Pixel Scroll 8/15/23 All That Is Scrolled Does Not Pixel

(1) WHEN IS HUGO VOTER PACKET COMING? Joe Yao of the Chengdu Worldcon committee responded online to questions about this year’s Hugo Voter Packet.

Sorry for the delayed release of the Hugo Packet since we are still waiting for the approval from the Administrator.

This year we have about 88 entries including all the works in fiction categories (Novel, Novella, Novelette and Short Story), and as you can see this is a Hugo finalist with the most non-Chinese works and editors/writers than ever before. We encouraged the finalists to submit their works with both Chinese and English as much as they can and some of the non-Chinese finalists are willing to do a Chinese translation version for the Chinese fandom, thus it took longer than we expected to release the packet.

But the good news is that we are almost there, and please stay posted with us on our official announcement.

Thanks for your patience.

The online Hugo voting deadline is October 1, 2023, 17:59 pm China Standard Time / September 30, 2023,23:59 pm Hawaiian Time. 

(2) CHENGDU SCIENCE FICTION MUSEUM VIDEO. [Item by rcade.] There’s video of the Chengdu Science Fiction Museum under construction embedded in a June 2023 post at KevinJamesNg: “Chengdu Science Fiction Museum #June2023| a New International Landmark”. When the video was made is unknown to me.

(3) NEW PILOT. Escape Pod announces “A Change in Crew”. Assistant editor Benjamin C. Kinney is leaving. Kevin Wabaunsee is coming aboard.

As Octavia Butler said, “All that you touch you change. All that you change changes you. The only lasting truth is change.”

Escape Pod is changing as our longtime Assistant Editor, Ben Kinney, leaves the bridge. Ben has been part of the crew since 2016, and he’s seen many of the changes we’ve gone through: the shift from Submittable to Moksha, from volunteer staff to paid staff, from private company to non-profit. Not to mention the co-editors transitions!

Ben has also helped to change Escape Pod for the better through his tireless work. From recruiting and overseeing the associate editors to navigating the galaxy of submissions we receive, Ben’s guidance and vision have kept our ship flying at warp speed. His knowledge of science and of what makes a good story are some of the reasons the podcast has been so successful in recent years. We will miss him.

Taking up Ben’s post is Kevin Wabaunsee. Kevin is a speculative fiction writer and a former newspaper reporter. He is a professional science news editor and the former managing editor for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA). He is a Prairie Band Potawatomi. His short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, PseudoPod, Apex, and the anthology Fighting for the Future. You can find him online at kevinwabaunsee.com. We’re excited to discover what changes Kevin has in store for us in the future….

(4) IT’S HIM. You may not realize it but the name of Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who made news yesterday presiding over the submission of grand jury indictments against Trump and 18 others, came up in a news item here once before.

In 2019 he was the presiding officer of the Georgia state panel that officially suspended Judge Kathryn Schrader after she and three co-defendants were indicted on felony computer trespass charges. We covered it because one of those co-defendants was Dragon Con co-founder Ed Kramer. He worked for a private investigator tracking the activity on a WireShark monitoring system the judge had installed on her computer, under a belief the DA was spying on her. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution article quoted from the panel’s report:

“The Panel further finds that Judge Schrader’s personal decision to allow an outside third party to gain access to the County’s network — with its many subsequent repercussions, including the discovery that Judge Schrader’s actions allegedly enabled a convicted child molester to have access to Court data — also adversely affects the administration of that office, as well as the rights and interests of the public,” wrote Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, the presiding officer of the JQC panel.

(5) EKPEKI AND OMENGA Q&A. “Carriers of Culture: PW Talks with Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki and Joshua Uchenna Omenga” at Publishers Weekly.

In the stories and essays of Between Dystopias: The Road to Afropantheology (CAEZIK SF & Fantasy, Oct.)Ekpeki and Omenga explore the intersections of the fantastic and the spiritual.

What drew you to speculative fiction?

Ekpeki: I was exposed to speculative fiction at a young age through oral storytelling traditions maintained by my grandmother….

See the rest at the link.

(6) THIS IS WHY YOU HAVE TO STAY TIL THE END. “Judge Approves Final Injunction in Publishers, Internet Archive Copyright Case” — but with a twist reports Publishers Weekly. Will it make a difference? The publishers spokesperson doesn’t think so.

After more than three years of litigation, it took judge John G. Koeltl just hours to sign off on the parties’ negotiated consent judgment—but not without a final twist. In a short written opinion made public yesterday, Koeltl sided with the Internet Archive in a final dispute, limiting the scope of the permanent injunction to cover only the plaintiffs’ print books that also have electronic editions available.

In a letter to the court, lawyers for the plaintiff publishers had argued that the injunction should cover all the plaintiffs’ commercially available books, whether the books have digital editions or not. “The law is clear that the right to decide whether or not to publish a book in electronic format belongs to its authors and publishers, not IA,” the publishers’ letter argued. Furthermore, IA’s unauthorized digital editions create “clear potential market harm to the print book market,” the publisher letter claims, because a “straight, verbatim digital copy of the entire work is an obvious competing substitute for the original.”

In their letter to the court, IA attorneys argued that the injunction should be limited to the plaintiffs’ books that have digital editions available because that was what the suit addressed. “Because the parties did not have the opportunity in this case to litigate the degree to which the unavailability of digital library licensing would affect the fair use analysis, it is inappropriate for an injunction in this case, by its breadth, to effectively prejudge the outcome of that question,” IA attorneys argued.

Koeltl sided with the Internet Archive, holding that because the 127 works chosen for the suit were all commercially available works with digital editions, sweeping all the plaintiffs’ books into the final injunction risked being overbroad.

“This action concerned the unauthorized distribution of a select number of works in suit, all of which were ‘available as authorized e-books that may be purchased by retail customers or licensed to libraries,’” Koeltl pointed out in a 4-page order. “That fact was relevant to the court’s conclusion that Internet Archive was liable for copyright infringement. In particular, the court’s fourth-factor analysis emphasized the ‘thriving e-book licensing market for libraries’ and concluded that Internet Archive ‘supplants the publishers’ place in this market’ by ‘bring[ing] to the marketplace a competing substitute for library e-book editions of the works in suit.'”

In an August 15 statement, AAP president and CEO Maria Pallante said Koeltl’s decision would have “a very minimal” impact.

“The overwhelming majority of the tens of thousands of books that plaintiffs make available in print are also commercially available from them as authorized e-books,” Pallante said. “Nor are the plaintiffs precluded from enforcing under the Copyright Act the small percentage of works that may not be covered by the injunction.”…

(7) PERSONS OF INTEREST. Gizmodo learned that “Persons of Interest in Gen Con Card Theft Are Game Designers”.

At Gen Con earlier this month, a pallet of Magic: The Gathering cards worth $300,000 was stolen from the convention center; the product belonged to Pastimes, a gaming shop and MTG vendor. In an update from Indianapolis news station WTHR 13, police have identified two people of interest in the case: Thomas J. Dunbar and Andrew Pearson Giaume.

Dunbar and Pearson Giaume were attending Gen Con 2023, and might have been present to support their own card game, Castle Assault. In the photos taken from security footage, such as the one that appears above, a man that the police department has identified as a person of interest (assumed to be Dunbar) can be seen wearing a dark tee shirt with what looks like Castle Assault artwork and logotype on the back….

(8) DITCH DAY. Akemi C. Brodsky finds “5 Academic Novels That Won’t Make You Want to Go Back to School” for Tor.com.

… The academic setting works as a literary mount just as well, if not better. Students are bound by law or narrative obligation to remain, trapped, day after day, and therefore must face their demons (sometimes literally). Maybe it’s rooting for the underdog that keeps me coming back, maybe it’s just nostalgia. In any case, I am drawn to campus novels. Still, I have no desire to relive my own school days. Fiction seems to emphasize the facts and while some stories highlight first friendships and carefree youth, others remind us that education is laced with external pressures and inner turmoil….

One of those books is —

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

Of all of these novels, this is the book that makes me want to go back to school least of all. Throughout the story, Galaxy “Alex,” Stern is repeatedly traumatized by both the mystical and the mundane (in ways that keep you on the edge of your seat throughout). An undergraduate given a special acceptance to Yale, Alex is an apprentice, learning to keep watch over Yale’s infamous secret societies. Only thing is, the secret societies each practice their own brand of dark magic. What I love about this book is that as much as the narrative relies on mystical elements, Bardugo does not shy away from the evils of our own world. In fact, she carefully wraps them up in her own magic that keeps you speeding through the pages but leaves you with a chilling understanding of the true wickedness among us. She almost makes you believe that Yale’s secret societies really are practicing the occult, or worse.

(9) CUTS AT LUCASFILM ILM. “Lucasfilm’s Industrial Light & Magic to Close VFX and Animation Facility in Singapore Due to ‘Economic Factors Affecting the Industry’”

Disney-owned Lucasfilm/ Industrial Light & Magic is to close its VFX and animation facility in Singapore, where more than 300 people are employed. The company points to changes in the global entertainment industry as a factor behind the decision.

“Over the next several months, ILM will be consolidating its global footprint and winding down its Singapore studio due to economic factors affecting the industry,” Disney said in a statement emailed to Variety.

The Singapore studio was founded in 2004 as Lucasfilm Animation Singapore and began operations in 2006 with work on the animated TV series “Star Wars: The Clone Wars.”

It relocated within the city-state in 2013, setting up shop in the futuristic George Lucas-owned Eclipse Building at Fusionopolis. It was nicknamed the “Sandcrawler Building,” due to its similarity to an iconic “Star Wars” vehicle. The Eclipse Building was sold by Lucas in January 2021 to the Blackstone Group.

(11) AI-ASSISTED BOOK CHALLENGES. “Iowa School District Bans 19 Books Over ‘Depictions of a Sex Act’” reports Rolling Stone, and the assessment was done using AI.

BOOKS ARE BEING pulled from the library shelves of an Iowa school district following new legislation from Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, which purports to protect children from obscene material, The Gazette reports.

The new legislation, Senate File 496, prohibits “instruction related to gender identity and sexual orientation in school districts, charter schools and innovation zone schools in kindergarten through grade six.” It requires that every book available to students be “age appropriate” and free of any “descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act.”

The district used Artificial Intelligence to make is determinations on what books to ban.

The Mason City school board began reviewing library titles last month to ensure compliance with the law. The district said “lists of commonly challenged books were compiled from several sources to create a master list of books that should be reviewed. The books on this master list were filtered for challenges related to sexual content. Each of these texts was reviewed using AI software to determine if it contains a depiction of a sex act. Based on this review, there are 19 texts that will be removed from our 7-12 school library collections and stored in the Administrative Center while we await further guidance or clarity. We also will have teachers review classroom library collections.”…

(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born August 15, 1858 E. Nesbit. She wrote or collaborated on more than sixty books of children’s literature including the Five Children Universe series. She was also a political activist and co-founded the Fabian Society, a socialist organization later affiliated to the Labour Party. (Died 1924.)
  • Born August 15, 1906 William Sloane. Best known for his novel To Walk The Night which Boucher, King and Bloch all highly praise. Indeed, the latter includes it on his list of favorite horror novels. It and the Edge of Running Water were published together as The Rim of Morning in the early Sixties and it was reissued recently with an introduction by King. (Died 1974.)
  • Born August 15, 1933 Bjo Trimble, 90. Her intro to fandom was TASFiC, the 1952 Worldcon. She would be active in LASFS in the late 1950s onward and has been involved in more fanzines than I can comfortably list here. Of course, many of us know her from Trek especially the successful campaign for a third season. She’s responsible for the Star Trek Concordance, an amazing work even by today’s standards. And yes, I read it and loved it. She’s shows up (uncredited) as a crew member in the Recreation Deck scene in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Bjo and her husband John Trimble were the Fan Guests of Honor at the 60th Worldcon, ConJose. She was nominated at Seacon for Best Fanzine for Shangri L’Affaires, and two years later at DisCon 1 for the same under the Best Amateur Magazine category. 
  • Born August 15, 1934 Darrell K. Sweet. Illlustrator who was best-known for providing cover art for genre novel with his first with being Andre Norton’s Shadow Hawk, published by Ace in 1972, in which capacity he was nominated for a Hugo award in 1983. He was Illustrator GoH at 71st Worldcon, LoneStarCon III. He was also a guest of honor at Tuckercon in 2007, at the 2010 World Fantasy Convention in 2010, and LepreCon in 2011. (Died 2011.)
  • Born August 15, 1943 Barbara Bouchet, 80. Yes, I’ve a weakness for performers who’ve shown up on the original Trek. She plays Kelinda in “By Any Other Name”.  She also appeared in Casino Royale as Miss Moneypenny, a role always noting, and is Ava Vestok in Agent for H.A.R.M. which sounds like someone was rather unsuccessfully emulating The Man from U.N.C.L.E. 
  • Born August 15, 1945 Nigel Terry. His first role was John in A Lion in Winter which is at least genre adjacent as its alternate history, with his first genre role being King Arthur in Excalibur. Now there’s a bloody telling of the Arthurian myth.  He’s General Cobb in the Tenth Doctor story, “The Doctor’s Daughter”, and on the Highlander series as Gabriel Piton in the “Eye of the Beholder” episode. He even played Harold Latimer in “The Greek Interpreter” on Sherlock Holmes. (Died 2015.)
  • Born August 15, 1958 Stephen Haffner, 65. Proprietor of Haffner Press which is mainly a mystery and genre reprint endeavor though he’s published such original anthologies as Edmond Hamilton & Leigh Brackett Day, October 16, 2010 and the non-fiction work Thirty-Five Years of the Jack Williamson Lectureship which he did with Patric Caldwell.

(13) COMICS SECTION.

  • David Brin says xkcd makes his point:

(14) WALK A MILE (OR THREE) IN HER SHOES. Take Anne Marble’s advice about “How to Attend the National Book Festival” at Medium. To read all of it requires registration for a free account.

…The National Book Festival is a yearly event run by the Library of Congress. In 2001, it was founded by former First Lady Laura Bush (a librarian) and the 13th Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington. The first one hosted between 25,000 and 30,000 attendees.

Since 2014, with attendance soaring to as many as 200,000 people, the National Book Festival has been held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.

The National Book Festival is huge, busy, and overwhelming. Read up on the event. Learn from what I did right, and most important of all, learn from what I did wrong…

(15) SIC TRANSIT AVENUE VICTOR HUGO. [Item by Daniel Dern.] Avenue Victor Hugo Books, a SF-and-much-more bookstore (which also, for a while, was doing Galileo magazine) used to be one of my regular stops over on Boston’s Newbury Street. Then they relocated to Lee, New Hampshire. (Where I never got to.)

Now, Vince McCaffrey is hanging up his brick’n’mortar shingle, as Vince explains on the store’s web site main page, “A letter to our customers” and in the August 1st, 2023 entry to the site’s blog-ish Annotations.

Bookselling is not what it used to be. Never was, really. For me, it was always what I was willing to make of it. It’s probably that way with most independent booksellers. I’ve known a few and the motivations are as diverse as the individuals themselves.

Maybe an explanation for that is in order. The world is full of unpleasant jobs that have to be done. Bookselling is not one of them—unless it’s made to be that way. Selling books as rectangular objects to be marketed with phony advertising or artificial words such as ‘magisterial,’ or ‘brilliant,’ or even the lowly ‘provocative,’ without regard to the real matters that the authors have spent years of their lives (or too few weeks perhaps) working on, is not a better occupation than selling cars or soap…

FYI, AVH is running a 20% off online sale here.

(16) SUBLIME ACTING. Praise for Jules: Ben Kingsley Rules” at Leonard Maltin’s Movie Crazy.

Ben Kingsley disappears into every character he plays, and the quiet senior citizen he becomes in Jules is no exception. The fact that he has a mop of hair and no trace of a British accent should come as no surprise; this is an actor who has played everyone from Mahatma Gandhi to Salvador Dali, not to mention his wide range of fictional characters in films as diverse as The Wackness and House of Sand and Fog.

