Tag Archives: Eric Leif Davin

Pixel Scroll 8/25/21 Helen O’Loy And The Scrollcrank Redemption

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(1) BLACK STARS. SYFY.com offers a preview of a Black Stars story plus comments by series editor Nisi Shawl: “Amazon Original Stories Black Stars: Read an excerpt by Chimamanda Ngzoi Adichie”.

…Titled Black Stars, the collection showcases some of the biggest names writing science fiction today, highlighting their visions of what the future might look like for the human race and the issues we might have to tackle. The six authors forming this all-star lineup include Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (We Should All Be Feminists), C. T. Rwizi (Requiem Moon), Victor LaValle (The Changeling), Nnedi Okorafor (Binti), Nalo Hopkinson (The House of Whispers), and Nisi Shawl (Everfair), who also edited the entire collection, along with co-editor Latoya Peterson. 

“Freedom is the overarching theme among the stories,” Shawl tells SYFY WIRE, while discussing the throughline that connects all six stories. “Freedom to explore new star systems, to develop new economies, to break away from stale stereotypes.” 

Part of what makes Black Stars so special is the fact that it is showcasing speculative science fiction from Black authors from around the world.

“I want readers to take away the dazzling diversity that is the Black experience,” Shawl says. “I want us all to realize how our dreams and fantasies, our supposings and nightmares and aspirations are so very varied. Blackness is not a monolith! I’ve learned this, and I want to share with our readers the enormous wealth that is Black heritage and the many possible Black futures.” …

(2) YORK SOLAR SYSTEM. NickPheas, inspired by Ingvar’s photos of Sweden’s epic model, shot photos of the solar system model running for ten miles south of York, UK. Twitter thread starts here.

(3) STAR TREK EXPLORER. If you aren’t getting enough Star Trek news, Titan Comics promises to fix that for you when Star Trek Explorer – The Official Magazine Issue #1 hits stores on November 2.

EXPLORER is the no. #1 destination for everything Star Trek – filled with in-depth interviews and features taking you behind-the-scenes of all your favorite shows and movies.

The new-look EXPLORER magazine also includes two brand-new exclusive Star Trek short stories, and a bonus 16-page themed supplement bound inside each issue.  The hotly anticipated premier issue features a definitive guide to Captain Kirk!

Subscribers of STAR TREK EXPLORER – THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE will also receive an exclusive digital magazine, direct to their inbox with every quarterly issue. Each digital magazine will feature bonus short stories, printables, activities and much more!

(4) SLF NEEDS GRANT JURORS. The Speculative Literature Foundation is looking for grant application readers.

The Speculative Literature Foundation needs jurors to help read applications for the Working Class Writers’ Grant Ideally, we’re looking for people who are well read in speculative fiction, but we’d also like a mix of readers, writers, librarians, teachers, editors, etc. who are capable of judging literary quality in a work.

If interested, please send a brief note to Catherine Lin ([email protected]) with the subject line: JUROR.

Please include the grant you wish to be a juror for and a paragraph about what your qualifying background is to serve as a juror: for example, your interest in / connection to the field. (i.e., “I’m an ardent reader!” or “I’ve been writing SF/F for seven years…”). Please feel free to ask any questions you may have as well.

(5) AMAZING STORIES RETRENCHES. Following the announcement “Amazing Stories Special All Canadian Issue Now Available” comes a statement that “Amazing Stories has had a rough past year, mostly owing to the fact that our former Licensee – NBC/Universal Television – has failed to meet their contractual obligations” and how their publishing program is changing in response:

…Beyond denying you a regular issue of the magazine up till now, in order to continue publishing the magazine we have had to take the following steps as well:

Owing to the previously stated, Amazing Stories must change the way it produces issues, while at the same time attempting to do what is right by our subscribers. These are necessary, budget-related changes that represent our only option for keeping the magazine in publication. Those changes are as follows:

First, Amazing Stories will be changing to an annual format, producing one (over-sized) issue per year rather than quarterly (four) issues per year.

