The 2023 SFPA Speculative Poetry Contest is taking entries starting today through August 31. The contest is open to all poets, including non-SFPA-members. Prizes will be awarded for best unpublished poem in three categories:
Line count does not include title or stanza breaks. All sub-genres of speculative poetry are allowed in any form.
Prizes in each category (Dwarf, Short, Long) will be $150 First Prize, $75 Second Prize, $25 Third Prize. Publication on the SFPA website for first through third places. There is an entry fee of $3 per poem.
The contest judge is Michael Arnzen, who holds four Bram Stoker Awards and an International Horror Guild Award. He has been teaching as a Professor of English in the MFA program in Writing Popular Fiction at Seton Hill University since 1999, and has work forthcoming in Weird Tales, Writing Poetry in the Dark and more. He also is a past Secretary/Treasurer of the SFPA.
The contest chair is R. Thursday (they/them), a writer, educator, historian, and all-around nerd. They placed second in the 2021 Rhysling Award for Short Poems, and the 2022 Bacopa Formal Verse Contest. Their work has been published in Vulture Bones, The Poet’s Haven, Crow and Quill, Eye to the Telescope, Sheepshead Review, Luna Station Quarterly, Book of Matches, and many other fine journals.
Entries are read blind. Unpublished poems only. Author retains rights, except that first through third place winners will be published on the SPFA website. Full guidelines here.
Regarding the Memory of Earth, Angela Acosta, Radon Journal 1
Sabbatical Somewhere Warm, Elizabeth McClellan, Star*Line 45.4
Shipwrecked, Gretchen Tessmer, The Deadlands 12
Status Transcript, Lee Murray, A Woman Unbecoming, eds. Rachel A. Brune & Carol Gyzander (Crone Girls Press)
Strange Progeny, Bruce Boston, Hybrid: Misfits, Monsters and Other Phenomena, eds. Donald Armfield & Maxwell I. Gold (Hybrid Sequence Media)
Tamales on Mars, Angela Acosta, The Sprawl Mag, October
The Epidemic of Shrink-Ray-Gun Violence Plaguing Our Schools Must End, Pedro Iniguez, Star*Line 45.3
The Gargoyle Watches the Rains End, Amelia Gorman, The Gargoylicon: Imaginings and Images of the Gargoyle in Literature and Art, ed. Frank Coffman (Mind’s Eye Publications)
The Long Night, Ryfkah, Eccentric Orbits 3, ed. Wendy Van Camp (Dimensionfold Publishing)
The Optics of Space Travel, Angela Acosta, Eye to the Telescope 43
The Watcher on the Wall, Rebecca Bratten-Weiss, Reckoning 6
Time Skip, Alyza Taguilaso, The Deadlands 16
We Don’t Always Have to Toss Her in the Deep End, Jordan Hirsch, The Future Fire 62
Werewolves in Space, Ruth Berman, Dreams and Nightmares 121
What Electrons Read, Mary Soon Lee, Simultaneous Times 31
What the Old Woman Knows, Melissa Ridley Elmes, Listen to Her UNF, March 23
What Wolves Read, Mary Soon Lee, Uppagus 54
LONG POEMS (25 FINALISTS)
The Bone Tree, Rebecca Buchanan, Not a Princess, but (Yes) There was a Pea, and Other Fairy Tales to Foment Revolution (Jackanapes Press)
Corvidae, Sarah Cannavo, Liquid Imagination 50
The Dead Palestinian Father, Rasha Abdulhadi, Anathema: Spec from the Margins 15
Debris, Deborah L. Davitt, The Avenue, May 18
EMDR, Marsheila Rockwell, Unnerving Magazine 17
ex-lovers & other ghosts, Herb Kauderer, Cold & Crisp 518
field notes from an investigation into the self, Max Pasakorn, Strange Horizons, August 29
From “Poem without Beginning or End”, Vivek Narayanan, Poetry, May
Georgia Clay Blood, Beatrice Winifred Iker, Fantasy Magazine 80
Herbaceous Citadel, Avra Margariti, The Fairy Tale Magazine, January 4
How to Skin Your Wolf, G. E. Woods, Strange Horizons, December 19
Igbo Landing II, Akua Lezli Hope, Black Fire—This Time, ed. Kim McMillon (Aquarius Press)
Interdimensional Border Town, Lauren Scharhag, Unlikely Stories, August
Living in Rubble, Gerri Leen, Eccentric Orbits 3, ed. Wendy Van Camp (Dimensionfold Publishing)
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) has posted the Rhysling Award Long Lists of poems published in 2022. Juries for the long and short categories will now take these lists and narrow them down to 50 for the short category and 25 for the long category. The selected poems will appear in the 2022 Rhysling Anthology and will be on the ballot for SFPA members to vote on.
The jury will have their selections made no later than April 30. The Anthology will be sent shortly after that date, and voting will begin July 1.
