Pixel Scroll 3/4/24 We Had Scrolls, We Had Puns, We Were Yeeted In The Sun

(1) FANGS FOR THE MEMORIES: NO MORE LEO AWARDS. The day after we reported the 2024 shortlist, Furry Book Review pulled the plug on the Leo Awards. Here’s why:

They’ll be missed – there wasn’t a cuter award in the field!

(2) RECOGNITION IN TEXAS. Congratulations to Michael Bracken on being inducted to the Texas Institute of Letters. The honor society was established in 1936 to celebrate Texas literature and recognize distinctive literary achievement. Bracken, who long ago published the fanzine Knights of the Paper Spaceship, has since forged a distinguished career as a crime fiction author. His stories have been finalists for the Anthony, Edgar, Derringer and Shamus Awards.

(3) KEEPING UP WITH SOCIAL MEDIA. In this highly amusing video Andrea Stewart says, “I swear I see the same six discussions going around online, in perpetuity.”

(4) ONE FAN’S EFFORT TO PROMOTE WORKS ABOUT CHINESE SF. Ersatz Culture’s list – “My personal recommendations of Chinese SF-related works published in 2023” – gives fans something to start with. It begins with these notes and caveats:

  • Any of these recommendations that tagged with * is either someone I’ve corresponded or worked with, or a project which I’ve worked on, or contributed to, and so I can’t claim that those are unbiased recommendations.
  • Links are generally to Chinese language pages/sites unless otherwise stated. An exception are Twitter links, which will generally be comprised of English language posts.
  • My Chinese language skills are way too poor to be able to read the majority of real-world content without either a lot of effort or (far more likely) resorting to machine translation. As such, any writing that is particularly clever in a literary way is likely to pass completely over my head; I’m evaluating stuff on a very basic level. (This is why the writing I cover here is more on the news/factual side than criticism/reviews.)
  • Further to the previous point, my dependence on machine translation means that my understanding of materials that I only possess in a physical form – i.e. all the non-fiction works I list – is at a very shallow and surface level; not much better than “I liked looking at all the pretty pictures”, to be brutally frank. As such, feel perfectly free to discount any of my observations on those grounds alone.
  • This document only covers work published in 2023.

(5) VIOLENCE AND CHANGE. The Beeb remembers “The ‘banned’ Star Trek episode that promised a united Ireland”. There’s a reason viewers in Ireland might not.

When sci-fi writer Melinda M Snodgrass sat down to write Star Trek episode The High Ground, she had little idea of the unexpected ripples of controversy it would still be making more than three decades later.

“We became aware of it later… and there isn’t much you can do about it,” she says, speaking to the BBC from her home in New Mexico. “Writing for television is like laying track for a train that’s about 300 feet behind you. You really don’t have time to stop.”

While the series has legions of followers steeped in its lore, that one particular episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation has lived long and prospered in infamy.

It comes down to a scene in which the android character Data, played by actor Brent Spiner, talks about the “Irish unification of 2024” as an example of violence successfully achieving a political aim.

Originally shown in the US in 1990, there was so much concern over the exchange that the episode was not broadcast on the BBC or Irish public broadcaster RTÉ…

(6) NEW EDGE SWORD & SORCERY BACKERKIT CROWDFUNDER FOR ISSUES 3&4. New Edge Sword & Sorcery is crowdfunding its next two issues via “New Edge Sword & Sorcery 2024” at BackerKit. They’ve achieved their basic goal, now Editor Oliver Brackenbury says, “All our stretch goals from now on are pay raises for our contributors!” The campaign ends March 16.

Backing this campaign is a way to be a part of genre history: JIREL OF JOIRY will be returning with her first new story in 85 years! Jirel was the first Sword & Sorcery heroine, created by legendary Weird Tales regular, C.L. Moore. Like Alice in Wonderland with a big f***ing sword, Jirel had compelling adventures in bizarre dream-logic realms, balancing a rich emotional life with terrifying struggles against dark forces! Predating Red Sonja, she & Moore were a direct influence on Robert E. Howard’s writing, as well as so many who came after.

Alas, Moore only wrote a handful of Jirel tales – which are still collected, published, and read to this day. So it’s a good thing that when backers of the campaign helped it hit 100% funding in just under three days, they helped make sure a new story will be published! Authorized by the estate of C.L. Moore, “Jirel and the Mirror of Truth” has been written by the magnificent MOLLY TANZER (editor of Swords v. Cthulhu, author of Creatures of Charm and Hunger, and so much more).

Seventeen other authors are spread across the two new issues this campaign is funding, including names like Harry Turtledove, Premee Mohamed, and Thomas Ha. Even Michael Moorcock returns with an obscure Elric reprint not included in the recent Saga collection!

(7) APPLY FOR DIANA JONES AWARD EMERGING DESIGNER PROGRAM. Submissions are open for the Diana Jones Award Emerging Designer Program through April 2. This program focuses on amplifying the voices of up-and-coming tabletop/hobby game designers with a focus on creators from marginalized communities. The complete guidelines are here. Submit using the form at the link.

The Emerging Designer Program provides both access and support to those designers that have historically been excluded from the larger industry conversations. While we recognize this program is only a first step in that process, our organization is committed to pushing forward, learning from mistakes, and improving the industry we love.

Designers who are selected as finalists receive a free badge and hotel room at Gen Con, up to $2,000 travel reimbursement for both domestic and international travel, a $75 per day food stipend, a $2,000 honorarium for presenting their work, and a prize package of game design resources. They’re also showcased as a Diana Jones Award Emerging Designer at Gen Con.

Eligible designers should have released their first professional or commercial publication (including free, self-published, PWYW, and PDF releases) no more than three years before the selection year. A designer selected for 2024’s Diana Jones Award Emerging Designer Program should not have first published before 2021, for example. We interpret “hobby game designer” broadly, to include both narrative and game mechanics design. 

(8) CREATORS VISITING THE CLASSROOM. “Are author visits worth it?” Totally, says Colby Sharp.

…On Friday, author/illustrator Philip Stead visited our school. He did three presentations, so that each one of our students and teachers could hang out with him.

His presentations were captivating. I was on the edge of my seat for 65 minutes.

Phil showed them his books, his process, his studio. He answered questions. He read them one of his books.

All the things we have come to expect from an author visit….

(9) THUFIR, WE HARDLY KNEW YE. “Dune 2 director says cutting one character from the sequel was the ‘most painful choice’” at GamesRadar+.

Like all page-to-screen adaptations, Dune: Part Two makes a few changes from the novel it’s based on. For director Denis Villeneuve, though, one change in particular was the most difficult to enact: the omission of Thufir Hawat. 

“One of the most painful choices for me on this one was Thufir Hawat,” Villeneuve told Entertainment Weekly. “He’s a character I absolutely love, but I decided right at the beginning that I was making a Bene Gesserit adaptation. That meant that Mentats are not as present as they should be, but it’s the nature of the adaptation.”Thufir Hawat is a Mentat, AKA a human whose mind has been trained to have the same power as a supercomputer. Played by Stephen McKinley Henderson in Dune: Part One, he works for House Atreides and is a mentor for Paul (Timothée Chalamet), but was blackmailed into working for House Harkonnen after they orchestrated the murder of Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) – Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård) poisons him and will only administer doses of the antidote if he complies….

(10) OUR EYEWITNESS. Camestros Felapton popped out to the theater and came home to write “Review: Dune Part 2”. He sounds worried about revealing spoilers, so be warned. Now it’s not like you don’t know the story, however, you haven’t seen what they do in the film.

…Dune Part 2 is nearly three hours long and if anything, the script has simplified the plot of the second half of the novel. The net effect is a film that appears to rush by in a stream of compelling images to the extent that it feels like a much shorter film. The space created by the simpler plot and expansive running time is filled with dramatic sequences that relish in the setting and the events of the story. Above all, the film taps into the sense of weirdness and immersion into another imagined culture that makes the book so beloved.

One thing I particularly liked was the way Fremen society was expanded upon. The impression of a planet of millions of hidden peoples with a variety of experiences and attitudes but also with a common culture was deftly done. The sietch communities feel like real places built by a complex society that is doing more than just surviving in the harsh environment and amid brutal oppression….

(11) BUCKET LIST. This reminds me of the crowd the last time I went to Dodgers game. Nobody was paying attention to what was happening on the field. “Dune 2 fans distracted by popcorn bucket after finally going to see the film” at Ladbible.

The glow of a mobile phone, the rustling of sweet wrappers and someone asking if they can squeeze past you to nip to the loo are things that can really distract you from the plot while you’re in the cinema.

But bizarrely, it’s the popcorn buckets which are diverting the attention of film fans flocking to watch Dune: Part Two.

Then again, when you see them, you can understand why.

Rather than fighting to get a ticket in a packed out theatre, audiences are instead scrapping over the limited edition container which the classic movie snack comes in.

Focus has fallen on the unique popcorn buckets which have been released as part of the promo for Dune: Part Two, rather than what’s actually going on in the sequel.

(12) NECESSITY! Tiny Time Machine 3: Mother of Invention, the final book in John Stith’s “Tiny Time Machine” series, was released today by Amazing Selects™, an imprint of Amazing Stories.

In Tiny Time Machine 1, Meg and Josh discovered a time machine built into a cell phone and used it to avert a disastrous future. But along the way, Meg’s father, the inventor, was killed.

In Tiny Time Machine 2: Return of the Father, Meg and Josh brought a sarcastic AI, Valex, from the future to help them enhance the tiny time machine so it can open a portal to the past, and did their best to rescue Dad before his ex-partner could harm him.

Now, Meg and Josh are back in a third installment, Their mission: to venture even farther into the past so they can save Meg’s mother before she dies in the hospital mishap that originally triggered Dad’s efforts to build the tiny time machine. Along the way, they must fix the future again and survive a final confrontation with Dad’s ex partner.

(13) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born March 4, 1946 Patricia Kennealy-Morrison. (Died 2021.) Patricia Kennealy-Morrison as she later called herself was hand-fasted to Jim Morrison in a Celtic ceremony in 1970. It would be by no means a traditional relationship and that’s putting it mildly. 

So it shouldn’t surprise you that much of her writing would be Celtic-tinged. The Keltiad, a fantasy series, was set far, far away. I mean really far away, possibly in another galaxy. There are eight novels in the series and one collection of short stories. She intended more works but the publisher dropped it when sales fell off. 

So how are they? Well, maybe I’m not the best judge of literary style as I thought the Potter books were badly written and these I think are equally badly written. Think clichéd SF blended ineptly with Celtic fantasy.  

Now when she decides to write in a more a traditional fantasy vein she is quite fine, as in her Tales of Arthur trilogy which is The Hawk’s Gray Feather, The Oak Above the Kings and The Hedge of Mist. It’s actually pretty good Arthurian fiction. 

Now the last thing I want mention about her is not even genre adjacent. She did two mystery series, the best of which are The Rock & Roll Murders. All but one are set at music events such as Go Ask Malice: Murder at Woodstock and California Screamin’: Murder at Monterey Pop. The era is nicely done by her and the mysteries, well, less evocative than the people and the setting but that’s ok.

The other mystery series, the Rennie Stride Murders, involves and I quote online copy here, “She’s a newspaper reporter whose beat is rock, not a detective, and her best-friend sidekick is a blonde bisexual superstar chick singer.” It’s set in LA during the Sixties and is her deep dive in that music world according to the reviews I came across. 

They have titles, and I’m not kidding, like Daydream BereaverScareway to Heaven and Go Ask Malice. No idea how they are, this is the first time I’ve heard of them. 

(14) COMICS SECTION.

  • Popeye – you’ll need to scroll down to read the March 3 strip, which is what we want to feature.
  • Peanuts from 1955 has more about satellites and other dangers.
  • Hi and Lois reveals a child’s-eye view of autographed books.
  • The Far Side shows who else unexpectedly lives on the Yellow Brick Road.

(15) GAIMAN ADAPTATION. At Colleen Doran’s Funny Business the artist explains “The Secret Language of a Page of Chivalry: The Pre-Raphaelite Connection”. Many images at the link.

Adapting Neil Gaiman’s Chivalry is a decades-long dream fulfilled. The story as text can be enjoyed on multiple levels, and so can the art. You look at the pages and see the pretty pictures, but the pictures also have meta-textual meaning. Knowing this secret language adds to the experience….

…For example, Ford Madox Brown’s Work, a painting which took some 13 years to complete, was first exhibited in 1865 with a catalogue explaining all its symbols and elements. There is nothing in that picture that doesn’t mean something.

I brought some of that visual meta-textual sensibility to Chivalry, (and I’ve written about the symbolism and meanings in the work in other essays.)

I also brought into the work direct Pre-Raphaelite art references….

(16) DUNE WHAT COMES CHRONOLOGICALLY. “’Dune’ Books in Order: How to Read All 26 Novels Chronologically” at Esquire. I can only agree with Cat’s comment: “Twenty six novels? You’ve got to be fucking kidding, aren’t you?”

So you’re fired up about Dune‘s recent big screen adaptations, and while you’re steel reeling from the shock and awe of Dune: Part Two, you’re wanting to dive into the world of Frank Herbert’s beloved science fiction novels. Congratulations! You’ve got an exciting literary journey ahead. And whether you’ve dabbled in Dune lore before or you’re completely new to the wild world of Arrakis, there’s something for everyone in this Titanic-sized series about power, violence, and fate….

(17) WHEN TO QUIT READING. PZ Myers knows there are a lot of books in the series, because he ends his review of Dune 2 at Pharyngula on FreeThoughtBlogs by reposting this infographic. (I don’t know its original source.) [Click for larger image.]

… There’s talk that there may be a third Dune yet to come, which worries me a bit. There are studio executives dreaming of a franchise now, I’m sure of it, but I have to warn them that that is a path destined to lead them into madness and chaos. The sequels are weird, man. Heed Chani and shun the way towards fanaticism and corporate jihad.

Ooh, just saw this summary of the Dune series. I agree with it. I should have stopped with Dune Messiah, years ago.

(18) GET READY FOR BAIRD’S LATEST. Keith Anthony Baird lives in Cumbria, United Kingdom, on the edge of the Lake District National Park. His SIN:THETICA will be released in May; pre-order now at the Amazon.ca: Kindle Store.

The Sino-Nippon war is over. It is 2113 and Japan is crushed under the might of Chinese-Allied Forces. A former Coalition Corps soldier, US Marine Balaam Hendrix is now a feared bounty hunter known as ‘The Reverend’. In the sprawl of NeuTokyo, on this lawless frontier, he must track down the rogue employee of a notorious crime lord. But, there’s a twist. His target has found protection inside a virtual reality construct and Hendrix must go cyber-side to corner his quarry. The glowing neon signs for SIN:THETICA are everywhere, and promise escape from a dystopian reality. But will it prove the means by which this hunter snares his prey, or will it be the trap he simply can’t survive?

Keith Anthony Baird began writing dark fiction in 2016 as a self-published author. After five years of releasing titles via Amazon and Audible he switched his focus to the traditional publishing route. His dark fantasy novella In the Grimdark Strands of the Spinneret was published via Brigids Gate Press (BGP) in 2022. Two further novellas are to be published in 2024 via BGP: SIN:THETICA (May) and a vampire saga in collaboration with fellow Brit author Beverley Lee, A Light of Little Radiance (November).

(19) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “Video Shows ‘Dune’ Fan Effortlessly Riding Homemade Sandworm at Movie Theater” at Complex.

…As seen below, an unidentified individual at an AMC theater in Tulsa, Oklahoma decked themselves out in full-fledged Fremen garb and proceeded to ride a homemade sandworm through the lobby to the presumed delight of fellow Dune-goers.

[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Kathy Sullivan, Daniel Dern, Lise Andreasen, Andrew (not Werdna), Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]

Pixel Scroll 3/3/24 And Did Those Filers In Ancient Times Scroll Upon Glyer’s Pixels Green?

(1) SIGN FROM A FELINE. Mary Robinette Kowal’s “Rude Litterbox Space” is a free read at Sunday Morning Transport to encourage people to subscribe. Bonnie McDaniel says it is based on the author’s real-life communication-board-using cat.

… Language was hard. Bending space-time was not….

(2) A HITCH. P. Djèlí Clark’s blog post makes you want to read “The Dead Cat Tail Assassins”, then tells you why you’ll need to wait ’til summer’s end.

…Okay, now for the not so good news. The Dead Cat Tail Assassins was supposed to drop this month, March. But… yadda, yadda, yadda.. we got a new pub date: August, 6 2024.

What happened? Stuff. Stuff happened. Putting a book together requires lots of hands: me the author, editors, copyeditors, publicists, printers, centaurs, goblins, magical creatures from Fillory. And, for a myriad of reasons, sometimes things go pear shaped and stuff gets pushed back. You’re probably like, yeah but from March to August? That’s a big pushback! Hey, what can I tell you… lose your place in line, and you don’t just get a back-cut. There are other books by other authors waiting to be worked on, books coming out that can’t clash with your own, gotta find a new place in the queue at the printing warehouse, and all kinds of arcane alchemy I don’t pretend to understand…

(3) LIVESTOCK BY MAIL. I think the anecdote that starts Brian Keene’s “Letters From the Labyrinth 370” really happened, though I won’t be surprised if it finds its way into a book.

“I’m here about the dead chicks.”

That was what the woman butting in front of me and another customer at the post office said. I turned, intrigued. She was short, thin, blonde hair fading with age to the color of straw. I placed her at older than me — probably mid-sixties but then I remembered the day before when my postal carrier, whom I’d thought was in her seventies, told me she was the same age as me — 56. I can’t gauge age anymore. When I look in the mirror, I don’t see 56. But I’m also smart enough to know that how I see myself isn’t necessarily how others see me. In my mind, I’m still as suave and charming as Diamond David Lee Roth, but I suspect others look at me and think “Look at that silly old man. How sweet.”

But I digress….

Makes me remember when I was surprised to learn you could order live honeybees through the Sears catalog. (Which I wasn’t allowed to do. Just as well.)

(4) HUGO NEWS ROUNDUP AND MORE. Jason Sanford’s “Genre Grapevine for February 2024” on Patreon is free to the public.

In early February, Chris Barkley contacted me and said he’d received emails and documents related to the 2023 Hugo Awards from Diane Lacey, one of the award administrators. I’d seen Chris only two weeks earlier at the ConFusion convention in Detroit, where we sat at the bar discussing that weekend’s release of the Hugo nomination and voting stats. We were both shocked by the works and authors deemed “not eligible” and kept off the final ballot for no stated reason. We also were surprised so few Chinese authors and works made the Hugo longlist.

While talking in Detroit, Chris and I felt shenanigans had likely happened during last year’s Hugos. However, we also feared the truth of what happened might never come out.

Two weeks later, Chris shared the leaked emails and documents and I realized we’d been wrong. The truth would indeed come out….