Second, we are eliminating the print edition as a regularly available option. Print copies of each issue will remain available as a separately purchased Print On Demand (POD) product.
All current print subscriptions will be converted to Electronic Editions moving forward. In addition, former print subscribers may select one of the Amazing Select titles, electronic edition, for each year of subscription that is being converted.

Please know that we are not happy with having to make these changes, but following long discussion, we believe that these changes offer us our best chance of moving forward. Those with questions, please feel free to get in touch with the publisher, Steve Davidson, via Steve (at) amazingstories (dot) com.

(6) RATIONALIZATIONS. James Davis Nicoll was able to think of “Five Ludicrous Reasons for Not Reading a Perfectly Good Book”. How about you?

There are perfectly legitimate reasons not to have read works widely regarded as science fiction and fantasy classics. Perhaps the most compelling is that the field is far too large for any one person to have read all of it, even if they were to limit themselves to works other readers enthusiastically recommend. However, there are other reasons, some quite silly, to have left promising books unread. Here are five of my stupidest reasons for not having read a widely-praised book cover to cover….

(7) STORIES THAT ARE THE FOUNDATIONS FOR RPG. Goodman Games, an RPG publisher, occasionally features interesting articles on their site. Here are two:

 Ngo Vinh-Hoi, co-host of the Appendix N Book Club podcast, profiles Andrew J. Offutt: A “Adventures in Fiction: Andrew Offutt”.

Appendix N of the original Dungeon Masters Guide has become a Rosetta Stone for the study of the literary roots of D&D. One figure carved on that stone is Andrew J. Offutt, who is cited not for his own writing, but for editing the Swords Against Darkness heroic fantasy anthology series. Oddly, only the third volume of the five-book series is singled out and none of the other four books are even mentioned. Who then is Andrew Offutt, and why is he enshrined with the other Appendix N luminaries? …

Pulp scholar Jason Ray Carney talks about dehumanising violence and compassion in “Red Nails”, Robert E. Howard’s final Conan story: “Dehumanizing Violence and Compassion in Robert E. Howard’s ‘Red Nails’”.

Robert E. Howard’s sword and sorcery tale “Red Nails,” published as a three-part serial in Weird Tales in 1936, tells the story of the city of Xuchotl, the enduring, blood-soaked war between the Tecuhltli and the Xotalanc, and the dehumanizing effect of sustained hatred and violence. “Red Nails” engages with several ancient literary tropes, but the one that centers “Red Nails” is what I term “the stalemate war.” By focusing on the stalemate war between the murderous Tecuhltli and insane Xotalanc, I hope to bring into focus a surprising facet of Robert E. Howard’s most famous sword and sorcery character, Conan of Cimmeria: the way the barbarian maintains his humanity through compassion….

(8) A KEY INVENTION. The Typewriter Revolution exhibit can be seen at the National Museum of Scotland through April 17, 2022. Or you can view photos of over 100 typewriters in their connection at the website.

The impact of the typewriter has been much wider than simply speeding up the way we write. It helped revolutionise the world of work and change the lives of working women in particular. Typewriters helped them launch their own businesses at a time when female employers were rare and became a vital weapon in the fight for the vote. 

The typewriter’s social and technological influence is revealed in this new exhibition and looks at its role in society, arts and popular culture. It traces the effect and evolution of typewriters across more than 100 years, from weighty early machines to modern style icons. And despite being erased from many offices by the rise of computers, the typewriter has remained a beloved design icon that is still in use today.

Drawing on our outstanding typewriter collection, the exhibition features a range of machines, including an 1876 Sholes and Glidden typewriter which was the first to have a QWERTY keyboard; a 1950s electric machine used by Whisky Galore author Sir Compton Mackenzie; and the 1970s design icon, the Olivetti Valentine.

(9) ON THE RADIO, Listen to “Black Sci-Fi: Stories from the End of the World” at BBC Radio 4.

Writer, activist and broadcaster Walidah Imarisha presents the untold story of black sci-fi and its vital role in redefining the present and imagining the future.

