Tag Archives: International Booker Prize

Pixel Scroll 4/9/24 Ebenezer Scroll! Tonight You Will Be Visited By Five Pixels (Three, My Lord!)

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(1) IMAGINE THERE’S NO MUSIC. “59 Years Later, The Oldest Sci-Fi Show Ever Is Fixing A Very Big Beatles Problem” — Inverse tries to guess how Russell T. Davis will do it in a Fab Four-themed Doctor Who episode — because he can’t afford the rights to the real thing.

…In the upcoming relaunched Doctor Who Season 1 (2024), the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) will travel to the 1960s in the forthcoming episode “The Devil’s Chord,” and, at some point, cross paths with the Beatles….

… As Russell T. Davies says in the new Empire interview: “‘How would you do a Beatles episode without Beatles music?” Previous movies about the Beatles have faced similar problems. The 1994 biopic Backbeat — which chronicles the Beatles’ early days in Hamburg — features no actual Beatles music. Meanwhile, the 1979 movie Birth of the Beatles (helmed by Return of the Jedi director Richard Marquand!) used cover versions of most Beatles songs to avoid copyright issues of the time.

But, for Davies and Doctor Who, the copyright law problem became “the entire plot.” As Davies says, “I knew instantly you can never play Beatles songs on screen because the copyright is too expensive… That’s where the idea came from — copyright law!”

Could this mean the Doctor and Ruby will inspire alternate Beatles songs? Could the Beatles be getting by with a little help from their time-traveler friends? We don’t know the exact plot of “The Devil’s Chord,” but there’s a good bet that the Doctor will almost certainly inspire a classic Beatles song. We’ll just have to read between the lines to figure out which one.

(2) CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE FINALISTS. The Carol Shields Prize shortlist has been revealed. The award recognizes “creativity and excellence in fiction by women and non-binary writers in Canada and the United States”.

One of the finalists is a work of genre interest.

  • Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

In this eco-thriller, a guerilla gardening collective named ‘Birnam Wood’ (after Macbeth) meets an American billionaire. In his review for WHYY’s Fresh Air, John Powers writes, “this New Zealand-set book is a witty literary thriller about the collision between eco-idealism and staggering wealth.”

The other shortlisted books are:

  • Daughter by Claudia Dey
  • Coleman Hill by Kim Coleman Foote
  • A History of Burning by Janika Oza
  • Brotherless Night by V. V. Ganeshananthan

The winner gets $150,000 and a residency with Fogo Island Inn in Newfoundland, Canada. Each of the four runner-ups will get $12,500. The prize-winner will be announced May 13.

(3) INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE SHORTLIST. Based on the descriptions of the works at the website, there are no books of genre interest among the 6 that made the International Booker Prize 2024 shortlist today.

(4) 2023’S MOST-CHALLENGED BOOKS. From the American Library Association: “ALA Releases Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2023”. Publishers Weekly has the list. Based on the descriptions, none are sff works.

The Most Challenged Books of 2023

  1. Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, for LGBTQIA+, and sexually explicit content.
  2. All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson, for LGBTQIA+ and sexually explicit content.
  3. This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson, for LGBTQIA+ and sexually explicit content.
  4. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, for LGBTQIA+, and sexually explicit content, rape, drugs, profanity.
  5. Flamer by Mike Curato, for LGBTQIA+ and sexually explicit content.
  6. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, for rape, incest, sexually explicit and EDI (equity, diversity, inclusion) content.
  7. (Tie) Tricks by Ellen Hopkins, for LGBTQIA+ and sexually explicit content.
  8. (Tie) Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews, for sexually explicit content, profanity.
  9. Let’s Talk About It by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan, for LGBTQIA+ and sexually explicit content.
  10. Sold by Patricia McCormick, for sexually explicit content, rape.

(5) IN-BODY EXPERIENCES. Logan Dreher discusses “Octavia Butler, Audre Lorde, and the Power of Pleasure” at Reactor.

…I’ve been especially interested in revisiting three of her strangest works—her vampire novel Fledging; “Bloodchild,”a short story about a colony of humans living alongside an insectoid race of aliens; and the Xenogenesis trilogy, which explores human’s post-apocalypse relationship with a bioengineering race of extraterrestrials called the Oankali. Across these stories, I see a recurring fascination with the reality of our bodies, our needs and frailties, and the way our bodily desires inextricably link us to each other.

In each of these stories, humans are less powerful than their nonhuman counterparts, whether that’s the tentacled, pheromone-exuding Oankali in Xenogenesis or the three-meter long, centipede-like Tlic in “Bloodchild.” But for all of their physical superiority, the nonhuman characters are desperately reliant on their relationships with humans. In Xenogenesis, the Oankali can exude chemicals that drug humans with a thought and heal with a touch. They manipulate their own genetic makeup and easily heal their own bullet wounds. Yet they depend on their human relationships in order to live. Oankali adolescents go into metamorphosis where they are comatose—profoundly helpless—and rely on their human partners to care for them. In Imago, the final book in the trilogy, a young Oankali begins to physically dissolve, unable to survive because it does not have human companions to ground it in a stable form. As the narrator notes, “We called our need for contact with others and our need for mates hunger. One who could hunger could starve.”….

(6) AFROANIMATION AWARDS NEWS. “AfroAnimation Summit Honors Kemp Powers, Camille Eden, Bruce Smith & Jermaine Turner” – Animation Magazine introduces these icons and other awards finalists.

AfroAnimation, the largest annual event featuring diverse and BIPOC animators and creators, announced today the honorees for the first AfroAnimation Summit Icon Awards…

…Icon Award honoree Kemp Powers, director of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, will headline the summit’s kick-off panel April 10, ‘Developing Original Stories and the Art of Diverse Storytelling.’ Pioneer Award honoree Camille Eden, Vice President of Recruitment, Talent Development & Outreach at Nickelodeon, will speak on the April 11 panel, ‘Unveiling the Untold Narratives of Women in Entertainment: Triumphs, Challenges, & Journeys.’

In addition, Bruce Smith, creator and executive producer of Disney+’s The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder, and Jermaine Turner, Director of Adult Genre Animation for Netflix, will be honored as industry pioneers at the AfroAnimation Icon Awards….

FRWD Awards Semifinalists. (Celebrates the art of diverse storytelling in the film, new media, and streaming platform industries.)

  • Best Series: Castevania, The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder, Young Love, Scavengers Reign
  • Best Animation Feature: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Elemental, The Boy and the Heron, Craig Before the Creek
  • Best International Series: Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire, Iwájú, Kiya & the Kimoja Heroes, Supa Team 4
  • Best Animation Director: Kemp Powers (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse)

(7) M. JOHN HARRISON MEMOIR. Saga Press will publish author M. John Harrison’s anti-memoir Wish I Was Here on September 3, 2024. 

What is an “anti-memoir”? M. John Harrison has produced one of the greatest bodies of fiction of any living British author, encompassing space opera, speculative fiction, fantasy, and magical and literary realism.  Yet in WISH I WAS HERE, he asks, ‘Is there even an M. John Harrison and if so, where do we find him?’ This is the question the author asks in this memoir-as-mystery, turning for clues to forty years of notebooking: ‘A note or it never happened. A note or you never looked.’

Are these notebooks records of failed presence? How do they shine a light on a childhood in the industrial Midlands, a portrait of a young artist in counterculture London, on an adulthood of restless escape into hill and moorland landscapes? And do they tell us anything about the writing of books, each one so different from the last that it might have been written by another version of the author?

With aphoristic daring and laconic wit, this anti-memoir will fascinate and delight. It confirms M. John Harrison still further in his status as the most original British writer of his generation.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born April 9, 1937 — Marty Krofft. (Died 2023.)

H.R.Pufnstuf.
Who’s your friend when things get rough?
H.R. Pufnstuf.
Can’t do a little, ‘cause he can’t do enough

Who here didn’t grow up watching some of the shows created by the Krofft brothers? Well, this is the day that Marty Krofft was born, so I get to talk about their work. So let’s get started.

Their very first work was designing the puppets and sets for Banana Splits, a rock band composed of four animal characters for Hanna-Barbera.  To get a look at them, here’s the open and closing theme from the show.

After working for Hanna-Barbera, they went independent with the beloved H. R. Pufnstuf, their first live-action, life sized puppet series. It ran a lot shorter than I thought lasting only from September to December of ‘69. Like everything of theirs, it ended up in heavy, endless syndication.

Next was The Bugaloos. This was a musical group, very much in keeping with the tone with Banana Splits. It was four British teenagers wearing insect outfits, constantly beset by the evil machinations of the Benita Bizarre. Here’s the opening song, “Gna Gna Gna Gna Gna” courtesy of Krofft Pictures.

Lidsville, their next show lasted but seventeen episodes, and I’ve no idea if the short longevity of their series, all of them, was planned or due to poor ratings. This show had two types of characters: conventional actors in makeup taped alongside performers in full mascot costumes. It was mostly stop motion in its filming. 

Opening credits are here. The opening was produced at Six Flags Over Texas. The show was itself shot at Paramount Pictures film studio in Los Angeles.

Sigmund and the Sea Monsters lasted two seasons though it was aired over three years, the second delayed because a fire at the beginning of season two which destroyed everything. It’s about two brothers who discover a friendly young sea monster named Sigmund who refuses to frighten people. Poor Sigmund. This time you get a full episode as that is all Krofft Pictures had up, “Frankenstein Drops In”.

There’s two more series I want to note. 

The first is Land of the Lost which was created though uncredited in the series by David Gerrold. So anyone know why that was? It was produced by Sid and Marty Krofft who co-developed the series with Allan Foshko. Lots of genre tropes here. A family lost in a land with dinosaurs and reptile men? It was popular enough that it lasted three seasons. And here’s the opening and closing credits for season three.

The very last pick by me is Electra Woman and Dyna Girl which lasted but sixteen episodes of twelve minutes. Despite the ElectraEnemies, their foes here being way over the top, this is SF though admittedly on the pulp end of things. 

So they stayed active including doing rebooted versions of new versions of Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, H.R. Pufnstuf, Land of the Lost and Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. 

Marty Krofft passed on from kidney failure on November 25, 2023, at the age of eighty six. 

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) VASTER THAN EMPIRES, AND MORE EXPENSIVE. Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis might be sff – which might matter more if the film can make it into theaters. Variety says it will premiere at Cannes. However, The Hollywood Reporter learned studios are not lining up to accept the film’s high-dollar marketing risk: “’Megalopolis’: Francis Ford Coppola’s Challenges in Distribution”.

