett says you might be surprised: “Ambrose Bierce Buries Jules Verne”.

In Cosmopolitan Magazine, Vol. XL No. 2, December 1905 [Bierce] reacted to what he considered to be a hagiographic response to the death of Jules Verne:

The death of Jules Verne several months ago is a continuing affliction, a sharper one than the illiterate can know, for they are spared many a fatiguing appreciation of his talent, suggested by the sad event. With few exceptions, these “appreciations,” as it is now the fashion of anthropolaters to call their devotional work, are devoid of knowledge, moderation and discrimination. They are all alike, too, in ascribing to their subject the highest powers of imagination and the profoundest scientific attainments. In respect of both these matters he was singularly deficient, but had in a notable degree that which enables one to make the most of such gifts and acquirements as one happens to have: a patient, painstaking diligence—what a man of genius has contemptuously, and not altogether fairly, called “mean industry.” Such as it was, Verne’s imagination obeyed him very well, performing the tasks set for it and never getting ahead of him—apres vous, monsieur. A most polite and considerate imagination, We are told with considerable iteration about his power of prophecy: in the “Nautilus,” for example, he foreshadows submarine navigation. Submarine navigation had for ages been a dream of inventors and writers; I dare say the Egyptians were familiar with it…

(18) STOKERS. The Horror Writers Association has posted video of the 2018 Bram Stoker Awards ceremony held at StokerCon in Providence, RI on March 3.

(19) ROBO PUNCHING. NPR’s Glen Weldon, in “‘Pacific Rim Uprising’ serves up another helping of mech and cheese”, holds a mock press conference:

REPORTER #1: … and then we clucked our tongues, the way we do, and sat there a while basking in our keenly developed aesthetic sense. Then we got to wondering who in the world would ever actually see it.

CRITIC: I mean … you shouldn’t.

REPORTER #1: So you agree. (Cluck.)

CRITIC: Do I agree that you shouldn’t see it? I very much do. I mean, listen to yourself. You expressly do not count yourself among the cohort of giant-robots-fight-giant-monsters potential filmgoers, safe to say. So clearly you shouldn’t see it. I mean … I would have thought that was obvious. Unless … I’m sorry, is someone forcing you to go see it? Are there armed gangs of street toughs employed by Universal Studios going house-to-house and frog-marching the hapless citizenry into Pacific Rim Uprising showings across this nation?

REPORTER #1: No. Look, I’m just sayi-

CRITIC: Yes, you are just saying, not asking, and I’m here to answer questions about the film Pacific Rim Uprising. This is not a forum for your smug condemnation of the fact that a given piece of popular culture is popular. This is a press conference, not Facebook. Security, kindly remove this person. Next question. Yes, you there….

Chip Hitchcock calls it, “Much kinder than the Boston Globe’s response: ‘If only they hadn’t made a movie that plays like a lost “Transformers” entry.’”

(20) RESISTANCE IS RUTILE. Got to love this. On Quora Nyk Dohne answers the question “Would a Borg Cube be any match for a Star Destroyer if the two ever met in battle?”

Here is what clearly will happen: The Borg beam over some scouts to investigate. Because the Death Star is so huge, let’s say it is only a few dozen scout Borg. Stormtroopers try to repulse them, and 2 Borg are killed before they adapt and become quite invulnerable. The Death Star predictably uses the superlaser to destroy the Borg Cube, which doesn’t have a chance to adapt because it is all over in one shot. Only a few components of the cube survive re-entry as they scatter and fall on the nearby forest moon; all the Borg humanoids are dead. All? Not quite: There are still a few dozen (-2) Borg on the Death Star. Those few dozen quickly begin Assimilating the Death Star and it’s crew. Because the Death Star is so huge, it takes a LONG time, but the Imperials are not known for the innovative tactics required to stop the onslaught. The battle lasts for months, but it is unstoppable. The Borg grows exponentially, despite reinforcements….

And Nyk goes on from there.

[Thanks to Mark Hepworth, Martin Morse Wooster, John King Tarpinian, MT Davis, JJ, Cat Eldridge, Chip Hitchcock, Alan Baumler, Michael Toman, Andrew Porter, and Carl Slaughter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jayn.]

2017 BSFA Awards Finalists

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The shortlist for the BSFA 2017 Awards was released February 15.

The Awards will be presented at Follycon, the 69th Eastercon, in Harrogate, being held from March 30-April 2.

BSFA members can vote online here. Those attending Eastercon can vote at the BSFA stand until noon on the day of the awards ceremony, Saturday, March 31 – Eastercon attendees do not need to be a member of the BSFA to vote onsite.

Best Novel

  • Nina Allan – The Rift (Titan Books)
  • Anne Charnock – Dreams Before the Start of Time (47North)
  • Mohsin Hamid – Exit West (Hamish Hamilton)
  • Ann Leckie – Provenance (Orbit)

Best Shorter Fiction

  • Anne Charnock – The Enclave (NewCon Press)
  • Elaine Cuyegkeng – These Constellations Will Be Yours (Strange Horizons)
  • Greg Egan – Uncanny Valley (Tor.com)
  • Geoff Nelder – Angular Size (in ‘SFerics 2017’ edited by Roz Clarke and Rosie Oliver, Createspace Independent Publishing Platform)
  • Tade Thompson – The Murders of Molly Southbourne (Tor.com)

Best Non-Fiction

  • Paul Kincaid – Iain M. Banks (University of Illinois Press)
  • Juliet E McKenna – The Myth of Meritocracy and the Reality of the Leaky Pipe and Other Obstacles in Science Fiction & Fantasy (in Gender Identity and Sexuality in Current Fantasy and Science Fiction edited by Francesca T Barbini, Luna Press)
  • Adam Roberts – Wells at the World’s End 2017 blog posts (Wells at the World’s End blog)
  • Shadow Clarke Award jurors – The 2017 Shadow Clarke Award blog (The Anglia Ruskin Centre for Science Fiction and Fantasy). The 2017 Shadow Clarke jurors are: Nina Allan, Maureen Kincaid Speller, Victoria Hoyle, Vajra Chandrasekera, Nick Hubble, Paul Kincaid, Jonathan McCalmont, Megan AM.
  • Vandana Singh – The Unthinkability of Climate Change: Thoughts on Amitav Ghosh’s The Great Derangement (Strange Horizons)

Best Artwork

  • Geneva Benton – Sundown Towns (cover for Fiyah Magazine #3)
  • Jim Burns – Cover for The Ion Raider by Ian Whates (NewCon Press)
  • Galen Dara – Illustration for ‘These Constellations Will Be Yours’ by Elaine Cuyegkeng (Strange Horizons)
  • Chris Moore – Cover for The Memoirist by Neil Williamson (NewCon Press)
  • Victo Ngai – Illustration for ‘Waiting on a Bright Moon’ by JY Yang (Tor.com)
  • Marcin Wolski – Cover for 2084 edited by George Sandison (Unsung Stories)

[Thanks to Mark Hepworth and Clare Boothby for the story.]

Pixel Scroll 2/11/18 ’The Scroll of Doctor Pixel And Other Stories’ And Other Stories

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1) EXTENDING LIFE FOR ISS? TechCrunch says: “The Trump administration is reportedly moving to privatize the International Space Station”. (“I’m sorry, Dave, but it will cost you $2.5 million to open the pod bay doors.”)

The Trump administration is planning to privatize the international space station instead of simply decommissioning the orbiting international experiment in 2024, according to a report in The Washington Post. 

According to a document obtained by the Post, the current administration is mulling handing the International Space Station off to private industry instead of de-orbiting it as NASA “will expand international and commercial partnerships over the next seven years in order to ensure continued human access to and presence in low Earth orbit.”

The Post also reported that the administration was looking to request $150 million in fiscal year 2019 “to enable the development and maturation of commercial entities and capabilities which will ensure that commercial successors to the ISS — potentially including elements of the ISS — are operational when they are needed.”

(2) PALEYFEST. PaleyFest LA puts fans in the same room with over a hundred TV stars at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood from March 16-25. This almost throws Comic-Con in the shade. Deaadline reports: “PaleyFest LA Sets Talent From ‘Handmaid’s Tale’, ‘Queen Sugar’, ‘Riverdale’ For TV Event”.

In addition to the previously announced opening night tribute to Barbra Streisand, the lineup at this year’s fest includes over 100 stars from some of the best shows making waves on television  including Seth MacFarlane, Eric McCormack, Debra Messing, Elisabeth Moss, Joseph Fiennes, Anna Faris, Allison Janney, Thomas Middleditch, Kumail Nanjiani, Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Iain Armitage, Zoe Perry, Freddie Highmore, Rutina Wesley, Ava DuVernay, KJ Apa, and Lili Reinhart.

