Tag Archives: Chris Barkley

Pixel Scroll 7/26/23 Scrolls Guaranteed To Get Filers Commenting, Or Double Your Pixels Back

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(1) HUGO VOTER PACKET. Joe Yao of the Chengdu Worldcon committee fielded a question online about the packet.

First, he pointed out that one is coming, as noted in this brief reference in a July 10 story on the Chengdu website:

The Hugo Awards Subcommittee of the 2023 Chengdu Worldcon will also provide paper ballots and Hugo Packet for each category of the finalists.

Then he shared this status report:

And here I would like to update the process of the Hugo Packet. We asked all the finalists to submit their works to the packet no later than July 25 (today), and we are still collecting works from them. Our goal is to release the packet for members to download by end of July.

(2) TURNOVER ON BUFFALO NASFIC COMMITTEE. Immediately following Buffalo’s confirmation as site of the 2024 NASFiC in the site selection vote last weekend, chair Wayne Brown released a new committee list. It was the first time that two significant members of the bid heard about changes that affect them.

Alex von Thorn told Facebook readers:

Marah Searle-Kovacevic has been removed as vice-chair of the #BuffaloNASFiC2024 convention. I have also been effectively demoted from Finance division head to “Treasurer” (so that I would not be doing budget, planning, or registration). As of Tuesday, when we found out by way of an org chart posted to Discord, we are no longer working on the convention.

…Marah feels like the pattern of disrespect and mistakes has been building for a while and she doesn’t think the chair wants our participation other than in tertiary roles. I’m annoyed and frustrated but that is secondary. Marah’s leadership and track record of accomplishment is indispensable and irreplaceable. As a Buffalo native and resident for more than thirty years, and with decades of experience working on WSFS conventions, she is knowledgeable and motivated to work on a WSFS conveniton in Buffalo; unfortunately it doesn’t seem that this will be it. The chair doesn’t value experience; he has said explicitly he wants no connection to or involvement with the SMOF community of experienced conrunners. He only respects people he knows personally and only wants input from people who agree with him. That’s not me, it’s not the job of a treasurer, and although she’s better at finding reconciliation and consensus, ultimately it’s not her either.

…The sticking point for Marah is that she doesn’t like being fired via an org chart update…

(3) WHO’S ACCEPTING THE CHENGDU OFFER. Chris Barkley will be going.

I will try to spot other names as they surface, although this is coming up at precisely the moment “X” (formerly Twitter) has provoked a lot of writers to focus their efforts on other platforms making it less easy to search for announcements.

(4) WHO’S DECLINING THE CHENGDU OFFER. Gideon Marcus told File 770 readers that no one from Galactic Journey will utilize the offer.  

“Full disclosure: I’m not going, would not go, and cannot go. But one of our team is.”

Strike that. After consideration, and impressed by the actions of fellow nominees who have declined invitations because of Chengdu’s problematic GoH choice, we have decided there will be no Galactic Journey representative at Chengdu.

The Hugos, of course, belong to all of us, so we’ll still be voting.

(5) MEDICAL UPDATE. Congratulations to Adam-Troy Castro who announced on Facebook today, “There is ‘no cancer.’ I will need regular checkups for a while, plus maintenance of my port, but it is gone, gone, gone.”

(6) FULL DISCLOSURE: THEY’RE COMMERCIALS. “’Alf’ reboot: Ryan Reynolds revives character with sponsored content” reports USA Today.

Ryan Reynolds is indulging his love for ’80s nostalgia, and it’s out of this world.

Reynolds is rebooting Alf, the furry brown alien of the eponymous sci-fi comedy from the 1980s, with a series of sponsored content shorts on his Maximum Effort Channel. The “Deadpool” star previewed some of the extraterrestrial hilarity in a trailer montage posted Monday.

In the video, Alf can be seen discussing and using various products with their human friend Eric, including mobile network operator Mint Mobile, doorbell camera brand Ring and television streamer Fubo.

The Maximum Effort Channel, which launched in June as part of a deal with Fubo, acquired the rights to the “Alf” sitcom and will incorporate branded segments called “Maximum Moments” into reruns of the original series….

(7) MEMORY LANE.

1950 – [Written by Cat Eldridge from a choice by Mike Glyer.]

C.M. Kornbluth, a member of the Futurians, provides us with our Beginning this Scroll.  He participated in the Fantasy Amateur Press Association, the oldest APA in existence.  And he’s a member of the First Fandom Hall of Fame. 

He got nominated for six Hugos of which he won but one at Torcon II for “The Meeting” short story.  It was only his Award win until a Retro Hugo for “The Little Black Bag” novelette at The Millennium Philcon. 

Well he did garner a Prometheus Hall of Fame Award for The Syndic but I’ll admit I’ve mixed feeling about those Awards. Just me I’ll admit but I’m quite sure about libertarian futurists and their criteria for these Awards.

So “The Little Black Bag” which is our Beginning first appeared in the July 1950 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. The cover art is a still from the Destination Moon film.

The story is in Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929-1964 which was edited by Robert Silverberg and is available from the usual suspects.

And now for our Beginning…

Old Dr. Full felt the winter in his bones as he limped down the alley. It was the alley and the back door he had chosen rather than the sidewalk and the front door because of the brown paper bag under his arm. He knew perfectly well that the flat-faced, stringy-haired women of his street and their gap-toothed, sour-smelling husbands did not notice if he brought a bottle of cheap wine to his room. They all but lived on the stuff themselves, varied with whiskey when pay checks were boosted by overtime. But Dr. Full, unlike them, was ashamed. A complicated disaster occurred as he limped down the littered alley. One of the neighborhood dogs–a mean little black one he knew and hated, with its teeth always bared and always snarling with menace–hurled at his legs through a hole in the board fence that lined his path. Dr. Full flinched, then swung his leg in what was to have been a satisfying kick to the animal’s gaunt ribs. But the winter in his bones weighed down the leg. His foot failed to clear a half-buried brick, and he sat down abruptly, cursing. When he smelled unbottled wine and realized his brown paper package had slipped from under his arm and smashed, his curses died on his lips. The snarling black dog was circling him at a yard’s distance, tensely stalking, but he ignored it in the greater disaster.

With stiff fingers as he sat on the filth of the alley, Dr. Full unfolded the brown paper bag’s top, which had been crimped over, grocer-wise. The early autumnal dusk had come; he could not see plainly what was left. He lifted out the jug-handled top of his half gallon, and some fragments, and then the bottom of the bottle. Dr. Full was far too occupied to exult as he noted that there was a good pint left. He had a problem, and emotions could be deferred until the fitting time.

The dog closed in, its snarl rising in pitch. He set down the bottom of the bottle and pelted the dog with the curved triangular glass fragments of its top. One of them connected, and the dog ducked back through the fence, howling. Dr. Full then placed a razor-like edge of the half-gallon bottle’s foundation to his lips and drank from it as though it were a giant’s cup. Twice he had to put it down to rest his arms, but in one minute he had swallowed the pint of wine.

He thought of rising to his feet and walking through the alley to his room, but a flood of well-being drowned the notion. It was, after all, inexpressibly pleasant to sit there and feel the frost-hardened mud of the alley turn soft, or seem to, and to feel the winter evaporating from his bones under a warmth which spread from his stomach through his limbs.

A three-year-old girl in a cut-down winter coat squeezed through the same hole in the board fence from which the black dog had sprung its ambush. Gravely she toddled up to Dr. Full and inspected him with her dirty forefinger in her mouth. Dr. Full’s happiness had been providentially made complete; he had been supplied with an audience.

“Ah, my dear,” he said hoarsely. And then: “Preposserous accusation. ‘If that’s what you call evidence,’ I should have told them, ‘you better stick to your doctoring.’ I should have told them: ‘I was here before your County Medical Society. And the License Commissioner never proved a thing on me. So, gennulmen, doesn’t it stand to reason? I appeal to you as fellow memmers of a great profession–“‘

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born July 26, 1883 — Edwin Balmer. Together with author Philip Wylie, he penned When Worlds Collide and After Worlds Collide. The first was made into the 1951 movie by George Pal. He also wrote several detective novels and collaborated with William MacHarg on The Achievements of Luther Trant, an early collection of detective short stories. The latter are not genre, despite being listed as ISFDB as I’ve read them. (Died 1959.)
  • Born July 26, 1928 — Stanley Kubrick. I’m reasonably sure 2001: A Space Odyssey was the first film I saw by him but Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb was the one that impressed me the most. A Clockwork Orange was just damn depressing. And I’m not a horror fan as such so I never saw The Shining. Barry Lyndon is great but it’s not genre by any means. (Died 1999.)
  • Born July 26, 1945 — M. John Harrison, 78. Winner of the Otherwise Award. The Viriconium sequence, I hesitate to call it a series, starting with The Pastel City, is some of the most elegant fantasy I’ve read. And I see he’s a SJW as he’s written the Tag, the Cat series which I need to take a look at again. He’s also been a major critic for the past thirty years reviewing fiction and nonfiction for The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, the Times Literary Supplement and The New York Times. He’s lightly stocked at the usual suspects though the Viriconium sequence is there at a very reasonable price.  And his short stories are excellent, so may I recommend Settling the World: Selected Stories 1970-2020?
  • Born July 26, 1945 — Helen Mirren, 78. She first graces our presences as Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She next shows up in a genre role as Alice Rage in The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu, Peter Sellers’ last film. She’s Morgana in Excalibur and then leaps into the future as Tanya Kirbuk in 2010: The Year We Make Contact. She voices the evil lead role in The Snow Queen, and likewise is Deep Thought in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
  • Born July 26, 1954 — Lawrence Watt-Evans, 69. Ok I’ve now read “Why I Left Harry’s All-Night Hamburgers” which won him a short fiction Hugo at Nolasco II. It also was nominated for a Nebula and won an Asimov’s Reader’s Poll that year. It’d be his only Hugo. Yes, I’ve read him other fiction by him as well — his War Surplus series is quite excellent.
  • Born July 26, 1957 — Nana Visitor, 66. Kira Nerys on Deep Space Nine which for my money is the best of the Trek series to date and I’m including the present series in that assessment. After DS9 ended, Visitor had a recurring role as villain Dr. Elizabeth Renfro on Dark Angel. In 1987, Visitor appeared as Ellen Dolan in a never developed series pilot for Will Eisner’s The Spirit with Sam J. Jones as The Spirit. And she had a brief role in Torchwood: Miracle Day.
  • Born July 26, 1971 — Mary Anne Mohanraj, 52. Writer and editor. Founder of Strange Horizons. She has one genre novel, The Stars That Change, six works published in the Wild Cards Universe, and many piece of short fiction. She also an anthology, Without A Map, co-edited with Nnedi Okorafor.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

  • Luann finds it hard to explain a distinction that’s important to writers.

(10) UHURA’S SCRIPTS AND THE WITCH’S HAT. “Paul Allen estate donates thousands of rare music, film and sci-fi artifacts to Seattle’s MoPOP” – GeekWire has details.

Thousands of one-of-a-kind artifacts from Paul Allen’s collection, spanning decades of cultural relevance, are headed to Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture, the institution he helped found 23 years ago….

They include:

  • Handwritten lyrics by David Bowie for “Starman” from the early 1970s.
  • Motorcycle jacket worn by Prince in his 1984 film “Purple Rain.”
  • A collection of Nichelle Nichols’ (Lt. Nyota Uhura) hand-annotated scripts from the “Star Trek” television and film series (1965-1998).
  • The iconic hat worn by Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz.”
  • A full-size flying “Spinner” vehicle from the 1982 film Blade Runner.

…Several dozen artifacts from the bequest are currently on display in MoPOP exhibits, including “Infinite Worlds of Science Fiction;” “Fantasy: Worlds of Myth & Magic”; “Scared to Death: The Thrill of Horror Film”; “Nirvana: Taking Punk to the Masses.” The artifacts will also be incorporated into future exhibitions and loaned to other museums and institutions worldwide….

(11) OHIOANA WINNER. “The Kaiju Preservation Society is a 2023 Ohioana Book Award Winner” announced John Scalzi on Whatever. He also posted this graphic of the other category winners.

(12) A GAME? “Seen at CVS…” says Daniel Dern.

(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Ryan George takes us inside the “Interstellar Pitch Meeting”.

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mike Kennedy, Rich Horton, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, and Michael Toman for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cat Eldridge.]

A File 770 Special: Ryan McNaught’s ‘Bricktionary’ LEGO Exhibit Makes Its World Debut at Cincinnati’s Museum Center

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By Chris M. Barkley: In March of 2023, one of the most ambitious artistic endeavors of this decade opened within the halls of one of America’s most recognized and beloved institutions, the Cincinnati Museum Center.

