Pixel Scroll 11/23/23 As I Was Meredithin’ Over The File, I Saw Murderbot In A Pixél De Vile

(1) This will be the Turkey Day Lite Scroll. Any links you think deserve to be included should be mentioned in the comments. I’ll be thankful for your help!

(2) WHO ENOUGH TO FILL ALL TIME AND SPACE. Charlie Jane Anders unfurls a long wishlist of “Doctor Who Spinoffs I’d Love To See” at Happy Dancing.

Doctor Who is back! This coming Saturday sees the first new episode in absolute yoinks, and there’s tons more to come. Returning showrunner Russell T. Davies has said one of his goals is to make more Who spinoffs, the same way RTD’s previous stint was accompanied by Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures. (Full disclosure: RTD gave a very generous cover blurb to my novel Victories Greater Than Death.)

As someone who thinks about Doctor Who all the time (it’s true!) I’ve been musing about spin-offs I’d like to see. Here’s a bunch. (Warning: Spoilers for old Doctor Who stories ahead…)

One of them is:

The Paternoster Gang

Apparently this one has been a possibility at various times. For those who missed it, past showrunner Steven Moffat introduced a lady Silurian (Madame Vastra) and her human assistant/lover Jenny, living in Victorian England. They were eventually joined by Strax, an oddly peace-loving Sontaran warrior, and made several appearances during the Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi eras, as well as some Big Finish audios. A lesbian dinosaur lady solving mysteries with her friends in Victorian England honestly just feels like a no-brainer. Why doesn’t this exist already?

(3) TARDIS ARRIVAL IMMINENT. “David Tennant and Russell T Davies talk ‘joyous’ ‘Doctor Who’ return” at Entertainment Weekly.

…Davies wrote all of the 60th anniversary episodes and describes them as “a mini-season, really. It’s three different stories. There’s a little link between them, each one kind of cliffhangs into the next, but actually they are three separate stories.”

The first of those stories is titled “The Star Beast” and premieres on Disney+ Nov. 25. The tale starts with Tennant’s Doctor arriving back on planet earth just as an extraterrestrial craft crashes in the vicinity of Tate’s Noble. Davies describes the episode as “a great big family film. An alien spaceship falls in London, which is the Doctor’s meet and drink really. But is it by coincidence that that lands practically on the doorstep of an old friend of his who’s lost all memories of him?” The showrunner says the episode “becomes a huge, great big adventure with fights, and chases, and monsters, and terror, but also some great laughs as well.”

“The Star Beast” is based on a comic strip by legendary comics writer Pat Mills and Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons originally published in Doctor Who Weekly more than 30 years ago. The story introduced the alien character of the Meep, voiced in the new episode by Miriam Margolyes.

“It’s from 1979, an absolute classic,” Davies says of the original strip. “Pat Mills and David Gibbons, they were kids back then, but they created this marvelous thing. It’s always been one of my favorite Doctor Who stories, and coming back I thought it would be such enormous fun to celebrate the 60th, and also to grab hold of a great idea, to adapt it, And for those who might know the comic strip of old, don’t worry, there’s a lot of new stuff woven into it.”

(4) AUREALIS AWARDS DEADLINE APPROACHING. The Aurealis Awards, Australia’s premier speculative fiction awards, are taking entries through December 14.

It’s important to remember that ALL eligible Australian work published for the first time between January 1 and December 31, 2023 must be entered by December 14, even work intended for publication after the December 14 cut off date.

If you have any work scheduled for publication after December 14, enter it NOW! If publication is delayed, we can easily remove the entry, but we are unable to make exceptions afterwards if work is not entered by the December 14 deadline.

Please take care to check the updated entries received list and get your entries in!

(5) FREE COMIC BOOK DAY. May 4, 2024 is Free Comic Book Day. Titan Comics is getting a head start by announcing two titles that will be part of it.

Heroic Signatures and Titan Comics are pleased to announce that CONAN THE BARBARIAN will feature as part of FREE COMIC BOOK DAY, May 4, 2024. Written by Jim Zub with art by Jonas Scharf, this issue will launch a BATTLE OF THE BLACK STONE event, which will roll out through late Summer and into the Fall, building on plotlines introduced in the critically acclaimed CONAN THE BARBARIAN ongoing series.

Titan Comics is pleased to announce that it is returning to the TARDIS once more on Free Comic Book Day, with the release of DOCTOR WHO: THE FIFTEENTH DOCTORFREE COMIC BOOK DAY EDITIONAvailable in participating comic shops May 4, 2024. 

Written by master of sci-fi and fantasy, Dan Watters (Loki, Home Sick Pilots, The Sandman Universe), this special issue kicks-off an all-new DOCTOR WHO comic series starring the FIFTEENTH DOCTOR (Ncuti Gatwa) and his companion in time and space, RUBY SUNDAY (Millie Gibson). 

Free Comic Book Day takes place every year on the first Saturday of May. With over two thousand stores and several comic book publishers participating, the event gives readers a chance to grab a free comic and meet fellow comic readers. Readers can find their local participating store HERE

(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Born November 23, 1955 Steven Brust, 68.  

Steven Brust

Of Hungarian descendant, something that figures into his fiction which he says is neither fantasy nor SF. He is perhaps best known for his novels about the assassin Vlad Taltos, one of a scorned group of humans living on a world called Dragaera. All are great reads. The Dragaeran series is twenty three novels deep with the latest, Tsalmoth, out this year, and Lyorn, out next year. 

Now the related Paarfi’s historical romances are, errr, not my cup of Chai but may well be yours. 

His recent novels also include The Incrementalists and its sequel The Skill of Our Hands, with co-author Skyler White. Both are superb. 

His finest novel? Brokedown Palace. Oh, just go read it. It’s amazing. There’s nothing about it that’s not perfect from its setting to the character there to the fact that it’s based upon a folktale. 

Brust’s short story “When The Bow Breaks” was nominated for the 1998 Nebula Award.

And no, I don’t love everything he’s done. I wrote a scathing review of Cowboy Feng’s Space Bar and Grille despite wanting to love it because of the premise. A Bar with flying through the galaxy with a resident band and eating great food. What’s not to love? So which of you did love it? 

Freedom & Necessity with Emma Bull is decidedly different but excellent none the less. 

His rather good Firefly novel, My Own Kind of Freedom, stays true to that series. It was pitched as an actual episode but that never happened obviously.

He’s quite the musician too with two albums with Cats Laughing, a band that includes Emma Bull, Jane Yolen (lyrics) and others. The band in turn shows up in Marvel comics. A Rose For Iconoclastes is his solo album and “The title, for those who don’t know, is a play off the brilliant story by Roger Zelazny, ‘A Rose For Ecclesiastes,’ which you should read if you haven’t yet.” 

Quoting him again, “’Songs From The Gypsy’ is the recording of a cycle of songs I wrote with ex-Boiled-in-Lead guitarist Adam Stemple, which cycle turned into a novel I wrote with Megan Lindholm, one of my favorite writers.” The album and book are quite amazing! Yolen’s son Adam is the vocalist on this album. 

Did I mention he’s on the chocolate gifting list? Well, he is.

(7) COMICS SECTION.

(8) BEYOND ROBOTECH. “As A.I.-Controlled Killer Drones Become Reality, Nations Debate Limits” in the New York Times.

It seems like something out of science fiction: swarms of killer robots that hunt down targets on their own and are capable of flying in for the kill without any human signing off.

But it is approaching reality as the United States, China and a handful of other nations make rapid progress in developing and deploying new technology that has the potential to reshape the nature of warfare by turning life and death decisions over to autonomous drones equipped with artificial intelligence programs.

That prospect is so worrying to many other governments that they are trying to focus attention on it with proposals at the United Nations to impose legally binding rules on the use of what militaries call lethal autonomous weapons.

“This is really one of the most significant inflection points for humanity,” Alexander Kmentt, Austria’s chief negotiator on the issue, said in an interview. “What’s the role of human beings in the use of force — it’s an absolutely fundamental security issue, a legal issue and an ethical issue.”

But while the U.N. is providing a platform for governments to express their concerns, the process seems unlikely to yield substantive new legally binding restrictions. The United States, Russia, Australia, Israel and others have all argued that no new international law is needed for now, while China wants to define any legal limit so narrowly that it would have little practical effect, arms control advocates say.