This documentary explores the power – and the rich history – of speculative, visionary fiction by black authors in the UK, USA and Africa, and how activists around the world have been inspired by science fiction as they strive to build new worlds. Walidah Imarisha unravels the idea that all organisation and activism is a form of “science fiction” – and how bringing new realities into being is itself a creative act.

Interviewees include multidisciplinary artists Moor Mother and Rasheedah Philips, Nigerian-American writer Nnedi Okorafor, and British feminist writer and researcher Lola Olufemi.

(10) DAVIN Q&A. The collection of “Science Fiction Author Interviews” linked at the Middletown Public Library, conducted by the Science Fiction Club Facebook group, has a new addition this month — “Interview with Eric Leif Davin (Aug. 2021)”.

Dr. Eric Leif Davin teaches labor and political history at the University of Pittsburgh. He wrote “Pioneers of Wonder: Conversations with the Founders of Science Fiction.” as well as “Partners in Wonder: Women and the Birth of Science Fiction, 1928-1965.”

John Grayshaw: What is the Gernsback era?

[Davin] Although Hugo Gernsback briefly published an SF magazine in the 1950s, “SF Plus,” the Gernsback Era is actually referring to the period 1926-1934. In 1926 Gernsback launched “Amazing Stories,” the first SF magazine. It was the only SF magazine until 1929, when he launched “Wonder Stories.” In 1934 he sold the latter magazine to the Thrilling group, with it becoming “Thrilling Wonder Stories.” With that, he exited the SF magazine world until the 1950s

(11) SPACED OUT LIBRARIAN. David Nickle offers a personal tribute: “In the orbit of Lorna Toolis – 1952-2021”.

…In the late 1980s when I first met Lorna, the Spaced Out Library was on the second floor of the Boys and Girls House at Beverly and College Streets. Not climate-controlled. Not accessible. As ad-hoc a library as its name might suggest.

I’d come in as a journalist, ostensibly working with another writer on an article about the Canadian science fiction community for a local alternative paper – but really, dipping my toe into a world that I very much wanted to enter.

Lorna helped me do both. First, she gave me a who’s-who rundown of sources I might speak to, suggested I hit Ad Astra, the local science fiction convention to find those sources in one place.

Those sources included Judith Merril herself, who after a very professional interview, told me very candidly, about a writer’s workshop that might be looking for members – and introduced me to one of the founding members, Michael Skeet. Lorna’s husband….

(12) MEMORY LANE.

  • 2007 – Fourteen years ago today, Masters of Science Fiction, an anthology science fiction series, finished its very brief run on ABC. And I do mean brief as only four of its six episodes actually aired. It was presented by Stephen Hawking which is why when it broadcast later on the Science Channel in its entirety that it was called Stephen Hawking’s Sci-Fi Masters. The six stories were all by SF writers, to wit John Kessel, Howard Fast, Robert Heinlein, Harlan Ellison, Walter Mosley and Robert Sheckley. The few critics that actually noticed it liked it. Like so many similar short-run series, it has no Rotten Tomatoes audience rating. The trailer is up here. (Several YouTubers attempted to host the videos, however, they aren’t available as, of course, the series is under copyright.) 

