Pixel Scroll 2/13/24 If I Could Talk Through The Ansibles

(1) VENITA BLACKBURN Q&A. “How Venita Blackburn Wrote a Sci-Fi Novel About Sex, Grief, and Debt Collection” at Interview Magazine.

RITA BULLWINKEL: Black Jesus and Other Superheroes and How to Wrestle a Girl are two of my favorite books I’ve ever read. And Dead in Long Beach, California, I just gobbled it whole in one sitting. I really feel like it is a book of science fiction. How do you feel about that genre camp? 

BLACKBURN: I don’t think about genre like that, so I don’t approach any kind of work with one tone or angle as the goal. I have to have the voice that matters to me. But for this one, I did have this intention of doing this sort of high fantasy sci-fi, speculative kind of world that was tethered to our current modern world in a way. And as I kept going, I figured out, “Oh, the thing that’s nagging me, the thing that’s most hard to write is actually the part that’s closer to reality, and that’s the part I need to start investing more of my energy in.” That was a turning point during the early drafting stages, where I had to readjust the proportions and the vision and the scope. But I always knew it was going to be a little bit out of this world. Of course, the original title was “Lesbian Assassins at the End of the World,” so I was definitely going to reach far beyond what we know in this tangible universe. So that was fun to write, especially during the pandemic, when I was very disconnected from humanity. I wanted to be someplace safer, someplace where I understood everything, where I knew what was going to happen. So I started to get invested in that process and, apparently, that is a pretty cross-genre kind of way of looking at a story. 

(2) LIVE FROM 1965. James Davis Nicoll fed the Young People Read Old SFF panel James Schmitz’ “Balanced Ecology” from a 1965 issue of Analog, and one of the nominees for the first Nebula Awards (1966). What did they think? Well, they didn’t hate it.

(3) NESFA NEWS. The 2023-2024 winners of the NESFA Short Story Contest were announced at Boskone 61 last weekend:

  • Winners (tie): Dragana Matovic of Serbia for the story “Outside the Rain Was Relentlessly Falling” and Dr. Jennifer Grimes of Milford, MA for the story “The Simulation: Subject Ashe Klinn”.
  • Runner-up: Michael Barron of Parkville, MD for the story “The Last Time My Twin Destroyed the World”.
  • Honorable Mention: Jessica Li of Fremont, CA for the story “Wed the Sea Angels”.
  • Honorable Mention: Tyler Robinson of Dexter, MO for the story “Acid Memory Reflux”.

(4) STANDING BY. Hazel’s Picture Gallery, the massive archive of fanhistorical photos hosted by Chaz Boston Baden, isn’t around right now, for reasons he shared on Facebook last month.

It turns out my unlimited hosting account was not as unlimited as I’d thought. In particular, it’s “not intended to be used for data backup or archiving purposes.” And 20-plus years and a quarter-terabyte of photos is clearly an archive of my own.

So I’m learning how I can rebuild the Gallery within my hosting service’s rules. It’s going to be a process, but we’ll get there.

(5) DO YOU KNOW THE WAY TO OSCARLAND? “Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Jimmy Kimmel Spoof Barbie in Oscars Promo” in The Hollywood Reporter.

Jimmy Kimmel is ripping the Barbie parody band-aid a full month before the Oscars.

The Jimmy Kimmel Live! host dropped a five-minute short on Monday night, directed by JKL‘s Will Burke, hyping his March 10 gig emceeing the Academy Awards — re-creating many Barbie sets and reuniting four of its castmembers in a spoof that finds a hapless Kimmel trying to make his way to the Dolby Theatre. “Since the dawn of time, men have been getting lost,” says a voice-of-God Helen Mirren, spoofing her own narration of the Margot Robbie feature. “This is the story of one such dum-dum.”…

(6) THE MARVELS MINI-REVIEW. [Item by Daniel Dern.] The Marvels is now on Disney+ (as in, available to subscribers – we just watched it), and, I see, also on DVD/BluRay in libraries (having just checked my local library/network).

I liked this a lot. It was (IMHO) a fun, well-done ride throughout, with some unexpected scenes and bits.

Some brief possibly-helpful non-spoiler notes:

  • If you haven’t already watched the Ms. Marvel series (via Disney), it would help, I’m sure, so you know who (within the Marvel video universe) Ms Marvel is (there’s some powers differences vs the comics). And it’s a good show, well worth watching.
  • Captain Monica Rambeau’s story starts in WandaVision. I’m not sure watching WV for this is essential (they do one-line-summarize, which feels sufficient vis-a-vis the movie). IFTM (It Feels To Me)(and it’s implied/flashbacked) that some other of Rambeau’s character/backstory takes place in the Captain Marvel movie.

(One wonders what this movie might have been like if Rachel Brosnahan had been given that Cap M. role instead of Brie Larsen, yielding The Mazel-ous Ms Marvel 🙂 )

(7) NY FILM/TV TAX CREDIT CRITICIZED. “State-funded report says NY’s $700 million film tax credit is a bust” says Gothamist.

New York’s $700 million-a-year tax break for film and TV productions isn’t providing taxpayers with a good return on investment, according to a new analysis commissioned by the state itself….

…The state’s biggest industry-specific tax break belongs to the film industry, which gets $700 million a year to film or do post-production work in the Empire State. Hochul and legislative leaders are big supporters of the program, which has helped lure hundreds of productions over the years.

The tax break can be considerable. It covers up to 30% of a film’s qualified production costs, with another 10% available if productions are filmed in certain counties north of New York City. The credit is also refundable, meaning the state pays out the excess money if it exceeds a film production’s tax bill.