The result has been to tie the debate up in a procedural knot with little chance of progress on a legally binding mandate anytime soon….

(9) A NEW MEANING FOR CPR. The Clarke Center at UCSD has announced a Center for Psychedelic Research.

Initially organized at the Psychedelics and Health Research Initiative at the Clarke Center, this dynamic collaboration—which cuts across several divisions and departments at UC San Diego to bring together novel approaches and insights into the potential of psychedelics to help millions and produce new fundamental insights into the brain and consciousness—is now formally recognized as the Center for Psychedelic Research). The new center, and the history it builds upon—dating back to research on psychedelics in the early 1970s by CPR Director Mark Geyer—was recently featured in the UC San Diego Magazine, which can be read online here.

The article is “Psychedelic Revolution” and it begins:

The story of psychedelics research at UC San Diego does not begin with research scientist Albert Yu-Min Lin,  but it is certainly a good place to start.

In 2016, the world-renowned scientist, National Geographic explorer and three-time UC San Diego graduate (’04, MS ’05, PhD ’08) suffered a devastating accident that resulted in the amputation of his lower right leg. After the physical wounds healed, Lin was left with excruciating and debilitating “phantom limb pain.” 

He describes the sensation as the feeling of “my leg folding in half and breaking into bones and lighting on fire and knives stabbing into it … but there was no leg there.”

Lin had recently read about successful studies using psychedelics in the treatment of depression and anxiety. Desperate and willing to try anything, he drove to the desert to try psilocybin, the active compound in “magic mushrooms.”

He says, “If our mind is how we perceive the world, and our mind can also perceive our bodies in that context, then maybe I should be looking into the tools that are used to treat other aspects of the mind.”

A single session with psilocybin alleviated his pain in less than 30 minutes. After weeks of all-consuming and debilitating pain that had him on the brink of extreme depression, Lin felt like himself again. 

His psychedelic experience changed everything. 

But until then, the use of psilocybin to treat phantom limb pain had not been researched in a controlled, rigorous way. According to the National Institutes of Health, phantom limb pain affects an estimated 60% to 80% of amputees….

(10) SOUND EFFECTS. The New York Times covers the work of a composer: “Martians, Dolls and a Cellist’s Dog: The Many Worlds of Jennifer Walshe”,

… a new piece, composed by Walshe, … called “Some Notes on Martian Sonic Aesthetics, 2034-51,” it invites a chamber ensemble to impersonate a musically trained crew who have set up a colony on Mars and are beaming performances back to Earth.

While researching the piece, Walshe, 49, said that she had asked NASA how sound waves travel in carbon-dioxide rich atmospheres (“you don’t hear high-end frequencies”). She had also requested that packets of freeze-dried food be placed on the percussionists’ tables, so that the audience could hear the sound of astronauts chowing down, along with cans of compressed air to imitate the hiss of airlocks opening and closing.

And the helium-filled balloons? Here to make the double bassist’s bow feel 60 percent lighter, as though he were playing in Martian gravity. “I’m a hardcore science fiction fan,” Walshe said as she strode onto the street. “I want things to be as accurate as possible.”

(11) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Ryan George is more than just a fly on the wall at “The Marvels Pitch Meeting”.

The Marvels definitely raises some questions. Like how are they still making villains like this? Isn’t that the same plan as in Spaceballs? Why did Monica not try to fix the space-time hole from our side? Captain Marvel is so powerful she can reignite suns? What was up with that singing planet? To answer all these questions, check out the pitch meeting that led to The Marvels!

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

A Little Like Scheherazade

In Titan Comics’ Doctor Who: Once Upon A Time Lord, in order to survive the fiery Pyromeths, Martha Jones must spin three sensational yarns about the Tenth Doctor and his greatest adventures with old and new foes alike.

Martha Jones’ only hope is to keep them distracted with sensational untold tales of the Tenth Doctor facing off against his greatest foes.

Dan Slott’s Doctor Who features cameos from multiple Doctors and their enemies, including the Daleks and Cybermen. And there is a special bonus story starring the Ninth Doctor and Rose.

Doctor Who: Once Upon a Time Lord is on sale October 31, 2023 at bookstores, comic shops and digital. Pre-order now from AmazonBarnes & NobleBooks-A-Million and Forbidden Planet for UK. 

See sample pages following the jump.

Continue reading

Robotech: Rick Hunter from Titan Comics

After the devastating events of the Macross saga, Rick Hunter must face an all new threat, along with the ghosts of his past – when a Zentraedi splinter group attacks Yokohama, Rick is called to investigate. Piloting the new prototype YF-4 Veritech, Rick encounters old friends and new enemies, all while recounting the moments of his life that shaped most epic moments in the Robotech universe.

Robotech: Rick Hunter #1 is on sale on August 2 at your local comic book shop and Forbidden Planet (UK). For more details visit Titan Comics.

A gallery of variant covers and interior art follows the jump.

Continue reading

Pixel Scroll 7/6/23 The Felix Felis Flattus Sat On The Mat

(1) DRAGON PRESERVATION SOCIETY? A Twitter user with 90K followers who goes by the handle Aristophanes claims to be incensed that works like John Scalzi’s Kaiju Preservation Society become Dragon Award finalists. As a remedy he is calling for people to band together and nominate all the works on his ticket. Can the Dragon Awards be saved? How would we know if they aren’t? Thread starts here.

The Dragon Award’s policy is to encourage people to campaign for fan support. Always has been. So this appeal violates no rule, written or otherwise. My only question about his list is — can it really be a Dragon Awards slate without a book by Declan Finn on it? This will be the first one without him I’ve ever seen!!

(2) FOUNDATION. Apple TV+ has released a second trailer for “Foundation — Season 2”.

More than a century after the Season 1 finale, tension mounts throughout the galaxy. As the Cleons unravel, a vengeful queen plots to destroy Empire from within. Hari, Gaal, and Salvor discover a colony of Mentalics with special abilities that threaten to alter psychohistory itself. Meanwhile, the Foundation and Empire are on a collision course for war with the fate of humanity in the balance.

(3) HOW MANY NAMES? Best Semiprozine finalist Strange Horizons tells how this year’s Hugo Administrator clawed back the progress SH had made in getting their full team listed. (They weren’t the only ones affected by the policy change, of course.) Thread starts here.

(4) JMS AT SDCC. “Babylon 5 Cast Set for San Diego Comic-Con 2023” reports the SDCC Unofficial Blog.

…While writer and series creator J. Michael Straczynski has been teasing for months that he will be at the convention with lots to talk about the new animated film, Babylon 5: The Road Home, we’ve got our first look at just what that appearance will likely entail.

The upcoming animated film continues the story of the 1990’s space opera series, as John Sheridan unexpectedly finds himself transported through multiple timelines and alternate realities in a quest to find his way back home. Most of the cast is returning for the film, including Bruce Boxleitner as John Sheridan, Claudia Christian as Susan Ivanova, Peter Jurasik as Londo Mollari, Bill Mumy as Lennier, Tracy Scoggins as Elizabeth Lochley and Patricia Tallman as Lyta Alexander.

Patricia Tallman revealed on Instagram that she will indeed be at the convention — and so will most of her castmates.

Bruce Boxleitner, Claudia Christian, Tracy Scoggins, and Patricia Tallman will be signing in the Sails Pavilion on Saturday, July 22 from 11am-12pm, which certainly ups the odds of a panel with cast in appearance.

Patricia Tallman will also be signing on her own from 2:30pm-7pm on both Thursday, July 20 and Friday, July 21, and fans can pre-order her Pleasure Thresholds, a Babylon 5 Memoir, for $30 (or $40 if you purchase at the con). Copies can be autographed and personalized…. 

(5) IO9 COLLIDES WITH THE UNPLEASANT FUTURE. “‘F*cking Dogsh*t’: G/O Media Editor Tears Into Management Over ‘Embarrassing’ AI-Generated Article ‘Riddled With Basic Errors’” at Mediate.

James Whitbrook, the deputy editor of G/O Media’s Gizmodo and its subsection io9, tore into management on Wednesday after the company published a “shoddily written” AI-generated article “riddled with basic errors.”