SHORT POEMS (105 nominated poems)
After the Quest is Over • Lisa Timpf • Eye to the Telescope 46
Air Born • Brian U. Garrison • Corvid Queen, November 18
Angels • Frances Skene • Polar Starlight 6
Anima • Thomas Zimmerman • Pages Literary Journal, November 9
Animal House Speech • Dave Chandler • Failed Haiku 83
Anodized Titanium • Mary Soon Lee • Eye to the Telescope 44
Aswang Shaman Communing with Diwata for the First Time • Vince Gotera • Eye to the Telescope 46
Australopithecus • Jessica Lucci • How To Steal A Purse, April
bathroom chatter • Matteo L. Cerilli • Augur 5.2
Beneath Everything The Future Still Exists • Maggie Chirdo • Little Blue Marble: Warmer Worlds, ed. Katrina Archer (Ganache Media)
The Best Ambassadors • Adele Gardner • Felis Futura: An Anthology of Future Cats, ed. CB Droege (Manawaker Studio)
Big Brother, Little Brother, and the Sea • Geneve Flynn • Space & Time Magazine 142
Biophilia • Sarah Grey • Strange Horizons, Fund Drive
Bitch Moon • Sarah Grey • Nightmare Magazine 118
Bla Jungfrun • Deborah L. Davitt • Strange Horizons, September 26
Black Pastoral: On Mars • Ariana Benson • Paranoid Tree 17
Blond Date in a Laundromat • Mary Turzillo • Best of 22 (Ohio Poetry Association)
Bone November • Sandra Kasturi • The New Quarterly 164
Cassandra as Climate Scientist • Jeannine Hall Gailey • California Quarterly 48:4
The Closest Traitor • Richard Magahiz • Mobius: The Journal of Social Change 33:2
A Creation Myth • John C. Mannone • Songs of Eretz, Spring
Cursed • Lee Murray • The Gargoylicon: Imaginings and Images of the Gargoyle in Literature and Art, ed. Frank Coffman (Mind’s Eye Publications)
Dark Neighborhood • Cindy O’Quinn • Chiral Mad 5
Dead in Orange Red • Jamal Hodge • Monthly Musings, May 9
Derelict Dreams • Bruce Boston • Dreams and Nightmares 121
Dinner Plans with Baba Yaga • Stephanie M. Wytovich • Into the Forest: Tales of the Baba Yaga, ed. Lindy Ryan (Black Spot Books)
Domestic Tranquility • Brian U. Garrison • Radon Journal 2
Doppelganger • James Arthur Anderson • The Horror Zine, Fall
Draft • Lavina Blossom • Riddled with Arrows 5.4
The Epidemic of Shrink-Ray-Gun Violence Plaguing Our Schools Must End • Pedro Iniguez • Star*Line 45.3
Equus Aloft • Sterling Warner • Otoliths, February
Field Notes from the Anthropocene • Priya Chand • Nightmare Magazine 116
First Contact • Lisa Timpf • Eye to the Telescope 44
Fracking-lution • Linda D. Addison • Hybrid: Misfits, Monsters and Other Phenomena, eds. Donald Armfield & Maxwell I. Gold (Hybrid Sequence Media)
The Gargoyle • Amelia Gorman • The Gargoylicon: Imaginings and Images of the Gargoyle in Literature and Art, ed. Frank Coffman (Mind’s Eye Publications)
Gosh, It’s Too Beautiful to Exist Briefly in a Parallel Planet • Nwuguru Chidiebere Sullivan • Strange Horizons, November 21
Harold and the Blood-Red Crayon • Jennifer Crow • Star*Line 45.1
Helianthus • Eva Papasoulioti • Solarpunk Magazine 5
Hip Gnomes • P S Cottier • AntipodeanSF 291
Hockey Night in Canis Major • Gretchen Tessmer • Kaleidotrope, January
Home from the Wizard Wars • Lyri Ahnam • Silver Blade 54
The Honorable Iris C. Thaumantos, Presiding • Marsheila Rockwell • Musings of the Muses, eds. Heather & S. D. Vassallo (Brigids Gate Press)
How to Build an Altar • Angela Acosta • Halloween SFPA Reading
If I Were Human • Marie Vibbert • Star*Line 45.2
In Stock Images of the Future, Everything is White • Terese Mason Pierre • Uncanny 46
In water • Soonest Nathaniel • Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize 2022 Award Finalists
Intergalactic Baba Yaga • Sandra Lindow • Dreams and Nightmares 122
It’s Not Utopian If There Are No Fat People • Jordan Hirsch • Utopia Science Fiction, December
Jingwei Tries to Fill Up the Sea • Mary Soon Lee • Uncanny Magazine 45
A Lacing of Lavendar • Carina Bissett • HWA Poetry Showcase IX
Laws of Exponents • John Reinhart • NewMyths.com 59
Leda Goes To The Doctor • Pankaj Khemka • Carmina Magazine, September
Letting Flowers Go • Alexander Etheridge • Liquid Imagination 52
Lines to a Martian • Alfonsina Storni • Asimov’s Science Fiction, November/December
The Long Night • Ryfkah • Eccentric Orbits 3, ed. Wendy Van Camp (Dimensionfold Publishing)
Medea leaves behind a letter • FJ Doucet • Star*Line 45.1
Medusa • Akua Lezli Hope • The New Verse News, November 18
Medusa Bringing Her Children Back Home • Salt • Patreon
MetaGender Machine • Linda D. Addison • Black Fire—This Time, ed. Kim McMillon (Aquarius Press)
Mind Compression • Madhur Anand • Parasitic Oscillations (Random House)
Monitors • David C. Kopaska-Merkel (with Kendall Evans) • Star*Line 45.1
Mother Wicked • Dyani Sabin • Strange Horizons, February 28
Near the end, you mother tells you she’s been seeing someone • Shannon Connor Winward • SFPA Poetry Contest
Necklace • Carolyn Clink • Frost Zone Zine 6
New Planet • Kathy Bailey • Dreams and Nightmares 122
Od’s Bodkin • Colleen Anderson • Space & Time Magazine 142
Old Soldier, New Love • Vince Gotera • Eye To The Telescope 45
On the Limitations of Photographic Evidence in Fairyland • Nicole J. LeBoeuf • Eternal Haunted Summer, Summer Solstice
The Optics of Space Travel • Angela Acosta • Eye to the Telescope 43
Petrichor • Eva Papasoulioti • Utopia Science Fiction, April/May
Pittsburgh Temporal Transfer Station • Alan Ira Gordon • Star*Line 45.2
Status Transcript • Lee Murray • A Woman Unbecoming, eds. Rachel A. Brune & Carol Gyzander (Crone Girls Press)
Strange Progeny • Bruce Boston • Hybrid: Misfits, Monsters and Other Phenomena, eds. Donald Armfield & Maxwell I. Gold (Hybrid Sequence Media)
Suburban Pitcher Plant, Sarracenia suburbiana • Jay Sturner • Not One of Us 69
Tamales on Mars • Angela Acosta • The Sprawl Mag, October
Tasted Like Pork • Pankaj Khemka • Ghostlight, Fall
Terrible Truths • Linda D. Addison • Daughter of Sarpedon: A Tempered Tales Collection, eds. Heather & S. D. Vassallo (Brigids Gate Press)
Time Skip • Alyza Taguilaso • The Deadlands 16
Transformation Sequence • Stewart C Baker • JOURN-E, September
The Veil • Anna Cates • Otoliths, February
Villagers • Tim Jones • a fine line, Autumn
Virgin Mary Meteorology • Patricia Gomes • Muddy River Review, Fall/Winter
Warming • Maria Zoccola • Nightmare Magazine 117
The Watcher on the Wall • Rebecca Bratten-Weiss • Reckoning 6
We Don’t Always Have to Toss Her in the Deep End • Jordan Hirsch • The Future Fire 62
Werewolves in Space • Ruth Berman • Dreams and Nightmares 121
What Electrons Read • Mary Soon Lee • Simultaneous Times 31
What the Old Woman Knows • Melissa Ridley Elmes • Listen to Her UNF, March 23
What Wolves Read • Mary Soon Lee • Uppagus 54
While Traveling Through Deep Space Aboard a Generation Ship • Terrie Leigh Relf • The Drabbun Anthology, eds. Francis W. Alexander & t. santitoro (Hiraeth Publishing)
LONG POEMS (69 nominated poems)
Ariadne Threads the Labyrinth • Adele Gardner • Dreams and Nightmares 120
The Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) has implemented new guidelines for the organization’s best-known prize, the Rhysling Award.