Last year, TV shows “Saturday Night Live,” “Blue Bloods,” “New Amsterdam” and “God Friended Me” all claimed the tax credit, totaling more than $20 million each, according to state records.

Beyond the lackluster return on investment, PFM’s report surmised that much of the filming that occurred in New York would have happened regardless of the tax credit….

(8) MEDICAL UPDATE. Nancy Collins shared news with followers of her GoFundMe about her recovery from a blood clot in one of her lungs: “What Doesn’t Kill Me Leaves Me With Medical Bills”. Donors have given $6,708 of the $10,000 goal as of today.

February 7th, 2024 by Nancy Collins, Organizer

I had to adjust my goal upward because I just found out how much my Eliquis prescription is costing me even *with* insurance. Holy cow. As it is, I’m having trouble getting it filled. The doctor sent my prescription to the Walgreens I use Monday evening. It’s Wednesday morning and it’s still not in stock. Apparently the “Starter Pack” isn’t kept in stock at any of the Walgreens–or most pharmacies, for that matter. My PCP is trying to get me samples to tide me over. Luckily, I feel okay and have enough energy to go buy compression socks.

I am deeply touched by the response so far. Y’all are good peoples.

Today by Nancy Collins, Organizer

I saw my PCP today, and she said my lungs sound good and warned me from taking NSAIDS until I’m off the blood thinners. She also set up an outpatient appointment with a Cancer Care Center for next month, to check that my clotting issues have been resolved. Also, this is the last day I take 4 Eliquis–tomorrow I step down to 2 a day for the next 3 weeks. And it’s also Mardi Gras!
Laissez les Bon Temps Roulez to all of you who have helped by donating or passing along the link!

(9) GARY SWATY OBITUARY. Arizona fan Gary Swaty has died. The CoCoCon announcement on Facebook covered his lifetime of fanac.  

He’s been attending science fiction conventions for half a century.

The first con he worked was IguanaCon II, the 1978 Worldcon, here in Phoenix.

He chaired HexaCon 16 and CopperCon 28 and has worked most committee positions at a host of others, especially LepreCons and CopperCons, but also multiple Westercons, World Horror, World Fantasy, Anizona, MythosCon and RandomCon. Most recently he sponsored filk GoHs at CoKoCon.

Gary loved to read poetry on panels at various conventions. He was also a gaming fan and could be found at most of the local gaming conventions.

He was the editor’s assistant for years on ConNotations.

He’s served on the boards of LepreCon, Inc., CASFS and WesternSFA and still held positions on all three when he passed.

He was honoured at LepreCon 42, who made him their Fan GoH.

Perhaps most of all, he’s known for his association with filk, especially through the Phoenix Filk Circle, which he ran for many years.

Bruce D. Arthurs adds, “Hilde and I have known Gary for years, and always tried to catch up with each other at local conventions. One more face that will be missed.”

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born February 13, 1929 Carol Serling, (Died 2020.) I try here to write Birthdays that I’ve not done before which is how I come to be celebrating Carol Serling, wife of Rod Serling.

She was, as all her family and friends will tell you, the faithful defender and steward of his work. She was born Carolyn Louise Kramer and she married him in 1948; they were married just twenty-seven years until his heart simply didn’t survive open heart surgery at age fifty. 

Upon his death, she became rather active in preserving his legacy. She would become editor and television producer for many of The Twilight Zone-related enterprises including the third iteration of The Twilight Zone series in which she was an executive producer for the first twenty episodes.

She has but one acting credit, in Twilight Zone: The Movie’s “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” segment, as a passenger. She was a key consultant for this film. 

She was the executive producer on Twilight Zone: Rod Serling’s Lost Classics, a two-story film.  Ms. Serling found these two unproduced stories by her husband in a trunk at her home. 

She donated many of his television scripts and movie screenplays to Ithaca College where her husband had taught courses in creative writing and film and television criticism. The gifts helped the college establish its Rod Serling Archives.

Now we come to her print publications. 

She edited five Twilight Zone anthologies (Journeys to the Twilight ZoneReturn to the Twilight ZoneAdventures in the Twilight ZoneTwilight Zone: 19 Original Stories on the 50th Anniversary and More Stories from the Twilight Zone), plus the Rod Serling’s Night Gallery Reader with Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh. 

With David Brode, she wrote Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone: The 50th Anniversary Tribute

I know that she was responsible for Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine by licensing the name to Montcalm Publishing. She would be the associate publisher and consulting editor there. 

Carol told her daughters that she would like this poem to be read at the time of her death…

Mary Elizabeth Frye’s “Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep”

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I do not die.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

  • Tom Gauld’s strategy to save libraries.

(12) PYTHON KERFUFFLE. “John Cleese Responds To Eric Idle: ‘We Always Loathed Each Other’”Deadline recaps the brawl from X.com:

John Cleese is making it clear that he – and a few other Pythons – are in complete disagreement with long-ago co-star Eric Idle, who last weekend slammed manager (and daughter of Python co-founder Terry Gilliam) Holly Gilliam for what Idle suggested were the troupe’s dwindling finances.

“We own everything we ever made in Python and I never dreamed that at this age the income streams would tail off so disastrously,” Idle posted on X/Twitter Saturday. “But I guess if you put a Gilliam child in as your manager you should not be so surprised. One Gilliam is bad enough. Two can take out any company.”

Cleese left no doubt where he stands on the matter.

“I have worked with Holly for the last ten years,” the Fawlty Towers creator tweeted today, “and I find her very efficient, clear-minded, hard-working, and pleasant to have dealings with.”