In Jules, writer Gavin Steckler and director Marc Turtletaub have given him a part he can play with, an understated senior citizen whose life has fallen into a routine…. 

[Thanks to Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Anne Marble, rcade, Cliff, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]

Pixel Scroll 8/6/23 Pixels Bright Red And Bouncing High As A Scroll Will Allow

(1) PALLET JACKED. “Gen Con Card Heist: $300K Worth of Cards Stolen From Show Floor”Gizmodo has the story.

…Per Indianapolis’ WRTV, the tabletop game convention had over $300,000 worth of cards stolen from the show floor. Dicebreaker reported that the theft occurred on Wednesday, August 2 as vendors were setting up for the event at the Indiana Convention Center. Police in the area claim the thieves used a pallet jack to remove a pallet of cards, which allowed them to blend in since everyone was moving product around the convention floor that day. Dicebreaker further noted that the theft was pulled off with two thieves. At time of writing, it’s unknown which specific cards were stolen, and what company (or companies) they belonged to…

More details and security cam images of the suspects at WRTV’s post “Over $300K worth of gaming cards stolen from Gen Con during setup”.

(2) MISSING FROM MOPOP. Deadline explains why “JK Rowling Airbrushed From Pop Culture Museum’s Harry Potter Display”.

A US museum has removed all trace of Harry Potter creator JK Rowling from its exhibition celebrating the schoolboy wizard and his friends.

The Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle had previously published a blog explaining its decision to airbrush Rowling from its display, due to her “super hateful and divisive” views.

Project manager Chris Moore, who is transgender, wrote in the piece:

“There’s a certain cold, heartless, joy-sucking entity in the world of Harry Potter and, this time, it is not actually a Dementor….”

The Deadline article is sourced in “She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named”, a May 2023 blog post by Chris Moore, MoPOP’s Exhibitions Project Manager.

We would love to go with the internet’s theory that these books were actually written without an author, but this certain person is a bit too vocal with her super hateful and divisive views to be ignored. Yes, we’re talking about J.K. Rowling, and no, we don’t like that we’re giving her more publicity, so that’s the last you’ll see of her name in this post. We’ll just stick with You-Know-Who because they’re close enough in character….

And what is MoPOP doing? If you’ve visited the museum recently, you will have seen artifacts from the Harry Potter films in Fantasy: Worlds of Myth and Magic gallery and her likeness in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. They’re there and trying to dance around it would make me look like a bigger hypocrite. But here’s the deal… it’s complicated. Long conversations are being had and a lot of considerations around what to do with problematic people and content because instances like this are going to keep happening. I’m privileged to get to work with our Curatorial team and see the decision-making processes there, so let me give you a little bit of insight into what these are like after someone outs themself as holding terrible ideologies….

… As for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, this list of inductees has a long history that didn’t start with MoPOP, EMP Museum, or even the Experience Music Project. It was founded in 1996 at the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction and came to MoPOP in 2004. The inductees are specifically chosen by public voting. You-Know-Who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2018 before she became the face of trans-exclusionary radical feminism (TERF). If you keep looking in there, you’ll see other figures with questionable if not downright disturbing pasts. But what does that mean? Are MoPOP’s hands tied on something that is in our building? Again, it’s complicated. For the time being, the Curators decided to remove any of her artifacts from this gallery to reduce her impact. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s what we were able to do in the short-term while determining long-term practices. As we’ve continued to learn and grow, they’re planning on continuing to add context to creators and content through our blog and possibly in-gallery QR codes….

(3) SEVENTIES GENRE ART. [Item by Ben Bird Person.] Jared Pechaček will talk with 70’s Sci-Fi Art curator Adam Rowe about his new book Worlds Beyond Time: Sci-Fi Art of the 1970s. It’ll be streamed live on Zoom at 12 PM EST/3 PM PST on Tuesday, August 8th. Register here.

A visual history of the spaceships, alien landscapes, cryptozoology, and imagined industrial machinery of 1970s paperback sci-fi art

Third Place Books welcomes local author Adam Rowe—senior writer at Tech.co and curator of the popular, multi-platform 70s Sci-Fi Art feed @70sscifi—for a presentation of his latest book, Worlds Beyond Time: Sci-Fi Art of the 1970s. Visit the store to see this stunning art-object for yourself! Rowe will be joined in conversation by local artist and writer Jared Pechaček. 

This event will be broadcast live on Zoom. Registering will provide you with a unique access link in an email. During the event, you can ask questions using the Q&A feature, or chat with fellow attendees. A recording of the event will be made available and emailed to all who register.

This author talk is free! You can sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured book.

(4) PREEMPTIVE BOOK DUMPING. “Bookstores’ donations from teachers rise amid Florida book bans” reports WESH in Orlando.

Some used bookstores are seeing a rush of donations from teachers because those teachers are worried about book bans.

A stack of books sat in front of “Best Used Books” in Longwood on Thursday.

Crystal Bryant says the shelves are filling up more quickly this summer.

“Every author that you could possibly think of,” Bryant said.

Teachers are donating thousands more books than usual because they’re concerned about banned books.

“Those teachers are literally coming back every day, bringing boxes of stuff that they can’t they can’t use in their classrooms, which is sad,” Bryant said.

Bryant’s family has owned the shop for nearly 30 years.

And she says this year, they’ve gotten three times the amount of book dropoffs.

“Just a lot of stuff coming in,” Bryant said.

And we’re just like, we will take it because we don’t discriminate whatsoever.

“You’re seeing a lot of teachers saying, ‘I’m just not going to take the chance and I’m going to get rid of the classroom libraries,'” Andrew Spar said.

Spar is the president of Florida’s largest teachers’ union….

(5) THE ROARING TWENTIES OF BOOK SALES. The Guardian brings word: “‘I can’t stress how much BookTok sells’: teen literary influencers swaying publishers”.

The famous Waterstones in London’s Piccadilly is a modernist/art deco building. It started life as a menswear store and has the feel of that sort of traditional shop that is fast disappearing. But this bookshop, like many others, is enjoying a very modern sales boost from social media.

Groups of teenage girls regularly gather here to buy new books and meet new friends, both discovered on the social media app TikTok. Recommendations by influencers for authors and novels on BookTok – a community of users who are passionate about books and make videos recommending titles – can send sales into the stratosphere.

But while very much an online phenomenon, BookTok is having a material impact on the high street, with TikTok now pushing people to buy their books from bricks-and-mortar booksellers through a partnership with bookshop.org, which allows people to buy online and support independent bookshops at the same time.

Last year, Waterstones Piccadilly hosted a BookTok festival. One sales assistant told the Observer: “I can’t stress how much BookTok sells books. It’s driven huge sales of YA [young adult] and romance books, including titles such as The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller and authors such as Colleen Hoover.

“The demographic is almost exclusively teenage girls, but the power it has is huge. We have a ‘BookTok recommended’ table – and you can tell which books are trending by the speed at which they sell.”…

(6) JETSON LORE. Back with another MeTV quiz – “How well do you know Elroy Jetson?” I only got 8 out of 10. “Only” because I’m convinced I knew the hardest ones, and one of my misses wasn’t really a question about the show itself.

“His boy, Elroy!”

Meet the boy of the future, Elroy Jetson! He’s got all the gadgets you could shake a stick at. But even though he’s living in a sci-fi world, Elroy Jetson is still relatable enough that any kid could see themselves reflected in his astronaut helmet. 

How well do you recall this techno-lad? Was Elroy your favorite, or were you tuning in for Astro? Who here wanted to be Elroy? Let us know what you think in the comments section below!

(7) SNUFF FICTION. The August entry in Future Tense Fiction’s monthly series is “No Regrets” by Carter Scholz, a “short story about geoengineering, billionaire hubris, and ‘altruistic’ narcissism.”

After the regrettable incidents on the island (the old island), the Doctor kept a low profile. Many thought he was dead. There was safety in that once. Now the greater safety is in being known.

What plans he had, back in the day! World domination! If only … but no, this is just the sort of negative spiral his therapist has warned him about. He has remade himself as an altruist, a philanthropist, and he means for his efforts to have maximum impact.

His therapist calls it “harm reduction,” a transition from the “malignant” narcissism of his past to the “altruistic” narcissism of the present. And it’s true he has changed: In times past, even referring to his narcissism might have earned the therapist a trip to the guano workings. But he is no longer that malevolent man. He’s even developed a sense of humor. He collects mad doctor jokes. He has a T-shirt that reads I’M NOT MAD I’M JUST GETTING EVEN….

The response essay, “Why we’re unprepared to confront the threat of extinction” is by Tyler Austin Harper, an “expert in philosophy and existential risk.”

One of Friedrich Nietzsche’s great early essays opens with a strange, science fictional vignette. Set on a melancholy little planet where “clever beasts invented knowing,” the philosopher’s parable recounts the rise, reign, and ultimate extinction of this sapient species, whose career is described as only a “minute” in the history of the universe. “After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die,” Nietzsche writes.

Nietzsche’s grift soon becomes transparent, of course: We are the “clever beasts” in the story, and the point of the parable is to force the reader to imagine our species from a God’s-eye view, to expose “how miserable, how shadowy and transient, how aimless and arbitrary the human intellect looks within nature.” The parable concludes on a nakedly nihilistic note: “When it is all over with the human intellect, nothing will have happened,” Nietzsche observes. “For this intellect has no additional mission which would lead it beyond human life.”

Understandably, most readers focus on the wildly pessimistic penultimate sentence, where Nietzsche announces humanity’s cosmic insignificance. However, it is the last sentence, which expressly explains why nothing will have happened, that holds the key to the parable’s meaning. For Nietzsche, the extinction of the “clever beasts” is meaningless not because their existence is intrinsically worthless, but because they fail to pursue any “mission” that would give their collective existence purpose. They do not set themselves a goal as a species….

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born August 6, 1874 Charles Fort. Writer and researcher who specialized in anomalous phenomena. The term fortean is sometimes used to characterize such phenomena. No, not genre as such, but certainly an influence on many a writer. The Dover publication, The Complete Books of Charles Fort, that collects together The Book of The Damned Lo!Wild Talents and New Lands has a foreword by Damon Knight. When it was originally published as The Books of Charles Fort L. Sprague de Camp reviewed it in Astounding Science-Fiction in the August 1941 issue. (Died 1932.)
  • Born August 6, 1877 John Ulrich Giesy. He was one of the early writers in the Sword and Planet genre, with his Jason Croft series. He collaborated with Junius B. Smith on many of his stories though not these which others would call them scientific romances. He wrote a large number of stories featuring the occult detective Abdul Omar aka Semi-Dual and those were written with Smith. (Died 1947.)
  • Born August 6, 1926 Janet Asimov. Author of some half dozen novels and a fair amount of short fiction on her own, mostly as J.O. Jeppson; co-author with Isaac of the Norby Chronicles. Her Notes for a Memoir: On Isaac Asimov, Life, and Writing, came out thirteen years ago. (Died 2019.)
  • Born August 6, 1934 Piers Anthony, 89. Ok I’ll admit that I’m not at all familiar with him as comic fantasy isn’t my usual go-to reading though I’ve some of the Xanth series a long time ago. I know he’s popular so I’m going to ask y’all which of his novels would be a great introduction to him. Go ahead and tell which novels I should read. 
  • Born August 6, 1956 Ian R. MacLeod, 67. Another author I need to read more of. I’ve read the first two in what’s called the Aether Universe series, The Light Ages and The House of Storms, but there are other novels I’m intrigued by, including Song of Time and The Great Wheel. He’s won some impressive Awards including three Sidewise Awards for The Summer Isles (short and long forms) and for Wake Up and Dream novel. He also won a World Fantasy Award for “The Chop Shop” short story. 
  • Born August 6, 1972 Paolo Bacigalupi, 51. I remember the book group I was part of some years ago having a spirited debate over The Windup Girl (which won a Hugo at Aussiecon 4 and a Nebula as well) over the believability of the central character. I think he did a better job with characters in his next novels, Ship Breaker and The Drowned Cities, but he’s really not about characters anyways. 

(9) COMICS SECTION.

  • Bizarro reveals the post-apocalyptic cat world.
  • Herman shows another law enforcement-vs.-flying saucer encounter with a surprise ending.
  • Brewster Rockit thinks he’s surprising a colleague with his discovery of another way to read text.
  • Tom Gauld on classic novels improved by AI:

(10) THE MAN FROM UNCLE WITH THE GOLDEN GUN IN THE HIGH CASTLE. On the official blog of artist J.J. Lendle, The Poster Project, is an amazing gallery of tributes to current movies and shows on posters done in myriad styles drawn from the decades of Hollywood history. Here’s a very recent example.

(11) FREE READ. Sunday Morning Transport’s editors hope their free August story, Eugenia Triantafyllou‘s “Always Be Returning,” will “transport all our readers to mythical and strikingly heartfelt shores.” “Always Be Returning”. To receive new posts and support our authors’ work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

(12) HE DIDN’T TAKE HIS SHOT. “Star Trek’s new musical episode happened because of Lin-Manuel Miranda” at The Digital Fix.

… It was initially going to be Star Trek Picard that was possibly going to have a musical episode. Executive producer of both Picard and Strange New Worlds Akiva Goldsman says that another exec-producer, Michael Chabon knows Lin-Manuel Miranda. “We were like, ‘Call him! call him!’” but “[Lin-Manuel] didn’t call him back. And that was the end of that musical. But it did seem like such a good idea. As soon as Henry and I got together to make [Strange New Worlds], I kept peppering him with, ‘We should do a musical,’ and Henry, of course, had done musicals before.”…

(13) 10,000 MILES I ROAMED, JUST TO MAKE THIS DOCK MY HOME. Most of these new-species-named-for-something-genre are pointlessly precious, but I admit this one made me laugh: “New Fish Species Named After The Lord of the Rings” at Comicbook.com.

The world of The Lord of the Rings has inspired countless adaptations and fan works — and now, it has officially influenced the world of fish. According to a new study in the Ichthyology & Herpetology journal, scientists have discovered a brand-new species of suckermouth catfish along West Africa’s Niger River, which shares some similarities with the franchise’s fictional Hobbits. In particular, the fish are seen as “diminutive travelers” who were separated a great distance from their fellow catfish, much like the Hobbits are in J.R.R. Tolkien’s stories. As a result, the brown and white fish has now officially been named Chiloglanis frodobagginsi, a reference to protagonist Frodo Baggins… 

(14) VIDEO OF BACK IN THE DAY. Brian Keene joins three more living legends — Ellen Datlow, Linda Addison, and Steve Rasnic Tem — for “Back in the Day (part 2)”.

Brian Keene speaks with panelists about what has changed in publishing and horror fiction over the years… and what hasn’t

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

Pixel Scroll 8/22/22 This Is The Story Of A Scroll, Who Cried Tsundoku And Filed The Whole World

(1) MUSIC OF THE GEARS. Yoon Ha Lee has composed and released a soundtrack for his Machineries of Empire books. Available on Bandcamp: “Banner the Deuce of Gears”.

A “soundtrack” for the Machineries of Empire space opera books! Includes themes for Jedao One, Jedao Two, Cheris, and the bonus song “Burn It Down with Math (feat. Liozh Dia)”!

(2) TWITTER TROLLS WINNING. Jason Sanford is reporting Twitter has banned Harry Turtledove and Patrick Tomlinson, two well-known sff authors. Thread starts here.

Patrick Tomlinson was banned while discussing threats sent to Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki.

Sanford concludes: “@TwitterSafety’s saying if someone threatens to kill you, that’s too bad and you can’t tweet about it at all.”