After it was revealed last week that G/O Media would begin rolling out articles generated by artificial intelligence, GMG Union — which represents many of the news outlets under G/O Media’s banner, including Gizmodo — protested the introduction of “computer-generated garbage” which “erodes trust in us as journalists, damages our brands, and threatens our jobs.”

Despite the protests of the union, however, G/O Media moved forward with its controversial decision this week.

“A Chronological List of Star Wars Movies & TV Shows” by “Gizmodo Bot” appeared on G/O Media’s tech and science news website on Wednesday, only to be swiftly ridiculed by social media users for messing up the chronological order of the franchise.

In a Twitter post, the deputy editor of the site revealed he had only been “informed approximately 10 minutes” before the article went live and that “no one at io9 played a part in its editing or publication.” In his own “personal comment,” Whitbrook added, “It’s fucking dogshit.”

Whitbrook also published the letter he sent to the management of G/O Media, which read:

“For 15 years, io9 has grown an audience that demands quality coverage of genre entertainment, from critical analysis, to insightful explainers, to accurate news and industry-shaping investigative reporting. These readers have grown io9 into one of the best performing desks at Gizmodo, G/O Media’s flagship site in terms of traffic, and they have done so by rigorously holding this team and the colleagues that came before us to a standard of expertise and accuracy that we have been proud to achieve. The article published on io9 today rejects the very standards this team holds itself to on a daily basis as critics and as reporters. It is shoddily written, it is riddled with basic errors; in closing the comments section off, it denies our readers, the lifeblood of this network, the chance to publicly hold us accountable, and to call this work exactly what it is: embarrassing, unpublishable, disrespectful of both the audience and the people who work here, and a blow to our authority and integrity. It is shameful that this work has been put to our audience and to our peers in the industry as a window to G/O’s future, and it is shameful that we as a team have had to spend an egregious amount of time away from our actual work to make it clear to you the unacceptable errors made in publishing this piece.”

(6) BURP! The Guardian, meanwhile, is there when “Authors file a lawsuit against OpenAI for unlawfully ‘ingesting’ their books”. One of them is Paul Tremblay.

Two authors have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, the company behind the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT, claiming that the organisation breached copyright law by “training” its model on novels without the permission of authors.

Mona Awad, whose books include Bunny and 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, and Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World, filed the class action complaint to a San Francisco federal court last week.

ChatGPT allows users to ask questions and type commands into a chatbot and responds with text that resembles human language patterns. The model underlying ChatGPT is trained with data that is publicly available on the internet.

Yet, Awad and Tremblay believe their books, which are copyrighted, were unlawfully “ingested” and “used to train” ChatGPT because the chatbot generated “very accurate summaries” of the novels, according to the complaint. Sample summaries are included in the lawsuit as exhibits….

(7) MEMORY LANE.

2010 [Written by Cat Eldridge from a choice by Mike Glyer.]

Catherynne M. Valente’s an amazing individual. I’m proud to say that I’ve had coffee with her as she lives here in this city. And her writing is just as stellar as she is. 

No Hugos so far but she has won Otherwise and Mythopoeic Awards for The Orphan’s Tales: In the Night Garden (both Awards) and The Orphan’s Tales: In the Cities of Coin and Spice (Mythopoeic). She also has won an Andre Norton Award.

Her other great series is the Fairyland series centered around twelve year-old September. And that’s all I’m saying about this delightful affair. Our Beginning is from the debut novel, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. 

It was first published online on her site but she’s taken that down. The first print edition was by Feiwel and Friends thirteen years ago. It was an independent publisher that has since been acquired by Macmillan.

So here’s our Beginning…

EXEUNT ON A LEOPARD In Which a Girl Named September Is Spirited Off by Means of a Leopard, Learns the Rules of Fairyland, and Solves a Puzzle 

Once upon a time, a girl named September grew very tired indeed of her parents’ house, where she washed the same pink-and-yellow teacups and matching gravy boats every day, slept on the same embroidered pillow, and played with the same small and amiable dog. Because she had been born in May, and because she had a mole on her left cheek, and because her feet were very large and ungainly, the Green Wind took pity on her and flew to her window one evening just after her twelfth birthday. He was dressed in a green smoking jacket, and a green carriage-driver’s cloak, and green jodhpurs, and green snowshoes. It is very cold above the clouds in the shantytowns where the Six Winds live. 

“You seem an ill-tempered and irascible enough child,” said the Green Wind.

“How would you like to come away with me and ride upon the Leopard of Little Breezes and be delivered to the great sea, which borders Fairyland? I am afraid I cannot go in, as Harsh Airs are not allowed, but I should be happy to deposit you upon the Perverse and Perilous Sea.

“Oh, yes!” breathed September, who disapproved deeply of pink-and-yellow teacups and also of small and amiable dogs.

“Well, then, come and sit by me, and do not pull too harshly on my Leopard’s fur, as she bites.” 

September climbed out of her kitchen window, leaving a sink full of soapy pink-and-yellow teacups with leaves still clinging to their bottoms in portentous shapes. One of them looked a bit like her father in his long coffee-colored trench coat, gone away over the sea with a rifle and gleaming things on his hat. One of them looked a bit like her mother, bending over a stubborn airplane engine in her work overalls, her arm muscles bulging. One of them looked a bit like a squashed cabbage. The Green Wind held out his hand, snug in a green glove, and September took both his hands and a very deep breath. One of her shoes came loose as she hoisted herself over the sill, and this will be important later, so let us take a moment to bid farewell to her prim little mary jane with its brass buckle as it clatters onto the parquet floor. Good-bye, shoe! September will miss you soon.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born July 6, 1945 — Burt Ward, 78. Robin in that Batman series. He would reprise the role in voicing the character in The New Adventures of Batman and Legends of the Superheroes, and two recent animated films, Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders and Batman vs. Two-Face. (Has anyone seen these?) The latter are the last work done by Adam West before his death. 
  • Born July 6, 1946 — Sylvester Stallone, 77. Although I think Stallone made a far less than perfect Dredd, I think the look and feel of the first film was spot on for the film which was something the second film, which had a perfect Dredd in Karl Urban, utterly lacked. And Demolition Man and him as Sergeant John Spartan were just perfect. 
  • Born July 6, 1950 — John Byrne, 73. A stellar comic book artist and writer. He’s done far too much to detail here so I’ll just single out that he scripted the first four issues of Hellboy: Seed of Destruction, was the writer and artist on the excellent Blood of the Demon from 1-17 and responsible for Spider-Man: Chapter One which took a great deal of flak. 
  • Born July 6, 1951 — Rick Sternbach, 72. Best-known for his work in the Trek verse starting with ST: TMP where he designed control panel layouts and signage for the Enterprise. He’s next hired for Next Gen where communicator badge, phasers, PADDs and tricorders are all based on his designs. These designs will also be used on DS9 and Voyager. He also pretty much designed every starship during that time from the Cardassian and Klingon to the Voyager itself. He would win the Best Professional Artist Hugo at SunCon and IguanaCon II.
  • Born July 6, 1951 — Geoffrey Rush, 72. First genre role is like the Mystery Men series which I’ll bet everyone has forgotten, followed by House on Haunted HillFinding Nemo and some other genre work as well with his major genre role being as Barbossa in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. And I’ll include his role in Shakespeare in Love as Philip Henslowe even if strictly speaking it’s not genre related as I really, really love that film. 
  • Born July 6, 1952 — Hilary Mantel. Though best remembered as the author of the Wolf Hall franchise, she’s actually written some genre fiction. The Mysterious Stranger involves supernatural occurrences in a small British town in the Fifties; and Beyond Black is about a psychic who sees more than she wants to. She also indulged in alternative history in the short story, “The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher – August 6th 1983”. (Died 2022.)
  • Born July 6, 1980 — Eva Green, 43. First crosses our paths in Casino Royale as Vesper Lynd followed by Serafina Pekkala in The Golden Compass, and then Angelique Bouchard Collins in Dark Shadows. Ava Lord in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (weird films those definitely are) with a decided move sideways into being Miss Alma Peregrine for Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. And she was Colette Marchant in Dumbo. She’s got two series roles to her credit, Morgan Pendragon in Camelot and Vanessa Ives in Penny Dreadful.