PaleyFest LA 2018 gives fans access to special screenings, exclusive conversations, and behind-the-scenes scoops and breaking news from the stars and creative minds behind their favorite shows. This years shows include The Orville, Will & Grace, The Handmaid’s Tale, Silicon Valley, Supernatural, The Big Bang Theory, Young Sheldon, The Good Doctor, Mom, Queen Sugar, Riverdale, and Stranger Things….

Click the link to see all the stars who will be appearing for these shows —

Friday, March 16: Opening Night Presentation: PaleyFest Icon: An Evening with Barbra Streisand (7:30 pm):

Saturday, March 17: FOX’s The Orville (2:00 pm):

Saturday, March 17: NBC’s Will & Grace (7:00 pm): 

Sunday, March 18: Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale (2:00 pm):

Tuesday, March 20: CW’s Supernatural (6:45 pm):

Wednesday, March 21: CBS’s The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon (7:30 pm) 

Thursday, March 22: ABC’s The Good Doctor (7:30 pm):

Saturday, March 24: CBS’s Mom (2:00 pm):

Saturday, March 24: OWN’s Queen Sugar (7:00 pm):

Sunday, March 25: CW’s Riverdale (2:00 pm):

Sunday, March 25: Netflix’s Stranger Things (7:00 pm):

(3) CHANGING THE CHANNEL. Abigail Nussbaum covers new TV shows in “Winter Crop, 2018 Edition”.

…I don’t know if I’m going to stay in love with all of these shows (three episodes in, I’m starting to lose patience with Counterpart, for example), but they have a hook that the fall’s carefully samey procedurals don’t even try for.

  • Black Lightning – There’s a scene about halfway through the premiere episode of the CW’s latest DC superhero show that really made me sit up, and think that maybe we were about to get a genuinely revolutionary take on this increasingly problematic concept.  Retired superhero turned school principal Jefferson Pierce (Cress Williams) has just rescued his daughter from the clutches of a gang boss, in the process causing panic at a nightclub.  Wandering outside the club in a daze, he’s discovered by some cops, who immediately train their guns on him and order him to “get [his] black ass on the ground”.  Jefferson could comply–as he did earlier in the day when he was pulled over for “fitting the description” of a liquor store robber–and his powers mean that he isn’t in any immediate danger.  Nevertheless, a long litany of frustration, including from the earlier run-in with the police, takes its toll, and he clenches his fists and lets fly with his electric powers, leaving the cops alive but on the ground as he power-walks away.It’s a scene that feels important for two reasons.  First, because of how rarely black heroes–and black superheroes in particular–are allowed to express anger, much less allow themselves to be overcome by it.  Think, for example, of the MCU’s black heroes–Falcon, War Machine, Luke Cage, and Black Panther–and how often they’re positioned as the level-headed, or cheerful, counterpoint to a hotheaded or angsty white hero.  Even as heroes of their own stories, these characters are expected to proceed with calm deliberation, and are rarely allowed to express rage or frustration–in Civil War, T’challa is seeking justice for the recent murder of his father, and yet he spends the film acting cool and collected, while Captain America and Iron Man’s every temper tantrum is indulged and excused.  For Black Lightning to allow its titular hero to feel rage–to make that expression of rage our introduction to him as a person with powers–feels like a thesis statement, as well as a deliberate rebuke to the stereotype of the angry black man.

(4) LOST AND NOT FOUND. An interview with a student of manuscripts in The Guardian: “‘I really want to find it before I die’: why are we so fascinated by lost books? “

Does the Book of Kells lose any of its allure when a mass-produced paperback version is available to buy just feet away, in Trinity College Dublin’s gift shop? No, says de Hamel: “There are things you’ll see in an original manuscript that even a microfilm or digitised surrogate cannot convey – drypoint glosses, erasures, sewing holes, underdrawing, changes of parchment, subtleties of colour, loss of leaves, patina of handling – even smell and touch and sound, which can transform knowledge and understanding of the text when its scribes made it and first readers saw it.” So, when we mourn lost manuscripts, it’s not just over the disappearance of words, we are also losing an understanding of the process of their creation – the author’s scribbles, their hasty additions, their fraught deletions.

There are many lost books that de Hamel hopes to one day see: “The Book of Kells had more leaves in the 17th century than it does now. Are they somewhere in someone’s scrapbook? The 12th-century Winchester Bible, perhaps the greatest English medieval work of art, had a number of miniatures cut out, possibly as recently as the 20th century: some, at least, probably do exist. I really, really want to find one before I die.”

(5) HEFTY TOME. If you want a hardcover of Rosarium’s massive Sunspot Jungle, pledge the fundraiser – see details at “Sunspot Jungle: Kickstarter Exclusive Hardcover Edition”.

 On June 17, 2018, Rosarium Publishing will be turning five years old. So, we’ve decided to throw a little party. Since we like to say we “introduce the world to itself,” we just knew it had to be a global party!

Like any good party, we’ve invited some friends, acquaintances, associates, people we’ve heard good things about, and some complete strangers.

The end result is Sunspot Jungle!

A two-volume, spec fic anthology filled with stories from over 100 writers from around the world!!!

This campaign is for special hardcover editions of the anthology only available to you Kickstarter supporters.

(The paperback for Vol. 1 will be out in December while the one for Vol. 2 will be released in spring of 2019.)

(6) GAVIN OBIT. John Gavin (1931-2018): US actor who later became a diplomat, died February 9, aged 86. Screen appearances include the horror classic Psycho, the psychological drama Midnight Lace (both 1960), two episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1963/65). Reportedly signed up to play James Bond in Diamonds Are Forever until Sean Connery agreed to return to the role, but this apparent setback allowed him to fulfil a lifelong dream to become the US ambassador to Mexico.

(7) CATHEY OBIT. Reg E Cathey (1958-2018): US actor, died February 9, aged 59. Genre appearances include Star Trek: The Next Generation (one episode, 1993), The Mask (1994), Tank Girl (1995), Grimm (three episodes, 2013), Banshee (two episodes, 2014), Banshee Origins (three episodes, 2014), Fantastic Four (2015). He also provided a voice for the video game Star Wars: The Old Republic – Rise of the Hutt Cartel (2013).

(8) JONES OBIT. Mickey Jones (1941-2018): US musician and actor, died February 7, aged 76. Genre appearances include The Incredible Hulk (three episodes, 1978-81), Galactica 1980 (one episode, 1980), Starman (1984), Misfits of Science (one episode, 1985), ALF (one episode, 1986), Probe (one episode, 1988), Something Is Out There (six episodes, 1988), Total Recall (1990), It Came From Outer Space II (1996), Penny Dreadful (2006), Necrosis (2009), Deadtime Stories (one episode, 2013).

(9) TODAY IN HISTORY

(10) WOODEN YOU LIKE TO KNOW? Another case where a gang of facts dismantle a wonderful story: “Did Abraham Lincoln sleep here?”

Visitors to a small log cabin in Kentucky are right to ask: Is it true that Abraham Lincoln slept here? On the eve of Lincoln’s 209th birthday tomorrow, Brook Silva-Braga has the answer:

Professor Henri Grissino-Mayer has come to Hodgenville, Kentucky to solve a mystery almost as old as Abraham Lincoln himself.

Silva-Braga asked, “So, someone pulls off the highway, sees you guys drilling into this cabin and says, ‘What are you doing here?’ what do you say to them?”

“What we’re trying to do is authenticate when this cabin was made by using the tree rings in the logs,” he replied.

(11) VESTED INTERESTS. In the past five years Disneyland has experienced growth in these social groups, and now two are in court — “They’re Disneyland superfans. Why a lawsuit is alleging gangster-like tactics against one social club”.

They stroll through Disneyland in packs of 20 or more, motley crews that resemble a cross between the Hells Angels motorcycle gang and a grown-up Mickey Mouse Club with their Disney-themed tattoos and their matching denim vests strewn with trading pins and logos.

Disneyland social clubs, by most accounts, are harmless alliances of friends and family who meet up at the park to share a nerdy obsession for all things Disney. With club names such as Tigger Army and Neverland Mermaids, how threatening can they be?

… But a lawsuit filed in Orange County Superior Court has revealed a dark undercurrent to the pastime. The head of one club has accused another of using gangster-like tactics to try to collect “protection” money for a charity fundraiser at the park.

The lawsuit reads like mob movie set in a theme park. The plot revolves around the Main Street Fire Station 55 Social Club, whose leaders claim they have been bullied and terrorized by the head of the White Rabbits Social Club.

