Pixel Scroll 12/2/23 I Was Watching A Pixel Walk Through A Wall

(1) GET ON BOARD. Join the mission and have your name engraved on NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft as it travels 1.8 billion miles to explore Europa, an ocean world that may support life. Sign your name today to the… “Message in a Bottle”.

NASA’s Message in a Bottle campaign invites people around the world to sign their names to a poem written by the U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón. The poem connects the two water worlds — Earth, yearning to reach out and understand what makes a world habitable, and Europa, waiting with secrets yet to be explored. The campaign is a special collaboration, uniting art and science, by NASA, the U.S. Poet Laureate, and the Library of Congress.

The poem is engraved on NASA’s robotic Europa Clipper spacecraft, along with participants’ names that will be stenciled onto microchips mounted on the spacecraft. Together, the poem and names will travel 1.8 billion miles on Europa Clipper’s voyage to the Jupiter system. Europa Clipper is set to launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in October 2024, and by 2030, it will be in orbit around Jupiter. Over several years, it will conduct dozens of flybys of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, gathering detailed measurements to determine if the moon has conditions suitable for life….

(2) SURE, BUT DOES IT REALLY HAVE A FUTURE? “Alien nation: will the franchise’s new movie really cut all links to the past?” – the Guardian’s Ben Childtries to read the tea leaves.

…So what do you do when a sci-fi franchise has been poor to average for more than 30 years, yet everyone who has ever seen Ridley Scott’s gloomy yet exhilarating Alien (1979) or its all-American, gonad-swinging sequel Aliens (from James Cameron), is somehow still desperate for more? District 9 film-maker Neill Blomkamp clearly had the right idea in 2015, when without any apparent encouragement from Fox he decided he would make his own Alien film set in the wake of Aliens and before it all went wrong for Fincher. His idea was to bring back Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley (who died in Alien 3 but was restored as about a dozen freaky clones in Resurrection) along with Michael Biehn’s Hicks and potentially even Carrie Henn’s Newt.

It didn’t happen, not just because the original stars would all have been a bit ancient, but because Fox put the kibosh on the whole concept. But somebody somewhere at Disney (which bought Fox and the rights to Alien in 2017) was clearly paying attention. For what’s this we hear from a Variety report this week? The new Alien movie, Fede Alvarez’s Romulus, will be neither a sequel nor a prequel, but rather a new film set between Alien and Aliens.

Speaking at the Gotham awards, star Cailee Spaeny told the trade bible: “It’s supposed to slot in between the first movie and the second movie, adding: “They brought the same team from Aliens, the James Cameron film. The same people who built those xenomorphs actually came on and built ours. So getting to see the original design with the original people who have been working on these films for 45-plus years and has been so much of their life has been really incredible.”

How then, is this going to work? Well, there are 57 years between the events of the two movies, which Ripley spent drifting in space in a state of stasis. What might have happened in the meantime? …

(3) MEDICAL UPDATE. Erwin “Filthy Pierre” Strauss fell down 3-5 steps on flight of stairs while at SMOFCon and was taken by paramedics to a local Providence, RI hospital as a precaution.

Kevin Standlee reports, “I was the one on the scene when he fell (I was walking up the interior stairwell between the programming space and the ground floor of the Providence Marriott) while he was walking down the stairs and slipped, piling up in a heap on the landing. He never lost consciousness and remained alert and responsive, but after initially recovering a bid and starting to get up, announced that his neck hurt enough that he wanted me to call 911.”

Kevin has a longer post about it on his Dreamwidth blog. He adds, “I have no further update on his condition, but I’m hopeful that he’ll be okay. He reported nothing that sounded like anything broken, just bruised.”

(4) THEIR ONE DEMAND. “’Gay Furry Hackers’ Breached a Nuclear Lab to Demand Catgirl Research” reports Them.

A collective of self-professed “gay furry hackers” breached databases at a nuclear research laboratory in Idaho this week and released thousands of human resources records. Their only ransom demand? The lab must begin a catgirl research program.

SiegedSec, the hacker collective that attacked government systems in five states earlier this year, claimed responsibility for infiltrating the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) in a Telegram post on November 16. According to its website, INL is one of the country’s largest nuclear research facilities and maintains the Advanced Test Reactor, which is used for both medical and military programs.

The records, which contain names, addresses, and Social Security numbers of employees and other users, were released through SiegedSec’s Telegram channel and confirmed to be authentic by the INL and East Idaho News.

“meow meow meow meow meow meow meow […] woah so much crunchy data :3” SiegedSec wrote on Telegram. “we’re willing to make a deal with INL. if they research creating irl catgirls we will take down this post.”

SiegedSec rose to prominence in 2022 with several hacks protesting the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The hacker collective has since claimed responsibility for breaching government and NATO computer systems, as well as those of private companies, including software company Atlassian. They said their attacks on state governments earlier this year were in retaliation to those states’ anti-transgender laws. Since October, the group has also embarked on what it calls #OpIsrael, claiming responsibility for a string of cyber attacks on Israeli satellites, industrial systems, and telecommunications companies….

(5) UPDATED WSFS RULES AVAILABLE. The WSFS website has posted the latest draft of the Rules of the World Science Fiction Society with changes ratified by the Chengdu Worldcon Business Meeting. These include the Best Game or Interactive Work Hugo and its cross-references.

(6) DIAZ Q&A. [Item by Steven French.] From the Guardian’s interview with the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist: “Hernan Diaz: ‘The Tintin books were problematic but they were also gorgeous and gripping’”:

The book I am currently reading

Sly Stone’s memoir, Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin). And today I also read the first chapter of Joanna Russ’s The Female Man.

Good choice!

(7) DOES THIS STORY DRAG ON? No, it apparently flies right along. “’House of the Dragon’: Season 2 Cast & Teaser Trailer Revealed” at Deadline.

House of the Dragon is set 172 years before the events of Game of Thrones and tells the story of House Targaryen. The two released posters for Season 2 are setting up an epic war between the Targaryens and the Hightowers following the crazy Season 1 finale that saw tragedy befall the former (R.I.P Prince Lucerys Velaryon) at the hands of the latter (Prince Aemond Targaryen)….

And according to Gizmodo’s article “House of the Dragon’s Season 2 Trailer Is All-Out Dragon War”:

…The first season ended with Lucerys (Elliot Grihault) getting eaten by Vhagar and his mother Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) swearing revenge for her loss. Thus begins the Targaryen civil war known as the Dance of Dragons, which will run throughout the second season as the Green and Black factions of the family go head to head against one another. As the trailer shows us, there shall indeed be dragons and their riders engaging in fiery, bloody warfare, along with the requisite scheming, sex, and glares. And at least one gruesome part of the books is confirmed to be showing up in the new season, so longtime fans have that to look forward to….

(8) HOW NOT TO OPEN MOUTH AND INSERT FOOT. BookRiot knows “What Not To Say to Bookstore Employees”. Soon you will, too.

“Wow, you must love your job; you get to sit around and read all day. I am so jealous.” It’s a personal pet peeve of mine when people TELL you that “you must love your job.” Like, it’s a job. I am giving away my free time for money to be here. And people tend to say it to those of us who work in the arts — which, sure, maybe people who work in the arts DO more often love their jobs. But the work is chronically undervalued and underpaid, and so people constantly telling you that “you must love your job” when you work in the arts feels like the collective culture telling you that because you get so much joy from your job, you don’t even really need to be paid for it. You just do it for the passion!!! The more specific response to this sentence is that working in a bookstore is not the “I wish I could just be paid to read all day” utopia that we all imagine it to be. Yes, there are great parts of the job. But most people who work in bookstores don’t sit around and read all day. It’s still customer service, and it’s still inventory, and it’s still packing up returns and orders and creating spreadsheets and data entry and and and. You get it…. 

(9) ON THE ROAD AGAIN. The National Motor Museum at Beaulieu in the UK presents “Doctor Who’s futuristic Whomobile, Bessie and original Dalek feature in 60th anniversary display” through February 2024. The ClassicCars.com Journal tells more in a post here.

The National Motor Museum at Beaulieu is set to transport visitors through time and space with the unveiling of a new temporary display featuring the most iconic vehicles from the beloved British sci-fi series, Doctor Who. From the sleek and stylish Bessie to the futuristic Whomobile and a menacing Dalek, this collection marks the 60th anniversary of the series and opened to visitors on November 23, 2023.

Heading the line-up is none other than Bessie, the Third Doctor’s trusty yellow roadster. Bessie’s first appearance was in Doctor Who and the Silurians in early 1970 and appeared regularly with the Third Doctor, played by Jon Pertwee. It also made single appearances in Fourth, Seventh, Eighth and Eleventh Doctor stories. Familiar to fans of the classic era, Bessie has become synonymous with the Doctor’s adventures….

…Zooming in from the 1970s, the display presents the Whomobile, a custom-designed vehicle created for the Doctor by the brilliant minds at UNIT, the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. A sleek blend of style and functionality, the Whomobile is a testament to the Doctor’s ability to traverse the cosmos. It made its first appearance in Invasion of the Dinosaurs broadcast in January and February 1974. The vehicle’s only other appearance was in Planet of the Spiders, which was the final adventure for Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor and would see him regenerate as Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor.

(10) WB RECOGNIZES ANIMATION UNION. Deadline reports “Warner Bros Discovery Welcomes WB Animation & Cartoon Network Unionization”.

David Zaslav has been preaching the gospel of Tinseltown labor peace since the SAG-AFTRA strike ended, and now the Warner Bros Discovery CEO is putting his money where his mouth is when it comes to his own backyard.

Almost five months after dozens of Warner Bros. Animation and Cartoon Network production workers began their efforts to unionize with The Animation Guild, WBD this week has recognized the move.

“After months of discussions with the studio, I am proud that we were able to reach an agreement with Warner/Discovery for representation of animation production workers at Warner Bros. Animation and Cartoon Network Studios,” said TAG IATSE Local 839 Business Representative Steve Kaplan to Deadline today.

(11) RETURN TO SENDER. “Never mind returning the Parthenon marbles – Britain wants this lot back!” The Guardian has a little list. “It’s all very well Greece wanting its rightful treasure – but the Brits have left some pretty good artefacts lying around the planet. Surely it’s time they came home?”

 As Rishi Sunak continued his war of words with the Greek government and threw a tantrum at PMQs on Wednesday, what cunning plan might he deploy to appease Tory headbangers and distract the electorate?

The row kicked off when Sunak cancelled a meeting with Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis, after the latter said that Britain’s retention of a portion of the Parthenon marbles was like “cutting the Mona Lisa in half”. Mitsotakis was invited to see Oliver Dowden instead, to which he unsurprisingly replied “óchi efcharistó” (no thanks).

The ensuing furore may just have planted an idea in Sunak’s mind. After all, there are some on the Tory right who probably regret the Stone of Scone going north of the border in 1996 after centuries on display as Plantagenet war booty at Westminster Abbey.

The list of treasures actually stolen from the UK, given our former imperial power, is unsurprisingly small. But there are a number of either lost or stolen items, some entering the realm of mythology, others not. These include Excalibur, the earthly remains of Arthur, Alfred the Great, and Oliver Cromwell, the Three Crowns of East Anglia (immortalised in MR James’s A Warning to the Curious), Joseph of Arimathea’s staff and the Great Seal James II slung in the Thames during the Glorious Revolution of 1688. After his unfortunate death at the hands of Native Hawaiians, Captain Cook was supposedly baked (not to eat) and his bones hidden; also in the Pacific during the same era, The Bounty was scuppered and sunk at Pitcairn by the mutineers.

So what artefacts can the UK government demand the return of – even if we gave them away in the first place?

Here’s one of the items.

11. AA Milne’s actual Winnie-the-Pooh (New York)

Like Paddington Bear (isn’t he Peruvian?) Winnie-the-Pooh is an British icon. So to find the poor fellow and friends Tigger, Piglet, Kanga, and Eeyore on display in New York’s Public Library is nothing short of a disgrace. We say free the Pooh Five – prisoners in Manhattan since 1956!

(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born December 2, 1971 Frank Cho, 52. And tonight, we have Frank Cho. Surely many of you are familiar with the delightful obviously genre Liberty Meadows strip which he wrote and illustrated with its cast of not quite charming talking beasties and resident therapist to them Brandy Carter who Cho says is artistic crossing between Lynda Carter and Bettie Page. It ran from ‘97 to ‘01 with some additional material for a few years after that.  Here’s a Liberty Meadows strip.

Only in The Dreaming Library does this exist…he stated his comic career working for  Penthouse Comix along with Al Gross and Mark Wheatley. The three of them, likely after a very long weekend, thought up  a six-part “raunchy sci-fi fantasy romp” called The Body, centering on an intergalactic female merchant, Katy Wyndon, who can transfer her mind into any of her “wardrobe bodies”,  mindless vessels that she occupies to best suit her mediations with the local alien races that she encounters while traveling the galaxy trading and trying to become wealthy. 

The story was never published for several reasons. Even Kathy Keeton at Penthouse who published the raunchiest comics I’ve seen this side of The Hustler wasn’t interested. 

And then there’s Jungle Girl Comics which was created by Frank Cho, James Murray, and Adriano Batista. Think a female Tarzan. Cho loves young females in bikinis that barely cover the parts that need covering.