Cleese continued, “Michael Palin has asked me to to make it clear that he shares this opinion. Terry Gilliam is also in agreement with this.”

Apparently there’s no love lost between Cleese and Idle, with the latter responding, when asked by an X follower if the two remain close, “I haven’t seen Cleese for seven years.” When another follower replied saying that made him sad, Idle responded, “Why. It makes me happy.”

Today, Cleese responded with an assessment so blunt some followers wondered if it was all a gag: “We always loathed and despised each other, but it’s only recently that the truth has begun to emerge.”

(13) PRIME CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT. “Amazon Prime Video Slapped With Class Action Lawsuit Over Introduction of Ads” reports Cord Cutters News.

Some Amazon Prime customer were angry enough at Prime Video’s introduction of ads that decided to take legal action.

The retail giant is facing a proposed class action lawsuit filed on Friday that alleges it breached its terms of service and misled customers by introducing ads into Prime Video service and then requiring users to pay $2.99 to get rid of them. The Hollywood Reporter first spotted the lawsuit, and posted a copy of the lawsuit on its site.

Amazon turned on the ads to its Prime Video service after telegraphing the move a few months earlier. Executives said the ads would allow Amazon to continue investing in content without having to raise the price of the service. Unlike other subscription streaming services, Prime Video is a feature tied to the online retail company’s Prime service, so raising prices could’ve meant charging people who don’t even use the service a higher rate.

But beyond the introduction of ads, the new standard service also dials back sound and picture quality….

(14) DON’T POOH IN YOUR PANTS, BUT HE’S BACK… [Item by Mike Kennedy.] …and he brought along a new friend. “Tigger arrives in ‘Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2’ trailer” reports Entertainment Weekly.

A couple of years back, British filmmaker Rhys Frake-Waterfield learned that the 1926 book Winnie-the-Pooh — which introduced the characters Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, and Christopher Robin — was about to fall into the public domain and decided to direct a horror film featuring the quartet. The low-budget result, Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honeybecame a viral sensation after stills from the film hit the internet in May 2022.

At the time he was making the film, Frake-Waterfield was unable to feature the character of Tigger, who first appeared in 1928’s The House at Pooh Corner and had not yet bounced into the public domain. Pooh’s tiger buddy does, however, feature in the director’s sequel, Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2, as you can see in the frightening first-look images of the horror franchise’s version of Tigger.

In the film, Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet, Owl, and Tigger find their woodland home and their lives endangered after Christopher Robin reveals their existence. Not wanting to live in the shadows any longer, the group decides to take the fight to the town of Ashdown, leaving a bloody trail of death and mayhem in their wake….

(15) READER, I CLICKED. “Dinosaur Evergreens Thought Extinct for 2Mil Years Discovered by Park Ranger–the Grove is the ‘Find of the Century’” at the GoodNewsNetwork.

From Australia comes a story too cool to believe. Like a vegetable version of Jurassic Park or King Kong, a copse of pine trees from a species that evolved in the Cretaceous Era were found high in the mountains.

These living fossils, to use the classic phrase, survived both the comet impact and subsequent global firestorm that killed the dinosaurs, as well as two intervening ice ages to make it to our time, and Australian botanists are treating the specimens as a top-secret national treasure.

The Wollemi pine evolved 91 million years ago and went extinct according to the fossil record 2 million years ago, but in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, a stand of 90 specimens were found high in the more remote peaks in 1994.

For the past three decades, and in extreme secrecy, a team of specialists from the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) of Australia has been gradually planting small clumps of the Wollemi pine in other locations to help ensure it has every chance to see another 91 million years.

It helps the story that the Wollemi doesn’t look much like any pine tree you’ve seen in the woods by your house. Sporting Granny Smith apple-green foliage that grows in a pattern similar to a fern, it has a covering of bark reminiscent of Coco-puffs….

(16) GORT REPORT. Dan Monroe at Media Master Design tracks down “What Happened to GORT from The Day The Earth Stood Still?”

(17) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Ryan George takes us inside the Argylle Pitch Meeting”.

Matthew Vaughn really made a name for himself with the ultra-stylized action movie Kingsman: The Secret Service in 2014. Now he’s bringing us Argylle, with an absolutely stacked cast of actors who are sometimes in it! Argyle definitely raises some questions. Like why was Henry Cavill presented as the star of this movie when he’s in it for just a few minutes? How many twists is too many twists? What does The Division even do? Why did they let her publicly share their secrets for half a decade? What’s that cat doing here?

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Daniel Dern, Steven Lee, Rich Lynch, Bruce D. Arthurs, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Steven French for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 5/28/17 No File For You Till You Scroll All Your Pixels

(1) THANKED AND EXCUSED. Mattie Brahan, in a non-public post, said her husband, Darrell Schweitzer, was told he won’t be needed as a Readercon 28 program participant –a piece of news Barry Longyear exaggerated in his public post as “banning”.

Readercon has been banning (“disinviting”) former guests from being guests, Darrell Schweitzer being the most recent about whom I’ve heard. I originally thought it was for political reasons (I was part of the Northern Maine Rebellion), but apparently the reason was age, experience, having been around for too long. It’s sort of like having an AA meeting and forbidding the attendance of anyone who has more than one year of sobriety….

Is it really because Schweitzer is too old? There are any number of men and women listed as part of the forthcoming Readercon program who are not young.

(2) THE FOREVER QUEUE. Io9 reports yesterday at Disneyland “Lines Snaked Through Entire Park for Disney’s Guardians of the Galaxy Ride Debut”.

Looks like the hype was real. Disney’s ride for Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy — Mission: Breakout! opened at Disney’s California Adventure on Saturday… and the effects could literally be felt everywhere in the park.