The most significant changes are the addition of a jury to the process, and a rule to discourage entrants from also competing for two other SFPA prizes with the same poem.
JURY. SFPA members will continue to collectively create a list of nominees. The new Rhysling jury will select the finalists from their recommendations. SFPA members will still vote on the winners.
RANGE. The Rhysling Award will still be given in short and long categories, with the dividing point at 50 lines. However, there are now lower and upper limits to prevent “double dipping” into SFPA’s other awards, the Dwarf Stars and Elgin Award. Poems 10 lines and under are eligible only for Dwarf Stars. Poems 300 lines and over are eligible only for the Elgin.
The changes followed two rounds of surveying members and have been approved by SFPA’s executives.
Beth Cato, Marsheila Rockwell, Marge Simon and Mary Turzillo are the winners of 2022 Rhysling Award in the Long Poem Category. Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association members voted their work at the top of the polls. There were 78 nominees.
The 2022 Rhysling Chairs are F. J. Bergmann and Brian U. Garrison.
The Rhysling Award is given in two categories. “Best Long Poem” is for poems of 50+ lines, or for prose poems, of 500+ words. “Best Short Poem” is limited to poems of no more than 49 lines, or prose poems of no more than 499 words. The 2022 Rhysling Award short poem winners were announced in June.
Contest chair Brittany Hause received 352 entries (119 dwarf-length, 176 short, and 57 long poems) from around the world.
This year’s Speculative Poetry Contest judge, David Kirby, selected the winning pieces and honorable mentions. The winners will receive a $150 First Prize, $75 Second Prize, and $25 Third Prize in each category, as well as publication on sfpoetry.com.
LONG CATEGORY
WINNER
T. D. Walker — “The Hologram Princess on the Moon Considers the Pillars Surrounding Her”
Second Prize
F. J. Bergmann — “Photographing Sirens”
Third Prize
Alex Jennings — “Ivory Coast”
SHORT CATEGORY
Winner
Shannon Connor Winward — “Near the end, your mother tells you she’s been seeing someone”
Second Prize
Scott Thomas — “Angelo Was Right”
Third Prize
Karen Paul Holmes — “Brünnhilde Speaks”
DWARF CATEGORY
Winner
F. J. Bergmann — “Tranche”
Second Prize
M.J. Towers — “Terminal”
Third Prize
Susan Burch — [hoping one day]
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Dwarf Form Honorable Mentions:
Aphorism by Timons Esaias
Can You Believe by S. T. Eleu
[Cellphones out at dinner] by Nicholas Batura
Getting Lucky by F. J. Bergmann
It Wasn’t As If … by Anna Cates
Poker Night by Michael McCormick
Short Form Honorable Mentions
All the space we have left by Marisca Pichette
Bayes’ Theorem As Applied to the Fermi Paradox by F. J. Bergmann
Captain Kirk (38 Years After the Shuttle Crash) by Scott Thomas
Harry Potter en Français by Sarah A. Carleton
Kim’s houseboat in the sky is broken by Jenny Blackford
The award is named for SFPA founder Suzette Haden Elgin, and is presented in two categories, Chapbook and Book.
CHAPBOOK CATEGORY
WINNER
Field Guide to Invasive Species of Minnesota by Amelia Gorman (Interstellar Flight Press, 2021)
Amelia Gorman
SECOND PLACE
Tug of a Black Hole by Deborah P Kolodji (Title IX Press, 2021)
Deborah P Kolodji
THIRD PLACE
Visions at Templeglantine by John W. Sexton (Revival Press, 2020)
John W. Sexton
BOOK CATEGORY
WINNER
Can You Sign My Tentacle? by Brandon O’Brien (Interstellar Flight Press, 2021)
Brandon O’Brien
SECOND PLACE
Tortured Willows: Bent. Bowed. Unbroken. by Christina Sng, Angela Yuriko Smith, Lee Murray, and Geneve Flynn (Yuriko Publishing, 2021)
Lee Murray, Geneve Flynn, Christina Sng, Angela Yuriko Smith
THIRD PLACE
Unquiet Stars by Ann K. Schwader (Weird House Press, 2021)
Ann K. Schwader
There were 14 chapbooks nominated and 45 full-length books; 62 SFPA members voted.
2022 Elgin Chair Jordan Hirsch writes speculative fiction and poetry in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Her work has appeared with Apparition Literary Magazine, The Dread Machine, Daily Science Fiction, and other venues.
The award recognizes the best speculative poem of 1–10 lines published in the previous year, and is designed to honor excellent scifaiku, tanka, cinquains, and other types of short poems that examine speculative themes which tend to be overshadowed in SFPA’s Rhysling Award competition.
WINNER
[Tie]
“Poem with Lines from My Son” by Jen Stewart Fueston
“What Trees Read” by Mary Soon Lee
SECOND PLACE
“Colony” by Jamal Hodge
THIRD PLACE
“Future Portrait of Dark Matter” by Gene Twaronite
HONORABLE MENTIONS
“Mexico City, 2101 AD” by Juan Manuel Pérez
“fury” by Lee Murray
“Mother” by Merie Kirby
“Past Equinox” by Ann K. Schwader
And a tie between
“—And They All Lived Together—” by Andrew J. Wilson
“[cricket song]” by Joshua Gage
The authors who composed the 120 short poems selected from the 1,371 qualifying submissions have reason to celebrate.