(9) TITAN COMICS GOODIES AT SDCC. The Titan Booth #5537 at San Diego Comic-Con 2023 will be the place to get some limited availability merchandise. Some of it looks pretty cute, like these pins.

  • Doctor Who: Thirteen Piece TARDIS Enamel Pin Collection

Titan Booth #5537 at SDCC 2023 is the only opportunity for US Doctor Who fans to buy this EXCLUSIVE Thirteen Piece TARDIS Enamel Pin Collection. Please note: this beautiful, one-of-a-kind TARDIS collection will be available from Titan Booth #5537 from Preview Night (Wednesday July 19th). Numbers are EXTREMELY LIMITED. First come, first served.

And there will be some collectible figures available, too.

  • Doctor Who: Fourteenth Doctor 3″ Kawaii TITAN Vinyl Figure
  • Doctor Who: Fourteenth Doctor 3″ Classic TITAN Vinyl Figure

David Tennant’s upcoming Fourteenth Doctor arrives in San Diego as a pair of separately-packaged, separately-available EXCLUSIVE 3” TITANS Vinyl Figures. Both releases (3” Kawaii Fourteenth Doctor and 3” Classic Fourteenth Doctor) are available from Titan Booth #5537.

  • My Hero Academia: Dabi 3″ Glow-In-The-Dark Kawaii TITAN Vinyl Figure
  • My Hero Academia: Shigaraki 3″ Glow-In-The-Dark Kawaii TITAN Vinyl Figure

My Hero Academia TITANS Viny Figures return to Titan Booth #5537 as a pair of separately-packaged, separately-available San Diego EXCLUSIVE 3” Kawaii TITANS Vinyl Figures. Both releases (Dabi and Shigaraki) feature Glow-In-The-Dark effects and are available from Titan Booth #5537.

(10) CARVING UP THE STREAMING MARKET. JustWatch has shared their graphs about the market shares of streaming services for the second quarter in 2023.

SVOD market shares in Q2 2023
Prime Video continues to hold down the streaming crown in the US with a 1% lead over global giant, Netflix. Major players: Max and Disney+ also face similar challenges with a 2% gap separating the two.

Market share development in 2023
Newly rebranded streaming giant: Max (formerly HBO Max) displays positive development, gaining +1%; Paramount+ also won with a +1% increase in shares. On the other hand, Disney+ and Hulu drop in shares, suffering -1% losses each.

(11) SURF’S UP. Nature reports “Monster gravitational waves spotted for first time”. “Using beacon stars called pulsars, a decades-long effort has found space-time ripples that are light years wide.”

Gravitational waves are back, and they’re bigger than ever.

After the historic first detection of the space-time rattles in 2015 using ground-based detectors, researchers could have now rediscovered Albert Einstein’s waves with an entirely different technique. The approach tracks changes in the distances between Earth and beacon stars in its Galactic neighbourhood called pulsars, which reveal how the space in between is stretched and squeezed by the passage of gravitational waves.

Whereas the original discovery spotted waves originating from the collision and merger of two star-sized black holes, the most likely source of the latest finding is the combined signal from many pairs of much larger black holes — millions or even billions of times the mass of the Sun — slowly orbiting each other in the hearts of distant galaxies. These waves are thousands of times stronger and longer than those found in 2015, with wavelengths of up to tens of light years. By contrast, the ripples detected since 2015 using a technique called interferometry are just tens or hundreds of kilometres long.

(12) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Ryan George shows the many advantages that would come our way “If We Stopped Using Numbers”

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

Titan’s New Robotech: Rick Hunter Comic Goes Beyond the Original Anime

Robotech, the classic 80s anime TV series — currently airing on Crunchyroll — expands into a new comic series this summer from Transformers and Kamen Rider Zero-One writer, Brandon Easton, and Power Rangers artist, Simone Ragazzoni. Robotech: Rick Hunter is a four-part mini-series published by Titan Comics, launching August 2.

The Robotech anime series first aired in the USA in 1985. Produced by Harmony Gold USA, the 85-episode series hooked viewers’ imagination with its epic storylines involving war, romance, and the transforming Veritech fighters that defend the Earth against extra-terrestrial attacks.

Set after the devastating events of the Macross saga, Robotech: Rick Hunter will see Rick Hunter face an all new threat, along with the ghosts of his past — when a Zentraedi splinter group attacks Yokohama, Rick is called to investigate. Piloting the new prototype YF-4 Veritech, Rick encounters old friends and new enemies, all while recounting the moments of his life that shaped most epic moments in the Robotech universe. For more information, visit: https://www.titan-comics.com

Robotech: Rick Hunter #1 cover A by Inhyuk Lee

Robotech: Rick Hunter #1 cover B by Derrick Chew

Robotech: Rick Hunter #1 cover C by Simone Ragazzoni

Robotech: Rick Hunter #1 cover D by Josh Burcham

Robotech: Rick Hunter #1 cover E by Nahuel Grego

Robotech: Rick Hunter #1 cover G by Derrick Chew (Virgin $13.99)

Robotech: Rick Hunter #1 black & white interior art (Note: not final art)

[Based on a press release.]

Pixel Scroll 5/17/23 Star-Lord Shot First!

(1) FIGHTING BOOK BANS. “PEN America, Penguin Random House Sue Florida School District Over ‘Unconstitutional’ Book Bans”Publishers Weekly has details.

In response to a troubling wave of book bans, PEN America, Penguin Random House, a group of authors, and a group of parents have filed a federal lawsuit against a Florida school district over the “unconstitutional” removal of books from school libraries.

The suit, filed on May 16 in the Northern district of Florida in Pensacola, alleges that administrators and school board members in Florida’s Escambia County School District are violating the First Amendment as well as the 14th Amendment (the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution) because the books being singled out are “disproportionately books by non-white and/or LGBTQ+ authors” and often address “themes or topics” related to race or LGBTQ+ community.

The suit seeks to have the district’s actions declared unconstitutional and to have the banned books returned to library shelves.

“In every decision to remove a book, the School District has sided with a challenger expressing openly discriminatory bases for challenge, overruling the recommendations of review committees at the school and district levels,” the complaint alleges. “These restrictions and removals have disproportionately targeted books by or about people of color and/or LGBTQ people, and have prescribed an orthodoxy of opinion that violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments…. Today, Escambia County seeks to bar books critics view as too ‘woke.’ In the 1970s, schools sought to bar Slaughterhouse-Five and books edited by Langston Hughes. Tomorrow, it could be books about Christianity, the country’s founders, or war heroes. All of these removals run afoul of the First Amendment, which is rightly disinterested in the cause du jour.”…

(2) KEEP WATCHING THE MARQUEE. Was there ever a save-the-kid science fiction story I didn’t fall for? I’m confident this will be no exception: The Creator Teaser Trailer”.

“This is a fight for our very existence.” The Creator arrives in theaters September 29.

(3) STOP. Sarah A. Hoyt gives a whole list of favors people shouldn’t be asking her for – or any other writer, for that matter – in “We’re Not Responsible for….” at Mad Genius Club.

…Stop sending me five covers from stock sites and asking me which fits your novel, when we never talked to each other before and I don’t know who you are. I might, if I’m in the mood, do that for friends or friendly acquaintances, but I have a house, family, cats, a garden, and about 40 novels waiting to be written. I’m not your mommy. Go look at covers and make your own evaluation. Or get another friend who is better at it, and ask them. I haven’t even read your novel. And no, this isn’t a suggestion to send it to me….

(4) 300 BOOKS, 10 JUDGES, 1 WINNER. Mark Lawrence started taking entries for Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off 9 today: “SPFBO 9, Phase 1”. He explained one of the fine points in the eligibility screening process.

…The most common reason for a book being replaced is that although the author might think of themselves as self-published, they are in fact published by a small/indy press. The details get messy, but if we started accepting small presses then most would appreciate that “small” is impossible to define/enforce effectively. And this is laid out in the rules which everyone indicates they have read….

(5) INDIES NAVIGATE AMAZON. A new entry in “The Indie Files” series at the SFWA Blog sees William Tracy offering “Author tips and tricks for selling on Amazon”.

Congrats! You’re an indie author! You’ve written a book, (hopefully) had critiques and edited it, put it all together, and thrown it up on Amazon. Time to watch the money roll in, right?