The Pandora section of Disney’s Animal Kingdom also opened in Florida over the weekend. It took fans about two hours just to get into the Pandora park, and ride lines were averaging about three to four hours for rides. Hell, some people reporting three-hour lines to get into the damn gift shops. Insane amount of standing and slowly walking aside, fans seemed happy with both Mission: Breakout! and Pandora.

(3) OPEN CASTING. Yes, this needs to happen. Emily Asher-Perrin and Leah Schnelbach team up to answer “Who Could Play This Merry Fellow? Dreamcasting Tom Bombadil” at Tor.com.

Emily pointed out that there should have been a DVD extra of Bombadil material, and then, naturally, that led to a dreamcasting of Bombadil. We gave ourselves a few restrictions–these had to be people who would have fit the role in 1999-ish, when they would have been hired for The Fellowship of the Ring, and all of the actors have been cast on the assumption that supermodel Claudia Schiffer is playing Goldberry…

(4) NEGATORY, GOOD BUDDY. As for my own attempt to cast the next Doctor Who — “Would Hayley Atwell Take The Role Of Doctor Who? Here’s What She Says”.

Hayley Atwell is frequent on fan’s most wanted lists, and while Atwell would likely kill it in the role, what does she actually think of all this? She wants that particular role to go to someone else.

I don’t want to play it. No. It’s just not my thing, but I really respect it. I’m a big fan of Phoebe Waller-Bridge, though. She plays the lead in Fleabag. There were talks of her being the next Doctor, and she’s so funny and eccentric and unique; she’d be great. I can’t really see anyone other than her playing it.

Appearing at Heroes and Villains Fanfest in London (via Geekfeed), Hayley Atwell made it quite clear that she doesn’t want to be the next Doctor.

(5) WHAT YOU MISSED. Chaz Boston Baden reports on his party at this weekend’s BayCon:

“A Bear’s Picnic” closed at 3:30 am, when the last four people left. As far as I know, no noise complaints were received about out party, even when Diane Osborne started singing about her rooster being dead….

Curious as to what song that might be I Googled “lyrics dead rooster” –you’d be surprised how many songs feature them.

(6) BODY WORK. Camestros Felapton went to the movies. He has posted the autopsy —“Review: Alien Covenant”.

…Covenant and its predecessor Prometheus are both variations on the theme of the original Alien. The same elements have to appear (some of which are shared with Aliens films), the horseshoe ship and the undiscovered planet and the body horror. The tone is serious and visuals are striking.

Covenant’s cast is sufficiently good and the dialogue strong enough that while the characterisation is not deep there is at least a sense of these people having some depth of character –it’s just that we don’t get to see it before they variously die horribly. Looking back at the original film, I suppose the same could have been said of it –even Ripley….

(7) FAN FILM. The Verge says “This Harry Potter prequel fan film looks even better than Fantastic Beasts” –and they’re right, it’s pretty slick.

The story follows a witch named Grisha Mac Laggen (heir to Griffindor and original character to this film), who suspects trouble when Hepzibah Smith, a descendant of the Hufflepuff family, was found murdered. The case goes cold, but Laggen suspects that there’s some sort of dark magic at play, and she believes that former Hogwarts student and future dark wizard Tom Marvolo Riddle is involved somehow. Visually, the teaser looks stunning, with visual effects and production design that feel like they fit alongside that of the official Harry Potter films.

 

(8) TODAY IN HISTORY

(9) A BIT OF FAME. Contributor Francis Hamit’s letter to the editors of TIME Magazine got a mention:

May 25, 2017

HACKING U.S. DEMOCRACY

Massimo Calabresi’s May 29 story about Russia’s use of social media to influence Americans was a reminder to be “wary of the source of that liked/upvoted social post,” wrote Sanjeev Verma of Sunnyvale, Calif. However, as Francis Hamit of Sherman Oaks, Calif., pointed out, foreign attempts to sway American politics aren’t necessarily new. “It’s just that we are finally paying attention,” he noted.

Hamit adds, “What TIME used was the tag line of a longer letter about Soviet €˜active measures’ during the Vietnam War.”

(10) SHAZAM. Adweek tells about a recent public service campaign: “Shazam Suddenly Started Forgetting Song Titles to Highlight a Little-Known Fact About Alzheimer’s”.

We’re naturally inclined to attribute human characteristics to the apps that continuously follow us around, which is part of why Siri is so amusing and Alexa so charmingly useful. But for Alzheimer’s Research U.K., agency Innocean Worldwide U.K. brought a horribly human attribute to Shazam–the ability to forget…

 

The purpose of the campaign was to tell young people that Alzheimer’s disease doesn’t just concern seniors; it can affect people as young as 40 years old. Over 40,000 people under 65 are living with dementia in the U.K. alone.

The effort ran through the month of April in the U.K. In mere hours, the agency says, “The Day Shazam Forgot” yielded 2,018,206 impressions, with 5,096 visitors visiting the Alzheimer’s Research U.K. donation page. (Hopefully they remembered their credit card information.)

(11) HUGO SHORTS. Camestros Felapton continues sharing his ballot, and the reasons therefore: “Hugo 2017: Short Story”.

  1. “Seasons of Glass and Iron” Amal El-Mohtar It had a tough job against strong competition but I do think this one stood out. The story takes two elements from lesser-known fairy tales: a woman who has to live on top of a glass mountain and a woman who has to walk the earth in iron shoes until their soles are worn away. El-Mohtar captures the atmosphere of the stories but also turns them to her own purposes.