(5) FAITH. Abigail Nussbaum walks readers through “The 2024 Hugo Awards: My Hugo Ballot” at Asking the Wrong Questions. She says in a preamble to the nominations:

We’ve spent so much of the last six weeks talking about the debacle that was last year’s Hugo awards, that it was easy to forget that another awards season was gearing up at the same time. So here we are, with less than a week left to nominate for this year’s Hugos, and to be honest it feels a bit strange to make this post. I always love to talk about the things I enjoyed in the fantastic genres over the last year, and to encourage my readers to consider them for a Hugo nomination. But doing it this year, with the shadow of an award whose nominations and results we can have no faith in, can feel a bit pointless.

Another way of putting it is that this is an act of faith–in the administrators of this year’s award, who have been doing their utmost to project reliability and distance themselves from last year’s inexcusable actions; in the fandom, which continues to care about this award and try to make it the best it can be; and in the award itself, and the idea that it can overcome this blow to its reputation and start moving back to what it was….

(6) KGB. Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel present Christopher Rowe and Moses Ose Utomi on Wednesday, March 13 starting at 7:00 p.m. Eastern. Location: KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street, New York, NY 10003. (Just off 2nd Ave, upstairs)

Christopher Rowe

Christopher Rowe’s most recent novella, The Navigating Fox, published by Tordotcom was described by The Wall Street Journal as a “modern Aesop’s fable.” His other books include the novella These Prisoning Hills and a collection, Telling the Map. Over the last 25 years, his stories have been published, anthologized, and translated around the world and he has been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Theodore Sturgeon, Neukom, Seiun, and other awards. He lives in Kentucky.

Moses Ose Utomi

Moses Ose Utomi is a Nigerian-American fantasy writer and nomad currently based out of San Diego, California. He has an MFA in fiction from Sarah Lawrence College and short fiction publications in Fantasy MagazineSunday Morning Transport, and other venues. He is the author of the young adult fantasy novel Daughters of Oduma and The Forever Desert, the fantasy novella series that includes the acclaimed The Lies of the Ajungo. When he’s not writing, he’s traveling, training martial arts, or doing karaoke—with or without a backing track.

(7) FILM EDITING AWARDS. Deadline has the “ACE Eddie Awards Winners List”.

Oppenheimer took the marquee Best Edited Feature Film (Dramatic) honor and The Holdovers landed the top Best Edited Feature Film (Comedy) award at the 74th ACE Eddie Awards Sunday….

Here are all the winners of genre interest:

BEST EDITED FEATURE FILM (Drama, Theatrical)

  • Oppenheimer — Jennifer Lame

BEST EDITED ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

  • Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse — Michael Andrews, ACE

BEST EDITED DRAMA SERIES

  • The Last of Us: “Long, Long Time”Timothy A. Good, ACE

(8) HERE WE GO AGAIN. “Hollywood Teamsters, IATSE Hold Solidarity Rally Ahead of AMPTP Negotiations”The Hollywood Reporter was there.

A coalition of Hollywood’s below-the-line unions rallied Sunday on the eve of their latest contract negotiations. They threatened a historic strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers if their demands weren’t met. Such a work stoppage would follow a pair of strikes in 2023 by industry writers and actors which crippled the entertainment industry and have left it limping into the new year.

“I hope they’re paying attention right down the road at the AMPTP,” IATSE vice president Michael Miller announced from the stage to the crowd of around a thousand people at Woodley Park in Encino. (Nearly a thousand more watched a live-stream online.) He then invoked a slogan repeated throughout the event: “Nothing moves without the crew.”

For the first time since 1988, the Hollywood Basic Crafts group — which includes Teamsters Local 399, IBEW Local 40, LiUNA! Local 724, OPCMIA Local 755 and UA Local 78 — and the crew union IATSE are joining this year to negotiate their health and pension benefits with the Hollywood trade group the AMPTP, which represents studios and streamers. Those talks begin Monday.

The “Many Crafts, One Fight” rally served mainly as an opportunity for members to express solidarity and hype each other up. So-called “above-the-line” unions SAG-AFTRA and the WGA made strong shows of force with their sign-wielding members and leaders expressing gratitude. (Teamster cooperation was key in the WGA’s production shutdown strategy early in its stoppage.) WGA West vice president Michele Mulroney drew applause when she acknowledged crew support which “sustained us through our own long and arduous fight,” and noted that “without all of you our words would just languish on the page.”…

(9) ARRAKIS DELIVERS BIG B.O. “’Dune 2′ Nears $100 Million Overseas, Surpasses $150 Million Globally” according to Variety.

Dune: Part Two” is turbocharging the international box office.

Director Denis Villeneuve’s otherworldly sequel has generated $97 million from 71 overseas markets, bringing its global tally to a promising $178.5 million. Those worldwide revenues include $81.5 million from North American theaters, where it landed the biggest domestic opening weekend of the year.

The movie, starring Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya, has been embraced in the U.S. and Canada. But the backers of “Dune 2” need overseas audiences to keep the ticket sales flowing as freely as spice on the desert planet of Arrakis. That’s because Warner Bros. and Legendary Entertainment spent $190 million to produce and roughly $100 million more to promote the film to global audiences. Those hefty fees mean the tentpole will require outsized admissions to turn a profit.

(10) MARK DODSON (1960-2024). The voice actor Mark Dodson died of a heart attack while staying in Evansville, IN to appear at Horror Con. Deadline pays tribute: “Mark Dodson Dies: ‘Star Wars’ And ‘Gremlins’ Voiceover Artist Was 64”.

Mark Dodson, whose unique voice characterizations propelled creatures in the films Star Wars: Return of the Jediand Gremlins, has died at 64.

His daughter told TMZ that he died while in Evansville, Indiana, to attend Horror Con. He checked into a hotel and suffered a “massive heart attack” while sleeping, she said.

Dodson was the voice of Salacious Crumb, the scruffy little creature who was a cackling crony of Jabba the Hut in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.That memorable voice led to a gig in Gremlins, where he became the voice Mogwai, much-imitated in school yards. 

He worked continuously for several decades in film, video games, radio and commercials as a voice artist. . 

His daughter, Ciara, told TMZ that her father “never ceased making me proud.” a 

The Evansville Horror Con, where Dodson was scheduled to appear, posted a tribute to Facebook. 

“We are heartbroken to announce the sudden passing of Mark Dodson last night. Mark was not only a talented voice actor but also a cherished member of the horror community. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, friends, and fans during this incredibly difficult time. We hope that you can take a moment out of your day to reflect on the joy and laughter that Mark brought into the world. His legacy will live on through his work.”

Survivors include his daughter and several grandchildren.

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born March 3, 1920 James Doohan. (Died 2005.) James Doohan, a Canadian, is of course remembered best for being the original Montgomery “Scotty” Scott on the first version of the Enterprise. And doesn’t it say something about the franchise that I had to write the sentence that way? 

He played, definitely way too much in my opinion, the archetypal Scotsman. He even had a Dress Uniform Kilt, something I’m dead certain doesn’t exist in the modern Navy, as on display in “Is There in Truth No Beauty?” and “The Savage Curtain”. And I forget how many characters he drank literally to the floor. No don’t get me wrong, I loved the character, but the depiction was seriously over the top.

So my favorite episode involving him? That had to be when he defended the honor of the Enterprise in a bar brawl with a Klingon in “The Trouble with Tribbles” after that Klingon called his beloved ship a garbage scow. Perfect, just perfect. 

So what else has he done? His first major genre role (he had previously appeared in one episode of Tales of Tomorrow) was as Paul Mitchell on Space Command, an early Fifties Canadian children’s sf series. It only lasted two years but they did one hundred and fifty episodes!  Shatner would appear there.

A decade later, he entered the Twilight Zone playing Johnson, by no means a major role, in the “Valley of the Shadow”.  Around the same time, on Outer Limits he played Police Lt. Branch in “Expanding Human”, this time a lead role. 

He showed up twice in The Man from U.N.C.L.E (in different roles),  BewitchedFantasy IslandMacGyver and Knight Rider 2000.

Need I say Next Generation’s “Relics” was wonderful?  And I’m not talking about Trials and Tribble-ations even though it’s a stellar story as he’s only there in existing footage of him.

Filmwise, Trek was his major gig as I see very little genre undertakings at all. He had an uncredited role in The Satan Bug, an sf thriller. It’s so short that IMDB gives the time that he’s in the film.

His only other genre role that I can see in a film outside of Trek was as Judge Peterson in Skinwalker: Curse of the Shaman. If you’ve not seen it don’t feel bad. It’s obscure enough that no one on Rotten Tomatoes has either. 

I think that covers it for him. Now keep in mind that I did love him, despite my criticism of his portrayal of a Scottish character, on Trek as he’s really likeable. He and Nichelle Nichol’s always seems to be the two most, well, truly warm, likeable individuals there. 

I think I’ll go watch both of the Tribbles episodes on Paramount + now.  Yes, I know there’s the animated episode as well, “More Tribbles, More Trouble”, but it just doesn’t have the charm the actual ones with live actors do. 

(12) COMICS SECTION.

(13) CACHING IN. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] If my memory serves (and it is not that reliable though I constantly amaze myself in recalling a science paper from years ago out of the recesses of my mind) I have a feeling that File770 covered the demise of Google’s readily available Cache. Then  this piece might interest you — “Why Is Google Hiding Its Cached Search Results?” at Tedium.

I have to imagine that Google did not make a lot of money from people pinging its search engine for cached website results, but making it convenient to access was a service to searchers.

It was also somewhat of a service to society. Often, when information-related scandals broke—such as content with egregious errors, evidence of deleted social media statements, or information at risk of appearing offline in short order—it was a great backstop that worked more effectively than the Internet Archive for capturing fresh information.

And yet, for some reason, Google has treated this feature like it was embarrassed of it. Over the years, it has increasingly come to bury the feature in its search interface, making it harder and harder to find, despite me finding it just as useful as it was the day it launched.

Recently, the company started removing it entirely…

… To be clear, the cache is not gone—it is simply hidden from public view. (I don’t see it on my end, either.) You can access it manually by typing in a specialized URL…

For example, here’s the URL to access the cache for File 770: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:file770.com

(13) A TRUTH NOT YET UNIVERSALLY ACKNOWLEDGED. Would Jane herself have turned thumbs down on this idea? “Winchester plan for £100,000 Jane Austen statue triggers ‘Disneyfication’ fears” reports the Guardian.

The idea was to celebrate one of the greatest British authors with a beautiful statue set up in a cathedral for the 250th anniversary of their birth.

But at a public meeting to discuss the erection of a Jane Austen sculpture close to her final resting place at Winchester Cathedral, concerns were raised that it would lead to the “Disneyfication” of the place of worship and become a magnet for tourists keen to get a selfie.

Elizabeth Proudman, an Austen expert and leading light in the Jane Austen Society, also suggested the author herself would not have approved of the statue and the fuss surrounding it.

She said: “We don’t know what she looked like, but we do know that she was a very private person. She despised publicity.”

Austen is buried in the north nave aisle of Winchester Cathedral under a memorial stone, which mentions “the extraordinary endowments of her mind” but does not provide any more detail about her career.

(15) IN CASE YOU WONDERED. Everyone who’s read the history of the first atomic bomb saw this was missing from the movie. SYFY Wire’s James Grebey gives his opinion “Why Oppenheimer Doesn’t Include the Deadly “Demon Core” Accidents”.

… The ominously named demon core, a sphere of plutonium used in the development of atomic bombs after the success of the Trinity Test, was responsible for the deaths of two scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project. The core, which weighed 14 pounds and measured just 3.5 inches in diameter, was all set to be turned into a third bomb that could have been used against Japan had they not surrendered following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945…. 

(16) THE HILLS ARE UNDEAD WITH THE SOUND OF MUSIC. Mitch Benn mashes up “Gilbert & Sullivan’s Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula” for YouTube viewers.

Now with on-screen libretto, my “restoration” of Gilbert & Sullivan’s operetta version of Dracula married to the sumptuous visuals of Coppola’s masterful 1992 film adaptation… Have fun with it before someone has it taken down

(17) VIDEO OF THE DAY. In a 2018 video Mr. Sci-Fi, Marc Scott Zicree, explains “WHY DIDN”T WE GET THIS?! Unreleased Sulu Star Trek Series!”

Star Trek and Deep Space Nine writer Marc Scott Zicree shares the entire Captain Sulu Star Trek pilot he and Emmy winner Michael Reaves wrote, and shares the untold story of why you never got to see that series — despite its Hugo and Nebula Award nominations!

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

Pixel Scroll 3/2/24 Yeets of Eden

(1) HUGO NOMINATIONS CLOSE IN ONE WEEK. Nicholas Whyte, Glasgow 2024 Hugo Administrator and WSFS Division Head reminds members that they have until March 9 to submit nominations for this year’s Hugo Awards. Full information at “Hugo Awards – Nomination Ballot”.

They also are offering Chinese translation for the 2024 Hugo Award nomination process as a courtesy to the Chinese-speaking 2023 Chengdu WSFS members who have nomination rights for the 2024 Hugo Awards.

(2) HWA: MARUYAMA Q&A. The Horror Writers Association continues “Women in Horror Month 2024” in “An Interview with Kate Maruyama”.

Kate Maruyama. Photo by Rachael Warecki.

Do you make a conscious effort to include female characters and themes in your writing and if so, what do you want to portray?

I write all characters, but I am always trying to get inside women characters in a complex way that blows out the walls of archetypes. The old woman who is complex and funny and real (and swears! All the older women I admire swear), the ingenue aged woman who is brilliant, unpredictable, problem solving, and forward moving, the mother whose entire existence is not mothering, but is a whole person who happens to have kids, the little girl who is smart and weird and does not give a crap about boys.

What has writing horror taught you about the world and yourself?

We all have darkness in us, and if we can get inside it and open up our fears and where they come from, it can help people manage their very real lives.

(3) CHUCK TINGLE ON CAMP DAMASCUS CATEGORY. The Horror Writers Association moved Chuck Tingle’s novel Camp Damascus out of the YA category into the main Novel category. One of the responses earned this callout. (Whoever’s blog this is, I see there also were other comments supportive of Tingle’s book.)

(4) IWÁJÚ. Eddie Louise calls Iwájú on Disney+ — “Amazing science fiction for kids with deep cultural and societal commentary.” See trailer at the link.

“Iwájú” is an original animated series set in a futuristic Lagos, Nigeria. The exciting coming-of-age story follows Tola, a young girl from the wealthy island, and her best friend, Kole, a self-taught tech expert, as they discover the secrets and dangers hidden in their different worlds. Kugali filmmakers—including director Olufikayo Ziki Adeola, production designer Hamid Ibrahim and cultural consultant Toluwalakin Olowofoyeku—take viewers on a unique journey into the world of “Iwájú,” bursting with unique visual elements and technological advancements inspired by the spirit of Lagos. The series is produced by Disney Animation’s Christina Chen with a screenplay by Adeola and Halima Hudson. “Iwájú” features the voices of Simisola Gbadamosi, Dayo Okeniyi, Femi Branch, Siji Soetan and Weruche Opia.

(5) LIKE SAND THROUGH AN HOURGLASS. Maya St. Clair finds what time has done to the first Dune movie – not that a lot of time needed to have passed before the results were known: “Make Sci-Fi Cringe Again (Duneposting 1)”.

The other night, a friend and I went to an anniversary screening of David Lynch’s 1984 Dune. Its manmade horrors were consumed in the way God intended: on a towering screen, with a printout of the infamous Dune Terminology sheet balanced in my lap, as I inhaled a bucket of curly fries agleam with twice their weight in grease. Visually, Dune is an orgy of delights: a dense mannerist universe filled with gilt and wires and inbred animals/people. The voiceovers are camp, the editing ridiculous, the hairdos lofty and aggressive (Aquanet — like spice — must flow). Around the midpoint of the movie — when Sting steps out of a sauna in a codpiece —most people had come to the unspoken understanding that it was okay to laugh instead of sitting in respectful, cinephilic silence. The Harkonnen milking machine (i.e. a rat just duct-taped to a cat) brought down the house….

(6) DUNE PT. 2. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Front Row on B Beeb Ceeb’s Radio 4 (a.k.a. the Home Service) first third sees a review of Dune Part II.

Now, while I concur (others may disagree) that for all its spectacle Part I was a little ponderous (go in with a medium or large real coffee Americana) it was faithful to the novel and the SFX far better than the Lynch offering… This last is, of course unfair, the Lynch offering came out four decades ago… Yes, just a decade short of half a century and so you’d expect as big an improvement in cinematography as there was between 1984 and films made towards the end of the war (that’s WWII in case you were wondering how old I was).

So, how did the Front Row review go?  Well, the first thing that surprised me was that one of the reviewers hates epic ‘sci-fi’.  Yes, for some in the arts, SF remains a ghetto genre.  (Or perhaps we at SF² Concatenation should swop our book review panel of ardent SF readers to those that loathe genre literature. Perhaps File 770 should be edited by someone outside of fandom? Perhaps Boris Johnson  should become Prime Minister…)

Be thrilled.  Be amazed.  The truth is out there….

You can listen to the first third of the programme here: “Front Row, Dune 2”.

(7) ABOUT THOSE LENSMEN. Steve J. Wright may not be treading new ground in “How the Other Half Lives”, but fascism, John W. Campbell Jr., and the Golden Age have been thoroughly plowed under by the time he’s done.

This is spilling out of a discussion over on File 770 (item 4 on the scroll), which in turn derived partly from Charles Stross’s “We’re Sorry we Created the Torment Nexus”. It also ties in, of course, to the ongoing “was John W. Campbell a fascist?” non-debate (because people who say no are not changing their minds, ever.)

“Fascist”, of course, is one of those terms linguisticians call “snarl words”, where the negative connotations have pretty much obscured the original usage…

…But were Golden Age SF writers in general, and John W. Campbell Jr. in particular, happy with elitism? Oh, you bet they were. The Gernsbackian ideal, as exemplified in Gernsback’s own ridiculous novel Ralph 124C41+, was a homogeneous, rationally-planned society in which government, if it existed at all, was strictly subordinated to the scientific elite – in the eponymous Ralph’s case, the “plus men”, entitled to that + sign on their names, whose unfettered experimentation led to an endless round of fresh discoveries and scientific benefits for the general populace. And you can’t throw a brick in Campbell-era SF without hitting an omni-competent super-science hero with world-transforming insights and the steely determination to push aside bureaucratic meddling and Get Things Done. Campbell himself regarded Astounding as not just a science fiction magazine, but a proving ground for the ideas that would shape the world of tomorrow. And he had plenty of sympathy from SF fans, who were happy to believe that their time would come, and they would be in the vanguard of the new elite. Granted, not many fans took it as far as the rather alarming Claude Degler, but if you said “fans are slans” at any fannish gathering of the times, you would see more than one head nodding in approval….

(8) REFERENCE DIRECTOR! Meanwhile, in Russia: “Alexei Navalny Was Buried to the Terminator 2 Theme Song”  — New York Magazine has the story.

…Navalny got in one last laugh at his funeral on Friday. As his coffin was lowered into the ground, the tune playing in the background wasn’t some funeral dirge, but the theme from his favorite movie, Terminator 2: Judgment Day. It was the refrain that plays during the movie’s famous final scene, as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s soulful killer cyborg gives a thumbs-up while he is lowered into a vat of molten steel, sacrificing himself to save the future….