The museum itself is the main tenant of the building known to most people in the metropolitan area as Union Terminal, one of the last of the great railroad stations, whose construction began in August of 1929, two months before the beginning of the Great Depression. Completed in March of 1933, it was built to accommodate 216 passenger trains and 17,000 customers a day.

(On a personal note, I can count myself among those customers; in 1964, my grandmother took me on my first trip outside of Cincinnati to visit cousins and other relatives in Birmingham, Alabama. As some of you may know, that was a particularly perilous time for African-Americans to travel to the Deep South and at that age, I was totally oblivious to the danger of the journey. But, I digress…)

Union Terminal ceased train service in 1972 but was granted status as a National Historic Landmark in May of 1977. Astute readers know that there is more than a passing resemblance between this station of the Hall of Justice of the ABC TV animated series Super Friends (1973-1985).  That’s because Al Gmuer, background supervisor for Hanna-Barbera Productions, based his design on Union Terminal. But, enough about the venue…

The Bricktionary exhibit was created and designed by Australian Ryan McNaught, a former information technology executive. He is one of only twenty-one Lego Certified Professionals in the world and the ONLY Lego professional residing in the Southern Hemisphere. Born in 1973, he was given his first Lego set (which he has to this day!) by his grandmother at the age of three. At age five, he won a Lego Master Builders’ Certificate.

In an introductory video to the exhibit, McNaught explains that for a long while after his childhood, he had no interest in Legos at all. It wasn’t until he became the parent of twins Alexander and Riley in 2008, that he became interested in Legos again. And you can say that he owes his mid-career change to his mother.

McNaught says that his inadvertent path to becoming a master Lego guru began when his mother, Lyn, brought over a crate of Legos that had been gathering dust in the family garage for decades, as a gift for the grandchildren. But, as he began to play with them himself, it not only rekindled his love for the toy bricks, but for the nearly infinite possibilities for their design and function.

Spurred by this revelation, McNaught used LegoMindstorms software to build a remote controlled Qantas Airbus 380 for the 2009 Brickvention Lego event in Melbourne, where it was voted Best In Show. When it made its sensational appearance at the international Brickworld event in Chicago, he was approached by Lego executives to become one of their Certified Professionals.

Above photos by Ryan McNaught

That, in turn, led to several worldwide tours, events and ultimately, co-hosting Australia’s version of Lego Masters (with Hamish Blake) in 2019.

The construction of Ryan McNaught’s Brickionary began in earnest at the Cincinnati Museum Center in February 2023 and officially opened to the public for the first time on March 17th.

And now, here is that aforementioned short video of McNaught, which is featured as an introduction before you enter the exhibit area:

The exhibition is highly interactive; it not only has some incredibly stunning models but also features several stations throughout where children of all ages can discover (or, rediscover) the joys of making their own Lego toys. 

And now, without further ado, let’s take a closer look at the Bricktionary: The Interactive Exhibition!

[The photo gallery follows the jump.]

Continue reading →

Pixel Scroll 7/16/23 Waiting For Hugot

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(1) HALL H EMPTIES OUT. “The last few big Hollywood blockbusters have now dropped out of Comic-Con” reports Yahoo!

The weirdest Comic-Con in years continues to get weirder, today: Legendary has announced that its upcoming sci-fi sequel Dune: Part Two, one of the last live-action blockbusters scheduled for a panel at this year’s version of the long-running convention, has now dropped out. (Ditto the glimpse the studio was planning at the next installment of its Monsterverse franchise of films.) At the same time, at least three TV shows that were still holding out hope for the convention—Amazon’s Wheel Of Time, Freevee’s Jury Duty, and ABC’s Abbott Elementary—have all confirmed that they’re canceling their panels.

The reason, obviously, is the SAG-AFTRA actors strike: There’s not a lot of point in paying for an expensive panel in the Con’s famed Hall H if you don’t have any stars on hand to fill it out and pump up the crowds. 

(2) SPEAKING OF MURDERBOT. NPR taps into the Nerdette podcast to learn “How audiobooks are made”.

GRETA JOHNSEN, BYLINE: Meet Sarah Jaffe. She’s an executive producer at Penguin Random House Audio.

SARAH JAFFE: What that actually means is mostly – I think my 10-year-old self would be thrilled – I get paid to read books all day, talk to really brilliant authors and then do sort of the dream casting that I think we all do in our heads of like, OK, what kind of voice would I need to play this character? And then I get to find and hire that voice.

JOHNSEN: One of my favorite voices is this guy.

KEVIN R FREE: I am Kevin R. Free. I am a multi-hyphenate artist, and I suppose I’m on the Nerdette podcast because I am an audiobook narrator. That is the hat for which you are interviewing me.

JOHNSEN: Kevin has been wearing that hat since 2000. I love him because he narrates Martha Wells’ “Murderbot Diaries”…

(3) RESISTING OUR AI OVERLORDS. “‘Not for Machines to Harvest’: Data Revolts Break Out Against A.I.” reports the New York Times.

For more than 20 years, Kit Loffstadt has written fan fiction exploring alternate universes for “Star Wars” heroes and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” villains, sharing her stories free online.

But in May, Ms. Loffstadt stopped posting her creations after she learned that a data company had copied her stories and fed them into the artificial intelligence technology underlying ChatGPT, the viral chatbot. Dismayed, she hid her writing behind a locked account.

Ms. Loffstadt also helped organize an act of rebellion last month against A.I. systems. Along with dozens of other fan fiction writers, she published a flood of irreverent stories online to overwhelm and confuse the data-collection services that feed writers’ work into A.I. technology.

“We each have to do whatever we can to show them the output of our creativity is not for machines to harvest as they like,” said Ms. Loffstadt, a 42-year-old voice actor from South Yorkshire in Britain.

… At Archive of Our Own, a fan fiction database with more than 11 million stories, writers have increasingly pressured the site to ban data-scraping and A.I.-generated stories.

In May, when some Twitter accounts shared examples of ChatGPT mimicking the style of popular fan fiction posted on Archive of Our Own, dozens of writers rose up in arms. They blocked their stories and wrote subversive content to mislead the A.I. scrapers. They also pushed Archive of Our Own’s leaders to stop allowing A.I.-generated content.

Betsy Rosenblatt, who provides legal advice to Archive of Our Own and is a professor at University of Tulsa College of Law, said the site had a policy of “maximum inclusivity” and did not want to be in the position of discerning which stories were written with A.I.

For Ms. Loffstadt, the fan fiction writer, the fight against A.I. came as she was writing a story about “Horizon Zero Dawn,” a video game where humans fight A.I.-powered robots in a postapocalyptic world. In the game, she said, some of the robots were good and others were bad.

But in the real world, she said, “thanks to hubris and corporate greed, they are being twisted to do bad things.”

(4) YOUR CHRIS BARKLEY HUGO PACKET. Chris M. Barkley has put links to the columns that will make up his entry in the packet here on Facebook.

I have submitted my selections of columns from File 770 for the 2023 Hugo Award Packet in the Best Fan Writer category. Although it will be a few weeks before the complete packet is released to members of the Chengdu World Science Fiction Convention to consider, I am pinning links to my columns from today until the close of voting period, September 30th.

(5) BUSINESS IS BOOMING. [Item by Steven French.] In advance of Oppenheimer hitting the cinemas, the Guardian presents its latest list, this time of ‘best’ films about the atomic bomb. Sadly there’s no mention of 1950 Brit movie Seven Days Until Noon (which recently appeared on TV here in the U.K.) About a scientist whose moral qualms about the atomic bomb lead him to threaten the destruction of half of London, it won an Academy Award for writers Paul Dehn and James Bernard. Dehn was a well regarded poet and referred to by John LeCarre as an ‘assassin’ following his war service in the SOE. He went on to co-author not only the movie version of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold but also several of the Planet of the Apes sequels. “Streaming: the best films about the atomic bomb”.

…But the legacy of the atom bomb, from its development to its impact to its all-round political aura, is a rich one, spanning everything from esoteric arthouse films to genre B-movies. For decades after the horrifying outcome of the Manhattan Project, through the long-lingering chill of the cold war, anxiety over nuclear warfare was the driving force behind any number of thrillers and war films. Comedies, sci-fi and even the odd film noir – see Robert Aldrich’s blistering Kiss Me Deadly (1955; Internet Archive), which culminates in a literally explosive allegory – got in on the paranoia….

(6) GREGG T. TREND OBITUARY. Longtime fanzine fan Gregg T. Trend passed away in hospice this morning Sunday, July 16 his wife Audrey announced on Facebook.

A Detroit fan active since at least the early 1960s, Gregg attended the 1963 Worldcon, Discon 1. He was a member of the Wayne Third Foundation and edited some issues of its clubzine Seldon’s Plan. He was a member and one of the OEs of MiSHAP.

The last time I saw him was during Renovation, the 2011 Worldcon, at the Faneds’ Feast in the Purple Parrot coffee shop, attended by Ed and Sandra Meskys, Katrina Templeton, Andrew Porter, Cathy Lister-Palmer, Murray Moore, Mary Ann Moore, Gregg and Audrey Trend, me, Milt Stevens, Alan Stewart, Marcy Maliniewicz, Jerry Kaufman, Mike Ward.

Andrew Porter adds, “I bought a piece of his artwork on the sketch table at Discon 1 in 1963, my first Worldcon, and knew him for many decades.”

Gregg Trend in 2003. Photo by Mike Glyer.

(7) MEMORY LANE.

1971 – [Written by Cat Eldridge from a choice by Mike Glyer.]

R. A. Lafferty is the writer of our Beginning, so let’s talk about him. A much loved writer in fandom with almost fifty Award nominations in over his fifty-year career (though only three Awards resulted — a Hugo at Torcon II for his “Eurema’s Dam” along with a Phoenix Award and a World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement.

I personally think that all of his fiction is worth a read but I’ll single out The Devil is Dead trilogy as one of his better works. Also worth noting is that he was a first rate writer of short fiction as noted by his having thirty-five collections published. Yes, thirty-five. 

Mike picked his Past Master novel.  It was published by Rapp & Whiting fifty-five years ago. It was nominated at St. Louiscon for a Hugo and garnered Ditmar and Nebula nominations as well. 

AT THE TWENTY-FIFTH HOUR

THE THREE big men were met together in a private building of one of them. There was a clattering thunder in the street outside, but the sun was shining. It was the clashing thunder of the mechanical killers, ravening and raging. They shook the building and were on the verge of pulling it down. They required the life and the blood of one of the three men and they required it immediately, now, within the hour, within the minute. 

The three men gathered in the building were large physically, they were important and powerful, they were intelligent and interesting. There was a peculiar linkage between them: each believed that he controlled the other two, that he was the puppeteer and they were the puppets. And each was partly right in this belief. It made them an interlocking nexus, taut and resilient, the most intricate on Astrobe. 

Cosmos Kingmaker, who was too rich. The Heraldic Lion. 

Peter Proctor, who was too lucky. The Sleek Fox.

Fabian Foreman, who was too smart. The Worried Hawk.

“This is Mankind’s third chance,” said Kingmaker. “Ah, they’re breaking the doors down again. How can we talk with it all going on?” 

He took the speaking tube. “Colonel,” he called out. “You have sufficient human guards. It is imperative that you disperse the riot. It is absolutely forbidden that they murder this man at this time and place. He is with us and is one of us as he has always been.” 

“The colonel is dead,” a voice came back. “I am Captain John Chezem the Third, next in command.”