…The project, which Coppola first began writing in 1983, cost a reported $120 million to make — funded in part by the sale of a significant portion of his wine empire (the 2021 deal was reportedly worth over $500 million). Clocking in at two hours and 15 minutes, the film follows the rebuilding of a metropolis after its accidental destruction, with two competing visions — one from an idealist architect (Adam Driver), the other from its pragmatist mayor (Giancarlo Esposito) — clashing in the process. References to ancient Rome — including Caesar haircuts on the men — abound…

… One source tells THR that Coppola assumed he would make a deal very quickly, and that a studio would happily commit to a massive P&A (prints and advertising, including all marketing) spend in the vicinity of $40 million domestically, and $80 million to $100 million globally.

That kind of big-stakes rollout would make Megalopolis a better fit for a studio-backed specialty label like the Disney-owned Searchlight or the Universal-owned Focus. But Universal and Focus have already tapped out of the bidding, sources tell THR…. 

(11) THANKS FOR YOUR GIZZARD. James Davis Nicoll comments on “Five Science Fiction Stories About Involuntary Organ Donation” at Reactor.

… Why should some teenager enjoy perfect skin, a pain-free back, and functional joints when persons of my age could make much better use of these body parts? Yet such are the politically correct times in which we live that simply proposing, never mind implementing, mandatory organ1 donations is considered somehow controversial.

Science fiction can see past the squeamishness of short-term social fashions to the glorious world we might have if we were willing to apply technology in a socially responsible—which is to say, one that benefits the people in charge—manner. Consider these five classic tales….

One of the selections is –

The Reefs of Space by Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson (1964)

…Reefs features an intriguing deep space ecology in no way inhibited by plausible science. The use of political prisoners as involuntary organ donors is much more plausible….

(12) SPACE COWBOYS READINGS. Space Cowboy Books will host an online Flash Science Fiction Night on April 23 with Howard V. Hendrix, Ai Jiang, and Hailey Piper. These short science fiction readings (1000 words or less) are great way to learn about new authors from around the world. Starts at 6:00 p.m. Pacific. Lasts around half an hour. Register for free at Eventbrite.

(13) TODAY’S THING TO WORRY ABOUT. “They Came From Outer Space. Now, They’re Going Into Hiding.” So says the New York Times.

If you’re looking for meteorites, here’s a tip: Go south. All the way south. And do it soon.

In some parts of Antarctica, there’s a good chance that what looks like a regular old rock could actually be a chunk of an asteroid, the moon, or even Mars. Roughly 60 percent of all known meteorites have been collected there.

But scientific sleuthing for such extraterrestrial material, which can shed light on how the solar system formed billions of years ago, will probably get more difficult in Antarctica in the coming decades. That’s because, as temperatures rise, thousands of meteorites will sink into the continent’s ice and disappear from sight every year, according to a new study published on Monday.

Antarctica’s meteorite largess isn’t because more extraterrestrial stuff is falling there, Cari Corrigan, a geologist at the Smithsonian Institution and a curator of the National Museum of Natural History’s meteorite collection, said.

Rather, meteorites simply tend to be more visible on the Antarctic ice sheet than they would be, say, in your backyard. “Your eye can pick out a dark rock on a white surface super easily,” said Dr. Corrigan, who was not involved in the new research….

(14) ON THE JOB. Here’s the trailer for “Monsters at Work: Season 2” with Ben Feldman, Billy Crystal, and John Goodman. The season premiered April 5 on Disney Channel, and on May 5 comes to Disney+.

(15) VIDEO OF THE DAN. [Item by Daniel Dern.] For the small Venn overlap who know both references: “Leslie Nielsen in Star Wars”.

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

Pixel Scroll 3/15/24 What Can You Scroll About Chocolate Covered Stepping Disks?

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(1) WALDROP TO THE SCREEN. George R.R. Martin tells us, “The Chickens Are Coming” at Not A Blog.

Howard Waldrop is gone, but his work will live on.

…And here’s the latest one, an adaptation of Howard’s most famous story, THE UGLY CHICKENS.  Winner of the Nebula.   Winner of the World Fantasy Award.   Nominee for the Hugo, but, alas, not a winner.   A pity, that.  Howard never won a Hugo, but in some more Waldropian  world he has ten of them lined up on his mantle.

Felicia Day (SUPERNATURAL, THE GUILD, DR. HORRIBLE’S SING ALONG BLOG) stars in our film of “that dodo story.”   Mark Raso (COPENHAGEN, KODACHRONE) directed.   Michael Cassutt (TWILIGHT ZONE, MAX HEADROOM, TV101, EERIE INDIANA, and many more) did the screenplay.

Howard saw a rough cut of the film before he died.   He liked it, which pleases me no end.   I only wish we had been able to screen the final cut for him.

(2) HIGH CALIBER CANON. The Atlantic’s list of“The Great American Novels” includes Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick and a number of other works of genre interest.

(3) INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE LONGLIST. Based on the descriptions of the works at the website, there are no books of genre interest among the 13 that made the International Booker Prize 2024 longlist.

(4) BECOMING THE LIFE ON MARS. Space.com interviews Robert Zubrin about his new book: “’The New World on Mars’ offers a Red Planet settlement guide”.

To say that Dr. Robert Zubrin, the esteemed Colorado-based aerospace engineer, author, lecturer and founding president of the Mars Society, has the Red Planet on his mind is a colossal understatement.   

This pioneering educational voice and influential space authority has written many books on the timely topic of Mars and Mars settlement over the years as interest in humankind’s role in its ultimate development has risen exponentially. Now Zubrin adds to his impressive catalog of visionary volumes about our mysterious planetary neighbor with the recent release of “The New World on Mars” (Diversion Books, 2024), a fascinating and infinitely readable peek into Mars’ inestimably rosy future….

Space.com: One of the most interesting chapters deals with the psychological aspects of leaving Earth and establishing an identifiable Martian culture with its own customs, rites and rituals and the importance of that process. Can you elaborate on that subject more?

Zubrin: The Mars Society over the past couple years held two contests asking people to design a 1,000-person Mars colony and a one-million-person Mars city-state. And by design we meant not just the technology or the economy, but the social system, political system, what kind of sports are likely to be played, as well as the aesthetics. 

Between the two contests, there were something like 300 entries. The ideas proposed spanned a huge range of political systems from socialist, to democratic and libertarian. Rather than attempt to choose my favorite system for a Martian utopia, I took the point of view that there will be many Martian cities founded by different people with very different ideas on what the ideal state should be, and it’s going to be sorted out by natural selection.  

Some of the answers I came up with I like a lot, like human liberty. But this is in contradiction to many visions of science fiction colonies that are totally controlled because no one would immigrate to one. The ones that will outgrow the others will clearly be the ones that are most attractive to immigrants. Freedom is a great attractor. North Korea does not have an illegal immigrant problem. Martian colonies will have to be highly inventive and invention only thrives under freedom. I believe a Mars colony will also require a great deal of social solidarity, so it will not be multi-cultural and will need to have a strong sense of community and common identity….

(5) DOCTOR WHO STARTING TIME.  From Variety we learn “’Doctor Who’ Starring Ncuti Gatwa Reveals May Premiere Date”.

…The new season of “Doctor Who,” starring “Sex Education” breakout Ncuti Gatwa as the Fifteenth Doctor, will premiere on May 10.

The new installment will be the first-ever to launch on Disney+ and release simultaneously worldwide. The premiere will start on May 10 at 7 p.m. ET in the U.S. and internationally (excluding the U.K.) with Christmas special “The Church on Ruby Road” airing before two brand-new episodes. In the U.K., the season will premiere at midnight GMT on May 11 on BBC iPlayer.

…A new trailer for the season will debut on March 22.

(6) SHATNER WON’T BE ECLIPSED – FOR LONG, ANYWAY. The Los Angeles Times interviewed “William Shatner on his long career, horses and watch design”. Behind a paywall, unfortunately. Here’s the first paragraph:

A documentary on his life, “You Can Call Me Bill,” directed by Alexandre O. Philippe (“Lynch/Oz”), is scheduled to roll out in theaters March 22 to coincide with his 93rd birthday. He continues to host and narrate the puzzling-phenomena History series “The UnXplained With William Shatner.” A 2022 performance at the Kennedy Center, backed by Ben Folds and the National Symphony Orchestra, is about to be released both as an album, “So Fragile, So Blue,” and a concert film. The title song, says Shatner, “encompasses a lot of my thinking about how we’re savaging the world, and [I’d hope] it’d be a song that people would listen to and perhaps be inspired to do something about global warming.”

And on April 8, for 15 minutes before the shadow of an eclipse falls over Bloomington, Ind., Shatner will address “55, 60,000 people” in the Indiana University football stadium. “So what do you say, what do you write, what do you do? I’m going to have to solve those problems.”…

(7) SIMULTANEOUS TIMES CELEBRATES ANNIVERSARY. Space Cowboy Books presents a special six-year anniversary episode of Simultaneous Times in collaboration with Worlds of IF Magazine bringing you works from the pages of Worlds of If Magazine #177. Listen to the podcast at the link. Story and poetry featured in this episode:

  • “Contact” by Akua Lezli Hope; with music by Fall Precauxions. Read by the author
  • “The Pain Peddlers” by Robert Silverberg; with music by Phog Masheeen. Read by Jean-Paul Garnier
  • “Time Junkies” by Pedro Iniguez; with music by Fall Precauxions. Read by the author

Theme music by Dain Luscombe

(8) RELICS OF WONKY PROMOTION TRANSMUTED TO CHARITY GOLD. “Props from botched Willy Wonka event raise more than £2,000 for Palestinian aid charity” reports the Guardian. The charity is Medical Aid for Palestinians.

Props from a botched Willy Wonka event in Glasgow that went viral after frustrated attenders called the police have raised more than £2,000 at auction for a Palestinian aid charity.

Fabric backdrops from the “immersive experience”, which was cancelled midway, were found in a bin outside the warehouse where it took place.

Monorail Music, a record shop in the city, auctioned the remains on eBay after they were passed on by the finder. The listing said: “Don’t miss out on this rare opportunity to own a piece of history.”

The Wonka event gained online notoriety after images of the sparsely decorated warehouse in Glasgow, staffed by actors dressed as Oompa Loompas and other characters, spread worldwide. On Thursday, the listing had a total of 57 bids and the items were sold for £2,250. Michael Kasparis, online manager of Monorail, described the outcome as “amazing”….

(9) RED FLAGS RAISED ABOUT TCG-CON. Outside the Asylum urges “Don’t Go to TCG-Con”. Here’s the synopsis of a long post with many receipts:

Summary: TCG-con frequently does not pay out its advertised prizes and staff compensation. They currently owe upwards of $50,000 to players, cosplayers, judges, and other staff members for previous conventions, and appear to be in the process of collapsing entirely. I would strongly recommend not purchasing a ticket to their future events, trying to get a refund if you already have, and warning anyone you know away from them as well. If you’re owed money yourself, see the end of this page for information on next steps.