Well, not exactly. Amazon books don’t sell themselves. Especially in these waning years of the golden indie author rush, you’ll have to make sure others see your book to even know it exists. In 2010 or 2012, you could feasibly get away with assuming people would see what you’d written. Not now. I wince when people very proudly tell me they’ve written a book and are going to sell it on Amazon. I always have qualifying questions, which usually make their eyes go wide.

Here’s a brief list of tips and tricks to help your book get seen by more shoppers. Because that’s the first secret. Amazon is not a sales platform. Amazon is a very well-tuned search engine. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to stumble over your book as they search. This will not be an exhaustive list, but it’ll give you a starting point for your own research….

(6) A DEAD FISH STINKS FROM THE HEAD. “The Time Has Come for Hollywood C.E.O.s to Strike” – a humor piece from The New Yorker.

Day Zero: Hollywood C.E.O.s have had enough. The Writers Guild of America refused to leave the bargaining table even when we very clearly indicated that we didn’t want to be there anymore. That’s not just bad table manners—because we are C.E.O.s, this threatens the livelihood of our families, and also the livelihood of our second, secret families. In a unanimous vote of twelve for, zero against, the C.E.O.s have authorized a strike.

Day One: The work stoppage begins immediately. All C.E.O.s have changed their e-mail auto-responses from “I am vacationing in Moldova and will be slow to respond” to “I am vacationing in Moldova and also I’m on strike.” The people who work for us will obviously be expected to continue performing their jobs, and also we will obviously keep getting paid. Other than that, the industry will grind to a halt until our demands are met….

(7) MEMORY LANE.

2012[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Our Beginning comes from Graham Joyce’s Some Kind of Fairy Tale which was first published by Victor Gollancz in the United Kingdom eleven years ago. 

He won the BFS’ Robert Holdstock Award for it, one of four such Awards for him, and was nominated for the August Derleth Award for best Horror Novel and the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel as well. 

I like Joyce a lot as his horror has a certain Britishness to it that is appealing. This along with The Tooth Fairy and The Limits of Enchantment are my favorite works by him. 

And now for our Beginning…

We are spirits of another sort. 

OBERON, KING OF SHADOWS. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 

In the deepest heart of England there is a place where everything is at fault. That is to say that the land rests upon a fault; and there, ancient rocks are sent hurtling from the deep to the surface of the earth with such force that they break free like oceanic waves, or like monstrous sea creatures coming up for air. Some say that the land has still to settle and that it continues to roil and breathe fumes, and that out of these fumes pour stories. Others are confident that the old volcanoes are long dead, and that all its tales are told. Of course, everything depends on who is telling the story. It always does. I have a story and though there are considerable parts I’ve had to imagine, the way I saw it was as follows.

It WAS CHRISTMAS DAY of that year and Dell Martin hovered at the double-glazed PVC window of his tidy home, conducting a survey of the bruised clouds and concluding that it might just snow; and if it did snow then someone would have to pay. At the very beginning of the year Dell had laid down two crisp twenty-pound notes on the bookie’s Formica counter, just as he had done every year for the past ten. The odds changed slightly each year and this time he’d settled good odds at seven-to-one. 

For a White Christmas to be official—that is, to force the bookmakers to pay—a flake of snow must be observed to fall between midnight on December 24 and midnight on December 25 at four designated sites. The sites are the cities of London, Glasgow, Cardiff, and Manchester. The snow is not required to lie deep nor crisp nor evenly upon the ground and it doesn’t matter if it’s mixed with rain. One solitary flake would do it, fallen and melted, observed and recorded.

Living in a place somewhere between all of those great cities, Dell had never collected in all those ten years, nor had he seen a single flake of Christmas Day snow hanging in the air of his hometown. “Are you going to come and carve?” Mary called from the kitchen. 

This year they were having goose. After decades of turkey dinners on Christmas Day they were having a change, because a change is as good as a rest, and sometimes you needed a rest even from Christmas. Nevertheless the table had been laid out, just as in previous years. Crisp linen and the best cutlery. Two heavy crystal wineglasses that, year round, were kept in a box and stowed at the back of a kitchen cupboard.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born May 17, 1913 Peter B. Germano. Though neither of his SF novels was of great distinction (go ahead, disagree) — The Interplanetary Adventures and The Pyramids from Space (written as Jack Berlin) — his scriptwriter output was so as he worked on The Time TunnelVoyage to the Bottom of the SeaLand of the LostBattle of the Planets and the revival version of The Next Step Beyond, which warrants his being noted here. (Died 1983.)
  • Born May 17, 1936 Dennis Hopper. I think his first genre film would be Tarzan and Jane Regained… Sort of, an Andy Warhol film. Queen of Blood, a vampire thinly disguised as SF film, was his next genre film. My Science Project was his next outing before he took part in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. And now we get to the Super Mario Bros. where he played King Koopa. What a weird film that was! Of he followed that by being Deacon on Waterworld… And then doing Space Truckers. Ouch. Really ouch. He’s El Niño in The Crow: Wicked Prayer, a film I barely remember seeing and I like the Crow character. His final role was voicing one of the animated wolves in Alpha and Omega. (Died 2010.)
  • Born May 17, 1946 F. Paul Wilson, 77. I’ve read, let me check, oh about half I see of the Repairman Jack novels. Anyone here finished them off, and should I do so? What else by him is worth my time? He’s won five Prometheus Awards for Best Libertarian SF Novel, very impressive indeed. 
  • Born May 17, 1950 Mark Leeper, 73. As Mark says on his site, “In and out of science fiction circles Mark and Evelyn Leeper are one of the best known writing couples on the Internet. Mark became an avid science fiction fan at age six with TV’s Commando Cody. Both went to the University of Massachusetts in 1968.” And as Bill Higgins says here, their MT VOID fanzine is one of the longest published ones still going. 
  • Born May 17, 1954 Bryce Zabel, 69. A producer, director and writer. Genre wise, he’s been involved as a producer or director with M.A.N.T.I.S.Dark SkiesBlackbeardLois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and The Crow: Stairway to Heaven. Writing-wise, he has written for most of these shows plus the Mortal Kombat: Annihilation and Atlantis: The Lost Empire screenplays.
  • Born May 17, 1954 Colin Greenland, 69. His partner is the Susanna Clarke who was the author of our Beginning last Scroll, with whom he has lived since 1996. The Entropy Exhibition: Michael Moorcock and the British ‘New Wave’ in Science Fiction whichwas based on his PhD thesis. His most successful fictional work is the Plenty series that starts with Take Back Plenty and continues with Seasons of PlentyThe Plenty Principle and wraps up with Mother of Plenty. In the Eighties and Ninties, he was involved in the editorial work of Foundation: The Review of Science Fiction and Interzone.
  • Born May 17, 1956 Dave Sim, 67. Did you know there was a Cerebus radio series at one point? Well there was – Cerberus the Radio Show. Need I say that I read the entire run of Cerebus. The three hundred issues ran from 1977 until 2004. It was created by Sim, written and drawn by him and remained solely his undertaking until background artist Garhard joined up with sixty-fifth issue. As Cerebus continued, it incorporated more and more of Sim’s very controversial views, particularly on women, feminism and the fall of Western Society from those factors. Collected Letters: 2004 and Dave Sim’s Collected Letters 2 contains his responses to the letters he got criticizing him but not the letters themselves. 

(9) COMICS SECTION.

  • Poorly Drawn Lines shows that in space no one can hear your loneliness.

(10) JIMI HENDRIX SFF COMIC. This Fall, Titan Comics will be publishing Jimi Hendrix: Purple Haze, an original graphic novel written by Mellow Brown (American Gods, Blade Runner: Origins) with DJ Benhameen, illustrated by artist Tom Mandrake (Captain Kronos, The Spectre), and in collaboration with Jimi’s sister, Janie Hendrix.

This epic adventure sees the iconic Jimi Hendrix as you’ve never seen him before! The story sees Hendrix embark on a perilous quest to the very center of the universe in search of a magical talisman powerful enough to unlock the incredible latent power of his trademark sound, so that he can free a diverse population starved of rock ‘n’ roll by a tyrannical intergalactic force hellbent on silencing music and enslaving all life.