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born July 16, 1882 — Felix Locher. He is considered the oldest Star Trek actor of all time by birth year, appearing in “The Deadly Years” episode. 0ther genre appearances included Curse of the Faceless Man, The Twilight Zone, Frankenstein’s Daughter, The Munsters, House of the Damned, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Mission Impossible. His entire acting career was from 1957 to 1969. (Died 1969.)
  • Born July 16, 1928 — Robert Sheckley.  I knew that his short story “Seventh Victim” was the basis of The 10th Victim film but I hadn’t known ‘til now that Freejack was sort of based of his Immortality, Inc. novel.  I’ve read a lot by him with Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming (written with Zelazny) being my favorite work by him. Sheckley is very well stocked on the usual suspects. He had two Hugo nominations, at NYCon II for his “Spy Story” short story, and at Detention for his Time Killer novel. His Seventh Victim novel was nominated for a Hugo at the 1954 Retro Hugos at Noreascon 4. (Died 2005.)
  • Born July 16, 1929 — Sheri S. Tepper. I think I’m going to start with her Marianne Trilogy (Marianne, the Magus and the Manticore; Marianne, the Madam and the Momentary Gods; Marianne, the Matchbox and the Malachite Mouse) as her best work. Both the setting and the characters are unique, the story fascinating.  Nominated for an Astounding Award way back when, she had a long career, so I’m going to note  Beauty, The Gate to Women’s Country, Six Moon Dance and The Companions as my favorites knowing very well that yours won’t be the same. (Died 2016.)
  • Born July 16, 1956 — Jerry Doyle. Now this one was depressing. Dead of acute alcoholism at sixty, his character Michael Garibaldi was portrayed as an alcoholic, sometimes recovering and sometimes not on Babylon 5. (Died 2016.)
  • Born July 16, 1951 — Esther Friesner, 72. She’s won the Nebula Award for Best Short Story twice with “Death and the Librarian” and “A Birthday”.  I’m particularly fond of The Sherwood Game and E.Godz which she did with Robert Asprin. She won the 1994 Edward E. Smith Memorial Award for Imaginative Fiction, for lifetime contributions to science fiction, “both through work in the field and by exemplifying the personal qualities which made the late ‘Doc’ Smith well-loved by those who knew him,” presented by the New England Science Fiction Association. She’s well stocked at the usual suspects. 
  • Born July 16, 1963 — Phoebe Cates, 60. Ok, her entire genre appearance credit is as Kate Beringer in Gremlins and Gremlins 2: The New Batch. (Well and romantic fantasy Date with an Angel.) It’s two films that I have an inordinate fondness for that the Suck Fairy cannot have any effect upon. She retired from film acting as she said there were no good roles and is doing theatre work. 

(9) SOLDIER’S ICON. [Item by Susan de Guardiola.] Apparently Baby Yoda on body armor is becoming a thing in Ukraine, as shown on this volunteer of the Georgian Legion.

Also: “may feathers grow in the throats of our enemies” is a really excellent curse.  No idea whether it’s a Georgian thing or a cultural reference I’m just oblivious to.

(10) ACTRESS PROTESTS BODY SCAN TECH. “Snowpiercer Star Breaks Silence Over Body Scan Tech Used in Season 4” at MovieWeb.

In an industry where the boundary between reality and virtualization is increasingly blurred, a recent wave of controversy has hit the Hollywood sphere. A central figure in this ongoing discourse is none other than Lena Hall, the illustrious Tony Award winner and Grammy nominee, best known for her role in TNT’s Snowpiercer.

On the cusp of the show’s fourth season, Hall took a public stand on Twitter, lambasting the opaque nature of the utilization of full-body scan technology. The thespian recounted her experiences with the procedure, expressing her dismay at the lack of transparency and her perceived violation of consent.

Hall shared,

“So… Snowpiercer season 4 did a full body scan and full range of emotion capture of all the series regulars on the show not ever telling us the real reason why. NOW I know why and it’s really disturbing because I didn’t consent.”

“P.S. they told us it was for special effects but were very vague!”

(11) SOUVENIR FROM SPACE. “French Woman Allegedly Hit By Meteorite While Having Coffee With Friends” at HotHardware. Daniel Dern sent the link with the quip, “I’m Not Having What She’s Having.”

… It’s not every day that someone is hit by a meteorite while trying to enjoy a cup of coffee with friends. In fact, it is an extraordinarily rare occurrence for someone to be struck by a meteorite anywhere on their body. But such was the case for the woman in France recently, and if confirmed would be the first person on record to be struck by a meteorite in nearly 70 years.

“I heard a big ‘Poom’ coming from the roof next to us. In the second that followed, I felt a shock on the ribs. I thought it was an animal, a bat!” the lady proclaimed in an interview with the French newspaper Les Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace (DNA). She continued, “We thought it was a piece of cement, the one we apply to the ridge tiles. But it didn’t have the color.”…

(12) WHAT HARM COULD AI DO? [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Over at BBC Radio 4, there has been a series of short (14-minute) episodes on artificial intelligence.  The latest episode concerns whether or not we can control AI? and has some SFnal references. “Can we control AI?”

When so-called “generative” Artificial Intelligences like Chat GPT and Google’s Bard were made available to the public, they made headlines around the world and raised fears about how fast this type of AI was developing. But realistically, what harm could AI do to people? Is it an existential threat, or could it become one? And if things got really bad, couldn’t we just switch it off or smash it up with a hammer?

(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Here’s a trailer for a trailer for the new Beauty and the Beast adaptation: Belle.

Belle would do anything to save her ailing father. She journeys in search of a mythical rose believed to be a cure. As payment for the rose, she must surrender herself to a vicious beast and battle his spell.

[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Joyce Scrivner, Daniel Dern, Susan de Guardiola, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Update 07/17/2023: Replaced a photo of Gregg Trend. The one originally provided by Andrew Porter was of someone else.

Barkley — So Glad You (Didn’t) Ask #76

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Chris Barkley. Photo by Juli Marr.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A (HUGO AWARD FINALIST) FAN

By Chris M. Barkley: Wednesday, 28th of June. Another day in a string of long summer days.

I rise early in the morning and immediately check my email on social media sites and email in-box. There is no sign of the Hugo Award Finalists for 2023. 

And the beat goes on.

For a majority of this month, I have been awaiting the results of the Hugo Award nomination process to find out who the Finalists this year are.

I checked my email account in the morning before breakfast and before I left the house early this morning on my way out the door.

The smoke from the Canadian wildfires have drifted down all along the east coast and extends as far west as Chicago and south into the Ohio Valley where I live. 

A report on NPR’s Morning Edition stated that prolonged exposure to the wood smoke particles would be the equivalent of smoking a half a pack of cigarettes a day. I have been feeling congested for the past few days and I am quite sure that there is a causal relation between these conditions and my recent spate of sinus headaches.

Today, as I have been all of this week, I was transporting my granddaughter Lilly to her summer nature camp at a large city park for a majority of the day. I picked her up at 8:30 a.m. and, befitting all seven-year-olds on summer vacation, she was the complete opposite of being bright eyed and bushy-tailed that early in the morning.

The drive to the park was ominous and foreboding; as we drove through the city, the hills in the distance looked as though they were shrouded in a thick fog. The previous weekend there had been clear skies and a marginal amount of humidity in the air. 

When Lilly and I arrived, I presented her with a N-95 surgical mask for protection against the smoke. She rejected it once she noticed that other kids there weren’t wearing masks. I didn’t push it; I know how badly kids her age want to fit in and appearances and peer pressure can be big factors. Been there, bought the tee-shirt…

Before I left the park, I checked my email in-box on my phone. There was no notice from the Chengdu Worldcon about the Hugo Finalists this year.

There had been an announcement earlier in June stating that they hoped to make the list public by the end of June and I had been checking my social media accounts and email on an almost hourly basis. 

While I made the long drive back to the house (and intermittently stuck in rush hour traffic), I had plenty of time ruminate on many things:
-What was my next column going to be about? I was going to do a column each on Across The Spider-Verse, The Flash and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny but I decided to hold off and do a story about the entire (and incredibly remarkable) month of sff releases. And, of course, the Hugo nominations.

– I have to admit (to myself) that I had an unspoken and ulterior motive for keeping an eye out for the 2023 Finalists. Although I would be happy if any of my fellow 2022 Finalists were nominated, I held some tiny, infinitesimal, almost impossibly small hope that I might make the cut. But, I knew this was certainly a pipe dream at best; it was way too far into the month and all of the nominees had to have been contacted by now. Well now, maybe next year… 

-Yesterday, the Science fiction Hall of Fame announced their inductees for 2023: multiple Hugo Award winning author N.K. Jemisin, writer/director/composer John Carpenter, the entire Dune franchise (created by the late Frank Herbert and continued by his son Brian and many others) and The Rocky Horror Picture Show film (based on the original stage musical by Richard O’Brien) whose accomplishments and influence are so monumental enough that it needs no further comment from me. 

– In turn, what about me? Could I ever contemplate being in the SF Hall of Fame? Well, again, probably not. All of the notable things I have done in my fannish life (these series of columns notwithstanding) have been mostly out of the public eye. But I recall the wise words of Wendell Pierce, one of the outstanding ensemble of actors who were part of HBO’s The Wire, considered nowadays as one of the greatest television series ever created. But, incredibly, in its highly acclaimed five season run (from 2002-2008), the series was nominated for only TWO Emmys, both for Outstanding Writing for A Drama Series in 2005 and 2008. Last year, while performing a starring turn as Willy Loman in a Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Pierce was pretty blunt about The Wire’s lack of recognition from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences:

“I didn’t want an Emmy. I said then the lasting testament will be: This show will be one of the most revered and critically acclaimed shows that will never have any awards, and it will just show you how shallow people’s approach to commercialized art can be. That they missed the point of the power of art. I wear it as a badge of honor that we didn’t receive any Emmys.”

And when I read that, I instinctively knew that as far as artistic attitudes were concerned, that THIS was the best and most admirable attitude to have. And make no mistake; I was ecstatic AND quite honored to be nominated for the Hugo Award last year but, in the long run, what I have done as a fan has been noted, logged and a part of fandom’s history. I wouldn’t turn down an award or honor (and I have been a Fan Guest of Honor at three conventions since 2019) but in my lifetime, it’s the work that matters.

My head was really aching when I got home so I took a decongestant and two Advils. After dropping a few packages at the post office, I headed over to our county’s Friends of the Library resale shop for some therapeutic shopping. The biggest dilemma I had while I was there was trying to remember whether or not I had previously purchased a copy of the 2009 Nebula Award Showcase (edited by Ellen Datlow). A check of a list in my wallet confirmed I had. Crisis AVERTED! 

As 3:00 p.m. approached, I gathered my purchases and checked out. The volunteer workers there asked about Lilly, who was a frequent visitor there when she was much younger. I showed them a recent photo of her on my phone and I told them that was now a tall, seven-and-a-half-year-old. They all marveled at how much she had grown and they were happy to know that Lilly was an avid reader. I also promised to bring her by for a visit before the summer was over.

After picking up and dropping off Lilly, I headed home with thoughts of taking an afternoon nap. The humidity had increased considerably and I was still feeling a little congested.

I checked in with my partner Juli, who was working at home out of the spare bedroom. I won’t describe what she does but let’s just say that the application of coffee every day has prevented a lot of needless deaths in the financial consulting industry.

But, before my head hit the pillow for a well deserved nap before All Things Considered, I made one more check of my emails on my phone…

The time stamp on the email was 1:31 p.m., EDT.

Hugo Awards – CONFIDENTIAL – Best Fan Writer

What?

Dear Chris Barkley,

WTF?????

I am delighted to inform you have reached the list of Finalists for the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer, to be presented by the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (Chengdu Worldcon 2023). Please keep this nomination strictly confidential until the public announcement of the full ballot at the end of June.F**K!!!!!

The Hugo Awards are presented to specific works of science fiction or fantasy and to people with a body of work in science fiction or fantasy appearing in the preceding calendar year, in this case 2022.   A work eligible for the Best Fan Writer category is defined as:

Any person whose writing has appeared in semiprozines or fanzines or in generally available electronic media during the previous calendar year

F**K!!!!!

The rules for the Hugo Awards as a whole may be found in Article 3 of the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) Constitution:

Click to access WSFS-Constitution-as-of-September-5-2022.pdf

F**K!!!!!

We would very much appreciate a response to this letter no later than Friday June 30th  to inform us whether you accept this nomination, wish to withdraw your novel from consideration, or must inform us that your novel does not qualify for the ballot under the above definition.

F**K!!!!!

If you accept the nomination as a Hugo Award Finalist, please reply-all to this email with the following information:

(1) Provide information confirming that you have published a work that qualifies you for Best Fan Writer for 2022, as described above.

(2) Confirm or correct your name as it should appear on the list of finalists. At present we have:

                  Chris Barkley

(3) Confirm this email address or let us know if there is a different one you would prefer to use for communication regarding the 2023 Hugo Awards.

F**K!!!!!

Traditionally, the Hugo Awards are presented in person at a ceremony during the current year’s Worldcon.  The convention is scheduled to be held in Chengdu, China, from October 18 through 22. 

Provided you accept your nomination, we will soon be seeking further information from you as we move toward the formal announcement of the awards and the preparation of the Hugo Packet of nominated works. The Hugo Finalist Liaison Team will coordinate communication between Hugo Award Finalists and Chengdu Worldcon from the composition of the final ballot through the post-convention wrap-up. 

F**K!!!!!!

If you have any immediate questions about your Hugo Award nomination, please contact me by reply to this email, or, if you have matters you do not wish to entrust to email, I will be happy to arrange to speak to you by phone or Zoom equivalent at your convenience.