(12) LOOKBACK. The British Science Fiction Association’s Vector does a science roundup in “Vector’s pick of science news in 2017”.

First of all, water. Two new inventions for increasing the supply of drinking water caught our eye:

In other exciting news regarding fluids, albeit less immediately applicable: scientists have made a fluid with negative mass. But then, the usefulness of inventions is often hard to judge….

(13) I’VE BEEN TO OKLAHOMA, BUT I’VE NEVER BEEN TO KLINGON. Even people in Tulsa have heard about it now — the Tulsa World ran a story about the Swedish production Hampus Eckerman brought to our attention last month — “Brush up on your Klingon for a new vacation hotspot”.

In search of a new and different vacation spot, with great food and cultural delights? Look no further.

A theater in Stockholm is playing host to a Klingon delegation seeking to promote tourism to Qo’nos (pronounced “Kronos”), the home planet of the ruthless yet honorable race of warriors from the cult TV franchise “Star Trek.”

(14) DOESN’T LEAVE MUCH TO WATCH. At Superversive SF, Anthony M tells about the unrewarding experience of trying to “retake the culture” — “The Problem of the Scold” [Internet Archive page].

Right now those of us on the cutting edge of the coming revolution in the entertainment field face a very thorny problem: We are scolds.

Brian Neimeier has – correctly, in my view – pointed out that we should simply be refusing to see films and shows written by people who hate us and that direct their hate at us.

So no Star Wars. No Star Trek. It is looking increasingly likely that Marvel movies are just about done. Television? Forget it, pretty much. Netflix, the exceptions are few and far between. Should we be supporting Netflix anyway?

… They get annoyed at me. I’m a killjoy. I’m a wet blanket. I see politics in everything. I’m ruining their fun. And of course, in a sense, they are exactly right. Nobody wants to hear me bash “Frozen”, because it will ruin the movie for them. And they like the movie!

I have turned myself into a scold. Many of us have. Nobody likes scolds. We’re negative and we annoy people. And scolding so far has not worked outside of getting people who already agree to clap their hands.

(15) PRECEDENT. NPR looks at influences on the world of the new movie — “Black Panther’s Mythical Home May Not Be So Mythical After All” – and finds a similarity to a historic African empire built on trade instead of military might.

There are different theories about the real-life inspiration for Wakanda. Ta-Nehisi Coates, who authored a reboot of the Black Panther comic series, explained his in this post for The Atlantic’s website. But the actor Chadwick Boseman, who plays Black Panther on screen, told The New York Times that Wakanda is a fictional version of “the Mutapa empire of 15th-century Zimbabwe.”

So how does the mythical Wakanda compare to the real-life Mutapa?

Stretching from modern-day South Africa into Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Zambia, the kingdom of Mutapa thrived from the early 1400s to about 1760.

“Mutapa operated on three basic levels: they had a capital city, provinces and little villages,” says Professor Angelo Nicolaides of the University of South Africa. Chiefs ruled at each of these levels under the supreme authority of the king, known as the Munhumutapa.

Like so many other kingdoms that believed in the divine right of kings, “the Mutapan people believed that their leaders were placed in positions of authority by the creator,” says Nicolaides. “The oral tradition tells us that they were involved in ancestral worship to a large extent, and the people believed that the kings had a very good relationship with the spirit world.”

(16) CONFERENCE OVERLOAD IN DC. T.M. Shine has a piece in Washington Post Magazine about how many conventions he could go to in Washington in a week.  Among the events he went to were Fortfest 2017, the International Fortean Organization convention, and Blerdcon, which started off as a con for “black nerds” and evolved into a con for people who like to wear superhero costumes — “Net neutrality, sex, falconry: In one week, I crashed as many D.C. conferences as possible”.

I’m romping around this convention, mingling with those dressed in costume, which is basically everybody. Blerdcon started as a celebration of black nerds, and then all minority nerds, but now it seems to be simply all of us — white, black, Hispanic, Asian. My costume is weak, I admit — just me with my various conference badges — but I begin to imagine everything from laser beams to android shrapnel bouncing off them. But what would my superhero name be? Evolution Man sounds too grand. I kind of like Symposium Man, but what would his powers be? Powerful personal anecdotes that freeze listeners in their tracks? The ability to spot a raised hand from 100 yards?

(17) WHAT DRONES CAN DO. The PyeongChang Olympics opened with 1218 drones filling the sky in the formation of the Olympic flag.

Good Morning America talks about how it was done.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, Steve Green, Chip Hitchcock, Martin Morse Wooster, Cat Eldridge, Will R., Carl Slaughter, Jeffrey Smith, ULTRAGOTHA, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew.]

Pixel Scroll 1/29/18 The Man Who Scrolled The Moon

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(1) PAIN FOR PLEASURE. The sheer, greedy click-seeking that fuels this kerfuffle is being paid for by the pain of the targeted family, as Foz Meadows makes clear in “A Personal Note”.

And it is an insult, regardless of Freer’s claims that he’s only saying what anyone might think. It is also uniquely hurtful – and again, I say this with no expectation that Freer himself cares for my feelings. Manifestly, he does not, and will doubtless rejoice to know that he’s upset me. Nonetheless, I am upset. I’ve tried to pretend that I’m not, but I am, and having admitted as much to myself, I feel no shame in admitting it here. Before all this, I’d never heard of Freer at all, and while I’m aware that the public nature of my life online means that I am, in a sense, accessible to strangers, there’s a great deal of difference between having someone object to my writing, and having them construct malicious falsehoods about my personal life.

In the past few days, at least one person has asked me if I’m really sure that Toby isn’t Camestros; that maybe he’s doing it all behind my back. Freer, Torgersen and Antonelli have laughed at the idea that, if Camestros isn’t Toby, then surely I must be grateful for their alerting me to the presence of a stalker-impersonator – as though they aren’t the ones rifling through my marriage in pursuit of a link that is not, was never, there.

(2) HELLBOY’S DRAWER. The Society of Illustrators presents “THE ART OF MIKE MIGNOLA: Hellboy and Other Curious Objects”, a selection of works from the comic artist and writer behind the award-winning Dark Horse Comics series Hellboy, from March 6 – April 21.

In this exhibit, the Society will feature highlights from his fan-favorite Hellboy series, as well as other spin-off titles including work from B.P.R.D., Abe Sapien, and Witchfinder. The Society is also pleased to feature samples from his award-winning comic books including the Eisner Award winner The Amazing Screw-On Head (Dark Horse Comics) as well as Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire (Bantam Spectra), co-written by best-selling author Christopher Golden. This special exhibit will include an array of comic pages, covers, and rarely seen original paintings by Mignola.

An opening reception for the exhibit will take place on Tuesday, March 6th, beginning at 6:30PM.

In addition, Mike Mignola will be a Guest of Honor at this year’s MoCCA Arts Festival. This 2-day multimedia event, Manhattan’s largest independent comics, cartoon and animation festival, draws over 8,000 attendees each year. Held on April 7 and 8, the Fest will include speaking engagements, book signings, and parties. Further scheduling for Mignola’s appearances including a panel talk and book signings will be available in future announcements.

(3) CONDENSED CREAM OF 2016. If they’re short stories, does that mean they don’t fluff up your Mt. TBR pile quite as much as book recommendations? Greg Hullender notes Rocket Stack Rank is continuing its 2016 catch-up posts:

Here’s our next-to-last article about 2016 short fiction. This one focuses on which publications were most likely to run stories that earned recommendations/awards/spots in year’s-best anthologies.

“2016 Best SF/F Short Fiction Publications”

The two tables of publication coverage are actually a very compact representation of almost all the raw data for this and the final article, which will focus on the sources of recommendations (i.e. awards, reviewers, and year’s-best anthologies).

(4) EXPANDED UNIVERSE: At Featured Futures, Jason recaps the first month of the new year, discussing some new zines and some (old) news in the January Summation.

Covering January short fiction was exciting (and busy), as Featured Futures added Analog, Ares, Asimov’s, Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores, F&SF, and Galaxy’s Edge to its roster, resulting in significantly more stories read than usual (86 of 455K words) and a similarly larger than usual recommended/mentioned list. In webzine news, and speaking of Galaxy’s Edge, I was going to add coverage of it as a print zine but, coincidentally, it returned to webzine status, once again making all its fiction available on the web. The categorized “List of Professional SF/F/H Magazines” (which doubles as a list of the markets Featured Futures covers as well as being a sort of index of reviews) has been updated to reflect this.