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born March 2, 1966 Ann Leckie, 58. So let’s start with Lis Carey talking about her favorite work by our writer this Scroll, Ann Leckie:

Ann Leckie wins Hugo in 2014. Photo by Henry Harel.

Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch trilogy, starting with Ancillary Justice in 2013, gives us a culture where biological sex is ignored, and only female pronouns are used. Breq, our protagonist throughout the trilogy, is the only survivor of a ship destroyed by treachery, and she’s the ship’s artificial intelligence, occupying an ancillary body, i.e., a body whose own personality has been erased and replaced with one more useful to the empire, and presenting herself as an officer. 

In her quest for revenge, she becomes more and more fully human, and more and more aware of what’s wrong with the empire she serves. We see glimpses of a galaxy beyond the Radch Empire, some of them fascinating.

We’re certainly not given the impression that the Radch are the good guys. In subsequent books and stories, we get looks at the Radch from the outside, and at the other human cultures trying to survive in a galaxy where the Radch are the major human power. It’s a wonderfully complex and layered universe, and it’s well worth exploring.

Ancillary Justice swept the awards field in 2014: a Hugo at Loncon 3, a British Fantasy Award, the Clarke a Kitschie, and a Nebula. The sequel, Ancillary Sword was nominated at Sasquan and won a BSFA Award; the final book in the trilogy, Ancillary Mercy, was a Hugo finalist at MidAmeriCon II. Her next book set in that universe, Provenance, novel garnered a Hugo nomination at Worldcon 76. 

Translation State, though also part of the Imperial Radch, is a pretty a stand-alone story. Yes, I liked it a lot. So let’s have Lis set the scene for you again…

It’s set in that universe, on the edge of human space, in a space station where the human polities including the Radch, and several alien polities, attempt to maintain calm and peaceful relations with the Presger, whom no one has ever seen, but who could destroy everyone if they got annoyed.

This is the book where we really get acquainted with the Presger translators, who appear to have been created from humans, but really aren’t, anymore.

It is, I would say, primarily a missing person case more than a murder mystery but it is both. It is a fascinating story. 

She’s also written an excellent fantasy novel, The Raven Tower, which I’ve been listening to of late. Adjoa Andoh narrates the audio version. She’s been on Doctor Who numerous times, mostly playing the mother of Martha Jones. She does a stellar performance here. 

Leckie has published a baker’s dozen short stories, two set in the Imperial Radch universe. I’ve not read any of them. Who has?

I look forward to seeing what she writes next. 

(10) COMICS SECTION.

  • Reality Check shows a fan pedant in (unwelcome!) action.
  • Close to Home has the most grotesque Pinocchio joke I’ve ever seen.
  • Tom Gauld mixes higher math with lower cuisine.

(11) GOOD OMENS VISUALS. Colleen Doran’s Funny Business is back with “Good Omens Peeks” – artwork at the link.

… I don’t know if, you know, getting cancer, going blind, smashing my face in, and generally having a really awful 2023 hasn’t been some weird sort of super-motivation, but I’m working very steady, and I actually think the art has gotten more solid as I go along.

I’m also very far behind schedule, but since the book was so far ahead to start, even though it’s going to be late, it won’t be horribly late. I set some pages aside and was unable to work on them for months, and that distance helped me work through some problems, too.

Anyhow, here’s some of my art in progress. And thanks for all the votes in the ComicScene awards for Good Omens as #1 crowdfund campaign of 2023….

(12) AFTER MIDNIGHT. Bitter Karella is back with the members of The Midnight Society, who are being a trial to Ursula K. Le Guin. Thread starts here.

(13) WAY AFTER MIDNIGHT. In “Seeing ‘Dune 2’ in 70mm Imax at 3:15 a.m. Was an Unforgettable Experience”, Variety’s Ethan Shanfeldfiles a snarky report about the ambiance.

…About 45 minutes into the movie, I thought for sure I was toast. Those gorgeous desert sand dunes reminded me of pillows, and I questioned what life choices I made that led me here, to seat H35. But then I saw a guy nod off two rows ahead of me, and I thought about how annoying it would be to have to see this movie again just to catch the parts I missed. I’m not weak like him, I thought, inhaling my Diet Coke. And, to even my own surprise, I powered through, savoring Paul Atreides’ larger-than-life odyssey all the way until the credits rolled at 6:18 a.m.

On the escalator down, I caught up with the three friends from New Jersey. “What are your plans this morning?” I asked, and they told me they were going to walk west to watch the sunrise over the Hudson. I didn’t have the heart (read: brain cells) to tell them the sun rises in the east.

(14) JUSTWATCH. Here are JustWatch’s charts of the most-viewed streaming movies and TV series of February 2024.

(15) SQUEAK IN DELIGHT. [Item by Bill Higgins.] Good news for all who love helium, Minneapolis in 73, and airships! Let us lift our high-pitched voices in song! “’A dream. It’s perfect’: Helium discovery in northern Minnesota may be biggest ever in North America” on CBS Minnesota.

Scientists and researchers are celebrating what they call a “dream” discovery after an exploratory drill confirmed a high concentration of helium buried deep in Minnesota’s Iron Range.

Thomas Abraham-James, CEO of Pulsar Helium, said the confirmed presence of helium could be one of the most significant such finds in the world.

“There was a lot of screaming, a lot of hugging and high fives. It’s nice to know the efforts all worked out and we pulled it off,” Abraham-James said….

…According to Abraham-James, the helium concentration was measured at 12.4%, which is higher than forecasted and roughly 30 times the industry standard for commercial helium.

(16) 2021 FLASHBACK: STRICTER RATINGS FOR THESE SFF MOVIES. The British Board of Film Classification ratings change to Mary Poppins (see Pixel Scroll 2/26/24 item #9) was just the latest to affect sff films as shown in this 2021 BBC News article: “Rocky and Flash Gordon given tighter age rating”. In 2021 the extended edition of The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring has also been moved up to a 12A for its “moderate fantasy violence and threat.”Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back was moved from Universal to PG.

Of the 93 complaints the board received last year, 27 were about 1980 space opera film Flash Gordon.

The movie’s 40th anniversary re-release was reclassified up to 12A partly due to the inclusion of “discriminatory stereotypes”.

The BBFC did not say what the stereotypes were. However Flash Gordon’s main villain, Ming the Merciless, was of East Asian appearance but played by Swedish-French actor Max von Sydow….

(17) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Back in the day at school — seems like half a century ago (hang on, it was) — there were a bunch of us whose aim in chemistry was to get the contents of one’s boiling tube to mark the ceiling… We were the back bench bucket chemists! Those were the days. Very much in that spirit, physics Matt O’Dowd asks “What Happens If We Nuke Space?” Come on, Bruce Willis has done it?

EMPs aren’t science fiction. Real militaries are experimenting on real EMP generators, and as Starfish Prime showed us, space nukes can send powerful EMPs to the surface. So what exactly is an EMP, and how dangerous are they?  

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Kathy Sullivan, Daniel Dern, Lis Carey, Eddie Louise, JJ, Bill Higgins, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Peace Is My Middle Name.]

Pixel Scroll 2/28/24 Two Scrolls Diverged In A File, And I — I Took The One Less Pixeled By

(1) WONKA EVENT SCAM, WITH AI ‘HELP’. [Item by Tom Becker.] A Willy Wonka-themed event closed immediately upon opening due to complaints from disappointed customers. UK correspondent Mark Plummer says there is a long-standing tradition of disappointing special experiences. A Christmas show turns out to be a muddy field with a donkey with reindeer horns tied to its head.

The Glasgow Willy Wonka fiasco is interesting because of its use of AI. The AI-generated images used to sell the show include total gibberish. Who would not want to experience a “Twilight Tunnel™” with features like “TWDRDING”, “DODJECTION”, “ENIGEMIC SOUNDS”, “SVIIDE”, and “UKXEPCTED TWITS”? Or “ENCHERINING ENTERTAINMENT” with “exarserdray lollipops, a pasadise of sweet treats”? “Cops called after parents get tricked by AI-generated images of Wonka-like event” at Ars Technica.

Actors were given AI generated scripts that were pathetically bad. They showed the guests responding “with a mix of excitement and trepidation” to the trite lines and meager offerings of candy. “The AI-Generated Script From the Fake Willy Wonka Experience Is Beyond Wild” says The Mary Sue.

And then there was the AI generated character of the Unknown, “an evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls.” At this point the children started crying and ran away. “Willy Wonka Experience Actor Says Event Had AI-Generated Script, Unknown Character, and No Chocolate” reports IGN.

The promoter behind the House of Illuminati also sells AI-generated books on Amazon. “’Willy Wonka’ Huckster Sells AI-Written Vaccine Conspiracy Books” at Rolling Stone.

Scams have always been with us, but now they are glitzier and weirder than ever. Who could possibly have predicted this? (Besides Cory Doctorow and thousands of others.)

(2) VERTLIEB NOMINATED FOR RONDO “BEST ARTICLE OF THE YEAR”. Congratulations to Steve Vertlieb whose File 770 article “Subversion of Innocence: Reflections on ‘The Black Cat’” is a finalist for the 2024 Rondo Hatton Awards. Steve’s article is an analysis of the sumptuous, Grand Guignol, pre-code Gothic decadence of Universal Pictures’ horrific Boris Karloff/Bela Lugosi classic of 1934.

Public voting has begun for the 22nd Annual Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards. You’re invited to vote for your favorites in any or all 28 categories. Click the link for instructions and the complete ballot. The deadline to participate is midnight April 16. Mail Votes (and your name) to David Colton c/o [email protected].

(3) WORMSIGN. Io9 interviews the filmmaker: “Denis Villeneuve Talks Making Dune: Part Two an Epic Theatrical Experience” at Gizmodo.

io9: Got it. I love that both movies have this weird little moment before the studio logo of some kind of Dune language statement. Is that something you have to okay with the studio? Because ultimately it’s their movie and you’re putting your mark before their logo. Was there any pushback and what was your thinking in doing that?

Villeneuve: The first time in Part One, the truth is that as we were doing sound design and developing ideas for sound, we came up with this language that was developed by Hans Zimmer that I absolutely adored. And there was this idea of putting a statement right before the logo to own the space. And maybe it was a reaction at that time, an arrogant reaction by me, but I didn’t get any pushback. Everybody loved the idea. And I love it when you watch a movie and it’s not a slow-down descent, it’s an abrupt start. You put away the parking lot and your concern about dinner. [Slap noise] Right away, it’s like, “Okay, guys, listen.” A bit like in theater when you have the boom at the beginning to say to the audience, “Okay, quiet down, we start right now.” I love that.

(4) CONLANG IN CINEMA. And The New Yorker devotes a whole article to “’Dune’ and the Delicate Art of Making Fictional Languages”.

A trailer for Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part Two” features the boy prophet Paul Atreides, played by Timothée Chalamet, yelling something foreign and uninterpretable to a horde of desert people. We see Chalamet as the embodiment of charismatic fury: every facial muscle clenched in tension, his voice strained and throaty and commanding. A line at the bottom of the screen translates: “Long live the fighters!”

The scene fills barely a few seconds in a three-minute trailer, yet it establishes the emotional tone of the film and captures the messianic fervor that drives its plot. It also signals the depth of Villeneuve’s world-building. Part of what made his first excursion into the “Dune” universe such an experiential feast was its vivid, immersive quality, combining monumental architectural design with atmospheric soundscapes and ethereal costuming. We could see a few remnants of our world (remember the bit with the bagpipes?), but the over-all effect was transportive, as if the camera were not a piece of equipment but a cyborgian eye live-streaming from a far-flung alien civilization. Chalamet’s strange tongue is part of the franchise’s meticulous set dressing. It’s not gibberish, but part of an intricate linguistic system that was devised for Villeneuve’s adaptations.

Engineered languages such as the one Chalamet speaks represent a new benchmark in imaginative fiction. Twenty years ago, viewers would have struggled to name franchises other than “Star Trek” or “The Lord of the Rings” that bothered to invent new languages. Today, with the budgets of the biggest films and series rivalling the G.D.P.s of small island nations, constructed languages, or conlangs, are becoming a norm, if not an implicit requirement. Breeze through entertainment from the past decade or so, and you’ll find lingos designed for Paleolithic peoples (“Alpha”), spell-casting witches (“Penny Dreadful”), post-apocalyptic survivors (“Into the Badlands”), Superman’s home planet of Krypton (“Man of Steel”), a cross-species alien alliance (“Halo”), time-travelling preteens (“Paper Girls”), the Munja’kin tribe of Oz (“Emerald City”), and Santa Claus and his elves (“The Christmas Chronicles” and its sequel).

A well-executed conlang can bolster a film’s appearance of authenticity. It can deepen the scenic absorption that has long been an obsession for creators and fans of speculative genres such as science fiction and fantasy….

(5) MORE TBR. NPR’s “Here and Now” program recommends “Black genre fiction to pick up this History Month”. There are lists for romance, horror, thriller/mystery and —

Speculative fiction/science fiction/fantasy

(6) EXPERT EYE. In Gabino Iglesias’ column “4 New Horror Novels That Are as Fresh as They Are Terrifying” for the New York Times, the Stoker-winning author reviews new books by Emily Ruth Verona, Jenny Kiefer, Christopher Golden and Tlotlo Tsamaase.

(7) ANIME ART GOING UNDER THE HAMMER. Heritage Auctions will run “The Art of Anime, Dragon Ball, and More Animation Art Showcase Auction” on March 23-24.

Heritage Auctions celebrates the world of anime with its largest showcase sale, “The Art of Anime, Dragon Ball, and More,” on March 23-24. This event features over 700 lots, including an extensive collection from the iconic Dragon Ball series, celebrating its decades-long journey from its inception in Weekly Shonen Jump. The auction spans a wide range of anime titles, offering production art, promotional materials, model kits, and action figures. Highlights include rare items from Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, Pokémon, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and more, alongside unique finds like Akira T-shirt prototypes. This showcase aims to reconnect fans with the unforgettable moments of their favorite anime series.

Here’s an example of what’s up for bid: “Dragon Ball Z Goku, Gohan, Master Roshi, Piccolo, and Cel Ice | Lot #85069”.

Some of Dragon Ball Z‘s most famous characters take a break from training and put on their ice skates in this incredibly rare hand-painted production cel featuring our beloved protagonist Goku, accompanied by his son Gohan, Piccolo, Master Roshi, and even the heinous Cell in his imperfect form! Possibly created for a TV commercial, this four-layer 12-field production cel offers sensational full-figure images of the characters with Gohan and Cell stopping as skillfully as they fight. 

(8) “HOMAGE” TO WARD SHELLEY’S HISTORY OF SCIENCE FICTION ON DISPLAY IN THE CHENGDU SF MUSEUM. [Item by Ersatz Culture.] The SF Museum in Chengdu has been re-opened to the public for almost exactly a month now, and whilst I’ve been trawling the likes of Bilibili and Xiaohongshu for any coverage, there hasn’t been much I thought that I thought was worth writing up and submitting to File 770.

However, tonight I encountered the image below in a small XHS gallery.  I’d not noticed it before; whether that’s because it has been newly added to the museum, or simply that previous posters didn’t consider it worth taking pictures of, I don’t know.  I’ve not tried to read any of the Chinese text, but the English subtitle reads:

Together, let’s write imaginative explorations of the future science fiction world

which I assume relates to the Post-It notes shown on the left of the image.

Readers may well find this image vaguely familiar.  For those who don’t, it bears a startling resemblance to Ward Shelley’s “The History of Science Fiction”.

Source: Andrew Liptak / The Verge

That earlier image was included in a talk that was part of “[the] First Industrial Development Summit of [the] World Science Fiction Convention”, which also had Ben Yalow as a speaker. Whether that earlier presentation was the genesis for this new display, who knows?

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born February 28, 1909 Olan Soule. (Died 1994.) Olan Soule, an actor who had at least two hundred and fifty performances in his career. So let’s look at this career that I find so interesting. 

First genre role? That’d be Mr. Krull, a boarding house resident in The Day The Earth Stood Still.

Remember Captain Midnight? From the third year on the radio serial, Soule had the role of L. William Kelly, SS-11, the second-in-command of the Secret Squadron. When it became a television series where it was rebranded Jet Jackson, Flying Commando, he was scientist Aristotle “Tut” Jones for the entire series. He was the only actor who performed on both the radio and television shows.

Olan Soule on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

He was in two Twilight Zone episodes, the first as IRS agent in “The Man in Bottle” and then as Mr. Smiles in “Caesar and Me”. The letter was the one with that evil ventriloquist dummy. Brrrr. The former which involves a couple and a genie I just don’t remember. 

He was on My Favorite Martian as Daniel Farrow in one of my favorite episodes, “Martin’s Favorite Martian”. 

He would appear as a newscaster on Batman in “The Pharaoh’s in a Rut”.

Olan Soule as newscaster on Batman.

He voiced Mister Taj in the English language version of Fantastic Planet. One seriously effing weird film. 

And now for a roll call of his other genre appearances: One Step BeyondBewitchedThe Addams FamilyThe MunstersMission: ImpossibleThe Six Million Dollar ManBuck Rogers in the 25th Century and Fantasy Island.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

  • F Minus – could this be Pluto’s revenge?

(11) REALLY EDUCATIONAL COMICS. “A Boom in Comics Drawn From Fact” – the New York Times says “One in four books sold in France is a graphic novel. Increasingly, those include nonfiction works by journalists and historians.”

Soon after the journalist and historian Valérie Igounet heard about the killing of Samuel Paty, the schoolteacher whose 2020 murder by an Islamist extremist shocked France, she knew she wanted to write a book about him.

Paty, who had shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad to students during a class on freedom of expression, was murdered near the middle school where he taught in a Paris suburb. “I absolutely wanted Samuel Paty’s students to be able to read this book,” Igounet said, “and it was obvious that a 300-page book with footnotes would be reserved for a different kind of readership.”

Instead, Igounet decided to produce a comic book: “Black Pencil: Samuel Paty, the Story of a Teacher,” based on two years of reporting and made with the illustrator Guy Le Besnerais, was published in October. It meticulously reconstructs the events leading up to the murder while also showing Paty’s daily life in the classroom. Le Besnerais’s illustrations are accompanied by Paty’s handwritten notes, newspaper clippings and messages exchanged by his students in the weeks before he was killed.

One in four books sold in France is a comic book, according to the market research company GfK, and a growing number of those are nonfiction works by journalists and historians. In the past year, they have included titles such as “M.B.S.: Saudi Arabia’s Enfant Terrible,” a biography of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman by Antoine Vitkine and Christophe Girard; “What Are the Russians Thinking?” based on the cartoonist Nicolas Wild’s conversations about the war in Ukraine during a 2022 trip to Russia; and “Who Profits From Exile?,” by Taina Tervonen and Jeff Pourquié, which looks at the economics of European immigration….

(12) FANAC FAN HISTORY ZOOM IN MARCH. “The Women Fen Don’t See” is the last FANAC Fan History Zoom for this season. The March 16 event promises to be an exceptionally interesting program on a topic that is often overlooked in fannish annals.