Best,

By this time, Juli was thinking that by shouting this series of loud expletives that I had either a) gotten suddenly sick, b) somebody died, c) lost my damned mind or d) ALL of the above.

When I came into the office, she looked quite alarmed. “Are you ok? What happened?” I gave her the phone. Her eyes widened in surprise. Her mouth dropped open in shock.

Juli took off her headphones, leaped up and hugged me. “I am so happy and proud of you!” 

THAT felt better than getting the nomination itself.

I don’t know how or why this happened. It doesn’t matter either. I and everyone else will find out when the long list of nominations are finally released after the Hugo Ceremony in October. 

A subsequent announcement from the Chengdu Hugo Award administrators made it clear that they were still in the process of notifying all of the finalists and that the delay in the announcement will be pushed into July.  

Here’s the thing; it occurs to me that some people who are either disenchanted with how the Chengdu Worldcon Committee has handled their responsibilities or that this year’s Worldcon was being held in the People’s Republic of China, were refusing their nominations. And that’s their right to do so.

I am also aware that in accepting this nomination, I will be opening myself up to a typhoon of criticism from people who think that I, and others who will be on the final ballot, should have refused to have anything to do with a prestigious convention being held in a totalitarian state.

Compounding all of this are the deterioration of financial, political and diplomatic relations between the United States and China and the almost daily confrontations between the two aerial and naval services in the areas surrounding Taiwan. 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited China three weeks ago in an attempt to cool  tensions and today, the very day the Hugo Finalists are being announced, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has begun a trip to Beijing which will include several meetings between US business leaders and prominent Chinese economic officials: (“Janet Yellen heads to China, seeking to ease tensions” at NPR.)

I am a proud American. I love my country, cotton candy, warts and all. On several occasions, I have taken an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States and I did so of my own free will.

BUT, I am neither a nationalist nor a populist in my personal beliefs. Many times over the decades I have not hesitated to express my displeasure with my government, at the local, state or federal level.

I am a human being and a citizen of this planet, first and foremost, a member of fandom and then a citizen of the United States 

Additionally, I want to point out that my 2023 Hugo Award Finalist nomination came from the sf fans in our community, who have ALWAYS have (and hopefully, always will) be the driving force of the nomination process.

I did not openly campaign for this nomination. To me, this nomination is a clear indication that not only are people reading my column, they also appreciate what they’re reading. I also think my, and the other nominees from the US and (presumably, other nations) refutes any claims that the Chengdu Worldcon Committee or the Chinese Communist Party have the final say or control over the process.

To those fans who nominated me, I humbly and profusely thank you for your continuing support. I am grateful and honored to be recognized in this fashion and I will continue to do so for as long as I am able to. To me, the work I have done and being read, is the greatest reward a writer can wish for. 

I also want to thank Our Gracious Host, File 770’s Editor-In-Chief, Mike Glyer for publishing these rather annoying and idiosyncratic opinions and my partner and beta-reader, Juli, for putting up with me on a daily basis.

What’s Next? 

As Rachel Maddow says, Watch This Space…

“The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.” — Gloria Steinem

Barkley — So Glad You (Didn’t) Ask #75

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Loncon One 1957 Hugo Award photo by Michael Benveniste

THE (POSSIBLE) FUTURE(S) OF THE HUGO AWARDS 

By Chris M. Barkley: As we all impatiently await the announcement of the Hugo Award Finalists for 2023 by the Chengdu Worldcon, we in the fannish community are facing an interesting conundrum. 

Because for the first time in our fannish history, a majority, or the entirety, of a Hugo Award Finalist ballot may feature works that have not been published in English first.

Over the sixty plus years of the administration of the World Science Fiction Convention’s achievement awards, the Worldcon has been held in cities on four continents, in the countries of Canada, the United Kingdom (including Glasgow, Scotland), the Republic of Ireland, Heidelberg, (West) Germany, Australia, the Hague in the Netherlands, Japan, New Zealand, Finland, and the United States.

In each and every case, a majority of the nominees and winners have been decidedly anglo-centric and/or American in origin.    

Two of last year’s nominees for Best Fan Editor,  Amanda Wakaruk and Olav Rokne pointed out this disparity in an article posted on their Unofficial Hugo Book Club Blob on Thursday, May 25, “The Word For ‘World’ Isn’t America”.

The main criticism in the essay is:

To date 84.2 per cent of all winners, and 84.5 per cent of the authors represented in the prose categories (short story, novelette, novella, novel and series) were born in the United States. If anything, these statistics understate the level of American dominance, given that the non-American 15 per cent includes figures like Isaac Asimov (born in Russia), Algis Budrys (born in Germany) and Ursula Vernon (born in Japan). If the goal of the Hugo Awards is to represent the best science fiction in the world, then we cannot limit ourselves to works by American authors.

And that is quite valid as far as I’m concerned. For decades, I and a lot of other fans thought that the Hugo Awards were highly representative of the state of sf literature. But, as the essay points out, this is a false dichotomy fed by what is being perceived by others as the voting fans of the United States (who have made up the plurality of participants for decades) whose tendencies to favor American or anglo-centric works and not translated works, which, to be fair, are not readily available in North America. 

Still, as I grew older, and hopefully more worldly (if you’ll pardon the pun), I gradually realized that, at best, the voters of the Hugo Awards could claim to be international connoisseurs of fiction, art and fan activity but in reality, these revered awards were, at best, mainly for works in English.

For example, how else can it be explained that three of the most recent Worldcons held in non-English speaking countries (2007-Yokohama, 2009-Montreal and 2017-Helsinki) featured no nominees from any of the host countries.

Clearly, the problem with the American (and English language) hegemony regarding Hugo Award is the voting base which selects the nominees and recipients, who are, by and large, Americans and anglo-centric readers. 

The Constitution of the World Science Fiction Convention does not concern itself in any way about this disparity, other than this, from The rules directly regarding the Hugo Awards in Article 3, Section 3:

“3.2.1: Unless otherwise specified, Hugo Awards are given for work in the field of science fiction or fantasy appearing for the first time during the previous calendar year.” 

It can (and has been) interpreted that foreign language works which are first published in English for the first time are eligible for nomination in their year of broadcast or publication. (The Constitution does provide relief of an extra year of eligibility for works that had limited distribution, but only through a majority vote by the WSFS Business Meeting.) 

In 2015, two works of fiction by foreign born writers, Cixin Liu’s novel, The Three Body Problem (translated by Ken Liu) and “The Day the World Turned Upside Down” a novelette by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (translated by Lia Belt), made history by winning Hugo Awards in their respective categories.

As progressive as that was, it must be noted that no other translated works have been nominated (or won) since then.

Considering fandom’s current state of artistic, cultural and social upheaval, Ms. Wakaruk and Mr. Rokne concerns should be taken quite seriously.

– Contraction: Restrict the eligibility of nominations to just native born Americans.  I am not in favor of this course of action. We live in the 21st century, not the 18th. Such a move would be seen both here (and abroad as well) as nationalistic, racist and needlessly xenophobic. 

– Promotion: One could just promote a number of other awards, SFWA’s Nebula Awards, the annual Locus Magazine awards, Dragoncon’s Dragon Awards or, extending a friendly hand across the Canadian border, try and persuade the Aurora Awards to expand to encompass all of North America. But I highly suspect each of these organizations state they’re doing just fine thank you very much and would firmly reject their having the judgment of their members and voters being subsumed.

– Utilizing Other Established Conventions: Would it be possible for one of America’s larger regional conventions, such as Westercon, Arisia, Boskone, Norwescon or Balticon to take up the mantle of being the annual “American Convention”? Again, the optics of establishing an “American Convention”, when the nation is divided along political and social lines, would be an open invitation for a prolonged culture war clash. No (sane) convention committee would sanction such a move.

– Establishing A Brand New Convention: A precarious thing to undertake in these precarious economic times and social unrest. Also, see the entry above.

However, after outlining these negative possibilities, I see two possible, and positive ways forward.

The first would be to keep the Hugo Awards as they are currently, and establish a new North American Award, whose nominees would be drawn from the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, no matter what language the work was first published in. The convention committee would encourage any of the media outlets countries who choose to participate (especially the United States) to provide translations for stories, non-fiction items and visual media in a number of outlets. It would be a large and arduous task to pull off but it might be worthwhile pursuing by a dedicated (and persistent) group of volunteers. 

I have to confess that the best idea I have seen to date to diminish America’s cultural imperialism came from longtime fan and the former Editor of Amazing Stories, Steve Davidson, who posted the following on Facebook on May 26:

Buzz  surrounding the issue of an “American” SF Achievement award in light of the Hugo’s becoming more truly “international”.

Not going to get into that aspect, but I do want to mention that a major hurdle awaits any “truly” international, fan-based award, unless by such an award you mean moving Worldcon deliberately to different countries so their local population dominates the vote and some local creators get a good (or at least better) chance at being nominated and winning.

The translation issue.

I don’t believe there is any way to come to a global consensus on the best whatever of a given year unless and until eligible works are near-immediately available in every language that is represented in literature.

Not to mention the volume issue.  No way could anyone possibly read enough international works (those from outside of their native language in translation) to be able to make nominations that aren’t some brand of “local”. The volume in single languages is already unmanageable in many cases.

If such a thing were fully realized (you can read or view any published work in your native language via good translation), how could an international vote be anything but a small minority doing the right thing and trying to survey the field, while the rest engage in voting for their own local community – the people and  works they are most familiar with (and ought to show some degree of partisanship for)?

If anything, I think we ought to go in the opposite direction: encourage each country and/or language community to create their own Hugo Award and use Worldcon to elevate the status of those awards….Make the Hugos an English language award, elevate others to the same status.

Indeed. But the Hugo Awards cannot be co-opted by other entities without permission; it would have to be trademarked and licenced (for a nominal fee to the World Science Fiction Society, of course) to any interested (and vetted) international literary organization, which is an easy and manageable solution to this problem. 

The only obstacle to any implementation of any of these plans is the WSFS Business Meeting, which has shown its repeated reluctance to embrace anything that they might perceive as not being in the best interest of the Worldcon. (Which I think is quite strange for an organization that promotes innovative and imaginative fiction and non-fiction.)

But the gauntlet has been thrown down and I do not think it can be ignored.

I hope that the members of the WSFS Business Meeting will take this issue seriously AND strenuously debate this issue in the next several years.

Watch this space…

Pixel Scroll 5/20/23 I’m Not A Doctor, But People Are Saying Pixels Are A Perfect Cure For Social Isolation

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(1) RIC BERGMAN UPDATE. [Item by Chris Barkley.] As of this past Tuesday, the Cincinnati Police Department and the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office were unable to locate any of the late Ric Bergman’s relatives. If no one had been found, Ric’s body would be processed and buried in a pauper’s area of a local cemetery.

I say would have been, had I not been very attentive Wednesday morning.

At just a little before 10:00 a.m, I received a message on Twitter from a fan named Paul Hattori. Mr. Hattori stated that he had read the tribute I wrote and was moved to contact me.

He provided the names and phone numbers of several relatives who live locally, including a sister, Beth Kelley.

I relayed all of this to my fellow CFG member Tanya Carter (who had been in contact with local authorities), who in turn contacted the family members.

The relatives quickly swung into action and forestalled any further action by Hamilton County. 

This past Thursday, Beth Kelley professed her thanks to the CFG for notifying the family members and wrote the following in the CFG Facebook page:

“Hi everyone, I’m Ric Bergman’s sister. Thanks so much for getting in touch with us. I should be getting access to his apartment sometime today.  I was thinking of having prayer cards made for him, but I want to do something that really says “Ric Bergman” … Please feel free to contact me. I’ll keep you all posted as I know more.  Thanks for being there for him.

If anyone is interested I was thinking about having a get together a little later in the summer.  He’s going to at least partially get his viking funeral!!   There’s a small park in Covedale I was going to rent for a day.  Also there are soooooooo many books and movies. I’ll try to get pictures of them today and tomorrow while we’re packing up his belongings. I will be selling a lot of that stuff to help pay for this….

Please let me know what you guys think and if anyone would like to attend.  Thanks again!”

(2) MARCHING TO A DIFFERENT DRUMMER. Meanwhile, in the Guardian “M John Harrison: ‘I want to be the first human to imitate ChatGPT’”.

How do you feel about the emergence of AI?
I’d separate the thing itself from the boosterism around it. We’re at a familiar point on the curve when it comes to the overenthusiastic selling of new scientific ideas, where one discovery or tech variant is going to solve all our problems. I’d say wait and see. Meanwhile I’ll be plotting to outwrite it; I want to be the first human being to imitate ChatGPT perfectly. I bet you it’s already got mimickable traits.

