Forty-nine more Emmys were handed out at Sunday’s Creative Arts Night 2 ceremony. The complete list of Emmys 2024 Creative Arts awards winners is at the link.
The final 25 Emmy’s will be presented at the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards Sunday, September 15.
The three winners of genre interest from Night 2 follow below.
FANTASY/SCI-FI COSTUMES
CONTEMPORARY COSTUMES FOR A LIMITED OR ANTHOLOGY SERIES
MUSIC SUPERVISION Fallout
(1) OFF THE CLOCK. “Critical Choices: Time Travel and Identity” by Rjurik Davidson at Speculative Insight.
…Psychologists suggest that your sense of self is constructed interpersonally, in relationship with others, and hence also in relationship to the social world. Individualism is nothing but a liberal myth. For example, people who venture into nature to “find themselves” typically discover the opposite: they lose any sense of their self. Isolated from society, they dissolve into their surroundings, become one with daily tasks: “catch fish,” “start fire,” “sleep.” They no longer exist. “All You Zombies” brilliantly illuminates this dissolution, counterintuitive to those schooled in Thoreau’s Walden or other such romantic myths. In the story, the main character (Jane) takes painkillers for her perpetual headache but discovers that without the pain everyone else disappears. It is as if the veil is torn from a false reality, revealing the true world beneath, seen before as through a glass darkly but now face to face – a premonition of one of Philip K. Dick’s enduring fascinations. Without mother, father, a social world, Jane’s existence manifests as a headache of existential dread. Either way, with headache or not, she experiences her plight as a pain of isolation. She is “alone in the dark.” Her declaration, “I know where I came from,” is replete with irony. Her somewhat desperate affirmation is made precisely because there is nothing but doubt. Neither she, nor the reader, actually knows where she came from – methinks that Jane dost protest too much….
(2) REWARDING TRANSLATION. Anton Hur analyzes “Literature that expands the borders of what ‘international’ can mean” in the Washington Post. (Usually there’s a paywall, but I was able to read this article. Hopefully, so will you.)
…But why have a translated literature category [for the National Book Awards] at all? Neil Clarke, the editor of the science fiction magazine Clarkesworld, had the same thought; he has argued against creating a translation category at the Hugo Awards, claiming that it would serve to further marginalize translated literature. A quick glance at the history of nominees for best novel at the Hugos reveals that a translation has been a finalist only twice, and for the same team: the redoubtable Cixin Liu, author of “The Three-Body Problem,” and his translator Ken Liu. As someone who reads translations primarily and prodigiously, you can’t make me take Clarke’s fears of “further” marginalization seriously. And it has to be said that this also applies to the National Book Awards, which simply stopped taking translated literature into consideration for more than three decades. (In writing this article, I was asked to consider what works may have been overlooked by the awards during the 2010s and, well, imagine me madly gesticulating at all the works in translation published in the eligibility periods between 2009 and 2017.)…
(3) THE DOCTOR IS IN. Jon Del Arroz proclaimed yesterday over a photo of Kirk and Spock that “Star Trek is an inherently right-wing concept. It upholds man’s greatness as being designed in the image of God and promotes manifest destiny and dominion of God’s creation.” Robert Picardo (who memorably played Voyager’s Emergency Medical Hologram) took him to task. Admittedly, the kind of attention Jon always hopes somebody will give him.
(4) FULL MOON VOTERS. “In Michigan, an ‘Unhinged Werewolf’ Will Make It Clear Who Voted” says the New York Times. (Behind a paywall.)
Plenty of the submissions in a statewide contest to design Michigan’s next “I Voted” sticker featured cherry blossoms or American flags fluttering in the wind.
Only one entry, however, depicted a werewolf clawing its shirt to tatters and howling at an unseen moon. A smattering of stars and stripes poke out from behind its brawny torso.
“I Voted,” reads a string of red, white and blue block letters floating above the creature’s open maw.
The illustration, which was created by Jane Hynous, a 12-year-old from Grosse Pointe Farms, Mich., was revealed on Wednesday as one of nine winning designs that the Michigan Department of State will offer local clerks to distribute to voters in the November election.
The werewolf sticker received more than 20,000 votes in the public contest, beating every other entry by a margin of nearly 2,000 votes, said Cheri Hardmon, a spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of State. The design gained traction on social media among those who found it fitting for an intense, and at times bewildering, moment in national politics….
(5) FANAC FAN HISTORY ZOOM: PLOKTA. [Item by Joe Siclari.] It’s a fannish mystery how this jumped from nothing to an everyday phrase all over fandom.
