Pixel Scroll 12/22/18 In Her Own Special Way To The Pixels She Calls, Come Buy My Scrolls Full Of Crumbs

(1) CRUMB NUMBER ONE. Four people sent me this link, so even though I don’t like the article, this unscientific survey says you probably will: “The True Story of the Lost Sci-Fi Movie ‘Brainstorm,’ Natalie Wood’s Last Film” at Popular Mechanics.

…We’re guessing you’ve never heard of it, anyway. In writing this article, we asked several dozen people if they had. One guy said he might have maybe seen it, a long time ago.

It was called Brainstorm.

Anyone? No?

Brainstorm was supposed to be huge. The director—himself a three-time Oscar nominee—was Douglas Trumbull, a visual-effects genius who had already worked on some of the most monumental films of all time: as Stanley Kubrick’s special photographic effects supervisor on 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and as visual effects supervisor on Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982).

Brainstorm starred Christopher Walken, who two years earlier had won the best supporting actor Oscar for The Deer Hunter; Louise Fletcher, an Oscar winner for her unforgettable role as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; and Cliff Robertson, who had won a best-actor Oscar for Charly in 1968.

The fourth leading actor was Natalie Wood.

(2) UTAH’S CON CALENDAR JAMMED IN 2019. The five-year-old Salt Lake Gaming Con is moving to the Salt Palace in SLC and expects a 60% increase in attendance over their 25,000 last year. Their dates are just the week before the Westercon/NASFiC in Layton, UT on July 4th So, in one month within 20 miles of each other there will be:

  • June 7-9: Ogden UnCon–pop culture
  • June 21-23: FyreCon–general SF/F con
  • June  27-29: Salt Lake Gaming Con
  • July 4-7: Westercon/NASFiC

(3) 2017 COMPILATION. Eric Wong alerts readers to Rocket Stack Rank’s annual short story selection of “Outstanding SF/F by People of Color” from 2017. (Thanks to the recently-installed WordPress 5.0 I can no longer take layout blocks already formatted with numbered lists and also display them as quotes, so I am going to stick lines before and after the excerpt….)


There are 59 outstanding stories by people of color from 2017 that were either finalists for major SF/F awards included in “year’s best” SF/F anthologies, or recommended by prolific reviewers in short fiction (see Q&A).

Observations

  1. 40 are free online, and 21 have podcasts (click links to highlight them).
  2. The default Length/Rating view shows RSR reviewed 45 of the 59 stories (76%), recommended 18 of the 45 (40% 5-star or 4-star), and only recommended against 6 of the 45 (13% 5-star or 4-star).
    1. Compared to other prolific reviewers, RSR’s 18 recs is more than STomaino’s 8 and JMcGregor’s 6.
    2. Among Year’s Best anthologies, JStrahan and PGuran tied with 10, followed by GDozois, NClarke and RHorton with 8, then BASFF with 7.
    3. Among awards, Locus had the most with 13, followed by Hugo (8), Nebula (5), Sturgeon and World Fantasy (4), Shirley Jackson (3), Eugie (2), and British Fantasy and British Science Fiction Association with 1 each.
  3. The Length/Score view shows the top scoring novella is “The Black Tides of Heaven” by JY Yang, novelette is “A Series of Steaks” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad, and short story is “Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance” by Tobias S. Buckell. (The top score for novellas is typically less than the other two lengths because there’s room for few of them in year’s best anthologies and they’re usually not covered by prolific short fiction reviewers.)
  4. The Publication/Length view shows the top three magazines with the most stories here are Lightspeed (6), Clarkesworld (5), and Tor Novellas (5), out of 29 magazines, anthologies, collections, and singles.
  5. The New Writer/Score view shows 9 stories by Campbell Award-eligible writers (15%).
  6. The Author view shows Aliette de Bodard and JY Yang with the most stories here (3 each) out of 47 authors.

(4) 200K TO ADD TO YOUR TBR. Vajra Chandrasekera has compiled a list of links to all Strange Horizons’ “Original Fiction in 2018”.