(3) FREE ONLINE POE READING. The Baltimore Sun tells about a marathon Poe reading that’s in progress NOW. “In Fells Point, reading Edgar Allan Poe through the night for ‘Doomsday’ is ‘quirky, like Baltimore’”. The article is behind a paywall, but the reading can be viewed free on YouTube.

If you stumble through Fells Point late enough Saturday (or early enough the next day), swing by the independent bookstore on the corner of Aliceanna and South Ann streets, and peer into the window, you’ll catch a glimpse of something strange: a group of people reading aloud while the city sleeps.

Don’t be spooked — they’ll be celebrating “Doomsday,” an annual event started last year by Baltimore’s National Edgar Allan Poe Theatre. This year, the 24-hour Poe-themed read-a-thon will be co-hosted at Greedy Reads’ Fells Point shop. Enoch Pratt Free Library is also a partner in the event.

“It’s quirky, like Baltimore is,” said Alex Zavistovich, the founder and artistic director of The National Edgar Allan Poe Theatre.

Zavistovich started “Doomsday” last summer as a locally oriented take on “Bloomsday,” an international celebration of the Irish writer James Joyce’s “Ulysses.”

“Why focus on an inscrutable Irish writer when we have a perfectly inscrutable American writer, right here in Baltimore?” said Zavistovich, 62….

…Local celebrities, including Maryland State Del. Mark Edelson, WYPR host Tom Hall and Baltimore-based authors Brandi Collins-Dexter, Sarah Pinsker, Jeannie Vanasco and Jung Yun, are slated to participate….

(4) VERY BAD NO GOOD. Walter Jon Williams calls his visit to Malta the “Worst. Trip. Ever.” After you read the medical problems that beset him and his wife Kathy when they got to the island, you won’t disagree.

(5) KUANG Q&A. “Rebecca F Kuang: ‘Who has the right to tell a story? It’s the wrong question to ask’” in the Guardian.

… Yellowface’s protagonist, who describes herself as a boring “brown-eyed, brown-haired June Hayward from Philly”, is viciously jealous of fellow writer Athena Liu, a “beautiful, Yale-educated, international, ambiguously queer woman of colour”, whose education in British boarding schools equips her with “a posh, unplaceable foreign accent”. “Publishing picks a winner,” June thinks; Athena, with her string of bestsellers, is the anointed one. After Athena suddenly dies, June discovers a manuscript she had been working on, about the 95,000-strong Chinese Labour Corps who supported Britain in the first world war. It’s intimidatingly good. When June polishes it up and passes it off as her own, the book shoots her to literary stardom.

Reviewers then debate June’s right to tell the story, echoing familiar conversations on whether authors should write about characters and histories outside their own race or lived experiences. In Yellowface, that initial query spirals into increasingly outlandish backlashes, and everything that was once coherent and proportionate disappears under a mountain of tweets. Kuang’s view, however, is clearer. “I really do not like this framework,” she says. Concerns about “who has permission to tell these stories, or who has the right, or who is qualified” seem like “the wrong questions to ask”.

“We’re storytellers, and the point of storytelling is, among other things, to imagine outside of your lived experience and empathise with people who are not you, and to ideally write truthfully, and with compassion, a whole range of characters,” she continues. “Otherwise all we could ever publish are memoirs and autobiographies and nobody wants that.” For her, more interesting is how authors approach these stories: “Are they engaging critically with tropes and stereotypes that already exist in the genre? Or are they just replicating them? What is their relationship to the people who are being represented?” And, “most importantly, does the work do something interesting? Is it good?” While some concerns about the “permission to speak” come from desires to support underrepresented authors, Kuang thinks it “usually gets wielded as a double-edged sword against marginalised writers, to pigeonhole them into only writing about their marginalised experiences. And I hate this. It really functions as another form of gatekeeping.”

(6) CLASSIC FILK MANUAL. Fanac.org has added the 2001 combined edition of Bruce Pelz’s Filksong Manual.  Originally published in 4 parts, the combined edition is 101 pages long. Cover by Stu Shiffman.

This index is intended to be ordered chronologically, but I’ve listed this right after the original publication of part 2. If you’ve wanted to find the words to the Gilbert and Sullivan parodies, or “The Childish Edda”, here’s your chance. There are songs by Poul Anderson, Randall Garrett, Tom Digby, Ted Johnstone, and of course, Bruce Pelz. Plus many others. The original publications were in 1965-1969, and some of the songs are considerably older. “Think of the Old Tacky Stuff as Of Historical Interest. To Someone. Somewhere. Somewhen. And blame the appearance of this revision/reprinting -three years after I started it — on Lee Gold.”

(7) MEMORY LANE.

1980 – [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

So let’s talk about Walter S. Tevis whose Mockingbird is the source of our Beginning this Scroll. Tevis wrote not only The Man Who Fell to Earth which is definitely genre and I think has had at least two film versions so far, along with the near future SF novel The Steps of the Sun but also the delicious chess novel The Queen’s Gambit which also became a film of some distinction.

This novel was published by Doubleday in 1980. The cover illustration is by Fred Marcellino. 

It was nominated for both the Ditmar and Nebula Awards. 

And now for our Beginning…

Spofforth

Walking up Fifth Avenue at midnight, Spofforth begins to whistle. He does not know the name of the tune nor does he care to know; it is a complicated tune, one he whistles often when alone. He is naked to the waist and barefoot, dressed only in khaki trousers; he can feel the worn old paving beneath his feet. Although he walks up the middle of the broad avenue he can see patches of grass and tall weeds on either side of him where the sidewalk has long before been cracked and broken away, awaiting repairs that will never be made. From these patches Spofforth hears a chorus of diverse clickings and wing rubbings of insects. The sounds make him uneasy, as they always do this time of year, in spring. He puts his big hands into his trouser pockets. Then, uncomfortable, he takes them out again and begins to jog, huge and light-footed, athletic, up toward the massive form of the Empire State Building. 

The doorway to the building had eyes and a voice; its brain was the brain of a moron—single-minded and insensitive. ‘Closed for repairs,’ the voice said to Spofforth as he approached.

‘Shut up and open,’ Spofforth said. 

And then, ‘I am Robert Spofforth. Make Nine.’ 

‘Sorry, sir,’ the door said. ‘Couldn’t see…’ ‘Yes. 

Open up. And tell the express elevator to be down for me.’ 

The door was silent for a moment. 

Then it said, ‘Elevator’s not working, sir.’ ‘Shit,’ Spofforth said. 

And then, ‘I’ll walk up.’

The door opened and Spofforth walked in and headed across the dark lobby toward the stairway. He muted the pain circuits in his legs and lungs, and began to climb. He was no longer whistling; his elaborate mind had become fixed narrowly now upon his annual intent. 

When he reached the edge of the platform, as high above the city as one could stand, Spofforth sent the command to the nerves in his legs and the pain surged into them. He wobbled slightly from it, high and alone in the black night, with no moon above him and the stars dim. The surface underfoot was smooth, polished; once years before Spofforth had almost slipped. Immediately he had thought, in disappointment, If only that would happen again, at the edge. But it did not.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born May 20, 1911 — Gardner F. Fox. Writer for DC comics and other companies as well. He was prolific enough that historians of the field estimate he wrote more than four thousand comics stories, including 1,500 for just DC Comics. For DC, He created The Flash, Adam Strange and The Atom, plus the Justice Society of America. His first SF novel was Escape Across the Cosmos though he wrote a tie-in novel, Jules Verne’s Five Weeks in a Balloon, previously. (Died 1986.)
  • Born May 20, 1928 — Shirley Rousseau Murphy, 95. Author of the Joe Grey series of mysteries. Its narrator is a feline who speaks and who solves mysteries which is definitely genre. Excellent series which gets better in characterization as it goes along. And the audiobooks as narrated by Susan Boyce are a great deal of fun listening. She also did some more traditional genre fiction, none of which I’ve read in the Children of Ynell series and the Dragonbard trilogy. 
  • Born May 20, 1936 — Anthony Zerbe, 87. Zerbe played the major role of Matthias, the news anchor turned mutant albino cult leader determined to kill Charlton Heston’s Richard Neville in The Omega Man, the loosely-adapated 1971 film version of Richard Matheson’s novel, I Am Legend. He  was the villain Milton Krest in the Licence to Kill bond film;  Roger Stuart in Steven King’s The Dead Zone; Admiral Dougherty in Star Trek: Insurrection; and Councillor Hamann in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. Series wise, he showed up on the Wild, Wild West and five episodes of Mission: Impossible as five different characters, he was Dr. Charles Napier on the Asteroid series on NBC in 1997 that I never heard of. 
  • Born May 20, 1940 — Joan Staley. She showed up twice as Okie Annie on Batman in “It’s How You Play the Game” and “Come Back, Shame“. She played Ginny in Mission Impossible’s two-parter, “The Council”, and she was in Prehistoric Valley (Dinosaurs! Caveman! Playboy mates in bikinis!) She also played Fiona in Brigadoon which has to be genre, isn’t it? (Died 2019.)
  • Born May 20, 1946 — Cher, 77. Yes she was Alexandra Medford in The Witches of Eastwick, a film that I absolutely love and adore, (and no I’ve not read the novel) which is really her only genre credit. She did appear as Romana on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in “The Hot Number Affair” and she’s voicing herself in The New Scooby-Doo Movies which despite the name was actually a series, but that’s it. 
  • Born May 20, 1951 — Steve Jackson, 72. The UK game designer (not to be confused with the owner of Steve Jackson Games). With Ian Livingstone, he founded Games Workshop and also the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, the two most dominant aspects of the UK games industry before it came to be essentially wiped by the advent of videogames. I’m fairly sure the only one of his works that I’ve played is Starship Traveller which I’d have been playing around the same time as Traveller.
  • Born May 20, 1961 — Owen Teale, 62. Best known role is as Alliser Thorne on the just-concluded Game of Thrones. He also was Will Scarlet in the superb Robin Hood where the lead role was performed by Patrick Bergin, he played the theologian Pelagius in 2004 King Arthur, was Vatrenus in yet another riff on Arthurian myth called The Last Legion, was Maldak in the “Vengeance on Varos” episode in the Era of the Sixth Doctor, and was Evan Sherman in the “Countrycide” episode of Torchwood. He’s currently playing Peter Knox in A Discovery of Witches based on the All Souls trilogy by Deborah Harkness, named after the first book in the trilogy. I read most if not all of that series and it’s quite excellent. Keeping with my firm belief of never watching a series based on fiction that I really, really liked, I have not seen the series. 

(9) IN A HOLE IN THE GROUND. Space.com’s review says “’Crater’ on Disney Plus offers kids out-of-this-world charm”.

NASA’s Artemis program is stirring up renewed interest in lunar exploration, and retro-style coming-of-age flicks from Hollywood are proving to be very popular with audiences and viewers.

So Disney Plus has decided to merge those two elements for its new kid-friendly sci-fi film, “Crater.”

Directed by Kyle Patrick Alvarez (“C.O.G.”), “Crater” unfolds its gripping tale of five adventurous kids in the year 2257 living at a protected mining colony on the surface of the moon who steal a research rover and embark on a wild overland romp to explore a notorious crater….

(10) ROGER CORMAN APPEARANCE IN LA. Fans will have an opportunity to meet Roger Corman at Chris Alexander’s book signing on June 10.

Canadian writer, editor, music composer and filmmaker Chris Alexander (former editor-in-chief of iconic horror film magazine FANGORIA and editor-in-chief/co-founder of DELIRIUM magazine), and legendary American film director, producer and actor Roger Corman are meeting in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 10th for a signing of CORMAN/POE: Interviews and Essays Exploring the Making of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe Films, 1960–1964. The book will hit shelves June 6th.

Written by author and filmmaker Chris Alexander, CORMAN/POE: Interviews and Essays Exploring the Making of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe Films, 1960–1964 is the only book to fully examine this important chapter in horror film history. In-depth conversations with the maverick Roger Corman are book-ended by engaging critical analyses of each of the eight films, which together stand as a fully realized and consistent creative vision.

WHEN: Saturday, June 10th, 3pm – 5pm PST

WHERE: Dark Delicacies, 822 N Hollywood Way, Burbank, CA 91505

(11) NEW FAMILY TRADITION. “Orcas have sunk 3 boats in Europe and appear to be teaching others to do the same. But why?” Can Live Science really not guess the answer?

Orcas have attacked and sunk a third boat off the Iberian coast of Europe, and experts now believe the behavior is being copied by the rest of the population.