Unlike Marvel, he wrote nothing at all, the cover art work he did there was definitely worth seeing, so at just let’s do just that. His work there, well, other than the Harley Quinn covers which are decidedly on the silly edge of things are traditionally skewed and the Green Arrow one I’ve choose is certainly is too. And here it is. Yes I’m a really big Green Arrow fan, he’s one of my favorite DC characters, particularly the modern take on him.  Here’s a variant cover he did for volume 8, number 1 of that series. 

Name a character, Hulk, Spider-Gwen, Hellboy, Red Sonja, New Avengers, Batman, Harley Quinn, and Cho has likely had a hand in it. 

(13) COMICS SECTION.

  • Grickle. Bruce D. Arthurs says, “Thought F770 readers might enjoy this cartoon from Graham Annable I came across on Mastodon. He’s also on Instagram & Tumblr. Quite a few genre-related cartoons.”
  • Tom Gauld squeezes in a lot of fun here:

(14) INTELLIGENT SFF ANIMATION. Camestros Felatpton would hate for you to miss “Pluto (Netflix)”.

…It is the future (and arguably an alternative history) and humanity lives side by side with intelligent robots. Some robots are big machines, others very human like and some shift bodies (giant mech at work and human-like body at home). Robots have only recently acquirred civil rights, including the right to have families and bring up robot children. The world in general is just getting over the trauma of a recent (three years prior) war in central asia between the nation of Persia (which is depicted more like Iraq than Iran) and the United States of Thracia (basically the USA).

Inspector Gesicht is a very human-like detective with Europol and is given the task of investigating two recent murders: a famous and popular Swiss robot and a human who was instrumental in securing civil rights for robots. In both cases the killer left the victims heads adorned with horns…

(15) BOOKEND. Cute as the dickens. “Bilbo Baggins Home” from Geometryk.

Refresh your bookshelf, add a charming little world to your room, and also a wonderful collection and decoration. Let’s stop using those old, ordinary bookends, okay?

(16) CELLING POINT. [Item by Steven French.] The beginning of The Rise of the Anthrobots:

Scientists have developed tiny robots made of human cells that are able to repair damaged neural tissue1. The ‘anthrobots’ were made using human tracheal cells and might, in future, be used in personalized medicine….

Levin and his team grew spheroids of human tracheal skin cells in a gel for two weeks, before removing the clusters and growing them for one week in a less viscous solution. This caused tiny hairs on the cells called cilia to move to the outside of the spheroids instead of the inside. These cilia acted as oars, and the researchers found that the resulting anthrobots — each containing a few hundred cells — often swam in one of several patterns. Some swam in straight lines, others swam in circles or arcs, and some moved chaotically.

To test the anthrobots’ therapeutic potential, Levin and his colleagues placed several into a small dish. There, the anthrobots fused together to form a ‘superbot’, which the researchers placed on a layer of neural tissue that had been scratched. Within three days, the sheet of neurons had completely healed under the superbot. This was surprising, says study co-author Gizem Gumuskaya, a developmental biologist also at Tufts, because the anthrobot cells were able to perform this repair function without requiring any genetic modification. “It’s not obvious that you’re going to get that kind of response,” she says….

From “Tiny robots made from human cells heal damaged tissue” in Nature.

(17) BLINDED BY THE LIGHT. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] This week’s Nature has a newsy article on space junk and its light pollution. Yes, it’s getting to be a problem, but for the most part the article is the same old, same old. (We at SF2 Concatenation even had a piece on space junk in our first (print) edition way back in 1987.)

However this week’s Nature news piece has a decidedly SFnal conclusion: our species might be trapping itself on Earth! (Behind a paywall.) “Bright satellites are disrupting astronomy research worldwide”.

Any collisions in orbit will release many pieces of debris travelling at several kilometres per second, which can cause further collisions, and could lead to a runaway collisional cascade referred to as the Kessler syndrome. This is the worst-case scenario: the onset of full Kessler syndrome would prevent the use of communication, weather, science and astronautical satellites in low Earth orbit for decades. And it is unclear whether a spacecraft could even be launched successfully through the debris shell to enable travel to other planets. Humans would effectively be trapped on Earth by space junk, with multiple tonnes of vaporised metal being added to the upper atmosphere every day through re-entry.

Below: An astronomical picture of a galaxy marred by satellite trails. The research article which instigated this piece is here.

(18) EYEBALL ATTRACTORS. JustWatch lists the top 10 streaming programs for November 2023.

(19) SPELL CHECKING. “The ‘Agatha: Darkhold Diaries’ Featurette is Online, and It Reveals What’s in Store for Agatha” – all explained at The Mary Sue.

So what does the preview reveal?

First off, we see Agatha in her new costume: an updated, more modern-looking version of her purple dress from WandaVision. However, we also see her in a couple of her Westview looks, including her ’80s-era workout leotard. The sets seem to be new, though, so it’s possible the show may reveal more of Wanda’s hex from WandaVision. After all, when WandaVision ended, Agatha was still caught in Wanda’s spell….

The slug with the video adds:

Emmy-nominee Kathryn Hahn reprises her role as Agatha Harkness for a brand new Disney+ Marvel series launching later in 2024. Agatha: Darkhold Diaries will reveal more about the character first introduced in Marvel Studios’ WandaVision. Jac Schaefer, who served as head writer and executive producer on WandaVision, returns for Agatha: Darkhold Diaries.

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

Pixel Scroll 9/23/23 I Can’t Scroll, Don’t Ask Me, My Heart Won’t Let My Pixel Do Things It Shouldn’t Do

(1) WRITERS STRIKE REPORTEDLY NEARS END. CNN reports“WGA strike: Writers Guild and Hollywood studios in ‘final phase’ of negotiations”.

The striking writers and Hollywood studios are in the “final phase” of negotiations and hope to strike a deal to end the historic work stoppage that has paralyzed the entertainment industry by the end of the weekend, two people familiar with the matter told CNN.

The Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers spent Saturday negotiating for the fourth consecutive day.

The big four studio bosses — Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav, Disney chief Bob Iger, Netflix co-chief Ted Sarandos, and NBCUniversal studio chairman Donna Langley — were no longer in the Sherman Oaks room by Saturday afternoon, one person said, signaling nearly all the major issues had been resolved. The person stressed, while not directly in the room, the studio chiefs remained wholly engaged in the process….

(2) INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENTS, HINTS AND ALLEGATIONS. “New Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Teaser Hints at Return of Rose Tyler & Twelfth Doctor” at CBR.com.

As Doctor Who‘s 60th anniversary draws closer, the BBC has started to post even more promotional images on social media ahead of the specials’ release, and the latest teaser may be a clue that both Rose Tyler and the Twelfth Doctor are coming back….

… On Sept. 17, the official X (formerly Twitter) account for Doctor Who shared a cryptic image that featured the Doctor’s TARDIS at the end of a long and narrow corridor. The walls are covered with posters hung by employers who are looking to hire workers for their businesses, and one poster clearly reads Henrik’s, the very department store chain Rose Tyler works at in the New Who’s first episode “Rose.” Fans are now saying that this Easter egg could easily mean that Piper will be returning to Doctor Who after all, at least for a cameo appearance in the anniversary episodes….

Another poster, situated right above the Henrik’s one, contains a reference to Glasgow, which some Doctor Who fans are ready to take in as an indication that Capaldi is coming back as well….

… Neither Capaldi nor Piper are confirmed to be part of the cast for Doctor Who‘s 60th-anniversary specials yet, but viewers believe that these Easter eggs offer strong evidence that they will be making cameo appearances. The show is known to be very careful and selective with the promo images and other teasers shared publicly, so there’s definitely hope that the former stars, who were both in Doctor Who‘s 50th-anniversary episode in 2013, will be making fans happy this November once more….

(3) DOCTOR WHO CLIP. And here’s a trailer for the “Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Specials”.

Destiny isn’t done with them just yet… The Doctor and Donna return for three special episodes

(4) LONGTIME PULP COLLECTOR. Joe Kloc introduces readers to Gary Lovisi in “The Golden Fleece” at Harper’s Magazine.

…Gary, I learned, was Gary Lovisi, a retired postal worker living in South Brooklyn who, since 1986, has edited and self-published more than one hundred issues of Paperback Parade, a near-quarterly journal in which he interviews midcentury noir and sci-fi writers, revisits the “girl-fight covers” of the “sleaze era,” and eulogizes longtime pulp book dealers as they pass on. I got Gary’s number through Gryphon Books, the publishing house through which he put out three issues last year, though he stopped updating its website nearly a decade ago….

… He went on to explain: they were talking about the first issue of Golden Fleece Historical Adventure, a pulp magazine created by Sun Publications in Chicago in 1938. Apart from its two stories by Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Barbarian, and its two covers by Margaret Brundage, an early master of the damsel-in-distress motif, it is an unremarkable periodical that folded after nine issues. It’s possible that Gary would not have given it a second glance if not for the circumstances under which they came across it: “It was maybe twenty years ago,” he began.

He and Lucille were at a flea market in Brimfield, Massachusetts, when swirling black rain clouds gathered overhead. The storm broke, and they ducked under a tent in which a man was selling items recovered from a house fire. Gary noticed a pile of burnt books on a folding table and started digging through them. He brushed one off, revealing the first issue of Golden Fleece Historical Adventure. Somehow, it had survived the fire unharmed, the only book to do so. He showed it to the vendor, who couldn’t make sense of it. Gary paid the man five dollars and drove back to Gerritsen Beach. He placed the book on a shelf in the basement and forgot about it for a decade. Then, in the fall of 2012, Hurricane Sandy made landfall. The water rose, filling subway tunnels, submerging thousands of vehicles, and killing more than one hundred people. Gary and Lucille’s basement flooded to the ceiling. Tens of thousands of their books were destroyed. Days later, as a city sanitation worker was hauling the remains of the waterlogged collection out to a garbage truck, Gary noticed that two books had swelled and fused together. He pulled the paperbacks apart to discover, wedged between them, in pristine condition, his Golden Fleece.

“It’s invincible,” said Gary….

(5) BANNED BOOKS WEEKS CHAIR. “LeVar Burton to Lead 2023 Banned Books Week as Honorary Chair”.

LeVar Burton

Beloved reading advocate, writer, and television and film star LeVar Burton will lead this year’s Banned Books Week, which takes place October 1–7, 2023.  Burton is the first actor to serve as honorary chair of Banned Books Week, an annual weeklong event that highlights the value of free and open access to information and brings together the entire book community in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas.

Recognizable for his groundbreaking roles in the landmark television series Roots and the Star Trek franchise, Burton’s work as a literacy advocate has inspired generations. Many in the book community can trace their love of reading and advocacy for the right to read to Burton’s treasured PBS children’s series Reading Rainbow. Burton has continued to inspire readers with the enormously popular LeVar Burton Reads podcast. A long-time champion for reading and access to books, Burton executive produced The Right to Read. This award-winning 2023 documentary film positions the literacy crisis in America as a civil rights issue. 

“Books bring us together. They teach us about the world and each other. The ability to read and access books is a fundamental right and a necessity for life-long success,” says Burton. “But books are under attack. They’re being removed from libraries and schools. Shelves have been emptied because of a small number of people and their misguided efforts toward censorship. Public advocacy campaigns like Banned Books Week are essential to helping people understand the scope of book censorship and what they can do to fight it. I’m honored to lead Banned Books Week 2023.”

Burton will headline a live virtual conversation with Banned Books Week Youth Honorary Chair Da’Taeveyon Daniels about censorship and advocacy at 8:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday, October 4. The event will stream live on Instagram (@banned_books_week). Visit BannedBooksWeek.org for more details….

(6) THEY, THE JURY. Niall Harrison touts the Sturgeon Award shortlist as the place to look for the best short sff. “The Year’s Best Is Dead, Long Live the Year’s Best: On the 2023 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award Finalists” at LA Review of Books.

…We might, then, turn our attention to awards, of which there is still an abundance. The invaluable Science Fiction Awards Database tracks the short lists and results of over 100 different awards, and a few dozen include short fiction categories. Through their short lists, they provide a kind of crowdsourced year’s best survey, not least because most of them are decided by some form of popular vote. This includes probably the two best-known SF awards—the Nebulas, which are voted on each year by members of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA), and the Hugos, which are voted on by members of that year’s World Science Fiction Convention—and is one reason why, historically, it has been so useful to have both awards and anthologies.

Popular votes and editorial selection have different strengths and weaknesses, and one particular weakness of popular votes has become more noticeable in recent years. There has always been a degree of overlap between the Hugo and Nebula nominees, but in an era of more short stories than any one person can reasonably read, there is an incentive to read the stories that are most easily accessible and that other people are already talking about, leading to reinforcing cycles of attention. As a result, it is now the norm for at least half of the short fiction nominees for these two awards to be the same, and for them to come from a relatively small group of online magazines—and even allowing for Sturgeon’s sometimes-useful generalization, in a healthy ecosystem, you’d like more differentiation than that.

All of this is a long way around to justifying the ostensible subject of this essay: now is a particularly good time to pay more attention to the short story awards that are casting a broader net than the Hugos and the Nebulas themselves, and one that I find consistently interesting is the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. …

(7) MASTER BALLARD. Tom McCarthy justifies the distinction in his article “J. G. Ballard’s Brilliant, Not ‘Good’ Writing” in The Paris Review.