(12) HUGO LONGS. Ethan Anderton’s Twitter robots made me look, but it was later pointed out to me that the material had been thieved from Mark Kaedrin, so here’s the direct link to Mark — “Hugo Awards: The Dark Forest and Death’s End”.

Those ideas that evoke the fabled SF goal of Sense of Wonder are what make these books work. The more sociological and philosophical aspects of the story are a little less focused and successful, leading to some inconsistency in terms of characters and pacing that perhaps make the series too long and pull the books down a peg or two. I suspect some things are lost in translation here, but this is not meant as a slight on Ken Liu (who translated the first and third books in the series), just an acknowledgement that translations naturally produce, for example, awkward dialog and pacing. I’ll put this on me too, as reading a book from another culture always presents challenges that I’ll readily admit I’m not always equal to. However, most of my complaints are far outweighed by what this series gets right, and this will rank high on my Hugo ballot, though I don’t know that it will unseat my current frontrunner (which remains Ninefox Gambit).

(13) THE DAMN DOGS DON’T LIKE IT. WIRED ponders “Why Are Colleges So Hostile to Fantasy Writers?”

For decades aspiring fantasy writers have been subjected to dismissive behavior from college professors who disparage genre literature, even though such professors often admit they’ve never actually read any fantasy or science fiction. This sort of hostility is unfortunately alive and well today, as college freshman Alina Sichevaya can attest.

“I’d heard everyone else’s horror stories, because occasionally this comes up on Twitter, and people will talk about their college experience,” Sichevaya says in Episode 257 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “But I definitely wasn’t expecting such a strong response from my professor about genre fiction.”

Sichevaya says she attempted to defend fantasy, and to recommend high-quality examples to her professor, but she’s not optimistic it’ll do much good.

(14) HOW TO LOSE THE SALE. Stay away from these if you want to sell to Dave — “Dave Farland’s 10 Points to Avoid in Writing Short Fiction” at Writers of the Future.

…Seriously, though, I sometimes wish that I could explain to a young writer why I’m passing on a story. So I’m going to talk about it here.

Here are ten reasons why I reject stories quickly–usually within the first page:

  1. The story is unintelligible.Very often I’ll get submissions that just don’t make sense. Often, these seem to be non-English speakers who are way off in both the meaning of words, their context, or in their syntax, but more often it’s just clumsiness. I’ve seen college presidents who couldn’t write. But this lack of care is on a gradient scale, from “I can’t figure out what this is about” to “I don’t want to bother trying to figure this out” to “there are minor problems in this story.” For example, yesterday a promising story called a dungeon the “tombs.” Was it a mistake, or a metaphor? I don’t think it was a metaphor. The author had made too many other errors where the “almost correct” word was used.
  2. The story is unbelievable. “Johnny Verve was the smartest kid on earth, and he was only six. He was strongest one, and the most handsome, too. But the coolest part was when he found out he had magical powers!” At that point, I’m gone, and not just because there were four uses of “was” in three sentences…

(15) TROLLING. Squawks over women-only screenings of Wonder Woman in Texas.

Now unimpressed men are lambasting the idea on Facebook, claiming they are being discriminated against.

“Great, let us know when you have guys-only screenings of Thor, Spider-Man, Star Wars, etc. Let’s see you walk the walk now that you set this precedence [sic],” one man wrote.

“Very sorry if you feel excluded,” came the reply on the [Alamo DraftHouse] cinema’s official account.

(16) ALL WOUND UP. Picture of cyclones on Jupiter’s south pole: “Juno Spacecraft Reveals Spectacular Cyclones At Jupiter’s Poles”.

NASA’s Juno spacecraft has spotted giant cyclones swirling at Jupiter’s north and south poles.

That’s just one of the unexpected and puzzling findings being reported by the Juno science team.

Juno arrived at Jupiter last summer. It’s the first spacecraft to get a close-up look at the planet’s poles. It’s in an orbit that takes it skimming close to the cloud tops of the gas giant once every 53 days.

(17) HOW TO TALK TO FILM CRITICS AT MOVIES. The BBC trashes the movie of Gaiman’s “How to Talk to Girls at Parties”: “This is one of the worst films ever made”.

It may seem harsh to say that How to Talk to Girls at Parties is one of the worst films ever made, given that it isn’t a cynical studio blockbuster, but an indie passion project with a budget that wouldn’t pay for the Botox on most Hollywood productions. But this shambolic punks-meet-aliens rom-com is directed by John Cameron Mitchell, the acclaimed auteur behind Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It’s also adapted from a short story by Neil Gaiman, it has costumes by the triple-Oscar-winning Sandy Powell, and it features Nicole Kidman and Elle Fanning. If nothing else, then, it should seem vaguely professional. Instead, it’s like a shoddy school play put on by a drama teacher who thinks he’s cool for liking the Sex Pistols.

(18) MONSTROUS HIT. Carl Slaughter notes: “The Munsters wasn’t just a horror sitcom. It was a cultural phenomenon. After only 2 seasons and 70 episodes, it was buried by another cultural phenomenon: Batman.”

[Thanks to Mark-kitteh, Mark Kaedrin, Chip Hitchcock, Francis Hamit, Carl Slaughter, Cat Eldridge, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kip W.]

Pixel Scroll 11/9/16 The Pixel Was Already Scrolling When I Lay Down On It

(1) SPIDERY MARKS. Kameron Hurley’s contribution to sanity today is this excerpt from the epilogue to The Geek Feminist Revolution.

…I have no children, and no legacy but my work— and you.