2018 was an excellent year for original fiction at Strange Horizons! We published over two hundred thousand words in five novelettes and 42 short stories, including three themed special issues featuring original fiction, focusing on work by trans and nonbinary writers in January; by writers from India in April; and an extra-large issue with work by writers who are black, indigenous, and/or people of color from the Southeastern USA in July, the fiction selections for which were curated and edited by guest editors Sheree Renée Thomas, Rasha Abdulhadi, and Erin Roberts.

(5) YEAR OF NO JACKPOT. Norman Spinrad looks back on “2018 Year of Dread”:

…No regrets, no surrender, I would gladly do it again until I died with my boots on. But my voice, at least in English, has been silenced, though not in translations, particularly in French. My last novel to be published in English, THE PEOPLE’S POLICE, was shamefully shit-canned by internal politics in the publisher, rendering the next one, WELCOME TO YOUR DREAMTIME, a commercial dead duck, and the one after that, NOWHERELAND sitting in first draft until I find the courage to finish it and spec it. That I am far from the only novelist frantically swimming on the event horizon of this terminal black hole does not exactly prop up my spirits with schadenfreud.

(6) CLARKE AT 101. Mark Yon reviews “The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C Clarke” at SFFWorld.

For a man known for writing about science, the first surprise is that the book begins in faux-ancient History and spends much of its time telling us a two-thousand-year-old story of the kingdom of Taprobane (clearly a fictional version of Clarke’s new home, Sri Lanka.) Although much of the book is set in the 21st century, the first few chapters are about how a mountain on the island of Sri Kanda became the Buddhist temple of Yakkagala and has frescoes around its perimeter. This is also based on a real place known to Clarke, actually Sigiriya, which Clarke in his Afterword states is a place “so astonishing that I have had no need to change it in any way.” The reason for this is soon revealed – that the mountain site is the best location for the creation of a space elevator that, once built, will allow cheap travel into space. This first part of the book reflects Clarke’s own interest in the real Sigiriya and his curiosity into religion, in this case Buddhism. Whilst not religious himself, Arthur was interested in the importance of such things to the wider world and the influence they have upon human cultures and society.  This part allows him to respectfully examine such matters.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born December 22, 1951Charles de Lint, 67. I’ve personally known him for twenty-five years now and have quite a few of his signed Solstice chapbooks in my possession. Listing his fiction would take a full page or two as he’s been a very prolific fantasy writer, so let me offer you instead our Charles de Lint special edition that we just updated this past Sunday: http://thegreenmanreview.com/2017/01/03/charles-de-lint-edition/. My favorite novels by him? That would be Forests of The Heart, Someplace To Be Flying, Seven Wild Sisters and The Cats of Tanglewood Forest. You’ll find my favorite chapter from Forests of The Heart in our Words menu. 
  • Born December 22, 1951 Tony Isabella, 67. Creator of DC’s Black Lightning, who is their first major African-American superhero. That alone is enough reason to him in Birthdays. He also created Mercedes “Misty” Knight, an African-American superhero at Marvel Comics whose played by Simone Missick in the various Netflix MCU series. 
  • Born December 22, 1954 Hugh Quarshie, 64. First genre role was as Sunda Kastagirin in Highlander followed by being Detective Joyce in Clive Barker’s Nightbreed and Lieutenant Obutu In Wing Commander. He’s Captain Quarsh Panaka In Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. He’s got a log tv history starting with playing Philostrate in A Midsummer Night’s Dream along with being Professor John Galt in the pilot for The Tomorrow People and Solomon in the Doctor Who episodes of “Daleks in Manhattan” and “Evolution of the Daleks”. 
  • Born December 22, 1961 Ralph Fiennes, 57. Perhaps best known genre-wise as Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter series, he’s been M in the Bond films starting with Skyfall. His first genre role was as Lenny Nero in Strange Days, one of my favorite SF films. He went on to play John Steed in that Avengers films which is quite frankly shit. He shows up in Red Dragon, prequel to The Silence of the Lambs. If you haven’t seen it, he voices Lord Lord Victor Quartermaine in Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Run now and see it! I’ve prolly overlooked something but I’m sure one of you will add it in. 
  • Born December 22, 1965David S. Goyer, 53. His screenwriting credits include the Blade trilogy which I like despite their unevenness in storytelling, the Dark Knight trilogy, Dark City, Man of Steel, and its sequel Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (which is horrid). Let’s see what else is there? Well there’s there’s Nick Fury film and two Ghost film which are all best forgotten… Oh, he did The Crow: City of Angels. Ouch. Series wise, he’s been involved in FlashForward, ConstantineDa Vinci’s Demons which is a damn strange show, Krypton, Blade: The SeriesThresholdFreakyLinks and a series I’ve never heard of, Sleepwalkers
  • Born December 22, 1978George Mann, 40. Author of the Newbury & Hobbes Investigations, a steampunk series set in a alternative Victorian England that I’ve read and enthusiastically recommend. He’s also got two Holmesian novels on Titan Books that I need to request for reviewing, Sherlock Holmes: The Will of the Dead and Sherlock Holmes: The Spirit Box. And yes I see that  he’s written a lot more  fiction than I’ve read by him so do tell me what else is worth reading  by him. 