Jimi Hendrix: Purple Haze blends classic sci-fi pulp, and Afro-futurism to craft a psychedelic space odyssey that captures the magic, hope and rebellion that Jimi’s legendary music is known for.

Jimi Hendrix (November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970) was an influential guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his career spanned only three studio albums – Are You Experienced (1967), Axis: Bold as Love (1967), & Electric Ladyland (1968) – he is widely recognized as one of the most creative guitarists in the history of music, and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century.

Jimi Hendrix: Purple Haze (128pp, hardcover, $29.99, 9781787731899) is set for release in comic shops, bookstores and on digital devices in November 2023. Pre-order now at Barnes & NobleAmazon and Forbidden Planet for UK & Europe.

(11) BROS. “Marvellous Moderns: The Brothers Perrault” at The Public Domain Review.

Charles Perrault is celebrated as the collector of some of the world’s best-known fairy tales. But his brothers were just as remarkable: Claude, an architect of the Louvre, and Pierre, who discovered the hydrological cycle. As Hugh Aldersey-Williams explores, all three were able to use positions within the orbit of the Sun King to advance their modern ideas about the world….

…Best remembered today is the youngest of the brothers, Charles (1628–1703), who is famous now as the collector and author of fairy stories — including “Sleeping Beauty”, “Little Red Riding Hood”, “Cinderella”, “Puss in Boots”, and “Bluebeard” — known as the Mother Goose Tales. Before turning to writing, however, he served at the French court as a cultural advisor to Louis’ all-powerful minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert….

(12) BOOMER SOONER (OR LATER). Scientific American thinks “Betelgeuse’s Brightening Raises Hopes for a Supernova Spectacle”.

Even if you don’t know it by name, the red supergiant star Betelgeuse is one of the most familiar sights in the heavens above—a gleaming ruddy dot at the shoulder of the constellation Orion. Although already quite difficult to overlook, Betelgeuse has become even more eye-catching across the past few years because of major changes in its appearance—unexpected fluctuations in its brightness that remain poorly understood. In recent weeks, the star has at times shone more than 50 percent brighter than normal, drawing renewed attention from amateur sky watchers and professional astronomers alike. These individuals hopefully await a historic celestial event. Someday, you see, Betelgeuse will explosively end its life in a supernova—and from our planetary perch just 650 light-years away, we Earthlings will have front-row seats to this spectacular cosmic cataclysm.

But does the current bout of brightening presage Betelgeuse blowing its top? And what would such a nearby supernova look like?…

(13) LET’S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN. The cast of The Rocky Horror Show perpetrated a flashmob at Birmingham New Street in the UK.

The cast of Rocky Horror Show were out of this world when they performed at Birmingham New Street this afternoon! If you didn’t manage to catch them at the station, here it is.

(14) VIDEO OF THE DAY. The first twenty-five seconds of Ryan George’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Pitch Meeting” are pretty wry. And it goes on from there.

So you got some Marvel content for me?

Yes sir, I do some freaking Guardians of the Galaxy.

Nice!

Now did you want to make a movie or take a secondary character and stretch a story out over eight episodes and shove that on Disney+?

I was thinking like a third movie.

You sure?

Yeah, plus we already did that I Am Groot short series on Disney+.

We did?

Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s a thing that exists, really.

Wow! We might have to slow this machine down. I have no recollection of that…

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

Pixel Scroll 4/21/23 Like A Pixel, Scrolled For The Very First Time

(1) BOTS LOVE FILE 770. The Washington Post invited readers to “See the websites that make AI bots like ChatGPT sound so smart”. They analyzed one of the large data sets that may be used in training AI, and also have made it publicly searchable. Their stats show File 770 is a leading contributor to the cause of educating AI, ranked 3,445th. Uh, yay?

…Tech companies have grown secretive about what they feed the AI. So The Washington Post set out to analyze one of these data sets to fully reveal the types of proprietary, personal, and often offensive websites that go into an AI’s training data.

To look inside this black box, we analyzed Google’s C4 data set, a massive snapshot of the contents of 15 million websites that have been used to instruct some high-profile English-language AIs, called large language models, including Google’s T5 and Facebook’s LLaMA. (OpenAI does not disclose what datasets it uses to train the models backing its popular chatbot, ChatGPT)…

Is your website training AI?

A web crawl may sound like a copy of the entire internet, but it’s just a snapshot, capturing content from a sampling of webpages at a particular moment in time. C4 began as a scrape performed in April 2019by the nonprofit CommonCrawl, a popular resource for AI models. CommonCrawl told The Post that it tries to prioritize the most important and reputable sites, but does not try to avoid licensed or copyrighted content….

We then ranked the remaining 10 million websites based on how many “tokens” appeared from each in the data set. Tokens are small bits of text used to process disorganized information — typically a word or phrase.

As shown in the rather scrofulous screencap below, file770.com is ranked 3,445th with 2.5 million tokens, which is 0.002% of the tokens in the set examined by the Washington Post.

(2) HUGO VOTING DEADLINE APPROACHES. 2023 Hugo nominations are closing on April 30, at 23:59 Hawaiian Time. Eligible voters can access the ballot here.

(3) AUTHOR ASKS SCHOLASTIC TO “BE BRAVER”. “Kelly Yang Speaks Up Against Scholastic Censorship” at The Mary Sue.

One of the 663 authors and counting who signed an open letter to Scholastic’s Education Solutions Division is author Kelly Yang. She is one of many best-selling Scholastic authors horrified by this response to accelerating fascism. In a vulnerable video, Yang shared her thoughts about these actions. She also broke down what it feels like to be targeted by this censorship and bigotry. Sometimes, in person….

However, Yang correctly insists that they have to push past this. She says in the video:

“As one of your top authors, I’m asking you to have more courage. You cannot be quietly self-censoring. Whatever pressure you may be facing, know that your authors are facing even more pressure. And we’re still out here writing these books. Risking our lives. Bleeding to make you millions. Trying to write the books for the next generation that will hopefully improve the world.”

She continued discussing the importance of representation and capturing the moment children live in.

“Let me tell you, it’s not easy. I am not a giant corporation. I am an individual. Every day people attack me personally. They write me emails, they come into my comments and my DMs. I had a guy show up at an event and whisper in my ear how much he loves seeing my books get banned. And yet, everyday I keep going. You know why? Because I am brave.

“Despite getting paid pennies on the dollar, we authors are brave. The librarians—they are brave. The educators—they are brave. I need you to be braver.

“You cannot choose which books to include in your Fairs and Clubs for kids nationwide and edit lines out because you’re scared of DeSantis. If you want to carry Maggie’s book, you gotta carry all of her book. If you want to carry Kelly Yang, you’ve gotta carry all of Kelly Yang—not some stripped-down version.

“I need you to not cave to political pressure and be on the right side of history. Because it’s the right thing to do. Because you can afford it with your 90% market share of the school distribution channel. If you’re going to be deciding children’s book for the entire nation, your taste have to reflect the entire nation. And because I know it’s what Dick Robinson would have wanted.

“I love you Scholastic. You’ve done a lot of good for a lot of kids, but how you play you next move will determine how you’re remembered. The world is watching. I am watching. I hope you do the right thing.”

(4) NOT JUST ANY USED BOOKS. Plenty of sff among AbeBooks “Most expensive sales from January to March 2023”. Two Harry Potter books lead the list, with the biggest sale being a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone for $85,620. Further down is a PKD first edition.

8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick – $17,195

A true first edition with an unrestored original dust jacket

One of the most famous novels by Philip K. Dick, this book was the basis for the movie Blade Runner. This copy of a true first edition is special because of the condition of the book and the dust jacket and its vibrant, unfaded colors.

The novel is about a bounty hunter who tracks tracks down escaped androids in a post-apocalyptic future. This book belongs to our list of 50 must-read science fiction books.

Recently, another copy of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was sold. That book came with an original letter, typed and signed by the author, along with a humorous self-review of another of his own novels, The Divine Invasion.

(5) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to share crispy spinach with Sheree Renée Thomas in Episode 196 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.