I have the power to reach back to you long after I am dead, through these spidery marks on paper or pixels, and remind you that you have a voice, you have agency, and your voice is stronger and more powerful than you could ever imagine, and long after I am gone, you can pick up this beer beside me and carry on the work we are doing now, the work we have always been doing, the work we will always do, until the world looks the way we imagine it can be.

I am a grim optimist, and this is my hope for you: that you will be louder than me, and stronger than me, and more powerful than me, and that you will look back at me as a relic, a dinosaur, as the minor villain in your own story, the rock you pushed against in your own flight to fame, to notoriety, to revolution.

That is my wish for you.

(2) SCIENCE FICTION IS A POSITIVE FORCE. Patrick Nielsen Hayden talks about “The Prospect Before Us”.

This morning, at 9:30, saw a long-planned major meeting at Tor, not quite all hands but definitely the majority of our staff plus various Macmillan-level sales and marketing managers.

It could have been better timed, obviously.

I took the opportunity to make some remarks. Here’s what I said:

Last night, I found myself very grateful that I work in science fiction.

Science fiction came into being in response to a new thing in human history: the understanding that not only was the world changing, but also that the rate of change was speeding up. That in a normal lifetime, you could expect to experience multiple episodes of rapid, disorienting change. Science fiction at its best has always been about examining and inhabiting those experiences when the world passes through a one-way door.

Modern science fiction grew up in the Great Depression and flourished in World War II. It thrived in the strangeness of the 1950s and the different strangeness of the 1960s. It has continued to be an essential set of tools for engaging with our careening world.

I don’t want to argue that reading science fiction makes us smarter or morally better. (I personally believe that, but I don’t want to argue it.) But I do believe that good storytelling is a positive force in the world. And I really do believe that science fiction and fantasy storytelling makes us, in some fundamental way, a bit more practiced in the ways of a world caught up in wrenching change—and more open to imagining better worlds that might be possible.

Bottom line: I’ve never been more convinced of the need for more good science fiction and fantasy, and I’ve never been more fired up to find it and publish it, hopefully with the help of everyone in this room. Thank you.

(3) EXPERIENCED VOICE. Here’s what George Takei has to say:

(4) 124C41+. John Scalzi didn’t predict the election, but he now predicts this outcome: “Early Morning Thoughts on the Day After”.

  1. It will be no surprise to anyone I’m unhappy with the result of this election. Donald Trump was manifestly the worst presidential candidate in living memory, an ignorant, sex-assaulting vindictive bigot, enamored of strongmen and contemptuous of the law, consorting with white nationalists and hucksters — and now he’s president-elect, which is appalling and very sad for the nation. I don’t see much good coming out of this, either in the immediate or long-term, not in the least because if he does any of the things he promises to do, his impact will be ruinous to the nation. Add to the fact that he’s the GOP candidate, and the GOP now will have the White House, Congress and will appoint the next Supreme Court justice, and, well. There aren’t any grownups in the GOP anymore, and we’re going to find out what that means for all of us.

Here are some of the things it could mean: A conservative Supreme Court for decades, backtracking on climate change, the repeal of Roe v. Wade, curtailment of free speech, loss of medical insurance to millions, tax policy that advantages the wealthy and adds trillions to the national debt, punitive racial policies, the return of torture as a part of the military toolbox, and a president who uses the apparatus of the US to go after his personal enemies. And these are only the things Trump has said he’s ready to do — we don’t know what else he will do when he’s literally the most powerful man on the planet, with a compliant legislature and judiciary.

(5) WHICH CANCER WOULD YOU LIKE? Larry Correia says he predicted cancer would win and that his prediction was correct.

As somebody who didn’t really have a horse in this race, who had to come to terms with not getting what I wanted months ago, I’ve got some comments for the rest of you. (for the record my primary vote was for Ham Sandwich, only All-You-Can-Eat-Shrimp/Colon Cancer supporters declared that was actually Canadian Bacon because they didn’t understand how the Naturalization Acts work, and his dad killed JFK)

I’m not happy Trump won, but I’m ecstatic that Hillary lost.

From what I heard this morning (haven’t looked to confirm yet, and woke up late) Trump got fewer votes than Romney, but Hillary got WAY less votes than Obama. So people decided they wanted colon cancer instead of brain cancer, but I don’t think very many of us were super enthusiastic about either. They just wanted the other crappy one to lose.

This election turned into “My authoritarian New Yorker is better than yours!” And shockingly enough, a authoritarian New Yorker won. Yay! Go cancer! I did not see a Trump victory coming (apparently, neither did any of the professional pollsters). It is a testament to the sheer, banal, corrupt, unlikable nature of Hillary that she couldn’t beat the guy they picked as the most beatable.

(6) PREDICTION FAILURES. Vox Day has written a series of triumphalist posts about Trump’s win. This one is a roundup about inaccurate polling, which people on both sides are pondering — “The hoax media”.

This is why you simply cannot believe anything they say. The final polls and estimates prior to the election.

The New York Times: 80 percent chance of Clinton victory

Huffington Post: 98.1 percent chance of Clinton victory

Nate Silver/538: 72 percent chance of Clinton victory (323 electoral votes)

Bing.com: 89.7 percent chance of Clinton victory

NBC/SM: Clinton +6

IPSOS: Clinton +4

Fox News: Clinton +4

NBC/WSJ: Clinton +4

ABC/WashPost: Clinton +4

Herald: Clinton +4

Bloomberg: Clinton +3

But this is what demonstrates how SHAMELESSLY dishonest they are: Donald Trump has been elected president of the United States. In an extremely narrow sense, I’m not that surprised by the outcome, since polling — to a greater extent than the conventional wisdom acknowledged — had shown a fairly competitive race with critical weaknesses for Clinton in the Electoral College. It’s possible, perhaps even likely, that Clinton will eventually win the popular vote as more votes come in from California. – Nate Silver Oh, shut up, Nate. You were wrong. You were wrong from the start. You were wrong about the primaries. You were wrong about the election. No one should put any faith in your erroneous models ever again. Keep in mind that Silver not only called a 72 percent chance of a Clinton victory, but actually INCREASED it from 65 percent on the day of the election. This isn’t “statistical science”; it’s not even “statistical analysis”. It is nothing more than postmortem media CYA.