The FANAC Fan History Zoom Series starts off its new season with what promises to be a fun, interesting, historical and important session as it brings back together the Plokta Cabal. The group was known for its weird news, quirky humour and radical graphics.
September 22, 2024 – The Secret Origins of Plokta, with Steve Davies, Sue Mason, Alison Scott, and Mike Scott
Time: 2PM EDT, 1PM CDT, 11AM PDT, 7PM London (BST) & too early in Melbourne
This fannish group burst on the scene in May 1996 with the fanzine Plokta, which went on to receive two Best Fanzine Hugos, 2 Nova Awards for Best Fanzine, and Hugo nominations each year from 1999 to 2008. They are energetic, quirky and very, very funny. They are writers, artists, con runners, Worldcon bidders and fan fund winners. Join us and learn more about their secret origins, fannish impact and what they are doing now.
To attend, send an email to [email protected]
Two other Fanac Zoom session already on the calendar are:
(6) MEMORY LANE.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Anniversary – Star Trek, The Original Series (1966).
On September 8 fifty-eight years ago the first episode of Star Trek aired. I want to talk about my favorite episode in the series, which is “Trouble with Tribbles”. Now there are other episodes that I will go to Paramount+ to watch such as “Shore Leave”, “Mirror, Mirrior” or “Balance of Terror” but is the one that I have watched by far the most and which I enjoy as just the funnest one they ever did.
It was first broadcast in the show’s second season, just after Christmas on December 29, 1967. The previous episode had been another one I also like a lot, “Wolf in the Fold”, written by Robert Bloch.
This script, which was Gerrold’s first professional sale, bore the working title for the episode of “A Fuzzy Thing Happened to Me…” Writer and producer for the series Gene did heavy rewrites on the final version of the script. The final draft script can be read in Gerrold’s The Trouble with Tribbles: The Story Behind Star Trek’s Most Popular Episode with much, much more on this episode.
Memory Alpha notes that “While the episode was in production, Gene Roddenberry noticed that the story was similar to Robert Heinlein’s novel, The Rolling Stones, which featured the ‘Martian Flat Cats’. Too late, he called Heinlein to apologize and avoid a possible lawsuit. Heinlein was very understanding, and was satisfied with a simple ‘mea culpa’ by Roddenberry.”
It of course is centered on tribbles. Wah Chang designed the original tribbles. Five hundred were sewn together during production, using pieces of extra-long rolls of carpet. Some of them had mechanical toys placed in them so they could move.
According to Gerrold, the tribble-maker Jacqueline Cumere was paid $350. Want a tribble now? Gerrold has them for you in various sizes and colors. So if you’re in seeing these, go here. tribbletoys.com
Let’s talk about why it’s about my favorite episode. I’m watching it now on Paramount+. I’ve to come to the bar scene where Cyrano Jones is trying to sell the Bar Manager a tribble when Chekov and Uhura come in. When Uhura asks if it’s alive, it starts adorably purring (who created that purr?), and the story goes from there.
The next morning Kirk walks. Uhura and a group are admiring that her tribble has reproduced. Where there was one, there are now, I stopped the video to count fourteen in various hues. (Not sure what all of them are as I’ve got color blindness.) Really cute but remarkably not one seems concerned.
Right there it exhibits that It has some of the best script writing in the series including this choice line as Spock holds and strokes a tribble: “Its trilling seems to have a tranquilizing effect on the human nervous system. Fortunately, of course … I am immune … to its effect.” There is an amused look from Uhura and the others.
Oh, and it has Klingons. Not the Worf-style ones. The ones that look like someone cos-played an Asian military character of a thousand years ago. So naturally that hard to lead to a bar fight, doesn’t it? It does when a Klingon calls Scotty’s Enterprise, his beloved ship, a garbage scow. Well, he actually calls it a lot of things before ending with that. Perfect, just perfect.
Now let’s segue from that bar brawl to reworking of this episode to the Deep Space Nine episode which I need not talk about as I know you know about it: “Trials and Tribble-ations”. It would be nominated for Hugo at a LoneStarCon 2. It would digitally insert the performers from the original series into that episode.
I’m assuming y’all know this delightful episode which I think can best have its attitude summed up in this conversation…
Sisko to Bashir: “Don’t you know anything about this period in time?”
Bashir: I’m a doctor, not an historian.”