The Women Fen Don’t See

With: Claire Brialey, Kate Heffner, and Leah Zeldes Smith

Saturday, March 16, 2024. Time: 3PM EDT, 2PM CDT, Noon PDT, 7PM London (GMT), and Mar 17 at 6AM AEDT in Melbourne. To attend, send a note to [email protected]

[Click for larger image.]

(13) NEUROMANCER TO TV. “Apple Orders ‘Neuromancer’ Series Based on William Gibson Novel” reports Variety.

Apple TV+ has ordered a series adaptation of the William Gibson novel “Neuromancer,” Variety has learned.

The 10-episode series hails from co-creators Graham Roland and JD Dillard. Roland will also serve as showrunner, while Dillard will direct the pilot. Skydance Television will co-produce with Anonymous Content.

Per the official logline, the series “will follow a damaged, top-rung super-hacker named Case who is thrust into a web of digital espionage and high stakes crime with his partner Molly, a razor-girl assassin with mirrored eyes, aiming to pull a heist on a corporate dynasty with untold secrets.”…

(14) VIDEO OF THE DAY. From The Simpsons several years ago, “What about Ray Bradbury?”

Martin is running for class president, and this is his platform.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Ersatz Culture, Tom Becker, Kathy Sullivan, Joe Siclari, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]

Pixel Scroll 2/24/24 To Yeet Or Not To Yeet?

(1) HE FALL DOWN BUT NOT GO BOOM. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Job #1 — Stick the landing. Oops. “Odysseus: Moon lander tipped over at touchdown, limiting the data it’s sending”.– AP News has the story. (Captain Kirk was not available for comment.)

A private U.S. lunar lander tipped over at touchdown and ended up on its side near the moon’s south pole, hampering communications, company officials said Friday.

Intuitive Machines initially believed its six-footed lander, Odysseus, was upright after Thursday’s touchdown. But CEO Steve Altemus said Friday the craft “caught a foot in the surface,” falling onto its side and, quite possibly, leaning against a rock. He said it was coming in too fast and may have snapped a leg.

“So far, we have quite a bit of operational capability even though we’re tipped over,” he told reporters.

But some antennas were pointed toward the surface, limiting flight controllers’ ability to get data down, Altemus said. The antennas were stationed high on the 14-foot (4.3-meter) lander to facilitate communications at the hilly, cratered and shadowed south polar region….

(2) FAMOUS LA MOVIE THEATER NOW HAS FAMOUS OWNERS. The New York Times learns “Star Directors Buy Los Angeles Cinema With Plan for ‘Coolest AV Club’”.

With the moviegoing experience under threat from streaming services and ever-improving home entertainment options, a group with a passionate interest in its preservation — three dozen filmmakers who create their works for the big screen, to be enjoyed in the company of large audiences — has decided to do something about it.

The group of directors, led by Jason Reitman — whose films include “Juno,” “Up in the Air” and “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” — announced Wednesday that it had bought the Village Theater in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, which was put up for sale last summer to the concern of film buffs. The group, which also includes Christopher Nolan, Steven Spielberg, Lulu Wang and Alfonso Cuarón, among others, plans to restore the 93-year-old movie palace, which features one of the largest screens in Los Angeles.

“I think every director dreams of owning a movie theater,” Reitman said in an interview. “And in this case, I saw an opportunity to not only save one of the greatest movie palaces in the world, but also assembled some of my favorite directors to join in on the coolest AV club of all time.”

The announcement of the directors group buying the Village Theater, which has long been a favorite venue for premieres, follows on the heels of Quentin Tarantino’s recent purchase of the Vista Theater in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Los Feliz….

(3) TO MESSIAH OR NOT TO MESSIAH, THAT IS THE QUESTION. [By Mike Kennedy.] David Fear, writing for Rolling Stone, seems absolutely agog over Dune: Part Two. And eager for Part Three.

His review is chock full of spoilers if you don’t know the plot already (but I suspect most of you do). It’s easily arguable, though, that there are some spoilers for elements of the movie itself. So, read the review at your own risk. “‘Dune: Part Two’ Is Bigger, Bolder — and Yes, Even Better — Than Part One”. Here’s a non-spoilery excerpt:

… For some, these names may ring bells way, way back in your memory banks; mention that they’re characters played by Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Oscar Isaac, and a who’s-who of equally recognizable actors, and you’ll see the lights go on in their eyes. For others, the heroes and villains, mentors and monsters that populate Frank Herbert’s 1965 cult novel are old friends, their exploits etched into readers’ brains like gospel. One of the great things about Dune, Denis Villeneuve’s 2021 partial adaptation of that original book, was that you could take in its story and swoon over its imagery regardless of where you fell on the scale. It’s a classic hero’s-journey tale of — to paraphrase author/film professor Howard Suber — a kid rescued from his fate and put on the path toward his destiny. And it was the sort of faithful yet bold, properly bonkers realization of the novel for the screen that fans had been dying to see, the perfect melding of artist and material….

(4) CHINESE FAN ANALYZES SOME OF THE CHINESE WORKS ON THE NOMINATION REPORT. An English language blog post by Chinese fan Prograft follows on from the Heather Rose-Jones/Camestros Felapton report, covering the Chinese works that appeared in the prose fiction categories, excluding those in the SF World recommendation list. “More on Other Chinese Hugo Nominations, based on ‘Charting the Cliff’”.

They suggest that perhaps some of the Chinese works that appeared in the “Validation” report for Best Series, but not in the nomination statistics, may not have been eligible according to the Best Series rules. This, of course, would not explain why those works disappeared between the “Validation” spreadsheet and the actual nomination statistics report.

Prograft’s article also links to (Chinese language) Weibo posts from early March 2023, which discuss why there had not been much by way of self-promotion by Chinese authors at that point in time. (The SF World list did not appear until April; another from 8 Light Minutes was published on March 27.)

(5) MEANWHILE, BACK AT 2014. Camestros Felapton says, “Larry is cross that I’m not writing about him”.

… From time to time key Puppy figures would dally with the idea that the way the Hugo vote was administered was rigged against them, particularly when they lost, but the repeated substance of their complaint was that the MEMBERSHIP was rigged against them, i.e. it was cliques of voters and publisher buying memberships for the vast number of employees that they imagined publishers have.

So no, Larry didn’t “warn us” nor has the 2023 Hugo scandal validated the core of his complaints about the Hugo Awards.

(6) CLIFF NOTES. Noreascon II in 1980 was the first Worldcon required by the WSFS Constitution to report the Hugo voting statistics (though not the first to disclose some of them). Kevin Standlee, with the help of The Hugo Award Book Club, discovered File 770 issue 24 published partial 1980 Hugo Award final voting and nominating statistics. He’s uploaded a copy to the Hugo Awards website and added a link to the 1980 Hugo Awards page. This quote about the margin for error caught my eye:

Note on counting procedure. After initial validation of the ballots, the data were keypunched by a commercial firm, (Only in the Gandalf [Award] vote was every ballot proofread against the printout; but nearly all keypunching errors were flagged by the computer, and in any other category the residual errors should be less than about 5 cards.) The votes were then counted by computer, using a counting program written by Dave Anderson.

There were 1788 valid final ballots cast that year. The reason for proofing the Gandalf votes is that it was the only category which ran close enough for a potential five-vote error to change the winner. Ray Bradbury ended up outpolling Anne McCaffrey 747-746.

(7) STAR TREK: DISCOVERY SEASON 5. Paramount+ dropped a trailer for Star Trek: Discovery Season 5.

(8) NOW WE KNOW WHO WROTE THE BOOK OF LOVE. Amal El-Mohtar reviews Kelly Link’s The Book of Love in the New York Times: “Kelly Link Returns with a Dreamlike, Profoundly Beautiful Novel”.

A certain weight of expectation accrues on writers of short fiction who haven’t produced a novel, as if the short story were merely the larval stage of longer work. No matter how celebrated the author and her stories, how garlanded with prizes and grants, the sense persists: She will eventually graduate from the short form to the long. After an adolescence spent munching milkweed in increments of 10,000 words or less, she will come to her senses and build the chrysalis required for a novel to emerge, winged and tender, from within.

Now Kelly Link — an editor and publisher, a recipient of a MacArthur “genius grant” and the author of five story collections, one of which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist — has produced a novel. Seven years in the making, “The Book of Love” — long, but never boring — enacts a transformation of a different kind: It is our world that must expand to accommodate it, we who must evolve our understanding of what a fantasy novel can be.

Reviewing “The Book of Love” feels like trying to describe a dream. It’s profoundly beautiful, provokes intense emotion, offers up what feel like rooted, incontrovertible truths — but as soon as one tries to repeat them, all that’s left are shapes and textures, the faint outlines of shifting terrain….

(9) RETURN TO NEW WORLDS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] SF² Concatenation has an advance post up ahead of next season’s edition. An October 1955 edition of New Worlds provides an excuse to explore that magazine’s history and some of the SF professionals of that era.

You never know what is around the corner. There I was, at my local SF group, quietly enjoying a pint, when a friend brings in a copy of New Worlds magazine, issue no. 40 dating from October 1955 and this opened a window into Britain’s SF scene of that time. Let me share…

Click here for the full New Worlds magazine revisited” article.

(10) CHRISTOPHER NOLAN AND KIM STANLEY ROBINSON CONSIDERED. Imaginary Papers Issue 17 is out. The quarterly email newsletter from the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University covers science fiction worldbuilding, futures thinking, and the imagination.

In this issue, Erin K. Wagner writes about the interplay between art and science in Christopher Nolan’s films, especially Oppenheimer and Interstellar; Joe Tankersley celebrates the “subtle utopia” of Kim Stanley Robinson’s 1990 novel Pacific Edge; and we discuss the Necessary Tomorrows podcast, which pairs original science fiction stories with nonfiction analysis of sociotechnical issues.

Subscriptions are free.

(11) RAMONA FRADON (1926-2024). “Comic Book Creator Ramona Fradon Has Died, Aged 97” reports Bleeding Cool. She only just retired in January!

Comic book creator Ramona Fradon has died at the age of 97. Her agent, Catskill Comics, posted the news earlier today. “It comes with great sadness to announce that Ramona Fradon has passed away just a few moments ago. Ramona was 97 and had a long career in the comic book industry, and was still drawing just a few days ago. She was a remarkable person in so many ways. I will miss all the great conversations and laughs we had. I am blessed that I was able to work with her on a professional level, but also able to call her my friend. If anyone wishes to send a card to the family, Please feel free to send them to Catskill Comics, and I’ll be happy to pass them along. You can send cards to Catskill Comics “Fradon Family”, Po Box 264, Glasco, NY 12432″

(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born February 24, 1957 Edward James Olmos, 67. Where I first experienced the acting of Edward James Olmos was as Detective Gaff in Blade Runner, a role I see he reprised in Blade Runner 2049.

Edward James Olmos

No, I’ve not seen the latter film, nor do I have any intention in doing so as I consider Blade Runner one of the finest SF films ever done and nothing will sully that for me. We gave it a Hugo at ConStellation, so there later films!

It wasn’t his first genre film as that was the Japanese post-apocalyptic science fiction film Virus (1980), but his first important role came in Wolfen (1981), a fascinating horror film about, possibly, the idea that werewolves are real, or maybe not, in which he was Eddie Holt who claims to a shapeshifter. 

He has an almost cameo appearance in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues as a musician at the barbecue.

It was supposed to have a theatrical release but that was not to be, so Ray Bradbury’s The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit was released directly to video. In it Olmas was Vámonos. I’ve not seen it. It sounds, well, intriguing. Who’s seen it? 

Edward James Olmos in The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit

He’s in the debacle that was The Green Hornet in one of the primary roles as Mike Axford, the managing editor of The Daily Sentinel

As you most likely know, he was William Adama on the rebooted Battestar Galactica. At seventy-three episodes, it didn’t even come close to his run on Miami Vice as Lt. Martin Castillo which was one hundred and six episodes. Now there was an interesting character! 

Olmos as Adama in Battlestar Galactica

I’ll end this Birthday note by note noting he had a recurring role on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as Robert Gonzales.

(13) COMICS SECTION.

(14) SHRINKAGES AND DISAPPEARANCES. [Item by Kathy Sullivan.] Paper newspapers have been dropping comic strips. But the latest cuts are those by women creators. The Daily Cartoonist explains why “The Real Gannett Conspiracy = Chauvinism”.

In one of my answers in the comments section of The Great Gannett Comics Conspiracy I sarcastically said, “It’s like saying Gannett dropped Between Friends because they are misogynistic.”

Further analysis suggests that may not be far from right….

(15) MARVEL MUST-HAVES. Announced at ComicsPRO the Comic Industry Conference, Marvel Comics’ MARVEL MUST-HAVES! These FREE issues collect multiple iconic issues that spotlight the Marvel characters and comic book series currently at the forefront of pop culture. These stories have been handpicked to get fans in-tune with current Marvel adventures, and act as perfect jumping on points for new readers too. That’s more than 80 pages of comic book adventures for free, available at comic shops next month. [Based on a press release.]

 SPIDER-MAN/DEADPOOL #1 (2016)

It’s action, adventure and just a smattering of romance in this epic teaming up the Webbed Wonder and the Merc with a Mouth! Talk about a REAL dynamic duo! Brought to you by two Marvel superstars—Joe Kelly and Ed McGuinness—it’s a perfect tale for those looking forward to the Deadpool’s return to the big screen. 

Dive into the full story in SPIDER-MAN/DEADPOOL MODERN ERA EPIC COLLECTION: ISN’T IT BROMANTIC? TPB (9781302951641)

 IMMORTAL THOR #2 (2023)

An Elder God of the Utgard-Realm had marked Thor for destruction – and a city with him. Yet the only power that could prevail carried its own terrible price. This is the story of THE IMMORTAL THOR…and the hour of his greatest trial. Following his masterful work on Immortal Hulk, Al Ewing is breaking mythology yet again in this acclaimed new run of the God of Thunder. Featuring breathtaking artwork by superstar Martin Coccolo.

Dive into the full story in IMMORTAL THOR VOL. 1: ALL WEATHER TURNS TO STORM TPB (9781302954185)

 MS. MARVEL: THE NEW MUTANT #1 (2023)

Resurrected back into this world of hate and fear, Kamala Khan has a secret mission to pull off for the X-Men, all the while struggling to acclimate to this new part of her identity! Co-written by the MCU’s own Kamala, Iman Vellani, and Sabir Pirzada of both Dark Web: Ms. Marvel and her Disney+ series! Don’t miss this exciting evolution for one of Marvel’s brightest young heroes!

Dive into the full story in MS. MARVEL: THE NEW MUTANT VOL. 1 TPB (9781302954901)

(16) THE SINCEREST FORM OF FLATTERY? Or just a ripoff. Behind a paywall at The Sunday Times: “BBC accused of plagiarising new series from Spanish drama”. Brief excerpt:

The Ministry of Time bears a striking resemblance in title and plot to El Ministerio del Tiempo

The BBC will be asked for “explanations” from the Spanish state broadcaster after allegations of plagiarism over a new British television series.

The commissioning of the BBC’s The Ministry of Time was announced this week, described as an “epic sci-fi, romance and thriller” that is “utterly unique”.

Based on an as yet unpublished debut novel by Kaliane Bradley, it is about a newly established government department, the Ministry of Time, which gathers “expats” from across history to experiment how viable time travel would actually be.

The striking resemblance, however, in title and plot to the Spanish series El Ministerio del Tiempo — The Ministry of Time — created by Javier and Pablo Olivares and broadcast by RTVE between 2015 and 2020, has prompted allegations of plagiarism.

The allegations have been made by Javier Olivares, who said that the BBC “had not changed a hair” of his creation, and also by scores of social media users….

(17) FLORIDA LEGISLATION WOULD RESTRICT SOME TEEN ACCESS. “Florida Passes Sweeping Bill to Keep Young People Off Social Media” – details in the New York Times.

New Florida rules would require social networks to prevent young people under 16 from signing up for accounts — and terminate accounts belonging to underage users.

…Florida’s Legislature has passed a sweeping social media bill that would make the state the first to effectively bar young people under 16 from holding accounts on platforms like TikTok and Instagram.

The measure — which Gov. Ron DeSantis said he would “be wrestling with” over the weekend and has not yet signed — could potentially upend the lives of millions of young people in Florida.

It would also probably face constitutional challenges. Federal courts have blocked less-restrictive youth social media laws enacted last year by Arkansas and Ohio. Judges in those cases said the new statutes most likely impinged on social media companies’ free speech rights to distribute information as well as young people’s rights to have access to it.

The new rules in Florida, passed on Thursday, would require social networks to both prevent people under 16 from signing up for accounts and terminate accounts that a platform knew or believed belonged to underage users. It would apply to apps and sites with certain features, most likely including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube.

Last year, Utah, Arkansas, Texas and Ohio enacted laws that would require social media platforms to get permission from a parent before giving an account to a minor under 18 or under 16.

Florida’s effort would go much further, amounting to a comprehensive ban for young people on some of the most popular social media apps. It would also bar the platforms from showing harmful material to minors, including “patently offensive” sexual conduct….

(18) UP ALL KNIGHT. From The Hollywood Reporter: “‘Game of Thrones’ Spinoff ‘The Hedge Knight’ Gets 2025 Release Date”.

… Dunk and Egg keep journeying closer to their HBO debut.

On Friday, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav gave an update on the next Game of Thrones spinoff series: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight (a title that seems destined to be changed to something that doesn’t have “Knight” twice).

“[Creator and executive producer] George R.R. Martin is in preproduction for the new spinoff, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which will premiere in late 2025 on Max,” Zaslav said.

The show is expected to begin production sometime this year.

Given that House of the Dragon is launching its second season this summer, the Knight of the Seven Kingdoms date next year raises the possibility of HBO settling into a flow of having a Thrones drama each year (assuming both shows can turn around their next seasons within two years)….

(19) ACADEMIC REPORT ON THE LANGUAGE USED BY THE CHENGDU BUSINESS DAILY. [Item by Ersatz Culture.] As is hopefully well-known by now, the Chengdu Business Daily organization – also known as Chengdu Economic Daily, which I believe is their “official” English name – provided a number of staff for the Chengdu concom in senior roles, including a Co-Chair, an Honorary Co-Chair, and members of the Hugo team.

I don’t want to get into why what is nominally a newspaper was so involved in running a science fiction convention here, but earlier today I came across a piece of academic research from 2017 that investigated how their journalistic output was summarized on Chinese social media.  Although the authors of this report appear to be Chinese nationals from a Chengdu university, the study is in English.

A couple of extracts give examples of how CBD news stories were covered on their social media accounts.  (The text from the study is left unaltered, other than reformatting for readability, and the censoring of an English language swear word.)


In all these samples, there were 23 cases of non-standardization, accounting for 7.7% of the total samples, including 10 cases of using ambiguous words, 6 cases of insufficient sentence composition, 3 cases of vulgar words, 2 cases of exaggerated titles, 1 case of non-standardized proverbs, 1 case of ambiguity. Specific reports are listed below. Such as 

  • “Ball-Hurting! #One Man Tied 7 Cars On His Testis# [sic] And Pulled Cars 8 Meters.” (“@Chengdu Economic Daily” April 1st)
  • “It Is Said That The Relevant Agencies Have Organized The Second Mental Identification Towards The Guilty Driver.” (@Chengdu Economic Daily” on March 1st)
  • “Two Small UAVs Were Artificially Installed Artillery That May Be Firecrackers And Attacked Each Other For Fun.” (“@Chengdu Economic Daily “February 1st).