(3) OP-ED ABOUT GENCON’S MOVING PLANS. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In the Washington Post, Indiana University law professor Timothy William Waters criticizes Gen Con’s decision to move the convention out of Indiana after 2024 because of the state’s restrictive abortion laws, noting that Gen Con is not a political space and “how our politics improved if the elves abandon Indiana to the orcs?” “We wanted to play Bunny Kingdom. Gen Con wanted to talk about abortion”.

… Despite its earlier threats, Gen Con said after the abortion legislation passed that the convention would return at least next year. But if organizers eventually flee, where would they go? The South and Midwest would be mostly off-limits. More likely, the convention would go into deep-blue exile, leaving behind the Indiana Convention Center — the same hall where I attended the 2019 National Rifle Association convention. Booths that sold 20-sided dice this month were selling Glocks then. The NRA is returning to Indianapolis in 2023. How are politics improved if the elves abandon Indiana to the orcs?

Politicizing companies makes sense when there’s a real link to the politics. Organizations naturally take positions on social questions that affect their operations. But activists drive truckloads of preferences through that pretext: In 2013, Indiana University opposed a state constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage on grounds that went far beyond institutional concern. (Selectively: I’ve never seen a university object to laws antithetical to conservative faculty or students.)

Gen Con opposed that amendment, too, and now opposes the abortion law. Apart from saying the legislation would “have a direct impact on our team and our community,” Gen Con doesn’t pretend that’s a business decision — “hurt, angry, and frustrated,” it simply considers the law unjust.

Maybe it is, maybe not. I don’t know if Gen Con’s community agrees on abortion or anything else: The man playing Galaxy Trucker with us didn’t mention his voter registration.

But what about the women who support freedom of choice who might feel alarmed in “The Handmaid’s Tale” Indiana? It is Gen Con’s business to make them feel welcome — as it is the convention’s duty to make every attendee feel welcome, including gamers whose position on abortion Gen Con declared inhumane.

The answer is to make sure no one’s preferences dominate our shared space. Basic game design: Don’t fix the rules so only your side can play. Politicizing everything ignores that lesson….

(4) VERTLIEB INTERVIEW. B-Movie Cast devoted its501st episode to an interview with Steve Vertlieb

“The B-Movie Cast is back from a brief hiatus following our 500th episode! This show is a bit different from most as instead of featuring a film, Mary, Nic, and Mark Mawston are joined by Steve Vertlieb!

Steve is one of America’s leading film archivists and historians who is a true living link between the golden age of Hollywood and today! A cinema journalist and film music educator Steve is a bit different from some film historians. Many of them collect film memorabilia, Steve, collects friendships, memories and stories!

Join us as we talk with Steve about some of his most memorable friends among many of Hollywood’s greatest directors, producers, actors, special effects masters and music composers! Steve is a true wealth of knowledge and we’re very lucky to have him on the show as we talk about everything from Ray Bradbury’s 16mm camera troubles to Ray Harryhausen and more!”

(5) CHICON 8 PRESS REGISTRATION. Isn’t it NICE that journalists can just go onto the Chicon 8 website and just sign up so easily? 

Hello and Greetings from the Chicon 8 Press Office

The Chicon 8 Press Registration Page is now open and ready to receive your request for either a Press Pass or Press Credentials at this link:

https://chicon.org/home/about-worldcon/press-and-media/press-accreditation/

Our Attending Press Policy and Guidelines for Press Passes and Press Credentials can be found here:

The Chicon 8 Press Office will be located close to main registration, along with a bookable interview room.

…We anticipate that holders of Press Passes will be able to collect their badge, giving access to the convention, directly from the Press Office, to avoid the need to queue at main registration. If you are being granted Press Credentials, you will need to collect your badge from main registration first. You can then come to the Press Office at your convenience to check in and pick up your Press Ribbon.

In line with the Press Policy, we have a strong line on consent in general, and for photography in particular, and would appreciate your understanding on this. Attending Press are also asked to familiarize themselves with our Code of Conduct: (https://chicon.org/home/for-members/code-of-conduct/) and our Covid Policy (https://chicon.org/home/for-members/covid-policy/). In accepting our offer of a Press Pass or Press Credentials, you are committing to abide by these policies.

(6) US IN FLUX. Read ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination’s Us In Flux story “Sympathy” by Suyi Davies Okungbowa about the politics and economics of childcare, the contested science of child development, and our hopes and anxieties about the role of robotics in our lives, then see the related Zoom discussion:

Us in Flux is a series of short stories and virtual gatherings that explore how we might reimagine and reorganize our communities in the face of transformative change.

Join us for a conversation with author Suyi Davies Okungbowa and Lance Gharavi, professor of film, dance, and theatre and affiliate faculty at the Center for Human, Artificial Intelligence, and Robot Teaming at Arizona State University. They’ll discuss “Sympathy,” Suyi’s story about robotics, the politics and economics of childcare, and the complexities of early childhood development.

The webinar takes place August 25, 2022 at 11:00 a.m. Pacific. Register at the link: Suyi Davies Okungbowa & Lance Gharavi: “Sympathy”.

(7) TRANSPARENT PROCESS. Interstellar Flight Magazine’s Holly Lyn Walrath discusses their “Acquisitions from the 2021 Short Story Collections Call”, which were chosen with the help of guest editor Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki. They’ll be publishing five of the submissions.

Interstellar Flight Press is pleased to announce that we have finished reviewing all submissions from our 2021 short story collection call. As the managing editor, I would like to thank all the amazing authors who submitted to this call. We were blown away by the quality of work out there. Suffice it to say, we wish there were more presses publishing short story collections, as there are SO MANY great books out there waiting to find a home. It was lovely to see how many wonderful writers are excelling in the field of short SFF fiction.

Great thanks is owed to our guest editor for this call, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, who helped select the final books. Oghenechovwe is a talented writer and editor, and I remain humbled by the amazing writers who have served as guest editors. This position is so important and helps us select books from unique perspectives….

(8) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.  

2005 [By Cat Eldridge.] On this day in the United Kingdom, the oddest thing happened: a film sequel to a failed television series premiered. Serenity, the sequel to the short-lived (but much beloved by a small group of rather fanatical fans) Firefly science fiction series, saw its debut. 

Now I don’t know how well the Firefly series did in the United Kingdom but I do know well how it did in States. By mid-December, it was averaging 4.7 million viewers per episode and was 98th in Nielsen ratings. Ouch. Now admittedly its eleven (of fourteen produced) episodes were shown out of order, so that didn’t help, did it?

Now DVD sales following its cancellation were particularly strong and the Browncoats, its fans, mounted a campaign that surprisingly convinced the film studio to produce Serenity. Odds are better than even that those responsible for that decision aren’t there anymore.

Ok, I’m not going to talk about it on the infinitely small chance that some of you have not seen this film. (Ha!) All I’m interested in here is how it did and that is quite simple. Though y’all loved it and gave it a Hugo at L.A. Con IV, and it also got a Nebula for Best Script, it did not do well at the box office. It cost forty million to produce and made, errr, forty million. 

Browncoats  quickly spread the rumor that a third film was already being planned but Whedon squashed that idea noting that he was contracted to other productions. 

Serenity is a ninety-one percent rating at Rotten Tomatoes, and the series has a near perfect ninety seven percent rating. 

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born August 22, 1907 Oliver McGowan. He played The Caretaker in the “Shore Leave” episode of the original Trek which I just rewatched recently and it holds up much better than I thought it would. McGowan has one-offs on One Step Beyond, Wild Wild West, I Dream of Jeannie, The Twilight Zone and Bewitched. (Died 1971.)
  • Born August 22, 1909 Paul W. Fairman. His story “No Teeth for the Tiger” was published in the February 1950 issue of Amazing Stories. Two years later, he was the founding editor of If, but he edited only four issues. (Anyone know why?) In 1955, he became the editor of Amazing Stories and Fantastic which he would hold onto for three years. There are several films, Target Earth and Invasion of the Saucer Men, based on his stories, plus some TV episodes as well. (Died 1977.)
  • Born August 22, 1920 Ray Bradbury. Seriously where do I start? He wrote some of the most wonderful stories that I’ve ever ever read, genre or not, many of which got turned into quite superb video tales on the Ray Bradbury Theater. As for novels, my absolute favorite will always be Something This Way Wicked Comes. (I’m ambivalent on the film version.) And yes I know it isn’t really a novel but The Illustrated Man I treat as such and I loved the film that came out of it with Rod Steiger in that role. Let’s not forget The Martian Chronicles. (Died 2012.)
  • Born August 22, 1925 Honor Blackman. Best known for the roles of Cathy Gale in The Avengers, Bond girl Pussy Galore in Goldfinger and Hera in Jason and the Argonauts. She was also Professor Lasky in “Terror of the Vervoids” in the Sixth Doctor’s “The Trial of a Time Lord”. (Died 2020.)
  • Born August 22, 1948 Susan Wood. She received three Hugo Awards for Best Fan Writer in 1974, 1977, and 1981, and a Best Fanzine Hugo as coeditor of Energumen in 1973In 1976 she was instrumental in organizing one of the most impactful feminist panels at a con, at MidAmericon. The reaction to it contributed to the founding of WisCon. While teaching courses in SF at UBC, one of her students was William Gibson. “Fragments of a Hologram Rose” which is his first published story was written as an assignment in her SF class. (Died 1980.)
  • Born August 22, 1955 Will Shetterly, 67. Of his novels, I strongly recommend his two Borderland novels, Elsewhere and Nevernever, and Dogland. (Emma’s Finder novel, another Borderland novel is also recommended.) He is married to Emma Bull, they did a trailer for her War for The Oaks novel which is worth seeing. They’re on the chocolate list of course. 
  • Born August 22, 1959 — Mark Williams, 63. He was Arthur Weasley in seven of the Potter films. He also played Brian Williams in the BBC series Doctor Who, appearing with the Eleventh Doctor in “The Power of Three” and “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship”. He was also Olaf Petersen on Red Dwarf. His first genre role was as Fearnot’s Brother in the “Fearnot” episode of Jim Henson’s The Storyteller. 
  • Born August 22, 1963 Tori Amos, 59. One of Gaiman’s favorite musicians, so it’s appropriate that she penned two essays, the afterword to “Death” in Sandman: Book of Dreams) and the Introduction to “Death” in The High Cost of Living. Although created before they ever met, Delirium from The Sandman is based on her. I wonder if she’ll be in the Sandman series?

(10) BRADBURY BIRTHDAY. As John King Tarpinian does on Ray Bradbury’s birthday these days, he went and left a little gift at Bradbury’s grave.

I had a lovely visit today. Gifted Ray a Chicago made coin-changer, which he used on his only real job selling newspapers. Left him a little guardian angel, too. As I have done in the past, I gave the cake to the cemetery staff.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

(12) FROM SLASH TO STEM. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In the Washington Post, Stephanie Merry profiles a romance writer who uses the pseudonym “Ali Hazelwood” and whose day job is as a neuroscientist.  Hazelwood got her start writing slash fiction about Spock (Leonard Nimoy, not Zachary Quinto) and went on to write Kylo Ren/Rey fiction until an agent discovered her and convinced her to write non-genre fiction. Now she writes “STEMinist” novels in which women fall in love with “broody, emotionless science men.” “Ali Hazelwood talks ‘Love Hypothesis,’ ‘Love on the Brain’”.

… And now here she is, less than a year after her debut became a bestseller and days from releasing her second novel, “Love on the Brain.” Both are about female scientists who fall for, well, broody, emotionless science men. Hazelwood also published three novellas this year. (“I should be doing research,” she says, “but I’m doing this other thing.”)

Hazelwood’s novels fall into the growing genre of “STEMinist” fiction that also includes recent feel-good bestsellers “Lessons in Chemistry,” by Bonnie Garmus, and “The Soulmate Equation,” by Christina Lauren. “Love on the Brain” revolves around two scientists, Bee Königswasser and Levi Ward, who areworking on a NASA project to create a helmet that uses transcranial magnetic stimulation to reduce an astronaut’s “attentional blinks,” which, as Bee describes it, are “those little lapses in awareness that are unavoidable when many things happen at once.”…

(13) WHODUNNIT? Here’s a bizarre opportunity. If you’re going to be in the vicinity of the Mark Twain House in Hartford, CT on August 26, you can go on the “GET A CLUE Interactive Murder-Mystery Tour with Sea Tea Improv.” Register here.

Friday, August 26 starting at 7pm: GET A CLUE Interactive Murder-Mystery Tour with Sea Tea Improv

Who killed Pap Finn?? Was it Tom Sawyer in the Billiard Room with the wrench? Queen Guinevere in the Conservatory with rope? The Prince (or was it the Pauper??) in the Library with the revolver. We need YOU to solve this mystery on our hilarious, interactive GET A CLUE TOUR of The Mark Twain House! With Twain’s most famous characters as suspects, portrayed by comedians from Sea Tea Improv, this larger than life version of the classic game is a fun chance for you to play detective.

(14) PHYSICS AND SF IDEAS. The Ad Astra Center for Science Fiction & the Speculative Imagination at the University of Kansas presents “The Higgs Boson In This Particular Universe” with Phil Baringer, Professor Emeritus KU Physics and Astronomy, on Wednesday, August 31 at 6:30 p.m. Central at the Lawrence (KS) Public Library.

What science-fiction ideas does this inspire? Award-winning SF author, educator, and Ad Astra Center director Chris McKitterick leads a Q&A and idea-generation session with Dr. Baringer to help attendees imagine possibilities and launch your own stories.

There will be a recorded livestream of the talk on their YouTube channel. Subscribe now so you don’t miss it.

(15) WHERE DO THEY ALL COME FROM. “Machine learning locates meteorite source on Mars” in Nature.

This unusually multicoloured view of Mars shows the distribution of 90 million impact craters across the planet’s surface, mapped by researchers using a machine-learning algorithm trained on data from previous Mars missions. The colours represent the size, age and density of the craters: for example, blue areas depict the largest and youngest ones.

Scientists made the map while investigating the origin of a meteorite called Black Beauty, which was found in the Sahara Desert in 2011. The lump of rock was thrown out into space when an asteroid struck Mars at least 5 million years ago. The team used the algorithm to narrow down the possibilities, and eventually worked out the exact location of this impact (A. Lagain et al. Nature Commun. 13, 3782; 2022). The researchers suggest that the 10-kilometre-wide crater — named Karratha — could be the focus of a future Mars mission.

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Nancy Sauer, Joey Eschrich, Anne Marble, Daniel Dern, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, Chris Barkley, and Michael Toman for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Soon Lee.]

Pixel Scroll 8/9/22 Files Are A Glorious Pixel Of Scrolls, A Medley Of Fannish-Euphoria

(1) THE SAGA OF SF ON TV. “David Gerrold Talks Television: A Conversation with Peter Wood” at “From the Earth to the Stars”, the Asimov’s author and editor blog. Wood expects one story; Gerrold generously gives him a vast number of them, about Logan’s Run, Star Trek, Land of the Lost, and more.

Peter Wood:  So, you said you have a story for me (about “Man Out of Time,” the episode you wrote for the 1977 television serial Logan’s Run)?

David Gerrold:  It’s a couple stories.  The producer on the show was Len Katzman, and the executive producers, who I never met, were Goff and Roberts.  Now, I enjoyed working with Len Katzman.  He later went on to do Dallas, and he was a very, very nice man, and a very good producer.  And what I suggested was not just a time travel story but that we actually find sanctuary, and that this would give the show the opportunity to—once we had found that sanctuary was not real—stop searching for sanctuary and start being about rebuilding the connection between all the human settlements all over…. 

(2) Q&A ABOUT S&S. [Item by Cora Buhlert.] Two interviews with Sword and Soul authors:

What are the most prominent influences on your writing? How do you incorporate those influences without being derivative?

I would say the two authors that influenced my writing style are James Baldwin and Frank Herbert. From James Baldwin I learned to be a precise and descriptive writer; from Frank Herbert I learned to be a meticulous world builder. I think I keep from being derivative by having my own concept of what I want my writing to be, and applying the lessons from these authors are just a part of that.