(8) IN COMICS TO COME. A recommendation:

(9) AFROSTEAMPUNK. Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay reviews “The Black God’s Drums by P. Djèlí Clark” at Strange Horizons.

P. Djèlí Clark’s debut fantasy-alternate history Afrosteampunk novella features a young teen lead, which, together with the general pitch of the whole narrative, puts The Black God’s Drums firmly in the teen/YA category. In the brief space of a hundred pages, Clark successfully combines Haitian mythology, magic, and a rich real and fictional history of New Orleans, while keeping the reader entertained with a lively cast of characters even in an otherwise typical plot.

(10) ANAKIN, I AM YOUR FATHER. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] DorkSideOfTheForce says that “Star Wars comic finally reveals Anakin’s father.” You may recall that Anakin Skywalker’s mother, Shmi, basically said she just woke up pregnant one day. Well, kinda… The DorkSide post opens with a well-deserved Spoiler Alert, then continues:

The topic of who Anakin’s father has been a subject of discussion for some time. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace touched on this by explaining that there was no father. His mother Shmi told Qui-Gon this by simply explaining that she carried him, gave birth, and raised him. She can’t explain how it happened but there was definitely no father.

This then led Qui-Gon to believe that Anakin was born from the force itself and that Anakin was a creation of Midi-chlorians […]

Fast forward 19 years, seven movies, and a bucket load of comics and other Star Wars-related releases later, and Darth Vader No. 25 has provided us with the answer.

If you want to know badly enough, you’ll click.

(11) THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD. Leap before you look: “Researchers Show Parachutes Don’t Work, But There’s A Catch”.

Research published in a major medical journal concludes that a parachute is no more effective than an empty backpack at protecting you from harm if you have to jump from an aircraft.

But before you leap to any rash conclusions, you had better hear the whole story.

The gold standard for medical research is a study that randomly assigns volunteers to try an intervention or to go without one and be part of a control group.

For some reason, nobody has ever done a randomized controlled trial of parachutes. In fact, medical researchers often use the parachute example when they argue they don’t need to do a study because they’re so sure they already know something works.

(12) WOLVES DISCOVER FISH. NPR reveals “The Secret Fishing Habits Of Northwoods’ Wolves”. Well, once you’ve eaten the fishermen, what else is left?

Wolves, as it turns out, might not be the bloodthirsty, moose-slaughtering, northwoods-roaming carnivores you always thought they were.

New research on wolf packs at Voyageurs National Park in northern Minnesota is challenging the conventional wisdom on wolves: Their diets are a lot more varied than scientists previously thought.

Researchers with the Voyageurs Wolf Project, a collaboration between the park and the University of Minnesota, have for the first time documented wolves hunting freshwater fish as a seasonal food source — and they have video to prove it.

(13) PROGRESS REPORT. “‘We Are Here’: Questions For Comics Creator Taneka Stotts” on NPR.

When comics creator Taneka Stotts accepted an Eisner Award — the comics industry’s highest honor — this year for her anthology Elements: Fire — A Comic Anthology by Creators of Color, she was fired up.