(10) GRANT PAGE (1939-2024). Deadline pays tribute in “Grant Page Dead: Australian Stuntman In ‘Mad Max’ Films & 100-Plus Others Was 85”.

Grant Page, the Australian stunt icon who performed in and coordinating stunts for the original Mad Max,sequel Beyond Thunderdome,the upcoming prequel Furiosa: A Mad Max Sagaand more than 100 other films and TV series, died Thursday in a car crash. He was 85.

A legend of Aussie cinema, Page worked … on the 1979 action classic Mad Max,which introduced the world to Mel Gibson. He performed and served as stunt coordinator on …  its 1985 second sequel Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome… He also worked on … prequel, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, which is on the radar to premiere at Cannes in May, and on his 2022 pic Three Thousand Years of Longing.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

The New Yorker cartoon for the Ides of March gives us Dr. Seuss’ interpretation instead of Shakespeare’s.

(12) I BECAME WHAT I BEHELD. “Grant Morrison Responds to Zack Snyder’s Take on Batman Killing, ‘If Batman Killed His Enemies, He’d Be the Joker’” (comicbook.com) – in a quote at Comicbook.com.

Filmmaker Zack Snyder recently stirred up some controversy when he defended his aggressive version of Batman from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice who killed, a choice that for many comic book fans runs counter to basic tenets of the character. Now, comic book writer Grant Morrison is weighing in and they don’t agree with Snyder. According to Morrison, “if Batman killed his enemies, he’d be the Joker.”

In their newsletter Xanaduum (via ScreenRant), Morrison — whose own work has been among some of the more definitive takes on Batman — dug into not only the practical aspect of why Batman doesn’t kill (because he’d end up arrested by Commissioner Gordon, in theory) but also the psychological aspect of the character and how Batman’s “no-kill” rule is something locked into him from the time he was a small child and is a part of his mental state having never fully developed, in some respect, out of the child who saw his parents murdered in Crime Alley.

“That Batman puts himself in danger every night but steadfastly refuses to murder is an essential element of the character’s magnificent, horrendous, childlike psychosis,” Morrison wrote.

There’s also the matter of the line between what Batman does and what the villains do. Villains kill; Batman does not. It makes all the difference, at least to Bruce Wayne who, should he ever cross the line, would then become no better than those who killed his parents….

(13) SNOWPIERCER RESCUED. It won’t be frozen out by streaming services after all says Deadline: “’Snowpiercer’: AMC Picks Up Season 4 After TNT Scrapped Sci-Fi Drama”.

The final season of Snowpiercer has finally found a home.

The fourth season of the sci-fi drama will air on AMC after the company acquired the rights to the Tomorrow Studios-produced series. It comes after TNT scrapped the show last year as part of a wider Warner Bros. Discovery content write-down strategy.

Deadline revealed in January 2023 that the fourth season wouldn’t air on its original home, as part of a slew of content cuts that also included the axing of Batgirl, Abrams’ HBO drama Demimonde, and TBS series such as The Big D, Chad and Kill The Orange Bear….

(14) A YELLOWSTONE UNSTUCK IN TIME. Gizmodo assures us “Josh Brolin’s Sci-Fi Hole Show Will Get Even Sci-Fi-er, Holier in Season 2”.

…The central mysteries of Outer Range surround that giant hole, which materializes on property owned by Brolin’s Wyoming rancher character and is eventually established to be a time portal. Along the way, various characters go missing, are revealed to have been born in different centuries, notice odd happenings that seem anachronistic, or are unmasked as characters we’ve already met who happen to be several years older than they should be. In season two, we’ll all take a time leap; the action begins in 1984 with a younger version of Brolin’s character, and Vanity Fair describes the narrative structure as “gamely hopping between different decades (and centuries) with newfound propulsion.”

An astrophysicist called in to help the time-travel stuff make sense—but according to new showrunner Murray, “The biggest part of what time travel meant to me and the writers was: How can this help us expose something that a character’s going through?” We’re very intrigued to see where this wild trail heads next….

(15) DISHING IT UP. A reporter tells BBC that “’Journalists are feeding the AI hype machine’”.

When Melissa Heikkilä looks back on her past four years writing about artificial intelligence (AI), two key things jump out to her, one good, one bad.

“It’s the best beat… AI is a story about power, and there are so many ways to cover it,” says the senior reporter for magazine MIT Technology Review. “And there are so many interesting, and eccentric people to write about.”

That’s the positive. The negative, she says, is that much of the wider media’s coverage of AI can leave a lot to be desired.

“There is more hype and obfuscation about what the technology can and cannot actually do,” says Ms Heikkilä. “This can lead to embarrassing mistakes, and for journalists to feed into the hype machine, by, for example, anthropomorphizing AI technologies, and mythologizing tech companies.”…

(16) RIGHT TURN, CLYDE. And while we’re on the subject of dud reportage – “Seismic signal that pointed to alien technology was actually a passing truck” says Physics World.

In January 2014 a meteor streaked across the sky above the Western Pacific Ocean. The event was initially linked to a seismic signal that was detected on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island. This information was used by Harvard University’s Amir Siraj and Avi Loeb to determine where the object likely fell into the ocean. Loeb then led an expedition that recovered spherical objects called spherules from the ocean bottom, which the team claimed to be from the meteor.

Because of the spherule’s unusual elemental composition, the team has suggested that the objects may have come from outside the solar system. What is more, they hinted that the spherules may have an “extraterrestrial technological origin” – that they may have been created by an alien civilization.

Now, however, a study led by scientists at Johns Hopkins University has cast doubt on the connection between the spherules and the 2014 meteor event. They have proposed a very different source for the seismic signal that led Loeb and colleagues to the spherules.

“The signal changed directions over time, exactly matching a road that runs past the seismometer,” says Benjamin Fernando, a planetary seismologist at Johns Hopkins who led this latest research.

“It’s really difficult to take a signal and confirm it is not from something,” explains Fernando. “But what we can do is show that there are lots of signals like this, and show they have all the characteristics we’d expect from a truck and none of the characteristics we’d expect from a meteor.”

That’s right, it was a truck driving past the seismometer, not a meteor….

(17) WAR OF THE WORLD. “Air defense for $13 a shot? How lasers could revolutionize the way militaries counter enemy missiles and drones” at Yahoo!

Britain this week showed off a new laser weapon that its military says could deliver lethal missile or aircraft defense at around $13 a shot, potentially saving tens of millions of dollars over the cost of missile interceptors that do the job now.

Newly released video of a test of what the United Kingdom’s Defense Ministry calls the DragonFire, a laser directed energy weapon (LDEW) system, captured what the ministry says was the successful use of the laser against an aerial target during a January demonstration in Scotland.

“It’s a potential game changer for air defense,” the video says as a bright laser beam pierces the night sky over a firing range in the remote Hebrides archipelago, creating a ball of light as it hits its target.

The Defense Ministry says the DragonFire can precisely hit a target as small as a coin “over long ranges,” but it did not offer specifics. The exact range of the weapon is classified, it said.

The laser beam can cut through metal “leading to structural failure or more impactful results if the warhead is targeted,” a UK Defense Ministry statement said….

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

Pixel Scroll 5/24/23 We Don’t Need Another Pixel (Thunderscroll)

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(1) NEW TIKTOK BOOK AWARDS UK/IRELAND. TikTok isintroducing the TikTok Book Awards UK and Ireland 2023.

In the past year, the #BookTok hashtag has grown more than 160% to over 138 billion views – and shows no sign of stopping! The #BookTok community of authors, readers and fans is transforming the publishing world: propelling new authors into the mainstream, reviving much loved classics, inspiring a new generation of bookworms and helping to boost print book sales.

In celebration and recognition of the titles, authors, content and creators that have made the unique BookTok ecosystem what it is, we are proud to launch our very own TikTok Book Awards for the UK and Ireland. For the first time, we’re creating a true people’s choice book award – giving our community the chance to vote for the winning books, authors and creators in-app….

The award categories will be: BookTok Creator Of The Year, BookTok Book Of The Year, BookTok Author Of The Year, Best BookTok Revival, Indie Book Shop Of The Year, Best Book to End A Reading Slump, Best Book I Wish I Could Read Again For The First Time, BookTok Cover of The Year, and BookTok Livestreamer of The Year.

A panel of judges is creating the longlist (they are named at the link). The final winners will be decided by the TikTok community in the UK and Ireland, through an in-app vote that will go live in July, with all winners being crowned in August.

(2) INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE. The International Booker Prize 2023 winner was announced May 23 – Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov, translated by Angela Rodel. It is not a genre work, although that may not be your first impression after reading the description:

Time Shelter becomes the first novel originally published in Bulgarian to win the prize. In the book, a ‘clinic for the past’ offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer’s sufferers: each floor reproduces a decade in minute detail, transporting patients back in time. But soon the past begins to invade the present.

(3) RUSSIA/UKRAINE CONFLICT ROILS PEN AMERICA. The Guardian explains why “Author resigns from PEN America board amid row over Russian writers panel”.

Masha Gessen, the prominent Russian-American writer who has documented Russia’s decline into authoritarianism, has resigned as vice-president of PEN America after the organisation cancelled an event last week with Russian dissidents after objections from Ukrainian participants.

The group, which was founded in 1922 and describes itself as “stand[ing] at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression,” was plunged into controversy after it acknowledged that it had called off an event at a literary festival in New York after Ukrainian writers on a separate panel had threatened to pull out.

Gessen’s resignation – and coverage of it in the US media including Gessen’s claim that the Ukrainian position had “blackmailed” PEN America – has prompted a series of furious exchanges with Gessen accused of “gaslighting” Ukrainians by focusing on Russians as “victims of tyranny”.

… In a statement released by PEN America on Tuesday, the group admitted it had made “mistakes” and misunderstood a requirement from two Ukrainian participants, Artem Chapeye and Artem Chekh, who are also serving soldiers, that they could not be involved in PEN’s World Voices festival if Russian writers were involved in any way.

While Gessen – who uses they/them pronouns – was born in Russia but lives in the US is seen by many as an “American writer,” the presence of the two others on the panel complicated the issue with Chapeye telling the Atlantic, which first broke the story, he could not make distinctions between “good” Russians and “bad” Russians.