Milton J. Davis is a great guy. We were on a panel together at DisCon.

Oliver has a great time talking with Kirk A. Johnson about his new sword & soul story collection, The Obanaax and Other Tales of Heroes and Horrors.

We cover the afternoon movies which helped form Kirk’s idea of what heroes should be, his own first collision with Conan and Frazetta, why martial arts films were such a big thing in the black community back in the day, is Robin Hood S&S?, Fafhrd & Grey Mouser in The Wire…. [etc.]

(3) AIMS. Max Florschutz has a very interesting and nuanced article about an aid in devising characters:  “Being a Better Writer: Crafting Good Goals For Protagonists and Antagonists Alike” at Unusual Things.

…Indy’s goal in the film is twofold: Acquire the ark, and/or make sure the Nazi’s don’t get their hands on it. However, this goal isn’t his. Not originally. He only comes upon this goal because someone else brings it to him.

This is a goal that evolves around a character. Indy himself isn’t the one who places himself on the path. He chooses to accept it, yes. But he only is exposed to it because other characters have the goal and bring him onboard.

Some goals are like this. Goals that grow and shape not because our character made a choice, but because other characters have impacted them, and our character reacts accordingly, adjusting aims to try and meet the original goal under new circumstances.

But what about goals that evolve through a character? Well, let’s look at another aspect of Indiana established in Raiders. The viewer is shown that one of Indy‘s goals (not the people who hire him) is to preserve and save historical artifacts. Thus, there comes a point in the film where the goal he has been given from an external source—do not let the Nazi’s acquire the ark—comes into conflict with his own personal goal of preserving relics so they can be kept safe. Indy has to choose which goal to act on, to blow up the Ark of the Covenant with a rocket launcher to keep it out of Nazi hands … or to let them have it and preserve the relic, even if in the hands of evil. One of the antagonists, and Indy’s mirror darkly, even calls him out on this exact conundrum, and Indy chooses to “evolve” the goal he was given of “get the ark/don’t let the nazis have the ark” by cutting the latter half of the goal.

That might have read a little clunky, but I hope you get the idea. Some goals are external, pushed on the character by outside forces, while other goals are internal. Goals can evolve and change around a character as caused by the actions of others, or they can change and evolve through our character making choices or coming to realizations….

(4) LATINO REPRESENTATION DECLINES. “’Batgirl’ Cancellation, James Franco Show Hollywood’s Latino Erasure” reports Variety’s Clayton Davis.

It wasn’t a great week for Latinos in Hollywood, but I’m sure many of you knew that already.

Between Warner Bros. axing the release of “Batgirl” starring Leslie Grace, HBO Max canceling the coming-of-age comedy TV series “The Gordita Chronicles” and James Franco being cast as Cuban dictator Fidel Castro in an upcoming feature, Latinos are being mercilessly discarded and overlooked in the entertainment business. Worse yet, not many seem to care.

… The Annenberg Inclusion Initiative released its findings on the absence of Hispanic and Latino representation in the film industry in September 2021. Its findings were even worse than many suspected. An examination of the 1,300 top-grossing films released in the U.S. in the last 13 years found only six Afro-Latino lead or co-leads in the time period. Even more so, less than 5% of more than 52,000 characters examined had speaking parts.

Wouldn’t that have been a wake-up call? Obviously not….

(5) THERE’S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS. Also from Variety, the other cancelled Warner Bros. movie Scoob: Holiday Haunt had basically already rented the studio and the orchestra to record the score, when the cancellation news hit: “’Scoob!: Holiday Haunt’ Producer Records Score, Despite Cancellation”.

…Although recording a score for a film that will not be released isn’t exactly an ordinary practice, axing a film after the bulk of its production has already been completed — which was the case around “Scoob!: Holiday Haunt,” according to reports — isn’t ordinary either….

And this happened too: “Kevin Smith Bizarro Nicolas Cage Superman Canceled At HBO Max” according to Cosmic Book News.

Wow. This is a tough one, as Kevin Smith reveals his Strange Adventures episode featuring Bizarro Superman has been canceled at HBO Max, which of course follows Warner Bros. Discovery and CEO David Zaslav canceling Batgirl and Wonder Twins, among others.

What also really hurts is that Smith reveals he wanted Nicolas Cage to play the Bizarro Superman (Cage nearly played Superman in Smith’s defunct Superman Lives years ago), and Smith further reveals the budget of the episodes would have been really high – around $20million an episode – and to put that into perspective, The CW DC shows are only around $3-5 million, so Strange Adventures would have been something special….

(6) WHEN GRAVITY BAILS. “Megastructures ring the Earth in trailer for sci-fi film ‘Orbital’”. Space.com introduces the trailer:

…Hashem Al-Ghaili is a Yemeni molecular biotechnologist, science communicator, director and producer whose YouTube videos on scientific breakthroughs have been watched by millions. 

Now he’s written, directed, and created the special effects for “Orbital,” an upcoming indie sci-fi film about megastructures and orbital rings with incredible visual imagery that rival many mid-budget Hollywood productions. The film’s impressive trailer has already been viewed by 1.2 million fans on YouTube and the ambitious movie is expected to be released sometime in late 2022….

(7) “AND THEY’VE GONE WRONG!” The only remaining UK bookstore chain Waterstones has massive restocking issues after a warehouse computer system upgrade went wrong. The Guardian has details: “Waterstones hit by ‘nightmare’ stock issues after warehouse system upgrade”.

…The retailer, which has more than 300 stores across the UK, upgraded to a new system called Blue Yonder several weeks ago, but it has been struggling to get stock out to shops and fulfil customer orders.

A spokesperson from the chain said: “Waterstones last month upgraded the system that manages stock distribution from our warehouse to Blue Yonder technology. This is now operational, with stock flowing to our bookshops and customers. Over the implementation period, however, a backlog of orders was created which we are now processing as quickly as we can.”

… Sam Missingham, publishing commentator and founder of The Empowered Author book marketing service raised the issue on Twitter and was inundated with replies from frustrated staff, authors and customers.

One Waterstones bookseller wrote, “We haven’t had deliveries for over a month because there’s an overhaul of our system, but something has gone wrong and we are having to order emergency stock directly from the publishers. Glasgow ran out of books.”…

(8) VICTORIA AND ALBERT AND FRANKENSTEIN. “It’s a monster mash! How the V&A is facing a transatlantic battle over a 7ft Frankenstein figure” – in the Guardian.

…Is it natural history, though? Was the monster real? Not the point.

What is the point? That the NHM was given the monster, and the costume, by Universal Studios in 1935. It in turn lent it to the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, where it was reported as being destroyed in 1967. So the NHM was a bit surprised when it showed up in the V&A in London.

It wants it back? Too right. It is demanding repatriation to California, “where it belongs”.

Basically the Elgin marbles, then, only more gothic. See also the Benin bronzes…. 

(9) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.  

1953 [By Cat Eldridge.] Ok I’m not saying it was a very serious genre film, but Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde did premiere sixty-nine years but as you’ll see in a bit it actually was liked quite a bit by the critics at the time. 

It was directed by Charles Lamont who had done several Abbott and Costello comedies already including Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man. The screenplay was by Lee Leob who would later write Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (yes, there’s a theme here) andJohn Grant who also wrote Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man, along with Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and, I kid you not, Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff. They were all very popular.

Though it had a “PG” rating here, the censors in Britain weren’t happy with it. It received an “X” rating it there because of the scenes with Mr. Hyde. And that was not Karloff as Hyde though he credited as such in the film. Once the transformation was complete, Hyde was played by stuntman Eddie Parker, who was uncredited in the film. 

An opening night review by the Los Angeles Times was most complimentary: “Robert Louis Stevenson is turning over in his grave, it’s probably only so he can get in a more comfortable position for a belly laugh.” And likewise Film Daily liked it when they saw it at a preview: “If the audience reaction at a sneak preview can be taken as a criterion, then Universal-International has another big treat for the Abbott and Costello fans.” Interestingly reviewers linked to Rotten Tomatoes really don’t like it at all.

Audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes give it a rather decent sixty-two percent rating. 

Please do not offer up links to YouTube copies of it as it still under copyright and we will delete your comment. The Movie Channel, a unit of Paramount, owns the copyright. It actually runs there from time as do all of the Abbott and Costello comedies. 

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born August 9, 1914 Tove Jansson. Swedish speaking Finnish artist wrote the Moomin books for children, starting in 1945 with Småtrollen och den stora översvämninge (The Moomins and the Great Flood). Over the next decades, there would be a total of nineteen books. Currently Moominvalley, the animated series, is playing on Netflix. And Terry Pratchett in “My family and other Moomins: Rhianna Pratchett on her father’s love for Tove Jansson” credited her for him becoming a fiction writer. (Died 2001.)
  • Born August 9, 1927 Daniel Keyes. Flowers for Algernon was a novel that I read in my teens. Two of the teachers decided that SF was to be the assigned texts for that school year and that was one of them. I don’t now remember if I liked it or not (A Clockwork Orange was another text they assigned along with something by Heinlein that I don’t remember) nor have I ever seen Charly. I see he has three other genre novels, none that I’ve heard of. (Died 2014.)
  • Born August 9, 1930 D.G. Compton, 92. SWFA Author Emeritus whose The Steel Crocodile was nominated for the Nebula Award. The Unsleeping EyeThe Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe in the U.K., was filmed as Death Watch which the Audience Reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes actually like giving it a 60% rating. His two Alec Jordan near future police stories are superb. 
  • Born August 9, 1944 Sam Elliott, 78. Weirdly the source for this Birthday thought he’d only been in one genre role, General Thaddeus E. “Thunderbolt” Ross in the 2003 Hulk film, but he’s got many other roles as well. His first was Lock in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. He’s the Phantom Rider in Ghost Rider and Lee Scoresby in The Golden Compass. His latest genre is as the lead in The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot as Calvin Barr. Not even vaguely genre adjacent, but he’s in the exemplary Tombstone as Virgil Earp.
  • Born August 9, 1947 John Varley, 75. One of those authors that I’ve been meaning to read more of. I read both The Ophiuchi Hotline and Titan, the first novels respectively in his Eight Worlds and the Gaea Trilogy series, but didn’t go further. (See books, too many to read.) If you’ve read beyond the first novels, how are they as series? Worth pursuing now? He was nominated for quite a few Hugos with wins coming at Heicon ‘70 for “The Persistence of Vision” novella, Chicon IV for “The Pusher” short story and at Aussiecon Two for “Press Enter []” short story. 
  • Born August 9, 1949 Jonathan Kellerman, 73. Author of two novels so far in the Jacob Lev series (co-authored with Jesse Kellerman), The Golem of Hollywood and The Golem of Paris. I’ve read the first — it was quite excellent with superb characters and an original premise. Not for the squeamish mind you.
  • Born August 9, 1956 Adam Nimoy, 66. Son of Leonard Nimoy and the actress Sandra Zober who pre-deceased Nimoy. His wife is Terry Farrell.  He’s directed episodes of Babylon 5Next GenerationThe Outer Limits (he directed his father in the “I, Robot” episode), and Sliders. He’s responsible for For the Love of Spock, a documentary about his father. 
  • Born August 9, 1968 Gillian Anderson, 54. The ever skeptical, well most of the time, Special Agent Dana Scully on X-Files. Played Media on American Gods. And she played Kate Flynn in Robot Overlords. Did you know she’s co-authored a X-File-ish trilogy, The EarthEnd Saga, with Jeff Rovin? 

(11) COMICS SECTION.

  • Poorly Drawn Lines brings us a dire warning!

(12) PULP VISIONS. William Lampkin shares photos from “PulpFest 50: Thursday” at Yellowed Perils. One of them includes Rick Lai, who later won this year’s Munsey Award. “Rick Lai, Win Scott Eckert, and Frank Schildiner discuss Philip José Farmer’s Lord Grandrith, Doc Caliban, and Lovecraft…”

 (13) THE MOST TOYS. Geek. Dad. Life. reports about Power-Con, a toy collector convention in Columbus, Ohio: 

(14) GENCON BOUND. [Item by Cora Buhlert.] The Rogues in the House podcast shares some interviews from GenCon: “The Rogues on Hallowed Ground”. Includes a Baen editor pimping Larry Correia’s books — Baen is apparently moving into sword and sorcery.

Rogues, old and new, meet at the mecca known as GenCon. In this very special episode, Deane and Matt are joined by Howard Andrew Jones, Seth Lindberg, Steve Diamond, Sean CW Korsgaard, Jason Ray Carney, and (shudders) The Magician’s Skull himself. Topics include sword and sorcery (of course) as well as our “top picks” from GenCon.

(15) CIRCLE UP! Space Cowboy Books invites fans to their online Flash SF Night reading with Avra Margariti, Mary Soon Lee, Charlie Jane Anders on Tuesday, August 23 at 6:00 p.m. Pacific. Register for free at the link.

Join us online for an evening of short science fiction readings with authors Avra Margariti, Mary Soon Lee, and Charlie Jane Anders. Flash Science Fiction Nights run 30 minutes or less, and are a fun and great way to learn about new authors from around the world.

(16) BE CAREFUL OUT THERE. Camestros Felapton reviews the new Predator prequel. “Review: Prey (Hulu/Disney+)”.

…However, it is the strange weather phenomenon and her hunter’s intuition that leads her to conclude that there is something out there worse than a mountain lion or a bear. Of course, we know what it is, a strange and remorseless killing machine known in popular culture as “European colonialism”, also a weird alien dude with laser sights, heat vision and invisibility.

Naru, her fellow hunters and her dog (who keeps stealing the show) have to contend with the twin existential threats in what becomes a protracted conflict of attrition….

(17) ALLS WELL THAT ENDS WELLS. Arturo Serrano admires the author’s take on a story originated by H. G. Wells: “Review: The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia” at Nerds of a Feather.

Is this novel a retelling, a remake, a reimagining, a reboot, a requel? I’d call it a reclaiming.

The original book that inspired it, The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells, bears several hallmarks typical of Victorian adventure fiction: a properly educated Englishman ventures into the scary jungle and is quickly forced to dodge the infighting of the locals before he makes an eager return to modern civilization. In a new version of the story, The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, author Silvia Moreno-Garcia takes that premise and turns it on its head: no, when the white man sets foot in the tropic, the dangerous thing about that interaction is not the tropic; no, the locals are not aggressive by nature, but they won’t take kindly to attempts at enslavement; and no, home sweet home is not only to be found in the drawing rooms of Europe….

(18) A SUPERIOR MIXTURE. Paul Weimer weighs in about a first-contact novel with “Microreview: A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys” for Nerds of a Feather.

A Half-Built Garden distinguishes itself as a first contact novel unlike any either by virtue of its temporal and political setting. First contact stories that take place in the modern day are a dime a dozen and a cliche even in movies. First contact stories set in the past are a minor note in the genre of SF, but much more common  is future first contact, but with humans as an interplanetary if not an interstellar species. 

What Emrys does here is have first contact on Earth, in a late 21st Century Earth that is trying to recover from the mess of earlier decades and find a sustainably way forward. While there is a boomlet of novels that are set in this low-to-medium term future and exploring the many ways our world might go forward, good, bad, mixed, or bad, mixing in a first contact story is adding peanut butter to that chocolate and enhances both….

(19) CLASSIC PROPS.  In this clip from 2016, Adam Savage visits Peter Jackson’s collection of movie props, including the eye from the HAL 9000 computer from 2001.

(20) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In “Honest Game Trailers:  Multiversus,” Fandom Games says this celebrity death match game is only interesting for people who would wonder what powers Shaggy from Scooby-Doo could have if he chowed down on dog steroids.  But the narrator says he hopes Universal would do its own version so he could see Vin Diesel fight Shrek.  “I could watch this all day!” the narrator says.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, Chris Barkley, Lise Andreasen, Cora Buhlert, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, and JJ for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]

2022 ENnie Awards

The 2022 ENnie Awards were presented on August 5 at GenCon.