Three orcas (Orcinus orca), also known as killer whales, struck the yacht on the night of May 4 in the Strait of Gibraltar, off the coast of Spain, and pierced the rudder. “There were two smaller and one larger orca,” skipper Werner Schaufelberger told the German publication Yacht. “The little ones shook the rudder at the back while the big one repeatedly backed up and rammed the ship with full force from the side.” 

Schaufelberger said he saw the smaller orcas imitate the larger one. “The two little orcas observed the bigger one’s technique and, with a slight run-up, they too slammed into the boat.” Spanish coast guards rescued the crew and towed the boat to Barbate, but it sank at the port entrance.

Two days earlier, a pod of six orcas assailed another sailboat navigating the strait. Greg Blackburn, who was aboard the vessel, looked on as a mother orca appeared to teach her calf how to charge into the rudder. “It was definitely some form of education, teaching going on,” Blackburn told 9news.

Reports of aggressive encounters with orcas off the Iberian coast began in May 2020 and are becoming more frequent, according to a study published June 2022 in the journal Marine Mammal Science. Assaults seem to be mainly directed at sailing boats and follow a clear pattern, with orcas approaching from the stern to strike the rudder, then losing interest once they have successfully stopped the boat.

(12) HUNGRY ALIENS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Over at Science and Futurism Isaac Arthur is more SFnal than usual with a second genre-related posting, this time on hungry aliens and another possible answer to the Fermi Paradox…

The galaxy is a dark, mysterious, and silent place – perhaps it is quiet and empty because some great predator already consumed all in its path, and if so, might we be next?

(13) LEAVING A BIG WAKE. PBS Space Time host Matt O’Dowd has been wondering whether we can detect alien space craft’s gravitational wake… “Could LIGO Find MASSIVE Alien Spaceships?”

Whenever we open a new window on the universe, we discover things that no one expected. Our newfound ability to measure ripples in the fabric of spacetime—gravitational waves—is a very new window, and so far we’ve seen a lot of wild stuff. We’ve observed black holes colliding, and their oddly high masses challenges our understanding of black hole formation and growth. We’ve seen colliding neutron stars that have forced us to rewrite our ideas of how many of the elements of the periodic table get made. But what else might be hiding in the ripples’ of spacetime? Oh, I know: how about the gravitational wakes caused by planet-sized alien spacecraft accelerating to near light speed….

[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Steven French, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Jeffrey Smith, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kevin Harkness.]

Barkley — So Glad You (Didn’t) Ask #74

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Self-portrait, circa 1980’s

Ric Bergman, 1949-2023

By Chris M. Barkley: We may not give it much thought, but we dance with death on a daily basis.

We evade death every day by doing little things; not crossing against the street light, using our turn signals, putting on a life jacket before boating, taking our daily medications and watching our step on mountain trails.

We take these precautions almost unconsciously, with the almost reckless assurance that we will wake in the morning and go soundly to sleep at night.

But none of that is true. 

We live in a very perilous world where calamity, disease and sudden death are dealt out wholesale on a daily basis. And occasionally, we are reminded that it is closer than we can possibly imagine.

On Saturday afternoon, April 29, I was preparing to go to one of the irregularly scheduled meetings of the Cincinnati Fantasy Group with my partner Juli.

We were excited to see our CFG friends who were gathering at our friend Karen’s residence for an impromptu wake for a recently deceased member, Frank Johnson. There had been very few gatherings (and no annual Midwestcons) since 2020 due to the COVID-19 outbreak. This meeting marked a return to something resembling normalcy. But we were all mistaken.

As I waited for Juli to get ready, I was checking the CFG Facebook account (which I am a co-administrator of) and noticed we had received a urgent notification from a fan named Rita Deering Webber:

“Hey, folks, I need a favor. Ric Bergman hasn’t posted on FB for around 6 weeks and that’s not usual for him. I’m in Chattanooga so aside from the telephone I have no way to check on him. If any of you have the ability to go by and see if he’s okay I’d really appreciate it. I’ve called multiple times and left messages. Now his voicemail is full and he’s still not answering. Another friend in New York has tried also. I have his phone number and address if anyone is willing to go over there. Just message me if you need it. I’d hate to think something has happened to him and nobody knows.”

Ric and Rita Deering Webber, Midwestcon 1978. Photo by Stephen Leigh.

I knew Ric Bergman, but not as well as some of the other members. He was a longtime and well known member of CFG. But no one in the group had seen him in the past few years; in fact, the last time I remember seeing him was at one of our annual picnics in 2018 or 2019. 

I messaged her and asked for his current address so Juli and I could conduct a wellness check. Ms. Deering responded immediately. And as it turned out, it was on the western side of town and not too far out of our way to Karen’s house. 

Childhood portrait, late 1950’s

Richard Charles Bergman was born in Cincinnati and was a graduate of Western Hills School in 1967. You might say he was born to be a fan. In September of 2013, Ric wrote on Facebook:

“Sixty-four years ago I was born, 1949 September 5th, 5 maybe 6 miles away at the Hotel Metropole the banquet was happening at Cinvention and at Deaconess Hospital at 7:27 pm, I was born. I love Doc E. E. Smith, he was there, I love Fritz Leiber Jr.’s Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories, he was there. And now I’m a part of it, small part, but that’s probably for the best.” 

When I discovered the CFG in June of 1976, Ric was hard not to notice or like. Back then, we had been gathering annually for several years at the Quality Inn Hotel in Norwood, Ohio (which, sadly, was recently demolished and razed for new development). Ric, who was well over six feet tall, possessed an unruly bush of reddish hair, had a great sense of humor and a booming laugh that could be heard several hotel rooms away.

And while I wouldn’t describe us as close friends, we had many mutual friends and we got along well enough and I certainly regarded him as a valued member of the CFG family.

A demonic portrait of Ric at Midwestcon 1982. Photo by Stephen Leigh.

After Rita transmitted Ric’s address, I googled it and looked at the area. I’ve lived in the area a majority of my life and was familiar enough with the part of Cincinnati where the apartment complex was located. 

We arrived at the huge, sprawling complex on top of a hill just before sunset. The parking area and driveway was mostly composed of potholes, loose gravel and cracked pavement. I found a parking space right in front of the Ric’s building.

Juli elected to stay in the car. I made my way inside and knocked on what I thought was Ric’s apartment door. I say that because the person who answered the door was Hispanic and was not fluent in English. 

As I started to go through my brain’s rolodex of Spanish phrases, the man held up his hand and reached for his smartphone. It took a couple of tries but eventually he got his English to Spanish voice translator to work. A person I assumed was the man’s partner looked on with a bemused look on her face.

When I asked if he knew Ric or his current whereabouts, he said he didn’t have any idea. Despondent, I thanked them and returned to the car. I checked the apartment number with Juli. I discovered that I was one digit off; it was actually the door next to the one I knocked on.

I went back inside and used the brass knocker on Ric’s door. Several times. There was no response. 

I then did something I really did not like doing; I put my nose to the edge of the door to test for noxious odors.

Nothing. 

Which didn’t surprise me all that much because I could see that there was some sort of seal with bristles bordering the edges, which probably reduced any noise as well.

A thought occurred to me as I stepped back outside; Ric has a car. Maybe it was still here. I texted Rita and asked her if she knew what kind of car Ric drove. She responded: “He has an old white sedan. I think a Chrysler.” 

I glanced out and noticed just such a car, parked right next to our car.

I took a photo and sent it to her. “Is that it?”

Rita said: “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it.”

I went over to the car and examined it. It was covered with grime and dust. There were also leaves and dirt accumulated under the tires. Although the evidence was purely circumstantial, it certainly did not look good.

Off to the west, I could see a line of storm clouds advancing towards the complex. After consulting with Juli, we agreed that there was no telling how long it would take for someone to check the apartment so we decided to proceed to the CFG meeting and arrange for an official wellness check by the police and EMT’s from the fire division. 

I can’t speak for Juli but I can freely admit I also had absolutely no interest in being present when they opened Ric’s door…

I texted Rita an update on how we were doing and we left.

For many years through the 1970’s through the 1990’s, I saw Ric in the company of Diane Devorn. They were a lovely couple and enjoyed each other’s company and ours as well.

Ric, Diane & Denise Leigh, September 1982. Photo by Stephen Leigh.
Ric and Diane on their wedding day, March 20, 1981.
Ric Bergman and parents on his wedding day.

From reports that I have since received from fellow CFG members, they were married in 1981 and for a time moved to California for a while. There was an amicable divorce towards the end of the century and Ric eventually moved back to Cincinnati. Ms Devorn died of cancer sometime afterwards. 

(I was unable to verify any more of this as of this publication. Friends and acquaintances of Mr. Bergman and Ms. Devorn are free to contact me or comment on this File 770 post for corrections and clarifications).

If you were to scroll through the last two years of Ric’s posts (and I did), you can tell that he was fiercely against war, economic inequality, hypocrisy, sexism and racism. He was also a HUGE fan of Star Trek, Doctor Who and Star Wars. I also noted that the both of us shared the same sorts of political memes and jokes.

Ric and Diane with family members at Thanksgiving in California, circa mid-1980’s. Photo by Ric Bergman.

Being white, Ric could have easily used the societal privilege granted to him to his advantage but from what I could tell from his Facebook posts, he consciously chose to speak up and speak out about things he saw in his life that were wrong. I admire him for that.

Juli and I arrived at Karen’s house at dusk. After greeting our friends and apprising them of the situation with Ric, I commandeered a bedroom, closed the door and began to make phone calls.

My first call was to the housing management company which was located in northern Kentucky, across the river from Cincinnati. I did not expect anyone to answer at that hour and no one did. I left a lengthy voicemail about being concerned about not hearing from Ric and that I was calling the proper authorities to arrange a wellness check. 

The next call was to the local police district; I spoke with an office who took all of my information and a narrative of everything that had happened up to that point in time. I also shared everything that Rita told me, including the condition of the car which we thought was Ric’s parked in front of the unit. The officer on duty told me that a wellness check by paramedics and police would be scheduled as soon as possible and that they would call me directly with any updates.

Sitting there on the bed, I decided to check Ric’s recent social media posts; he did not have a Twitter account so I went to his Facebook account. Besides Rita’s entreaties for help, the last known post Ric made was on Friday, March 10. 

My heart sank. If Ric was not hospitalized somewhere (something the police said they would check on as well), all of our worst fears would certainly be realized.

From Ric Bergman’s September 2013 Facebook post:

“It’s hard for me to get to many meetings, I need a new pair of knees and steps and inclines are rough on me, but when I can’t walk and have to be put away someplace, I’m still gonna want Bill to keep me on the list. The only benefit I know is the people I’ve met and get to hang around with sometimes. I met my late, ex-wife at a Rivercon, she was part of The Terran League out of Columbus. I met my late best friend Wally Franke. I played D&D for maybe 9 years with the best DM possible, a Science Fiction writer. andrew offutt invited me and Di to his house for the weekend and he sent me galley proofs (?) of several of my favorite of his books. You’ve even sent me books, Mike.”

(The “Bill” mentioned in this post is Bill Cavin, the current head of the Cincinnati Fantasy Group and “Mike” was undoubtedly the late Hugo and Nebula Award winning local author, Mike Resnick.)

The wait for the call was almost intolerable. I can say almost because I was among my CFG friends and it was better to share Ric’s ultimate fate with them than face it alone.

After about forty-five minutes, my phone rang. It was a call from the police.

I identified myself and said, “I hope you have good news.”

“Well, I’m afraid I have bad news for you…”

The office explained that they found Ric in the apartment, deceased. By the look on my face, several CFG members seated near me acknowledged the news; Ric was gone.

Socks, Ric’s dog, 1982. Photo by Stephen Leigh.
Ric Bergman self portrait, circa July 2017.
Ric, Michaele Jordan and Ray Beam, circa 1980’s. Photo by Stephen Leigh.

The officer went on to explain that from all indications, he had suffered some sort of sudden medical event and had died very quickly. The county coroner was summoned and would be there shortly. 

They went on to explain that they had to breach the door and wanted to know if I would be able to come by and give some more information and take custody of his house keys once they found them. I said sure and concluded the call.

As I told other assembled members, there was much despair. More so for our host, Karen, whose beloved partner Frank Johnson has succumbed to cancer five years ago. 

I told Juli that we were wanted over at the apartment and we said our goodbyes. Since the car was parked several hundred yards away, I opted to get the car and drive back to pick Juli up.