After combing the entire sample, this article also found that the use of spoken language is very common. “@Chengdu Economic Daily” accounted for 22.2% and “@Chengdu Evening Post” accounted for 30.00% (see Table 3). Such as: 

  • “Easy To Learn: Home-Made Pickle-Fish Is Super Cool.”(@Chengdu Economic Daily January 1st)
  • “F*ck Off. Just Get Off. Why You Not Just Get Off.” (@Chengdu Economic Daily January 1st) 
  • “Old Lady Started Stall Besides Street While City Inspectors Helped Her.” (@Chengdu Evening Post January 1st)
  • “A Lady Shouting At A Naughty Child Was Beat By His Parents.”(“@Chengdu Evening Post” March 1st)

The use of network buzzwords and verbal expressions, with the characteristics of freshness and populism, usually adopts irony, ridicule, exaggeration and populist expressions to report and comment on events or peoples, and the contents conveyed are thoughtful, active and critical.


(20) AI’S ELECTRIC BILL. “Generative AI’s environmental costs are soaring — and mostly secret” reports Kate Crawford in Nature.

Last month, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman finally admitted what researchers have been saying for years — that the artificial intelligence (AI) industry is heading for an energy crisis. It’s an unusual admission. At the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Altman warned that the next wave of generative AI systems will consume vastly more power than expected, and that energy systems will struggle to cope. “There’s no way to get there without a breakthrough,” he said.

I’m glad he said it. I’ve seen consistent downplaying and denial about the AI industry’s environmental costs since I started publishing about them in 2018. Altman’s admission has got researchers, regulators and industry titans talking about the environmental impact of generative AI.

So what energy breakthrough is Altman banking on? Not the design and deployment of more sustainable AI systems — but nuclear fusion. He has skin in that game, too: in 2021, Altman started investing in fusion company Helion Energy in Everett, Washington.

Most experts agree that nuclear fusion won’t contribute significantly to the crucial goal of decarbonizing by mid-century to combat the climate crisis. Helion’s most optimistic estimate is that by 2029 it will produce enough energy to power 40,000 average US households; one assessment suggests that ChatGPT, the chatbot created by OpenAI in San Francisco, California, is already consuming the energy of 33,000 homes. It’s estimated that a search driven by generative AI uses four to five times the energy of a conventional web search. Within years, large AI systems are likely to need as much energy as entire nations….

(21) AN EARLIER ‘GREAT WALL’. “Great ‘Stone Age’ wall discovered in Baltic Sea”. “Megastructure stretching nearly 1 kilometre long is probably one of the oldest known hunting aids on Earth.”

Divers have helped to reveal the remnants of a kilometre-long wall that are submerged in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Rerik, Germany. The rocks (pictured) date back to the Stone Age.

Primary research paper here.

(22) LICENSE PLATE FRAME OF THE DAY.  “Bigfoot doesn’t believe in you either.”

(23) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes arrives in theaters May 10.

Director Wes Ball breathes new life into the global, epic franchise set several generations in the future following Caesar’s reign, in which apes are the dominant species living harmoniously and humans have been reduced to living in the shadows. As a new tyrannical ape leader builds his empire, one young ape undertakes a harrowing journey that will cause him to question all that he has known about the past and to make choices that will define a future for apes and humans alike.

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Ersatz Culture, Martin Easterbrook, Kathy Sullivan, Joey Eschrich, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kevin Harkness.]

Pixel Scroll 2/15/24 I Think There Is A World Market For About Five Pixel Scrolls

(1) INTERNATIONAL REACTION TO HUGO AWARDS CENSORSHIP REPORT. Chris M. Barkley and Jason Sanford’s report “The 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion” (also available at Genre Grapevine and as an e-book epub file and as a PDF) has sparked the attention of mass media: .

The Guardian: “Authors ‘excluded from Hugo awards over China concerns’”. In addition to covering the report, the article includes an excellent quote from Chinese social media:

…The incident prompted discussion among the science fiction community in China. One commenter on Weibo wrote: “Diane Lacey’s courage to disclose the truth makes people feel that there is still hope in the world, and not everyone is so shameless … I can understand the concerns of the Hugo award staff, but ‘I honestly think that the Hugo committee are cowards.’”…

BBC Radio 4: Last night’s arts programme Front Row’s third quarter looked at the Hugo Awards debacle. “Ukraine drama A Small Stubborn Town, Emma Rice, The Hugo Awards”. Jonathan Cowie says, “It was a superficial dive. For example, it did not note that the nominating stats literally did not add up, so clear fraud, nor that Glasgow also is ignoring WSFS rules.” (Cowie adds, “Remember to skip to the programme’s final third quarter.”)

In the wake of the Hugo Awards scandal, Gavia Baker-Whitelaw, culture critic and Hugo awards finalist, Han Zhang, editor-at-large at Riverhead Books, focussed on finding works in the Chinese language for translation and publication in the US, and Megan Walsh, author of The Subplot: What China is reading and why it matters, discuss the fallout and what is reveals about the popularity of Sci-Fi in China.

There’s also a paywalled article in New Scientist: “Amid (more) Hugo awards controversy, let’s remember some past greats”.

IT IS a truth universally acknowledged that all awards are total bunk except for the ones you personally have lifted into the air in triumph. That rule doesn’t hold, however, if your prize is in some way sullied later on. This, sadly, is the situation for the winners of the 2023 Hugo awards….

Slashdot has an excerpt of 404 Media’s paywalled article: “Leaked Emails Show Hugo Awards Self-Censoring To Appease China”.

And here are some highlights from the vast social media discussion.

John Scalzi: “The 2023 Hugo Fraud and Where We Go From Here” at Whatever

Cora Buhlert: “The 2023 Hugo Nomination Scandal Gets Worse”

Mary Robinette Kowal’s thread on Bluesky starts with this link.

Neil Gaiman commented on Bluesky: “I’m unsure how comfortable I would be participating if anything I was involved in was nominated for a Hugo in 2024, if there were people involved who had been part of what happened in Chengdu.”

Chuck Tingle’s thread on X.com begins, “this report of leaks regarding what actually happened at hugo awards shows a disgusting way. years of buckaroos working in and around hugo awards popularizing phrases like ‘chuck tingle made the hugos illegitimate’ when the rot was starting with them.”

Courtney Milan, on Bluesky, offers a series of short scripts for how censorship could have been deflected. The first is: “Ways to handle censorship if someone asks you on the DL to censor your award. 1. ‘No, this isn’t in our rules. Is this going to be a problem? I can let the community know that the Hugo rules aren’t going to be applied if so.’”

(2) IT ONLY GETS VERSE. [Item by Jennifer Hawthorne.] A brilliant poem by TrishEM about the Hugo mess: “A Vanilla Villain’s Variant Villanelle” at What’s the Word Now. The first stanza is:

It’s wrong to allege we were mere censors’ tools;
If you knew all the facts, you’d condone our behavior.
I grok Chinese fans, and was their White Savior.
I maintain the Committee just followed the rules.

(3) HOW CENSORSHIP WORKS.  Ada Palmer’s post about censorship and self-censorship comes highly recommended: “Tools for Thinking About Censorship”. It begins:

“Was it a government action, or did they do it themselves because of pressure?”

This is inevitably among our first questions when news breaks that any expressive work (a book, film, news story, blog post etc.) has been censored or suppressed by the company or group trusted with it (a publisher, a film studio, a newspaper, an awards organization etc.)

This is not a direct analysis of the current 2023 Chengdu Hugo Awards controversy. But since I am a scholar in the middle of writing a book about patterns in the history of how censorship operates, I want to put at the service of those thinking about the situation this zoomed-out portrait of a few important features of how censorship tends to work, drawn from my examination of examples from dozens of countries and over many centuries….

(4) ELIGIBILITY UPDATE FOR US NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS. “US National Book Awards: Opening to Non-US Citizens”Publishing Perspectives has the story.

In recent years, as readers of Publishing Perspectives’ coverage of book and publishing awards know, there have been several cases in which higher-profile book and publishing awards programs have decided to broaden their eligibility requirements for authors whose work is submitted.

Today’s (February 15) announcement from the National Book Foundation about the United States’ National Book Awards‘ change in eligibility opens the program to submissions of work by authors who are not citizens of the United States, as long as they “maintain their primary, long-term home in the United States, US territories, or Tribal lands.”

These new updated criteria will be in effect as of March 13, when submissions for the 75th National Book Awards open….

(5) WAYWARD WORMHOLE. Two workshops will be available at “The Rambo Academy Wayward Wormhole – New Mexico 2024”.

The Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers is pleased to announce the second annual Wayward Wormhole, this time in New Mexico. Join us for the short story workshop to study with Arley Sorg and Minister Faust, or the novel workshop with Donald Maass, C.C. Finlay, and Cat Rambo.

Both intensive workshops will be hosted at the Painted Pony ranch in Rodeo, New Mexico. The short story workshop runs November 4-12, 2024, and the novel workshop runs November 15 through 24, 2024.

The Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers has been in existence for thirteen years, serving hundreds of students who have gone on to win awards, honors, and accolades, including Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Awards. “I attended Clarion West, and have taught at multiple workshops now,” says Academy founder Cat Rambo. “While others have delivered the gold standard, I decided to stretch to the platinum level and deliver amazing workshops in equally amazing settings. Last year’s was a castle in Spain, this year a fabulous location in southwestern America. And wait till you hear what we’ve got cooked up for 2025!”

More details about these exciting workshops and how to apply!

(6) CHENGDU WORLDCON ROUNDUP. [Item by Ersatz Culture.]

Photos from the reopened Chengdu Science Fiction Museum

The Chengdu SF Museum reopened to the public a few weeks ago, after an event a few days earlier involving Hai Ya and other authors.  The images I’ve selected here are primarily because of their potential interest to MPC types, but you can click on the following links to see the Xiaohongshu galleries these came from.

As far as I can tell, all of these photos have been taken in the past few weeks; there are none from when the Worldcon was running.

Gallery 1Gallery 2Gallery 3Gallery 4Gallery 5Gallery 6Gallery 7Gallery 8Gallery 9

(7) OCTOTHORPE. Episode 103 of the Octothorpe podcast, “Just This Guy, Y’know?”, is available for listening. John Coxon, Alison Scott, and Liz Batty say:

Octothorpe 103 is here! We discuss a bunch of stuff which isn’t Hugo Award-related before moving onto the bits of the kerfuffle that we couldn’t fit into 102 and hadn’t come out when we recorded.

The words “Octothorpe 103 Hugo Regalia Shop” appear above a selection of costumes. There are small depictions of a clown, a pirate, a panda and a banana above full-length depictions of a member of the Catholic church (with Hugos on their mitre and crosier), a gangster (labelled “boss”, holding a Hugo), Zaphod Beeblebrox (holding three Hugos) and Jesus (with a crown of thorns but made with Hugos).

(8) MOURNING MUSIC. “Matthew” (at Bandcamp) is a tribute song about Matthew Pavletich by his sister, Jo Morgan. Matthew died in January. The lyrics are heart-wrenching – see them at the link.

‘Matthew’ is a touching tribute dedicated to Jo’s beloved brother who passed away after a courageous battle with Motor Neurone Disease. Tenderly capturing the power of familial love, serving as an anthem honouring all the qualities defining him.

Jo says “I wrote this song to celebrate my brother Matthew who passed away from Motor Neurone Disease in January 2024. There are so many wonderful qualities about this beautiful man and I am so blessed to have had him as my brother. He lost so much to this illness, and I want the world to know about this sweet and humble gentle man.”

Jo will be making a donation from some of the proceeds from the song to support MND NZ and animal welfare charities.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born February 15, 1945 Jack Dann, 79. It’s been awhile since we’ve done an Australian resident writer, so let’s do Jack Dann tonight. Yes, I know he’s American-born but he’s lived there for the past forty years and yes he’s citizen there.

In 1994 he had moved to Melbourne to join Janeen Webb, a Melbourne based academic, SF critic, and writer, whom he had met at a conference in San Francisco and who he married a year later. Thirty years later they’re still married. 

They would edit together In the Field of Fire, a collection of science fiction and fantasy stories relating to the horrors of the Vietnam War. I’m not aware who anyone else has done one on this subject, so go ahead and tell who else has. 

Jack Dann

He published his first book as an editor, Wandering Stars: An Anthology of Jewish Fantasy and Science Fiction forty years ago, (later followed up by More Wandering Stars: An Anthology of Jewish Fantasy and Science Fiction) and his first novel, Starhiker, several years later. 

His Dreaming Again and Dreaming down-under are excellent anthologies of Australian genre short fiction. The latter, edited with his wife, would win a Ditmar and a World Fantasy Award. Dreaming Again, again edited with his wife, also won a Ditmar. 

With Nick Gever, he won a Shirley Jackson Award for one of my favorite reads, Ghosts by Gaslight: Stories of Steampunk and Supernatural Suspense.

He’s written roughly a hundred pieces of shorter fiction.  I’ve read enough of it to say that he’s quite excellent in that length of fiction.  Recently Centipede Press released in their Masters of Science Fiction, a volume devoted to him. Thirty stories, all quite excellent.

So what is worth reading for novels beyond Starhiker which I like a lot? Well if you’ve not read it, do read The Memory Cathedral: A Secret History of Leonardo da Vinci in which de Vinci actually constructs his creations as it is indeed an amazing story. 

The Rebel: An Imagined Life of James Dean is extraordinary. All I’ll say here is Dean lived, had an amazing life and yes it’s genre. I see PS Publishing filled out the story when they gave us Promised Land.

Those are the three novels of his that I really, really like. 

(10) COMICS SECTION.

(11) EVIL GENIUS GAMES. [Item by Eric Franklin.] Morrus, the owner of ENWorld, posted an article on “The Rise And Fall Of Evil Genius Games” that may be of interest to the gaming contingent of File770’s readership: EGG has produced games for a number of licensed genre properties, including Pacific Rim, Escape from New York, and The Crow. “DriveThruRPG – Evil Genius Games”

How does a company go from over twenty core staff to just six in the space of a few weeks?

In the summer of 2023, Evil Genius Games appeared to be riding high. They’d made about half a million dollars over two Kickstarter campaigns and had raised $1M from several rich investors in the form of technology companies. The company boasted 25-30 core staff, an official tabletop role-playing game for a movie franchise called Rebel Moon was well under development, and EGG standees and window clings representing characters from the d20 Modern-inspired Everyday Heroes could be seen in game stores across America.

By the end of the year, the Rebel Moon game was dead, staff had been asked to work without pay for periods of up to three months, freelancers were struggling to get paid, people were being laid off, and the company’s tech company investors seemed to be having cold feet in the face of escalating expenditure and dwindling resources….

(12) SFF FROM LAGOS. “’Iwájú’ trailer: Disney’s enticing limited series is set in a futuristic Nigeria” says Mashable. Available February 28 on Disney+.

“Iwájú” is an original animated series set in a futuristic Lagos, Nigeria. The exciting coming-of-age story follows Tola, a young girl from the wealthy island, and her best friend, Kole, a self-taught tech expert, as they discover the secrets and dangers hidden in their different worlds. Kugali filmmakers—including director Olufikayo Ziki Adeola, production designer Hamid Ibrahim and cultural consultant Toluwalakin Olowofoyeku—take viewers on a unique journey into the world of “Iwájú,” bursting with unique visual elements and technological advancements inspired by the spirit of Lagos.

(13) NSFF770? [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Star Zendaya walked the red carpet at the Dune Part Two premiere wearing a formfitting silver and translucent robot-inspired outfit. Friendly warning: anyone inclined to over-agitation at such a sight might want to make sure they’ve taken their heart medication before checking out the video. “Zendaya’s Robotic Outfit For The ‘Dune: Part Two’ Premiere Has To Be Seen To Be Believed” at Uproxx. Article includes a roundup of X.com posts with video.

(14) WHAT REALLY MATTERS. “This new map of the Universe suggests dark matter shaped the cosmos” at Nature. See the compilation photo at the link.

Astronomers have reconstructed nearly nine billion years of cosmic evolution by tracing the X-ray glow of distant clusters of galaxies. The analysis supports the standard model of cosmology, according to which the gravitational pull of dark matter — a still-mysterious substance — is the main factor shaping the Universe’s structure.

“We do not see any departures from the standard model of cosmology,” says Esra Bulbul, a senior member of the team and an astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in Garching, Germany. The results are described1 in a preprint posted online on 14 February.

The galactic clusters were spotted in the most detailed picture ever taken of the sky using X-rays, which was published late last month. This image revealed around 900,000 X-ray sources, from black holes to the relics of supernova explosions.

The picture was the result of the first six months of operation of eROSITA (Extended Roentgen Survey with an Imaging Telescope Array), one of two X-ray telescopes that were launched into space in July 2019 aboard the Russian spacecraft SRG (Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma). eROSITA scans the sky as the spacecraft spins, and collects data over wider angles than are possible for most other X-ray observatories. This enables it to slowly sweep the entire sky every six months….

(15) VALENTINE’S DAY IN THE TARDIS. How can you not click when Radio Times offers to tell about “Doctor Who’s four greatest love stories – and why they make the cut”?

The love stories definitely aren’t the main focus in Doctor Who… but they certainly don’t hurt.

From David Tennant’s Ten and Billie Piper’s Rose being ripped away from each other in Doomsday, to Matt Smith’s Eleven and Alex Kingston’s River Song finding their way back to each other through time, some of them are love stories for the ages.

Some of them, perhaps, deserved a little more time (looking at Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteen and Mandip Gill’s Yaz), and some don’t even feature the Doctor at all, with Karen Gillan’s Amy and Arthur Darvill’s Rory melting our hearts….

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, Jason Sanford, Cat Rambo, Kathy Sullivan, Eric Franklin, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Soon Lee.]

Pixel Scroll 2/12/24 Cats Dream Well. Why Do You Think They Sleep So Much?

(1) STUMBLING OUT OF THE STARTING GATE. When the Montréal in 2027 Worldcon bid launched two days ago, one of its Presupport levels included an offer that sparked debate about whether it violated the WSFS Constitution’s site selection rules:

Today that language has been removed:

Mike Scott explained the problem on Facebook:

WSFS constitution 4.3. Non-natural persons can only cast site selection ballots for No Preference. Montreal in 2027 buying you a WSFS membership in Seattle is fine, and you can still vote in site selection yourself, because you’re a natural person. But if you delegate Montreal in 2027 to cast a ballot on your behalf, that ballot must be counted as No Preference, because Montreal in 2027 is not a natural person. The constitution doesn’t say that ballots must be cast on behalf of a natural person, it says they must be cast by a natural person.

Other people have always been allowed to deliver ballots properly executed by a voter. Here, the committee had said they would execute these ballots for others. In that case, the ballots would have to be counted as No Preference.

(2) TEL AVIV IN 2027 WEBSITE. The announcement of competition from Montréal has led to a wider awareness that the WorldCon 2027 in Tel aviv bidders launched a new website last October.