“Until the war ends,” he added, “a [Ukrainian] soldier can not be seen with the ‘good Russians.’”…

(4) RE-DISCOVERY LIT ANNOUNCED. Open Road’s new imprint Re-Discovery Lit has 200 titles slated for its inaugural list. Their use of a “similarity engine” to scout reprints doesn’t sound at all creepy, does it? “Imprints: Open Road’s Re-Discovery Lit” at Publishers Lunch.

Open Road has launched an imprint devoted to republishing out-of-print and reverted titles, Re-Discovery Lit. They expect to reissue about 200 titles a year, publishing primarily in ebook format, though titles will be available in print-on-demand editions as well. Mara Anastas, who is publisher of the imprint, says in the announcement, “Agents and writers everywhere have been excited to learn of this new opportunity for out-of-print and reverted works.”

Authors on the list include Barbara Delinsky, Clifford D. Simak, Roger Angell, Alan Dean Foster, and Ronald Malfi. An agreement with Alloy Entertainment brings back series including Melinda Metz’s YA Fingerprints series and Eileen Goudge’s Who Killed Peggy Sue? series.

For acquisitions, Open Road is drawing on the “similarity engine” technology to assess titles and use predictive analytics to see if they are a good match for the company’s marketing levers. “If it isn’t a fit, we’ll say to the rightsholders, ‘This is not a book we can help lift,'” ceo David Steinberger noted, and for titles that do align they can present a clear marketing plan for the republication.

(5) TINA TURNER. (1939-2023). One of the most successful singers ever, Tina Turner died May 24 at the age of 83. Her legion of hit performances impacted sff with “We Don’t Need Another Hero“ from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, from the film in which she also played the character Aunty Entity, and the theme song for 1995 Bond film GoldenEye. She appeared as The Acid Queen in Tommy (1975) and The Mayor in Last Action Hero (1993). The New York Times obituary is here.

(6) MEMORY LANE.

2012 – [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Frances Hardinge’s A Face Like Glass is where the Beginning is from this Scroll. It was published eleven years ago by Macmillan Children’s Books.

She was nominated for a the Kitschie Awards’ Red Tentacle for Best Novel, an Award sponsored by Blackwell’s, the specialist bookstore.

Though she’s considered a children’s writer, I’d say that any of you would find her fantasies well-worth reading. 

This Beginning gives us an excellent look at her writing style…

Prologue 

The Child in the Curds

One dark season, Grandible became certain that there was something living in his domain within the cheese tunnels. To judge by the scuffles, it was larger than a rat and smaller than a horse. On nights when hard rain beat the mountainside high above, and filled Caverna’s vast labyrinth of tunnels with the music of ticks and trickles and drips, the intruding creature sang to itself, perhaps thinking that nobody could hear. 

Grandible immediately suspected foul play. His private tunnels were protected from the rest of the underground city by dozens of locks and bars. It should have been impossible for anything to get in. However, his cheesemaker rivals were diabolical and ingenious. No doubt one of them had managed to smuggle in some malignant animal to destroy him or, worse still, his cheeses. Or perhaps this was some ploy of the notorious and mysterious Kleptomancer, who always seemed determined to steal whatever would cause the most chaos, regardless of any personal gain. 

Grandible painted the cold ceiling pipes with Merring’s Peril, thinking that the unseen creature must be licking the condensation off the metal to stay alive. Every day he patrolled his tunnels expecting to find some animal curled comatose beneath the pipes with froth in its whiskers. Every day he was disappointed. He laid traps with sugared wire and scorpion barbs, but the creature was too cunning for them. Grandible knew that the beast would not last long in the tunnels, for nothing did, but the animal’s presence gnawed at his thoughts just as its teeth gnawed at his precious cheeses. He was not accustomed to the presence of another living thing, nor did he welcome it. Most of those who lived in the sunless city of Caverna had given up on the outside world, but Grandible had even given up on the rest of Caverna. Over his fifty years of life he had grown ever more reclusive, and now he barely ventured out of his private tunnels or saw a human face. The cheeses were Grandible’s only friends and family, their scents and textures taking the place of conversation. They were his children, waiting moon-faced on their shelves for him to bathe them, turn them, and tend to them.

Nonetheless, there came a day when Grandible found something that made him sigh deeply, and clear away all his traps and poisons.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born May 24, 1925 — Carmine Infantino. Comics artist and editor, mostly for DC Comics, during the late 1950s know as the Silver Age of Comics. He created the Silver Age version of the Flash (with writer Robert Kanigher) and the Elongated Man (with John Broome). He also introduced Barbara Gordon as a new version of Batgirl. Infantino wrote or contributed to two books about his life and career: The Amazing World of Carmine Infantino and Carmine Infantino: Penciler, Publisher, Provocateur. (Died 2013.)
  • Born May 24, 1953 — Alfred Molina, 70. His film debut was on Raiders of The Lost Ark as Satipo. He was an amazing Doctor Octopus on Spider-Man 2 and in Spider-Man: No Way Home, and he also provided the voice of the villain Ares on the outstanding 2009 animated  Wonder Woman. Oh, and he was a most excellent Hercule Poirot in the modern day version of Murder on the Orient Express. I know, not genre, but one of my favorite films no matter who’s playing the character. 
  • Born May 24, 1960 — Michael Chabon, 63. Author of the single best fantasy novel about baseball, Summerland which won a Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature. His other two genre novels, Gentlemen of the Road and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, winner of Best Novel at Denvention 3, are stellar works in themselves. He was Showrunner for the first season of Picard and was Executive Producer for the second season. He also did revisions to the script for Disney’s John Carter.
  • Born May 24, 1960 — Doug Jones, 63. I first saw him as Abe Sapien on Hellboy, an amazing role indeed. To pick a few of my favorite roles by him, he’s in Pan’s Labyrinth as The Faun and The Pale Man (creepy film), a clown in Batman Returns, the Lead Gentleman in the “Hush” episode of Buffy and Commander Saru on Discovery.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

  • Free Range demonstrates a good reason why logic is no use against childhood fears.
  • Dee Fish shows a Jedi in action. Or trying to be. Lise A says the lesson is, “The important thing is to face all threats without fear and to act fast.”

(9) IMAGE COMICS CHANGES DISTRIBUTORS. “Image Comics ditches Diamond for Lunar to get its comics into comic shops after a 25+ year relationship” reports Popverse.

In a move sure to cause surprise throughout the comic book industry, Image Comics — the third largest single-issue comic book publisher in the North American market, after Marvel and DC — has announced that it has signed a worldwide exclusive distribution deal for comic store distribution with Lunar Distribution, to take effect this fall.

What does this mean for Image Comics customers?

The new deal — which specifically covers distribution to the comic store ‘direct market,’ as opposed to digital, bookstores, and other outlets — means that, for the first time in the publisher’s existence, single issues will not be carried directly by Diamond Comic Distributors, which has been Image’s exclusive distribution partner since April 1995. Instead, Lunar, which has been DC’s primary distribution partner to North American comic book stores since 2021, will take over all duties relating to the ordering and shipping of single issues and collected editions to comic stores inside the United States as well as internationally. The changeover will happen effective with Image’s September releases, which will open for retailer orders on June 14.

(10) TREK CROSSOVER COMING. Entertainment Weekly introduces the Strange New Worlds season two trailer: “See ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ stars in live action on ‘Strange New Worlds’”.

…The new trailer for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, premiering on Paramount+ this June 15, brings with it our first look at the big crossover event. Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome, who voice the animated characters Beckett Mariner and Brad Boimler on Star Trek: Lower Decks, will embody their characters in live-action form.

“Surprise!” Newsome’s Mariner tells a perplexed Captain Pike (Anson Mount) and Spock (Ethan Peck), alongside a noticeably purple-haired Boimler….

(11) STRIKEOUT. SYFY Wire reminds fans how “The Last WGA Strike Stranded a Heroes Character in a Dark Future”.

…When Heroes premiered on NBC in 2006, the first season was a huge hit. This was pre-Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the idea of an exciting, sprawling superhero universe on TV was an instant draw. Season 1 focused on a group of characters, including the ostensible protagonist Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia), as they came to terms with the mysterious superpowers they had acquired and rushed to “save the cheerleader, save the world.”

Season 2 was not beloved in the way that Season 1 was. It’s not necessarily fair or accurate to say that the shortcomings of the sophomore season were all due to the 2007-2008 WGA strike — creator Tim Kring admitted that there were several problems with the season — but the fact that the strike made it so they only produced 11 out of a planned 24 episodes certainly didn’t help. The show rushed to wrap up the season early in an attempt to bring things to a conclusion rather than leave the season abruptly unfinished….

(12) VIDEO OF THE DAY. In this Christopher Plummer plays Vladimir Nabokov lecturing on Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”.

This is a short TV movie based on Nabokov’s lecture at Cornell upon “Metamorphosis,” Kafka’s bizarre story about a man who wakes up one morning to discover he has turned into a giant bug. This was filmed at 1989 by Peter Medak, and Christopher Plummer is portraying Vladimir Nabokov.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Hampus Eckerman, Lise Andreasen, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Bonnie McDaniel.]

Pixel Scroll 4/19/23 Tick, Tock, Said The Pixel, Just Keep Scrolling

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(1) F&SF. The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction’s May-June 2023 cover art is by Maurizio Manzieri.

(2) INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE. The International Booker Prize 2023 Shortlist of 6 works was released on April 18. The one longlisted item of genre interest has survived to make the shortlist, Cheon Myeong-Kwan’s Whale. The winner will be announced May 23. Publishing Perspectives breaks down the amount of the prize.

…The focus of this Booker is translation, and its £50,000 prize (US$60,734) is to be split into £25,000 (US$30,367) for the author and £25,000 for the translator—or divided equally between multiple translators. There also is a purse of £5,000 (US$6,072) for each of the shortlisted titles: £2,500 (US$3,036) for the author and £2,500 for the translator or, again, divided equally between multiple translators….

(3) DIGGING OUT FROM THE MUDSLIDE. Yesterday Larry Correia posted “A Letter To Epic Fantasy Readers: I Know Rothfuss And Martin Hurt You, But It’s Time To Get Over It And Move On” [Internet Archive], a cruel rant blaming a couple of well-known fantasy writers for allegedly crushing the nascent careers of other fantasy novelists by failing to finish their series and creating reader resistance to new writers’ series. (Then, finding he had mud left over, he deposited some on a third author who has an unfinished sf series.)