Putting Ballard on a master’s course list, as I’ve done a couple of times, provokes a reaction that’s both funny and illuminating. Asked to read Crash or The Atrocity Exhibition, the more vociferous students invariably express their revulsion, while the more reflective ones voice their frustration that, although the ideas might be compelling, the prose “isn’t good.” This is especially the case with students who’ve been exposed to creative writing classes: they complain that the books are so full of repetition they become machinic or monotonous; also that they lack solid, integrated characters with whom they can identify, instead endlessly breaking open any given plot or mise-en-scène to other external or even unconnected scenes, contexts, and histories, resulting in a kind of schizoid narrative space that’s full of everyone and no one.

This second group, of course, is absolutely right in its analysis; what’s funny (and, if I can teach them anything, reversible) about their judgment is that it is these very elements (repetition, machinism, schizoid hypermnesia) that make Ballard’s work so brilliant. Not only are his rhythmic cycles, in which phrases and images return in orders and arrangements that mutate and reconfigure themselves as though following some algorithm that remains beyond our grasp, at once incantatory, hallucinatory, and the very model and essence of poetry; but, mirroring the way that information, advertising, propaganda, public (and private) dialogue, and even consciousness itself run in reiterative loops and circuits, constitute a realism far exceeding that of the misnamed literary genre. If his personae are split, multiplied, dispersed, this is because they are true subjects of a networked and fragmented hypermodernity—ones for whom identification, if it is to amount to anything more than a consoling fiction, must come through man’s recognition of himself (as Georges Bataille put it) not in the degrading chains of logic but instead, with rage and ecstatic torment, in the virulence of his own phantasms….

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born September 23, 1908 Wilmar House Shiras. Her story “In Hiding” was submitted in 1948 to Astounding Science Fiction, where it was published. She published two sequels in the magazine: “Opening Doors”, and “New Foundations”. The three stories would become the first three chapters in the novel, Children of the Atom. Other than a handful of short fiction, I think it’s her only work. (Died 1990.)
  • Born September 23, 1920 Richard Wilson. Not a writer of much genre fiction at all. His really major contribution to fandom and to Syracuse University where he worked as the director of the Syracuse University News Bureau was in successfully recruiting the donation of papers from many prominent science fiction writers to the Syracuse University’s George Arents Research Library.  The list of those writers includes Piers Anthony, Hal Clement, Keith Laumer, Larry Niven and Frederik Pohl. And, of course, himself. It has been called the “most important collection of science fiction manuscripts and papers in the world.” (Died 1987.)
  • Born September 23, 1928 John S Glasby.English writer who wrote a truly amazing amount of pulp fiction of both a SF and fantasy under quite a few pen names that included  John Adams, R. L. Bowers, Berl Cameron, Max Chartair, Randall Conway, Ray Cosmic, John Crawford, J. B. Dexter, John Glasby, J. S. Glasby, Michael Hamilton, J. J. Hansby, Marston Johns, Victor La Salle, Peter Laynham, H. K. Lennard, Paul Lorraine, John C. Maxwell, A. J. Merak, H. J. Merak, R. J. Merak, John Morton, John E. Muller, Rand Le Page, J. L. Powers and Karl Zeigfried. It is thought but not confirmed that he produced more than three hundred novels and a lot of short stories in a twenty year period that started in the early Fifties. (Died 2011.)
  • Born September 23, 1948 Leslie Kay Swigart, 75. Obsessions can be fascinating and hers was detailing the writings of Harlan Ellison. Between 1975 and 1991, she published Harlan Ellison: A Bibliographical Checklist plus wrote shorter works such as “Harlan Ellison: An F&SF Checklist“, “Harlan Ellison: A Nonfiction Checklist” and “Harlan Ellison: A Book and Fiction Checklist”. Her George R. R. Martin: A RRetrospective Fiction Checklist can be found in the Dreamsongs: GRRM: A RRetrospective collection.
  • Born September 23, 1959 Frank Cottrell-Boyce, 64. Definitely not here for his sequels to Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang. (Horrors!) He is here for such writing endeavors as Goodbye Christopher Robin, his Doctor Who stories, “In the Forest of the Night” and “Smile”, both Twelfth Doctor affairs, and the animated Captain Star series in which he voiced Captain Jim Star. The series sounds like the absolute antithesis of classic Trek
  • Born September 23, 1956 Peter David, 67. Did you know that his first assignment for the Philadelphia Bulletin was covering Discon II? I’m reasonably sure the first thing I read by him was Legions of Fire, Book: The Long Night of Centauri Prime but he’s also done a number of comics I’ve read including runs of Captain Marvel , Wolverine and Young Justice.
  • Born September 23, 1967 Justine Larbalestier, 56. Writer, Editor, and Critic. An Australian author of fiction whose novels have won Andre Norton, Carl Brandon, and Aurealis Awards, she is probably best known for her comprehensive scholarly work The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction which was nominated for a Hugo at Torcon 3. Her Daughters of Earth: Feminist Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century, an anthology of SFF stories and critical essays by women, won The William Atheling Jr. Award.

(9) SMOFCON RATES TO RISE. SMOFcon 40, taking place December 1-3 in Providence, RI, is raising its membership rates on September 30. Register now and save.

Current rates are:

Attending $60

First Smofcon (never attended Smofcon in person) $40

Young Adult (Under 33 Years Old / Born After 1 December 1990) $40

Unwaged / Retired / Hardship $40

Virtual/Online $35

Family/Con Suite Only $30

On October 1 the attending rate will rise to $70 and the Virtual/Online membership will rise to $40. All other rates will remain the same. The new rates are good through November 27, when the Attending membership will rise again to at-the-door pricing.

Smofcon 40 also has published a Covid policy at the link. Short version: masks required in program space, recommended but optional in hospitality space. Up-to-date vaccines are recommended but not required. Corsi-Rosenthal boxes will be used to filter air in all spaces.

(10) OVERTHROWN. “Neil DeGrasse Tyson Claims ‘Armageddon’ Has Been Dethroned As Film Violating Most Laws Of Physics”Deadline names the new “champion”.

Armageddon‘s quarter-century reign as the Hollywood movie running afoul of the most physics laws is over. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson made the revelation during an interview on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show to promote his new book, To Infinity and Beyond, highlighting glaring scientific inaccuracies in another space film, the 2022 Moonfall starring Halle Berry.

Armageddon, you say, violates more laws of physics per minute than any other film ever made,” Cagle began.

DeGrasse Tyson agreed, adding, “That’s what I thought until I saw Moonfall. It was a pandemic film that came out, you know, Halle Berry, and the moon is approaching Earth, and they learned that it’s hollow and there’s a moon being made out of rocks living inside of it and the Apollo missions were really to visit, to feed the moon being, and I just couldn’t, so I said, “Alright, I thought Armageddon had a secure hold on this crown, but apparently not.”…

(11) NCIS AT 20. Compiled entirely from quotes by showrunners and producers (none of the actors), this oral history will still be of interest to those who like NCIS: “NCIS Oral History: CBS Show Team Talks Mark Harmon, Pauley Perrette” in The Hollywood Reporter.

(12) CARBON IN EUROPA MOON OCEAN. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landing there. Use them together. Use them in peace.

Two research teams have independently used the James Webb Space Telescope to look at Jupiter’s moon, Europa.

In this week’s Science journal, one team reports that carbon dioxide seems to have been transported from the ocean beneath the moon’s ice crust. The second team’s observations seem to corroborate this.  Both papers together have caused some in the media to speculate what this means for there being alien life in Europa’s ocean. With Earth.com saying, for instance, that “Alien life on Jupiter’s moon Europa just became a very likely scenario”.

(13) SHBOOM! “Video Shows Rare Bright Fireball on Jupiter, From Amateur Astronomer” at Business Insider.

Jupiter takes a lot of hits for the rest of the solar system, and new footage shows one of the biggest astronomers have ever seen.

About 14 seconds into the video below, you can see a bright flash appear in Jupiter’s southern hemisphere. The flash is from an impact — likely an asteroid or comet slamming into the planet. The video was captured by amateur astronomer Tadao Ohsugi, in Japan, in August. It’s a rare sight….

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

Pixel Scroll 4/19/22 Better Call Scroll

(1) SCUM VS. VILLAINY. At Unusual Things in “Being a Better Writer: Delivering a Villain and Making Them Truly Scary”, Max Florschutz hosts a deeply thoughtful and fascinatingly detailed seven-course meal about writing “bad guys.” This is just an appetizer for you —

…Now, as a quick aside, I do want to remind us all that there is a difference between an antagonist and a villain. Just as there is a difference between a hero and a protagonist. Someone that is acting in opposition to a protagonist is not automatically a villain. They are an antagonist. Merely being opposed to a primary character is not an automatic trait of villainy. In fact, even the definitions of these two terms note the difference. An antagonist is one who opposes the protagonist of a story and acts as an obstacle, but that is the limit. A villain on the other hand, is a character who’s evil motivations are integral to the plot.

And yes, the definition does include the term “evil” there. A villain may have ambiguous reasons (for example, Thanos), but there is no doubt that what they are doing is wrong in some awful fashion, and their aims are more than just being an obstacle to the protagonist.

In other words, it’s like the old logic puzzle or play we all encountered in grade-school: Some antagonists are villains, and some villains are antagonists, but not all antagonists are villains, and not all villains are antagonists….

(2) OCTAVIA BUTLER AS FOLK OPERA. “’Parable of the Sower’ comes to Strathmore Music Center” and the Washington Post interviews the show’s composer on the eve of its national tour.

Singer-songwriter Toshi Reagon has had the idea of adapting Octavia Butler’s 1993 novel, “Parable of the Sower,” as a folk opera since the late 1990s. But recently, she’s felt a new sense of urgency. More and more, Reagon says, the book’s prophecy of a dystopian future seems to resemble our real-life present. That’s why the Washington-raised, Brooklyn-based artist pushed to take the show on a national tour, which stops at the Strathmore Music Center for two performances on April 28 and 29.

“When I looked at Octavia’s timeline, I realized that her story starts in 2024, when slavery is starting up again,” Reagon says in a phone interview. “The government is giving up on being a good government, and fires and droughts are ravaging the environment. That’s not so different than what’s on the news. It’s an emergency; we all have to do something in our communities to stop that from happening. I felt like we have to get this show out there before it’s too late.”

(3) FROM YOU, I GET THE STORY. “Janelle Monáe Writes For The Marginalized In New Science Fiction Collection ‘The Memory Librarian’”, an Essence interview.

“In The Memory Librarian there is a threat of censorship and I feel like that’s happening right now,” Monáe explains. “When you look at them trying to take critical race theory out of schools. Nobody wants to talk about slavery if it upsets a child, so they say. In Florida, they’re not wanting to even talk about the LGBTQIA and how these kids are identifying. That is a censorship that is happening now. It happens in The Memory Librarian, the protagonists are from marginalized communities. They do rebel. They do fight against it. It is going to be this book that predicts a potential future where the current sh-t we’re trying to ban is amplified in a way that our characters are fighting for the ability to live in our truth and to be seen in a nation’s larger story.”

(4) KAMALA KHAN’S GEAR. “Ms. Marvel’s Vibrant Poster Provides Best Look Yet at Kamala’s Costume” as CBR.com explains.

The latest poster for Ms. Marvel contains fans’ best look yet at Kamala Khan’s superhero threads.

The image, which depicts the titular hero surrounded by her friends and family, highlights Kamala’s crime-fighting threads. Fans of the character will undoubtedly recognize her iconic design, including the blue mask that covers her face and the long red scarf which dangles around her shoulders. While it’s currently unknown how the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of Ms. Marvel comes into possession of her costume, the source material sees her creating it herself by modifying a burkini. At the very center of the image, Kamala can be seen sitting on a street light, a homage to both the series’ original poster and the cover of Ms. Marvel #5 which was created by artist Adrian Alphona.

The new poster also highlights the various characters in Ms. Marvel’s life that either aid or hinder her superhero adventures. Kamala’s closest friends Bruno Carrelli and Nakia Bahadir (Matt Lintz and Yasmeen Fletcher, respectively) can be seen on the bottom left while her overprotective brother Amir, played by Saagar Shaikh, takes a prevalent spot on the right. It’s worth noting that Kamran, who acted as Kamala’s crush and love-interest with ulterior motives in the comics, is also highlighted on the poster.

(5) SEE THREE. Is there anybody who didn’t already see this announced by John Scalzi at Whatever? Maybe you’d like to watch it again? Collider sets the frame: “Love, Death + Robots Volume 3 Trailer Reveals New Stories in Eclectic Series”:

…Created by Tim Miller and David FincherLove, Death + Robots invites different teams of artists and screenwriters to produce short stories about fantastic discoveries, distant corners of the galaxy, or surreal events. Some episodes of the previous volumes were horror stories, while others were straight-out comedies. While this variation makes each volume unbalanced, with some stories stealing the spotlight, that’s also what allows fans to explore a diverse set of creative narratives….

(6) NUTS. “Marvel Launches ‘Squirrel Girl’ Scripted Podcast From Writer Ryan North” reports Yahoo!