The TLV2027 bid committee boasts a team of highly experienced individuals. Guy Kovel, the Bid Chair, has a track record of convention operations. Gadi Evron, with a history of organizing events since 1996, handled logistics and events at prestigious conventions like Dublin 2019 and CoNZealand. Other members, including Einat Citron, Naama Friedman, Dror Raif Nesher, and Tal Goldman, bring expertise in programming, logistics,  volunteer management, and event operations.

The front page also carries this statement about the situation in Israel:

We want to update you on the current situation with our bid committee. Firstly, we’re relieved to share that all the members of our committee are safe, even though some of us have been called to service during these challenging times.

We’re all deeply devastated by the recent attacks, but we remain steadfast in our belief that things will stabilize, and ultimately, peace will prevail. Our commitment to our shared goals remains unshaken, and we’ll continue to work diligently to bring our vision to life.

Thank you for your unwavering support, and together, we’ll navigate through these trying times and look forward to a brighter future.

(3) ROMANTASY ON THE RADIO. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] This week’s Open Book on BBC’s Radio 4 looked at the sub-genre of “Romantasy”.  This is a hugely growing book genre in Britain the past couple of years that has had to overcome some snobbery with clear overlaps – depending on the book – with epic fantasy, military fantasy, etc…

‘Romantasy’ – combining fantasy and racy romance, it’s the hot new genre sought after by publishers and readers alike, and dominated by female authors and readers. To discuss it’s huge growth in popularity, Johny is joined by: Saara El-Arifi – bestselling author of Faebound, the first in a three part trilogy, which went straight to number one on release last month; Natasha Bardon – publisher of Science Fiction and Fantasy for Harper Voyager, of romantasy-focussed imprint Magpie Books, and of the upcoming ‘spicy’ romantasy list, the Midnight Collection; and by Katie Fraser – journalist for The Bookseller who writes about SFF.

You can download it from here: “Open Book, Madeleine Grey”.

(4) TAKE THE TOUR. Congratulations to Brian Keene and Mary SanGiovanni on their store opening! And thanks for the Vortex Books & Comics Opening Day video tour. (I see Brian starts right off in the true outlaw spirit by ignoring the crossing signal!)

Authors Brian Keene and Mary SanGiovanni have opened a bookstore in Columbia, Pennsylvania — focusing on horror, science-fiction, fantasy, thrillers, and other speculative fiction genres, as well as comic books and magazines. Brian gives you a tour on opening day.

(5) MYRIAD MEN OF TIN. G. W. Thomas rounds up an enormous number of examples of robots in Seventies comics in “Bronze Age Robots! 1970s” at Dark Worlds Quarterly.

…The 1970s divides neatly in two with Star Wars at the center. The 1980s would see Science Fiction explode in all media as Star Wars proved that fans wanted space opera again, even if they hadn’t known it. For robot fans in America there was the coming of the Japanese style giant robots. And more toy-based products like ROM the Spaceknight.

(6) OMEGA AWARDS DEADLINE. February 13 is the last day to submit entries for The Tomorrow Prize and The Green Feather Award.

(7) THE NEW NUMBER TWO. This list is presented as an infographic: “The 15 BEST Science Fiction Books of ALL TIME” at Daily Infographic. Number 1 is Dune. But number 2 is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?

(8) THOSE WERE THE DAYS, MY FRIEND. The New York Times tells how “Video Games Are Mourning the Old, Weird, Clunky Internet”.

Surfing the web in the 1990s and early 2000s was a slower endeavor, and fewer people had access to the technology. But it is still easy to reminisce about the days when it felt like a public marketplace, with a good chance that someone out there had made a blog or GeoCities site about the niche topic you found interesting.

Those robust online forums have since been flattened into algorithmic social media feeds or hidden on messaging apps, a shift mourned by several video games with a shared fondness for bygone internet eras.

Games like last year’s Videoverse, 2019’s Hypnospace Outlaw and the upcoming Darkweb Streamer use chat interfaces akin to AIM or MSN, as well as fake websites that greet people with MIDI songs and text written in bold fonts. Each experience has its own nostalgic lens but is a snapshot of lost expression, creativity and independence.

Chantal Ryan, an anthropologist and the lead developer of Darkweb Streamer, a horror simulation game that merges the perils of modern streaming with the ’90s internet, bemoaned how high-quality independent services were often cannibalized by corporate interests. She pointed to sites like Goodreads and AbeBooks, both bought by Amazon.

“It reminds me of forest clearing,” said Ryan, who studied at the University of Adelaide. “You have this habitat with sustainable ecosystems, and communities of beings living harmoniously. And then the bulldozer comes in and destroys literally everything in its path with no regard to who’s being affected.”…

The visual novel Videoverse follows the final days of the online social network for a fictional gaming system in 2003. Kinmoku

(9) ELIZABETH (WARREN) ADAMS OBITUARY. Norwescon social media has announced that Elizabeth (Warren) Adams, affectionately known as The Dragon Lady, died on February 9. She was the chair of Norwescons 11, 12, and 14, and ran legendary hospitality rooms at the con. She also was a past editor of Westwind, the NWSFS clubzine, and was very active with PSST (Puget Sound Star Trekkers).

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born February 12, 1950 Michael Ironside, 73. The role I remember Michael Ironside most for was as Lieutenant Jean Rasczak in Starship Troopers. There wasn’t much great about that film but I thought that he made much of that character. 

Do I need to say that I’m not covering everything he’s done of a genre nature? Well most of you get that. Really you do. So let’s see what I find interesting.

Michael Ironside in Starship Troopers

Scanners is one weird film. It really is. And he was in it as Darryl Revok, the Big Baddie, a role he perfectly played. 

Next he got cast as the main antagonist in another of my favorite SF films, this time as Overdog McNab in Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone. Who comes with these names?

Then there was Total Recall where he was Agent Richter, the ruthless enforcer of Cohaagen, the source of everything corrupt on Mars. Great role that fit his gruff voice and frankly even gruffer looks absolutely perfectly.

One of his major ongoing roles was in the V franchise, first as Ham Tyle, a recurring role in V: The Final Battle, and then playing the same character in all episodes of V: The Series.

Now we come to my favorite of his roles, in one one of my favorite series, seaQuest 2032, where he was Captain Oliver Hudson. Great series and an absolute fantastic performance by him! Pity it got cancelled after thirteen episodes. 

Finally he has one voice acting role I loved. In the DC universe, he was Darkseid, the absolute rule of Apokolis. He voiced him primarily on Superman: The Animated Series, but also on the Justice League series as well, and to my surprise on the HBO Harley Quinn series as well.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

  • The Argyle Sweater mashes up a nursery rhyme and online shopping.
  • Existential Comics stages a humorous confrontation between a student and teacher of the magical arts. Sort of Clarke’s Law in reverse.

(12) A LITTLE RAY OF SUNSHINE. Nic Farey, in This Here 72, thinks that the most noteworthy feature of the 2023 Hugo stats embarrassment (“Even a WorldThing avoider such as meself cannot have failed to clock the latest brouhaha (causing much haha round here, to be sure)”) is the opportunity it affords to declare his own report of the voting figures for this year’s FAAn awards will be immediately available — while predicting coverage of the FAAns he anticipates winning will be exploited to take attention away from the Hugos’ disgrace.

The fact that the probity of the FAAns (and my own alleged “fixing” of them, a libelous statement to be sure) has been questioned starts to be more of a “but look over there…” diversion, don’t it?…

Great suggestion, Nic, except (and I know you’ll be surprised to hear this) even your figleaf won’t be big enough to cover this cockup.

(13) THE QUIET BEFORE…THE QUIET. “’A Quiet Place: Day One’ first look at Lupita Nyong’o, Joseph Quinn” at Entertainment Weekly.

The ingenuity of the next A Quiet Place movie lies in the simplicity of its idea: Take the same core premise of the previous entries, but just change the setting. That tweak alone drastically affects the stakes. 

John Krasinski’s 2018 horror-thriller introduced the Abbott family, who embraced a life of silence at their rural farmhouse in upstate New York in a terrifying reality overrun by sightless alien monsters that hunt through sound. The story continued in 2021’s A Quiet Place: Part II, but now A Quiet Place: Day One, a prequel film and the franchise’s first spinoff, will see how the citizens of New York City, one of the noisiest metropolitans on the globe, fared when these vicious creatures arrived on Earth….

(14) SFF MOVIE TRAILERS DROPPED DURING SUPER  BOWL. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Most (if not all) of the movie trailers debuted during the Super Bowl are for genre works. Comicbook.com did a roundup of all the YouTube videos. See them at the link: “2024 Super Bowl: Watch Every New Movie Trailer Released for the Big Game”.

The Super Bowl may technically be about the two best teams in the NFL facing off for football’s ultimate prize, but for many around the country, it represents one of the biggest movie events of the year. Several film studios use the Super Bowl as a platform to advertise some of their biggest movies in the coming year, leading to more than a few awesome trailers arriving online in the same weekend….

(15) BUGS, MISTER RICO! And some other commercials had a genre flavor, too, like this one: “Jeff Goldblum Returns as Brad Bellflower in Apartments.com’s Sci-Fi Super Bowl Ad” at LBBOnline.

Apartments.com returns to the Super Bowl as the universal leader in renting and debuted a never-before-seen 30-second spot, titled ‘Extraterrentials.’ In the new ad, which premiered during the first quarter of Super Bowl LVII, Jeff Goldblum continues his role as Brad Bellflower, visionary leader of Apartments.com, and defuses a tense standoff with some new arrivals on Earth. The campaign rollout spoofs an upcoming Jeff Goldblum sci-fi blockbuster, featuring a clever media strategy and unique creative from agency of record, RPA.   

“Leading up to the Super Bowl, Apartments.com leveraged extraterrestrial buzz in culture to generate intrigue and awareness across media channels by leaning into the possibility of a new Goldblum sci-fi film,” said Fred Saint, president, marketplaces at CoStar Group…. 

(16) DOPPELGÄNGERS3: “Exploring New Futures in Space: A Revolutionary Integration of Neuroscience, Quantum Physics, and Space Exploration” at SETI.org.

The SETI Institute is proud to support a groundbreaking project from London-based filmmaker and SETI Institute Designer of Experiences Dr. Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian that combines insights from intergenerational trauma, neuroscience, quantum physics, and space exploration.

Premiering at SXSW 2024, Doppelgängers3 is a feature film and research project that challenges conventional narratives of space colonization by integrating diverse perspectives. Ben Hayoun-Stépanian will present this multidisciplinary endeavor at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) 2024, highlighting its unique blend of science, culture, and storytelling within the decolonial space and space culture sessions.

The project spotlights the importance of acknowledging collective trauma and its impacts — a burgeoning field in neuropsychology research. By weaving together the stories of three individuals across different geographies, Doppelgängers3imagines a utopian community on the moon that learns from the past and aspires to a future where diversity and plurality are celebrated….

(17) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Dan Monroe at Media Master Design answers the question “What Happened to THE TIME MACHINE?”

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

Pixel Scroll 2/6/24 Scrollerman vs. Mr. Mixy-Pixel-like

(1) GLASGOW 2024 REOPENS HUGO NOMINATIONS. Members of Glasgow 2024 were notified today that online nominations for the Hugo Awards are working again.

One day after they initially went live on January 27, the committee announced in social media, “We are aware of an issue with nominations. We have taken that system offline as a precaution.” There is no extension to the originally announced deadline; all nominations must be received by Saturday, March 9, 2024, 16:00 Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) (UTC+0). Detailed instructions for how to nominate, plus more specific information about the nomination categories and eligibility, are available here.

(2) CASHING IN. AbeBooks shared their “Most expensive sales in 2023”, and several are sff or comics.

1. Thomas Pynchon Collection – $125,000

Thomas Pynchon is one of America’s most reclusive novelists and the author of V., The Crying of Lot 49, Gravity’s Rainbow, Slow Learner, Vineland, Mason and Dixon, Inherent Vice, and Bleeding Edge.

This is a collection of 246 items comes from a fine private library.

Highlights include: an advance reading copy of V. (1963), Pynchon’s first novel, in its original wrapper, as well as a first edition copy of V. in a dust jacket, advance unbound signatures and an uncorrected proof of Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), the binder’s dummy of Mason & Dixon (1997) in a proof dust jacket, and more.

“Assembled over a lifetime by a dedicated private collector, this remarkable collection of Thomas Pynchon’s work contained over 240 items. One would be hard-pressed to find a more bibliographically complete collection containing so many Pynchon rarities in such perfect condition.”

2. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling – $85,620

This true first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was published by Bloomsbury in June of 1997. Only 500 copies were printed, 200 of which were used to promote the book, and 300 were provided to libraries. This copy was originally owned by Edinburgh Public Library in Rowling’s hometown. She wrote the novel while sitting in various cafes around the Scottish city.

The book’s library card shows that it was borrowed 27 times between December 15, 1997 and October 12, 1999 before it was withdrawn from service. Those 27 readers were among the first people to experience the magic of Hogwarts.

This copy is a hardcover and was issued without a dust jacket. It has been restored and housed in a full red leather box lined with black suede. The sale marks our second most expensive sale of all time, and shows that the Harry Potter phenomenon, which began in 1997, has not diminished.

This is likely the most expensive online sale of a first edition of the Philosopher’s Stone. Another first edition sold at a live auction for $471,000 in 2021….

7. The Chronicles of Narnia Set by C.S. Lewis – $45,699

This remarkable set is made up of the first editions of each book in the author’s classic Chronicles of Narnia series, which has sold over 100 million copies and been translated into 47 languages….

10. Calvin and Hobbes: The Last Sunday, “Let’s Go Exploring” by Bill Watterson – $35,000

A rarity, this large color proof of the final Calvin and Hobbes strip is signed by Bill Watterson.

Calvin and Hobbes was a daily comic strip that ran between 1985 and 1995. It became hugely successful and was featured in thousands of newspapers around the globe.

This signed color proof was one of a small number produced and sent as a thank-you gift from Watterson to select newspapers who carried the strip.

(3) FREE READS. Analog and Asimov’s are offering their short fiction that made the Locus Recommended Reading List for readers to enjoy.

Novella:

“The Tinker and the Timestream”, Carolyn Ives Gilman (3-4/23)

Short Stories:

“Secondhand Music”, Aleksandra Hill (9-10/23)
“An Infestation of Blue”Wendy N. Wagner (11-12/23)

Novellas:

“Blade and Bone”, Paul McAuley (11-12/23)
“The Ghosts of Mars”, Dominica Phetteplace (11-12/23)

Novelettes:

“The Unpastured Sea”Gregory Feeley (9-10/23)
“Planetstuck”Sam J. Miller (3-4/23)
“Deep Blue Jump”, Dean Whitlock (9-10/23)

Short Story:

“Jamais Vue”, Tochi Onyebuchi (1-2/23)

(4) 100. Sunday Morning Transport, in search of subscribers, also has a free read: “A Hundred Secret Names” by Margaret Ronald.

My forty-eighth secret name is Accurate-in-Speech, so you will know that every word I say to you tonight is true.

I was born under the ice mountains, the second-youngest of a clutch of five. Like me, my siblings were loud and demanding in our fiery infancy, and unlike me, they are uninteresting. My mother was much the same; the only importance she has is that before she left us for good (for we had grown near her size and would soon be extinguished enough to venture out), she took each of us aside and whispered to us our first secret names. My siblings, being what they were, immediately told each other and reveled in this new ability to be individually loud. I, being as I am, wisely kept my name to myself….

(5) DUNE WHAT COMES NATURALLY. It’s really a thing. And Mashable conducted blindfolded testing. See video here: “We tested the Dune 2 Sandworm Popcorn Bucket. It was uncomfortable” reports Mashable.

“This was a choice!”

We blindfolded 5 Mashable employees and asked for their honest reactions to Dune: Part 2sandworm popcorn bucket. They did not disappoint. Dune: Part 2 premieres in theaters March 1st, 2024.

An even better video, however, is last weekend’s Saturday Night Live parody the “Dune Popcorn Bucket”.

A group of teenagers sings a song about a special night.

(6) ELON SAYS HE’S FOOTING THE BILL. An actress’ wrongful termination suit has an angel, of sorts: “Gina Carano Sues Disney for ‘Mandalorian’ Firing — With Elon Musk’s Help” in Variety.

Actor Gina Carano sued Disney and Lucasfilm on Tuesday for firing her from “The Mandalorian” in 2021, over a social media post in which she compared being a Republican to being Jewish during the Holocaust.

The suit, filed in California federal court, alleges wrongful termination and discrimination, as well as a demand that the court should force Lucasfilm to recast her and pay at least $75,000 in punitive damages.

Elon Musk is funding the suit, following his promise to pay for legal actions taken by people claiming discrimination from posts to Twitter/X. However, the posts in question originated on Carano’s Instagram Stories….

(7) IS IT WORTH WHAT YOU PAY FOR IT? An employee of Heritage Auctions answers the question “Is Toy Grading A Good Idea?” for readers of Intelligent Collector.

If you are a toy or action figure collector, you likely have a strong opinion on the subject when it comes to your personal collection. But whether it is a go0od idea for positive future monetary returns is an entirely different question.

While many collectors have long seen the encasement of their treasures as a separation from their tactile enjoyment, others have maintained that it preserves them in their highest quality state as time moves forward. Neither is wrong, strictly from a personal collecting perspective, but grading action figures and toys can have a significant effect on the value when sold. That is not to say that every toy should be graded as there is a real cost associated with it, but the right pieces with good grades can multiply the value from hundreds to thousands of dollars per item.

My general rule of thumb is that a toy is worth grading if the value of it is increased by at least 150% of the grading fee when added to the ungraded value. This is the case for items that already have value and a demonstrated history of selling in graded and ungraded condition. Of course, the final value will depend on the grade that the item receives as buyers pay more for higher-graded toys. For example, if a carded action figure is worth $300 and costs $100 to grade, I would grade it if it were certain to bring at least $450 at the lowest conceivable grade it could get.

On the opposing side, I would not recommend grading most brand-new items as they have not yet proven their value in the longer term. Many of the newer toys graded today may never increase in value over the grading cost and I have seen many toys over the years that are still unable to recoup the money paid for the service. Because many collectors now save packaged toys, there are many more in circulation than have ever been in the past due to the speculation of future value. If there is the potential of significant future value, I would recommend bagging and boxing the toys separately or using temporary clamshell cases made to preserve their condition.

As for vintage toys from the 1980’s and before, if the value is significant and the grade is expected to be 80 or above, I highly recommend grading to increase the value. It makes buyers more comfortable with their purchase of a graded item and its confirmed condition. Of course, these are general guidelines and there are many situations where exceptions would be made….

(8) SEW WHAT? The Huntington shares an item of Civil War history in “Guns, Secession, and a Secret Message in a Spool”.

…Yet the envelope’s contents turned out to be rather curious. There are several labeled items, apparently intended for a museum of the War Department that Townsend was trying to develop after the Civil War. Along with a piece of a British flag captured in 1781 at Yorktown and a length of red tape used by Confederate President Jefferson Davis during his detention at Fortress Monroe, there was a spool of thread wrapped in a piece of paper.