The 2022 award chairs Adele Gardner and Greer Woodward, who edited the collection, gave their thanks to each and every poet; Elisabeth Alba, cover artist; the many editors who helped them; all the participants in the Dwarf Stars Zoom readings, including hosts Denise Dumars and Deborah P Kolodji, reader Colleen Anderson, and all the poets and readers; and so many members of SFPA, including Brian Garrison (SFPA Secretary), F. J. Bergmann (anthology layout and website), Deborah P Kolodji (searched mainstream haiku journals); Diane Severson Mori and Jordan Hirsch (publicity); and so many more.
“But first and foremost—we honor and celebrate all of these wonderful poets, who made our task so light. We shall trip through the stars together many times, in memory.”
(1) RHYSLING REVAMP SURVEY REPORT. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) surveyed members about potential changes to their Rhysling Award. See their feedback here: “Rhysling Revamp” at the SPECPO blog. From the introduction:
The Rhysling Awards are in their 45th year of recognizing excellent speculative poetry, presented by The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA). Leaders have been monitoring the Rhysling Anthology as it grew along with membership numbers. The anthology has ballooned from 42 poems in 2002 to 180 poems in 2022. Continued growth would result in an anthology that is not feasible to print or read.
Here’s an excerpt from the survey results.
CATEGORIES
A continual discussion point among members is the question of “double dipping” on awards. Most respondents support that Elgin-length poems not be considered for the Rhysling (64%). A slight majority agree at setting a maximum line length for the Rhysling (53%), which would be consistent with considering extra-long poems being only eligible for the Elgins. On the other side of the spectrum, there is generally support (49%) for Dwarf Stars to be the only award that can catch the 1-10 line poems. Only 25% of respondents disagreed about keeping Dwarf-Stars-eligible poems out of the Rhyslings.
There was very little support for adjusting the length definitions, but lots of ambivalence showing in the swell of neutral responses (44%).
(2) CHICON 8 POCKET PROGRAM. In a manner of speaking. The 392-page Pocket Program is now available on the Chicon 8 website. There are two versions, (1) a single page version best viewed on phones and tablets, and (2) a two-page version which is best for printing.
(3) ALERT: FAUX CHICON 8 MERCHANDISE. The Worldcon committee issued a heads up that some t-shirt sites are selling Chicon 8 branded merchandise and saying they are official. They are not.
“Our only official site for Chicon 8 merchandise at this time isRedbubble. If you buy from anywhere else, it does not benefit the convention. Please shop wisely!”
(4) THE OTHER WORLD. This World Fantasy Award winner’s new book isn’t genre, but when speaking about her research she says things like this — “So I went on this fantastic two-week trip into a time and place that doesn’t really exist now.” “Sofia Samatar Brings a Second Coming” at Publishers Weekly.
Sofia Samatar has a way with a sentence. No matter what she’s writing—whether it’s short stories, like her quietly devastating Nebula- and Hugo-nominated “Selkie Stories Are for Losers,” or novels, like her World Fantasy Award–winning debut, A Stranger in Olondria—her work has a way of pairing the mundane and sublime with casual aplomb.
Her latest, The White Mosque (Catapult, Oct.), is a mosaic memoir that juxtaposes history, culture, religion and regionalism, tracing the journey of a group of German-speaking Mennonites into the heart of Khiva in Central Asia—now modern-day Uzbekistan—on a quest that promised no less than the second coming of Christ.
Samatar’s own journey to the site where the group’s church once stood started in 2016, when her father-in-law gave her a book titled The Great Trek of the Russian Mennonites, by Frank Belk. “This guy, who’s sort of a cult leader, predicts Christ is returning, and these people just uproot their lives to follow him,” she says, speaking via Zoom from her office at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va., where she’s an associate professor of English. “Of course, nothing happens. But they stayed for 50 years, until they were deported by the Bolsheviks.”
Samatar, the child of a Black Somali Muslim and a white Mennonite, became obsessed with the story….
(5) CON OR BUST. Dream Foundry, which previously announced that Con or Bust is “folding into our (dragon) wing,” shared the program’s new logo designed by Dream Foundry contest winner Yue Feng.
(6) BACK TO THE MOON. This NASA promo about the Artemis mission dropped yesterday. “Artemis I: We Are Ready”.
The journey of half a million miles – the first flight of the Artemis Generation – is about to begin. The uncrewed Artemis I mission will jump-start humanity’s return to the Moon with the thunderous liftoff of NASA’s powerful new Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. This critical flight test will send Orion farther than any human-rated spacecraft has ever flown, putting new systems and processes to the test and lighting the way for the crew missions to come. Artemis I is ready for departure – and, together with our partners around the world, we are ready to return to the Moon, with our sights on Mars and beyond.
(7) WHERE’S THE LOOT? [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In the Financial Times behind a paywall, Tom Faber looks at the problems game designers have giving users rewards.
Most games interface short, mid- and long-term rewards that trigger at different times. the short-term rewards often take the form of sensory feedback; the bright ‘ding’ when you get a coin in Super Mario, an enemy’s head exploding in a shower of gore in Grand Theft Auto. These get boring after a while–behavioural psychologists learned that repeating the same rewards generates diminishing returns. So developers offer midterm rewards: new levels, items, skills, characters, locations or narrative beats. The longterm rewards are often related to social competition and prestige, such as difficult high-level team challenges or rare cosmetic items which players can show off to their friends.
Loot boxes lean into several of these techniques. They have been employed in all manner of games ranging from FIFA to Star Wars, and they’re very profitable. Yet they have also faced a backlash: a recent report from consumer bodies in 18 European countries called them ‘exploitative.’ Although they have been banned in Belgium since 2018, most governments have been wary of legislation–the UK recently decided not to ban loot boxes after a 22-month consultation. Still, some developers have heard gamers are unhappy–loot boxes were removed from Star Wars Battlefront 2 after an outcry and Blizzard recently announced they won’t feature in upcoming shooter Overwatch 2.”
…“I’d like people to know that it’s possible for a debut author in her 40s, a woman of color, a mom, who led a quiet life offline with no brand building whatsoever to have this experience,” said Jessamine Chan.
And yet Chan’s “The School for Good Mothers” was published in January 2022 — and soared to the best-seller list, catapulting her to literary stardom. Last month, former President Barack Obama featured it on his summer reading list.
How does a debut novel go from a “very messy” draft on a writer’s desk to a published book, on display in bookstores around the country?