(13) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born August 25, 1909 — Michael Rennie. Definitely best remembered as Klaatu in The Day the Earth Stood Still. He would show up a few years later on The Lost World as Lord John Roxton, and he’s got an extensive genre series resume which counts Lost in Space as The Keeper in two episodes, The Batman as The Sandman, The Time Tunnel, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and The Invaders. (Died 1971.)
  • Born August 25, 1913 — Walt Kelly. If you can get them, Fantagraphics has released Pogo in six stunning hardcover editions covering up to 1960. They’re planning to do all of his strips eventually. Did you know Kelly began his career as animator at Walt Disney Studios, working on Dumbo, Pinocchio and Fantasia? (Died 1973.)
  • Born August 25, 1930 — Sir Sean Connery. Best film overall? From Russia with Love. Best SF film? Outland. Or Time Bandits you want go for silly. Worst film? Zardoz. These are my choices and yours no doubt will be different. (Died 2020.)
  • Born August 25, 1940 — Marilyn Niven, 81. She was a Boston-area fan who lives in LA and is married to writer Larry Niven. She has worked on a variety of conventions, both regionals and Worldcons.  In college, she was a member of the MITSFS and was one of the founding members of NESFA. She’s also a member of Almack’s Society for Heyer Criticism.
  • Born August 25, 1955 — Simon R. Green, 66. I’ll confess that I’ve read pretty much everything he’s written. Favorite series? The Nightside, Hawk & Fisher and Secret History are my all-time favorite ones with Drinking Midnight Wine the novel I’ve re-read the most. He’s got three active series now of which the Ishmael Jones and the Gideon Sable series are the best. 
  • Born August 25, 1958 — Tim Burton, 63. Beetlejuice is by far my favorite film by him. His Batman is kind of interesting. Read that comment as you will. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is definitely more Dahlish than the first take was, and Sleepy Hollow is just damn weird. Not really true to the source material though. 
  • Born August 25, 1970 — Chris Roberson, 51. Brilliant writer. I strongly recommend his Recondito series, Firewalk and Firewalkers. The Spencer Finch series is also worth reading. He’s also written two Warhammer novels, Dawn of War and Sons of Dorn, and is publisher with his wife Allison Baker of Monkey Brain Books which has twice been nominated for World Fantasy Awards. He won two Sidewise Awards for Alternate History, for his novella O One (2003), and novel The Dragon’s Nine Sons (2008).
  • Born August 25, 1987 — Blake Lively, 34. She was Adaline Bowman in The Age of Adaline, a neat mediation upon life and death. She also played Carol Ferris in that Green Lantern film but the less said about it the better. Her very first role was as Trixie / Tooth Fairy in The Sandman at age eleven. 

(14) SMALL WONDER. The biggest hit sci-fi movie of 1966 (to date, anyway) – read the raves at Galactic Journey: “[August 24, 1966] Fantastic Voyage lives up to its name!”

It’s finally here! And it was worth the wait. Fantastic Voyage has reached the big screen, and it’s spectacular.

Fantastic Voyage may be the most advertised science fiction film ever made, with intriguing articles in Life and Look, a novelization published in The Saturday Evening Post and about a zillion articles in Famous Monsters in Filmland. And despite this endless campaign – or maybe because of it – I’m delighted to tell you this audacious film deserves its media ubiquity.

(15) YOU’LL SHOP HERE SOONER OR LATER. A business in LA’s Echo Park neighborhood has the fascinating name Time Travel Mart. Here are just a few of the items they sell there.

Portable Wormhole

(16) INSTANT CLASSIC. Joe H. contributed a fine verse to yesterday’s comments:

As we go filing, filing
In the pixel of the scroll
We climb our Mount Tsunduko
And we make our series whole

Our shelves shall not be emptied
From birth until life closes
Eyes starve as well as bodies
Into books we’ll stick our noses

(17) A LOOK BACK. Cora Buhlert has posted a new Retro Review: “’More Than Shadow’ by Dorothy Quick” about a 1954 Weird Tales story. Spoiler warning!

…Just to make sure that she isn’t imagining things, Mona calls over Ellen, the maid, and asks her what she sees in the puddle of spilled water. Ellen confirms that the puddle looks like a dog, but not just any old dog either, but the little dogs on which the leprechauns ride on moonlit nights. For Ellen just happens to be Irish and therefore a fount of Irish folklore…..

(18) IT CAUSES ME TO TINGLE. Not only is love real, so is Chuck.