The promised rain showers had just begun to strike the pavement as I walked down the hill. It was a full-fledged downpour as I pulled up to Karen’s house. As we rode, I told Juli that I wasn’t sorry that we went by or got involved. Because I had no doubt that if we had not answered Rita’s inquiry, Ric may not have been found until the apartment managers came to collect the overdue rent.

When we arrived at the complex, two police cruisers were parked in front of Ric’s unit. As I parked, Juli asked, “Do you want me to come with you?” 

I sighed and said, “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I would welcome your company.” She squeezed my hand and we got out of the car. The rain was coming down pretty hard as we approached the entrance. There was an officer underneath the awning and it seemed as though he had been waiting for us.

We introduced ourselves. He introduced himself and stated that he was among the personnel who entered the apartment. He said that Ric was found, face down in the hallway. His estimation was that he had been there for at least two weeks. I shuddered, thinking about Ric’s last Facebook post in March.

He then asked us about our involvement with Ric and I shared Rita’s phone number and showed him our text messages we shared over the past few hours. When I asked why they were still there, he stated that the county coroner had not arrived yet. 

Juli and I paused and let that sink in. 

The officer said that he noticed that Ric had a Stargate poster on his wall. I said that he was a long time fan of science fiction and that so were we. Ric was truly one of us…

And with that, Juli and I walked in the rain back to our car and went home. Saddened by the loss of our friend, but happy that we were the ones who made sure he was found. I’m certain Ric would have done the same for any of us.

As of this post, the coroner has not released a cause of death. CFG member Tanya Carter reported eight days ago:

“I called the Hamilton County Coroner’s office. “L. L”. is the investigator assigned to Ric’s case. He is putting an ad in the papers to try and locate next of kin and will try for 10 days to find someone. After that…. he will give me a call if they find someone or not. If the club wants to do something about arrangements, we can do so as far as they are concerned. Otherwise, the county will treat him as an indigent, and do whatever they do in such a case. It sounds like we could dispose of any assets he had to help defray expenses, and make arrangements as necessary. Guess we need to discuss this…”

More ten years ago, Ric Bergman wrote the following to his friend Rita Deering Webber after she made a comment about a mutual friend’s memory loss;

“That’s horrible, that was always like my greatest fear, you know, like Alzheimer’s. I don’t mind dying, but I want all of me to go all at once. I don’t have anyone that could take care of me and nothing could be as lonely as losing your memories.”   

And I saw and heard from Ric so infrequently that he faded from my memories as well as others, too.  

Two days after Ric’s body was found, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered aired the following story: “America has a loneliness epidemic. Here are 6 steps to address it”.

The next day, Morning Edition host A Martinez interviewed Eric Liu of Citizen University about this “epidemic of loneliness” in America: “Why the U.S. surgeon general says feeling lonely could lead to an early death”.

The point must be made that what happened to Ric Bergman could have been avoided. 

It is ironic that in a world that is more interconnected and socially active that people everywhere are feeling an alarming amount of alienation and loneliness.

The advice I would impart to fandom, our families and friends is this: stay safe, keep in touch and know that you are loved and valued.

 I’d like that put on my headstone. Ric Bergman, 50 year member of The Cincinnati Fantasy Group. – FIAWOL –
-Richard Charles Bergman, September 2013

Ric Bergman and the late Frank Johnson at Ric’s wedding, March 1981. Photo by Stephen Leigh.

Barkley — So Glad You (Didn’t) Ask #73

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We NEED To Talk About Chengdu: An Opinion 

By Chris M. Barkley: For many, many months, I have shied away from commenting on the Chengdu Worldcon, with the exception of reporting any news of the latest updates from the Committee itself, which, as many of you reading this are obviously aware, have been few and far between.  I have been following their story from a distance, both physically and emotionally, since their committee won the bid at DisCon 3 in December 2021. 

Speaking for myself, I have been feeling pessimistic about the prospects of the Chengdu Worldcon for quite a while now. And as time has passed and we draw closer towards the start of the convention, I find myself awash in feelings of anxiety and dread.

So much so that I feel an urgent need to speak right now about this situation.

Make no mistake about it; each and every Worldcon has had its own set of setbacks, schedule changes, programming nightmares, committee shuffles and personality conflicts. Some have been better run than others and, to my knowledge, there have been no perfectly run Worldcons. I’ve attended thirty-one in various capacities since 1977 so I have an intimate and personal knowledge of how difficult it is to plan and execute all of these non-profit, volunteer affairs. 

And knowing that there were several Chengdu bid members shadowing Worldcon committee and staffers for many years this past decade, I did not envy them facing these high risk challenges.

Complicating and confounding the situation even further is the geopolitical tensions between the United States and the PRC. 

Among the many burning unanswered questions I have to ask is to what extent the local, provincial and/or the upper echelons of PRC’s government are involved with the Worldcon? Because that is what numerous commentators were afraid of happening during the campaign between Winnipeg and Chengdu leading up to the Site Selection election at DisCon III.

Do they see the Worldcon as a possible propaganda coup or as a political nuisance? Is it possible that they are completely indifferent? No one knows.

On February 18th, I was greeted with an email in my inbox from the Committee announcing the news that the 2023 Hugo Award nomination web page was completing its beta testing and should be open to eligible members by the end of the month. 

This is a pleasant piece of news from a Worldcon Committee that has been plagued by membership and payment problems, a troublesome author guest of honor and an intermittent stream of information from the convention runners. This, along with a never ending stream of criticism from fans (mainly based in the United States) about a World Science Fiction Convention being held in the People’s Republic of China.

Whether or not the Chengdu bid won fairly will be a point of contention (and fodder for fannish historians) for many years to come and right now it’s entirely moot. The Chengdu bid won through an open and democratic process. And whether any of us like it or not, as of today, the 81st World Science Fiction Convention is going to be held there.

As divisive as the results have been, I did hold out hope that there was a possibility that a Worldcon being hosted in the largest country in Asia might offer a chance to narrow the cultural gap between eastern and western fans.

But alas, it seems to me that the opposite is coming true.

Unfortunately, in the absence of regular updates from the Chengdu Committee, 

It creates a space where rumors, conspiracy theories and outright lies may grow and prosper.

I and a legion of fans were taken by surprise when the Chengdu Committee announced a change of dates last month from August to October with a change of venues and hotels as well. In a recent exchange between myself and a prominent fan from North America, they expressed more than a bit of exasperation when they wrote:

This just sort-of sprang out of nowhere (I literally found out via the Facebook announcement being sent to me).  That doesn’t mean that some communication didn’t happen somewhere, but it was very much a surprise to most (if not all) of us as far as I know.  The Chengdu committee has not told us a whole lot in general (they mostly just post panda pictures and things like that on their Facebook page), but they aren’t required to tell us very much.

I am very curious as to what Ben Yalow (the American on the convention committee) knew and when he knew it regarding this, as he is on this committee and did not tell us anything as far as I know (which is a surprise, as he has been involved in Worldcon things for longer than many of us have been alive).

Another North American fan with contacts in the PRC conveyed to me the anxiety that they heard from other fans in China:

For your reference and you can quote me anonymously on this, the atmosphere seems dire as if there’s no hope for the convention. One of them straight up said “Chinese fandom will be the laughing stock of the world for decades”. There is definitely a lot of resentment that the “floating Worldcon committee” did not come in to help them like they do every Worldcon and every single one of them chalks that up to racism. So, basically, lots of spite for their own fandom but way more for “Western” fandom which they think abandoned them fully.

I can only say that I find these last two comments incredibly distressing. And so should you. Because those sentiments are not what fandom is supposed to represent.

There are legions of fans in the PRC who are just as avid and passionate about their love of fantasy and sf as in their various forms and venues. They have been seeking to be accepted and welcomed by us in the West as their peers and equals for decades. They have been pursuing a Worldcon bid over the past decade in order to show us how enthusiastic they were at the prospect.

In my estimation, the members of the Chengdu Committee have not served their supporting and attending members very well. They have been engulfed in numerous controversies and faux pas, the aforementioned troublesome guest of honor, the various missteps involving taking payments from overseas and memberships, the lack of any regularly scheduled Progress Reports from the committee and most recently, the change of dates of the convention from August to October. 

And conversely, western fandom, collectively, hasn’t exactly made it easy for them. It is my opinion that fans in the west who have been shouting the loudest about the Chengdu Worldcon bear some of the responsibility for reacting too negatively towards the Chengdu Committee and Chinese fans. They see our protests and lack of support as positive proof of the racist intentions towards them and we haven’t done enough to persuade them otherwise. 

What we have to do is be more cognizant of the fact that the sf fans in the People’s Republic of China are human beings, too. 

They have demonstrated that they are no less enthusiastic than we are in their love of genre fiction. Their fandom has grown in leaps and bounds over the past twenty years. Sure, we despise their autocratic form of government. But we need to temper those feelings and recognize that the fans in China are neither uniform nor monolithic in their political beliefs as some of us have made them out to be.

My point here is that all sides NEED to do better. 

Everyone involved is under a lot of pressure right now, both personally, socially and lately, as I mentioned earlier, geopolitically, as well. 

We all need to step back and reassess what has happened and what we’re going to do in the weeks and months leading up to the 81st World Science Fiction Convention. If the Chengdu Worldcon fails, it is a collective and total failure for fandom all over the world.

I am urging all parties involved to get together and figure this out before it’s too late.  

Openly. Honestly. Transparently.  

What fandom (and I include my fellow fans in China and elsewhere as well) needs to do are two vital things:

A) We ALL need to know what’s going on with the Chengdu Worldcon. We need regular progress reports and information on potential travel and or visa restrictions, convention venues and hotels.

B) What can we (meaning ALL of us) do to ensure that the Chengdu Worldcon is a successful endeavor? Because if this convention fails, we all fail.

Because, let’s face it, being judgmental, expressing suspicions, rumors, prejudice and outright hate aren’t working very well for us right now.

The main problem with the Chengdu Worldcon is that we are all being ill informed as to what is happening. And no solution can be formulated without more information.
As of this post, there are 239 days before the scheduled start of the 81st World Science Fiction Convention. And what we do in this dwindling amount of time will affect every World Science Fiction Convention that follows in its wake. 

Let’s not waste any more time.

Barkley — So Glad You (Didn’t) Ask #72

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WORLDCON 80 – A PICTORIAL ESSAY 

By Chris M. Barkley and Juli Marr.

AUGUST 30, 2022 – TRAVEL DAY

Wind Farm Outside Lafayette, Indiana. Photos by Juli Marr

My partner Juli and I set out on a beautiful morning for Chicago. One of our favorite sights is the immense Meadow Lake Wind Farm (which generates 801.25 megawatts of electricity) consisting of 301 turbines, just northwest of  Lafayette, Indiana. I have always been in awe of the size and scope of this modern marvel of engineering.

Photos by Juli Marr

We arrived at dusk and were treated to the enchanting vista of Chicago at night by the river…

SEPTEMBER 1ST

Blues Brothers Cap

Since I was going to be dwelling in the hometown of the Blues Brothers, I thought it would be appropriate to be attired properly.

Galaxy ‘s Edge Editor Lezli Robyn and myself by Juli Marr

One of the first people Juli and I met at Chicon 8 was Galaxy’s Edge Editor and Arc Manor Assistant Publisher Robyn Lezli, who was a large display of books and magazines with her benevolent (and generous) boss, Shahid Mahmud.

Journey Planet

On my way to the Press Office, Christopher Garcia threw a copy of Journey Planet (paperboy style) as we passed each other. Here is a photo of it in mid-flight…

Death Star Beach Ball

One of the first things I unpacked for the Press Office was this item. When the staff assembled that first morning, I told them in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS that if they stepped out of line, I would not hesitate to blow the Illuminated Death Star Beach Ball up! Needless to say, it remained deflated during the duration of the convention.

SEPTEMBER 2

Myself and Oghenechowe Donald Ekpeki, taken by Lezli Robyn

After several delays (and escapades) involving the United States Department of State and airline hijinks, Nigeria’s rising literary star (and double Hugo Finalist), Oghenechowe Donald Ekpeki finally arrived at Chicon 8. I greeted him at the Galaxy’s Edge table in the Dealer’s Room with two facemasks and an envelope with some valuable personal papers. Needless to say, everyone was overjoyed to see him…

Myself, Laura and Navia Moorman, photo by Juli Marr

Also on hand were my daughter, Laura, her husband Charlie (not pictured, unfortunately) and my granddaughter, Navia. They were here to witness my (possible) Hugo Award acceptance speech on Sunday. I may have felt the sting of disappointment by not winning but I was so incredibly happy they were all there.