Here, we take you behind the scenes to see how a book is born — the winding path it takes, the many hands that touch it, the near-misses and the lucky breaks that help determine its fate.
From starring in Stand by Me to playing Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation to playing himself, in his second (third?) iconic role of Evil Wil Wheaton in The Big Bang Theory, to becoming a social media supernova, Wil Wheaton has charted a career course unlike anyone else, and has emerged as one of the most popular and well respected names in science fiction, fantasy and pop culture.
Back in 2001, Wil began blogging on wilwheaton.net. Believing himself to have fallen victim to the curse of the child actor, Wil felt relegated to the convention circuit, and didn’t expect many would want to read about his random experiences and personal philosophies.
Yet, much to his surprise, people were reading. He still blogs, and now has an enormous following on social media with well over 3 million followers.
In Still Just a Geek, Wil revisits his 2004 collection of blog posts, Just a Geek, filled with insightful and often laugh-out-loud annotated comments, additional later writings, and all new material written for this publication. The result is an incredibly raw and honest memoir, in which Wil opens up about his life, about falling in love, about coming to grips with his past work, choices, and family, and finding fulfillment in the new phases of his career. From his times on the Enterprise to his struggles with depression to his starting a family and finding his passion–writing–Wil Wheaton is someone whose life is both a cautionary tale and a story of finding one’s true purpose that should resonate with fans and aspiring artists alike. (William Morrow & Company)
The Hollywood Reporter confirmed with multiple sources that a select few who worked on the film, including cast, crew and studio executives, would be attending the screenings this week on the Warner Bros lot in California. One source described them as “funeral screenings”, as it is likely the footage will be stored forever and never shown to the public.
…The Hollywood Reporter reported there was a chance Warner Bros would make “the drastic move of actually destroying its Batgirl footage as a way to demonstrate to the IRS that there will never be any revenue from the project, and thus it should be entitled to the full write-down immediately.”
On Tuesday, in an interview with French outlet Skript, Batgirl directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah said they no longer had any copy of the film, recalling the moment they found they could not longer access the servers that held the footage.
…El Arbi said it was unlikely they’d have the studio’s support to release it in the future or that there could be an equivalent of “the Snyder cut” – Zack Snyder’s four-hour director’s cut of the DC film Justice League, which added an extra $70m to a $300m budget film.
“It cannot be released in its current state,” said El Arbi. “There’s no VFX … we still had some scenes to shoot. So if one day they want us to release the Batgirl movie, they’d have to give us the means to do it. To finish it properly with our vision.”
(11) TRANSFORMATIVE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT. Seekingferret posted a “Panel Report” from Fanworks where the topic was “Ethical Norms in Fanworks Fandom”.
… I presented three models for fandom’s approach to copyright- the It’s All Transformative model, the It’s Illegal but I Do It Anyway model, and the It’s Not Illegal Because the Copyright Holders’ Inaction is an Implicit License model, and then the audience argued with me for a while about whether the second two models are essentially the same, which was a good, clarifying argument to have….
If you can communicate on it, you can abuse it. This was proven again recently when a hacker using the name “scarycoder” uploaded a dozen malicious Python packages to PyPI, the popular Python code repository. These bits of code pretended to provide useful functions for Roblox gaming community developers, but all they really did was steal users’ information. So far, so typical. Where it got interesting is it used the Discord messaging app to download malicious executable files.
(13) BOOK PORN. [Item by Bill.] Whenever I see a photograph on the web that has a bookshelf in the background, I spend way too much time trying to figure out what the books are. For example:
Blogger Lawrence Person has posted photos of his SF book shelves, and there are a lot of titles I’d love to have in my own collection. A few years old, but perhaps worth a look …. “Overview of Lawrence Person’s Library: 2017 Edition”. He provides regular updates to the collection (see the “books” tag).
(14) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.
1989 – [By Cat Eldridge.] Thirty-three years ago, the first installment of the Bill & Ted franchise, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure premiered.
Starring William “Bill” S. Preston Esq. and Ted “Theodore” Logan, portrayed by Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves as, and not giving a frell about spoilers here, time travelling slacker high schoolers assembling the ultimate history report. And let’s not forget Rufus as portrayed by George Carlin. I met him some forty years ago — a really neat gentleman.
Stephen Herek directed here. He had previously written and directed the horror/SF Critters film. Nasty film it was. Chris Matheson who wrote all three of the franchise films co-wrote this with Ed Solomon who co-wrote the third with him and, more importantly, was the Men in Black writer.
By late Eighties standards, it was cheap to produce costing only ten million and making forty in return. Critics for the most part were hostile —- the Washington Post said “if Stephen Herek has any talent for comedy, it’s not visible here.” And the Los Angeles Times added, “it’s unabashed glorification of dumbness for dumbness’ sake.”
It spawned not one but two television series named – oh, guess what they were named. Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, an animated series that started out on CBS and ended on Fox, lasted twenty-one episodes over two seasons, and Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, the live version, lasted but seven episodes on Fox. Evan Richards and Christopher Kennedy played Bill and Ted.
DC did the comic for the first film, Marvel for the second. It did well enough that it led to the Marvel series Bill & Ted’s Excellent Comic Book which lasted for just twelve issues. And there was a sort of adaptation of the animated series that lasted for a year by Britain’s now gone Look-In Magazine.
Audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes give it a most bodacious seventy-five percent rating.
(15) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born August 25, 1909 — Michael Rennie. Definitely best remembered as Klaatu in The Day the Earth Stood Still. He would show up a few years later on one of The Lost World films as Lord John Roxton, and he’s got an extensive genre series resume which counts Lost in Space as The Keeper in two episodes, The Batman as The Sandman, The Time Tunnel, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and The Invaders. (Died 1972.)
Born August 25, 1913 — Walt Kelly. If you can get them, Fantagraphics has released the complete Pogo in twelve stunning hardcover editions covering up to 1973. Did you know Kelly began his career as animator at Walt Disney Studios, working on Dumbo, Pinocchio and Fantasia? Well he did. (Died 1973.)
Born August 25, 1930 — Sean Connery. Worst film? Zardoz. Best film? From Russia with Love very, very definitely. Best SF film? Outland. Or Time Bandits you want to go for silly. Now remember these are my personal choices. I almost guarantee that you will have different ones. (Died 2020.)