The six-episode SiriusXM podcast series titled “Marvel’s Squirrel Girl: The Unbeatable Radio Show,” which stars Milana Vayntrub of AT&T-ad fame as Doreen Green/Squirrel Girl and is written by North, debuted across multiple platforms on Monday. The podcast is produced by Radio Point, the podcast arm of “I Think You Should Leave” and “Life & Beth” production company Irony Point.

Variety adds:

…Here’s the official description for the “Squirrel Girl” podcast: “Squirrel Girl has taken down Thanos and Doctor Doom — but now she faces something far more terrifying… living authentically. The new series follows Empire State University college student, Doreen Green, who has recently been outed as a super hero — The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl! Hoping to unify her personas in the public eye, Squirrel Girl has created a new student radio show on ESU’s own college station…

According to Marvel’s press release:

The first episode of Marvel’s Squirrel Girl: The Unbeatable Radio Show! is available now on all podcast platforms. Fans can also get early access to next week’s episode starting today via the SXM App or by subscribing to Marvel Podcasts Unlimited on Apple Podcasts, which also has exclusive bonus content! Future episodes will be available exclusively via the SXM App and Marvel Podcasts Unlimited for one week before being available widely on Pandora, Stitcher, and all major podcast platforms in the U.S. Learn more at Marvel.com/SquirrelGirlPodcast.

(7) ASK ERICKSON ANYTHING. Severance writer Dan Erickson announced on Twitter that he will be doing a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) Thursday, April 21, 2022 at 12 PM PST to 1 PM PST.

(8) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

1985 [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.] Back in the summer of ‘20, I looked here at the first publication of Angela Carter’s “The Company of Wolves” short story in the Bananas literary zine where J.G. Ballard, Sara Maitland and John Sladek were the other writers present. (Copies of that zine are readily available as Meredith moments at online booksellers. The story itself is in The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories.) The Company Of Wolves film premiered in the States thirty-seven years ago on this date.

The screenplay was written by Carter and Neil Patrick Jordan, an Irish film director, screenwriter, novelist and short-story writer who I’ll praise for his later High Spirits film he directed and wrote. Carter would also write the screenplays for The Bloody Chamber and The Magic Toyshop films which I didn’t know exist. 

Did you know there’s a film on her, Angela Carter: Of Wolves & Women? I need to see this. Really I do. 

The film was directed by Jordan was produced by Chris Brown and Stephen Woolley. The latter would be responsible for producing Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and was the producer of the aforementioned High Spirits

It had an amazing cast: Sarah Patterson was Rosaleen, Angela Lansbury was Granny,  David Warner was Father,  Tusse Silberg was Mother,  Micha Bergese was The Huntsman, Brian Glover was The Amorous Boy’s Father,  Graham Crowden was The Old Priest,  Kathryn Pogson was The Young Bride, Stephen Rea as The Young Groom and  Georgia Slowe was  Alice, The Girl Killed by Wolves. Note the only two performers have personal names, Carter is using archetypes here. 

So how was the reception for the horror film? Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times was quite impressed saying it was a  “disturbing and stylish attempt to collect some of the nightmares that lie beneath the surface of “‘Little Red Riding Hood’”. And the anonymous TV Guide reviewer riffs on the erotic nature of Angela Carter’s story: “ The most innovative, intelligent, and visually sumptuous horror film of recent years. Not a traditional werewolf movie, this film explores the psychosexual undercurrents of the classic “Little Red Riding Hood” fairy tale.  Taking place almost entirely in the troubled dreams of 13-year-old Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson), the film takes the viewer deep into the archetypal, erotically charged realm of fairy stories.” 

The film would win a British Science Fiction Award for Best Media. And the audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes are rather fond of giving a seventy three percent rating. 

The film is available for purchase digitally off Amazon but not ITunes. Huh.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born April 19, 1925 Hugh O’Brian. He was Harry Chamberlain in Rocketship X-M which you can see here. (It was nominated in the 1951 Retro Hugo Awards given at The Millennium Philcon but lost out to Destination Moon.)  He would later play Hugh Lockwood in Probe, not the Asimov Probe, the pilot for the sf TV series Search. His only other genre appearance I think was playing five different roles on Fantasy Island. (Died 2016.)
  • Born April 19, 1935 Herman Zimmerman, 87. He was the art director and production designer who worked between 1987 and 2005 for the Trek franchise. Excepting Voyager, in that era he worked on all other live-action productions including the first season of Next Gen, the entire runs of Deep Space Nine and Enterprise, as well as six Trek films. As Memory Alpha notes, “Together with Rick Sternbach he designed the space station Deep Space 9, with John Eaves the USS Enterprise-B and the USS Enterprise-E. His most recognizable work though, have been his (co-)designs for nearly all of the standing sets, those of the bridge, Main Engineering (co-designed with Andrew Probert) and Ten Forward for the USS Enterprise-D in particular.” Not surprisingly, he co-wrote the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual with Rick Sternbach and Doug Drexler. 
  • Born April 19, 1946 Tim Curry, 76. Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, of course, but it’s not his first genre appearance. He’d appeared a year earlier at the Scottish Opera in A Midsummer Night’s Dream as Puck. And yes, I know that he appeared in the live show which was at the Chelsea Classic Cinema and other venues before the film was done. Other genre appearances include playing Darkness in Legend, an outstanding Cardinal Richelieu in The Three Musketeers (1993), a most excellent genre film, Farley Claymore in The Shadow (great role), another superb performance playing Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island and in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead as The Player.
  • Born April 19, 1952 Mark Rogers. He’s probably best known for writing and illustrating the Adventures of Samurai Cat series, a most excellent affair. His debut fantasy novel Zorachus was followed by The Nightmare of God sequel. His novella “The Runestone” was adapted as a film of the same name. And his art is collected in Nothing But a Smile: The Pinup Art of Mark Rogers and The Art of Fantasy. (Died 2014.)
  • Born April 19, 1967 Steven H Silver, 55. Fan and publisher, author, and editor. He has been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer twelve times and Best Fanzine seven times. In 1995 he founded the Sidewise Award for Alternate History and has served as a judge ever since. He has published the fanzine, Argentus, edited several issues of the Hugo-nominated Journey Planet. His debut novel After Hastings came out in 2020.
  • Born April 19, 1978 K. Tempest Bradford, 44. She was a non-fiction and managing editor with Fantasy Magazine for several years, and has edited fiction for Fortean BureauPeridot Books and Sybil’s Garage. She’s written a lot of short fiction and her first YA novel, Ruby Finley vs. the Interstellar Invasion, is coming out this autumn. She was a finalist last year for two Ignyte Awards, the Ember Award for unsung contributions to genre and the Community Award for Outstanding Efforts in Service of Inclusion and Equitable Practice in Genre. 
  • Born April 19, 1981 Hayden Christensen, 41. Anakin Skywalker in Attack of the ClonesReturn of the Jedi and Revenge of the Sith. And Christensen also plays Vader in his suit in the latter. He later has a voice cameo in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. In the forthcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi series on Disney +, he’s Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

  • The Argyle Sweater shows us some rare superhero paraphernalia.
  • Existential Comics shows that having a product return policy doesn’t really cut short the arguments with customers if they are not properly grounded in philosophy.

(11) JUST THE FACTS, MA’AM. H&I says it’s true — Star Trek’s Klingons were named after this LAPD Officer seen on Dragnet.

…And that’s where the alarm bells ring in the ears of Trekkies. W.L. Clingan is mentioned in several episodes of Dragnet 1967. In this particular case, he is played by Dennis McCarthy. That’s him with the white coat and gray hair in the top picture.

It just so happens this character was based on a real Los Angeles police officer, Wilbur Lee Clingan. He worked for the LAPD and the Pasadena police department for three decades. He was also, reportedly, a consultant on Dragnet. Which would explain the little nod Jack Webb worked into his TV show.

In his LAPD days, Clingan happened to work with a young man named Gene Roddenberry. Roddenberry’s pop was a cop and he had followed his dad’s footsteps in the LAPD. Roddenberry first worked in the traffic division before ending up penning speeches for the chief of police in the Public Information department…. 

(12) LATE CHECKOUT. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] After some bonus time on orbit due to a NASA-initiated delay, members of the first all-private trip to the International Space Station are due to head home tonight. “All-private SpaceX astronaut mission to return home from the ISS” at CNN.

The first all-private mission to the International Space Station is slated to complete the final leg of its journey this week, capping off what will be about a 12-day, multimillion-dollar journey.

The mission, called AX-1, was brokered by the Houston, Texas-based startup Axiom Space, which books rocket rides, provides all the necessary training, and coordinates flights to the ISS for anyone who can afford it. The mission has set off yet another round of debate about whether people who pay their way to space should be referred to as “astronauts,” though it should be noted a trip to the ISS requires a far larger investment of both time and money than taking a brief suborbital ride on a rocket built by companies like Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic.

The four crew members — Michael Lopez-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut turned Axiom employee who is commanding the mission; Israeli businessman Eytan Stibbe; Canadian investor Mark Pathy; and Ohio-based real estate magnate Larry Connor — are slated to leave the space station aboard their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on Tuesday around 10:00 pm ET….

(13) THIRTEEN’S COMPANY. Something to look forward to: “Doctor Who: Former companions to join Jodie Whittaker’s farewell” at BBC News.

…Tegan and Ace will join the 13th Doctor in the special episode being broadcast this autumn.

The news was revealed in a trailer that followed the show’s Easter special.

The short teaser also revealed that the episode will feature the Doctor’s arch enemy The Master (Sacha Dhawan) and two of her most famous foes, the Daleks and the Cybermen….

(14) CLUELESS ON THE BBC. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] This is only very vaguely genre adjacent (it does at times get surreal) and so may
not be of that much interest to Filers unless they are into British humour such as PythonI’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue is a long-running radio show that has this weekend celebrated half a century of being on air.  It is a comedy panel show with silly games.
For example, in a game giving a dictionary definition what would be the definition of ‘cabaret’?  Answer: ‘taxi rank’.  (Cab-array’ – get it?).

If you like silliness like such word play or games such as ‘singing one song to the tune of another’ or ‘verbal charades’ (well, it is a radio show) then you can download an .mp3 from BBC Sounds and you’ll gain an insight into British culture. “50 Years Without a Clue”.

(15) FREQUENCY 13. Or you might like to listen to “Doctor Who: Redacted – 1. SOS” at BBC Sounds. It’s an Thirteenth Doctor audio drama with Jodi. And yes, you can hear in the States.

Cleo, Abby and Shawna make The Blue Box Files – a podcast about their favourite conspiracy theory: is this one random blue box actually a spaceship? This week they discuss shady pharmaceutical company Adipose Industries. But things get a bit real when they start hearing about a mysterious figure called ‘the Doctor’.

(16) WATER, WATER, EVERYWHERE. MAYBE. “Europa’s similarity to Greenland hints that Jupiter moon could harbor life” at MSN.com.

The uncanny resemblance between features on Europa’s frozen surface and a landform in Greenland that sits atop a sizable pocket of water are providing intriguing new indications that this moon of Jupiter may be capable of harboring life.

A study published on Tuesday explored similarities between elongated landforms called double ridges that look like huge gashes across Europa’s surface and a smaller version in Greenland examined using ice-penetrating radar.

Double ridges are linear, with two peaks and a central trough between them.

“If you sliced through one and looked at the cross section, it would look a bit like the capital letter ‘M,'” said Stanford University geophysicist Riley Culberg, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature Communications.

Radar data showed that refreezing of liquid subsurface water drove the formation of Greenland’s double ridge. If Europa’s features form the same way, this could signal the presence of copious amounts of liquid water – a key ingredient for life – near the surface of this Jovian moon’s thick outer ice shell….

(17) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In “Honest Game Trailers:  Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands,” Fandom Games says this is “a generic role-playing game that can be gently described as a parody of Dungeons and Dragons” and that Tiny Tina is “one of the most irritating characters in the history of video-game making.”

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, Michael Toman, Bill, Will R., Nickpheas, Ben Bird Person, John A Arkansawyer, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Chris Barkley, Rob Thornton, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 8/21/19 Soylent SFWA Is Made Of People

(1) BLUE PLAQUE SPECIAL. Once upon a time GRRM lived in Chicago, a fact not to be overlooked by anyone seeking a sweet price for the property. NBC Chicago lets you “See Inside: ‘GoT’ Creator George R.R. Martin’s Former Uptown Home is Up for Sale”.  Video here. Should Chicago ever adopt the British tradition of putting plaques outside the homes of famous people, maybe there will be one here?

It may not be in the Red Keep, but it was once a throne fit for George R.R. Martin.
The “Game of Thrones” creator spent four years living in an apartment in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood. Now, you can live there too – for $354,900.

The third-floor unit in the 900 block of West Margate Terrace on the North Side, where Martin lived from 1971 to 1975 along with several roommates, has hit the market. The three-bedroom condo is listed on Martin’s website as the home where he lived after getting his master’s degree from Northwestern.

“I say ‘three bedroom,’ but for our purposes there were five, once we put a bed in the dining room and another on the back porch,” he wrote. “The rent was $150 a month, after all. There was no way a bunch of guys just out of college could afford that without cramming.”