(5) TOWARDS CANONISATION. The advocates of sainthood for J.R.R. Tolkien are calling for support of preliminary events, as well as the planned Tolkien Canonisaton Conference:

Please pray for the following intentions and dates for the upcoming Tolkien year in the lead up to the Tolkien Canonisation Conference in September 2018 in Oxford:…

  • Saturday 17th March – St Patrick’s Day Ceilidh Fundraiser 2018: raising funds for the Tolkien Canonisation Conference.
  • Friday April 13th – (provisional) Lecture on the Theology of the Body and J. R. R. Tolkien in London.
  • Saturday 1st September – Sunday 2nd September 2018 : Tolkien Canonisation Conference in Oxford.

(6) CHANGE AT TOR BOOKS. Publisher’s Lunch reports —

Liz Gorinsky is leaving her position as a senior editor at Tor Books on February 2. She will continue to handle some of her authors as a consulting editor at Tor and edit short fiction at Tor.com.

Gorinsky tweeted –

Catherynne M. Valente added –

(7) ROBERTS’ RECS. A thread by Adam Roberts is aimed at BSFA Award nominators but is interesting for everyone. Starts here —

(8) STORY SCRAPING AT LOCUS. Locus Online miraculously noticed the 2018 Darrell Award finalists today, one day after File 770 reported the story. Since Mark Kelly stopped doing the news posting there, Locus Online has become especially active scraping stories from File 770 without acknowledging where they got them. A little “hat tip” would be appropriate and appreciated.

(9) SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL PLANET. It’s time for any book blogger, podcaster, or “booktuber” to nominate for the 2017 Planetary Awards. Click on the link to learn how to participate. The nomination deadline is February 14th, 11:59PM US Pacific time.

The Puppy-influenced Planetary Awards were given for the first time two years ago.  The inaugural awards for 2015 work were posted in May 2016 –

  • Best Novel: Torchship by Karl Gallagher
  • Best Short Story: “Something in the Water” by C.S. Boyack

The awards for 2016 work were posted in May 2017 –

  • Best Novel: Swan Knight’s Son by John C. Wright
  • Best Short Story: “Athan and the Priestess” by Schuyler Hernstrom

The awards are administered by the Planetary Defense Commander, whose identity is findable with a little effort, but there’s no harm in having a handle, right Lou Antonelli? (Wait, maybe I should ask somebody else…)

(10) MORE ON MORT. The Washington Post’s Michael Cavna has an appreciation of the late Mort Walker, who he interviewed in 2010 and 2013: “‘Beetle Bailey’ creator Mort Walker, 94, created laughter ‘nearly every day of his life’”.  Cavna notes that Walker was around so long that Beetle Bailey was personally greenlit by William Randolph Hearst, and notes Walker’s efforts to create the Reuben Award and bring in more women into the cartooning field.

He was drafted into the Army Air Corps during World War II, but within the world of Walker, even that sometimes turned comically absurd. He spent time at Camp Crowder, which he said inspired “Beetle Bailey’s” Camp Swampy. “I signed up to go into psychiatry,” he told me in 2013 of the Army’s specialized training program, “and I ended up studying engineering. It was typical Army reasoning.”

(11) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • January 29, 1845 — Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven,” is published on this day in the New York Evening Mirror.
  • January 29, 1964 — Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb premiered.

(12) VOTING BOOTH ABOUT TO OPEN. The official Hugo Awards website announced “2018/1943 Hugo Award Nominations Opening Soon”. (Date not specified.)

Worldcon 76 San Jose advises us that they will open nominations for the 2018 Hugo Awards and 1943 Retrospective Hugo Awards within the next few days. They have been working with Worldcon 75 Helsinki and Worldcon 2018 Dublin to coordinate the combined membership information from all three Worldcons, and to do so within the limitations of the three countries’ data-protection laws. When testing of the online nomination form is complete, Worldcon 76 San Jose will release it on the Worldcon 76 web site and make an announcement. We’ll also announce the start of nominations here on The Hugo Awards web site. Paper ballots will also be distributed with Worldcon 76 Progress Report 2, which we understand is going to press in a few days and should mail to members of Worldcon 76 in February. Besides the online form, a PDF of the paper form will be available from Worldcon 76’s web site when it is ready for release.

(13) FAN HUGOS. Rich Horton, in “First Hugo Recommendations: Dramatic Presentation, Fan Writer, Fanzine”, is among the first to blog about prospective 2018 fan Hugo nominees. (Horton also covers the Dramatic Presentation – Long Form category.)

Best Fan Writer

The two fan writers I want to promote the most this year are a couple I mentioned last year as well: John Boston and John O’Neill. John Boston’s most publicly available recent stuff is at Galactic Journey, where he reviews issues of Amazing from 55 years ago, month by month. (It will be noted, perhaps, that I also review issues of Amazing from the same period, at Black Gate.) John’s work there is linked by this tag: http://galacticjourney.org/tag/john-boston/.

As for John O’Neill, of course his central contribution is as editor of Black Gate, for which he writes a great deal of the content, often about “vintage” books he’s found on Ebay or at conventions, and also about upcoming fantasy books….

Best Fanzine

As I did last year, I plan to nominate Black Gate, Galactic Journey, and Rocket Stack Rank for the Best Fanzine Hugo. I’m particularly partial in this context to Black Gate, primarily of course because I have been a contributor since the print days (issue #2 and most of the subsequent issues)….

I heartily agree with Horton’s interest in finding other fan publications than File 770 to put up for the Hugo (though he does have kind words for this site). It seemed a good opportunity to say so here.

(14) REAR VIEW MIRROR. Meanwhile, DB makes a start on the “Retro-Hugos for 1942” with a canvass of his favorite writers.

…Now for Lord Dunsany. In 1942 Dunsany published five stories, all very brief, and about a dozen poems, mostly in Punch. Most of the poems are hopeful gazes towards military victory, and a couple of them introduce the allegorical figure of Liberty, so they could technically be considered fantasy.

None of the stories are SF or fantasy, though the only one of them that’s worth reading could possibly squeeze in by courtesy. It’s a Jorkens story reprinted in The Fourth Book of Jorkens (1947), where it’s the shortest piece in the book. Jorkens is Dunsany’s long-running clubman character who’s prone to making outrageous claims or telling absurd stories which nobody can disprove. In this brief tale, “On the Other Side of the Sun,” that topic comes up – “I wonder what’s there?” – and Jorkens astonishes all by stating, “I have been there.” His regular patsy, Terbut, demands “When, may I ask?” At Jorkens’ reply, “Six months ago,” any red-blooded SF reader should know instantly how the story is going to end, but the penny doesn’t drop for the hapless Terbut until after he makes a large bet that Jorkens is lying…

(15) RETRO FANZINES. While Fanac.org marshals digital copies of 1942 fanzines in support of Worldcon 76’s Retro-Hugos, Robert Lichtman and Bill Burns have tracked down additional fanzines published in 1942 by Bob Tucker available elsewhere online – specifically, at the Internet Archive, which has scans of Tucker’s zine Le Zombie. Four 1942 are issues listed.

(16) SAVED FROM THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR. WIRED Magazine’s “Cantina Talk: Finally, a Complete Guide to All of The Last Jedi’s Easter Eggs” not only covers the story in the title, but this even more compelling news —

The Last Jedi Adds Some More Material (But Not Onscreen)

The Source: An official announcement from Lucasfilm

Probability of Accuracy: It’s totally legit.

The Real Deal: So apparently, there was more to Star Wars: The Last Jedi than appeared onscreen—but fortunately for fans, it’s not going to remain a secret. Writer/director Rian Johnson is working with novelist Jason Fry to create all-new scenes for the book’s forthcoming novelization, as well as rescuing deleted scenes from the cutting room floor, to firmly place them in the canon. Amongst the things audiences didn’t see in theaters but will read about: Han Solo’s funeral. Prepare your tissues for March 6; you’ll get to read all about it then.

(17) FUTURE IMAGINED. BBC interview with 2016 Hugo winner — “Hao Jingfang: China’s award-winning science fiction writer” (video).

She tells the BBC a lot of her stories originate from thought experiments, and her latest novel imagines “a dark possibility for the future” where robots have replaced human’s jobs.

(18) THE MARKETPLACE OF THE INTERNET.  Kim Huett sent a link to “Boring Talks #02 – Book Pricing Algorithms” with a comment: “Those of you into buying books online (assuming some of you indeed are) might like to listen to the following cautionary tale brought to us by BBC radio. It will confirm everything you ever suspected about the practise…”

A book for $1.7 million? To a computer, it made sense. Sort of. Tracy King explains.