BEST ADVENTURE

Gold

  • Uncaged: Goddesses, Unseelie Studios
      Authors: Amber Litke, Anthony Beal, Arnout Brokking, Cat Evans, D.E. Chaudron, Dylan Ramsey, Garrett Colón, Grady Wang, Isla Lader, Jackie Yang, Jesse Heinig, Jessica Marcrum, Karren Loomer, Laurie O’Connel, Lee Morgan, Margaret Mae, Matthew Campbell, Michael Reid, Nina Nicole, Sadie Lowry, Steffie de Vaan, Theo Thourson

Silver

BEST AID/ACCESSORY – DIGITAL

Gold

Silver

BEST AID/ACCESSORY – NON – DIGITAL

Gold

Silver

BEST ART, COVER

Gold

  • Wanderhome, Possum Creek Games
      Artist: Ruby Lavin and Sylvia Bi

Silver

BEST ART, INTERIOR

Gold

  • The One Ring RPG, Second Edition, Free League Publishing
      Artists: Martin Grip, Alvaro Tapia, Jan Pospíšil, Niklas Brandt, Henrik Rosenborg, Antonio De Luca, Federica Costantini, Luca Sotgiu, Daniele Sorrentino, Melissa Spandri, Giuditta Betti

Silver

  • Wanderhome, Possum Creek Games
      Artist: Ruby Lavin, Letty Wilson, Jennie Lindberg, Conner Fawcett, Danny Kyobe, Jo Thierolf, L Henderson, Dominique Ramsey, Nadhir Nor, Geneva Bowers, Cam Adjodha, Juho Choi, Núria Tamarit, Kimberli Johnson, and Sabii Borno

BEST CARTOGRAPHY

Gold

Silver

BEST ELECTRONIC BOOK

Gold

Silver

  • One Night Strahd, Hedra Group
      Authors: Jake Kurzer, Adam Seats, Evangeline Gallagher

BEST FAMILY GAME / PRODUCT

Gold

  • Wanderhome, Possum Creek Games
      Author: Jay Dragon

Silver

BEST FREE GAME / PRODUCT

Gold

  • The 2021 Level 1 Anthology, 9th Level Games
      Authors: Adam Bell, Whitney Delaglio, Michael Faulk, Zane Graves, Josh Hittie, Tim Hutchings, N. Maxwell Lander, Mara Li, Tim McCracken, Nat Mesnard, Dawn Metcalf, RK Payne, Lysa Penrose, Helena Real, Jack Rosetree, Starshine Scribbles, Joel Salda, Alexi Sargeant, Scott Uhls, and Max V.

Silver

BEST GAME

Gold

Silver

  • Root: The RPG, Magpie Games
      Authors: Brendan Conway, Mark Diaz Truman, Sarah Doom, Marissa Kelly, Miguel Ángel Espinoza

BEST LAYOUT AND DESIGN

Gold

Silver

BEST MONSTER/ADVERSARY

Gold

Silver

BEST ONLINE CONTENT

Gold

Silver

BEST ORGANIZED PLAY

Gold

Silver

BEST PODCAST

Gold

Silver

BEST PRODUCTION VALUES

Gold

Silver

BEST RPG RELATED PRODUCT

Gold

Silver

  • KULT: Labyrinths & Secret Chambers, Helmgast
      Authors: Catherine Evans, Kristina Horner, Andreas Ruu Viklund, Alex Obernigg, Jacqueline Bryk, Fredik Toreblad, Mattias Närvä, Petter Nallo, Terje Nordin

BEST RULES

Gold

Silver

  • Haunted West, Darker Hue Studios
      Authors: Chris Spivey, Angel Adeyoha, Evan Perlman, Daniel Kwan, Alexandra Jackson, Adam Alexander, Alex Mayo, Neall Raemonn Price, Misha Bushyager, Cameron Hays, Rose Bailey, Kenneth Hite, Cori Redford, Mark Morrison, Dennis Detwiller

BEST SETTING

Gold

Silver

  • Jiangshi: Blood in the Banquet Hall, Wet Ink Games, Game and a Curry
      Authors: Banana Chan, Sen-Foong Lim, Elton Lau, James Mendez Hodes, Aaron Catano-Saez, Ross Cheung, Kienna Shaw, Daniel Kwan, Jonaya Kemper, Sammi Lai

BEST SUPPLEMENT

Gold

Silver

  • Root: The RPG: Travelers and Outsiders, Magpie Games
      Authors: Brendan Conway, Sarah Doom, Marissa Kelly, Danielle Lauzon, Simon Moody, Sarah “Sam” Saltiel, Mark Diaz Truman, Camdon Wright, Miguel Ángel Espinoza

BEST WRITING

Gold

  • Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Core Rulebook , Modiphius Entertainment
      Authors: Richard August, Simon Berman, Banana Chan, Nathan Dowdell, Jason Durall, Khaldoun Khelil, Helena Nash, Andrew Peregrine, Hilary Sklar, Chris Spivey, Mari Tokuda, Rachel J Wilkinson, Ben Woerner

Silver

FAN FAVORITE PUBLISHER

  • Darrington Press

PRODUCT OF THE YEAR

Gold

Silver

Pixel Scroll 9/1/21 Pixel At The Well Of Scrolls

(1) LIADEN UNIVERSE BULLETIN. Sharon Lee and Steve Miller report from the wilds of Maine on what’s upcoming.

  • Their fifth Liaden Universe Collection, Liaden Universe Constellation V, will be published February 1, 2022.
  • A mass market 30th anniversary reprint of Local Custom, a Liaden Universe® novel by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, is coming  November 30, 2021. 
  • A Sharon Lee and Steve Miller Liaden holiday story is slated for mid-November at Baen.com, title and exact release date TBD.
  • Sooner than that: The mass-market version of Trader’s Leap by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller will be released September 28, 2021 — it is currently available in hardback and ebook. 
  • Sharon Lee and Steve Miller are the Guests of Honor at Albacon 2021 in September — held over from last year. This year it’ll be a virtual con held September 17-18.
  • Their chapbook Bad Actors, was published July 31, 2021 from the authors’ Pinbeam Books imprint and is widely available in ebook and paper. That’s their 33rd “Adventures in the Liaden Universe” chapbook. 
  • Also, on July 26, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller turned in Fair Trade, a Liaden Universe novel (#24), which is due to be published next year by Baen. The follow-up novel is under contract and started, due to be turned in next year. Two more Liaden novels are under contract thereafter.

(2) ADAPT & IMPROVE. Charlie Jane Anders’ newsletter discusses “Everything I Learned From Working on Season One of Y: The Last Man”.

Working on season one of Y: The Last Man was one of the coolest experiences of my life. I got to be in a writer’s room with some of the smartest minds in the biz, and learned a ton about story structure  — and how to think on your feet when your episode has to change completely for the ninth time, because we rethought the endgame of the season. But I also got a crash course in how to adapt and update a beloved classic. 

In Y: The Last Man, a mysterious event kills every mammal with a Y chromosome, except for one dude named Yorick Brown, and his pet monkey Ampersand. This is the setup for an epic journey across a shattered United States with the mysterious Agent 355 and the brilliant scientist Dr. Allison Mann. It’s also a vehicle for talking about what a world without patriarchy would look like, and how the survivors would rebuild, and expand to fill the spaces left by cis men. I love the comic’s playful approach to genre and the madcap verve with which it keeps reinventing itself, and I’m here for the “found family” aspect with the central trio. This is the comic that made me a fan of both writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Pia Guerra.

There’s just one problem: the comic largely ignores the existence of trans people (and when it does mention us, the treatment is much worse than I had remembered.) Like many other classics, Y: The Last Man reflects the time when it was created — and when we adapt the things we love, we also have an obligation to update and improve them, especially where they have the potential to do harm to a marginalized community here and now….

(3) MOVING RIGHT ALONG. In conjunction with the new Amazon Prime TV show, Orbit UK is releasing the entire set of The Wheel of Time books in paperback with new covers, all of them showcased in a nifty animated GIF (which I’ll link to rather than embed so the strobe effect won’t drive us all to distraction.)

There’s also an Instagram video version with musical accompaniment. Design by Duncan Spilling. The books go on sale September 16 in the UK, just in time for folks to read The Eye of the World before the TV show is released in November

(4) A FOCUS ON NATURE. The South Pasadena (CA) Public Library is calling for patrons to Vote for One City One Story. This year’s theme is “Navigating Nature.” Two of the five titles proposed by the staff are genre. A video about the program is here. Voting ends at midnight on September 10, 2021. The winning title will be announced on September 27, 2021.

  • Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake
  • The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
  • Dune by Frank Herbert
  • Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
  • Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

(5) NO SECOND FIFTH. Chapter 61 of Camestros Felapton’s Debarkle is called “The Sad Demise of the SP5” but I remember laughing more than crying. Because when Declan Finn tried to commandeer the Sad Puppy steering wheel, Sarah Hoyt and Amanda Green smacked him with a rolled-up internet.

…While not mentioning Declan Finn by name, the post title identified his post as the issue. By using the name “Sad Puppies” Finn had apparently crossed a line, even though his open campaigning during Sad Puppies 4 had not visibly caused offence.

Green was clear though. Sad Puppies 5 was coming soon….

Green was also clear that she would be helping Hoyt with SP5 and also be taking over the reins (leads?) for SP6.

Facing a sudden and unexpected backlash to his list Declan Finn came to the only possible conclusion he could make. The negative reaction he was receiving must be coming from the comment section of the popular fanzine File 770!… 

(6) AN OUNCE OF PREVENTION. R. Talsorian Games is bowing out of Gen Con, which is happening September 16-19: “RTG Exiting Gen Con 2021”.

After considerable internal discussion, R. Talsorian Games has decided to exit Gen Con 2021. We don’t do this lightly. We had planned on our biggest Gen Con yet this year, with more events than ever, more booth space than ever, and a larger crew than ever.

And that’s why, in good conscience, we cannot attend the convention. The health and safety of our crew comes first and the numbers in Indiana are abysmal. The vaccination rates are too low, the positivity rates and new case rates too high, and the social mandates designed to protect people too few. If even one member of our crew caught COVID-19 while attending Gen Con or carried it home to their loved ones and their local community, that would be one too many.

At R. Talsorian Games, we write about Dark Futures for fun, but we also believe we have a responsibility to try and prevent them from happening.

We want to make it clear, we do not blame the staff of Gen Con 2021 or the Indiana Convention Center in any way. 

(7) AUREALIS AWARDS NEWS. The 2021 Aurealis Awards are open for entry through December 14.

The Aurealis Awards, Australia’s premier awards for speculative fiction, are for works created by an Australian citizen or permanent resident, and published for the first time between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2021.

Full Award Rules and FAQ can be found on the Aurealis Awards website.

The Aurealis Awards judges welcome electronic entries in all categories, including novels, short stories, novellas, illustrated work / graphic novels, collections, anthologies, children’s and young adult fiction.

Finalists of all award categories will be announced early in 2022 and winners announced at a ceremony to take place in the first half of the year. For more information on the awards or for the entry form, visit the Aurealis Awards website at https://aurealisawards.org/.

The Convenors’ Award for Excellence is also open to entries.

This is awarded at the discretion of the convenors for a particular achievement in speculative fiction or related areas in the year that cannot otherwise be judged for the Aurealis Awards.

(8) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

  • 1974 – Forty-seven years ago today, Jefferson Starship’s Dragon Fly was released on Grunt Records, a vanity label founded in 1971 by themselves. It was the debut album for the recently renamed Jefferson Airplane. The entire album is somewhat SF in nature, particularly  “All Fly Away” and “Hyperdrive”.  Two years later, the latter song would be used in the opening ceremonies at MidAmeriCon.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born September 1, 1875 — Edgar Rice Burroughs. Bradbury declared him “the most influential writer in the entire history of the world.” Now I’d not necessarily disagree or agree with that statement but I said last year that he has largely fallen out of public notice and I’ll stand by that claim. So what’s your favorite works by him? The Barsoom stories are mine. (Died 1950.)
  • Born September 1, 1942 — C. J. Cherryh, 79. I certainly think the Hugo Award-winning Downbelow Station and Cyteen are amazing works but I think my favorite works by her are the Merchanter novels such as Rimrunners. Anyone familiar with “Cassandra“, the short story she won a Hugo for at Seacon ‘79? What’s it part of? 
  • Born September 1, 1943 — Erwin Strauss, 79. I’m not sure I can do him justice. Uberfan, noted member of the MITSFS, and filk musician. He frequently is known by the nickname “Filthy Pierre” which I’m sure is a story in itself that one of you will no doubt tell me. Created the Voodoo message board system used at a number of cons and published an APA, The Connection, that ran for at least thirty years. Do tell me about him. 
  • Born September 1, 1952 — Timothy Zahn, 69. Apparently he’s known more these days for the Thrawn series of Star Wars novels, but oh, ok, so it is perhaps better written and more interesting than his mainstream genre sf. His sole Hugo Award was at L.A.Con II for his “Cascade Point” novella, and he get a nomination at Aussiecon Two for “Return to the Fold” novelette. 
  • Born September 1, 1952 — Brad Linaweaver. Alternate history Moon of Ice is one of his better works and it won the Prometheus Award for Best Libertarian SF Novel. It was nominated for a Nebula though oddly as a novella which it was originally published as. He owned the brass cannon which was the property of the Heinleins and which Virginia bequeathed to him in her will. (Died 2019.)
  • Born September 1, 1964 — Martha Wells, 57. She’s won two Nebula Awards, three Locus Awards, and two Hugo Awards.  Impressive. And she was toastmaster of the World Fantasy Convention in 2017 where she delivered a speech called “Unbury the Future”. Need I note the Muderbot Diaries are truly amazing reading?
  • Born September 1, 1967 — Steve Pemberton, 54. He’s on the Birthday List for being Strackman Lux in the most excellent Eleventh Doctor stories of “Silence in the Library” and “Forest of the Dead” but he has other genre credits including being Drumknott in Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal, Professor Mule in the Gormenghast series and Harmony in the Good Omens series as well.
  • Born September 1, 1968 — Zak Penn, 53. He wrote the script for The Incredible Hulk, co-wrote the scripts for X2X-Men: The Last Stand, and the story but not the script for The Avengers. With Michael Karnow, Penn is the co-creator of the Alphas series. He contributed to the script of The Men in Black. 

(10) INSIDE LYNCH’S DUNE. At Deadline, “‘Dune’ 1984: Francesca Annis, The Original Lady Jessica, Lifts The Lid On Life Behind The Scenes Of David Lynch’s Epic, The ‘Heaven’s Gate’ Of Sci-Fi”. The interviewer is the actress’ son.

…It’s kind of funny. You were well known for doing a lot of well-received classical and period film, TV and stage work. But just before Dune, you’d also done Peter Yates’ Krull, which was another massive-budget sci-fi adventure movie. People don’t know the movie well these days but it was a big production. And sadly, another big flop…

Yes, it’s been a shame for me — or maybe it was a hidden blessing — that the few very big-budget things I’ve done didn’t take off, otherwise I would have risen with them…

When you first read the script for Dune did it seem complicated or convoluted? People have always said how difficult the novels would be to adapt…

I’ll tell you, when I first went to see the film at the premiere — and I’ve only seen it once – as soon as Princess Irulan started to talk in voice-over at the beginning, explaining the story, I thought “Uh oh, this film is in trouble.” Any Hollywood film that has to explain itself in detail at the beginning is in trouble…

My experience of working on Dune was that if David Lynch had been able to make his own film, it would have been brilliant, but unfortunately Dino oversaw every single tiny thing. Dino was already thinking about the video sales. David had wanted to make the scenes very dark, all the underworlds very dark and look very sinister. Dino wouldn’t allow it. It had to be lit brightly so that it would transfer well to video, where I think at that time things went down a shade. David and DoP Freddie Francis were constantly being hamstrung and I don’t think David made the film he wanted to make.