Born August 25, 1940 — Marilyn Niven, 82. She was a Boston-area fan who now lives in LA and is married to writer Larry Niven. She has worked on a variety of conventions, both regionals and Worldcons. In college, she was a member of the MITSFS and was one of the founding members of NESFA. She’s also a member of Almack’s Society for Heyer Criticism.
Born August 25, 1947 — Michael Kaluta, 75. He’s best known for his 1970s take on The Shadow with writer Dennis O’Neil for DC in 1973–1974. He’d reprise his work on The Shadow for Dark Horse a generation later. And Kaluta and O’Neil reunited on The Shadow: 1941 – Hitler’s Astrologer graphic novel published in 1988. If you can find them, the M. W. Kaluta: Sketchbook Series are well worth having.
Born August 25, 1955 — Simon R. Green, 67. I’ll confess that I’ve read pretty much everything he’s written except that damn Robin Hood novel that made a NYT Best Seller. Favorite series? The Nightside, Hawk & Fisher and Secret History were my favorite ones until the Ismael Jones series came along and I must say it’s a hell of a lot of fun as well. Drinking Midnight Wine and Shadows Fall arethe novels I’ve re-read the most.
Born August 25, 1958 — Tim Burton, 64. Beetlejuice is by far my favorite film by him. His Batman was, errr, interesting. Read that comment as you will. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is definitely more Dahlish than the first take was which I think is a far better look at the source material, and Sleepy Hollow is just too damn weird for my pedestrian tastes. (Snarf.)
Born August 25, 1970 — Chris Roberson, 52. Brilliant writer. I strongly recommend his Recondito series, Firewalk and Firewalkers. The Spencer Finch series is also worth reading. He won two Sidewise Awards, first for his “O One” story and later for The Dragon’s Nine Sons novel. He’s had five Sidewise nominations.
(17) HORROR WRITERS HAVE OPINIONS. Midnight Pals did a sendup of John Scalzi and his purchase of a church building. And his burritos. Can’t overlook those. Thread starts here.
Scalzi: i bought a church! King: a church? King: oh that's King: cool Scalzi: you sound unconvinced King: well i'm just a little confused that's all Scalzi: Scalzi: you know steve you live in a haunted mansion so i wouldn't exactly get up on a high horse about eccentric purchases
… I found myself in the mood for a big space opera the other day and with the novel also being a Dragon Award finalist, it seemed like a natural choice. I wasn’t wrong in my initial assessment. It is in many ways a more conventional space opera than the books I’d read. Humanity is a spacefaring species with its own factions, in a galactic society with a range of aliens. There’s hyperspace (or rather “unspace”), a cosmic threat, mysteriously vanished advanced civilisations, space spies, space gangsters, badass warriors and epic space battles. This is all good but if you are hoping for the millennia-long deep dive into the evolution of a sapient spider civilisation this book doesn’t have anything like that. Which is fine because that gives Tchaikovsky more space and time to attend to a cast of characters….
(19) A CITY ON A HILL. Paul Weimer reviews Stephen Fry’s Troy at Nerds of a Feather: “Microreview [book]: Troy, by Stephen Fry”. There may be surprises in store for some readers – at least there were for Paul.
…In any event, Fry is here to help you. He starts at the beginning, as to how Troy was founded, and why, and brings its history up to date as it were. The delight in the depth of research and scholarship he brings is tha there is a fair chunk here I didn’t know about. Fun fact, the Trojan War is not the first time that Troy gets attacked in its mythological history, and you will never guess who did it before the Greeks got it into their heads to take back Helen, nor why….
…However, it seems likely that Lehrer may be set for yet another major revival as news spread yesterday that Lehrer, now 92, had released his lyrics and much of his music into the public domain. This has already sparked a great deal of interest in possible covers and recreations of his most famous songs.
Note: It’s worth stating that the declaration deals with his compositions and his lyrics, not the recordings. Those are most likely not owned by Lehrer.
However, the statement isn’t wholly true. Tom Lehrer didn’t actually release his songs into the public domain. While it may be pedantry given that there is no practical difference, the lengths Lehrer had to go to release what he did in the way that he did only further highlights Lehrer’s genius and is well worth exploring.
If this is truly to be Lehrer’s final musical act, it makes sense to see it for both the effort it took and the intellect required to conceive of it….
(21) AI GIVES ASSIST TO MUSIC VIDEO. [Item by Dann.] Someone recently made a video using the lyrics to “Renegade” by Styx. The lyrics were fed, line by line, into AI art software to create the images used in the video.
While the lyrics aren’t explicitly genre centered, the AI created several images that evoked sci-fi/fantasy themes. The rhetorical progeny of Edgar Allen Poe shows up a few times as well. “Renegade – Styx – But the lyrics are Ai generated images”.
(22) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part I Pitch Meeting,” Ryan George says the producer in the seventh Harry Potter film mourns when several beloved minor characters die. He is bored by the very long camping scenes (where the characters camp and camp and camp some more” but gets excited when Harry Potter gets to duke it out with Voldemort only to discover that this is the end of Part I and we have to wait for Part II.
[Thanks to JJ, John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, Dann, Jennifer Hawthorne, Daniel Dern, Bill, Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, and Martin Morse Wooster for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
(1) AURORA AWARDS VOTING DEADLINE. Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association members have only a few minutes left to vote for 2022 Aurora Awards. The deadline is 11:59 p.m. EDT, on Saturday, July 23.
The awards ceremony will be held as a YouTube and Facebook live streaming event at 7:00 p.m. EDT on Saturday, August 13 at When Words Collide.
(2) BEAUTIFYING THE BRICKS. DreamHaven Books showed off the progress on their new outside wall mural to Facebook friends. There’s also this smaller peek on Instagram.
(4) THE SPIRIT OF ’46. First Fandom Experience links up with Chicon 8’s “1946 Project” (which they’re doing instead of Retro Hugos). “Science Fiction and Fantasy in the Pulps: 1946” is a bibliography of sff published in that year.
…Presented here for your perusal and possible amusement is a fiction bibliography for science fiction and fantasy pulps issued in 1946. The list includes magazines that primarily published new works. Excluded are reprints of works published in prior years (most of Famous Fantastic Mysteries, all of Strange Tales). Non-fiction articles and editorials are also omitted. For brevity, we didn’t cite specific issue dates. For richness, we’ve transcribed the introductory blurbs that appeared in the Table of Contents or masthead for each story….