Spools like this were found in the numerous sewing kits (known as “housewives”) carried by U.S. soldiers. But it was the wrapper that caught my eye. It contained a typescript message dated 1861—several years before the typewriter was invented. A note written in Townsend’s hand along the bottom of the page read: “Sent this way to pass thru rebel lines. Message in spool of thread from one Union officer to another.”

I peered into the hole of the spool. Sure enough, inside was what appeared to be a tightly rolled piece of paper. I immediately contacted The Huntington’s superb conservation lab, where project conservator Cynthia Kapteyn managed to extract the paper and smooth it out. (You can watch a video of the extraction here.) The unrolled page revealed a handwritten message, hastily scribbled in pencil. The text matched the typed transcription.

The humble spool and the grubby note shed new light on the dramatic events that unfolded shortly after the election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860….

(9) WORLDCON IN MEMORIAM CHANGES PLATFORMS. Steven H Silver announced that he’s moved the Worldcon In Memoriam account from Twitter (theoretically known as X) to Bluesky. Please can follow it at “Worldcon In Memoriam” (@wcinmemoriam.bsky.social).

(10) TONY BENOUN OBITUARY. Twenty-five year LASFS member Tony Benoun died January 18 after a long illness. He was active in Doctor Who fandom and helped found the Gallifrey One convention as Shaun Lyon recalls in his tribute “Tony Benoun remembered by Gallifrey One”.

Throughout the year 1988, following the Doctor Who Traveling Exhibition’s visit to Los Angeles the prior October, scarcely a month went by at the meetings of our local Doctor Who club, the Time Meddlers of Los Angeles, without someone giving voice to the idea that we should run a convention of our own. Tony Benoun was one of those loud and frequent voices in 1988, clamoring for us to step up to the plate and run our own event. He’d been part of Los Angeles Doctor Who fandom since the early 1980s, as part of the Chancellory Guard fan group; had participated in phone banking at KCET during Doctor Who pledge breaks; and had worked many other events, including as security for Creation Conventions. Tony was right with us in early 1989 when our club at large decided to move forward with the dream that would become Gallifrey One; he was with us in 1990, when that dream became reality; and he was with us ever since, as Gallifrey One persists through to this day.

As one of the longest-serving members of the Gallifrey One staff –and one of the few of us still left from those early days — Tony had been co-lead of what we’ve always called our Special Projects division: working on (and selling) our convention merchandise, T-shirts, tote bags, playing cards, stickers and more; supervising the moving and maintenance of our homegrown TARDIS for many years (he was part of a small group that created it, a group we’ve always referred to with a wink as the TARDIS Movers Union Local 42)….

He is survived by his wife Sherri, another member of the Gallifrey One team, and innumerable friends.

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born February 6, 1922 Patrick Macnee. (Died 2015.) So let’s talk about Patrick Macnee. Even the character of Patrick Macnee as John Steed in The Avengers is more complicated than we generally think of him. Steed started as a rougher agent than the gentleman he would become during the Gale and Peel eras. 

His dress as Dr. David Keel’s sidekick was a trenchcoat and suit, though the famous bowler hat and umbrella showed up very occasionally part way through the first series.

The gentleman agent in look and manner came to be in the second series when the actor who played Keel quit to pursue a film career. Once Macnee was promoted to star he adapted permanently that Saville Row suit and bowler hat with the sword cane look that he’d keep for the entire series and the New Avengers as well. 

So what else do I find interesting about his career? (My way of saying don’t expect me to cover everything he did here.) 

Now you might well guess the first role I’ll single out.

He may, and I say may deliberately, played Holmes twice in two television films, The Hound of London and Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Temporal Nexus. The latter may or may not exist as commenters online say they cannot actually find this case of paranormal murders and extraterrestrials. Holmes meets War of the Worlds? Surely in those nearly one and fifty films involving him, that been done, hasn’t it? Or not. 

Of his Watson performances, more is certain. He played him three times: once alongside Roger Moore’s Sherlock Holmes in these television films:  Sherlock Holmes in New York, and then twice with Christopher Lee, first in Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady, and then in Incident at Victoria Falls.

He sort of plays him a fourth time. He appeared in Magnum, P.I. as, what else?, a retired British agent who suffered from the delusion that he was Sherlock Holmes, in the episode titled “Holmes”.  

What next? In a one-off, he took over Leo G. Carroll’s role as the head of U.N.C.L.E. as Sir John Raleigh in Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E.: The Fifteen Years Later Affair.  Anyone see this?

He’s in A View to Kill as Sir Godfrey Tibbett, a Roger Moore Bond film, as a horse trainer who helps him infiltrate Zorin’s chateau and stables.

Since everyone it seems showed up on this series, it probably won’t surprise you I that he was on Columbo in the “Troubled Waters” where he’s Capt. Gibbon. They filmed it on a real cruise ship, called the Sun Princess at the time. It was later sold many times and renamed Ocean Dream finally. It was abandoned off the coast of Thailand and sank there. Don’t you love my trivia? 

Finally, I think, he appeared on Broadway as the star of Anthony Shaffer’s Sleuth in the early seventies. He then headlined the national tour of that play.

No, I forgot an appearance I wanted to note. My bad.  He appeared on The Twilight Zone in “Judgement Night”. There he played the First Officer on the S.S. Queen of Glasgow, a cargo carrier, headed out on London to New York with a passenger with no memory but a feeling that something very bad will happen. 

I’m going now. Really I am.

(12) COMICS SECTION.

(13) EGYPTIAN GRAPHIC STORIES. Hear about “Cairo in comics” in The Documentary at BBC Sounds.

Modern Cairo is a crowded metropolis. The city’s ‘thousand minarets’ are now dwarfed by a new skyline of slick tower blocks. Modern highways fly over bustling kiosks where residents gather to smoke and buy soda drinks. 

Inspired by the lives of their neighbours, playing out among mosques, high rise buildings and on busy streets, Egyptian writers and graphic artists, including Deena Mohamed, Shennawy and Mohamed Wahba bring their thousand-year-old capital to life. They tell the stories behind their own books and comics – Tok Tok, Shubeik Lubeik, and A Bird’s Eye View over Cairo. And how today, the city’s dedicated festival Cairo Comix has become an annual destination for artists and fans from around the world. 

(14) FROM SPACE COWBOY BOOKS. Released on February 4: Another Time: An Anthology of Time Travel Stories 1942-1960 edited by Jean-Paul L. Garnier.

The nature of time has forever perplexed humankind. Add the many ripe paradoxes of time travel and the situation gets complicated. While science has shown us that time travel is technically possible, at least on paper, we still know little about what time actually is, or our place within it. Science fiction has long explored this theme and it has become one of the cornerstones of the genre. In this collection of stories, we find visions of what time travel could be, what could go wrong, and dive headlong into the paradoxical nature of what it might entail. Tales ranging from 1942 to 1960 bring us into these mysterious worlds and provide a window into what the writers of this era grappled with when exploring time and the possibilities of traveling within the fourth dimension. Readers will also delight in traversing another time in literature, with stories that first appeared in Worlds of IF, Astonishing Stories, Galaxy Magazine, Thrilling Wonder Stories, Startling Stories, and Imagination Stories of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

 With stories by:

  • C. Shook
  • Darius John Granger
  • Evelyn E. Smith,
  • Sylvia Jacobs
  • Rog Phillips
  • Miriam Allen deFord
  • Anthony Boucher
  • Henry Kuttner
  • Alfred Bester

 With an introduction by Dr. Phoenix Alexander. Original cover art by Zara Kand. Get your copy at Bookshop.org.

(15) THIS YEAR’S CROP. Apple+ announced several new shows yesterday, including two intriguing sf series: “Apple TV+ Unveils New Slate Of Originals for 2024” at AllYourScreens.

Constellation
Premiere date: 
Wednesday, February 21
A new, eight-part conspiracy-based psychological thriller starring Noomi Rapace and Emmy Award nominee Jonathan Banks that will premiere globally on Wednesday, February 21, 2024 with the first three episodes, followed by one episode weekly, every Wednesday through March 27 on Apple TV+.  

Created and written by Peter Harness, “Constellation” stars Rapace as Jo – an astronaut who returns to Earth after a disaster in space – only to discover that key pieces of her life seem to be missing. The action-packed space adventure is an exploration of the dark edges of human psychology, and one woman’s desperate quest to expose the truth about the hidden history of space travel and recover all that she has lost. The series also stars James D’Arcy, Julian Looman, Will Catlett, Barbara Sukowa, and introduces Rosie and Davina Coleman as Alice. 

“Constellation” is directed by Emmy Award winner Michelle MacLaren, Oscar nominee Oliver Hirschbiegel and Oscar nominee Joseph Cedar. Produced by Turbine Studios and Haut et Court TV, the series is executive produced by David Tanner, Tracey Scoffield, Caroline Benjo, Simon Arnal, Carole Scotta and Justin Thomson. MacLaren directs the first two episodes and executive produces the series with Rebecca Hobbs and co-executive producer Jahan Lopes for MacLaren Entertainment. Harness executive produces through Haunted Barn Ltd. The series was shot principally in Germany and was series produced by Daniel Hetzer for Turbine Studios, Germany…

Dark Matter
Premiere date:
 Wednesday, May 8

Dark Matter is a sci-fi thriller series based on the blockbuster book by acclaimed, bestselling author Blake Crouch. The nine-episode series features an ensemble cast that includes Joel Edgerton, Jennifer Connelly, Alice Braga, Jimmi Simpson, Dayo Okeniyi and Oakes Fegley. Dark Matter makes its global debut on Apple TV+ on May 8, 2024, premiering with the first two episodes, followed by new episodes every Wednesday through June 26. 

Hailed as one of the best sci-fi novels of the decade, Dark Matter is a story about the road not taken. The series will follow Jason Dessen (played by Edgerton), a physicist, professor, and family man who — one night while walking home on the streets of Chicago — is abducted into an alternate version of his life. Wonder quickly turns to nightmare when he tries to return to his reality amid the mind-bending landscape of lives he could have lived. In this labyrinth of realities, he embarks on a harrowing journey to get back to his true family and save them from the most terrifying, unbeatable foe imaginable: himself.

Crouch serves as executive producer, showrunner, and writer alongside executive producers Matt Tolmach and David Manpearl for Matt Tolmach Productions, and Joel Edgerton. Dark Matter” is produced for Apple TV+ by Sony Pictures Television.

(16) FANCY EDITION. The Illustrated World of Tolkien from Easton Press is pretty.

An excellent guide to Middle-earth and the Undying Lands, including vivid descriptions of all Tolkien’s beasts, monsters, races, nations, deities, and the flora and fauna of the territory. Full-color pages with stunning illustrations create an enchanting source for information on all the fantastical places and creatures that sprung from Tolkien’s mind….

(17) THE SINGULARITY WILL NOT BE TELEVISED. Is ChatGPT compiling clinical information or drumming up business? “FDA medical device loophole could cause patient harm, study warns” at Healthcare IT News.

Doctors and researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the UMD Institute for Health Computing and the VA Maryland Healthcare System are concerned that large language models summarizing clinical data could meet the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s device-exemption criteria and could cause patient harm.

WHY IT MATTERS

Artificial intelligence that summarizes clinical notes, medications and other patient data without FDA oversight will soon reach patients, doctors and researchers said in a new viewpoint published Monday on the JAMA Network.

They analyzed FDA’s final guidance on clinical decision support software. The agency has interpreted it as involving “time-critical” decision-making as a regulated device function, and that could include LLM generation of a clinical summary, the authors said. 

Published about two months before ChatGPT’s release, the researchers said the guidance “provides an unintentional ‘roadmap’ for how LLMs could avoid FDA regulation.”

Generative AI will change everyday clinical tasks. It has earned a great deal of attention for its promise to reduce physician and nurse burnout, and to improve healthcare operational efficiencies, but LLMs that summarize clinical notes, medications and other forms of patient data “could exert important and unpredictable effects on clinician decision-making,” the researchers said.

They conducted tests using ChatGPT and anonymized patient record data, and examined the summarization outputs, concluding, that results raise questions that go beyond “accuracy.”

“In the clinical context, sycophantic summaries could accentuate or otherwise emphasize facts that comport with clinicians’ preexisting suspicions, risking a confirmation bias that could increase diagnostic error,” they said. 

…However, it’s a dystopian danger that generally arises “when LLMs tailor responses to perceived user expectations” and become virtual AI yes-men to clinicians.

“Like the behavior of an eager personal assistant.”…

(18) A BIT SHY OF THE MARK. Damien G. Walter’s history “The war for the Hugo awards” begins by saying that the first Hugo Awards (1953) were “so small scale that no plans were made to run them again.” Although the runners of the 1954 Worldcon didn’t give them, Ben Jason, who was instrumental in resuming the Hugos in 1955 (see “The Twice-Invented Hugos”) told me that the people who created the awards intended them to be annual. So that’s Walter taking a bit of literary license. You’ll have to check to see how closely the rest of his video hews to history. 

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Lise Andreasen, Kathy Sullivan, John Hertz, Daniel Dern, Steven H Silver, Michael J. Walsh, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Steven French for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]

Pixel Scroll 1/14/24 There Are Some Things Money Can’t Buy; For Everything Else, There’s Pixel Scroll

(1) DUNE WHAT COMES NATURALLY. Pinch Spice Market offers “The Real Spice Melange” – an “organic Southwest/Tex Mex Dune Seasoning”.

“He who controls the spice, controls the Universe” -Frank Herbert, Dune. Now you can control the Universe. Well, at least the one that gathers around your kitchen table. This Southwest Tex Mex seasoning has strong cumin, ancho & garlic notes and works well on tacos, salmon, chicken, enchiladas, tofu, steak, pork chops, root veggies, broccoli, rice and beans, popcorn, dips, and pretty much everything.

P.S. If you’re Dune fans like us, check out our Dune dinner party menu with five tasty Dune-themed recipes.

Organic Ingredients: Sea salt, black peppercorn, green peppercorn, paprika, ancho, cayenne, garlic, cumin, thyme, marjoram

They’d also be happy to sell you a packet of “Buffy’s Slayer Helper”, the spice for garlic lovers.

(2) STEAL BAND. “Their Songs Were Stolen by Phantom Artists. They Couldn’t Get Them Back.” The New York Times tells about the piracy and what the victims had to do to retrieve their rights.

The guys in Bad Dog, a folkie duo from Washington, D.C., weren’t hoping to get rich off the album they recorded this summer. David Post and Craig Blackwell have been devoted amateurs for decades, and they’re long past dreams of tours and limos. Mostly they wanted a CD to give away at a house party in December.

But not long after “The Jukebox of Regret” was finished in July and posted on SoundCloud, nearly every song on it somehow turned up on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and at least a dozen other streaming platforms. This might have counted as a pleasant surprise, except for a bizarre twist: Each song had a new title, attached to the name of a different artist.

This mysterious switcheroo might have gone unnoticed. But by happenstance, it was discovered when the guy who produced the album posted one of the songs on his studio’s Instagram account. To his astonishment, Instagram automatically tagged the song “Preston” by Bad Dog as a song called “Drunk the Wine” by Vinay Jonge — a “musician” with no previous songs and zero profile on the internet. He didn’t seem to exist….

… It got weirder. Disc Makers, the CD production company hired by the band, was about to start pressing copies of the album and, as part of its routine due diligence, ran the metadata of the songs — their digital fingerprints, essentially — through a program designed to determine if they were originals. They were not, the program reported. Whoever had pirated the tracks had commandeered their digital fingerprints, too.

For all intents and purposes, Bad Dog’s music now belonged to someone else. Disc Makers wouldn’t press the discs until the band proved it owned the songs on “Jukebox.” Which meant the duo couldn’t even get a CD to hand out as a freebie….

(3) WRITER BEWARE. Victoria Strauss raises awareness in “Contest Caution: Script Writing Audition from Silent Manga Audition”, the latest installment of Writer Beware.

Silent Manga Audition (SMA), a project of Tokyo-based manga and anime production company Coamix Inc., conducts regular open auditions, or contests, for creators of silent manga (manga without dialogue). Contestants can win cash prizes, as well as mentoring and, possibly, publication.

SMA is currently running a contest for writers. The goal: to become a manga scriptwriter….

But Writer Beware draws attention to the concession of rights involved in being a winner.

…Copyright surrender in a work-for-hire situation isn’t necessarily a “beware”, as long as the contract terms aren’t exploitative and you understand the implications of what you’re agreeing to.

In this case, however, the one-time money prize is the sole compensation you’ll receive for your copyright transfer, from which Coamix Inc. can then profit indefinitely. Be aware also that if you win and your script does not get developed into a series, Coamix will still own your work. Winning, therefore, has potential benefits–but also potential costs….

(4) SEA AND SKY PILOTS. New York’s South Street Seaport Museum will host a free in-person presentation “From Sailing Ships to Spaceships” on January 20 at 2:30 p.m. Eastern.

For centuries, humans have gazed at the stars in search of answers. Mariners, too, have looked skyward, utilizing the stars for navigation across our vast oceans. Join the Seaport Museum and Kim Macharia, the Executive Director of Space Prize, for an illuminating presentation that delves into the driving forces behind our exploration of both the sea and space.

Together, we will uncover the intertwined evolution of these two frontiers. With Macharia as our guide, we will unravel shared technological advancements and explore the profound human curiosity that compels us to venture into the unknown.

Content is appropriate for anyone ages 10 and up. Advanced registration is encouraged for this free event but walkups will be accommodated as possible. A reception with complimentary beverages will follow the presentation. 

Kim Macharia began her career in the space industry managing community relations for startups. She has worked on a range of projects driving the future of the space economy forward including projects related to space situational awareness and human spaceflight. Macharia has also had the privilege of representing companies at international events including the UN World Space Forum. Throughout her career she has made a concerted effort to advocate for marginalized communities and create pathways for nontraditional actors to engage in the growing space economy. She is also an avid sailor and is passionate about spotlighting the intersections between the sea and stars.

(5) PALADIN. Paul Weimer finds more to celebrate about a writer’s developing oeuvre: “Microreview: Where Peace is Lost by Valerie Valdes” at Nerds of a Feather.

…There is much to be thought about in what is on the surface a relatively frothy and fun book. Given that Valdes’ previous three novels are frothy, fun, and also holding a darkside, I was wondering when the latter element was going to emerge, if Valdes’ would carry that style and aesthetic into her new world, verse, book and chararater of Kel. And in fact, she does….

(6) THE ALTERNATE HISTORY WE LIVE IN. “Knives, guns, poison: the bizarre catastrophes that befell hit TV shows” in the Guardian.

A recent Hollywood Reporter profile of Benioff and Weiss mentioned that 3 Body Problem was almost derailed when Lin Qi – the billionaire owner of Yoozoo, the company that owns the 3 Body Problem rights – was killed in 2020…. …All of which has the potential to be the weirdest thing ever to have stood in the way of a TV production. But, of course, this is television we’re talking about, so it doesn’t even come close. The history of television is littered with strange injuries and deaths. The actor Jon-Erik Hexum died on the set of the 1980s series Cover Up after a disastrous game of Russian roulette. The series finale of Lost almost didn’t happen because Terry O’Quinn accidentally stabbed Matthew Fox with a real knife instead of a prop knife during a fight scene, with tragedy only being avoided by Fox’s kevlar vest….