I was a big David Lynch fan. I thought he was terrific. But Dino was a huge personality. He had tapped David to do multiple films….

(11) SCOTS WITCH HISTORY. “Double, double toil and trouble: New exhibition uncovers the dark history of witchcraft in Scotland” reports The Press and Journal.

The exhibition is aptly named “Toil & Trouble” as a homage to a poem spoken by the witches in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, which was first performed in 1606 – a time when accusations of witchcraft were rife.

Examining and compiling the dark history of witchcraft into an online experience, the students focused specifically on the period between the 16th and 18th centuries.

The exhibition has launched this week, just as Holyrood heard a plea for the Queen to pardon thousands of Scottish women brutally killed in witch trials.

The online exhibit can be accessed here: “Toil and Trouble · Toil and Trouble: Witchcraft in Scotland”.

(12) VISIT THE CONCATE-NATION. SF² Concatenation has just Tweeted an advance alert of an article ahead of their seasonal edition.

In 2017 an oddly-shaped object whizzed through the Solar system.

Astronomer and SF author Duncan Lunan looks at some exotic, some positively SFnal, explanations.

(13) HAIR TODAY, GONE TOMORROW. Heroes & Icons tells “The Story of the Signature Star Trek Sideburn”.

…The origin of the distinct sideburn pointiness came after filming the second pilot for the series, Where No Man Has Gone Before, which is the last episode you can find of Kirk and the crew sporting normal sidebdurns. “Normal” being a lot bushier for the 60’s mind you.

With the series being picked up, Gene Roddenberry wanted the cast to commit to having a futuristic hairstyle going forward. For the sole reason of wanting a social life outside the set without having to look like men of the future, the cast disagreed….

(14) HONEST GAME TRAILERS. Fandom Games says “NEO: The World Begins With You” lets you reenter a world where “Spiky-haired protagonists with terrible fashion sense” enter “history’s hippest purgatory.”

(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In “The Marvel Leak Protection Tutorial” on Screen Rant and written by Seb Decter, Jack Eastcott plays C.I  Foreman., MCU Leak preventer, who warns “those nerds are everywhere” and if you see an MCU actor on the set squirming, it’s because this guy has cue cards telling the guy not to leak.(This dropped today and Ryan George doesn’t have anything to do with this one.)

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

Pixel Scroll 6/30/21 Imagine There’s No Pixels

(1) HELICOPTER OVERVIEW. In “How Twitter can ruin a life: Isabel Fall’s complicated story” at Vox, Emily VanDer Werff’s interview with author Fall is threaded throughout a wide-ranging commentary about the ways “Isabel Fall’s sci-fi story ‘I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter’ drew the ire of the internet” and what happened next. The article begins —

“In a war zone, it is not safe to be unknown. Unknown travelers are shot on sight,” says Isabel Fall. “The fact that Isabel Fall was an unknown led to her death.”

Isabel Fall isn’t dead. There is a person who wrote under that name alive on the planet right now, someone who published a critically acclaimed, award-nominated short story. If she wanted to publish again, she surely could.

Isabel Fall is a ghost nonetheless.

In January 2020, not long after her short story “I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter” was published in the online science fiction magazine Clarkesworld, Fall asked her editor to take the story down, and then checked into a psychiatric ward for thoughts of self-harm and suicide.

The story — and especially its title, which co-opts a transphobic meme — had provoked days of contentious debate online within the science fiction community, the trans community, and the community of people who worry that cancel culture has run amok. Because there was little biographical information available about its author, the debate hinged on one question: Who was Isabel Fall? And that question ate her alive. When she emerged from the hospital a few weeks later, the world had moved on, but she was still scarred by what had happened. She decided on something drastic: She would no longer be Isabel Fall….

(2) AND THE WINNER IS. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] The public has selected “Commander Moonikin Campos” as the official name of the manikin to be launched on Artemis I, the uncrewed flight test of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft around the Moon. The launch is currently scheduled for later this year. The namesake of the moonikin is Arturo Campos — electrical power subsystem manager for the Apollo 13 lunar module — who was a key player in bringing that mission safely back to Earth. ”Public Names ‘Moonikin’ Flying Around Moon on NASA’s Artemis Mission” at NASA.

The final bracket challenge was between Campos and Delos, a reference to the island where Apollo and Artemis were born, according to Greek mythology. 

… The other six names under consideration were:

  • ACE, for “Artemis Crew Explorer.”
  • DUHART, a dedication to Irene Duhart Long, chief medical officer at Kennedy Space Center from 2000 to 2010.
  • MONTGOMERY, dedication to Julius Montgomery, first African American to work as a technical professional at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, now known as Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
  • RIGEL, a giant superstar in the Orion constellation.
  • SHACKLETON, a crater on the Moon’s South Pole, which is named after famous Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton.
  • WARGO, a dedication to Michael Wargo, NASA’s first chief exploration scientist.

The Moonikin is a male-bodied manikin previously used in Orion vibration tests. Campos will occupy the commander’s seat inside and wear an Orion Crew Survival System suit– the same spacesuit that Artemis astronauts will use during launch, entry, and other dynamic phases of their missions.

Campos will be equipped with two radiation sensors and have additional sensors under its headrest and behind its seat to record acceleration and vibration data throughout the mission. Data from the Moonikin’s experience will help NASA protect astronauts during Artemis II, the first mission in more than 50 years that will send crew around the Moon….

(3) MORE OMENS. Good Omens has been renewed For Season 2 at Amazon reports Deadline. Neil Gaiman fills in the details at his blog in “Really Bloody Excellent Omens…”

It’s been thirty-one years since Good Omens was published, which means it’s thirty-two years since Terry Pratchett and I lay in our respective beds in a Seattle hotel room at a World Fantasy Convention, and plotted the sequel. (I got to use bits of the sequel in the TV series version of Good Omens — that’s where our angels came from.)

Terry was clear on what he wanted from Good Omens on the telly. He wanted the story told, and if that worked, he wanted the rest of the story told.

So in September 2017 I sat down in St James’ Park, beside the director, Douglas Mackinnon, on a chair with my name on it, as Showrunner of Good Omens. The chair slowly and elegantly lowered itself to the ground underneath me and fell apart, and I thought, that’s not really a good omen. Fortunately, under Douglas’s leadership, that chair was the only thing that collapsed. 

… So that’s the plan. We’ve been keeping it secret for a long time (mostly because otherwise my mail and Twitter feeds would have turned into gushing torrents of What Can You Tell Us About It? long ago) but we are now at the point where sets are being built in Scotland (which is where we’re shooting, and more about filming things in Scotland soon), and we can’t really keep it secret any longer.

There are so many questions people have asked about what happened next (and also, what happened before) to our favourite Angel and Demon. Here are, perhaps, some of the answers you’ve been hoping for. 

As Good Omens continues, we will be back in Soho, and all through time and space, solving a mystery which starts with one of the angels wandering through a Soho street market with no memory of who they might be, on their way to Aziraphale’s bookshop. 

(Although our story actually begins about five minutes before anyone had got around to saying “Let there be Light”.)

(4) KNOWN UNKNOWNS. Asimov’s does a “Q&A with Ursula Whitcher”, whose poem “Ansibles” appears in the current issue. The intro says Whitcher “is ready to fight for the honor of being the second-most-famous SF author named Ursula” – something definitely to aspire to, but I think at the moment that space is already filled.

Asimov’s Editor: The first line of your poem is, “I can’t explain gravity without using gravity.” Have you ever actually tried to explain gravity?

UW: I have! As well as being a poet, I’m a mathematician. My research is inspired by the physical theory of string theory, which offers one way to unify quantum physics and general relativity. I took more classical courses in general relativity as a graduate student, so I’ve spent quite a bit of energy working out equations for possible shapes of spacetime.

(5) THE BRADBURY LEGACY. The American Writers Museum in Chicago is hosting an exhibit called “Ray Bradbury: Inextinguishable” through May 2022.

Ray Bradbury is perhaps best-known for writing Fahrenheit 451The Martian Chronicles, and The Illustrated Man. He was much more than those stories though: a screenplay writer, a friend to Walt Disney, and an amateur painter, just to name a few.

From a young age, Ray was obsessed with finding a way to live forever. He will certainly be remembered for his writing, but his influence elsewhere may surprise you.

To explore the virtual exhibit, click on the link. To visit in person, see the information about Chicago Museum Tickets & Hours.

[Visit] the American Writers Museum in Chicago, your ticket into the interactive, inspirational, and surprising world of American writing of all genres. Learn about the history of writing in the United States and how it has shaped our lives through exhibits that stretch your imaginations and appeal to all 5 senses.. Then, explore the intricacies of language through games and try writing something for yourself on a vintage typewriter!

(6) LESS CURSE, MORE FILLING. The New York Times says “‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ to Slim Down Before Broadway Return”.

…The show will continue to run in two parts in London; Melbourne, Australia; and Hamburg, Germany, but will be a single part in New York, San Francisco and Toronto. It was not immediately clear how long that single part would be; the two parts have a total running time of about 5 hours and 15 minutes.

Structured essentially as a stage sequel to J.K. Rowling’s seven wildly popular “Harry Potter” novels, the show was the most expensive nonmusical play ever to land on Broadway, costing $35.5 million to mount, and another estimated $33 million to redo Broadway’s Lyric Theater. Before the pandemic, the play was routinely grossing around $1 million a week on Broadway — an enviable number for most plays, but not enough for this one, with its large company and the expensive technical elements that undergird its stage magic.

The play, a high-stakes magical adventure story with thematic through lines about growing up and raising children, was written by Jack Thorne and directed by John Tiffany, based on a story credited to Rowling, Thorne and Tiffany. Thorne and Tiffany said they had been working on a new version of the show during the pandemic, which, they said, “has given us a unique opportunity to look at the play with fresh eyes.”

The writers did not say what kind of changes they would make, but the production promised that the new version would still deliver “all the amazing magic, illusions, stagecraft and storytelling set around the same powerful narrative.”

“Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” began its stage life in London, opening in the summer of 2016, and winning nine Olivier awards — the most of any play — in 2017. It arrived on Broadway in 2018, picked up six Tony Awards, and initially sold very strongly, grossing about $2 million a week. But the sales softened over time, as average ticket prices fell, apparently because of a combination of the lengthy time commitment and the need to buy two tickets to see the whole story, which made it particularly expensive for families….

(7) GAMING CONS ISSUE BANS. There are two different companies using the TSR name. The one known as TSR™ on Twitter is associated with Ernest Gygax as Vice President, who made news with some transphobic comments (which are discussed in GeekNative’s post “The new TSR Games clarify position as key names appeared to distance themselves”.) Two major gaming cons have now said they are closed to Gygax’s company.

The GenCon gaming convention made with this statement:

The Origins Game Fair has said the Gygax-connected TSR company is also unwelcome at their event.

(8) BOUCHARD OBIT. Detroit area fan and fanzine publisher Alexander Bouchard was killed yesterday in an automobile accident. Al produced a fanzine called The Lightning Round. He also liked to post political comment videos on his YouTube Channel AlexanderFilmWorks — the last two in January criticizing the attack on the Capitol. He is survived by his widow, Megan. A GoFundMe appeal has been opened by their friends Kimberly and Miki Ivey: “Al Bouchard’s burial and help for his wife Megan”.

(9) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

  • June 30, 1971 – On this date fifty years ago, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory premiered. It was directed by Mel Stuart and produced by Stan Margulies and David L. Wolper. It was based off Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. The exemplary cast consisted of Gene Wilder, Jack Albertson, Peter Ostrum, Roy Kinnear, Julie Dawn Cole, Leonard Stone, Denise Nickerson, Dodo Denney and Paris Themmen. Some critics really didn’t like it, some kind of liked it and most were very fond of it. It really didn’t do well at the box office though not even making back production and marketing costs. Audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes currently give it a very superb rating of eighty-seven percent. 

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born June 30, 1902 — Lovat Dickson. Australian-born publisher and author who was half-brother of Gordon R Dickson. He wrote a biography of H G Wells, H G Wells: His Turbulent Life and Times. (Died 1987.)
  • Born June 30, 1905 — Nestor Paiva. Sometimes it only takes one film or series  for a performer to get a Birthday write-up from me. Paiva makes it for Lucas the boat captain in The Creature from the Black Lagoon and its oft-forgotten sequel Revenge of the Creature. Though that was hardly his only genre role as his first role was in the early Forties as an uncredited prison guard in Tarzan’s Desert Mystery and he’d be in many a genre film and series over the decades as Prof. Etienne Lafarge in The Mole People, as the saloon owner in (I kid you not!) Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter, Felicity’s Father in The Spirit Is Willing, Captain Grimby in “The Great Treasure Hunt” of The Addams Family and a Doorman in the “Our Man in Leotards” episode of Get Smart. (Died 1966.)
  • Born June 30, 1920 — Sam Moskowitz. SF writer, critic, and historian. Chair of the very first World Science Fiction Convention held in NYC in 1939. He barred several Futurians from the con in what was later called the Great Exclusion Act. In the Fifties, he edited Science-Fiction Plus, a short-lived genre magazine owned by Hugo Gernsback, and would edit several dozen anthologies, and a few single-author collections, most published in the Sixties and early Seventies. His most enduring legacy was as a historian of the genre with such works as Under the Moons of Mars: A History and Anthology of “The Scientific Romance” in the Munsey Magazines, 1912–1920 and Hugo Gernsback: Father of Science Fiction. First Fandom named its award for collecting after him. (Died 1997.)
  • Born June 30, 1959 — Vincent D’Onofrio, 62. His long running-role is Dective  Goren on Law and Order: Criminal Intent which is in no way genre. He was Kingpin in the Daredevil film, Edgar the Bug in the only truly great Men in Black film to date and Vic Hoskins in Jurassic World. He also was Jason Whitney / Jerry Ashton in The Thirteenth Floor, loosely based upon Simulacron-3, a early Sixties novel by Daniel F. Galouye.
  • Born June 30, 1961 — Diane Purkiss, 60. I’ve not read her Corydon Trilogy she wrote with Michael Dowling, her son, but I can say that At the Bottom of the Garden: A Dark History of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Nymphs, and Other Troublesome Things is as splendid as the title suggests it is. She’s also written Fairies and Fairy Stories: A History
  • Born June 30, 1963 — Rupert S. Graves, 58. Here because he played Inspector G. Lestrade on that Sherlock series. He also appeared on Doctor Who as Riddell in the Eleventh Doctor story, “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship”. He had one-offs in The Nightmare Worlds of H. G. Wells: The MothTwelve MonkeysKrypton and Return of the Saint
  • Born June 30, 1966 — Peter Outerbridge, 55. Dr. David Sandström in what I think is the underrated ReGenesis series as well being Henrik “Hank” Johanssen in Orphan Black anda recurring role on Millennium as Special Agent Barry Baldwin. He’s currently in two series, The Umbrella Academy with a recurring role as The Conductor, and as Calix Niklosin in V-Wars, yet another Netflix SF series. 
  • Born June 30, 1972 — Molly Parker, 49. Maureen Robinson on the current Lost in Space series. One-offs in Nightmare Cafe, The Outer Limits, The SentinelHighlander: The SeriesPoltergeist: The Legacy,  Human Target and she appeared in The Wicker Man asSister Rose / Sister Thorn. 

(11) COMICS SECTION.

  • Frazz tries to for maximum reading efficiency.

(12) LOOK OUT BELOW. [Item by Jennifer Hawthorne.] Third Planet Sci-Fi and Fantasy Superstore in Houston is suing the hotel next door to them because guests at the hotel keep dropping junk on top of the bookstore’s roof, and recently caused a lot of damage.  The suit is being presented in an unusually nifty format though!  To see the entire comic, skip down to page six of the Plaintiff’s Petition. (Screencaps from Above the Law’s post “Comic Store Includes Graphic Novel Of Allegations In Filing”.)