(2) WORLDCONS PAST AND FUTURE. Here’s video of the chairs introducing themselves at the 2019 Worldcon Chairs photo session.

(3) PRIZES FOR ALL. Well, what else did you expect The Mary Sue’s headline to be? “Everyone Who Contributed to Fanfiction Site “Archive of Our Own” Is Now a Hugo Award Winner”. Even though that claim isn’t repeated in the body of the article.

… But what set Tumblr, Twitter, Discord, and text chats alight across the world was the news that Archive of Our Own won the Hugo for Best Related Fanwork. This was the Archive’s first time being nominated, news initially treated as somewhat contentious by those who still don’t want to try and understand the vital, ever-growing, incredibly rich and variegated culture of fan-created work.

…Archive of Our Own’s win felt like a real victory for millions of us who write and create fanart, videos, podfic, meta essays, and more. It sure is nice to have that shiny rocket statue and acknowledgment from one of the most prestigious award-giving bodies in genre fiction that we are here and crafting wondrous things.

(4) ADJOURNED SINE DIE. Chris Barkley has posted what seems to be his farewell address to the WSFS business meeting:

…To the members of the Business meeting and the SMOFs mailing list I say this: I thank you for your advice and patience. Your vigilance in protection of the Constitution and the Hugo Awards has been long and admirable. But your seeming officiousness, proof of worthiness, over reliance on years and years of committee studies are your weakness. These things scare and alienate fans from engaging in the process. While it was all good and well to fast track the Best Fancast and Best Series categories, it was done at the expense of the Young Adult Award, which lingered for years before it was decided to give it a trial and only then as something other than a Hugo category. The BM has proven itself to be nimble to act when we were threatened by the Puppies and yet unable to debate the merits of a Best Game or Interactive Experience amendment after a year in committee and a detailed, sixty page report from its proponents. I implore you all to be more intuitive and take more risks and chances, especially with those who come before you for the first time.

To you, the members of this community who contemplating going to the Business Meeting or are loath to spend any amount of your precious Worldcon time attending these long, laborious meeting; if you do not approve of what is happening at the World Science Fiction Convention or with the WSFS Constitution and the Hugo Awards, there is no substitution for GETTING INVOLVED!. There are a lot of things I regret; not learning how to become a switch hitter in softball, learning to play a musical instrument or becoming bilingual. But every moment I spent the Business Meeting has been well spent. So go down to your independent/used bookstore or online and get a Roberts Rules of Order and jump into the action. If you don’t, you haven’t any damned right to bitch about it….

(5) ENTERING THE LISTS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] The Hugo long-list has been announced. How does this compare with SF² Concatenation’s beginning-of-year suggestions as to the best SF works of 2019?  You may recall that at the beginning of each year the SF² Conatenation team members have a round-robin suggesting best works of the previous year and multiple citations of work get listed.  it is purely a bit of fun but over the years we have noticed that regularly a few of these go on to be nominated for major SF awards and in turn some of these turn out to be winner. 

All well and good but how did SF² Concatenation’s choice of best novels of 2019 compare with the Hugo long-list of top 16 Hugo titles for ‘best novel’ that made up its long-list? Well, the following of ours are in the Hugo long-list:

          Semiosis by Sue Burke (character-driven, exo-planet first contact)
          Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller (futuristic, post climate-apocalyptic world building)
          Before Mars by Emma Newman (off world, mundane-ish, new wave SF)
          Binti: The Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor – also short-listed

Of those SF² Conatenation listed on the film (best dramatic presentation long-form) front the following were on the Hugo long list:

          Ant-Man and the Wasp (Trailer here)
          Incredibles 2 (Trailer here)
          A Quiet Place – also short-listed (Trailer here)
          Sorry to Bother You – also short-listed (Trailer here)
          Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – the winner (Trailer here)

Not bad for a bit of fun, though certainly not to be taken seriously. (We will have another team selection of our personal ‘bests’ with our spring edition to be posted in January (2020)).  Meanwhile, here are SF² Conatenation’s Best Science Fiction of Past Years.

(6) IN ALL THE PAPERS. Irish Times reporter Frank McNally ended up on a panel at the Dublin Worldcon: “Worldcon mad: a collision between science fiction and Flann O’Brien”

In a parallel universe, I may be an avid reader of science fiction. In this one, the genre has almost entirely eluded me. And yet on Thursday, through some warp in the space-time continuum, I found myself among the speakers on a panel at Worldcon 2019, an extraordinary event that has brought thousands of sci-fi enthusiasts to Ireland from all over the world.  If you see any strange-looking people wandering around Dublin this weekend, it’s them.

The subject of the panel was Flann O’Brien, formerly of this parish, whose work would not normally be described as science fiction, although it appears to have formed a bridge to that community. Crucial to this is his novel The Third Policeman, which revolves around the work of a mad scientist.  Among other things, it inspired part of the cult 2005 TV series, Lost, through which many of the world’s sci-fi enthusiasts first heard of its author.

“If you see any strange-looking people wandering around Dublin” – isn’t it reassuring that some things never seem to change, like the stereotypical view of SF fans among reporters?

However, the Irish Independent listened to George R.R. Martin: “‘Don’t forget history’, warns Games of Thrones author George RR Martin as he accepts Irish book award”.

The American creator of the hugely popular fantasy book and TV series said he appreciated that readers loved his fantasy writing, but urged people not to “neglect real history.”

He made the comments in a public interview at the GPO in Dublin this evening, where he was awarded the 2019 An Post International Recognition Award for his contribution to fantasy and science fiction writing over the past 40 years.

 “I’m glad so much of the world has fallen in love with my books and my TV show. But we’re living in perilous times, folks, in the US and UK and I’m sure it’s affecting every part of the world.

“Nothing is ever truer than those who do not know real history are doomed to repeat it.”

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born August 21, 1888 Miriam Allen deFord. Almost all of her genre fiction was published at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction under the editorship of Anthony Boucher. It can be found in two collections, Xenogenesis and Elsewhere, Elsewhen, Elsehow. Her “A Death in the Family” story was adapted in Night Gallery‘s second season. Other a few short stories, nothing’s available digitally by her. (Died 1975.)
  • Born August 21, 1911 Anthony Boucher. I’m currently reading Rocket to the Morgue which the folks at Penzler Publishers sent me for review. Really great read. If you can find a copy, The Compleat Boucher: The Complete Short Science Fiction and Fantasy of Anthony Boucher is a most excellent read. Unfortunately, The Compleat Werewolf and Other Stories of Fantasy and Science Fiction is the collection available digitally. (Died 1968.)
  • Born August 21, 1937 Arthur Thomson. Fanzine writer and editor and prolific artist known as ATom. Artist for the well known Hyphen zine, he won the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund in 1964 and visited the States. He was nominated five times for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Artist, but never won. After Thomson won the 2000 Rotsler Award, it was decided not to present the Rotsler posthumously again. (Died 1990.)
  • Born August 21, 1943 Lucius Shepard. Damn I didn’t know he’d passed on. Life During Wartime is one seriously weird novel. And his World Fantasy Award winning The Jaguar Hunter is freaking amazing as are all his short collections. (Died 2014.)
  • Born August 21, 1956 Kim Cattrall, 63. Gracie Law in John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China. Fantastic film! She also played Justine de Winter in The Return of the Musketeers, Paige Katz in Wild Palms, Lieutenant Valeris inStar Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and Linday Isley in Good v. Evil. Series wise, she was one offs in Tales of the Gold Monkey, Logan’s Run, The Incredible Hulk and The Outer Limits.
  • Born August 21, 1957 John Howe, 62.  Canadian book illustrator who’s worked on many a project of which the Peter Jackson Hobbit films is the one we’ll most know and which he did with Alan Lee, but he’s also done a number of endeavors including a limited edition of George R. R. Martin’s novel A Clash of Kings which was released by Meisha Merlin, A Diversity of Dragons by Anne McCaffrey and A Middle-Earth Traveler: Sketches from Bag End to Mordor.
  • Born August 21, 1966 Denise Mina, 53. Genre wise, she’s best known for having written thirteen issues of Hellblazer. Her two runs were “Empathy is the Enemy” and “The Red Right Hand”.  ISFDB lists The Dead Hour as genre but it’s very much not. Excellent novel but think rather in the vein of Ian Rankin’s Rebus novels.
  • Born August 21, 1967 Carrie-Anne Moss, 52. I first saw her as Tara McDonald in the Dark Justice series. Not genre, just her first video I think. Playing Monica Howard in the “Feeding the Beast” episode of Forever Knight was her first genre role. Oddly enough her next role was as Liz Teel in the Canadian series called Matrix which has nothing to do with the Matrix film franchise where she’s Trinity. As of late, she’s been playing Jeryn Hogarth in the Netflix based Marvel Universe. 

(8) WEB COMES UNSTUCK. Two corporations will no longer partner in this superhero franchise: “Spider-Man and Tom Holland: Sony ‘disappointed’ over Disney split”.

Sony says it’s “disappointed” not to be working with Disney on future Spider-Man films.

We might not see actor Tom Holland in new Marvel movies because a fresh deal can’t be reached over the character.

The film rights to the superhero are owned by Sony – but he could appear in movies like Avengers: Endgame due to a deal between Sony and Marvel Studios – owned by Disney.

Sony says it hopes things “might change in future”.

In a series of tweets, Sony thanked Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige for his “help and guidance” with the franchise.

(9) ISFIC WRITERS CONTEST. The 2019 Illinois Science Fiction in Chicago (ISFiC) Writers Contest is accepting submissions until September 1. Don’t miss out!

If you are a writer currently living in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Missouri, Minnesota, Kentucky, or Ohio, or were a Windycon 2018 attendee, and if you have not yet been paid to publish your fiction, you’re eligible to submit your work! Please review the complete contest guidelines here.

The ISFiC Writers Contest began in 1986 and has helped many authors begin their careers in publishing. All authors retain the rights to their stories and are free to publish them elsewhere after the contest, with the winning story making its debut in the Windycon 2019 program.

Winners will enjoy a $300 cash award and the opportunity to attend Windycon 2019 with a complimentary membership badge and double room at the convention hotel. Honorable mentions will receive a commemorative 1oz American silver coin.

(10) GRAPHS TO THE RESCUE. Camestros Felapton has been inspired by Nicholas Whyte’s Hugo vote analysis to think about ways to save the whales Best Fanzine Hugo: “More Hugo Graphs, Fanzine & Ramblings”.

Nicholas Whyte has an insightful look at the 2019 Hugo stats here: https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3244665.html

The biggest issue raised is that final votes for Best Fanzine came perilously close to less than 25% of the total votes. [stats are now on the Hugo history pages here http://www.thehugoawards.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/2019-Hugo-Statistics.pdf ] Whyte says:

“We were surprisingly close to not giving a Best Fanzine award in both 2019 Hugos and 1944 Retro Hugos this year. The total first preference votes for Best Fanzine finalists other than No Award in both cases was 26.9% of the total number of votes cast overall (833/3097 and 224/834).”

(11) MR. ANDERSON. Be still my beating heart. “The Matrix: Keanu Reeves to reprise role for fourth chapter” – BBC has the story.

Matrix co-creator Lana Wachowski will write, direct and produce the film, a third sequel to the original 1999 hit.

Ms Wachowski celebrated The Matrix’s return, saying many of the ideas it explores are “even more relevant now”.

(12) FADING AWAY. BBC reports how “Titanic sub dive reveals parts are being lost to sea”.

The first people to dive down to the Titanic in nearly 15 years say some of the wreck is deteriorating rapidly.

Over the course of five submersible dives, an international team of deep-sea explorers surveyed the sunken ship, which lies 3,800m down in the Atlantic.

While parts of the wreck were in surprisingly good condition, other features had been lost to the sea.

The worst decay was seen on the starboard side of the officers’ quarters.

Titanic historian Parks Stephenson said some of what he saw during the dive was “shocking”.

“The captain’s bathtub is a favourite image among Titanic enthusiasts – and that’s now gone,” he said.

“That whole deck house on that side is collapsing, taking with it the state rooms. And that deterioration is going to continue advancing.”

(13) JUST A HUNK OF BURNING LOVE. Days after announcing a solar-panel leasing program, “Tesla sued by Walmart over solar panel fires”.

US supermarket chain Walmart is suing Tesla’s energy division, after solar panels on seven of its stores caught fire.

It alleges that the firm was negligent in how it installed the panels on the roofs of the stores.

Court documents describe a string of fires that occurred between 2012 and 2018 at Walmart locations in Ohio, Maryland and California.

Tesla has not yet responded to the claims.

The lawsuit alleges that the first fire occurred at a Walmart store in Long Beach, California in 2012.

Another in Beavercreek, Ohio, in March 2018 saw customers evacuated and the store closed for eight days.

Walmart is asking Tesla to remove solar panels from all its stores and to pay damages.

It alleged that Tesla deployed individuals to inspect the solar systems who “lacked basic solar training and knowledge”.

(14) AGAINST ODYSSEY TWO. Defying Clarke’s aliens — and real-world challenges — “Nasa confirms ocean moon mission”.

Scientists working on an audacious mission to the ocean world of Europa can proceed with the final design and construction of the spacecraft, Nasa says.