(19) WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY A GAME? If you play poker you may be interested in a new infographic, “Poker & AI: The Raise of Machines Against Humans”. It details insights and research about the evolution of poker-playing artificial intelligence.

But what about the poker industry? Surely there must be an AI capable of playing poker at high levels. The answer is yes, there is. This infographic will show you how the poker’s AI developed throughout the history, as well as where it is now. You can find a lot of interesting stats and information in this infographic, but if you are interested in reading more about poker related stuff, visit our website.

(20) WHERE THE BOYS ARE. This belongs in Connie Willis’ next satirical speech about things science fiction predicted (none of which ever were) — “U.S. soldiers are revealing sensitive and dangerous information by jogging”.

Strava says it has 27 million users around the world, including people who own widely available fitness devices such as Fitbit and Jawbone, as well as people who directly subscribe to its mobile app. The map is not live — rather, it shows a pattern of accumulated activity between 2015 and September 2017.

Most parts of the United States and Europe, where millions of people use some type of fitness tracker, show up on the map as blazes of light because there is so much activity.

In war zones and deserts in countries such as Iraq and Syria, the heat map becomes almost entirely dark — except for scattered pinpricks of activity. Zooming in on those areas brings into focus the locations and outlines of known U.S. military bases, as well as of other unknown and potentially sensitive sites — presumably because American soldiers and other personnel are using fitness trackers as they move around.

Not just men, of course, but it made a good headline.

(21) OH NOES! Just think what a career he might have had, if he hadn’t been muted by the Guild!

https://twitter.com/AHILBERT3000/status/957832994470989824

(22) DISCOVERY SPOILERS. There, that should be enough warning about — “‘Star Trek: Discovery’: Jason Isaacs Apologizes for Lying, Admits to Feeling Like a ‘Drunken Hippo’ When Fighting Michelle Yeoh”.

“I’ve done nothing but lie since September,” he said to IndieWire. “I knew, perfectly well, everything before we started. And that meant that every interview was a lie and every conversation I had with my friends… Actually, with quite a lot of my family, was a lie. Anybody on the street was a lie. Anybody in Toronto. So I apologize for all that, but that was the only way to tell the story well.”

(23) PEJORATIVE’S PROGRESS. Inverse’s Ryan Britt looks back on “How the Word “Terran” Became a Sci-Fi Slur”.

In the Mirror Universe of Star Trek, humans aren’t called humans. They’re called “Terrans.” The word “Terran” comes from the root Latin word “terra,” meaning “dry earth,” which is where we get the phrase “terra firma.” But the word “Terran” has been prevalent in science fiction long before it cropped up again on Star Trek: Discovery in 2018. As it turns out “Terran” has a long history of being a dirty word for “human.”

(24) BLACK PANTHER. Marvel Studios’ Black Panther – “Let’s Go” TV spot.

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

Second Round of 2017 BSFA Awards Nominations Begins

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British Science Fiction Association members have until January 31 to help choose the BSFA Awards shortlist for works published in 2017.

In the first round of voting members nominated a longlist of 48 novels, 41 short stories, 20 items of nonfiction, and 28 artworks.

Once voters have determined the shortlist, BSFA members and members of the British national science fiction convention Eastercon will vote for the winners.

Best Novel nominees:

  • Nina Allen – The Rift (Titan Books)
  • Katherine Arden – The Bear and the Nightingale (Del Rey)
  • Andrew Bannister – Iron Gods (Bantam Press)
  • Nicola Barker – H(A)PPY (William Heinemann)
  • Chris Beckett – America City (Corvus)
  • Peter V Brett – The Core (Harper Voyager)
  • Chris Brookmyre – Places in the Darkness (Orbit)
  • Lisa Carey – The Stolen Child (Orion)
  • C Robert Cargill – Sea of Rust (Gollancz)
  • Anne Charnock – Dreams Before the Start of Time
  • Adam Christopher – Killing is My Business (Titan Books)
  • Paul Cornell – Chalk (Tor Books UK)
  • Nicholas Eames – Kings of the Wyld (Orbit)
  • Omar El Akkad – American War (Picador)
  • Daryl Gregory – Spoonbenders (riverrun)
  • Mohsin Hamid – Exit West (Hamish Hamilton)
  • Frances Hardinge – A Skinful of Shadows (Pan Macmillan)
  • Nick Harkaway – Gnomon (William Heinemann)
  • Jonathan L Howard – After the End of the World (Thomas Dunne Books)
  • Kameron Hurley – The Stars Are Legion (Angry Robot)
  • Jaroslav Kalfa? – Spaceman of Bohemia (Sceptre)
  • Mur Lafferty – Six Wakes (Orbit)
  • Anthony Laken – One Cog Turning (Luna Press)
  • Mark Lawrence – Red Sister (Harper Voyager)
  • Ann Leckie – Provenance (Orbit)
  • Yoon Ha Lee – Raven Stratagem (Solaris)
  • Ian R Macleod – Red Snow (PS Publishing)
  • Paul McAuley – Austral (Gollancz)
  • Ian McDonald – Luna: Wolf Moon (Gollancz)
  • Peter McLean – Damnation (Angry Robot)
  • Philip Miller – All the Galaxies (Freight Books)
  • Jeff Noon – A Man of Shadows (Angry Robot)
  • Ada Palmer – Seven Surrenders (Head of Zeus)
  • Ada Palmer – The Will to Battle (Head of Zeus)
  • Benjamin Percy – The Dark Net (Hodder & Stoughton)
  • Adam Roberts – The Real-Town Murders (Gollancz)
  • Kim Stanley Robinson – New York 2140 (Orbit)
  • Justina Robson – The Switch (Gollancz)
  • John Scalzi – The Collapsing Empire (Pan Macmillan)
  • Gavin Smith – The Bastard Legion (Gollancz)
  • Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland – The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. (Borough Press)
  • Kenneth Steven – 2020 (Saraband)
  • Allen Stroud – The Forever Man (Luna Press)
  • Tricia Sullivan – Sweet Dreams (Gollancz)
  • Adrian Tchaikovsky – Dogs of War (Head of Zeus)
  • Karen Traviss – Black Run (Createspace Independent Publishing Platform)
  • Andy Weir – Artemis (Del Rey)
  • Jen Williams – The Ninth Rain (Headline)

Best Shorter Fiction nominees:

  • Julianna Baggott – Mental Diplopia (Tor.com) – http://bit.ly/2C7icQj
  • Chris Butera – Independent, Superior (Fireside Fiction) – http://bit.ly/2lygdy8
  • Anne Charnock – The Enclave (NewCon Press)
  • Ian Creasey – After the Atrocity (Asimov’s, Mar-Apr 2017)
  • Elaine Cuyegkeng – These Constellations Will Be Yours (Strange Horizons) – http://bit.ly/2Co4JaY
  • Suna Dasi – Unmade (in ‘Steampunk Writers Around the World, Volume I’, Luna Press)
  • Milton Davis – The Swarm (in ‘Steampunk Writers Around the World, Volume I’, Luna Press)
  • Malcolm Devlin – March, April, May (in ‘2084’ edited by George Sandison, Unsung Stories)
  • Cory Doctorow – Party Discipline (Tor.com) – http://bit.ly/2CuqIMC
  • Greg Egan – Uncanny Valley (Tor.com) – http://bit.ly/2CB1lWT
  • Rosie Garland – An Eye for An Eye (in ‘The Darkest Midnight in December’ edited by Storm Constantine, Immanion Press)
  • Peter Garrett – Final Diagnosis (Luna Press)
  • Kerstin Hall – Bombyx mori (Strange Horizons) – http://bit.ly/2EvPaeK
  • Mike Hardwick – A Glitch in Humanity (in ‘SFerics’ edited by Roz Clarke, Createspace Independent Publishing Platform)
  • Erin Horáková – The Bacchae (Big Echo) – http://bit.ly/2CpZUNz
  • Dave Hutchinson – Acadie (Tor.com) – http://bit.ly/2Cmj47I
  • Dave Hutchinson – Babylon (in ‘2084’ edited by George Sandison, Unsung Stories)
  • Gwyneth Jones – Proof of Concept (Tor.com) – http://bit.ly/2CoIIsE
  • Julia Keller – The Tablet of Scaptur (Tor.com) – http://bit.ly/2C7iiYb
  • Cassandra Khaw – A Song for Quiet (Tor.com) – http://bit.ly/2Eu0zvm
  • Caitlin R Kiernan – Agents of Dreamland (Tor.com) – http://bit.ly/2CoFJAc
  • Carmen Maria Machado – The Resident (in ‘Her Body and Other Parties’, Graywolf Press)
  • Tim Maughan – Last Christmas (Motherboard) – http://bit.ly/2lx2GXB
  • Laura Mauro – Looking for Laika (Interzone #273)
  • Simon Morden – At the Speed of Light (NewCon Press)
  • Geoff Nelder – Angular Size (in ‘SFerics’ edited by Roz Clarke, Createspace Independent Publishing Platform)
  • Emma Newman – Brother’s Ruin (Tor.com) – http://bit.ly/2EvvQOE
  • Nnedi Okorafor – Binti: Home (Tor.com) – http://bit.ly/2zZNo1O
  • Christopher Priest – Shooting an Episode (in ‘2084’ edited by George Sandison, Unsung Stories)
  • Josué Ramos (trans. Sue Burke) – The Story of Your Heart (in ‘Steampunk Writers Around the World, Volume I’, Luna Press)
  • Adam Roberts – The Edinburgh Masks (Wells at the World’s End blog) – http://bit.ly/2lCf1dd
  • Allen Stroud – Fragments of Knowing (The Phoenix Archives) – http://bit.ly/2CADuqo
  • Philip A Suggars – London Calling (Strange Horizons) – http://bit.ly/2EvTFFQ
  • EJ Swift – The Endling Market (in ‘2084’ edited by George Sandison, Unsung Stories)
  • EJ Swift – Weather Girl (in ‘Infinity Wars’ edited by Jonathan Strahan, Solaris)
  • Bogi Takács – Some Remarks on the Reproductive Strategy of the Common Octopus (Clarkesworld) – http://bit.ly/2CnopvA
  • Natalia Theodoridou – The Nightingales in Plátres (Clarkesworld) – http://bit.ly/2xSVk7O
  • Tade Thompson – The Murders of Molly Southbourne (St. Martins Press)
  • Lavie Tidhar – 2084 Satoshi AD (in ‘2084’ edited by George Sandison, Unsung Stories)
  • Lavie Tidhar – The Planet Woman, by M.V. Crawford (in ‘Extrasolar’ edited by Nick Gevers, PS Publishing)
  • Catherynne M Valente – Down and Out in R’lyeh (Uncanny Magazine) – http://bit.ly/2EvTVoi
  • Jamie Wahls – Utopia, LOL? (Strange Horizons) – http://bit.ly/2DTgoL8
  • Martha Wells – All Systems Red (Tor.com) – http://bit.ly/2ClPDT6
  • Neil Williamson – The Memoirist (NewCon Press)

Best Non-Fiction nominees:

  • Liz Bourke – Sleeps With Monsters column 2017 articles (Tor.com) – http://bit.ly/2lBE3rQ
  • AJ Dalton – The Sub-genres of British Fantasy Literature (Luna Press)
  • Rick Edwards and Dr Michael Brooks – Science(ish): The Peculiar Science Behind the Movies (Atlantic Books)
  • Roy Grey – Interzone #271 Editorial (Interzone #271)
  • Grady Hendrix – Paperbacks from Hell: A History of Horror Fiction from the ’70s and ’80s (Quirk Books)
  • Melissa Hillman – “This is Not Going to Go the Way You Think”: The Last Jedi Is Subversive AF, and I Am Here for It (Bitter Gertrude blog) – http://bit.ly/2zqN0Jv
  • Erin Horáková – Freshly Remember’d: Kirk Drift (Strange Horizons) – http://bit.ly/2ppuBsy
  • Paul Kincaid – Iain M. Banks (University of Illinois Press)
  • Kim Lakin-Smith – Doll Parts: Reflections of the Feminine Grotesque in Frances Hardinge’s Cuckoo Song and Neil Gaiman’s Coraline (in Gender Identity and Sexuality in Current Fantasy and Science Fiction, Luna Press)
  • Roger Luckhurst – Science Fiction: A Literary History (British Library Publishing)
  • Juliet E McKenna – The Myth of Meritocracy and the Reality of the Leaky Pipe and Other Obstacles in Science Fiction & Fantasy (in Gender Identity and Sexuality in Current Fantasy and Science Fiction, Luna Press)
  • Sinéad Murphy – Science Fiction and the Arab Spring: the critical dystopia in contemporary Egyptian fiction (Strange Horizons) – http://bit.ly/2gV3aUP
  • John Rieder – Science Fiction and the Mass Cultural Genre System (Wesleyan)
  • Adam Roberts – Wells at the World’s End 2017 blog posts (Wells at the World’s End blog) – http://bit.ly/2CBakaI
  • Mazin Saleem – Alien: Covenant review (Strange Horizons) – http://bit.ly/2Co5bpG
  • George Sandison – Introduction to 2084 (Unsung Stories)
  • Shadow Clarke Award jurors – The 2017 Shadow Clarke Award blog (The Anglia Ruskin Centre for Science Fiction and Fantasy) – http://bit.ly/2C7DTQ4
  • Vandana Singh – The Unthinkability of Climate Change: Thoughts on Amitav Ghosh’s The Great Derangement (Strange Horizons) – http://bit.ly/2CBaMFW
  • Andrew Tate – Apocalyptic Fiction (Bloomsbury)
  • (currently unknown) – SF Caledonia column 2017 articles (Shoreline of Infinity)

Best Artwork nominees:

  • John Allison – Scary Go Round 20th Dec 2017 (scarygoround.com) – http://bit.ly/2Eu11ty
  • Geneva Benton – Cover for Fiyah Magazine #3 (Fiyah Magazine #3) – http://bit.ly/2CDpYT7
  • Andy Bigwood – Cover for ‘SFerics’ edited by Roz Clarke (Createspace Independent Publishing Platform) – http://bit.ly/2CBagb3
  • Sishir Bommakanti – Illustration for ‘Terra Nullius’ by Hanuš Seiner (Strange Horizons) – http://bit.ly/2lzJzMF
  • Jim Burns – Cover for ‘The Martian Job’ by Jaine Fenn (NewCon Press) – http://bit.ly/2lD8kXs
  • Jim Burns – Cover for ‘The Ion Raider’ by Ian Whates (NewCon Press) – http://bit.ly/2lBgS1B
  • Galen Darah – Illustration for ‘These Constellations Will Be Yours’ by Elaine Cuyegkeng (Strange Horizons) – http://bit.ly/2Co4JaY
  • Christine Foltzer – Cover for ‘Agents of Dreamland’ by Caitlin R. Kiernan (Tor Books) – http://bit.ly/2lFzZXQ
  • Jay Johnstone – Cover for ‘The Girl from the Sky’ by FT Barbini (Luna Press) – http://bit.ly/2DKsKoV
  • Jay Johnstone – Cover for ‘The Sub-Genres of British Fantasy Literature’ by AJ Dalton (Luna Press) – http://bit.ly/2C7jTNA
  • Danielle Lainton – Cover for ‘The Lightbearer’ by Alan Richardson (Immanion Press) – http://bit.ly/2C88ZqJ
  • Greg Manchess – Above the Timberline (Simon & Schuster) – http://bit.ly/2CAJy2e
  • Chris Moore – Cover for ‘The Memoirist’ by Neil Williamson (NewCon Press) – http://bit.ly/2lFAPns
  • Victo Ngai – Illustration for ‘Waiting on a Bright Moon’ by JY Yang (Tor.com) – http://bit.ly/2fAuquC
  • Victo Ngai – Mixc World launch image (Mixc World shopping centre, Shenzhen) – http://bit.ly/2C4TLTr
  • Stephen Pickering – The Rescue of Sister (cover of Shoreline of Infinity #8) (Shoreline of Infinity #8) – http://bit.ly/2CoStqE
  • Diogo Saito – Cover and interior art for ‘Guardians of the Whills’ by Greg Rucka (Lucasfilm Press) – http://bit.ly/2CosQX7
  • Vincent Sammy – Wraparound art for NewCon Press Novella set 2 (NewCon Press) – http://bit.ly/2A1sjnW
  • Dave Senecal – 417h3r105 v4 (cover of Interzone #271) (Interzone #271) – http://bit.ly/2C7upo4
  • Yuko Shimizu – Cover for ‘The Changeling’ by Victor LaValle (Tor Books) – http://bit.ly/2DLdDLM
  • Maz Smith – Cover for ‘Ironclads’ by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Solaris) – http://bit.ly/2C6sgbX
  • Will Staehle – Cover for ‘The Night Ocean’ by Paul LaFarge (Penguin Press) – http://bit.ly/2lxgxNw
  • Will Staehle – Cover for ‘Autonomous’ by Annalee Newitz (Tor Books) – http://bit.ly/2C6El12
  • Will Staehle – Cover for ‘Walkaway’ by Cory Doctorow (Tor Books/Head of Zeus) – http://bit.ly/2CDqIYp
  • Brian Stelfreeze – Cover for ‘Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet Vol. 3’ (Marvel) – http://bit.ly/2ExPd9W
  • Richard Wagner – Illustration for ‘The New Man’ by Malcolm Devlin (Interzone #270) – http://bit.ly/2lzUiXa
  • Grim Wilkins – Cover for ‘Prophet: Earth War Vol. 5’ (Image Comics) – http://bit.ly/2CBaO0B
  • Marcin Wolski – Cover for ‘2084’ edited by George Sandison (Unsung Stories) – http://bit.ly/2lzUjdG

[Thanks to Mark Hepworth for the story.]