(19) R.L. STINE REMEMBERS. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] I listened to this podcast that Leonard and Jessie Maltin did with R.L. Stine. “Maltin on Movies: R.L. Stine”. The Maltins began by remembering how they would chat with Stine in the Los Angeles Times Book festival green room, where they would also say hello to Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison.  Stine then explained how he, born in 1943, was first influenced by radio comedians (remember Mortimer Snerd?) He also loved E.C. comics and after his parents refused to let him buy the comics he made sure to get a haircut every Saturday because the local barbershop had a plentiful supply.  Stine then worked his way up at Scholastic Books, and became a YA horror author because an editor got mad at Christopher Pike and they wanted someone to write YA horror novels.  Stine said he was a hands-on producer of the Goosebumps TV series, which “gave every child actor in Canada a job” including 11-year-old Ryan Gosling.  Stine also explained that he had kids come up to him and say they learned how to use typewriters because they saw Jack Black use a typewriter playing Stine in the Goosebumps movie.

(20) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In “Honest Game Trailers: Monster Hunter Stories” on YouTube, Fandom Games says Monster Hunter Stories is a dinosaur-fighting game that has gone through “Pokemonification,.” and includes a scene here you fight a dinosaur with a bagpipe and another where a talking cat spends too much time explaining how she enjoys donuts.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Cora Buhlert, James Davis Nicoll, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Andrew Porter, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, and Michael Toman for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 7/29/18 Winter Comes To Pixels, As Well As To Scrolls.

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(1) BRONYCON TO END. Next year’s BronyCon is the last, it was announced at this weekend’s event in Baltimore.

BronyCon is the world’s largest family-friendly convention for and by fans of the animated TV series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

(2) HELP HUGO AND CAMPBELL FINALISTS ATTEND WORLDCON. Mary Robinette Kowal is running a GoFundMe appeal to help get more award finalists to Worldcon 76.

Kowal says, “We’ve managed to get six finalists to the Hugos who otherwise would not have been able to attend.”

At this writing, “Worldcon Finalist Assistance” has raised $2,335 of its $10,000 goal.

Earlier this year we raised money to bring one of our Campbell Nominees to the Hugos and were met with astounding support! Now, we want to offer that same opportunity to the other WorldCon Awards Finalists so that they can participate in the celebration of their work.

Much like the previous fundraiser, we want to raise money for:

    • Plane tickets
    • Hotel stays
    • WorldCon memberships
    • Per diem
    • Ceremony attire rental
  • Other potential costs, based on individual needs

Thankfully, we have a strong community that is dedicated to celebrating authors, their work, and these awards. We want to hear from the folks we’re voting for, and they should be able to attend their own party!

What happens if we raise more?

That money will go towards an ongoing  fund dedicated to defraying the costs for future WorldCon Finalists.

(3) RINGBEARERS. David Doering is ecstatic, because of the LTUE connection:

BIG, BIG News here for Utah–INCREDIBLE NEWS in fact! Our own LTUE alumnus JD Payne and his writing cohort Patrick McKay will pen Amazon’s new The Lord of the Rings series. WOW! Those who met him last year know he’s one of the most approachable people and an inspired writer.

Deadline has the story: “‘The Lord Of the Rings’ Hires Writers JD Payne & Patrick McKay As Amazon Series Moves To Next Development Phase – TCA”.

As Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke previously has suggested, creating the big-scope fantasy drama will involve a writers room. Payne and McKay were selected from a shortlist of scribes considered for the job, most of them from features, in the talent search, overseen by Amazon’s head of genre Sharon Tal Yguado.

Payne and McKay are rising feature writers who recently worked on Star Trek 4 for producer J.J. Abrams. I hear Abrams was one of a number of high-profile filmmakers and producers who  recommended the duo for the LOTR job.

With the search for lead writers completed, the development of the series is moving to the next stage with the set up of . writers room to collaborate on Payne and McKay’s vision. It is unclear yet — but possible — that any of the other writers who made it to the short list for the gig would be invited and that the project would bring in a showrunner.

(4) STEP RIGHT UP. Nicholas Whyte has “Two small Hugo reforms looking for co-sponsors”. Full text at the link.

A couple of minor amendments to the rules that I’d like to put to this year’s WSFS business meeting, but I need at least one co-sponsor. I won’t be there myself, but I think that these are technical and uncontroversial, and encode existing best practice in order to remove ambiguity. Please let me know, in comments here or by other channels, if you are a Worldcon 76 member willing to add your name to the list of sponsors. The deadline is 2 August.