The Europa Clipper mission will target the ice-encrusted moon of Jupiter, which is considered a prime target in the search for life beyond Earth.

Below its icy shell, Europa is thought to hold a 170km-deep body of water.

This could have the right conditions for biology.

Due to launch in 2025, the Europa Clipper mission has now passed a stage called Key Decision Point C, a crucial marker on the road to the launch pad.

(15) BACK TO NO FUTURE. A.V. Club’s Mike Vago points out that ”Plenty of sci-fi futures are now in the past”.

Strangest fact: While most sci-fi hedges its bets and sets the story long after both author and audience have shuffled off this mortal coil, some stories are far more daring, portraying a drastically different near-future, when in fact the near future usually looks mostly like the present but everyone’s phone is thinner and more expensive. Kevin Costner’s infamous bomb The Postman took place only 16 years after its 1997 release, and in that short time the public has forgotten who Shakespeare is (but thankfully not Tom Petty). But the 2013 of the film is still reeling from a long-ago disaster that happened in… 1997, meaning the movie’s premise was already out of date by the time the film hit DVD.

The Postman isn’t the only one that cut it close. 12 Monkeys (1995) predicts a virus that wipes out most of humanity in 1996; Roland Emmerich’s 2012 came out in 2009; 1988’s Alien Nation portrays a 1991 in which aliens have integrated into society after landing on Earth in 1988

(16) FURRIES AT WAR. Blake Montgomery, in the Daily Beast story “How A Cooling Vest Invented by a Furry Made Its Way To The U.S. Military” says that the EZ Cooldown vest was invented by Dutch furry Pepeyn Langedijk in 2014 as a way of keeping cool when wearing furry outfits.  It’s gained ground in the U.S. military, particularly among tank crews, but its rise is in part due to “Milfurs,” soldiers who spend their spare time in furry fandom.

In his green claws, the former armorer for the U.S. Army held a collection of military insignia, including a Combat Action Badge, signifying that he had engaged with enemy fighters in Iraq. He stood before an amused audience of men in tight haircuts and camouflage as his unit came together to honor his service. 

In his fursuit, Travis is better known as “Stolf,” a fantastical big cat blending the features of a snow leopard, tiger, and wolf. He likes the odd motorcycle ride or ski run while dressed up, and enjoys meeting other “furries”—members of an internet subculture centered on dressing up as anthropomorphic animals. 

In his less colorful uniform, Travis was entrusted with the maintenance and repair of small arms like the Mk 19 grenade launcher, both in Iraq and at his duty station, McChord Air Force Base in Washington state. (Travis asked that only his first name be used because of online threats he’s received.) 

(17) PITT STOP. A new trailer for the sf adventure Ad Astra was just released. In theaters September 20.

Astronaut Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) travels to the outer edges of the solar system to find his missing father and unravel a mystery that threatens the survival of our planet. His journey will uncover secrets that challenge the nature of human existence and our place in the cosmos.

[Thanks to Steven H Silver, JJ, Cat Eldridge, Chip Hitchcock, Martin Morse Wooster, Mike Kennedy, John King Tarpinian, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day RedWombat.]

Pixel Scroll 10/9/18 PIXËL SCRØLL IK DEN HØLIË MÜRDËRBØT NØMINEE

(1) WHO IS NUMBER ONE. Patrick McGoohan had to keep asking but Star Trek answered the question right away: “‘Star Trek: Discovery’s Rebecca Romijn Releases First Look Photo Of Number One”.

Romijn will play Number One (a character featured in the original 1966 Star Trek pilot) who serves as Captain Christopher Pike’s second-in-command on the USS Enterprise. The original Number One was played by Star Trek creator Gene Roddeberry’s wife Majel Barrett-Roddeberry.

(2) THE TRAILER OF DOCTOR DEATH. Honest Trailers has answered the plea to do trailers for the Classic and Modern versions of Doctor Who.

You know his name, you know his faces, but maybe these faces not as much- it’s Honest Trailers for Doctor Who! (Classic Version)

 

From fancy PBS comes a show where anything can happen and none of the continuity matters- it’s Honest Trailers for Doctor Who! (Modern Version)

 

(3) SKILLFUL RESEARCH. Juliette Wade’s latest Dive into Worldbuilding features “Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff and The Antiquities Hunter”. This interview was really interesting for me — I’m always curious about the process of figuring out the right questions, so you can go get good answers. Read the summary, and/or watch the video —

I asked Maya about her research process. She said this book took a very long time to write. It started with the character of Gina. Gina’s mom, Nadya, was initially in psychology, but then later changed to folklore. Maya did research on Russian Orthodox magic with the book “The Bathhouse at Midnight: A Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in Russia.” For the archaeological aspects, Maya drew on Archaeology Magazine, where she found a lot of information on National Park Service Agents. There was a story about a woman with a family who was in the field conducting sting operations on antiquities thieves and black market dealers. For the background of a character named Rose, Maya looked at black market antiquities that showed up at Sotheby’s and the English Museum, like the Elgin Marbles (a set of marble statues that once stood in the Parthenon). Maya also had questions like, “What is it like to go to a Police Academy?” and “How are police departments structured?” which she got answered by police officers she connected with in online chatrooms. She also explored questions of what happens when jurisdictions collide, how departments work together, etc.

…Maya suggests if you want to make stuff up well, you should study Science, History, and Psychology. That way when you make stuff up, you’ll be using solid pieces to do it.

 

(4) KGB READINGS. Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel present Tim Pratt and Lawrence M. Schoen on Wednesday, October 17 the KGB Bar.

Tim Pratt

Tim Pratt has won a Hugo Award for short fiction, and was a finalist for Nebula, World Fantasy, and Philip K. Dick Awards, among others. He is the author of 25 novels and four story collections, and works as a senior editor at Locus magazine. His latest project is the Axiom space opera series, begun with The Wrong Stars in 2017 and continuing this year with The Dreaming Stars.

Lawrence M. Schoen

Lawrence M. Schoen has been a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award, the Hugo Award, and the Nebula Award. A variety of small presses have published a series of humorous short stories, novellas, and novels about his protagonist the Amazing Conroy, a stage hypnotist turned CEO who travels the galaxy with Reggie, his alien companion animal that eats anything and farts oxygen. On a somewhat higher level, Lawrence’s book Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard won the Cóyotl Award for Best Novel. Its sequel, The Moons of Barsk, was published by Tor Books this past August.

Starts 7 p.m. at the KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street (just off 2nd Ave, upstairs.) New York, NY.

(5) FINDING THE BUCKS FOR WAUKEGAN’S BRADBURY MUSEUM. The Chicago Tribune paints a word picture of the proposed exhibits: “Fundraising for Ray Bradbury Experience Museum in Waukegan kicks off as designs take shape”. The organizers are looking for a million dollars to get the museum completely up and running, and are pursuing a mix of grants, large donors and smaller individual donations.

Themed around the Waukegan-born author’s “Martian Chronicles,” the room will allow visitors to explore the concepts of space, time travel and “the limits of human endeavor,” Petroshius said.

An adjustable periscope could use augmented reality to transform the view of Genesee Street beyond the front windows into Mars or another vista.

A sphere in the center of the room could show the surface of Mars, Earth or the planet of the aliens that appear in the story “The Fire Balloons” and glow with blue flames in crystal spheres. Also, using tablets, visitors can explore the stories of the “Martian Chronicles.”

Design work on a room dedicated to “Fahrenheit 451” just began this past week, Petroshius said. The room will examine freedom of expression, censorship and creativity, as well as Bradbury’s experiences being investigated by the FBI during the McCarthy era.

The goal is to appeal to grown-ups who are already fans of Bradbury as well as students who haven’t yet been exposed to his work, said Keith Michalek, a senior designer with Chicago Exhibit Productions Inc., the firm behind the renderings.

(6) WAR GAMES ANNIVERSARY. Slate tells “How Sci-Fi Like WarGames Led to Real Policy During the Reagan Administration”.

This year, John Badham’s WarGames—one of the movies most beloved by hackers, techies, and tech policy wonks (like me!)—celebrates its 35th anniversary. Though it may look a little kitschy now, it was notable for several firsts: It was the first popular film depiction of the now well-known hacker archetype. It raised the specter of an artificial intelligence starting World War III a year before James Cameron’s The Terminator did, and it introduced America to a young Matthew Broderick….

Larry Niven was interviewed for the article.

However, the biggest sci-fi influence on Reagan—arguably the biggest example of sci-fi influence on policy ever—came directly from a group of sci-fi writers and aerospace professionals. The Citizens Advisory Council on National Space Policy was primarily led by two sci-fi writers: Larry Niven, best known for the sci-fi classic Ringworld, hosted a council meeting of dozens of authors and experts at his home over a long weekend shortly after Reagan’s election. That meeting was organized and led by his friend and regular co-author Jerry Pournelle, who died in 2017. As Niven recently told me in a phone interview, the conservative cold warrior Pournelle was “the beginning, the middle, and the end” of the council and its proposals for the future of America’s presence in space. Several of Pournelle’s ideas were distinctly ahead of their time—ideas about mining asteroids for mineral resources, or developing reusable rockets that could take off and land vertically “just as God and [legendary sci-fi writer] Robert Heinlein intended,” as he once put it. (That’s a phrase Sigma Forum founder Arlan Andrews Sr. first used in 1993 in the sci-fi magazine Analog.)* That proposal ultimately led to Vice President Dan Quayle supporting the development of the DC-X test rocket that Elon Musk has credited as a key predecessor to the reusable rocket systems now deployed by SpaceX.

(7) THE LATEST FROM STAN LEE. Mark Ebner, in “Stan Lee Breaks His Silence:  Those I Trusted Betrayed Me” on The Daily Beast, has a lengthy interview with Lee, where he strikes back at some hangers-on he says betrayed him and says he is reconciled with his daughter J.C.

I’m not sure if you’re aware of this or not, but there have been stories out, and at least one upcoming story with allegations of elder abuse on you by your daughter.

STAN: I wish that everyone would be as abusive to me as JC.

J.C. LEE: [Interjecting] He wishes everyone was so abusive.

STAN: She is a wonderful daughter. I like her. We have occasional spats. But I have occasional spats with everyone. I’ll probably have one with you, where I’ll be saying, “I didn’t say that!” But, that’s life.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and JJ.]