Today Mark Lawrence decided a few things needed to be said in response in a blog post, “Faith and blame”, which concludes:

…In short: 

i) Authors who delay a book in a series, be it for 10 years, or 50, or forever, are not lazy sacks of shit.

ii) The high profile authors who have delayed may be cited in some cases as a reason for readers not picking up a newly published book 1 — but I feel the reasons behind that reluctance are far deeper and considerably wider than two or three writers, however well known. Some portion of the reason (I do not say blame) may reside with them, but I think this would be happening even if book 3, 4, & 6 had turned up a year or two after their predecessors.

iii) It’s easy to give the reason for this problem a face – someone to call an apathetic sack of shit. It’s human nature to want a simple answer and a person to blame. But it’s more complicated than that.

Readers – have faith in your writers, that faith will be overwhelmingly rewarded. And when it’s not – the only thing that author has done is disappointed you, not tanked the entire publishing industry.

(4) DON’T LOOK FOR THIS BOOK ON THE RIVER. “Lydia Davis refuses to sell her next book on Amazon” – the author explains why to the Guardian.

Prize-winning author Lydia Davis’ new collection of short stories will not be sold on Amazon, with the author saying she does not “believe corporations should have as much control over our lives as they do”.

Our Strangers will be published by Canongate on 5 October, and is the seventh collection of fiction from Davis, who won the Man Booker international prize in 2013, when the award chose a winner based on a body of work, rather than a single book.

Due to be published just before Bookshop Day on 7 October, Our Strangers will only be sold in physical bookshops, Bookshop.org and selected online independent retailers.

Davis said: “We value small businesses, yet we give too much of our business to the large and the powerful – and often, increasingly, we have hardly any choice.

“I am all the more pleased, now, that Canongate, with its long history of independence and its high standards, will be publishing Our Strangers and doing so in a way that puts my book on the shelves of booksellers who are so much more likely to care about it.”…

(5) GROWING PROSPECT OF WRITERS STRIKE. Leaders of the Writers Guild of America secured a strong showing of support from members. “Writers strike looms after members vote to shut down film and TV production” reports CNN Business.

…The vote announced Monday afternoon showed 97.9% of participating union members voting to approve a potential strike.

If a strike happens, it would be the first in the industry since 2007, and it would bring production on many shows and films to a halt. The 2007 strike lasted 100 days.

The Writers Guild of America, the union that represents the writers, says it needs to make substantial changes to the way that writers are compensated because of the shift to streaming services from traditional films and cable and broadcast networks….

(6) AFRICANFUTURISM. Nnedi Okorafor did her own cover reveal yesterday. Preorder here.

(7) PICARD. NPR’s “Pop Culture Happy Hour” panelists respond as “’Picard’ boldly goes into the history books”. Beware spoilers.

[ERIC] DEGGANS: Well, you know, I wrote a review before the show debuted. I love, love, love this. And the reason I love this is because I’ve always felt that Paramount Plus’ new “Trek” series have erred by being so careful about trying to blaze their own path and tone down the references to past “Trek” stuff. And I understand that, especially with “Discovery,” the very first series to step out, they wanted to blaze a new trail. But there is a reason why this franchise has survived for nearly 60 years.

To have – especially “Star Trek: Picard,” in its first two seasons, really suffered from not being willing to look back and acknowledge the reason why people love Jean-Luc Picard in the first place. So it is just so great to see this series emerge as this love letter to not just “The Next Generation” but all those Trek series that kind of debuted in that 1990s, early 2000s era. So “The Next Generation,” “Deep Space Nine,” “Voyager” – there’s all kinds of Easter eggs and references that, if you don’t know the shows, you don’t need to worry about. But if you do know the shows, it is just so much fun and so much extra pleasure to watch this unfold.

(8) GET READY FOR “MRS. DAVIS”. “Mrs. Davis Co-Creator Tara Hernandez On Crafting Peacock’s Wild New Sci-Fi Series” at Slashfilm.

One might not imagine that one of the writers of “The Big Bang Theory” and “Young Sheldon” would be behind one of 2023’s most anticipated, high-concept sci-fi shows, but that’s exactly the situation we find ourselves in. Hailing from Tara Hernandez, “Mrs. Davis” debuts on Peacock later this month, with Damon Lindelof, of “Lost” and “The Leftovers” fame, serving as co-creator on the series alongside her….

I’ve not seen a ton of the show, admittedly, but this feels like the kind of thing where, especially because I know Damon got into some of this with “Lost” years ago where they just were chasing their tails, so how long would you ideally see this going? Is this a one season show? Is it a four season show? Do you have a rough idea of where you guys would like it to go?

Yeah, I think we really, and just my personal tastes, I really love a great season of television. I love a story that’s introduced. I love a nice conclusion on it. I think we had to know where we were ending up. We pitched the show, when we pitched it, it was very important to have the landing place.

That is nice to hear.

Yes. It has a landing place. We had to know what the North Star was, especially in a show that can feel like, “Is this going to go off the rails? Are they just going to be chasing their tails?” Just my personal preference about storytelling, whether that comes from really loving feature films or just loving a hero’s journey that’s a really closed-loop narrative, I think the world of “Mrs. Davis” is such that it has legs, but I think it is a great eight episodes. If that’s what it is, it’s just a really nice story. And people will be satisfied.

(9) GET YOUR RED HOT CAT BOOKS. Kristine Kathryn Rusch has curated The 2023 Cattitude Bundle for StoryBundle and it’s available for the next three weeks.

My cats have gotten out of control. During the lockdown, I promoted a series of projects using my co-workers as a hook. The only co-workers I had at the time were the the cats who boss me around: The Mighty Cheeps, and his buddy Gavin, a.k.a The Boys.

I’d post a picture of them on Facebook, write a funny or wry bit about their terrible office behavior, and end with a bit of promotion.

Little did I realize that the demand for the antics of the staff at Promotion Central would become the highlight of my Facebook page. I’ve learned if I don’t include a photo of the Boys, or our new(ish) third cat, Angel, no one reads the posts. Those cats are more popular than I am.

It shouldn’t surprise me. Cats and the internet go together like chocolate and peanut butter. You can live with either one, but once someone combined them, well, there’s no separating them. Ever.

Of course, we’re going to take advantage of that. Cats and the internet becomes cats in ebooks. Since cats in books have always gone hand in glove (have you ever met a bookstore dog?), it seems only natural to put cat books into a StoryBundle.

The best thing about cat books? It’s easy to find good ones because all of the best writers live with cats…. 

Here’s the deal:

For StoryBundle, you decide what price you want to pay. For $5 (or more, if you’re feeling generous), you’ll get the basic bundle of four books in .epub format—WORLDWIDE.

  • Too Big to Miss by Sue Ann Jaffarian
  • Familiarity – A Winston & Ruby Collection by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
  • A Cat of a Different Color by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith
  • October Snow by Bonnie Elizabeth

If you pay at least the bonus price of just $20, you get all four of the regular books, plus six more books for a total of 10!

  • The Captain’s Cat by Stefon Mears (StoryBundle Exclusive)
  • Haunted Witch by T. Thorn Coyle
  • The Intergalactic Veterinarian of the Year! by Ron Collins & Jeff Collins (StoryBundle Exclusive)
  • Death by Polka by Robert Jeschonek
  • Single Witch’s Survival Guide by Mindy Klasky
  • Road of No Return by Annie Reed (StoryBundle Exclusive)

(10) NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER SURRENDER. “Oh please, no.  Just no. And you may quote me,” says Cat Eldridge. The Hollywood Reporter says “Galaxy Quest TV Series in the Works at Paramount+”. The article also chronicles several failed attempts to adapt it for TV in the previous decade.

Galaxy Quest is going from a fictional series to an actual TV series. 

Paramount+ is teaming with its studio counterpart, Paramount Television Studios, for a live-action adaptation of the 1999 cult favorite sci-fi spoof. Sources say the project is in the early development stages and a search is underway for a writer to pair with Mark Johnson, the Breaking Bad alum who exec produced the film and is returning for the scripted update. Johnson and his Gran Via Productions banner are the only execs currently attached to the project….

Ars Technica’s Jennifer Ouelette also has doubts that this is a good idea: “That Galaxy Quest TV series might finally be happening and we have mixed feelings”.

… Honestly, I have mixed feelings about a spinoff series from one of my all-time favorite movies. On the one hand, I love and cherish every character and every line of dialogue in Galaxy Quest. On the other, how do you improve on perfection? As Enrico Colantoni, who played Thermion leader Mathesar, told io9 in 2014, “To make something up, just because we love those characters, and turn it into a sequel—then it becomes the awful sequel.”…

(11) MEMORY LANE.

2015 – [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

I’m trying to remember what the first work of Holly Black’s that I read, so I went to ISFDB and researched her work. It appears it’s Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale which I read some twenty years ago. Fascinating novel. 

 Now, without doing the no-no of spoilers, The Darkest Part of The Forest is the work of a much more mature writer. Her grasp of what makes a character worth our time to be invested in is really improved a lot as has her ability to actually write an interesting story. 

The Darkest Part of The Forest was published by Little, Brown eight years ago. It was nominated for a Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature. 

The Darkest Part of The Forest is, I think, deliciously dark as you can see in The Beginning which you can read here. Beware apparently young boys with pointed ears in glass coffins… 

Down a path worn into the woods, past a stream and a hollowed-out log full of pill bugs and termites, was a glass coffin. It rested right on the ground, and in it slept a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives. 

As far as Hazel Evans knew, from what her parents said to her and from what their parents said to them, he’d always been there. And no matter what anyone did, he never, ever woke up. 

He didn’t wake up during the long summers, when Hazel and her brother, Ben, stretched out on the full length of the coffin, staring down through the crystalline panes, fogging them up with their breath, and scheming glorious schemes. He didn’t wake up when tourists came to gape or debunkers came to swear he wasn’t real. He didn’t wake up on autumn weekends, when girls danced right on top of him, gyrating to the tinny sounds coming from nearby iPod speakers, didn’t notice when Leonie Wallace lifted her beer high over her head, as if she were saluting the whole haunted forest. He didn’t so much as stir when Ben’s best friend, Jack Gordon, wrote IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, BREAK GLASS in Sharpie along one side—or when Lloyd Lindblad took a sledgehammer and actually tried. No matter how many parties had been held around the horned boy—generations of parties, so that the grass sparkled with decades of broken bottles in green and amber, so that the bushes shone with crushed aluminum cans in silver and gold and rust—and no matter what happened at those parties, nothing could wake the boy inside the glass coffin. 

When they were little, Ben and Hazel made him flower crowns and told him stories about how they would rescue him. Back then, they were going to save everyone who needed saving in Fairfold. Once Hazel got older, though, she mostly visited the coffin only at night, in crowds, but she still felt something tighten in her chest when she looked down at the boy’s strange and beautiful face.