 Chicago By Day…

Dan Berger, Juli Marr and Sushee Blat pondering

So here are my Press Office mates, Dan Berger, Juli Marr and Sooshe Blat Harkins, pondering where we should go for dinner along the Chicago Riverwalk. Rest assured, we did eat that evening…

Chicago After Dark

Chicago After Dark…

SEPTEMBER 3RD

Day Three of Chicon 3, another beautiful morning.

The Chicon 8 Hugo Award

 On my way to the Press office, I made some time Saturday morning to stop by the Exhibit Hall and check out this year’s Hugo Award trophy. This magnificent award was handcrafted by the renowned Chicago artist and business entrepreneur Brian Keith Ellison of BKE Designs.

Chicon 8 Panelists

Ah, FINALLY, a photo from a Chicon 8 panel. Here are the panelists of “Movie Year in Review: A Curated Look at Genre Films (2021–2022)” moderated by yours truly.  From left to right are: Matthew S. Rotundo, Daryll Mansel, Joshua Bilmes and Deirdre Crimmins. We had fun. You should have been there.

Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki and Seanan Maguire

I was checking up on how Mr. Ekpeki was getting along in the Dealer’s Room when up ZOOMED fellow Hugo Award Finalist Seanan Maguire on her scooter. They both knew of a photo opportunity when they saw it…  

Regency John Hertz

It’s Saturday Night so you know it’s time for another magnificent appearance by fandom’s favorite, and most regal, Masquerade Judge, John Hertz!  

Masquerade Ensemble

And here is a wide shot of all the Chicon 8 Masquerade contestants. I apologize for it being out of focus; I BLAME the three apparitions lighting up in the middle of the photo. I don’t recall who they are but let’s face it, they lit up the joint that evening.

SEPTEMBER 4TH

Breakfast of Champions

It’s THE BIG DAY! And that calls for a BIG BREAKFAST, courtesy of the Chicon 8 Staff Lounge. I hadn’t had a bowl of Rice Chex in AGES. (As a kid, I used to inhale whole boxes in a single sitting. Ah, those were the days…). Anyway, kudos to everyone who helped kept us fed during the convention.   

Lezli Robyn’s Birthday Gifts

Juli and I are very sneaky. We knew in advance that Sunday was Lezli Robyn’s birthday so we planned something a little special for her. The day before we left, we packed and wrapped her gift specially for her. We have both known for years that Lezli is a bit, uh, accident prone. After the fifth or sixth incident we started threatening to just roll her in bubble wrap, for her own safety and protection. Well at Chicon 8, we decided on this preemptive strike before disaster struck again. As you can see, a nice birthday card was placed on top of the package. And you can see Lezli’s reaction as she realized that bubble wrap was all that was left in the box. All for her. We were later informed by sources that she used the bubble wrap as a pillow (in an appropriate place, mind you) when she needed to nap. You’re welcome, Lezli, anytime. 

Catherynne Valente

After delivering Ms. Robyn’s gift, I stole a few minutes from my Press Office duties to have a novel by Catherynne M. Valente signed. We met before when she had a signing at Joseph Beth Booksellers in Cincinnati where I worked for many years. She remembered me and enthusiastically remarked that she had a great time and would love to return for a visit someday. I told her I would pass the word along.  

Hugo Award Day and Invitations

As the day wore on, the more nervous I became. Since there wasn’t much going on that afternoon, I turned my attention to writing a Hugo Award acceptance speech and a concession speech (which was published on File 770 that very evening). Everyone wished me luck but deep down, I knew that I was long shot to actually win. (And, as it turned out, I was right, finishing second in the nomination count and fifth overall in the vote standings.)

O. Donald Ekpeki and myself, photo by Juli Marr

At the Chicon 8 Hugo Award Reception, Mr. Ekpeki and I were recessed to the nines!

Hugo Award Fan Writer Finalists, photo by Juli Marr

Your 2022 Hugo Award Finalists in the Fan Writing Category; from left to right, Jason Sanford, myself, Paul Weimer and Bitter Karella. 

The Hugo Ceremony Crowd

The Crowd gathers for the start of the Hugo Awards Ceremony.

My Date, My Love and My Partner, the lovely and vivacious Juli Marr.

My Fellow 2022 Hugo Award Finalist Steven H Silver and his partner, Elaine Silver. 

Chuck Serface

My Fellow 2022 Hugo Award Finalist Chuck Serface.

Hugo Ceremony Hosts

Our 2022 Hugo Award Ceremony Hosts, Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders.

Olav Rokne and Myself at the After Party, photo by Juli Marr

Two Hugo Losers commiserating, Olav Rokne and myself (being subtly photobombed by Vincent Docherty) at the Chengdu Hugo Reception.

Laura Moorman and myself, photo by Juli Marr

My daughter Laura and I at the Glasgow Bid Party.

Laura Moorman with Denis Villeneuve and Eric Roth’s Hugo Award

My daughter Laura is seen here holding the 2022 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation – Long Form for Dune (Part 1). The award was offered for photos by Chicon 8 Advisor Dave McCarty, whom we thank profusely for the opportunity.

SEPTEMBER 5TH AND 6TH

John Hertz and Myself, photo by Juli Marr

And it’s all over but the shouting. Here John Hertz and I are watching the proceedings, counting down until the dead dog parties start… 

Myself, Jonathan P. Brazee and Maurizio Manzieri, photo by Juli Marr

After Closing Ceremonies, Juli and I met author Col.Jonathan P. Brazee and Hugo Award Finalist (Best Professional Artist) Maurizio Manzieri outside the hotel on their way to an early dinner.   

Berger, Berger and Blat-Harkins

As we wind down a day after Chicon 8 has officially ended, we shared a final meal with Dan Berger, Terry Berger and Sooshe Blat Harkins, who were a tremendous help in the Chicon 8 Press Office. 

Your humble correspondents

A final portrait from Chicago of your humble correspondents, myself and Juli Marr. Until next time, Goodbye and Good Luck… 

Barkley — So Glad You (Didn’t) Ask #71

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Avatar: The Way of Water, A (Spoiler Free) Film Review 

By Chris M. Barkley:

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022, 2 of 4 stars, 192 minutes) with Sam Worthingon, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Sigourney Weaver, Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Edie Falco, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Britain Dalton, Jaime Flatters, Jack Champion, Trinity Jo-Li Bliss and Giovanni Ribisi. Screenplay by James Cameron, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, Directed by James Cameron.

Bechdel Test: Passes, but just barely.

You don’t tug on superman’s cape;
You don’t spit into the wind;
You don’t pull the mask off that old lone ranger,
And you don’t mess around with Jim…

— “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim” — Lyrics by Jim Croce, 1972

 There is a myth surrounding my love of films; my family, close friends, acquaintances, readers of these columns and people in fandom think that I will praise, without reservation, practically EVERY movie I see and review.

 I will say that this is mostly false; I love praising most films that I like because of their artistry of the collaborative process, craft, screenwriting, characters and direction. And I like sharing these discoveries with you readers as well.

Another factor I consider when I appraise a film is how it makes me feel; my movie collection (which looks more like a movie library or a channel at the moment) is filled with stories and images that provoked, startled, challenged and invoked memories and feelings that I happily return to see year after year.

And yes, there are movies that are definitely off my repeat viewing list; The Sting (1973), The Natural (1984), Gattaca, Dark City, Starship Troopers (all from 1997) and WALL-E (2008).

The trouble with the film industry nowadays is that a majority of audiences want to see big, common denominator films and that smaller, more personal and lower budgeted films are becoming harder to finance and becoming more scarce.

I will say, quite pointedly, that if you react to a good movie (or tv series, for that matter) that is a miracle of design, artistry, production values, music, film editing, screenwriting, acting, direction and a million other things going on behind the scenes…

Which brings us to Avatar: The Way of Water. 

Spoiler Alert; I will be a dissenting voice. 

When a film this anticipated comes along I’m usually among the first reviewers to weigh in. Well, this time around, I have to admit that I was in no hurry whatsoever, mainly because of the auteur behind this burgeoning Avatar empire.

The lyrics I quote above from the late Jim Croce’s hit song easily could be applied to the life and career of James Francis Cameron, the creator, writer, director and producer of some of the most successful and iconic films for the past forty years: The Terminator and its sequel, T2, The Abyss, True Lies, the Academy Award winning Titanic and the first Avatar film.

James Cameron’s reputation as being a hard driving, obsessed perfectionist is legendary. His reputation in the film industry is quite binary; either you love him, his process and work ethic OR you loathe him. But either way, he is respected for the level of success he has achieved during his career.

Back in 2009, The New Yorker Magazine profiled Cameron before the release of the first film, and provided what I consider a rather even handed view of the man and his filmmaking process: “Man of Extremes” in The New Yorker.

But no matter how I feel about him as a person (and I definitely have some opinions on the subject), that shouldn’t affect how I might feel about the work he produces. Usually. 

The one thing I can say is that when it comes to Avatar: The Way of Water is that I was somewhat impressed with the look and visual effects of the movie and how hard Cameron was trying to win me over with this film.

The Way of Water takes us back to the moon of Pandora, where Corporal Sully (Sam Worthington), the former human soldier turned Na’vi avatar, has settled down and formed a family with Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) with three native children  Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), Tuktirey (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss) and adopted daughter Kiri (Sigourney Weaver).

But the Sully clan, and the rest of Pandora denizens for that matter, have their idyllic lives disrupted for good with the sudden reappearance of “the sky people” (Terrans) whose landings signal a new wave of despoiling of the biosphere and establishing permanent human colonies.

Sully’s deceased antagonist from the first film, Col. Miles Qualritch (Stephen Lang) has been cloned and revived as a Na’vi avatar with most of his memories intact. With a heavily armed squad of similarly reconstituted avatar hybrids, his primary mission is to hunt down and destroy Sully and crush the growing native resistance to the human invaders.

What follows over the next three hours chronicles the Sullys on the run, Qualritch and his mercenaries hot on their trail, encountering new, sea based tribes and various and intermittent views of Pandora’s wonders, all leading up to a deadly and devastating clash. 

The Way of Water’s visual effects are spectacular; the live action actors blend almost seamlessly with the computer generated flora, fauna, sea creatures and alien characters. Everything is vivid and almost lifelike. And I have read elsewhere that it’s even more so in 3-D.

But, and there is no way I can sugarcoat this, is that all of this is just a hollow exercise in spectacle as far as I’m concerned. The Way of Water is nothing more than a rerun of the first film with more bad guys, more guns, more explosions and chases and more children and female characters in dire peril, with some extra teen angst thrown in for extra measure.

 And, I was pleased to see, I was not alone in my assessment. 

While most mainstream critics and reviewers have lavished praise on The Way of Water, others have criticized Cameron for his simplistic and obvious plotline, hackneyed dialog, thin characterizations and his seemingly disingenuous lip service towards the plight of indigenous people and our ongoing environmental crisis. While it’s easy to see the ecological parallels between Pandora and Earth, I wonder if people are flocking to see are just there for the special effects and battles and walk away not even caring about that underlying message.  

I have to admit that I did have a bit of a chip on my shoulder going into this movie. For one, I felt that the first film was thematically an adaptation of the late Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1972 Hugo Award winning novella “The Word For World Is Forest” (which was first published in Harlan Ellison’s landmark sf anthology Again, Dangerous Visions in 1972), a comparison that many observers have noted over the past thirteen years.

(In fact, if Cameron had put his sizable talents to work on adapting Le Guin’s story or her Hainish tales, Cameron could have saved himself a lot of production time and effort than creating Pandora’s backstory and ecology from the ground up.)

Secondly, I’ve seen several thousand films over the past six decades. If I’m not fully into a movie to the point where my suspension of disbelief is disengaged, I start to anticipate plot points, look for bad special effects, acting miscues and editing errors. 

So after two hours and thirty minutes of Cameron’s painting by the numbers sturm und drang, I knew exactly what to expect in the last half hour, including the cliffhanger ending. 

OK movies give their audiences what they want. Great movies confound, astound and upend their expectations. This may be true of some people regarding Avatar: The Way of Water but when I think about it, I was never the intended audience for it.

As of this publication (December 31st, 2022), Avatar – The Way of Water has grossed well over a billion dollars worldwide and there isn’t too much doubt that it may reach twice that amount by the time Lightstorm Entertainment and 20th Century Fox are ready to stream it for home audiences across all media platforms and roll out the deluxe 4K blu rays.    

The profit margin is practically guaranteed because the third Avatar sequel has already been completed (and scheduled for a 2024 release, and pre-production for the last two are well underway.

So like it or not, there’s plenty of adventures on Pandora on the way. And having seen this sequel, I’ll probably be opting out of any more excursions.