Pixel Scroll 11/26/17 I Can’t Believe I Pixeled In Front Of The Dean Of Science Fiction

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(1) PRONOUNS AND ROCKET STACK RANK. Bogi Takács wrote a series of tweets criticizing Greg Hullender’s statements in reviews about the usage of pronouns for non-binary characters in stories reviewed at Rocket Stack Rank, adding many screenshots of examples. Takács also pointed out the reviews are given a certain implied authority because Rocket Stack Rank is linked from the official The Hugo Awards site as a “Third Party Recommendation Site.”

Get into the thread here:

The Hugo connection is illustrated here:

The comments on the Hugo linkage include one from Patrick Nielsen Hayden:

https://twitter.com/pnh/status/934760409487331328

For those who are unfamiliar, here is Bogi Takács’ brief bio from Patreon:

I’m Bogi Takács, a Hungarian Jewish agender trans person (e/em/eir/emself or singular they pronouns) currently living in the US as a resident alien. I write speculative fiction and poetry – I have had work published in various professional venues like Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Apex and Strange Horizons.

Other comments on RSR, Hullender’s views, and their impact included —

(2) COCO CASHES IN. On opening weekend in the U.S., “Pixar’s ‘Coco’ feasts on ‘Justice League’ at box office”.

Pixar’s “Coco” sang its way to the fourth best Thanksgiving weekend ever with an estimated $71.2 million over the five-day weekend, a total that easily toppled Warner Bros.’ “Justice League.”

“Coco” rode strong reviews and an A-plus CinemaScore from audiences to the top spot at the domestic box office. According to studio estimates Sunday, it grossed $49 million from Friday to Sunday. Centered on the Mexican holiday Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead), “Coco” has already set box office records in Mexico, where it has made $53.4 million in three weeks.

(3) BSFA AWARDS. The British Science Fiction Association invites members to “Nominate for the BSFA Awards” between now and December 31:

The BSFA awards are presented annually by the British Science Fiction Association, based on a vote of BSFA members and – in recent years – members of the British national science fiction convention Eastercon. They are fan awards that not only seek to honour the most worthy examples in each category, but to promote the genre of science fiction, and get people reading, talking about and enjoying all that contemporary science fiction has to offer.

…Nominations are open until 31st December. This will be the first round. Then from 1st January to 30th January the opportunity for members to vote for their shortlist from the collated suggestions will be provided. This will be the second round.

To nominate in the first round, fill in the form here: http://tinyurl.com/BSFA2017nominations

or email your nominations to [email protected]. A form and process for the second round will be made available on this page after the first round has closed.

(4) FLORIDA EXPANDS RIGHT TO CHALLENGE TEXTBOOKS. The Associated Press has the story: “New Florida law expected to increase textbook challenges”.

A parent in Florida is citing profanity and violence in trying to get the local school to ban Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” — itself a cautionary tale on the banning of books. Another wants to remove Walter Dean Myers’ “Bad Boy” for using the word “penis” and a homophobic slur.

Elsewhere in Florida, some say global warming and evolution are a hoax and should not be taught in textbooks unopposed. Others say their local school’s textbooks shortchange Islam’s role in the world, while their opponents argue it’s the danger posed by Muslim terrorists that’s underexposed.

Under a bill passed by the Florida Legislature this year, any district resident — regardless of whether they have a child in school — can now challenge material as pornographic, biased, inaccurate or a violation of state law and get a hearing before an outside mediator.

The mediator advises the local school board, whose decision is final. Previously, challenges could only be made by parents to the school or district. There was also no mediator and fewer mandates. Districts must now also post online a list of all new books and material by grade level to make monitoring easier.

(5) THANKSGIVING AT THE ISS. A day like any other day, only turkey was there: “Happy Space Thanksgiving: How the Food-Stuffed Holiday Went Orbital”.

One Thanksgiving party will literally look down upon them all, as the crew of the International Space Station (ISS) continues its longstanding tradition of observing the festive harvest holiday from orbit. This year’s menu includes irradiated smoked turkey, rehydratable cornbread dressing, green beans and mushrooms, broccoli au gratin, mashed potatoes, candied yams, sweet tea, and thermostabilized cherry blueberry cobbler for dessert.

Space.com says “Thanksgiving in Space Means Turkey, Work and Football for Astronauts”:

“They don’t actually have the day off on Thursday,” NASA spokesman Dan Huot told Space.com in an email, adding that the crew has “a lot of cargo-unloading tasks to complete” with the Cygnus spacecraft that arrived last Tuesday (Nov. 14). However, the astronauts will at least have Friday off, Huot said.

Along with over 7,700 lbs. (3,500 kilograms) of supplies and science equipment, the Cygnus cargo craft delivered the crew their Thanksgiving dinner and some other tasty treats, like pizza and ice cream. Holiday gifts and care packages from the astronauts’ families also shipped with Cygnus. With that trove of holiday goodies just waiting to be unpacked, the astronauts have plenty of incentives for working through the holiday

(6) AFTER THE STUFFING. Here’s how it looks from the Batcave:

(7) ANTHOLOGY APPEARANCE. Cora Buhlert highlights her recently-published story: “New science fiction anthology with a new “In Love and War” story available: The Guardian, edited by Alasdair Shaw”.

The Guardian includes eleven science fiction stories by international authors, all featuring guardians of some kind. My own story in the anthology, “Baptism of Fire” is a prequel story to my In Love and War space opera romance series, so all you fans of Anjali and Mikhail (come on, I know there are some of you out there) rejoice.

(8) ALAS, POOR ALANTIM. Motherboard invites you to “Watch a Robot Eulogize Its ‘Brother’ at Moscow’s New Cemetery for Dead Machines”; video at the link.

The sad news is that this Alantim could not be revived after the attack. But the silver lining is that its death inspired Olga Budnik, a spokesperson for the Muscovite tech hub Phystechpark, to create the world’s first dedicated robot cemetery.

“Alantim was a really good robot,” Budnik told me in an email. “It was supportive, always polite, always happy to see you. You know, like a pet. And [the cemetery] was an idea to bury it like a pet. Not disassemble or carry it to the trash. To say good-bye.”

On October 31, Alantim’s Earthly remains were placed at the Phystechpark cemetery site next to a box for collecting other dead robots. He was eulogized by another Alantim, who honored his dearly departed “brother” for being “very useful to your people and Russian science,” according to a Russian-to-English translation of the ceremony as seen at the top of this article.

(9) COURT IS IN SESSION. Lauren Davis briefs io9 readers about “Six Strange Cases of Science Fiction Trademarks”.

J.R.R. Tolkien
Ownership Claimed by: The J.R.R. Tolkien Estate

The J.R.R. Tolkien Estate owns numerous trademarks based on Tolkien’s works, as well as registered trademarks on Tolkien’s name. Last year, a fellow who sold buttons reading “While you were reading Tolkien, I was watching Evangelion” through Zazzle was contacted by Zazzle, who said that they were removing the buttons at the Tolkien Estate’s request. Later, Zazzle restored the buttons, saying that they had been removed erroneously due to a miscommunication, but it shined a light on the estate’s ownership of Tolkien’s name and left lots of folks wondering where the line was. When are you invoking Tolkien the brand and when are you referring to Tolkien the man?

The estate also owns the right to publicity for Tolkien’s name and image, which they used to challenge the publication of Steve Hillard’s historical fiction book, Mirkwood: A Novel About JRR Tolkien. Eventually Hillard and the estate settled, with Hillard agreeing to make some changes to the book’s appearance to make it look less like one of Tolkien’s novels. A Mirkwood movie is in the works.

Bonus Round: Like any other trademark holder, the Tolkien Estate has to be vigilant about enforcing their trademarks. But some are stranger than others. In 2004, the estate issued a cease and desist letter to the owner of the domain Shiremail.com, claiming the estate owned the trademark on the word “shire.” The word “shire,” which means an administrative subdivision, such as a county, has been around since the 12th century.