  • Born October 9, 1894 – Harlan Thompson, Screenwriter, Lyricist, Stage and Screen Director and Producer. After an early career co-writing scripts and lyrics for Broadway musicals, he turned his talents to Hollywood, creating films and musicals which starred names such as Cary Grant, Bob Hope, Mae West, and W.C. Fields. His genre connection is his credit for the official novelization in 1972 of the movie Silent Running. The Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction notes that “The novel quietly patches some plot holes in the film’s script.”
  • Born October 9, 1900 – Harry Bates, Writer, Editor, and Member of First Fandom. Editor from 1930 to 1933 the new pulp magazines Astounding Stories of Super-Science (which later became Astounding Stories, then Analog) and Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror. His Retro Hugo finalist novelette “Farewell to the Master” was the source of the classic science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still. He wrote a number of other stories under his own name and under various pseudonyms. In 1976 he was inducted into the First Fandom Hall of Fame.
  • Born October 9, 1936 – Brian Blessed, 82, Actor, Writer, and Comedian from England known to genre fans as Prince Vultan in the Hugo-nominated Flash Gordon and as Richard IV in Blackadder (I don’t care what you say, it’s alternate history, I’m calling it genre). He has also appeared in the films Dark Ascension, Shed of the Dead, MacGyver: Lost Treasure of Atlantis, and the Gerry Anderson space opera pilot The Day After Tomorrow, had guest roles on episodes of The Avengers, Space:1999, Doctor Who, and Blake’s 7 – and even contributed a character voice in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace – as well providing that magnificent voice to characters in a long list of animated shows and videogames.
  • Born October 9, 1953 – Tony Shalhoub, 65, Actor of Screen and Stage, known for his role in the Hugo-winning Galaxy Quest and character roles in a number of Hugo-nominated movies including Gattaca, Men In Black, and Addams Family Values, as well as Thirteen Ghosts and the adaptations of Philip K. Dick’s Impostor and Stephen King’s 1408. He has provided voices to main characters in Pixar’s Cars films and The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot movies.
  • Born October 9, 1954 – Scott Bakula, 64, Actor, Singer, and Director with lead roles on the TV series Star Trek: Enterprise (for which he received 3 Saturn nominations) and Quantum Leap (for which he won a Golden Globe), and the movie adaptations of Clive Barker’s Lord of Illusions and Tom Clancy’s NetForce.
  • Born October 9, 1956 – Robert Reed, 62, Writer who has published at least 17 novels and more than 200 short fiction works, many of them in his superb Great Ship universe, his series about a Big Dumb Object and how it gets reused once it enter our galaxy. He was a finalist for the Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1987, and since then has racked up 7 Hugo nominations, in addition to winning Best Novella for A Billion Eves, and an impressive array of Nebula, Campbell, World Fantasy, Tiptree, Sturgeon, Sidewise, Imaginaire, Asimov’s, and Locus Award nominations.
  • Born October 9, 1960 – Dr. Cheryl Ann Brigham, 58, Astrophysicist who is married to Dr. David Brin and credited in many of his science fiction works for providing research and critical assistance.
  • Born October 9, 1961 – Matt Wagner, 57, Writer, Artist, and Illustrator whose greatest work is no doubt his Grendel series, of which I recommend Grendel: Behold the Devil, Grendel: War Child, and the first sequence of Batman/Grendel. He’s done quite a bit of work for Marvel, DC, Dark Horse and other comic houses over the years. In 1991, he illustrated part of the “Season of Mists” story arc in Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman series, and his work on Sandman Mystery Theatre #1-60 was one of his longer runs. Mage #1-15 for Image Comics is exemplary work as well. He has been nominated for an Eisner Award nine times, winning three of those, and he received an Inkpot Award in 1988.
  • Born October 9, 1964 – Jacqueline Carey, 54, Writer of the long-running mildly erotic Kushiel’s Legacy universe which contains three trilogies, the first novel of which, Kushiel’s Dart, won a Locus Award for Best First Novel. Locus in their December 2002 issue did an interview with her about this series called “Jacqueline Carey: Existential BDSM”. Her most recent works are the standalone novels Miranda and Caliban, which is a re-telling of The Tempest, and the epic fantasy Starless.
  • Born October 9, 1964 – Guillermo del Toro, 54, Oscar-winning Writer, Director, and Producer originally from Mexico who has become especially known for his deeply fantastical Hugo-winning film Pan’s Labyrinth and the Hugo finalist The Shape of Water, as well as Pacific Rim, The Hobbit, Crimson Peak, Hellboy and Hellboy II, Blade II, and Mimic.
  • Born October 9, 1968 – Pete Docter, 50, Oscar-winning Screenwriter, Animator, Voice Actor, Director and Producer, of works Toy Story, Monsters, Inc, and Up which were all Hugo finalists, and WALL-E, which won a Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation. At the age of 21, he was one of the first people hired at Disney’s Pixar Studios in 1990, and he was named Chief Creative Officer at Pixar in June this year.
  • Born October 9, 1979 – Brandon Routh, 39, Actor known for the lead role in Superman Returns, as well as the science fiction film 400 Days, and the movie version of the graphic novel series Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. In 2014, he began a recurring role on Arrow, which spun off into a recurring role on The Flash, and a starring role on Legends of Tomorrow.
  • Born October 9, 1980 – Arnold Chon, 38, Actor, Producer, and Stunt Coordinator and Performer who began Tae Kwon Do lessons at the age of 4, earned a Black Belt at the age of 11 and became a NASKA World Karate champion. He has had guest roles and performed stunts in more than a hundred movies, including Ant-Man and the Wasp, Fear the Walking Dead , Doomsday Device, The Last Airbender, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Invasion, and the Hugo-nominated Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
  • Born October 9, 1985 – Amanda Richer, 33, Actor, Writer, and Producer from Canada. As an 18-year-old, she starred in Deafplanet, a Gemini-nominated Canadian children’s show which ran for 4 years, about a boy who accidentally launches himself into space on a museum rocket and becomes stranded, with his robot, on a planet where everyone is deaf and only communicates through sign language. She spent 4 months coaching Sally Hawkins in ASL for the Oscar-winning and Hugo finalist film, The Shape of Water.
  • Born October 9, 1994 – Jodelle Ferland, 24, Saturn-nominated Actor from Canada whose genre credits include roles in Twilight: Eclipse and Breaking Dawn and the SyFy series Dark Matter, as well as many other movies, mostly horror, including They, Tideland, Silent Hill, The Messengers, Seed, Bloodrayne II, Cabin in the Woods, and guest roles in many TV series including Stargate: Atlantis, Supernatural, and Smallville.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

  • In Brewster Rockit, Dr. Mel Practice has a suggestion on how to ensure funding for science (and it involves a certain credential).
  • A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away, and arriving a little late to do any good — Strange Brew.
  • And an embarrassing false alarm at Off the Mark.

(10) FANSPLAINING. Somebody on Twitter decided Paul Cornell didn’t know Who he was talking about. Somebody was wrong.

(11) MORE NYCC COSPLAY. Gothamist has an enormous gallery of cosplayers from New York Comic Con: “Photos: Huge Cosplaying Crowds Pack Javits Center For Comic Con 2018”

Comic Con has grown so huge that it takes over the entire convention hall—some 200,000 people were expected to attend over the four-day run—and on Saturday and Sunday it often felt like every square foot was packed with bizarre creatures, grim warriors, heroic men and women and aliens and animals looking to save or possibly destroy the world. There are no rules of cosplay, of course, except for maybe that no store-bought, factory-made outfits are allowed. Which is why many of the most jaw-dropping costumes took months to create.

(12) GOT WHISKEY? Vinepair reports “Winter Is Here: Johnnie Walker Debuts Nine Game Of Thrones-Themed Scotches”

The Game of Thrones Single Malt Scotch Whisky Collection includes eight blends. Seven are paired with the Houses of Westeros, and one is dedicated to the Night’s Watch:

  • Game of Thrones House Tully – Singleton of Glendullan Select
  • Game of Thrones House Stark – Dalwhinnie Winter’s Frost
  • Game of Thrones House Targaryen – Cardhu Gold Reserve
  • Game of Thrones House Lannister – Lagavulin 9 Year Old
  • Game of Thrones The Night’s Watch – Oban Bay Reserve
  • Game of Thrones House Greyjoy – Talisker Select Reserve
  • Game of Thrones House Baratheon – Royal Lochnagar 12 Year Old
  • Game of Thrones House Tyrell – Clynelish Reserve

Also promised — “Johnnie Walker Teases Game of Thrones-Themed ‘White Walker’ Scotch”.

A Game of Thrones-themed Scotch is on its way from Johnnie Walker. Dubbed “White Walker,” the Scotch whisky is set to debut this fall. You know, that season that comes before winter. In other words, when winter is coming.

(13) BLUE SKY. Branson says: “Virgin Galactic to reach space in ‘weeks not months'”

Entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson has said that Virgin Galactic is “weeks” away from its first trip into space.

“We should be in space within weeks, not months. And then we will be in space with myself in months and not years,” the firm’s founder and chief executive told news website CNBC.

He said the firm would be taking people into space “not too long after” that.

(14) DISABILITY IN DOCTOR WHO. Tom Gerken tells BBC readers: “Doctor Who: How the dyspraxic assistant became my hero”.

In Doctor Who, Ryan becomes angry at his failures as he relentlessly falls off his bicycle. Later in the episode, he attempts to channel his frustration and learn again – yet he still fails.

It cannot be overstated how happy I was at this moment. I didn’t want Ryan to suddenly, magically succeed. I wanted him to keep failing.

Don’t call him inspirational

Dyspraxia doesn’t have an overnight fix. You can’t will yourself to not be disabled anymore. It’s always there, always present, always making things harder than they should be.

I don’t want to see people using the word “inspirational” to describe him. He’s not an inspiration. He’s a normal guy, who happens to have a disability.

(15) BEWARE THE POINTY BITS. The warning from the transformed David Bowman in 2010: Odyssey Two (“All these worlds are yours—except Europa. Attempt no landings there.”) may have taken on a new meaning. A new scientific paper (Nature Geoscience: “Formation of metre-scale bladed roughness on Europa’s surface by ablation of ice”) warns that sharp spikes of ice could form on Europa, potentially making it very difficult to land. The Nature Geoscience article is behind a paywall, but Popular Mechanics stepped up to make the key info accessible (“Menacing Ice Spikes on Europa Could Endanger Future Landers”).

All eyes are on Europa right now, with a dedicated NASA mission headed there in 2022, and the European Space Agency launching a more general Jupiter moon probe that will have a couple encounters with Europa that same year.

But if these orbiters are the first step toward more widespread exploration of the ocean moon, they may reveal a giant complication. Like 50 foot spikes of ice jutting out from the crust of the moon.

…[Dr. Daniel] Hobley [of Cardiff University] and his team looked toward another place with a deep ice shell and liquid water below: Antarctica. Specifically, they looked at the formation of penitentes. These structures begin their formation below, jutting out areas of higher altitude into the ice shell.

In turn, sublimation—the process of turning a solid directly into a gas—leaves behind some more compacted areas, that appear as spikes of ice, some of them taller than a human and sharp as a blade. Because the surface of Europa is ever-changing, geologically speaking, Hobley thinks there may be different kinds of spikes at different latitudes. Some of them could even reach as tall as 50 feet high.

(16) BRAAAAAAINS. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] SingularityHub brings the story of “How BrainNet Enabled 3 People to Directly Transmit Thoughts,” based on a preprint paper on arXiv.org (“BrainNet: A Multi-Person Brain-to-Brain Interface for Direct Collaboration Between Brains”). The usual grain of salt (or 10) should be applied since preprints are not yet peer reviewed.

For a remarkably social species, we’re not particularly effective communicators.

Finding the right words to clearly, efficient transmit our thoughts to another consciousness—even something as simple as driving directions—can be a challenge, especially in-the-moment and under pressure.

What if we could do away with words altogether? What if, rather than relying on an intermediary, we could directly transmit our thoughts through a digital, internet-like space into another mind?

Technology mediated brain-to-brain communication (basically a binary signal) has been demonstrated before. This would appear to be the first time than multiple (two) senders have been connected to a receiver, though. The network was used to play a Tetris-like video game with the senders viewing the full game but the receiver only being able to see part of it. The senders try to signal the receiver to either rotate or not rotate a falling block. The research team claims that the average accuracy is 81.3%, far better than chance. They even injected noise into one sender’s signal (call it “fake news”), but the receiver was able to learn which sender is more reliable “based solely on the information transmitted to their brains.” The researchers consider this the first step toward a social network.

(17) VIDEO OF THE DAY. in “An Object at Rest” on Vimeo, Seth Boyden tells the story of the past few thousand years from the viewpoint of a very sleepy rock!

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

Pixel Scroll 5/26/18 I’ve Got A Troll And He Hasn’t Got A Scroll

(1) NEBULA WEEKEND WITH THE QUEEN. Read “The Merqueen’s Report: Nebula Awards Weekend, 2018” by Cat Rambo.

…At five, the always cool Monica Valentinelli came to my hotel room and helped me begin the transformation into Mer queen. I had tweeted about the dress months before, at which point my friend Kris Dikeman said it needed a seashell tiara, Nick Hyle then volunteered a trident, and by the time of the Nebulas I was a little worried it would turn out to be a costume instead of an outfit and instead it was GLORIOUS and I felt like the belle of the underwater ball….

…Sunday morning was time for my favorite part and another one I will take full credit for implementing, unlike most of the other stuff: the volunteer breakfast. We had close to fifty people show up this time, which was the third so far, and people seemed to happy to get their fancy certificates (suitable for framing!) and get a chance to talk with each other. I told the joke I stole from Joe Haldeman about SFWA, like soylent green, being made of people once again and a good time was had by all….

(2) HEAR ABOUT SFF ARCHITECTURE. Henry Lien will be one of the participants in “Imagined Cities: Innovative Use of Architecture in Film and Literature” in LA on June 2.

Description

The Taiwan Academy in Los Angeles will host a conversation between renowned architect Jimenez Lai and children’s fantasy author Henry Lien entitled Imagined Cities: Innovative Uses of Architecture in Film and Literature at its gallery in Westwood on Saturday, June 2, 2018 from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

The conversation is in connection with the Taiwan Academy’s current exhibition Rooftops & Backyards: Expanding Taipei & L.A., which explores the construction of “architecture on top of architecture”, and multi-purpose use of properties as ways that cities deal with the issue of limited space in densely populated urban areas. The Imagined Cities event explores such themes in fictional depictions of cities.

“From Blade Runner to Howl’s Moving Castle, film and literature have historically embraced innovative uses of architecture,” says Henry Lien, the author of Peasprout Chen, Future Legend of Skate and Sword. “Science fiction and fantasy are particularly effective in expanding notions of beauty in buildings and cities, which becomes relevant as cities experiment with new ways to solve population density issues.”

Jimenez Lai, the founding partner of Los Angeles-based studio Bureau Spectacular and the curator of Rooftops & Backyards: Expanding Taipei & L.A., hopes to explore the universal issue of limited space in densely populated urban areas through the dialogue and the exhibition.

According to Taiwan Academy in Los Angeles, the exhibition demonstrates an interesting comparison between Taipei and Los Angeles, discussing topics surrounding art, architecture, urbanism, and the way of life between the cultures of Taiwan and the United States

Rooftops & Backyards: Expanding Taipei & L.A runs through July 7, 2018, and is free and open to the public, as is Imagined Cities: Innovative Uses of Architecture in Film and Literature. To attend Imagined Cities, please RSVP through https://www.eventbrite.com/e/imagined-cities-innovative-use-of-architecture-in-film-and-literature-tickets-46236212757

(3) DOZOIS HOSPITALIZED. Christopher Casper posted on Facebook that Gardner Dozois is in hospital:

Friends of Gardner – He is currently in Pennsylvania hospital under medical sedation and intubated. While in the hospital for a chronic condition he had a serious and rapid deterioration causing some major systems to fail. He has an amazing team of doctors and the doctors are cautiously optimistic that his condition can be reversed!

I will do my best to keep everyone informed.