(7) DON’T BOTHER, THEY’RE HERE. George R. R. Martin is not in a mood to unify the country today: “President Pussygrabber”.

Over the next four years, our problems are going to get much, much worse.

Winter is coming. I told you so.

(8) SEEING WHAT THEY EXPECT. Nancy Kress broke her usual silence on things political:

Many people will see this election through whatever lens they interpret the world. Those most concerned with misogyny will say that Clinton lost because she’s a woman. Those focusing on race will say Trump won because he’s a racist. Those for whom guns are a major concern will view Trump as their champion, Clinton as their enemy. Etc. These things may or may not be true, but I think it’s important to see Trump’s win as the complex thing it is. Even if he is misogynist, racist, vulgar, insensitive, and pro-gun (and please don’t give me your impassioned arguments on either side–I’ve heard them already), not all of those who voted for him are those things. Over half the country chose this man for president, and many are fundamentally decent people who don’t want to deport undocumented immigrants, ban Muslims, or even repeal Roe v. Wade. We on the left lost this election because something important is going on out there in the heartland, something involving feelings of exclusion and lost jobs and profound distrust of Washington, and we on the left did not realize how deep that feeling went. We were not paying sufficient attention, which is why the commentators all looked so stunned last night when the results came in. I am not moving to Canada, or Ireland, or anywhere else. This is my country. But it is Trump-supporters’ country, too, and we all need to find some way to work together. No, this is not a “can’t-we-just-get-along’ sentimental plea. It’s a statement that we had better all figure out how to not only get along, but get done the things that need doing, and without scapegoating–not Trump voters, not Muslims, not undocumented immigrants. If we don’t, then the next four years will be hell.

(9) HARI HARI. I guess you could think of it that way…

(10) DOOM. Charles Stross has this and a lot more to say in his own post carrying that popular title “The Day After”.

Trump will have to be painfully educated that the office of POTUS is not a CEO’s desk where he can rule by decree, but the head of a 400-person executive team who interact with other agencies and negotiate to get results. The hairpiece that walks like a man won’t like that. In fact, he’ll sulk, and probably retire to his golf course and leave running the USA to Vice President Pence, a man who seems to think that The Handmaid’s Tale was a road map rather than a dystopia, and the likes of Rudy Giuliani (about whom the less said, the better). It’ll be four years of the ugly old white male phobes running the federal government, and only the huge inertia built into the system of checks and balances will prevent it from being a total fright-fest as opposed to a major throwback fright-fest. In the mid-terms of 2018 the Democrats will pick up votes and hopefully re-take the Senate, which will put a brake on Trump … and in 2020, who knows?

But this may not happen, because the airliner of reality which we all ride in has flown straight into a flock of migrating black swans, both engines have flamed out, and that’s not the Hudson River down below. (Also? We now have Donald Trump at the controls.)

I’m calling it for the next global financial crisis to hit before the 2018 mid-terms. Neither Trump nor Pence are far-sighted enough to realize that the USA is not a corporation and can’t be run like one, and that on the macro scale economics is difficult and different from anything they have any experience of. They will, to put it bluntly, screw the pooch—aided by the gibbering chorus of Brexiteers across the pond, who are desperately trying to ensure that the British economy and banking sector commit seppuku in the name of limiting immigration. We’ve already seen Sterling crash, and continue to crash; what happens when the Dollar joins it? Quantitative easing can only stretch so far before we break out in hyperinflation due to basic commodities getting scarce (as witness the 5-20% food price inflation working its way through the UK’s supply chain in defiance of the structural deflationary regime enforced by the supermarkets for the past two decades).

(11) A VOTE AGAINST. David Gerrold has posted a double-handful of responses to the election at Facebook; here’s one.

I feel betrayed.

I used to believe in the good sense and collective wisdom of the American people.

I can’t do that anymore.

A majority of American voters have just declared that they do not care about the rights of Muslims, immigrants, Latinos, LGBT people, women, seniors, the disabled, and so many others. A majority of Americans voted against common human kindness.

I feel betrayed — but if there is a betrayal, it has to be my own, for believing that we were a nation of compassionate and thoughtful people. Apparently, we are not.

… If we truly believe in this thing called “The United States of America” — if we truly believe in the essential strength of our Constitutional processes, then we have no choice but to get to work.

I don’t know what we have to do or how we will have to do it. I do know that we will be facing dire political circumstances. Ahead of us is a decade of frustrating hard work. …

(12) STAY AND FIGHT. Gardner Dozois isn’t leaving the country—but then, who is, really?

Let me make one thing clear, though. I see a lot of my Friends on Facebook talking seriously, more seriously than the half-joking way this is usually mentioned, of moving to Canada. I’m not moving to Canada. This is my country, and I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to stay here and fight, and do anything that I possibly can, even if it’s only to encourage others, to stay right here and work as hard as possible to make things as much better as we can.