(5) DOODLER. [Item by Michael Toman.] “In a world where Franza Kafka became one of the first Big Name Fan Artists…?” “Kafka’s Inkblots” by J.W. McCormack, behind a paywall at New York Review of Books.
…Such an active imagination—the fever for annotation, familiar from Pale Fire or Flaubert’s Parrot, that distorts the inner life of the artist even as it seeks to illuminate it—is required of any reader hoping to get their money’s worth from Franz Kafka: The Drawings, a volume of the writer’s archival sketches and ephemera edited by Andreas Kilcher and Pavel Schmidt. A bearded maestro presides from the back of a business card. A stick figure seems to throttle a mass of squiggles. A harlequin frowns under the chastisement of an irate lump. Two curvilinear ink blots pass each other on a blank-page boulevard. A bushy-browed Captain Haddock-type glowers in profile on a torn envelope and, in the margins of a letter, a wrigglesome delinquent is bisected by a torture device that seems to clearly reference the one from “In the Penal Colony.” Limbs jut out cartoonishly from bodies, loopedy-loop acrobats snake up and down the gutter of a magazine, figures of authority preside in faded pencil, and then there are the stray marks on manuscript pages, neither fully letters nor drawings….
(6) BRICK BY BRICK. “E. E. Cummings and Krazy Kat” by Amber Medland at The Paris Review site puts the famous strip in perspective as an inspiration to all manner of creators of modern 20th-century literature and art.
…The Kat had a cult following among the modernists. For Joyce, Fitzgerald, Stein, and Picasso, all of whose work fed on playful energies similar to those unleashed in the strip, he had a double appeal, in being commercially nonviable and carrying the reek of authenticity in seeming to belong to mass culture. By the thirties, strips like Blondie were appearing daily in roughly a thousand newspapers; Krazy appeared in only thirty-five. The Kat was one of those niche-but-not-really phenomena, a darling of critics and artists alike, even after it stopped appearing in newspapers. Since then: Umberto Eco called Herriman’s work “raw poetry”; Kerouac claimed the Kat as “the immediate progenitor” of the beats; Stan Lee (Spider-Man) went with “genius”; Herriman was revered by Charles Schulz and Theodor Geisel alike. But Krazy Kat was never popular. The strip began as a sideline for Herriman, who had been making a name for himself as a cartoonist since 1902. It ran in “the waste space,” literally underfoot the characters of his more conventional 1910 comic strip The Dingbat Family, published in William Randolph Hearst’s New York Evening Journal….
As noted, I’m planning to finish up my posts on potential Hugo nominees for 1950s Worldcons, including those that didn’t award Hugos. This is a case (as with 1954) where stories from the eligibility year (i.e. 1950) had a shot at Retro-Hugos, as Milliennium Philcon, the 2001 Worldcon, chose to award them. (Appropriate, I suppose, as the 1953 Philcon originated the Hugo Awards.) And in fact I wrote a post back in 2001 giving my recommendations for Retro Hugos that year. This appeared in SF Site here I am bemused to find that my recommendations from back then are almost exactly the same as I came up with surveying 1950s SF just now.
The 1951 Worldcon was Nolacon I, in New Orleans, the ninth World Science Fiction Convention. As noted, they gave no Hugo awards. This was the first year of International Fantasy Awards, and both were given to books published in 1949: fiction went to George Stewart’s, Earth Abides (surely a strong choice) and non-fiction to The Conquest of Space, by Willy Ley and Chesley Bonestell….
… Lepp, who writes under the pen name Leanne Leeds in the “paranormal cozy mystery” subgenre, allots herself precisely 49 days to write and self-edit a book. This pace, she said, is just on the cusp of being unsustainably slow. She once surveyed her mailing list to ask how long readers would wait between books before abandoning her for another writer. The average was four months. Writer’s block is a luxury she can’t afford, which is why as soon as she heard about an artificial intelligence tool designed to break through it, she started beseeching its developers on Twitter for access to the beta test.
The tool was called Sudowrite. Designed by developers turned sci-fi authors Amit Gupta and James Yu, it’s one of many AI writing programs built on OpenAI’s language model GPT-3 that have launched since it was opened to developers last year. But where most of these tools are meant to write company emails and marketing copy, Sudowrite is designed for fiction writers. Authors paste what they’ve written into a soothing sunset-colored interface, select some words, and have the AI rewrite them in an ominous tone, or with more inner conflict, or propose a plot twist, or generate descriptions in every sense plus metaphor.
Eager to see what it could do, Lepp selected a 500-word chunk of her novel, a climactic confrontation in a swamp between the detective witch and a band of pixies, and pasted it into the program. Highlighting one of the pixies, named Nutmeg, she clicked “describe.”…
(9) UP FROM THE UNDERGROUND. [Item by Dann.] This Reason Podcast focuses on the early days of comix in an interview with Brian Doherty regarding his newly published book Dirty Pictures: “Brian Doherty Talks Dirty Pictures, Comix, and Free Speech”.
Nearly 30 years after “X-Men: The Animated Series” debuted, many of the beloved characters are returning for Marvel Studios’ upcoming show “X-Men ’97,” coming to Disney+ in fall 2023 with a second season already confirmed.
“X-Men ’97” will continue the story of the original “Animated Series,” which ran from 1992 to 1997 on Fox Kids Network. “X-Men: The Animated Series” helped usher in the popularity of the mutant superheroes before Fox made the first live-action take on the team in 2000.
The new series will include Rogue, Beast, Gambit, Jean Grey, Wolverine, Storm, Jubilee and Cyclops. Magneto, now with long hair and a purple suit, will lead the X-Men. The animation, revealed at Comic Con on Friday, stays true to the original animated series, but looks more modern, updated and sleek.
Cable, Bishop, Forge, Morph and Nightcrawler will also join the X-Men onscreen. Battling them will be the (non-“Stranger Things”) Hellfire Club with Emma Frost and Sebastian Shaw, plus Mr. Sinister and Bolivar Trask will appear.
(11) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.
1995 – [By Cat Eldridge.]It is said that God made man in His image, but man fell from grace. Still, man has retained from his humble beginnings the innate desire to create, but how will man’s creations fair? Will they attain a measure of the divine or will they, too, fall from grace? — The Control Voice
Twenty-seven years ago, The Outer Limits’ “I, Robot” first aired on HBO.