(13) CLARION CALL. The Clarion West Write-A-Thon is under weigh, but you can still get on board.

Here’s part of the FAQ:

2. How does the Write-a-thon work?

Participating writers sign up beginning June 7. They set writing goals, put up excerpts of their work, and use social media to let people know that they’re writing for a good cause. There are all kinds of writing goals—from the manageable “write for five minutes a day” to the ambitious “finish a novel” or “finish six short stories.” Every writer in the Write-a-thon chooses a goal that works for them.

This summer, writers may participate in additional online events, including affinity groups, writing sprints, (recorded) craft talks, and more. See [page] for the full list of perks.

After the Write-a-thon kicks off on June 20, friends and family can visit the Write-a-thon site, choose a writer or writers they would like to support, and use the button on each writer’s page to sponsor them. Every week, writers get a report on who’s donated to them, allowing them to communicate with their supporters. Many writers send their supporters updates on their progress, or show off their completed work at the end of the Write-a-thon, but it’s not required.

3. Am I too late to join?

The 2021 Clarion West Write-a-thon runs from June 20 to July 31. But no worries if you got here midway through; there’s no last day to sign up as a participant, and you can donate until August 31. 

(14) YOUR FIRST. Clarion West is also doing a panel about “Releasing Your First Book” on July 5 at 6:30 p.m. Pacific. “Releasing your first book is tough any time. Hear from four Clarion West alumni who did it last year and learn what their journey was like.” Register here.  The panel features Elly Bangs, Lauren Dixon, Emily Skaftun, and E. Lily Yu. 

On Monday, July 5, we’re hosting our first live panel: Releasing Your First Book. Learn what the journey was like from four Clarion West alumni — Elly Bangs (CW, ’17, author of Unity, Tachyon Publications), Emily Skaftun (CW ’09, author of Living Forever & Other Terrible Ideas, Fairwood Press), Lauren Dixon (CW ’10, author of Welcome to the Bitch Bubble, Hydra House Books), and E. Lily Yu (CW ’13, author of On Fragile Waves, Erewhon Books) — who released their books last year.

(15) NOT DEAD YET. This one is airplane hijackers v. vampires–and it’s in French! Blood Red Sky on Netflix.

Nadja and her ten-year-old son are on an overnight flight from Germany to New York when a group of terrorists violently take control of the plane and threaten the lives of the passengers. Suddenly Nadja faces an impossible choice – should she reveal her dark side and the inner monster she has kept hidden from her son for years in order to save him? The hunters become the hunted in this action-horror from director Peter Thorwarth.

(16) STAR HEIST. James Davis Nicoll recommends “Five SFF Characters To Help You Execute the Perfect Caper” at Tor.com.

…The core members of such a team might include a mastermind (to plan the heist), a thief (to get past any security devices), the driver (to orchestrate exfiltration), the muscle (in case something goes horribly wrong), and of course, the distraction (because it is much easier to get away with stuff if everyone is looking in the wrong direction). Speculative fiction offers numerous candidates who would combine the required expertise with the necessary moral flexibility. Here are the five SFF characters I’d pick for my retrieval team.

The Driver: McGill Feighan (The Journeys of McGill Feighan series by Kevin O’Donnell, Jr.)

McGill Feighan is a “flinger,” a teleporter whose reach spans the Milky Way. He is also one of the very few flingers to escape the Flinger Network’s methodical conditioning, which prevents flingers from doing anything untoward. Although he is not criminally inclined, he is at the centre of a compelling mystery—why did the terribly mysterious Far Being Retzglaran orchestrate McGill’s kidnapping as a baby?—and if you can convince him the job will somehow get him closer to answering that question, he may turn a blind eye to certain legal niceties. With him by your side, the entire galaxy is within reach.

Note: The vast criminal gang known as the Organization would also like an answer to McGill’s question. They play rough, so try not to attract their attention. Or the attention of the Far Being Retzglaran, for that matter.

(17) JEOPARDY! Andrew Porter witnessed these stumbles on tonight’s episode of Jeopardy!

Final Jeopardy: 20th Century Novels

Answer: British biochemist J.B.S. Haldane’s essay on ectogenesis, birth outside the womb, helped inspire this 1932 novel.

Wrong questions: “What is ‘Metamorphosis’?” and “What is ‘Steppenwolf’?”

Right question: “What Is ‘Brave New World’?.”

(18) WE SEE EXOPLANETS. HOW DO THEY SEE US? [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] One of the best ways we currently detect exoplanets is when their orbit intersects our line of sight with their host star: these exoplanets transit their star. As said, this only works when observer, planet and star are all aligned. However, just as we can this way detect exoplanets, so exoplanets about stars in the plane of our Earth orbiting the Sun can similarly detect the Earth!

Assuming aliens have at least the same technology as us, how many of these are there?

Two US astronomers, using data from the Gaia mission that takes into account the movement of stars, have worked out how many stars could detect an Earth transit of the Sun.

It turns out that over the past 5,000 years there were some 1,715 stars within 100 parsecs (~350 light years) of the Earth that could detect us using the transit method. Currently, today, there are 1,402 stars that could detect the Earth using the transit method with our level of technology. Of these 128 are G type stars like our Sun.

The astronomers also estimate, taking a pessimistic view of our current exoplanet catalogue, and applying a probability based on that, that there 508 rocky planets in the habitable zone of these stars.

Finally, assuming that we have been generating significant radio waves for about a century, they calculate 29 of these potentially habitable rocky planets could, were there aliens there listening, be in a position to also detect our radio signals.

(See Kaltenegger, L. & Faherty, J. K. (2021) “Past, present and future stars that can see Earth as a transiting exoplanet” Nature, vol. 594, p505-7.)


(19) MARTIAN HOPS. Also from open access articles in Nature: “Mars Helicopter Kicks Up Dust Clouds – And Unexpected Science”.

Ingenuity, NASA’s pint-sized Mars helicopter, has kicked up some surprising science on its flights over the red planet. When whizzing through the Martian air, its blades sometimes stir up a dust cloud that envelops and travels along with the tiny chopper. In several videos of Ingenuity’s flights, planetary scientists have seen dust whirling beneath the helicopter’s rotors — even when Ingenuity is flying as high as 5 metres above the Martian surface. That suggests that dust can get lifted and transported in the thin Martian air more easily than researchers had suspected….

(20) VIDEOS OF THE DAY. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan, actors who played hobbits in The Lord of the Rings movies (Pippin Took and Merry Brandybuck), appeared on The Late Show to promote their podcast “The Friendship Onion.” Host Stephen Colbert referred to it as completing his set of Hobbits as he has previously interviewed Elijah Wood and Sean Astin—as well as many other LotR actors. There was singing, trivia, and banter plus a video appearance by Peter Jackson.

Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd share stories from the set of the “Lord of the Rings” movies and get our host to join them in singing a Hobbit drinking song. You can hear more from them in their new Lord of the Rings podcast, “The Friendship Onion.”

Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd, and special guest Peter Jackson try to find a “Lord of the Rings” trivia question that will stump our host. And to up the stakes, they have a special LOTR prize for Stephen if he can get it right.

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Justin Busch, Lloyd Penney, Robin A. Reid, Jennifer Hawthorne, Daniel Dern, David K.M. Klaus, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, Michael Toman, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to contributing editor of the day microtherion.]

Pixel Scroll 3/17/21 Seriously, Dude! Don’t Scroll It!

(1) THE SEAWEED OF CRIME. BBC America has begun airing “Fury from the Deep”, another lost Doctor Who story arc reconstructed as an animated miniseries.

The Doctor, Jamie and Victoria find themselves on the east coast of England where a gas refinery is experiencing problems, and a sinister heartbeat is throbbing through the pipes.

The Wrap described the project in February: “Lost ‘Doctor Who’ Season ‘Fury From the Deep’ Gets Premiere Date at BBC America”.

The six animated episodes were produced by BBC Studios last year using audio tracks from the original installments starring Patrick Troughton as The Doctor. (The original 1968 versions are among the classic “Doctor Who” episodes that are famously missing from the BBC archives.) The updated animated versions, which aired in the U.K. back in September, will get their U.S. debut on BBC America on Sunday, March 21.

(2) MORE PREVIOUSLY-UNHEARD WHO. Now no longer muted!

(3) ALSO SAVED FROM THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR. It’s the Wonder Woman 1984 gag reel! You didn’t know WW84 was a comedy. And a musical. And a mime show.

(4) ROLL AGAIN. Gen Con, the massive gaming convention, has pushed back its date and announced they now will be putting on a hybrid online/in-person event. “Gen Con Postpones 2021 Convention to September”.

Today, we’re announcing that we are postponing Gen Con 2021 as originally planned for August 5-8 in Indianapolis and announcing plans for a hybrid slate of concurrent in-person and online experiences, including the rescheduled Indy convention, this September 16-19, 2021. We believe this is the best approach both to meet the many challenges of the moment and to explore possibilities for the future.

Gen Con co-owner Peter Adkison added comments on The Official Gen Con Blog:

…After the success of Gen Con Online last year, we know that the magic feeling of Gen Con can translate to a virtual format. It’s not a substitute for the in-person experience, but rather an extension of it. Just as many of us have learned how to run our RPG games over video chat or play board games on one of the incredible virtual tabletop platforms that have been developed, we’re learning how to adapt the convention experience to flexible conditions.

Gaming is changing, and so are we. This will be a Gen Con unlike any other, and the way we emerge from this period of tragedy will carry us into a new future for Gen Con and the hobby we share and love….

(5) WELL, EXCUSE US! Christopher Mark Rose takes a high overview of “Writing About Robots” at From the Earth to the Stars, the Asimov’s SF blog.

There will be a long, difficult appraisal of speculative fiction when artificial intelligences begin to read it critically. I think about this a lot.

Firstly, I find the expression “artificial intelligence” pejorative, and I’m sure that later, electronic voices will join me in objecting to it. What exactly is “artificial” about it?…

… Our writings are like scars we humans make on one another, or recordings of our own scars, encoded, obliquely or not-so, for the future to guess at. But robots are our future, and in the end we can hide nothing from them. It’s too late to stuff all those robot-hunter comic books under the bunkbed, it’s too late to burn all the copies of “I Have No Mouth.” It’s too late now, to rewrite Asimov’s Three Laws.

(6) STILL IN RESIDENCE. The series will be back: “Resident Alien Renewed for Season 2”MSN has the story.

In a major victory for morally conflicted extraterrestrials posing as human doctors everywhere, Syfy has renewed Resident Alien for a second season. The pickup comes just days after TVLine bestowed upon the series’ titular star, Alan Tudyk, its coveted Performer of the Week title. Coincidence? You be the judge!

(7) HOP ON POP. Cora Buhlert has written an article for Galactic Journey about a controversial theatre production which happened in 1966 right literally on her doorstep: “[March 8, 1966] Revolutionary Art for Revolutionary Times: Friedrich Schiller’s The Robbers and the Battle over West German Theatre”. She says, “55 years later, it’s difficult to figure out just why this production was so controversial, because it was an otherwise faithful production of a classic play, starring two of the best actors of their generation who would go on to major stardom. However, people hated it because they disliked the (very cool) pop art background and the costumes.”

 … In most productions of The Robbers, the actors wear 18th century garb, which Karl complements with the slouch hat of the romantic highwayman. In Bremen, however, Karl (portrayed by Vadim Glowna whose mother-in-law Ada Tschechowa was one of the victims of the Lufthansa flight 005 crash in January) dresses in a Superman inspired costume, which looks striking, though it doesn’t provide much camouflage in the deep dark woods of Bohemia. Franz is dressed up like a monkey with a tail, a hunchback and huge fake ears, probably because Franz is supposed to be ugly and the talented 25-year-old Swiss actor Bruno Ganz, who portrays him on stage, is rather handsome. Amalia (Edith Clever), meanwhile, emphasises her virginal purity by wandering about in a white nightgown. Again, you would not think that this is particularly shocking, but the furious boos and walk-outs from parts of the audience suggest otherwise….

(8) JOINTS OUT OF TIME. Atlas Obscura maps out “16 Real Places That Look Like They’re From the Future”. I loved seeing the Atlanta Marriott Marquis on the list – I had a lot to say about the design of that place in my 1986 Worldcon report (see File 770 #62.) Even more worthy of praise for its otherworldly appearance is the —

(9) FAN Q&A. Cora Buhlert has added several more entries to her Fanzine Spotlight series which encourages Hugo voters to pay more attention to the fan categories. Here’s an excerpt from “Fanzine Spotlight: Women Write About Comics”.

Tell us about your site or zine.

WWAC (pronounced “Wuh-Whack, according to the poll results) is an Eisner Award-winning online journal that offers diverse insight into the world of comic book culture and the comic book industry at large by amplifying the voices of women and people of marginalized genders. We’re committed to giving our readers diverse, interesting, critical, and fun content on comic books, the comic industry, books, comic book culture, and a look into differing geeky lifestyles.

(10) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

  • March 17, 2006 — On this day in 2006 in the United States Doctor Who aired “Rose”, the first episode of the new Doctor Who. It starred Christopher Ecclestone as The Doctor and Billie Piper as Rose Tyler. “Rose” was the first Doctor Who episode to air since the Doctor Who television film in 1996. The story was written by Russell T Davies. Most critics and Whovians generally liked the new series. 

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]

  • Born March 17, 1906 Brigitte Helm. German actress, Metropolis. In her first appearance as an actress she played two roles, Maria and her double, the Maschinenmensch, plus several uncredited roles as well.  She’s got some other genre credits including L’Atlantide (The Mistress of Atlantis) and Alraune (Unholy Love). Her later films would be strictly in keeping with the policies of the Nazis with all films being fiercely anti-capitalist and in particular attacking Jewish financial speculators. (Died 1996.) (CE) 
  • Born March 17, 1917 – Charles L. Fontenay.  A score of novels, twoscore shorter stories.  Outside our field, editor of the Nashville Tennessean; biography of Estes Kefauver.  (Died 2007) [JH]
  • Born March 17, 1933 – Ken Barr.  A hundred twenty covers, a hundred thirty interiors.  Here is the Dec 58 Nebula.  Here is Tom Swift and His Rocket Ship.  Here is Lord of Thunder.  Here is his poster for The Terminal Man.  (Died 2016) [JH]
  • Born March 17, 1933 – Laurence M. Janifer.  A score of novels, fourscore shorter stories, various pseudonyms, co-authors e.g. Randall Garrett, Terry Carr.  Anthology Masters’ Choice with 18 choosing e.g. Asimov, Bradbury, Davidson, Kornbluth, Lafferty, Moore.  Pianist.  (Died 2002) [JH]
  • Born March 17, 1947 James K. Morrow, 74. I’m very fond of the Godhead trilogy in which God is Dead and very, very present. Shambling Towards Hiroshima is a lot of satisfying satirical fun as is The Madonna and the Starship which is also is a wonderful homage to pulp writers. (CE)
  • Born March 17, 1948 William Gibson, 73. I’ve read the Sprawl trilogy more times than I can remember and likewise the Bridge trilogy and The Difference Engine. The works I struggled with are Pattern RecognitionSpook Country and Zero History. I’ve tried all of them, none were as appealing. (CE) 
  • Born March 17, 1949 Patrick Duffy, 72. Surely you’ve seen him on Man from Atlantis? No?  Oh, you missed a strange, short-lived show. His other genre credits are a delightfully mixed bag of such things as voicing a Goat on Alice in Wonderland, appearing on The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne as Duke Angelo Rimini  in the “Rockets of the Dead” episode and voicing  Steve Trevor in the incredibly excellent “The Savage Time” three-parter on Justice League. (CE)
  • Born March 17, 1951 Kurt Russell, 70. I know I saw Escape from New York on a rainy summer night in a now century-old Art Deco theatre which wasn’t the one I later saw Blade Runner in. I think it’s much better than Escape from L.A. was. Of course there’s Big Trouble in Little China, my favorite film with him in it. And let’s not forget Tombstone. Not genre, you say. Maybe not, but it’s damn good and he’s fantastic in it. (CE)
  • Born March 17, 1951 – Lian Tanner, age 70.  Eight novels.  Two Aurealis Awards.  She has been dynamited while SCUBA diving and arrested while busking.  “I get some of my best ideas while walking on the beach, which is just three houses away at the end of my street….  I recently worked out that I have read more than 10,000 books.”  [JH]
  • Born March 17, 1958 Christian Clemenson, 63. Though I’m reasonably sure his first genre appearance was on the Beauty and The Beast series, his first memorable appearance on the BtVS episode “Bad Girls” as a obscenely obese demon named Balthazar. Lots of practical effects were used. His other significant genre role was on The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. as fish-way-out-of-the-water Eastern lawyer Socrates Poole. And yes I loved that series! (CE) 
  • Born March 17, 1970 – Patrice Nganang, Ph.D., age 51.  Temps de chien won the Marguerite Yourcenar prize and Grand Prix littéraire d’Afrique noir, tr. Dog Days; eight other novels; essays.  Taught German at Vassar, now Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature at State Univ. NY, Stony Brook.  “What compels me to write is the feeling that the complexity of an African life has not been told yet” (he is Cameroonian); see this 2009 interview.  [JH]
  • Born March 17, 1971 – Sherri Smith, age 50.  Two novels for us; five others and Who Were the Tuskegee Airmen?  Nine years at Bongo Comics, six Simpsons titles.  Flygirl (outside our field) an Am. Lib’y Ass’n Best Book for Young Adults and Calif. Book Awards Gold Medalist.  Teaches at Hamline Univ. and Goddard.  [JH]

(12) DRAWN THAT WAY. “Women and Monsters: PW Talks with Aminder Dhaliwal” at Publishers Weekly.