She hadn’t saved him, and she hadn’t saved Fairfold, either. “Hey, Hazel,” Leonie called, dancing to one side to make room in case Hazel wanted to join her atop the horned boy’s casket. Doris Alvaro was already up there, still in her cheerleader outfit from the game their school lost earlier that night, shining chestnut ponytail whipping through the air. They both looked flushed with alcohol and good cheer.

(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born April 19, 1907 — Alan Wheatley. Best remembered for being the Sheriff of Nottingham in The Adventures of Robin Hood, with Richard Greene playing Robin Hood. In 1951, he had played Sherlock Holmes in the first TV series about him, but no recordings of it are known to exist. And he was in Two First Doctor stories as Temmosus, “The Escape” and “The Ambush” where he was the person killed on screen by Daleks. (Died 1991.)
  • Born April 19, 1925 — Hugh O’Brian. He was Harry Chamberlain in Rocketship X-M. (It was nominated in the 1951 Retro Hugo Awards given at The Millennium Philcon but lost out to Destination Moon.) He would later play Hugh Lockwood in Probe, not the Asimov Probe, the pilot for the sf TV series Search. His only other genre appearance I think was playing five different roles on Fantasy Island. Though I’m absolutely sure I’ll be corrected if I’m wrong (smile). (Died 2016.)
  • Born April 19, 1935 — Herman Zimmerman, 88. He was the art director and production designer who worked between 1987 and 2005 for the Trek franchise. Excepting Voyager, in that era he worked on all other live-action productions including the first season of Next Gen, the entire runs of Deep Space Nine and Enterprise, as well as six Trek films. As Memory Alpha notes, “Together with Rick Sternbach he designed the space station Deep Space 9, with John Eaves the USS Enterprise-B and the USS Enterprise-E. His most recognizable work though, have been his (co-)designs for nearly all of the standing sets, those of the bridge, Main Engineering (co-designed with Andrew Probert) and Ten Forward for the USS Enterprise-D in particular.” Not surprisingly, he co-wrote the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual with Rick Sternbach and Doug Drexler. 
  • Born April 19, 1936 — Tom Purdom, 87. There’s very little on him on the web, so I’ll let Michael Swanwick speak for him in the introduction to his Lovers & Fighters, Starships & Dragons collection: “How highly do I regard Tom’s fiction?  So highly that I wrote the introduction to the collection — and I hate writing introductions.  They’re a lot of work.  But these stories deserve enormous praise, so I was glad to do it.”  He’s written five novels and has either one or two collections of his stories. He’s deeply stocked at the usual digital suspects. 
  • Born April 19, 1946 — Tim Curry, 77. Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, of course, but it’s not his first genre appearance. He’d appeared a year earlier at the Scottish Opera in A Midsummer Night’s Dream as Puck. And yes, I know that he appeared in the live show which was at the Chelsea Classic Cinema and other venues before the film was done. Other genre appearances include playing Darkness in Legend, an outstanding Cardinal Richelieu in The Three Musketeers, a most excellent genre film, Farley Claymore in The Shadow (great role), another superb performance playing Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island, in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead as The Player, Gomez Addams in Addams Family Reunion, and Trymon in TV’s Terry Pratchett’s The Colour of Darkness. And others too numerous to list.
  • Born April 19, 1952 — Mark Rogers. He’s probably best known for writing and illustrating the Adventures of Samurai Cat series, a most excellent affair. His debut fantasy novel Zorachus was followed by The Nightmare of God sequel. His novella “The Runestone” was adapted as a film of the same name. And his art is collected in Nothing But a Smile: The Pinup Art of Mark Rogers and The Art of Fantasy. (Died 2014.)
  • Born April 19, 1967 — Steven H Silver, 56. Fan and publisher, author, and editor. He has been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer twelve times and Best Fanzine seven times. In 1995 he founded the Sidewise Award for Alternate History and has served as a judge ever since. He has published the fanzine, Argentus, edited several issues of the Hugo-nominated Journey Planet. His debut novel After Hastings came out in 2020.
  • Born April 19, 1978 — K. Tempest Bradford, 45. She was a non-fiction and managing editor with Fantasy Magazine for several years, and has edited fiction for Fortean Bureau, Peridot Books and Sybil’s Garage. She’s written a lot of short fiction and her first YA novel, Ruby Finley vs. the Interstellar Invasion. She was a finalist for three Ignyte Awards, the Ember Award for unsung contributions to genre, and twice for the Community Award for Outstanding Efforts in Service of Inclusion and Equitable Practice in Genre. With Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward she shared a 2020 Locus Special Award to Writing the Other for Inclusivity and Representation Education.

(13) COMICS SECTION.

The future used to be better.

The future before.

The future now.

(14) BIG GREEN NUMBERS. Book Riot wants to discuss “The Bestselling Comics of All Time” – however, they don’t want the answer to be too easy.

But what is the bestselling comic of all time? Well, that depends on how you define comic.

Are we talking about single issues, or “floppies?” And if so, are we talking about the sales of one issue, or the series as a whole? Does that include collected editions and reprints? How do you account for changes in the retail market, from newsstands to specialty shops to digital, and the different reporting (or lack thereof) of each? How do you take into account the cultural changes since the ’40s, when over 90% of children read comics, compared to today’s globalized, media-saturated world? Should you account for the differences in population between America (331.9 million potential readers) versus Japan (125.7 million) versus, say, Finland (5.5 million)? Isn’t it apples and oranges to compare One Piece to X-Men to Peanuts, anyway?…

When it comes to the best selling single issue, the list begins at number five –

5. BATMAN: THE 10 CENT ADVENTURE BY GREG RUCKA AND RICK BURCHETT (MARCH 2002)

Most of the comics on this list are stunts of some sort, and selling a comic for literally just a dime in 2002 absolutely qualifies (most comics were $2.25 then). It’s actually a good story, kicking off the excellent Bruce Wayne: Murderer? plot line, but it was that nostalgic price point that sold 702,126 copies.

(15) BROWSING FOR DOLLARS. Untapped New York ranks the “10 Most Surprising Finds at the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair”. The treasures include Billie Holiday’s bar tab, and something a bit closer to being of genre interest —

9. A 17th-Century Celestial Atlas

Along with books, maps are a popular item to find at the antiquarian book fair. The book featured above is one of the most sought-after celestial atlases in existence. Produced by Dutch cartographer Andreas Cellarius in 1661, Harmonia Macrocosmica is priced at a whopping $395,000.

Considered Cellarius’s magnum opus, this map was made to illustrate competing theories of celestial mechanics, or how the solar system worked. The universe’s heavenly bodies are depicted in vibrant colors throughout 29 extremely detailed, hand-colored, double-page engraved plates in the book. The images take theories put forth by great thinkers and scientists like Ptolemy, Tycho Brahe, Nicolaus Copernicus, as well as lesser-known figures such as Aratus of Soli, and present them in an accessible way through images.

(16) BOOKSTORE SLEEPOVER. Zoos and museums have hosted them – now a downtown LA bookstore: “I spent the night at the Last Bookstore. Things got spooky” in the LA Times. The owner tried to make it a bit of a paranormal experience.

…Soon enough, Powell was recalling the spookiest things he’d seen in his years at the store. He described coworkers who’d heard or glimpsed figures moving around the corners, and instances where people watched books fly off shelves for seemingly no reason.

“That corner is where books fall off sometimes, in sci-fi, for some reason,” he said.

As we passed the portal, a hidden nook where my partner and I had signed up to sleep, we realized it was both secluded in the back corner of the store with books on U.S. history and located closest to the “haunted” shelves that books fall off of. We quickly decided we wouldn’t be sleeping there….

(17) THE MUSIC OF THE NIGHT. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Deep in a disused mind in Sardinia, scientists are assembling an experiment to find out just how much nothing weighs. Using an exquisitely sensitive balance beam and interferometric techniques cribbed from gravity wave detectors, they plan to switch on and off the Casimir effect using small temperature variations and measure the resulting change in the number of virtual particles that can exist between metal plates. If all goes well, they will have established a tight constraint on the energy of the vacuum. “How Much Does ‘Nothing’ Weigh?” at Scientific American.

It does something to you when you drive in here for the first time,” Enrico Calloni says as our car bumps down into the tunnel of a mine on the Italian island of Sardinia. After the intense heat aboveground, the contrast is stark. Within seconds, damp, cool air enters the car as it makes its way into the depths. “I hope you’re not claustrophobic.” This narrow tunnel, which leads us in almost complete darkness to a depth of 110 meters underground, isn’t for everyone. But it’s the ideal site for the project we are about to see—the Archimedes experiment, named after a phenomenon first described by the ancient Greek scientist, which aims to weigh “nothing.”…

…Geologically, Sardinia is one of the quietest places in Europe. The island, along with its neighbor Corsica, is located on a particularly secure block of Earth’s crust that is among the most stable areas of the Mediterranean, with very few earthquakes in its entire recorded history and only one (offshore) event that ever reached the relatively mild category of magnitude 5. Physicists chose this geologically uneventful place because the Archimedes experiment requires extreme isolation from the outside environment. It involves a high-precision experimental setup designed to investigate the worst theoretical prediction in the history of physics—the amount of energy in the empty space that fills the universe….

… Researchers can calculate the energy of the vacuum in two ways. From a cosmological perspective, they can use Albert Einstein’s equations of general relativity to calculate how much energy is needed to explain the fact that the universe is expanding at an accelerated rate. They can also work from the bottom up, using quantum field theory to predict the value based on the masses of all the “virtual particles” that can briefly arise and then disappear in “empty” space (more on this later). These two methods produce numbers that differ by more than 120 orders of magnitude (1 followed by 120 zeros). It’s an embarrassingly absurd discrepancy that has important implications for our understanding of the expansion of the universe—and even its ultimate fate. To figure out where the error lies, scientists are hauling a two-meter-tall cylindrical vacuum chamber and other equipment down into an old Sardinian mine where they will attempt to create their own vacuum and weigh the nothing inside….

(18) NOBODY SURVIVES THE FLAME TRENCH. [Item by Mike Kennedy.]On this past Monday’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Josh Groban talked about his visit to NASA, where, among other things, he received a tour of the “flame trench.”

Fellow space enthusiasts Stephen Colbert and Josh Groban geek out over the details of Groban’s trip to NASA’s Artemis mission launch pad. Check out Groban’s latest role as the lead in “Sweeney Todd,” playing now at Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre.

[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, JJ, Gordon Van Gelder, Rich Lynch, Lise Andreasen, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cat Eldridge.]