(5) TOY STORY LAND. In the Washington Post, Steve Hendrix visits Toy Story Land at Disney World, which opened in late June, where  Baby Boomer favorites (Etch-a-Sketch, Yahtzee, Barrel of Monkeys) illustrate the rides and you can get snacks in a food station shaped as “Andy’s lunchbox propped open by Andy’s Thermos.” — “Larger-than-life charm at Walt Disney World’s Toy Story Land”.

You only have to go a few steps into Toy Story Land to sense that big thinkers have made huge efforts to make you feel small. The pieces used to assemble this toy-dimensional universe are agreeably supersize, from the Tinker Toy fences the size of satellite dishes and water mains to the life-size (because they’re alive) green army men marching to and fro in this 11-acre Pixarian play yard.

Specifically, it’s a backyard. In Walt Disney World’s newest major addition, which opened in late June at Disney’s Hollywood Studios park in the Florida resort, the Imagineers are trying to place you between the very blades (in this case, soaring shoots of bamboo) of a grassy lot filled with the daily detritus of a child at play.

(6) ABU DHABI DOO! John King Tarpinian says he wants to visit Bedrock — LAist reports “Warner Bros. Just Opened A Billion-Dollar Theme Park! And It’s Air-Conditioned! (But It’s In Abu Dhabi)”.

…It’s part of the United Arab Emirates’ efforts to become a world tourist destination. Abu Dhabi’s Yas Island (yaaaaas!) already features Ferrari World, which includes the world’s fastest rollercoaster, and Waterworld. (No, not that Waterworld.) You also have Dubai as a major travel center, with other local parks including Legoland, IMG Worlds of Adventure, and Motiongate.

Excited yet? Look, you can book a flight here! We’ve seen prices as low as $800 round-trip (though it’ll be around $2,500 if you want to leave, like, NOW).

You enter the park through Warner Bros. Plaza, which features old-school Hollywood style in an art deco setting. Like Disney’s Main Street U.S.A., it’s the portal to the rest of what this park offers. Then you can venture into the bright superhero world of Superman’s Metropolis or the darker realm of Batman’s Gotham City, as well as checking out the other cartoon-themed realms.

 

(7) PRESIDENTIAL MOMENT. Horror Writers Association President Lisa Morton is interviewed by The Witch Haunt.

WH: So many wonderful accomplishments so far! What other career would you have if not writing/publishing?

I actually have another career that I love: I’m a bookseller. I work for a used and rare bookstore, where I get to catalogue some truly magnificent rarities.

WH: How awesome that you get to go through daily life surrounded by stories. Which of your written works are you most proud of?

I think my novel Malediction, which was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award (but lost to Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep).

WH: Malediction, about curses, psychic powers, ghosts and such sounds like my perfect cup of horror. If you could have coffee with any horror author, gone or alive, who would it be?

He’s not primarily a horror author, but I have to say Philip K. Dick.

(8) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • Born July 29, 1958 — The U.S. Congress passes legislation establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

  • July 29, 2002 — M. Night Shyamalan premieres SIGNS

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) RIVER’S END. Paul Weimer at Nerds of a Feather: “Microreview [book]: The Black God’s Drums by P Djelli Clark”.

The real richness of the novella is it is delight in invention, with an eye for creating a world that is rich for the potential for story and adventure. From the palpable existence of very active orishas, to an alternate history with a Confederacy, Haiti as a Caribbean power, and, naturally, airships, the world that Clark has created is a fascinating one that we only get a small short-novella taste of, but I want to read more of. The vision of New Orleans as a freeport where the Union, the Confederacy, Haiti and other powers all meet and trade, complete with extensive airship facilities is a compelling and fascinating one. There are hints that the world beyond what we see is similarly not the one we know, either, but really, Clark could tell many stories just in the North America and Caribbean around New Orleans. There is just simply a lot of canvas here for the author to unleash her protagonist and other characters upon.

(11) MIXED BAG. Adri Joy finds good and bad in this Fforde outing: Microreview [Book]: Early Riser by Jasper Fforde at Nerds of a Feather.