This is a remake of “I, Robot” that aired thirty-one years earlier. Leonard Nimoy, who played the reporter Judson Ellis in that episode, plays attorney Thurman Cutler in this version, a role played by Howard Da Silva in the original. This remake was directed by Nimoy’s son Adam Nimoy.
Now “I, Robot” was written by Eando Binder, the pen name used by the SF authors, the late Earl Andrew Binder and his brother Otto Binder. They created a heroic robot named Adam Link. The first Adam Link story, published in 1939, is titled “I, Robot”. Adam Link, Robot, a collection of those stories, is available from the usual suspects.
Robert C. Dennis who wrote the screenplay here would go on to write multiple episodes of Wild, Wild West and Batman. He was also one of the primary writers for the earlier Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born July 23, 1888 — Raymond Chandler. He of the Philip Marlowe series who I hold in very high esteem is listed by ISFDB as doing some stories of a genre nature, to be exact, ”The Bronze Door”, “The King In Yellow”, “Professor Bingo’s Snuff” and “English Summer: A Gothic Romance”. I’ve neither heard of nor read these. So who here has read them? (Died 1959.)
Born July 23, 1914 — Virgil Finlay. Castle of Frankenstein calls him “part of the pulp magazine history … one of the foremost contributors of original and imaginative artwork for the most memorable science fiction and fantasy publications of our time.” His best-known covers are for Amazing Stories and Weird Tales. “Roads”, a novella by Seabury Quinn, published in the January 1938 Weird Tales, and featuring a cover and interior illustrations by him, was originally published in an extremely limited numbers by Arkham House in 1948. It’s now available on from the usual suspects. (Died 1971.)
Born July 23, 1938 — Ronny Cox, 83. His first genre role was in RoboCop as OCP President Dick Jones who comes to a very bad end. Later roles were Gen. Balentine in Amazon Women on the Moon in “The Unknown Soldier” episode, Martians Go Home as the President, Total Recall as Vilos Cohaagen, Captain America as Tom Kimball and a recurring role for a decade on Stargate SG-1 as Senator Robert Kinsey/Vice President Robert Kinsey.
Born July 23, 1957 — Gardner Dozois. He was founding editor of The Year’s Best Science Fiction anthology and was editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine for twenty years. He won fifteen Hugos for his editing and was nominated for others. He also won the Nebula Award for Best Short Story twice, once for “The Peacemaker” and once for “Morning Child”. Stories selected by him for his annual best-of-year volumes have won, as of several years ago, 44 Hugos, 32 Locus, 41 Nebulas, 18 Sturgeon Awards and 10 World Fantasy. Very impressive! (Died 2018.)
Born July 23, 1982 — Tom Mison, 40. He is best known as Ichabod Crane on Sleepy Hollow which crosses-over into Bones. He’s Mr. Phillips in The Watchmen. It’s barely (if at all) genre adjacent but I’m going to note that he’s Young Blood in A Waste of Shame: The Mystery of Shakespeare and His Sonnets. Currently he’s got a main role in second season of the See SF series on Apple TV which has yet to come out. Apple hasn’t put out any publicity on it.
Born July 23, 1989 — Daniel Radcliffe, 33. Harry Potter of course. Also Victor Frankenstein’s assistant Igor in Victor Frankenstein, Ignatius Perrish in Horns, a horror film, and Rosencrantz in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead at the Old Vic in London.
…As described in a press release sent to The Takeout, the Grey Poupon with Salted Pretzels is “An unexpected yet delightful blend of sweet ice cream, honey-dijon swirl, and salted pretzels.” It’s part of Van Leeuwen’s line of summer limited edition flavors, which also includes Campfire S’mores, Summer Peach Crisp, Honey Cornbread with Strawberry Jam, and Espresso Fior di Latte Chip. All of these flavors are available at Walmart until the end of the season.
… Even the smell of the ice cream was slightly mustardy—I was prepared for a real dijon bomb.
But the first scoop left some things to be desired. First, the mustard flavor is a little muddled and lost amidst the creaminess….
…With each draw of the curtain, we saw a series of burlesque acts that were visually decadent and tonally unique. Aside from Jabba the Hutt and captive Leia, my other personal favorite was when Sheev Palpatine — who looked absolutely grotesque thanks to a wrinkled blue-and-white skin suit — fully stripped and swung on a massive disco ball to Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball.” Just before that, R2-D2, resident space pimp, made it rain by ejecting wads of cash into the air while a braggadocious Han Solo undulated to “Smooth Criminal,” making every goth and nerd in the audience scream like animals….
By shining a laser pulse sequence inspired by the Fibonacci numbers at atoms inside a quantum computer, physicists have created a remarkable, never-before-seen phase of matter. The phase has the benefits of two time dimensions despite there still being only one singular flow of time, the physicists report July 20 in Nature.
This mind-bending property offers a sought-after benefit: Information stored in the phase is far more protected against errors than with alternative setups currently used in quantum computers. As a result, the information can exist without getting garbled for much longer, an important milestone for making quantum computing viable, says study lead author Philipp Dumitrescu….
…The trailer features elements from several of the show’s standalone stories that all paint a very stark picture of how the world fell — and honestly we’re reminded of a ton of the drama from the COVID-19 era, particularly the denialism, rugged individualist posturing, and the scapegoating.
For example, we see Parker Posey as an apparently well-to-do woman who straight up refuses to believe reports of a zombie apocalypse… of course, until it runs right up and bites her. Crews meanwhile plays a survivalist who lives an isolated, paranoid life, until he (for an as-yet unrevealed reason) ends up sheltering with Olivia Munn and gets called out. Will he change? We’ll have to find out….
(17) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In “Honest Game Trailers: The Quarry,” Fandom Games, in a spoiler-packed episode, say this game about teenagers getting munched on in the quarry by monsters “is a B movie with AAA production values that has “two hours of story and eight hours of wandering around like a stoned teen.” But the CGI is so lifelike that the characters are actors you almost recognize, including “That guy who was in the thing you saw once.”
[Thanks to JJ, John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, Chris Barkley, Rob Thornton, Dann, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, and Martin Morse Wooster for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kurt Busiek.]