Pixel Scroll 3/14/23 File 770 Posting Moved Because Pixel Scroll Collapsed From Comments Bug

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(1) AFROPANTHEOLOGY. Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki today announced his new imprint, genre, and debut collection with Joshua Uchenna Omenga — Between Dystopias: The Road to Afropantheology. The book’s release date is October 24, 2023 and it can be preordered at Arc Manor Books. The cover is by Cyrielle Prückner.

Afropantheology is a portmanteau of Afro and Pantheology. Pantheology is the study of gods, religions, and the bodies of knowledge associated with them. Afropantheology, thus, is the study of African (and African-descended) religions, gods, and the bodies of knowledge associated with them. It captures the gamut of African works which, though having fantasy elements, are additionally imbued with the African spiritual realities.

​African literary scholars and storytellers have long grappled with the incompatibility of stories of African mysticism with the extant literary labels which seem to erase or dismiss essential aspects of African mysticism in their definitions. Between Dystopias: The Road to Afropantheology takes a stab at this age-old problem that cuts across the continent’s non-monolithic literature rooted in religion and culture. Afropantheology encapsulates the essence and value of African mysticism and dystopia through its award winning and original stories that cut across forms—essays, short stories, novelettes and novellas. It acknowledges the continent’s history in its inexorable journey through time’s spiral, from its origins to the present and into the future. ‘Mother’s Love, Father’s Place’, captures a ‘dark’ moment in the history of certain parts of Africa where the culture forbade the birthing of twins. 02 Arena, on the hand, is a contemporary ‘dystopic’ reality. The Witching Hour reflects the apprentice system in the voodoo practice still extant in many parts of Africa. ‘The Deification of Igodo’ is a tale of creation of deities from among the ancestors in African cosmology. ‘A Dance with the Ancestors’ tells of the interconnection between the world of the living and the world of the dead. And ‘Land of the Awaiting Birth’ is a mystic tale of the link between the born and the unborn in African cosmology.

Ekpeki says the collection will be published by a collaboration of Caezik Books of ARC Manor Books his new Pantheology imprint, “OD Ekpeki Presents”. The imprint logo is by Wilson Ofiavwe.

(2) CONAN BCE (BEFORE COPYRIGHT ERA) AND AFTER. Chuck Dixon’s The Siege Of The Black Citadel is an unauthorized Conan graphic novel published in February by Vox Day’s Castalia House. The original stories published during Robert E. Howard’s lifetime are in public domain in Europe, and Vox Day expressed confidence he will not run afoul of the rights connected with the work of L. Sprague de Camp and others.

This is going to be considered competition with the new authorized Conan novel recently released by Titan Books, S. M. Stirling’s Conan – Blood of the Serpent: The All-New Chronicles of the Worlds Greatest Barbarian Hero, although one reviewer calls it “a 304-page prologue to Robert E. Howard’s Red Nails” which is included in this very volume (rounding out the total page count to 417).

(3) MAGAZINES AND AMAZON. “Genre Grapevine Special Report: Amazon’s Ending of Kindle Newsstand Could Severely Impact SF/F Magazines” is a public post by Jason Sanford on Patreon. He says, “This is a major issue of SF/F magazines in the coming year or two.”

…The reason for the alarm is that over the last decade, Kindle subscriptions have become a significant part of the overall circulation for a large number of science fiction and fantasy magazines. Essentially, people like the convenience and ease of buying and reading e-books and expect the same from their magazine subscriptions.

By ending the Kindle Newsstand program, Amazon would no longer allow people on their platform to subscribe directly to magazines. Instead, Amazon announced it would allow certain magazines to remain on the platform through their Kindle Unlimited program.

As Rajiv Moté said, this means Amazon would be “moving e-magazines to a Spotify model, just like music. You pay the sales platform, not the producers.”…

(4) 2022 ENDEAVOUR AWARD OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS. The Endeavour Award for science fiction or fantasy is now open for 2022 submissions.

Since 1999, The Endeavour Award has recognized science fiction or fantasy works of 40,000 words or more, or single-author collections of short fiction. The author(s) must have been living [maintaining legal or physical residence] in the Pacific Northwest [Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, The Yukon, and British Columbia] when the publisher accepted the book, and must affirm that they wrote the majority of the book while living in the Pacific Northwest. The books must have been published in the United States or in Canada with a copyright date in 2022.

In addition to recognition and a handsome physical award, the winner also receives a cash prize of $1,000.

We require submitted books in electronic form (5 copies if they are copy protected), which will be shared with our preliminary readers. We can also accept NetGalley links. No physical copies will be accepted.

The entry form can be downloaded here: https://osfci.org/endeavour/entryform.pdf.

The preliminary readers will use a grading system to select a list of finalists. A trio of judges to be announced will select a winner from these finalists.

Please send completed entry forms and submissions to Jim Kling at [email protected]. Deadline for submissions is May 31, 2023.

For more information, visit the award website at https://osfci.org/endeavour/. General questions can be directed to Marilyn Holt at [email protected] or Jim Kling at [email protected].

(5) INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE. The International Booker Prize 2023 Longlist of 13 works was released today. There appears to be one item of genre interest, Cheon Myeong-Kwan’s Whale. The shortlist will come out on April 18 and the winner will be announced May 23. Publishing Perspectives breaks down the amount of the prize.

…The focus of this Booker is translation, and its £50,000 prize (US$60,734) is to be split into £25,000 (US$30,367) for the author and £25,000 for the translator—or divided equally between multiple translators. There also is a purse of £5,000 (US$6,072) for each of the shortlisted titles: £2,500 (US$3,036) for the author and £2,500 for the translator or, again, divided equally between multiple translators….

(6) GETTING THERE. “The Lucas Museum Finds Your Lack of Faith Disturbing” japes the New York Times.

It was chased out of Chicago by preservationists, only to become the object of a bidding war between Los Angeles and San Francisco. When George Lucas finally decided to build his $1 billion museum in Los Angeles, its arrival was jeered by some critics who saw it not as a civic gift but a vanity project. The museum is “a terrible idea,” wrote Christopher Knight, the art critic for The Los Angeles Times.

Since then, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art has been beset by more delays: it is not expected to open until 2025, seven years after ground was first broken on a parking lot across the street from the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum with a promised 2021 opening.

But even in the haze of construction, a seemingly endless swirl of workers, cranes and girders, the enormous scope of the project is coming into focus as its futuristic new home rises in Exposition Park: a grand homage to one of the nation’s best-known filmmakers, and a massive repository for his eclectic collection of 100,000 paintings, photographs, book illustrations and comic book drawings.

Its huge expanse of curving gray metal hovers over the landscape like a low-flying spaceship, or perhaps the unfinished Death Star being built in “Return of the Jedi,” a fitting tribute to its namesake and patron, who created the Star Wars franchise. It stands five stories high, with enough gallery space to fill one-and-a-half football fields, and it takes 15 minutes to walk across its sprawling campus….

(7) MEMORY LANE.

1933 – [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Lester Dent’s best remembered work was of course Doc Savage, but it was not the only pulp work that he did. Ninety years ago, he created his scientific detective Lynn Lash who headquarters was in a New York skyscraper where he took on those science fiction threats the police were unable to handle. This in large part led to Dent’s greatest character, Doc Savage. 

Hell in Boxes: The Exploits of Lynn Lash and Foster Fade gathers up the six stories that he wrote with these characters. Our Beginning is that of the first story, “The Sinister Ray”.  It is available from the usual suspects. 

And now our Beginning…

A WOMAN screamed—piercing shrieks torn between hoarse gasps of indrawn breath. 

“My eyes! My eyes!” 

A taxi driver howled, jerked his hands from his wheel to his eyes. 

His cab, wild, bucked over the curb, rooted across the crowded sidewalk. 

The motorman of a street car westbound on Forty-second Street doubled his arms across his face, tumbled sidewise off his stool. His car, no hand on airbrake, rolled against the lights into the Sixth Avenue junction. Automobiles piled against it like driftwood. The street car rocked on its trucks, stopped. 

A man bawled out in horrible agony. More screams! More crashes! Sound became a roar in the brick and glass canyon of Forty-second Street. 

The Sinister Ray had been let loose on the city! 

Men, women, ran blindly, plunging into each other, colliding with whatever was in their path. Some lay on the walks, quivering, hands clawing at their eyes. On the Sixth Avenue “L” station, waiting patrons reeled about, pain-drunk, tearing at their eyes. 

A few fell off the platforms among the electrified rails. Near the south end of the station, a man leaped wildly over the rail to the hard paving thirty feet below. 

Wild hysteria, bedlam was rampant. 

Several blocks distant from that mad corner of Forty-second Street and Sixth Avenue, in his laboratory on the sixth floor of a swanky Park Avenue apartment building, Lynn Lash abruptly laid his pencil on a sheet of paper weighted to his desk top by a glass retort and a microscope. He swung back in his deeply upholstered chair, rubbed his eyes gently with the backs of his thumbs.

“Strange I should suddenly start seeing spots in front of my eyes,” he muttered. “Never felt better in my life.” 

A breeze coming in through the open laboratory windows from Park Avenue faintly stirred the petals of the gardenia in his lapel. In the reception room, he could faintly hear the telephone buzzer as it whizzed out, then the click of the receiver being lifted by Rickey Dean, his secretary. 

Rickey, her voice as throaty as that of a boy, said: “Hello…. Nix! No can do. He’s busy.” 

The metallic gnashings the receiver made at her carried into the laboratory.

“What of it?” she clipped. “You’re Detective Captain Sam Casey and you’ve got something important in your hair—and what of it? That don’t cut any ice.” 

The receiver rattled at her again. There was a thump as she jerked it down on the Lester Dent desk.

“All right, all right, all right! Nobody but a pup of a cop would call a lady them things!” 

She opened the laboratory door, came through, closed the door, but kept her right hand on the knob. She was a small girl with a boyish form, chewing gum. “Sam Casey on the phone,” she said. “He wants to talk at you.”