…while Early Riser is another magnificent entry in Fforde’s bibliography, it didn’t wow me to the same extent as The Eyre Affair or Shades of Grey did; I’m quite happy that it’s intended to be a standalone, and don’t feel a great need to explore any more of this particular world beyond what this volume offers. Everything just feels more constrained than Fforde’s other work, and while part of this is just the claustrophobic hibernal setting, I suspect it’s also just built on a smaller scale. The weird details and tangents are just interesting enough to carry the story they are in, without leaving much additional food for thought. It’s highly obnoxious to judge a work based on the timelines of the author’s unfinished series, but I suspect for a lot of long-time fans, Early Riser might be a mixed experience: great fun, a promising sign of more to come, and yet not quite what we were waiting for. That said, being a standalone at least means it doesn’t end with more tension, wrapping up Charlie’s story and its world-changing implications in a swift but ultimately satisfying conclusion.

(12) WHEN BEST MEANS BEST. Joe Sherry is on his way to a flying finish – “Reading the Hugos: Series” at Nerds of a Feather.

It’s time for another installment of Reading the Hugos and it’s time to either go big or go home. Since I’m already sitting at home while I write this, I think I’m going to go big and cover the abundance of excellence up for Best Series.

There is so much goodness here that it isn’t even fair.

Best Series last year was a trial run, a special one time category (pending the ratification at the WSFS business meeting at last year’s Worldcon) – which makes this the first full year of the category. I’m probably the only person who is going to think of things like this.

If last year was a proof of concept and this year represents the very high bar we should expect from the Best Series quality, we’re looking at one of the strongest categories on the ballot year after year. The series I ranked lowest on my ballot is exceptional. The only challenge here is that there is a lot of reading to do to at least get a brief overview of each series, let alone do a deep dive.

(13) SIODMAK’S BRAIN. Eric Leif Davin’s interview with Curt Siodmak, a chapter in his book Pioneers of Wonder (1999) has been posted at SF Magazines: “From Print to the Screen: A Conversation with Curt Siodmak by Eric Leif Davin”.

Upon graduation from the University of Zurich, Curt joined his brother in Berlin. There, the vagaries of the financial situation made it impossible to pursue his engineering career. Instead, he drifted into his brother’s film circle and wrote scripts for several of Robert’s films. Both brothers fled the Nazis in the early thir­ties and eventually ended up in Hollywood. Curt was quickly given a job writing a sarong picture for Dorothy Lamour and a succession of such assignments followed for the next two decades. A number of his assignments for Universal Pictures— The Wolf Man, House of Frankenstein, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, Son of Dracula, and others—have since become horror classics. This, as he makes clear in the following conver­sation, was entirely accidental. He had no particular affection for or interest in either horror or science fiction—indeed, he never read the stuff. It was merely a job….

I see. Did you always think science fiction was gibberish?

Of course, it was always gibberish. You know, the human mind is so limited. We write about societies on other worlds, and they resemble us so much. You look at the paintings of Brueghel or Bosch10 and all those demons look like men with two eyes and two arms—hard to think of a new shape. The same with societies. You go into outer space and you find fascism or communism or the Roman Empire or feudal Europe. We don’t have much in our brains.
I wrote a few books about space, Skyport and City in the Sky.11 A friend took me to visit engineers at Lockheed because he thought talking with them would help give me ideas. They got their ideas from reading my books!
For instance, instead of launching rockets from the ground to reach orbit, why not have a huge elevator into space, miles high? Launch things from the top and they save so much on fuel!

Didn’t Arthur C. Clarke already write about that in The Fountains of Paradise?12

Who? I don’t know. I never read that.

(14) DRAGONS. Coming to the Worldcon 76 art show.

(15) FAMILY OKAYS CARRIE FISHER APPEARANCE. Members of Carrie Fisher’s family are expressing support for her appearance in the next main-line Star Wars movie (SYFY Wire: ”Carrie Fisher’s brother, Todd, couldn’t be happier for Leia’s return in Star Wars: Episode IX”). It had already been reported that Fisher’s daughter, Billie Lourd, approved the plan to recycle unused footage shot for Episode VII in Episode IX. Now Fisher’s brother, Todd Fisher, has given has given his blessing, also.