For those of you who supported Hillary, or at least DIDN’T support Trump–which, after all, included very nearly half of the people in the country–don’t give into despair. Don’t give up. The fight is far from over, and there are many things on all levels that can still be done. One possibility is that, in one of the great historical ironies, the Democrats and the Republicans may end up switching roles, with the Democrats becoming the “obstructionists” in Congress and trying to keep the Republicans from undoing as much as possible of the gains set in place for the last eight years;…

(13) COMEDY TONIGHT. Meanwhile, back at the bookstore… Gary K. Wolfe reviews Connie Willis’s new novel Crosstalk for Locus Online.

So while the characters and their relationships follow a familiar rom-com pattern, there’s also a fair amount of acerbic commentary on a society already overwired and overconnected, but which seems to want to get even more overwired and overconnected. The two SF elements crucial to this commentary, and in fact the only real SF elements in the book, are a new minor brain procedure called EED, which purportedly allows a couple already emotionally bonded to become super-empathetic with each other – and telepathy.

(14) WIL BADEN OBIT. Condolences to Chaz Boston Baden on the loss of his father,  Wil Baden (1928-2016) who died today. Chaz wrote a long post about his life:

This is the man who, as a boy, lived in Hollywood and was an extra in a crowd scene in an “Our Gang” episode about a birthday party.

This is the man whose father took him to the World Science Fiction Convention, in 1939.

He took the bus to visit John W. Campbell Jr. at Astounding Science Fiction magazine’s offices. While at Princeton University, he had tea with Albert Einstein. (Which wasn’t unusual at the time, all the incoming freshmen did.)

He was always good with languages. One day, a man from the government asked the head of the languages department if he could be introduced to the students who were especially good with the following languages? Which is how he ended up spending a summer translating Russian mathematics papers.

(15) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY

  • Born November 9, 1951 — Lou Ferrigno (TV’s Incredible Hulk).

(16) PRO TIPS. SFWA’s Nebula Suggested Reading List is growing as the year winds down.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kip W.]

Hertz: Backwards Ran Westercon Until Reeled the Mind

By John Hertz: Westercon LXV “Conclusion” may have been named for the Mayan calendar, or things too fierce to mention, but anyhow it ran backwards. The Dead Dog party (until the last dog is – ) was on Wednesday night. Closing Ceremonies, Thursday. Opening Ceremonies, Sunday. What we had Sunday night must have been a Live Dog party.

For me the starburst was Elizabeth Berrien. Once her wonderful wire sculpture was everywhere in our community. Then we lost touch. Now the Art Show had her work, in every shape and size. In the interim she’s won awards round the world. The electronic can visit her Website <www.wirelady.com>.

Chaz Baden said “Instead of a speech I’m giving a Guest of Honor party,” attended by Bozelee, Hobb, two Wus. The walls were covered with aloha shirts and attempts to answer “Who is Chaz Baden?” One photo showed him with a bear.

Friday morning there was James Daugherty. He said “I thought this was where I needed to be.” The Lonestarcon III table had Rainier cherries. At Regency Dancing a woman said “I always come to watch you teach.” All weekend the Hospitality Suite was very generous.

I led the Canticle for Leibowitz talk alone. Was Lazarus, if that’s who he was, a fantasy element? From the audience: “religious artifact” is our default. What did the barbarian warriors do for the story? I said, this book is knowledge fiction. Berrien, as ever, had wire in hand.

The Tonopah Westercon leaked through the time walls. Kuma Bear gave its party on Friday night. I had brought whole-wheat Goldfish for his birthday. Gaming, 2:30 a.m.; a man seeing a badge I wore said “Trantorcon in 23,309! I love it!”

Saturday afternoon I moderated “The Redoubtable Woman”, iMage, Pierce Ludke who had some fine pictures in the Art Show, Melissa Quinn. From the audience: Susan Ivanova in Babylon 5 is competent and vulnerable. I said Chic Young’s Blondie, who began as a flapper, became the keel of the family, her physical beauty carefully shown and irrelevant.

Jon Rogers, who was in the Art Show with some Buck Rogers – in the Green Room he’d told of getting a license – joined me for Double Star. He’d done the math; a ship from Earth accelerating at two gravities would indeed reach Mars in two days. How vital that Lorenzo really had greatness. How well Heinlein managed the telling detail.

The Wus and I judged the Masquerade, Betty Bigelow the Workmanship Judge. We gave Best Master to “Will o’ the Wisp” (Original; Melissa Nichols; Workmanship Award for Most Creative Use of Materials), its walk truly spooky, its eyes alight. “Prince Zuko” (Master; Re-Creation) won Best Choreography in Class (Torrey Stenmark; Workmanship Award for Best Make-Up) shooting silk streamers for the original’s fire.

Randy Byers tended bar at the London for ’14 Worldcon bid party, with its strange Underground signs, and the Westercon LXVI come-’n’-get-it party with Roche & Trembley’s drink-mixing Thinbot stealing the show. Amy Thomson & Edd Vick gave DUFF a tile from their house, with a color Atom drawing, for the next auction. Tom Whitmore was one of my hall-costume judges. The Other Karen Anderson chatted thoughtfully about dance. I missed Ulrika O’Brien but we talked by phone later.

Sunday, Flatland with Jerry Kaufman. Abbott, as a clergyman, must have intended the analogy between prophecy and the Sphere, and as a grammarian, the pun that the most acute Triangles were the most dull. Kaufman said, right after the Square explains Flatland women have no intelligence his wife speaks up intelligently. I said, how neatly made it all is.

I traded Jon Gustafson stories with Jackie Nilsson, Kelly Freas stories with David Ratti. Mah Jongg, Chinese-style as Gary Louie once found, duly emerged. On my way to the airport I met a man reading Frankenstein. He said “She’s so poetic, so insightful.”