I am comforted and Gardner would be humbled by the hundreds of IM I received in the last 24 hrs expressing concern and love for my father. Due to the mere quantity, please forgive me if I am unable to respond personally to them all. Gardner is blessed to be so loved by so many.

Please continue to send good vibes, well wishes, and prayers his way. It is appreciated and thank you.

(4) THEY’LL BE MISSED. Sharon Lee and Steve Miller have moved from the country town of Winslow, Maine to the city of Waterville, Maine, and that’s affected their summer travel plans. They tell how in the latest “Liaden Universe® Infodump No. 120”.

LEE AND MILLER WILL NOT ATTEND WORLDCON 76

We had intended to attend WorldCon; we had budgeted time and money; arranged schedules, and then — in late February, we looked at a house in town (we have long been looking to move into town, closer to services and conveniences), fell in love with the place, made an offer, and — the long and short of it is that, all the money and time we had budgeted for attending WorldCon instead went to moving into the new house.  We’re very sorry that we won’t be at the con with our friends and readers, old and new.  But we’re very happy with our new situation.

On the topic of conventions — this is the first time since 1997, that we haven’t had a convention, or three, on the schedule.  That feels. . .strange, indeed.

Everyone who is going to WorldCon — have fun!

(5) ICE STATION EUROPA. Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie dropped the 2010: Odyssey Two tagline “All these worlds are yours – Except Europa” when sending along this link to Nature’s article “Evidence of a plume on Europa from Galileo magnetic and plasma wave signatures” [PDF file].

The icy surface of Jupiter’s moon, Europa, is thought to lie on top of a global ocean1–4. Signatures in some Hubble Space Telescope images have been associated with putative water plumes rising above Europa’s surface5,6, providing support for the ocean theory. However, all telescopic detections reported were made at the limit of sensitivity of the data5–7, thereby calling for a search for plume signatures in in-situ measurements. Here, we report in-situ evidence of a plume on Europa from the magnetic field and plasma wave observations acquired on Galileo’s closest encounter with the moon….

(6) AT THE CANYONS OF MADNESS? BBC says “Giant canyons discovered in Antarctica”.

Scientists have discovered three vast canyons in one of the last places to be explored on Earth – under the ice at the South Pole.

The deep troughs run for hundreds of kilometres, cutting through tall mountains – none of which are visible at the snowy surface of the continent.

Dr Kate Winter from Northumbria University, UK, and colleagues found the hidden features with radar.

Her team says the canyons play a key role in controlling the flow of ice.

And if Antarctica thins in a warming climate, as scientists suspect it will, then these channels could accelerate mass towards the ocean, further raising sea-levels.

(7) THEY DUCKED. Here’s “How ancestors of living birds survived asteroid strike”

The ancestors of modern birds may have survived the asteroid strike that wiped out the rest of their kin by living on the forest floor.

The new theory, based on studying fossilised plants and ornithological data, helps explain how birds came to dominate the planet.

The asteroid impact 66 million years ago laid waste to the world’s forests.

Ground-dwelling bird ancestors managed to survive, eventually taking to the trees when the flora recovered.

“It seems clear that being a relatively small-bodied bird capable of surviving in a tree-less world would have conferred a major survival advantage in the aftermath of the asteroid strike,” said Dr Daniel Field of the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath.

(8) BEAN OBIT. Moon explorer and Skylab astronaut Alan Bean died May 26. NASA has posted a “Family Release Regarding the Passing of Apollo, Skylab Astronaut Alan Bean”.

Apollo and Skylab astronaut Alan Bean, the fourth human to walk on the moon and an accomplished artist, has died.

Bean, 86, died on Saturday, May 26, at Houston Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas. His death followed his suddenly falling ill while on travel in Fort Wayne, Indiana two weeks before.

“Alan was the strongest and kindest man I ever knew. He was the love of my life and I miss him dearly,” said Leslie Bean, Alan Bean’s wife of 40 years. “A native Texan, Alan died peacefully in Houston surrounded by those who loved him.”

A test pilot in the U.S. Navy, Bean was one of 14 trainees selected by NASA for its third group of astronauts in October 1963. He flew twice into space, first as the lunar module pilot on Apollo 12, the second moon landing mission, in November 1969, and then as commander of the second crewed flight to the United States’ first space station, Skylab, in July 1973….

On Nov. 19, 1969, Bean, together with Apollo 12 commander Charles “Pete” Conrad, landed on the Ocean of Storms and became the fourth human to walk on the moon. During two moonwalks Bean helped deploy several surface experiments and installed the first nuclear-powered generator station on the moon to provide the power source. He and Conrad inspected a robotic Surveyor spacecraft and collected 75 pounds (34 kilograms) of rocks and lunar soil for study back on Earth.

(9) TODAY’S DAY

Of all of the monsters known to man, which one could possibly be considered more iconic than Count Dracula? The quintessential vampire, Count Dracula has inspired tens of films and stories the world over, not to mention the virtual immortality of the character during as a beloved Halloween character. For all of these reasons, it’s undeniable that this icon of horror more than deserves his own little holiday so the world can show its appreciation for his contributions to the worlds of cinema and literature over the centuries. So put on your fangs, and let’s sink out teeth right into this, shall we?

(10) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • May 26, 1961The Twilight Zone aired “Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up?” Jack Elam utters the words, “It’s a real Ray Bradbury.”

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

  • Born May 26, 1912 — Jay Silverheels (“Tonto” on The Lone Ranger TV series)
  • Born May 26, 1913 – Actor Peter Cushing
  • Born May 26, 1951  — Sally Ride, astronaut. First American woman in space

(12) COMICS SECTION.

  • Chip Hitchcock discovered the game of Monopoly roused surprisingly strong feelings in these Something Positive characters.

(13) SARTORIAL SPLENDOR. Indeed, it is a most absolute and excellent hat.

(14) HOLLYWOOD LAWYERS FIND WORK. Sesame Street production company Sesame Workshop (formerly known as Children’s Television Workshop) has sued distributor STX over Melissa McCarthy’s new movie The Happytime Murders.

Quoting The Hollywood Reporter: “’Sesame Street’ Sues STX Over New Melissa McCarthy Puppet Movie”

The makers of Sesame Street are suing the promoter of a new Melissa McCarthy movie, saying it’s abusing the famed puppets’ sterling reputation to advertise the film.

A judge Friday scheduled a hearing next week to consider a request for immediate relief by Sesame Workshop, which sued Thursday in federal court for unspecified damages.
The film, The Happytime Murders, is scheduled for release Aug. 17. McCarthy plays a human detective who teams with a puppet partner to investigate grisly puppet murders.
The lawsuit said the Sesame Street brand will be harmed by a just-released movie trailer featuring “explicit, profane, drug-using, misogynistic, violent, copulating and even ejaculating puppets” along with the tagline “NO SESAME. ALL STREET.”

STX Productions LLC says in a statement it is confident in its legal position.

And Vanity Fair’s article “Sesame Street Sues Over Melissa McCarthy’s R-Rated Puppet Murder Movie” notes —

Apparently, the puppet-based entertainment industry is more divided than we knew. The people behind Sesame Street may not like it, but The Happytime Murders has the imprimatur of Muppet royalty: the director is none other than Jim Henson’s son, Brian Henson, who is also the chairman of the Jim Henson Company, and will feature a number of puppeteers from various Muppet movies.

Variety summarized Sesame Street’s complaint as follows:

But “Sesame Street” creators are incensed at the reference, arguing in the lawsuit that it will confuse audiences and harms the “Sesame Street” brand. The marketing campaign “seeks to capitalize on the reputation and goodwill of ‘Sesame Street,’” the suit says. “While the trailer at issue is almost indescribably crude, ‘Sesame’ is not trying to enjoin defendants’ promotion or distribution of their movie. It is only defendants’ deliberate choice to invoke and commercially misappropriate ‘Sesame’s’ name and goodwill in marketing the movie — and thereby cause consumers to conclude that ‘Sesame’ is somehow associated with the movie — that has infringed on and tarnished the ‘Sesame Street’ mark and goodwill.”

(15) IS REY BELIEVABLE? YouTuber MisAnthro Pony is skeptical about Star Wars’ Rey:

She knows how to swim even though she spent her entire life on a desert planet, she’s as powerful as Kilo Ren despite receiving no training from Luke, she’s as skilled of a swordsman as Obi Wan, and now she can gun the Millennium Falcon like a pro in a matter of minutes.  She apparently seems to know everything about stuff she should know nothing about.  OK, Rey doing things she shouldn’t have been able to do in The Force Awakens was stupid too.  But this is reaching it.  This is really reaching it.

Carl Slaughter defends the presentation of the character:

Oh I don’t know.  Luke blocks multiple gadget beams blindfolded with a light saber the first time he wields it.  After only a few hours of training in the Force, he pinholes the shot that takes out the Death Star.  After only a couple of months of training with Yoda, even Darth Vader is impressed.  Never mind that even the best Jedi are trained all their life from toddlership by a team of instructors in an academy.

 

(16) ON HIS GAME. And Chuck Tingle is skeptical about some gameplaying skeptics….

(17) SPOILERS AHEAD. If you’ve seen Deadpool 2, you may be ready for ScreenRant’s spoiler-filled “Deadpool 2 Pitch Meeting.”

(18) MULTIPLE DUNII. Consequences of Sound reports “Denis Villeneuve confirms his Dune adaptation will be split between two films”.

In what might prove beneficial, given the scope of Dune as a story, Villeneuve recently confirmed that he plans to split the adaptation into two films, still likely to be substantial in length each. While speaking to the Quebec publication La Presse, he mentioned the news while touching on the process of turning Herbert’s 896-page epic into a cohesive feature (or set of them): “Eric Roth wrote the first draft and I worked on my side afterwards… I have not had such fun on the creative side since Incendies! My wish would have been to make both films at the same time, but it will be too expensive. We will do them one at a time.”

(19) DESPITE POPULAR DEMAND. Borys Kit in The Hollywood Reporter story “‘Star Wars’: Boba Fett Movie in the Works With James Mangold”, says that James Mangold and Simon Kinberg, who last worked together on Logan (which Mangold directed and co-wrote and Kinberg produced) have been signed by Disney to develop a Boba Fett movie.

As N.K. Jemisin asked –

(20) KEEPING IT LEGAL. Like everyone else whose internet babblings are read in Europe, Timothy the Talking Cat is updating Cattimothy House security policy.

A message from our Legal and Compliance Department:

Dear User/Subscriber/Stranger/Prisoner

Due to the recent legislative changes in the European Union (a body not recognised by our founder and CEO, Timothy the Talking Cat), we have made several changes to our security policy.

… Our change in policy means that we will no longer:

  • Post lists of your names and misdeeds as a notice in the town square.
  • Maintain in a dark basement a wall with your photographs joined together with lines of red twine, with some faces circled in red marker and others defaced with a huge question mark….

Much more humor follows…

[Thanks to Chip Hitchcock, Carl Slaughter, Lis Carey, Andrew Porter, JJ, John King Tarpinian, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, Soon Lee, Jonathan Cowie, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories, Title credit goes to File 770 contirebiting editor of the day microtherion.]

Water, Water Everywhere

Europa

Europa

The faux documentary Europa Report, already viewable as a download and on demand, gets its theatrical release August 2.

The movie’s big presentation in Comic-Con’s Hall H was reported by The Space Review (“Talk of an icy moon at Vegas for Nerds”). Europa Report is receiving positive word-of-mouth from those impressed with its determination to tell a first contact adventure supported by genuine science. Toward that end, the Comic-Con panel boasted as moderator Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy and in addition to the film’s producer, director, composer, and an actor, featured two JPL scientists who served as advisers to the production.

Producer Ben Browning said that his motivation was actually to produce a movie about what first contact with alien life might actually be like. That led to Europa as the focal point. Because they lacked budget, they decided to film the movie as “found footage,” which meant all the work was on a soundstage using fixed cameras. They built an enclosed spacecraft set in Brooklyn with multiple cameras inside and Cordero directed from outside the set using audio commands for his actors.

The composer of the score  shared his challenges in creating music to match the premise —

Composer Bear McCreary … explained that scoring Europa Report was difficult, and that he had developed several different approaches to the music and had to abandon all of them while trying to figure out what kind of music should accompany what purports to be a documentary of a human space mission. He said that he achieved a conceptual breakthrough when he started to think of himself as the composer hired by the fictional corporation behind the space mission—and its ostensible documentary. How would that company want to score the documentary? The documentary would be their attempt to put a positive spin on a mission that had gone very badly.

Someone else inspired by thoughts of that fictional corporation has even created a Europa Ventures LLC website:

We’ve sent six astronauts from space programs throughout the world on a three year journey to Europa to explore its oceans and confirm these findings.

We’re proud to be at the forefront of the effort to prove the existence of extra-terrestrial life within our solar system, within our lifetimes.

Justin Chang’s review in Variety is largely favorable:

Indeed, there isn’t a whiff of satire to “Europa Report,” whose upbeat vision of global cooperation and sincere belief in the life-changing possibilities of space exploration at times skirt the boundaries of naivete. Still, unapologetically pro-science films are sufficiently rare as to make this one’s earnestness seem all the more refreshing.

Here’s the trailer.

[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster for the story.]