“I couldn’t be more personally thrilled and happy that our Carrie will reprise her role as Princess Leia in the new and final Star Wars Episode IX, using previously unreleased footage of her shot for Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” he said. “As we, her family, as well as her extended family of fans around the world so believe, Carrie’s Princess Leia is forever entrenched in the franchise and her indelible presence is fundamental to the film. J.J. Abrams understood Carrie’s iconic role, and he has masterfully re-crafted this final entry to include this unused and very last footage of Carrie ever taken, without resorting to CGI or animatronics. Our family and her fans will look forward with great anticipation for this one! Her force will forever be with us!”

(16) AN ORVILLE TO LOOK FORWARD TO. Two Star Trek: TNG stars will unite on an episode of The Orville, albeit with only one of them in front of the camera (ComicBook.com: “‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ Alum Marina Sirtis to Guest Star in ‘The Orville’ Season 2“).

It was previously announced that Jonathan Frakes, who played Commander William Riker on Star Trek: The Next Generation and directed several episodes of Star Trek television and two movies, will direct an episode of The Orville Season Two. It seems Frakes is bringing his Imzadi with him, as Marina Sirtis, who played Counselor Deanna Troi on Star Trek: The Next Generation, recently shared a photo of herself with Frakes and [Seth] MacFarlane asking, “Where am I?”

Frakes seemingly confirmed that Sirtis is on The Orville set in the photo by responding to the tweet, saying “Cat’s out of the bag now…”

Trek Movie has since also confirmed that Sirtis will guest star in an episode of The Orville

https://twitter.com/Marina_Sirtis/status/1022589723536121856

(17) FALL TV SCHEDULES. Did you know you can find these on the Wikipedia? Grids for the larger networks in each country, except for PBS in the USA.

(18) PLAGUE PRACTICE. The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security created a simulation of a “moderately contagious and moderately lethal” emergent virus that could decimate the world population—in the literal sense of killing 10% of humans (Business Insider: “Pandemic virus simulation from Johns Hopkins shows our vulnerability”). The “Clade X” simulation concerned a bioengineered virus, but a novel emergent natural virus could have the same effect. The fictional situation is described as killing 150 million in 20 months of simulated time, expected to rise to 900 million eventually if no vaccine could be created. At that 20-month mark of simulated time, researches paused for a real-time day:

On May 15th, when the  “Clade X” simulation  was played out real-time, the people acting out the scenario were the sorts of individuals who’d be responding to this situation in real life. The  players included  former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Indiana Representative Susan Brooks (R), former CDC Director Julie Gerberding, and others with extensive experience….

“I think we learned that even very knowledgeable, experienced, devoted senior public officials who have lived through many crises still have trouble dealing with something like this,” Dr. Eric Toner, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health Security and the designer of the Clade X simulation, told Business Insider. “And it’s not because they are not good or smart or dedicated, it’s because we don’t have the systems we need to enable the kind of response we’d want to see.”

(19) HEAVENLY ABODES. Business Insider has posted some 1970’s vintage NASA concept drawings for three variants of space habitats, designed to hold between 10,000 and 1,000,000 people each (“NASA once envisioned life after Earth in these fantastical floating cities”). They credit NASA Ames Research Center for the photos, making them public domain and fair game if you want an aspirational image for your computer or smart phone wallpaper. The ships range from a simple toroid to a massive cylinder.

In the 1970s, physicists from Princeton University, the NASA Ames Research Center, and Stanford University created fantastical illustrations of massive orbiting cities for life after Earth. The scientists imagined a worse-case scenario in which our planet would be destroyed, and humankind would move to space.

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, ULTRAGOTHA, Chip Hitchcock, JJ, John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, Mike Kennedy, David Doering, Carl Slaughter, Nicholas Whyte, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories, Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day vondimpleheimer.]