“I hold this award,” she said, “and I declare war on the antiquated mentality that tells us our voices and stories aren’t ‘profitable’ enough … we’re not waiting for you to catch up anymore. We are here, we have always been here, and we will do as you’ve always told us. We will make it ourselves.”

And she’s doing just that. Not only is Stotts a creator and a writer, she’s a self-publisher and an editor, organizing anthologies like Elements: Fire, which features 23 stories from creators of color based in the United States and around the world. She’s already working on a follow-up anthology Elements: Earth. I sat down with Stotts the afternoon before the Eisner awards ceremony, and we talked about why she calls Elements “the little book that could,” and about whether it gets tiring, being a voice for change in the comics community.

(14) ROCKY ROAD. WIRED tells about “The Mad Scramble to Claim the World’s Most Coveted Meteorite”.

On the popular meteorite-list listserv, scientists and amateur enthusiasts alike debated the nature of the Carancas event. People were skeptical about both the illness and the crater itself. The only way to make a proper determination was to see it in person, collect samples, or retrieve the impact mass. The rock itself would be enormously valuable, both for scientific inquiry and also to collectors in the brisk, high-end market for meteorites, in which a rare, crater-­producing landfall could command especially steep prices. But this crater was in a remote area, difficult and expensive to reach. And there were only so many people in the world willing to head to the highlands of Peru at a moment’s notice to look for things that fell out of the sky….

(15) FULLY LOADED. In the December 15 Financial Times (behind a paywall), Sam Leith, literary editor of the Spectator, discusses a paper in the Medical Journal of Australia by a research team led by Nick Wilson of New Zealand’s Otago University about James Bond’s drinking habits.

As well as the inevitable martinis, and his own invention, the ‘Vesper Martini’ (three measures gin, one measure vodka, and half a measure of Kina Lillet shaken and garnished with a large sliver of lemon peel), Bond will chug-a-lug anything that comes to hand:  neat vodka, Champagne and once, in an instance of utter depravity to which he was driven by product placement, Heineken.

In one on-screen binge he knocks back six Vesper Martinis–more than a week’s worth of units in a session–and in one of the books, apparently, he manages 50 units (of alcohol) in a day, which would kill most of us stone dead.

(16) OUT OF HIS DEPP. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] While talking about many other projects, Disney’s Sean Bailey (“chief architect of Disney’s live-action film studio”) dropped the news that Johny Depp will not appear in the rebooted Pirates of the Caribbean films (The Hollywood Reporter: “Disney’s Film Production Chief Talks Mary Poppins and His Big Bet on The Lion King: ‘It’s a New Form of Filmmaking’”):

The Hollywood Reporter: You’ve hired Deadpool scribes Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick to work on a possible Pirates of the Caribbean reboot. Can Pirates survive without Johnny Depp?

Bailey: We want to bring in a new energy and vitality. I love the [Pirates] movies, but part of the reason Paul and Rhett are so interesting is that we want to give it a kick in the pants. And that’s what I’ve tasked them with.

SYFY Wire took that short quote and ran with it, disregarding the metaphorical scissors they were figuratively carrying (“Johnny Depp officially out as Jack Sparrow in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise”):

Pirates of the Carribean movie without Jack Sparrow is hard to imagine, especially after he became the most famous and popular character of the five films. It’s ironic when you consider that the top Disney brass initially hated his performance in Curse of the Black Pearl, which Depp based on Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. The actor’s reasoning was that pirates were the rock star renegades of the Seven Seas, and sure enough, his gamble paid off. Richards even appeared as Sparrow’s father in At World’s End.

[…] That said, the quality of the movies began to decline once [director Gore] Verbinski left and Sparrow was placed at the forefront of the subsequent sequels. Pirates really is in need of a good reboot, but we wouldn’t say no to a nice little cameo from Depp.

(17) SILLY COMMERCIAL. Macaulay Culkin finds himself “Home Alone Again with the Google Assistant.”

Even Kevin McCallister needs a little help. Add aftershave to your shopping list, set reminders, and fend off bandits, hands-free:

[Thanks to David Doering, Mike Kennedy, Jennifer Hawthorne, Martin Morse Wooster, John King Tarpinian, Carl Slaughter, JJ, Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, and Andrew Porter. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Brian Z.] )