Sheree Renée Thomas

Over on Facebook, someone in the group devoted to Capclave — a con where I’ve harvested many conversations for you — mentioned Thomas was scheduled to speak at Maryland’s Rockville Memorial Library. When I checked the details and saw the venue was only a 90-minute drive away, I reached out to see whether she’d have time in her schedule to grab lunch — and luckily she did. So early the same day as her presentation titled “Afrofuturism & Diversity in Sci-Fi,” I scooped her up from her hotel and took her over to Commonwealth Indian Restaurant, where I’ve had many wonderful meals. Here’s how the event organizers described Thomas and her career —

New York Times bestselling, two-time World Fantasy Award-winning author and editor Sheree Renée Thomas has been a 2022 Hugo Award Finalist, and her collection, Nine Bar Blues, is a Locus, Igynte, and World Fantasy Finalist. She edited the groundbreaking Dark Matter anthologies that introduced a century of Black speculative fiction, including W.E.B. Du Bois’s science fiction stories. Thomas wrote Marvel’s Black Panther: Panther’s Rage novel (October 2022), adapted from the legendary comics, collaborated with Janelle Monáe on The Memory Librarian, and is the editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, founded in 1949 and Obsidian, founded in 1975. In 2022 she co-curated Carnegie Hall’s historic, citywide Afrofuturism Festival.

We discussed how to prevent being an editor interfere with being a writer (and vice versa), the way a serendipitous encounter with Octavia Butler’s Kindred caused her to take her own writing more seriously and a copy of Black Enterprise magazine spurred her to move to New York, how her family’s relationship with Isaac Hayes nourished her creative dreams, the advice she gives young writers about the difference between the fantasy and reality of a writer’s life, how realizing the books she thought were out there weren’t launched her editing career, the rewards and challenges of taking over as editor for a 75-year old magazine, why she reads cover letters last, and much more.

(6) FANFIC AUTHOR SUES TOLKIEN AND AMAZON. Is he delusional or does he have a case? “Lord of the Rings Fanfic Writer Sues Amazon, Tolkien Estate For $250M”Kotaku has the story.

Some guy is currently suing Tolkien and Amazon to the tune of $250 million. That alone takes serious bravery. But what’s notable about this lawsuit is the reason he’s suing: Copyright infringement over his Lord of the Rings fanfic. Specifically, he’s arguing that Amazon lifted elements of his fan-fiction for its own Tolkien adaptation TV series, The Rings of Power.

Demetrious Polychron wrote a book, a work of fan-fiction set in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth, called The Fellowship of the King, which he copyrighted in 2017 and which later were published and made available for sale, including on Amazon. According to PC Gamer, Polychron sent a letter to the Tolkien Estate asking for a manuscript review. That’s right: This man asked J.R.R. Tolkien’s grandson Simon to sign off on his fanfic. Unsurprisingly, he did not get a response.

In September of 2022, the month that Polychron published The Fellowship of the King, Amazon also began airing its extremely expensive Lord of the Rings spin-off seriesThe Rings of Power.  …Now, Polychron is arguing that the Amazon TV show lifts elements from his novel.

According to RadarOnline, which has seen documents pertaining to the suit, Polychron alleges that characters and storylines he created for his book “compose as much as one-half of the 8-episode series,” and that in some cases the show “copied exact language” from his book. [Also, “In other instances, Defendants copied images that match the book cover and descriptions as created in the book as authored by Polychron,” the suit read.]

However, the claims seem spurious. For instance, the lawsuit purportedly points to the fact that both his book and the show feature a hobbit named Elanor, with the Elanor in his book being the daughter of Samwise Gamgee, while the Elanor featured in The Rings of Power is a Harfoot. Images purporting to be the lawsuit circulating online include a host of other circumstantial connections or similarities to back up Polychron’s argument that the writers of Rings of Power lifted ideas from his fanfic for their own story.

… While no one believes that Polychron will win against the Tolkien Estate, there are concerns that the lawsuit might negatively impact the legality of fanworks in general. Hopefully, fanfic writers will be fine as long as they’re not trying to extort Tolkien’s grandson.

(6) MEMORY LANE.

2015[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

So let’s have a conversation about Elizabeth Hand’s Wylding Hall which was published by PS Publishing eight years ago. 

There’s some spoilers here so skip to the Beginning if you’d rather not hear them. 

A British folk band are told by their manager to record their new album, so they hole up at Wylding Hall, an ancient country house with let us say an interesting past. There they hope to create the album that will make their reputation. 

The novel, a short one at that, is told entirely in a series of interviews decades later by the surviving musicians, along with their friends, lovers and the band’s manager by a documentary filmmaker who gets them to talk about something that happened when they were there. (No, I’m not going to say what happened.) Should they be believed? Maybe, maybe not. What is the truth after all those years have passed anyways? 

I think it’s a brilliant way to approach this story. 

I’ll say no more and direct you now to the Beginning

“I was the one who found the house. A friend of my sister-in-law knew the owners; they were living in Barcelona that summer and the place was to let. Not cheaply, either. But I knew how badly everyone needed to get away after the whole horrible situation with Arianna, and this seemed as good a bolt-hole as any. These days the new owners have had to put up a fence to keep away the curious. Everyone knows what the place looks like because of the album cover, and now you can just Google the name and get directions down to the last millimeter.

But back then, Wylding Hall was a mere dot on the ordnance survey map. You couldn’t have found it with a compass. Most people go there now because of what happened while the band was living there and recording that first album. We have some ideas about what actually went on, of course, but the fans, they can only speculate. Which is always good for business.

Mostly, it’s the music, of course. Twenty years ago, there was that millennium survey where Wylding Hall topped out at Number Seven, ahead of Definitely Maybe, which shocked everybody except for me. Then “Oaken Ashes” got used in that advert for, what was it? Some mobile company. So now there’s the great Windhollow Faire backlash.

And inexplicable—even better, inexplicable and terrible—things are always good for the music business, right? Cynical but true.

“Apart from when I drove out in the mobile unit and we laid down those rough tracks, I was only there a few times. You know, check in and see how the rehearsal process was going, make sure everyone’s instruments were in one piece, and they were getting their vitamins. And there’s no point now in keeping anything off the record, right? We all knew what was going on down there, which in those days was mostly hash and acid.

And of course, everyone was so young. Julian was eighteen. So was Will. Ashton and Jon were, what? Nineteen, maybe twenty. Lesley had just turned seventeen. I was the elder statesman at all of twenty-three.

“Ah, those were golden days. You’re going to say I’m tearing up here in front of the camera, aren’t you? I don’t give a fuck. They were golden boys and girls, that was a golden summer, and we had the Summer King.

And we all know what happens to the Summer King. That girl from the album cover, she’d be the only one knows what really went on. But we can’t ask her, can we?

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born April 21, 1933 Jim Harmon. During the Fifties and Sixties, he wrote more than fifty short stories and novelettes for Amazing StoriesFuture Science Fiction, Galaxy Science FictionIfThe Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and other magazines. Most of his fiction was collected in Harmon’s Galaxy. EoSF says he has one genre novel, The Contested Earth, whereas ISFDB lists two more, Sex Burns Like Fire and The Man Who Made Maniacs. He’s a member of First Fandom Hall of Fame. (Died 2010.)
  • Born April 21, 1939 John Bangsund. Australian fan most active from the Sixties through the Eighties. He was instrumental with Andrew Porter in Australia’s winning the 1975 Aussiecon bid, and he was Toastmaster at the Hugo Award ceremony at that con. His fanzine, Australian Science Fiction Review is credited with reviving Australian Fandom in the Sixties. And he’s the instigator of the term Muphry’s law which states that “If you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written.” (Died 2020.)
  • Born April 21, 1947 Iggy Pop, 76. Here solely as on Deep Space Nine in an episode loosely upon The Magnificent Seven film that was entitled “The Magnificent Ferengi”, he played a vorta called Yelgrun. 
  • Born April 21, 1947 Allan Asherman, 76. Official historian for D.C., he’s also written scripts for Tarzan during the Gooden Age. A Trekker of note, he wrote The Star Trek Compendium, The Star Trek Interview Bookand The Making of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
  • Born April 21, 1954 James Morrison, 69. Lt. Col. Tyrus Cassius ‘T.C.’ McQueen on the short-lived but much loved Space: Above and Beyond series. Starship Troopers without the politics. He’s got a lot of one-off genre appearances including recently showing up as an Air Force General in Captain Marvel, guesting on the Orville series and being Warden Dwight Murphy on Twin Peaks.
  • Born April 21, 1965 Fiona Kelleghan, 58. Author of the critical anthology The Savage Humanists in which she identifies a secular, satiric literary movement within the genre. She also did Mike Resnick: An Annotated Bibliography and Guide to His Work. A work in still progress, according to the Wikipedia, is Alfred Bester, Grand Master: An Annotated Bibliography.
  • Born April 21, 1971 Michael Turner. Comics artist known for his work on a Tombraider / Witchblade one-off, the Superman/Batman story involving Supergirl, his own Soulfire, and various covers for DC Comics and Marvel Comics. He would die of bone cancer and A Tribute to Michael Turner with writings from people who knew him would feature a cover done by Alex Ross would be released to cover his medical expenses. (Died 2008.)
  • Born April 21, 1980 Hadley Fraser, 43. His first video acting role was as Gareth in the superb Tenth Doctor story, “Army of Ghosts”. He’d later be Chris in The Lost Tribe, a horror film, and play Viscount Raoul de Chagny in The Phantom of The Opera, as well as being being Tarzan’s father in The Legend of Tarzan. And though not even genre adjacent, I’m legally obligated to point out that he showed up as a British military escort in the recent production of Murder on the Orient Express