(10) BOARDMAN OBIT. Perdita Boardman (1931-2017) died November 26 after a long illness. Mark Blackman writes:

Perdita was best-known in Northeast Fandom for hosting Lunarians meetings and running the Lunacon Con Suite for many years, and with her husband, John, hosting a monthly fannish gathering called First Saturday. For their long service, she and John were voted Honorary Members of the Lunarians.

Her younger daughter, Deirdre, shared the following on Facebook:

I wanted to share with family (& friends) about the passing of my mom this morning peacefully in her sleep.

Many know she has been suffering from severe dementia well over a decade now, but she became very sick about two weeks ago and moved to hospice care.

Born Dec 27, 1931 in Baxter Springs, KS she grew up outside of Detroit, bounced around a bit living in Chicago, San Francisco, Virginia and finally settling in New York City about 1960, first in Manhattan, then Park Slope and finally her well known home in Flatbush. She spent her final years in Frederick, MD to be closer to Karina & I.

She has loved science fiction & fantasy (as well as mysteries & regency romances) novels since the 50s and was an avid reader.

She was a talented artist, master seamstress and knitted the most amazing sweaters!

I could go on all.

One of her funny quotes from the other day after being annoyed by nurses prodding her was, “I am Perdita Ann Lilly Nelson Boardman and I am going to sleep”

Good night mom.

(11) LE GUIN AS CRITIC. Ursula K. Le Guin reviews “You Should Come With Me Now by M John Harrison – stories “for the uncommon reader” in The Guardian:

One of these brilliantly told stories, “The Walls”, begins: “A man, let’s call him D, is seen digging his way out through the wall of his cell. To help in this project, D has only the thinnest and least reliable tools: two dessert spoons (one stainless steel, one electro-plated nickel silver); half of a pair of curved nail scissors; some domestic knives lacking handles; and so on. The cell wall, constructed from grey, squarish cinder blocks about a foot on a side has been carelessly mortared and laid without much attention to detail. But this lack of artifice makes no difference; none of the knives is long enough to reach the last half inch of mortar at the back of each block, and the more D uses them the shorter they get. Each block must, eventually, be loosened and removed by hand, a task which can take several months, and which leaves him exhausted.”

A close attention to detail characterises this story and contributes much to its effectiveness, and yet, like the careless mortaring of the cinder blocks, it makes no difference in the end. Why and how does D have two dessert spoons? What does he live on during these months (which become years)? Who brings it to his cell? We have nothing with which to fill in unstated facts, as we’re used to doing when reading fiction, because the story is consistent only in pulling the carpet out from under its own feet. It is a play of imagination in a void. Its power is that of a dream, in this case a bad one, the kind that keeps repeating itself with variations in an endless loop of frustration.

This holds for all the stories collected in You Should Come With Me Now. Some of them are surrealistic, some are spoofs, some are fables; many are funny, all are inventive; none entirely escapes the loop….

(12) 25 WAYS TO RUB YOUR LAMP. A Yahoo! Movies piece, “Disney’s ‘Aladdin’: 25 magical fun facts for 25th anniversary”, has lots of trivia about Aladdin, including how Patrick Stewart nearly played Jafar but couldn’t get out of his Star Trek: The Next Generation commitments and how there is a hidden Aladdin reference in Hamilton.

  1. The animators crafted the Genie around Williams’s rapid-fire improv. Co-director Ron Musker said Williams did 25 takes for the movie’s first scene, “and they were all different.” The entertainer would stick to the script for the first few takes, “then he would riff.” Musker said Williams recorded 16 hours’ worth of material, forcing the creative team to piece the character together “like a ransom note.”

(13) COMICS SECTION.

  • Mike Kennedy quit groaning at the Tolkien pun long enough to send a link to today’s Brevity.

(14) HE’S DEAD ED. The Smithsonian covers nine theories about “The (Still) Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe” (2014 article.)

On September 27 [1849] —almost a week earlier—Poe had left Richmond, Virginia bound for Philadelphia to edit a collection of poems for Mrs. St. Leon Loud, a minor figure in American poetry at the time. When Walker found Poe in delirious disarray outside of the polling place, it was the first anyone had heard or seen of the poet since his departure from Richmond. Poe never made it to Philadelphia to attend to his editing business. Nor did he ever make it back to New York, where he had been living, to escort his aunt back to Richmond for his impending wedding. Poe was never to leave Baltimore, where he launched his career in the early 19th- century, again—and in the four days between Walker finding Poe outside the public house and Poe’s death on October 7, he never regained enough consciousness to explain how he had come to be found, in soiled clothes not his own, incoherent on the streets. Instead, Poe spent his final days wavering between fits of delirium, gripped by visual hallucinations. The night before his death, according to his attending physician Dr. John J. Moran, Poe repeatedly called out for “Reynolds”—a figure who, to this day, remains a mystery.

(15) MISSING FROM THE MARQUEE. The project loses some name cachet as “Adam Nimoy Steps Down From Directing Deep Space Nine Doc, Release Pushed Back” – story at TrekMovie.com.

On Saturday there were two announcements from What We Left Behind, the upcoming crowd-funded Star Trek: Deep Space Nine documentary.  Adam Nimoy, while remaining involved, will no longer be directing, and the release date  is likely being pushed back.

Nimoy stepping back

In a statement posted on Facebook Saturday, Adam Nimoy revealed he was stepping down as director for What We left Behind, but he will continue to be a producer and advisor on the doc. The reason given for the change was that he needed more time to focus on other responsibilities. From the statement:

“The real creative force behind the DS9 documentary was well in place before I came along. I was happy to lend them support and guidance to push the project along so that it could be completed in time for the 25th anniversary of the show which is coming up in 2018. I wish the creative team all good things as they Boldly Go!”

(16) WINDOW ON THE UNIVERSE. Motherboard’s article about the “Casting of a Giant Mirror for the First Extremely Large Telescope” has a good infographic comparing the relative sizes of all the existing large telescopes, as well.

(17) HARD SF. Down these mean starlanes a man must go…. A Twitter conversation begins here:

https://twitter.com/dongwon/status/934652689916477440

(18) COMPLETE HORSESHOE. Here’s another statistic I never knew anyone kept – the record for world’s largest horseshoe sculpture: “Camberley artist’s dragon ‘could obliterate’ world record”.

Mr Poolman’s sculpture is described as “not just a dragon but a tableau”, telling the story of a village bringing a dragon from the sky with arrows and stones.

“It’s partly collapsed,” Mr Powell said, “brought to the ground, in its death throes.”

Tens of thousands of old horseshoes were provided by farriers in Hampshire – some of them were used whole and others cut into smaller pieces.

“A complete horseshoe is quite limiting in what it can be made into,” Mr Poolman said.

(19) NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. Brandon Sanderson isn’t just on the list, he’s #1 —

(20) UNDER THE TREE. We continue our cavalcade of holiday presents with –

(21) MULTITASKING. It’s a Jedi thing: “Elle UK Interviews Daisy Ridley While She Builds A Lego Millennium Falcon”.

She’s talented and beautiful and she plays Luke Skywalker’s new padawan, Rey, in one of the most anticipated “Star Wars” films of all time, but now comes the true test: Can Daisy Ridley build the Millennium Falcon with Legos?

Elle UK interviewed the “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” actress, asking her things like when was the last time she cried, what color her lightsaber would be, and if her father still prefers “Star Trek” (ouch) ? all while she’s tasked with building the Millennium Falcon out of Legos.

(22) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Happiness by Steve Cutts is a cartoon on Vimeo about rats trying to survive the rat race as commuters, consumers, and at work. I’m having trouble getting it to embed, so here’s the link — https://vimeo.com/groups/motion/videos/244405542

[Thanks to JJ, John King Tarpinian, DMS, Carl Slaughter, Cat Eldridge, Martin Morse Wooster, Mark Blackman, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories, Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew.]

2016 BSFA Awards

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The winners of the BSFA 2016 Awards were announced April 15 at Innominate, the 68th Eastercon, in Birmingham, UK.

Best Novel

  • Dave Hutchinson – Europe in Winter (Solaris)

Best Short Fiction

  • Jaine Fenn – Liberty Bird (Now We Are Ten, NewCon Press)

Best Non-Fiction

Best Artwork

The BSFA Awards are presented annually by the British Science Fiction Association, based on a vote of BSFA members and – in recent years – members of the British national science fiction convention Eastercon.

BSFA winning artwork by Sarah Anne Langton