Lately, cartoonist and animator Aminder Dhaliwal has been drawing monsters. “It might have been a result of drawing women for so long,” she says, referring to her acclaimed debut graphic novel, Woman World, “but I started drawing more grotesque things. It slowly segued into the idea of sexualizing monsters.” Dhaliwal drew a cartoon of a cyclops woman with a single breast and posted it on Instagram to delighted responses. This became the seed of her latest funny, socially-aware, fantasy graphic novel, Cyclopedia Exotica, to be published by Drawn & Quarterly in April.

Cyclopedia Exotica takes place in a world where one-eyed cyclopes-folks live alongside two-eyed people and are treated as a minority group. The book opens as an encyclopedia of cyclops history, biology, and culture before a cyclops interrupts the columns of facts to say, “Blegh! What a dull way to learn about a minority.” From that point, the cyclopes take over the story….

(13) FREE READ. Cora Buhlert’s “Cold Equations” rebuttal story “The Cold Crowdfunding Campaign,” posted on her blog in 2020, is now also available as a free e-book with a neat cover in the format of your choice here.

(14) COMPANION’S PERSPECTIVE. In “Doctor Who Mandip Gill: ‘One day the Doctor will be a woman of colour’”, Radio Times has highlights from a BBC Radio 4 interview.

…Syal asks directly if Gill thinks an actress of colour will ever play the Doctor, to which she says, “Yeah, I do. I think there’s a long way to go but there’s definitely room for change. And actually I think at the BBC and at Doctor Who they are very open and forward-thinking, so yes.”

Of course Jo Martin became the first woman of colour to play an incarnation of the Doctor last year, appearing in two episodes of the show’s 12th series, but Doctor Who has never had a BAME star play the Doctor as the show’s lead. Yet.

Syal also asks Gill if she is aware that she inspires young girls in her role as Yaz, to which she says, “I am very, very aware there are little people who are watching.”

Gill, who appears alongside actress Josette Simon on the show, also reflects on how excited she was to be cast in Doctor Who in the first place. “I couldn’t believe my luck. I’d filmed Casualty the January before and that was in the same building,” she says.

‘We were at the top of the hallway and when I finished Casualty, they walked us to the canteen and they were like, ‘Don’t go in that door, that’s for the Doctor Who people!’. There and then I thought I’d never be in Doctor Who… Cut to six, seven months later and you know what? I’m like ‘Don’t go up there… that’s for Casualty!’”

(15) PEEPS GOURMAND. A Food & Drink reviewer reports“I tried every flavor of Peeps I could find, and only 2 were better than the original”.

…It once took about 80 people to make a limited amount during Easter and 27 hours to create one tray.

I was skeptical that this process was ever worth it but was also excited to be proven otherwise.

As a writer for Insider, Just Born sent me 16 flavors of Peeps to taste test so I’d be able to try all of the current offerings. 

First on the list:

Chocolate-pudding flavored Peeps

Review: This choice was fine, but the chocolate taste seemed diluted and reminded me of protein powder. I didn’t mind it, but I didn’t love it either.

(16) JUST BLEW INTO TOWN. Some sff celebs slipped in under cover of a Beijing dust storm.

 (17) MORE ANTIKYTHERA NEWS. In “The Antikythera Cosmos” on Vimeo, Martin Freeth shows how researchers at University College (London) have come up with new ideas about the front of the Antikythera mechanism, showing that we completely misunderstood how the front of the mechanism works.

(18) STRIVING FOR MUNDANITY. Joel Haver says “If Fantasy Characters Made Movies About Our World” then this is what the casting call would look like.

[Thanks to JJ, Nancy Sauer, Mike Kennedy, N., Hampus Eckerman, Michael Toman, Martin Morse Wooster, Cat Eldridge, John King Tarpinian, John Hertz, Cora Buhlert, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Peer.]

Authorities Unexpectedly Greenlight Florida Con; Elsewhere Cancellations Mount

With at least 200 comic, sff and pop culture conventions having cancelled or postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak, Tampa NBC affiliate WFLA’s report today that “Tampa Bay Comic Con gets green light to go on in July” was an unexpected piece of news.

Tampa Bay Comic Con has received the green light to go on as planned in July, after months of uncertainty due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Tampa Bay Comic Con will be held from July 10-12.

In a post to their Facebook page on Tuesday, Tampa Bay Comic Con confirmed it has received confirmation from the Tampa Convention Center and Tampa Fire Marshal that TBCC 2020 will move forward with numerous health measures to keep everyone safe.

Those measures include:

  • Mandatory temperature screenings for all occupants prior to entering the convention center
  • Increased cleaning and disinfection procedures in high-traffic areas of the convention center
  • Hand santizing stations through the pre-function space and high traffic areas
  • Interior occupancy of the exhibit hall, ballrooms and meeting rooms will be strictly limited, with one-way entrances and one-way exits of all interior spaces

Nevertheless, the trend for now is strong in the other direction, as cancellation announcements continue to mount.

Major gaming convention Gen-Con cancelled on May 19. The event was to be held in Indianapolis, IN on July 30-August 12. Peter Adkison, the event’s co-owner and chairman of the board, began his statement —

This decision will not be surprising to many of you, but due to health and safety concerns related to COVID-19, we announced today that we are canceling Gen Con 2020 in Indianapolis and planning an online event in its place.

This will be the first time in the 50+ year history of Gen Con that we will miss the chance to see each other in person, and it hurts, but nothing is more important to us than the health and safety of our attendees and the communities they hail from….

Others that went public with a decision this week include events in Mississippi, South Carolina and Missouri.

“2020 Mississippi Comic Con canceled due to COVID-19” was announced May 18.

“Because of the uncertainty surrounding the current state order and the overall lack of certainty surrounding the safety of our patrons, guests, vendors, and staff for Mississippi Comic Con, we are forced to cancel our 2020 event. After speaking extensively with the management at the Trade Mart, and advisement from the Mississippi State Department of Health, we have rescheduled Mississippi Comic Con for June 26-27, 2021. We are in the process of trying to re-book some of this year’s guests for those dates but nothing is certain at this time,” said AVC Conventions co-owner Greg Hanks.

The announcement that South Carolina’s “Soda City Comic Con canceled due to COVID-19 pandemic” also was made May 18.

On Monday, officials announced the cancellation of this year’s Soda City Comic Con.

The popular event, which has been held since 2015, was set to take place at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center on August 22-23.

“Given the current environment and with a heavy heart, we have decided to cancel the 2020 Soda City Comic Con,” event officials wrote in a message posted on the Soda City Comic Con Facebook page. “We do not take this decision lightly, as many hours have been dedicated to planning the 2020 event.”

In Missouri, reports that a “St. Louis comic con event postponed” went public on May 15.

Wizard Entertainment Inc. has postponed its Wizard World St. Louis convention, originally set for June 5-7 at America’s Center. The event will now take place March 12-14, 2021.

Wizard World is a convention for fans of multiple genres, including science fiction and fantasy, comic books, movies and digital media. Fans who purchased general admission or VIP tickets for the original dates may use those same tickets for the rescheduled event, officials said.

The US/Canada Convention Status Sheet (Google docs) tracks almost 300 comic, sff and pop culture cons. Nearly 200 events on their list have already cancelled or postponed. All the events through June (with a single exception) have been shuttered. For the next three months beyond that, the number of events that have yet to be called off amount to 17 in July (vs. 13 cancelled), 15 in August (vs. 5 cancelled), and 18 in September (only 1 cancelled).

The lone September cancellation so far is Rose City Comic Con in Portland, OR, which decided a few days ago:

As a consequence of the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, Rose City Comic Con, originally scheduled to take place on September 11-13, 2020, will now be held at the Oregon Convention Center, Portland on September 10-12, 2021.   

2019 ENnie Award Nominations

The 2019 ENnie Award nominations are out.

The ENnie Awards are an annual, fan-based juried award system for all tabletop RPGs. The ENnies were created in 2001 as an annual award ceremony, hosted by the leading D&D/d20 system fan site, EN World in partnership with Eric Noah’s Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News.

The winners will be announced at Gen Con on August 2.

Judges’ Spotlight Winners

Best Adventure

Best Aid/Accessory – Digital

Best Aid/Accessory – Non-Digital

Best Art, Cover

Best Art, Interior

  • Invisible Sun, Monte Cook Games. Artists: Samuel Araya, Chris Cold, Martin de Diego, Jason Engle, Inkognit, Aldo Katayanagi, Eric Lofgren, Irina Nordsol, Jim Pavelec, Roberto Pitturru, Sam Santala, David Seidman, Joe Slucher, Zoa Smalley, Lee Smith, Matt Stawicki
  • KULT: Divinity Lost, 4th Edition of KULT – Core Rules, Helmgast AB. Artists: Bastien Lecouffe-Deharme, Marcin Tomalak, Ander Plana, Daniel Comerci, Kamil Mickiewicz, Ashen Studios, Krzysiek Poznanski, Anton Semenov, Alfred Khamidullin, Anton Kuzko, Daniel Karlsson, Bastien Lecouffe-Deharme, Sam Denmark, Evgeny Maloshenkov
  • Legacy: Life Among the Ruins 2nd Edition, UFO Press Limited. Artists:  Tithi Luadthong, Oli Jeffery
  • RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha Slipcase Set, Chaosium Inc. Artists:  Rick Becker, Bernard Bittler, Simon Bray, William Church, Miguel Coronado, Gene Day, Andrey Fetisov, Piotr Foksowicz, Lisa Free, Merle Insigna, Tomasz Jedruszek, Kalin Kadiev, Roman Kisyov, Rachel Kahn, Jennifer Lange, Rhonda Libbey, Michelle Lockamy
  • Symbaroum Monster Codex, Järnringen / Free League Publishing. Artists: Martin Grip

Best Cartography

Best Electronic Book

  • Dinosaur Princesses, Ardens Ludere. Authors: Hamish Cameron, Dana Cameron, Mary Rosalind Valentine
  • Fear’s Sharp Little Needles, Stygian Fox Publishing. Authors: Christopher Smith Adair, Joe Trier, Glynn Owen Barrass, Simon Brake, Stuart Boon, Chad Bowser, Brian Courtemanche, Scott Dorward, Adam Gauntlett, Allan Goodall, Helen Gould, Tyler Hudak, Jo Kreil, Jeff Moeller, Andi Newton, Oscar Rios, Brian M. Sammons, Matthew Sanderson, Jennifer Thrasher, Joe Trier, Jason Williams, Matt Wiseman, Simon Yee
  • Ironsworn, Shawn Tomkin. Author: Shawn Tomkin
  • Sly Flourish’s Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, Last Word Audio. Author: Michael E. Shea
  • Uncaged Volume 1, Ashley Warren Writes. Authors: Alicia Furness, Alison Huang, Annabeth Lennon, Asa Wheatley, Awkward Bard, Bianca Bickford, Catherine Evans, Dierdre Donlon, Elise Cretel, Emily Smith, lourescentWolf, Gwen Bassett, Hla Rosa, Jen Vaughn, Jessica L. Washburn, Jessica Marcrum, Jessica Ross, Johanna Taylor, Judy Black, Johanna Taylor, Kat Kruger, Kayla Cline, Kelly Dayton, Kristina Sisto Kindel, Liz Gist, Luciella Elisabeth Scarlett, Lynne M. Meyer, Lysa Chen, Ma’at Crook, Maryska Connolly, Masha Lepire, Mellanie Black, Natalie Wallace, Sammy Ward, Samantha Darcy, Wouter Florusse

Best Family Game / Product

  • Dinosaur Princesses, Ardens Ludere. Authors: Hamish Cameron, Dana Cameron, Mary Rosalind Valentine
  • The Hidden Halls of Hazakor, Insane Angel Studios. Author: Scott Fitzgerald Gray
  • Kids on Bikes, Renegade Game Studios/Hunters Entertainment. Authors: Doug Levandowski and Jonathan Gilmour
  • Power Outage: Core Guide Book, Go Nerdy LLC. Author: Bebarce El-Tayib
  • The Tragedies of Middle School, 9th Level Games. Authors: Jacqueline Bryk, Banana Chan, Patrick Clapp, MIichael Faulk, Glenn Given, Doug Levandowski, Kira Magrann, Alex McConnaughey, Brian Neff, Tim Notcon, Ty Oden, Chris O’Neill, Heather O’Neill, Hannah Shaffer, Moira Slater, Scott Slater, Barret Stowe, James Stowe, Tim Notcon, Jay E Treat III, Heather Wilson

Best Free Game / Product

  • Die Laughing, Sliced Up, NerdBurger Games. Author: Craig Campbell
  • Ironsworn, Shawn Tomkin. Author: Shawn Tomkin
  • The Executioner’s Daughter, Ashley Warren Writes. Author: Ashley Warren
  • The Ultraviolet Grasslands – Free Introduction, Hydra Cooperative. Author: Luka Rejec
  • Wayfinder #18: Fey and the First World, Paizo Fans United. Author: Charlie Brooks, Calder CaDavid, Robert Cameron, Benjamin Chason-Sokol, Jeremy Corff, Jason Daugherty, Matthew Duval, Robert Feather, Kim Frandsen, Wojciech Grucha?a, Amy C. Goodenough, Taylor Hubler, Luke Hudek, Chris L. Kimball, John Laffan, Crystal Malarsky, Randal Meyer, Jacob W. Michaels, Daniel Angelo Monaco, Stewart Moyer, Dennis Muldoon, Andrew Mullen, Dave Nelson, Nicholas S. Orvis, Emily Parks, Lyn Perrine, Amanda Plageman, Matt Roth, André Roy, Stephen J. Smith, Kendra Leigh Speedling, Jeff Taft, Brendan Ward, Christopher Wasko, Nicholas Wasko, Kerney Williams

Best Game

Best Layout and Design

Best Monster/Adversary

Best Online Content

Best Organized Play

Best Podcast

Best Production Values

Best RPG Related Product

Best Rules

 Best Setting

Best Supplement

Best Writing

Product of the Year