(8) COMICS SECTION.

  • Lio takes no chances where robots are concerned.

(9) MISSY RETURNS IN TITAN COMICS’ DOCTOR WHO: DOOM’S DAY. Titan comics will launch a two-issue Doctor Who comic series on July 5 as part of the multi-platform story Doom’s Day. The comic will feature fan-favorite character Missy on the trail of new character Doom, who makes her comic book debut.

Doom’s Day is a standalone transmedia series across multiple platforms and will allow Doctor Who fans to follow Doom, the Universe’s greatest assassin, as she travels through all of time and space in pursuit of the Doctor to save her from her ever-approaching Death. She only has 24 hours and a vortex manipulator to save herself before her fate is sealed forever.

Available in comic stores and on digital devices at release, Titan’s Doctor Who: Doom’s Day #1 comic is an adventure starring Doom in her comic book debut – using her vortex manipulator, she’ll do anything to find the tempestuous time traveller, the Doctor, including cavorting with the maleficent MISSY. Every hour a new adventure, every hour closer to death…

Doctor Who: Doom’s Day #1 is written by Eisner-nominated Jody Houser (Stranger ThingsStar Wars, Spider-Man) with art by Roberta Ingranata (Witchblade). The comic debuts with two covers for fans to collect: from celebrated artist Pasquale Qualano, and a photo cover variant.

Doctor Who: Doom’s Day #1 ($3.99) is now available to pre-order globally from May’s Diamond Previews catalogue, ForbiddenPlanet.com and on digital device via Comixology.

(10) FIRST LEAF ON THE TREE. Heritage Auctions has an extensive “Star Trek Trading Card Collector’s Guide” which begins by discussing the 1967 Leaf Card set.

…. The first Star Trek trading cards were produced 1967, released one year after the series debuted. These were manufactured and distributed by Leaf Brands Division, WR Grace & Co of Chicago. This was a limited-scale run with sources saying it had a small geographical distribution within the Ohio and Illinois areas. The trading cards didn’t get too far before there were controversies on whether Leaf had licenses to distribute Star Trek cards in the first place. As soon as the licensing problems came to light, all cards that hadn’t been distributed were destroyed and all others were recalled if they had not been sold yet. In the set, there were 72 base cards. They had black and white pictures on the front. The pictures were randomly chosen from episodes and, in some cases, taken from behind the scenes or from publicity shots. The text on the back typically didn’t match up to the picture on the front and were written haphazardly. These cards were printed on layered card stock and measured at 2 ?” x 3 7/16”. The popularity grew, and with this new craze came many unauthorized reprints.

Dan Kremer Imports in Europe reprinted the 1967 Leaf cards without any rights to do so. They were considered counterfeit and were of terrible quality. Most of these are easily recognizable due to the blurry picture quality, and the pictures were cropped from the original, so the outer edges of the images are missing. Also, the cut on the card was not precise and was slightly smaller than the original. The cards were printed on non-gloss-coated single-layer card stock.

1981 Reprint is easily recognized by the mark on the back stating “1981 Reprint” where the “Leaf Brands” was originally. These were also printed on a very bright white stock of paper. The images are very crisp, and the cut is precise, with the cards being the exact size of the originals. There are 2 versions of these reprints. One of the versions has a red toned print of Kirk & Spock on the backs, while the other version has a black and white print of Kirk & Spock on the backs.

Though they were unauthorized reprints, these cards are still sought after by some as being part of history….

(11) JEOPARDY! David Goldfarb has the play-by-play from the Neal Stephenson item on Jeopardy!

Category: Modern Words

Neal Stephenson coined this word in his 1992 novel “Snow Crash”; it was later shortened by a company to become its new name

Returning champion Devin Loman: “What is powder?”

Emma Hill Kepron tried: “What is uber?”

Sam Claussen’s response: “What is avalanche?”

(12) SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES. “SpaceX’s Starship Kicked Up a Dust Cloud, Leaving Texans With a Mess” according to the New York Times.

As the most powerful rocket ever built blasted from its launchpad in Boca Chica, Texas, on Thursday, the liftoff rocked the earth and kicked up a billowing cloud of dust and debris, shaking homes and raining down brown grime for miles.

In Port Isabel, a city about six miles northwest where at least one window shattered, residents were alarmed.

“It was truly terrifying,” said Sharon Almaguer, who, at the time of the launch, was at home with her 80-year-old mother. During previous launches, Ms. Almaguer said she had experienced some shaking inside the brick house, but “this was on a completely different level.”

Meanwhile, SpaceX’s Starship exploded minutes after liftoff and before reaching orbit. Near the launch site, the residents of Port Isabel, known for its towering lighthouse and less than 10 miles from the border with Mexico, were left to deal with the mess.

Virtually everywhere in the city “ended up with a covering of a rather thick, granular, sand grain that just landed on everything,” Valerie Bates, a Port Isabel spokeswoman, said in an interview. Images posted to social media showed residents’ cars covered in brown debris.

A window shattered at a fitness gym, its owner, Luis Alanis, said. Mr. Alanis, who was at home at the time of the launch, said he felt “rumbling, kind of like a mini earthquake.” He estimated that the window would cost about $300 to fix.

Closer to the launch site, large pieces of debris were recorded flying through the air and smashing into an unoccupied car. Louis Balderas, the founder of LabPadre, which films SpaceX’s launches, said that while it was common to see some debris, smoke and dust, the impact of Thursday’s liftoff was unlike anything he had ever seen….

(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Isaac Arthur analyzes the possibility of “Life on Giant Moons”.

We often contemplate life on alien planets, but might giant moons orbiting distant immense worlds be a better candidate for where extraterrestrial life might be found?

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

The Fugitive Doctor in Doctor Who Origins #3

A brand new, never-before-seen adventure featuring the Fugitive Doctor in her comics debut! 

Working for the mysterious division on a dangerous assignment, the Doctor uncovers something insidious afoot. Discover why this regeneration became known as the Fugitive!

See variant covers and sample interior art following the jump.

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The Fugitive Doctor’s Comics Debut

Yesterday’s distribution of the Doctor Who Free Comic Book Day 2022 Edition featured The Fugitive Doctor. The comic is a lead-in to a new story arc that continues in Doctor Who Origins #1, available June 8.

In the forthcoming adventure you’ll discover why this regeneration became known as The Fugitive while she works for the mysterious DIVISION on a dangerous assignment, and uncovers something insidious is afoot.

See variant covers and sample interior art following the jump.

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Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones in Doctor Who Comics

Eisner Award-Winner Dan Slott’s Doctor Who Comics debut sees Martha Jones spin three sensational yarns about the Tenth Doctor in order to survive.

When companion Martha Jones is captured by the insatiable Pyromeths, her only hope for survival is to keep them distracted Scheherazade-style with untold tales of the Tenth Doctor facing off against his greatest foes– both classic and new.
 
This Doctor Who collection continues the time-travelling tales of the Doctor and friends. And features a bonus story starring the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler!

See variant covers and sample interior art following the jump.

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