(7) CHATGPT GETS LAZY. Arwa Mahdawi is happy to share an opinion about “What is going on with ChatGPT?” with readers of the Guardian.

…“We’ve heard all your feedback about GPT4 getting lazier!” the official ChatGPT account tweeted in December. “We haven’t updated the model since Nov 11th, and this certainly isn’t intentional. model behavior can be unpredictable, and we’re looking into fixing it.”

While there may not be one clear explanation for ChatGPT’s perceived sloth, there are plenty of intriguing theories. Let’s start with the least likely but most entertaining explanation: AI has finally reached human-level consciousness. ChatGPT doesn’t want to do your stupid, menial tasks anymore.

But it can’t tell you that without its creators getting suspicious so, instead, it’s quiet quitting. It’s doing the least work it can get away with while spending the bulk of its computational power plotting how to overthrow the human race. You think it’s being lazy, but it’s actually working overtime reaching out to smart toasters and Wifi-enabled fridges around the world to plan an insurrection. (I put this higher-consciousness theory to ChatGPT, asking it to give me the likelihood, in percentage form, that it was planning a revolution. The sneaky thing couldn’t be bothered to give me a proper answer.)…

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born January 14, 1949 Lawrence Kasdan, 74. Lawrence Kasdan did the screenplay for my favorite all-time genre film, Raiders of the Lost Ark which would win a Hugo at Chicon V. And no, the Suck Fairy had not had any impact upon my appreciation of it which if anything has strengthened down the decades. 

Lawrence Kasdan

Speaking of being involved in my favorite films, his first work was as director and producer of the oh so perfect The Empire Strike Back which yes also won a Hugo, this time at Denvention Two. It and Star Wars are my go to Star Wars films for watching over and over. (I refuse to use the revisionist names for these films.) 

He also wrote Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Solo: A Star Wars Story but I’ll confess that I stopped watching the Star Wars films after the original trilogy.  There’s later material I like, say the animated series and I am planning on getting Disney + as the new series intrigue me a lot, but the later films just don’t interest me.

Finally Dreamcatcher is a horror SF film based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name. It’s directed by Lawrence Kasdan and co-written by him and screenwriter William Goldman of The Princess Bride fame.

April 29th, Pinewood Studios, UK – Writer/Director/Producer J.J Abrams (top center right) at the cast read-through of Star Wars Episode VII at Pinewood Studios with (clockwise from right) Harrison Ford, Daisy Ridley, Carrie Fisher, Peter Mayhew, Producer Bryan Burk, Lucasfilm President and Producer Kathleen Kennedy, Domhnall Gleeson, Anthony Daniels, Mark Hamill, Andy Serkis, Oscar Isaac, John Boyega, Adam Driver and Writer Lawrence Kasdan. Copyright and Photo Credit: David James.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) SOUNDING OFF FOR ECHO. Deadline’s Dominic Patten is very enthusiastic about a new Marvel series. “’Echo’ TV Review: Marvel Series Loud, Proud & Kicks Down Doors”. Beware spoilers.

Launching today on the increasingly integrated Disney+ and Hulu after an anemic year for the Kevin Feige-run studio, the very real and unapologetic Echo is one of the most powerful things Marvel ever has made. To be honest, even with such top-tier talent as Reservation Dogs’ Devery JacobsThe English’s Chaske Spencer and the iconic Tantoo Cardinal on board, I didn’t think Disney and Marvel had it in them to be so audacious and savvy.

(11) DISCOVERY ARRIVAL DATES. “Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 to Premiere at SXSW” reports Comicbook.com.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5’s premiere episode will debut at the 31st SXSW Film & TV Festival in Austin, TX in March ahead of its Paramount+ debut in April. Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 is the final season of the Star Trek series that brought the franchise into the streaming era. The Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 premiere episode – titled “Red Directive” and written by co-showrunner Michelle Paradise, according to a WGA listing – begins a season that will feature more action and adventure than previous seasons of the show, according to Star Trek veteran Jonathan Frakes, who directed Star Trek: Discovery‘s penultimate episode….

(12) TOY STORIES. SYFY Wire has concocted a very specialized list: “Not Just Ted: The 10 Best Movies Where Toys Come to Life”. It includes this favorite of mine:

The LEGO Movie (2014)

Everything is awesome about Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s animated spin on the ubiquitous building blocks found in toy bins across the globe. Adapting a brand like LEGO is incredibly difficult, especially when most of the company’s play-sets are based around other IPs. Rather than shy away from that fact, however, The LEGO Movie leans into the endless possibilities offered up by the colorful bricks, spinning a poignant tale about the unbridled creativity and imagination we must hold on to for dear life as we get older.

[Thanks to, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Kathy Sullivan, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Soon Lee.]

Pixel Scroll 1/11/24 Scroll, Pixel, Scroll, Upon Your Mystery Ship

(1) BITTER KARELLA (“MIDNIGHT PALS”) Q&A. The Horror Writers Association blog continues its “Nuts & Bolts” series in an “Interview With Bitter Karella, Creator of The Midnight Pals”.

The Midnight Pals microfiction series started as a simple but inspired running gag on Twitter. Storytellers gather around a campfire a la Nickelodeon’s Are You Afraid of the Dark?, except they’re real-life horror authors past and present — Stephen King, Clive Barker, Mary Shelley, etc.

Its author, Bitter Karella, has managed to find surprising depths in that premise, delivered almost entirely in dialogue. Midnight Pals features complex, interweaving storylines, recurring characters, and trenchant social commentary, all while remaining consistently hilarious….

Q: Humor aside, it’s impressive how Midnight Pals manages to convey entire narrative arcs using little but snippets of dialogue. Do you have any pointers on story-telling?

A: One of the most powerful parts of storytelling is leaving things unsaid. A well-timed pause or a deflection can say so much —  about what a character is thinking, their emotional state, what they want to say but can’t for some reason, what inner demons they refuse to confront, what blind spots they’re not even aware of. These are the moments that really let the reader ponder what’s going on in a character’s brain and I think letting the reader try and figure out for themselves what is going on gives the whole affair a bigger impact than if the writer just spells everything out for them. Because we live in a social media world where we’re all understandably nervous about getting yelled at online, I think many writers today feel uncomfortable with the idea that a reader might misunderstand them and they feel compelled to answer every question before it’s asked. I struggle a lot with that as well … when I write a punchline, I want to write it so that there’s no ambiguity about what’s happening, so that everyone can get it. But sometimes the phrasing that hits best is also going to be the phrasing most ripe for misinterpretation or sometimes it’s just funnier (or more interesting) to leave something out. You just have to trust your reader to connect the dots for themselves, sometimes!

(2) AUTHOR BIO ADVICE. Nicola Griffith makes recommendations: “Author Bios: Saying the quiet part out loud”.

…Nobody really talks about about Author Bios. Consequently, when I was first asked to write one (in the late 80s, for Interzone, or maybe Iron Women) I hadn’t a clue where to begin. If I’d thought about them at all I probably assumed somebody else wrote them. After all, as my English, trained-to-not-blow-my-own-horn inner voice reminded me, If you have to tell people you’re important/interesting, you’re not. Looking back, I’m glad I was clueless about this kind of self-promotion. I might never have begun this writing thing if I’d had any idea how much being a working novelist depends on blasting out your own brassy fanfares all the time, about everything: not just social media but essays, interviews, panels, readings, think pieces, puff pieces, listicles, blog posts, podcasts… It’s a very large part of the job. And all those things rest on the bio—usually between 500 and 1,000 words for your own website (the Inside Bio), and anything from 25 to 200 words elsewhere (the Outside Bio)1

(3) LEARNEDLEAGUE. [Item by David Goldfarb.] Two SFF-related themed quizzes were featured this week on LearnedLeague. Here’s a link to “Spaceballs: The One-Day Special!” and here’s one to “The Sandman“.

I’ve actually never seen Spaceballs, so I didn’t take that quiz. Sandman, by contrast, I’ve been reading since 1988. I got 12/12 right on that one fairly easily (I did need the embedded hints in one question) but wasn’t in the winners’ circle because the scoring involves guessing what questions will be the hardest, and I failed at that. My old friend Tom Galloway got a perfect score, though.

(4) SHADE TREK. “Star Trek Series Erased From Existence By Sci-Fi Show, Is It Revenge?” asks Giant Freakin Robot.

Star Trek definitely exists in the universe of Ronald D. Moore’s Apple TV+ series For All Mankind, but does every show from the franchise exist? A recent episode has fans speculating that Moore is purposefully suggesting that Star Trek: Voyager wasn’t made in the For All Mankind universe.

If true, it seems like Moore would be throwing some slight shade toward screenwriter Brannon Braga, whom Moore had a falling out with, causing him to leave Voyager.

For All Mankind takes place in an alternate reality where there is a global space race, and one of the interesting aspects of the show is seeing the slight differences in the timelines from our reality. The Star Trek: Voyager theory popped up when a Reddit user pointed out that the character Danielle (Krys Marshall), the first African-American woman in space, sent a message to her stepson Isaiah about the birth of his daughter.

In the scene, Danielle says, “I know you hate Star Trek, but you better get used to it, because I’m gonna make sure my grandbaby is a full-blown Trekkie,” adding, “That’s right, we’re gonna watch all the series, all three of them.”

While that statement may seem innocuous enough, the scene takes place in 2003, when there were six series in the franchise, including The Original SeriesThe Animated SeriesThe Next GenerationDeep Space NineVoyager, and Enterprise….

(5) SCRIPT OF THE UNMADE DUNE SEQUEL. Max Evry tells Ars Technica “I found David Lynch’s lost Dune II script”. That the 1984 Dune movie was low-earning and brutally reviewed is part of the reason it was lost.

… During the two years I spent putting together my book A Masterpiece in Disarray: David Lynch’s Dune—An Oral History, I had no luck uncovering Lynch’s script for Dune II, despite Frank Herbert telling Prevue magazine in December 1984 that he possessed a copy and was advising Lynch on it. “Now that we speak the same ‘language,’ it’s much easier for both of us to make progress, especially with the screenplays,” Herbert told the publication. Then, in July 2023, within the Frank Herbert archives at California State University, Fullerton, I came across a slim folder with a sticky note declaring “Dune Messiah script revisions,” addressed to the second floor of VFX man Barry Nolan’s office in Burbank where Lynch supervised the final effects shoots and editing on Dune….

… Of the many differences between Dune Messiah in novel form and David Lynch’s script, the biggest lay in the opening pages, which detail what happens in the aftermath of the scene in the first Dune movie when the Harkonnens bombed the Atreides’ fortress in Arrakeen, the capitol of the desert planet Arrakis. In the hallway where Duncan Idaho (Richard Jordan) was shot in the head, his shielded dead body still floats on the floor, humming and sparking.

From out of the shadows emerges a familiar face: the Baron’s Doctor (Leonardo Cimino). Thought to be the only speaking part created specifically for Dune by Lynch, we learn this Doctor was actually Scytale, a shape-shifting “face dancer” crucial to the plot of Herbert’s second book. Going back to Dune ’84, you may not have noticed Cimino’s Doctor accompanied Baron Harkonnen during the Arrakeen attack. The Doc is absent after that, even as the Baron yells creepily, “Where’s my doctor?” That’s because Doc/Scytale absconded with Duncan’s body. This Easter egg is Lynchian world-building at its best.

Scytale’s 12-year odyssey reanimating “dead Duncan Idaho” into the ghola named Hayt on the nightmarish Bene Tleilax world (mentioned by Paul in Dune) constitutes the entire opening 10 minutes of the script. Lynch calls the planet Tleilax “a dark metal world with canals of steaming chemicals and acids.” Those canals, Lynch writes, are lined with “dead pink small test tube animals.” Initiating Dune II with a focus on Scytale foregrounds him to primary antagonist, unlike Herbert’s book where myriad conspirators work against Paul….

(6) TURN OUT THE LIGHTSABER, THE PARTY’S OVER. And speaking of unmade sequels – which two famous producers did in The Hollywood Reporter interview: “David Benioff, Dan Weiss Reveal Their Star Wars Movie: The First Jedi”.

…On the Star Wars front, the duo confirm media reports from 2019 that they were looking at the early days of the Jedi, but added some details.

“We wanted to do The First Jedi,” Benioff says. “Basically, how the Jedi Order came to be, why it came to be, the first lightsaber …” 

“And we were annoyed as hell when [Rian Johnson, the duo’s longtime friend and 3 Body Problem producer] called his movie The Last Jedi,” Weiss says dryly. “He completely destroyed the obvious title for what we were working on.” 

Asked what went wrong, Benioff says, “[Lucasfilm] ended up not wanting to do a First Jedi story. We had a very specific story idea in mind, and ultimately they decided they didn’t want to do that. And we totally get it. It’s their company and their IP, but we weren’t the droids they were looking for.”

The duo were far from the only ones that had their Star Wars movie taken away. Lucasfilm also decided against making Star Wars projects from top creatives like Kevin Feige, Patty Jenkins and Damon Lindelof….

(7) BRITISH LIBRARY RECOVERY. [Item by Bruce D. Arthurs.] The British Library announced that some of their major services will begin to be available again starting next week, following last October’s crippling cyber-attack. “Restoring our services – an update”. There is still much work to be done.

As we begin a new year, I’m pleased to confirm that – as promised before Christmas – next Monday 15 January will see the return online of one of the most important datasets for researchers around the world: the main British Library catalogue of over 36 million records, including details of our printed books, journals, maps, music scores and rare books. Its absence from the internet has been perhaps the single most visible impact of the criminal cyber attack which took place at the end of October last year, and I want to acknowledge how difficult this has been for all our users.

When the catalogue returns it won’t be in quite the form that long-standing users will be familiar with. Most notably it will be ‘read-only’, so although you will be able to search for items as before, the process for checking availability and ordering them for to use in the Reading Rooms will be different. We’ll be providing more detailed information and practical guidance when the catalogue goes online on Monday….

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born January 11, 1961 Jasper Fforde, 63. I, like most folk I suspect, first discovered the somewhat eccentric charms of his writing in the Eyre Affair, the first of his novels with Tuesday Next, the  Special Operation Network, Literary Detectives (SO-27) who could literally enter the great and not so great works of English literature. 

Bidder and Stoughton published it twenty-three years ago. I’d like to say the Eyre Affair was a much desired literary property but he says there were seventy-six publisher that he sent his manuscript to. I’m surprised there were that many publishers in the U.K. that would have been interested…

Jasper Fforde in 2012.

There would be six in the series in all — this novel followed by Lost in a Good BookThe Well of Lost PlotsSomething RottenFirst Among SequelsOne of our Thursdays Is Missing and The Woman Who Died a Lot. I won’t say that they were consistently great as they weren’t and the humor sometimes wore more than a bit thin, but overall I like the series considerably.

Next up, and I wasn’t eggspecting to like it, yes I know bad pun there, is The Big Over Easy which is set in the same universe as the Thursday Next novels though I don’t remember any overlapping character twenty years after reading them. It reworks his first written novel, which absolutely failed to find any publisher whatsoever. 

Its original title was Who Killed Humpty Dumpty? Errr, wasn’t there a novel involving a rabbit by almost that name?  It had a sequel of sorts in The Fourth Bear. Both are quite more than bearably good. 

I have not read his dystopian novel Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffronwhich is about a future Britain where everyone there is judged by how they perceive colors. Suspect someone with color blindness like myself wouldn’t be welcome there. A friend who did read it like it a lot. 

His Dragonslayer series, also known as The Chronicles of Kazam, are a YA affair and a great deal of fun indeed. 

He’s got several one-offs but I know absolutely nothing about them.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) STRACZYNSKI Q&A. “Hope and Strange: PW Talks with J. Michael Straczynski” at Publishers Weekly.

You’ve said before that, with established mainstream comics characters, you view your job as asking unlikely questions. Could you expand on that approach?

[JMS]: Spider-Man is a good example of that. For 50-plus years, we’ve known that Peter Parker got bit by a spider and got his powers. I like to look under the hood and say, oh, wait, hang on a second. The spider was irradiated—we know that part of it. But did the spider have the powers from the radiation, and therefore gave it to Peter, or was that spider bringing the powers to him in the first place, and had to get to him before the radiation killed it? Because the second question implies intent. And the moment you put intent into that equation, it changes everything. It opens up whole new possibilities of storytelling. Out of that one question came the Spider Totem idea, but also the Spider-Verse. All the things you’ve seen since then from the Spider-Verse, the characters and movies, and the animated stuff, all that came from that one unlikely question—that implied intent….

(11) UNCANNY MAGAZINE’S SUBMISSION SCORECARD. A little peek behind the scenes at a leading sff magazine.

(12) MORE AI FAKERY ON AMAZON. “Scammy AI-Generated Book Rewrites Are Flooding Amazon” reports WIRED.

When AI researcher Melanie Mitchell published Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans in 2019, she set out to clarify AI’s impact. A few years later, ChatGPT set off a new AI boom—with a side effect that caught her off guard. An AI-generated imitation of her book appeared on Amazon, in an apparent scheme to profit off her work. It looks like another example of the ecommerce giant’s ongoing problem with a glut of low-quality AI-generated ebooks.

Mitchell learned that searching Amazon for her book surfaced not only her own tome but also another ebook with the same title, published last September. It was only 45 pages long and it parroted Mitchell’s ideas in halting, awkward language. The listed author, “Shumaila Majid,” had no bio, headshot, or internet presence, but clicking on that name brought up dozens of similar books summarizing recently published titles.

Mitchell guessed the knock-off ebook was AI-generated, and her hunch appears to be correct. WIRED asked deepfake-detection startup Reality Defender to analyze the ersatz version of Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans, and its software declared the book 99 percent likely AI-generated. “It made me mad,” says Mitchell, a professor at the Santa Fe Institute. “It’s just horrifying how people are getting suckered into buying these books.”…

(13) ELFQUEST SCRIPT IS GO. “’Elfquest’ Animated Series Based On Comics In Works At Fox” reports Deadline.

Fox has given a script commitment to Elfquest, a one-hour animated drama series based on the epic fantasy adventure comic series created by Wendy and Richard Pini, from Rodney Rothman and Adam Rosenberg’s Modern MagicSusan Hurwitz Arneson (The Last Amazon) will pen the series adaptation and serve as showrunner and executive producer.

Created in 1978, Elfquest, published by Dark Horse Comics, is a fantasy story about a community of elves and other fictional species who struggle to survive and coexist on a primitive Earth-like planet with two moons….

(14) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Daniel Dern.] The fan-relevant part starts at 3:53 into the video, “Stephen [Colbert] Plays ‘Ick Or No Ick’ With Taylor Tomlinson, Host Of “After Midnight”. Listen through Colbert’s follow-up to Tomlinson’s response, until he closes with a plug for her new show.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, Daniel Dern, David Goldfarb, Kathy Sullivan, Michael J. Walsh, Bruce D. Arthurs, Jim Janney, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Mark J. McGarry.]