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born March 14, 1869 — Algernon Blackwood. Writer of some of the best of the best horror and ghost stories ever done according to the research I just did. Most critics including Joshi say his two best stories are “The Willows” and “The Wendigo”. The novel that gets recommended is The Centaur. If you’re interested in reading him, he’s readily available at the usual digital suspects. (Died 1951.)
  • Born March 14, 1918 — Mildred Clingerman. Most of her stories were published in the Fifties in F&SF when Boucher was Editor. Boucher included “The Wild Wood” by her in the seventh volume of The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction and dedicated the book to her, calling her the “most serendipitous of discoveries.” A Cupful of Space and The Clingerman Files, neither available as a digital publication, contain all of her stories. (Died 1997.)
  • Born March 14, 1946 — Diana G. Gallagher. She won a Hugo Award for Best Fan Artist along with Brad W. Foster at Noreascon 3 after being a nominee at Nolacon II the previous year.  She won it under the name Diana Gallagher Wu while married to William F. Wu whose Birthday we did yesterday. She was also an author filker and author who wrote books for children and young adults based on Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, Sabrina the Teenage Witch and various Trek series. Her best-known filksong was “A Reconsideration of Anatomical Docking Maneuvers in a Zero Gravity Environment.” (Died 2021.)
  • Born March 14, 1957 — Tad Williams, 66. Author of the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series, Otherland series, and Shadowmarch series as well as the most excellent Tailchaser’s Song and The War of the Flowers. I’ve heard good things about his latest novel, Into The Narrowdark which came out last year.
  • Born March 14, 1961 — Penny Johnson Jerald, 62. She played Kasidy Yates, the love of Ben Sisko, on Deep Space Nine. She’s played Dr. Claire Finn on the cancelled Orville, just one of many Trek cast member that you’ll find there. And she provided the voice of President Amanda Waller on the most excellent Justice League: Gods & Monsters.
  • Born March 14, 1964 — Julia Ecklar, 59. She’s the Astounding Award–winning author of The Kobayashi Maru which is available in English and German ebook editions. She’s also a filk musician who recorded numerous albums in the Off Centaur label in the early 1980s, including Horse-Tamer’s Daughter, Minus Ten and Counting, and Genesis. She was inducted into the Filk Hall of Fame in 1996.
  • Born March 14, 1971 — Rebecca Roanhorse, 52. Her “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™” which was first published in the August 2017 issue of Apex Magazine won a Hugo as best short story at Worldcon 76. (It won a Nebula as well.) She also won the Astounding Award for Best New Writer. She has six novels to date, including Trail of Lightning which was nominated for a Hugo at Dublin 2019, and Black Sun, being nominated for a Hugo at DisCon III. 
  • Born March 14, 1974 — Grace Park, 49. Boomer on the reboot of Battlestar Galactica. She’s been on a fair amount of genre over the years with her first acting role being the Virtual Avatar in the “Bits of Love” episode of Outer Limits. After that, she shows up on Secret Agent Man, This Immortal, The Outer Limits again, Star Gate SG-1, Andromeda, and oddly enough Battlestar Galactica in a number roles other than her main one. I’m sure one of you can explain the latter. I confess that I’ve not watched it. 

(9) COMICS SECTION.

  • Barney & Clyde shows a classroom that needs a copy of Fahrenheit 451. You can guess what the problem is.
  • Tom Gauld tweeted his two latest cartoons.

(10) PI DAY. John King Tarpinian remembers celebrating the date at the House of Pies near the office, once upon a time.

(11) DISNEY THEME PARK CHARACTERS DISPLAYED AT SXSW 2023. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] The article shows three different ways Disney is working on to interact with theme park characters. There’s a “life” sized Tinker Bell in a lantern, who appears to be played by an off-stage actress  using some sort of 3-D projection system. There’s a full-size Hulk character (that needs work on the appearance side) powered by a person inside working an exoskeleton suit. And there’s a fully robotic character still in very early development stages. “Disney Unveils Unreal New Hulk, Tinker Bell, And Prototype Robot Theme Park Characters” at Slashfilm.

… The first new innovation D’Amaro demonstrated for the crowd was a brand new, unbelievably authentic way to interact with a beloved character, namely Tinker Bell from “Peter Pan.” While Tink has had a presence at the parks for years, this latest version of the magical pixie is true-to-size and can interact with people in a very real way. Much like the lightsaber I mentioned above, what myself and the crowd on hand witnessed is remarkably close to the real thing….

The Tinkerbell demo doesn’t give that good a view – see it at the link. Meanwhile, here’s a view of the lightsaber mentioned in another Slashfilm article: “I Saw A ‘Real’ Star Wars Lightsaber In Person And It Blew My Mind”.

(12) THE GODS THEMSELVES. In “’American Born Chinese’ Teaser: Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan Reunite”, Variety gives us every reason to look.

It’s a big night for “Everything Everywhere All at Once” at the Oscars, but stars Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan are already looking to the future with “American Born Chinese.” The two actors reunite in the first teaser for the action-comedy series. Released Sunday morning by Disney+, the footage caps off with the announcement of a May 24 premiere date for the series.

The series is adapted from cartoonist Gene Luen Yang’s acclaimed 2006 graphic novel, which tells the story of Jin Wang (Ben Wang), a child of Chinese immigrants who’s struggling with growing up in a predominantly white suburb. When he meets a new Taiwanese classmate, the two become fast friends, but Jin is pulled into the battles of Chinese mythological gods.

(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Mrs. Davis comes to Peacock on April 20.

“Mrs. Davis” is the world’s most powerful Artificial Intelligence. Simone is the nun devoted to destroying Her. Who ya got?

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Andrew Porter, Anne Marble, Jim Kling, Jason Sanford, Olav Rokne, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jon Meltzer.]

2022 International Booker Prize Shortlist

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The 2022 International Booker Prize shortlist was released April 7. Only one of the longlisted books with genre elements is still in the running.

  • Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, translated from Korean by Anton Hur

Korean author Bora Chung uses elements of the fantastic and surreal to address the very real horrors and cruelties of patriarchy and capitalism in modern society. Anton Hur’s translation skilfully captures the way Chung’s prose effortlessly glides from the terrifying to the wryly humorous. Winner of a PEN/Haim Grant.

The winners of the prize will be named on May 26. 

The complete shortlist follows.

2022 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE SHORTLIST

  • Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, translated from Korean by Anton Hur
  • A New Name: Septology VI-VII by Jon Fosse, translated from Norwegian by Damion Searls
  • Heaven by Mieko Kawakami, translated from Japanese by Samuel Bett and David Boyd
  • Elena Knows by Claudia Pineiro, translated from Spanish by Frances Riddle
  • Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree, translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell
  • The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, translated from Polish by Jennifer Croft

2022 International Booker Prize Longlist

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The 2022 International Booker Prize longlist was released March 10. Three of the thirteen books are story collections with genre elements.

The longlist was selected by a panel of five judges: translator Frank Wynne, author and academic Merve Emre, writer and lawyer Petina Gappah, writer and comedian Viv Groskop, and translator and author Jeremy Tiang.

The shortlist of six will be announced on April 7, and the winners of the prize will be named on May 26. 

  • Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, translated from Korean by Anton Hur

Korean author Bora Chung uses elements of the fantastic and surreal to address the very real horrors and cruelties of patriarchy and capitalism in modern society. Anton Hur’s translation skilfully captures the way Chung’s prose effortlessly glides from the terrifying to the wryly humorous. Winner of a PEN/Haim Grant.

  • Happy Stories, Mostly by Norman Erikson Pasaribu, translated from Indonesian by Tiffany Tsao

Inspired by Simone Weil’s concept of ‘decreation’ and drawing on Batak and Christian cultural elements, in Happy Stories, Mostly Pasaribu puts queer characters in situations and plots conventionally filled by hetero characters.

In one story, a staff member is introduced to their new workplace – a department of Heaven devoted to archiving unanswered prayers. In another, a woman’s attempt to vacation in Vietnam after her gay son commits suicide turns into a nightmarish failed escape. And in a speculative-historical third, a young man finds himself haunted by the tale of a giant living in colonial-era Sumatra.

  • After The Sun by Jonas Eika, translated from Danish by Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg

After the Sun opens portals to our newest realities, haunting the margins of a globalised world that’s both saturated with yearning and brutally transactional.

Under Cancún’s hard blue sky, a beach boy provides a canvas for tourists’ desires, seeing deep into the world’s underbelly. An enigmatic encounter in Copenhagen takes an IT consultant down a rabbit hole of speculation that proves more seductive than sex.

Meanwhile, the collapse of a love triangle in London leads to a dangerous, hypnotic addiction. And in the Nevada desert, a grieving man tries to merge with an unearthly machine.

The complete longlist follows the jump.

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2021 International Booker Prize

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The winner of the 2021 International Booker Prize, announced today, is a work of genre interest — 

  • At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop, translated from French by Anna Mocschovakis (Pushkin Press)

The £50,000 prize will be split between David Diop and Anna Moschovakis, giving the author and translator equal recognition.

Born in 1966 in Paris, David Diop is the first French author to win the International Booker Prize. Raised in Senegal, he now lives in France, where he is a professor of 18th-century literature at the University of Pau. At Night All Blood is Black is Diop’s second novel. The French edition of the novel, Frère d’âme, received the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens in 2018.

The jury was Lucy Hughes-Hallett (chair); Aida Edemariam; Neel Mukherjee; Olivette Otele; and George Szirtes. 

The 2021 International Booker Prize Shortlist

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The six-title 2021 International Booker Prize shortlist includes four works of genre interest — 

  • At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop, translated from French by Anna Mocschovakis (Pushkin Press)
  • The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enríquez, translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell (Granta Books)
  • When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut, translated from Spanish by Adrian Nathan West (Pushkin Press)
  • The Employees by Olga Ravn, translated from Danish by Martin Aitken (Lolli Editions)

Olga Ravn’s book has already won Denmark’s 2019 Niels Klim Award for sf.

The other two non-genre titles on the Booker shortlist are:

  • In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova, translated from Russian by Sasha Dugdale (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
  • The War of the Poor by Éric Vuillard, translated from French by Mark Polizzotti (Pan Macmillan, Picador)

The Booker Prize celebrates the finest fiction from around the world, translated into English, with the winning author and translator splitting the £50,000 prize evenly between them.

The shortlist was selected by Lucy Hughes-Hallett (chair); Aida Edemariam; Neel Mukherjee; Olivette Otele; and George Szirtes. 

The 2021 International Booker Prize winner will be announced on June 2, in an online ceremony from Coventry UK City of Culture 2021.

2021 International Booker Prize Longlist

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The 13-title 2021 International Booker Prize longlist includes The Employees written by Olga Ravn, a Dane and a 2019 Niels Klim Award winner, and five other works of genre interest — 

  • I Live in the Slums by Can Xue, translated from Chinese by Karen Gernant & Chen Zeping (Yale University Press)
  • At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop, translated from French by Anna Mocschovakis (Pushkin Press)
  • The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enríquez, translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell (Granta Books)
  • When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut, translated from Spanish by Adrian Nathan West (Pushkin Press)
  • The Perfect Nine: The Epic Gikuyu and Mumbi by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, translated by the author from Gikuyu (Harvill Secker)

The longlist was selected by Lucy Hughes-Hallett (chair); Aida Edemariam; Neel Mukherjee; Olivette Otele; and George Szirtes. 

The complete longlist follows the jump.

Continue reading →