Dax in her red short skirt: “In the old days, operations officers wore red, command officers wore gold… (Looks at her outfit.) “And women wore less. I think I’m going to like history.”
I’ve watched both shows back-to-back several times, which is well worth doing as they did an stellar job of making the DS9 characters work seamlessly in the old episode. (I know they weren’t actually there but still.) No wonder it got nominated for a Hugo.
I could single out even more scenes like Kirk buried in tribbles, for how he reacts or the very subtle line about Spock’s ears, but I’ll stop here. I just adore it and “Trials and Tribble-ations” as both are entertaining, feel-good episodes.
(7) COMICS SECTION.
(8) MAR$. The Week contrasts The Martian Chronicles with billionaires’ plans for Mars in its editorial letter, “Martian dreams”.
…Along with other sci-fi staples such as living forever and computerizing consciousness, colonizing Mars is now an obsession of our tech elite. Rocket tycoon Elon Musk has said he wants to establish a “self-sustaining civilization” of 1 million people on our neighboring planet as an insurance policy against humanity’s extinction. Yet I can’t help but think that, like Bradbury and Lowell before them, Musk and his fellow billionaires are really projecting their own beliefs onto Mars’ red vistas….
(9) HIDDEN PROPERTY INSPIRED LOVECRAFT. Charming old NYC architectural history, with a genre link! “Inside a West Village passageway leading to a hidden courtyard and 1820s backhouse” at Ephemeral New York.
…One person who made note of this Evening Post writeup when it appeared was author H.P. Lovecraft. A resident of New York City in the 1920s, this horror and science fiction writer published a short story titled “He,” which involved a narrator taking a late-night, time-traveling sojourn through Greenwich Village.
“At the conclusion of ‘He,’ a passerby finds the narrator—bloodied and broken—lying at the entrance to a Perry Street courtyard,” wrote David J. Goodwin, author of the 2023 book Midnight Rambles: H.P. Lovecraft in Gotham.
In “He,” from 1925, the narrator calls it “a grotesque hidden courtyard of the Greenwich section,” as well as “a little black court off Perry Street.”…
(10) TARA CAMPBELL READING. Space Cowboys Books of Joshua Tree, CA will host an “Online Reading & Interview with Tara Campbell” on Tuesday September 17 at 6:00 p.m. Pacific. Register to attend for free at Eventbrite.
In the parched, post-apocalyptic Western U.S. of the 22nd Century, wolves float, bonfires sing, and devils gather to pray. Water and safety are elusive in this chaotic world of alchemical transformations, where history books bleed, dragons kiss, and gun-toting trees keep their own kind of peace. Among this menagerie of strange beasts, two sentient stone gargoyles, known only as “E” and “M,” flee the rubble of their Southwestern church in search of water. Along the way, they meet climate refugees Dolores Baker and her mother Rose, who’ve escaped the ravaged West Coast in search of a safer home. This quartet forms an uneasy alliance when they hear of a new hope: a mysterious city of dancing gargoyles. Or is it something more sinister? In this strange, terrible new world, their arrival at this elusive city could spark the destruction of everything they know. Tara Campbell summons fantastical magic in this kaleidoscopic new speculative climate fiction.
Get your copy of the book here.
(11) RADIO ASTRONOMY. [Item by Steven French.] This is pretty much standard stuff but the radio telescope itself is amazing: “Inside the ‘golden age’ of alien hunting at the Green Bank Telescope” at Physics.org.
Nestled between mountains in a secluded corner of West Virginia, a giant awakens: the Green Bank Telescope begins its nightly vigil, scanning the cosmos for secrets.
If intelligent life exists beyond Earth, there’s a good chance the teams analyzing the data from the world’s largest, fully steerable radio astronomy facility will be the first to know.
“People have been asking themselves the question, ‘Are we alone in the universe?’ ever since they first gazed up at the night sky and wondered if there were other worlds out there,” says Steve Croft, project scientist for the Breakthrough Listen initiative.
For the past decade, this groundbreaking scientific endeavor has partnered with a pioneering, US government-funded site built in the 1950s to search for “technosignatures”—traces of technology that originate far beyond our own solar system.
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or “SETI,” was long dismissed as the realm of eccentrics and was even cut off from federal funding by Congress thirty years ago.
But today, the field is experiencing a renaissance and seeing an influx of graduates, bolstered by advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as recent discoveries showing that nearly every star in the night sky hosts planets, many of which are Earth-like.
“It feels to me like this is something of a golden age,” says Croft, an Oxford-trained radio astronomer who began his career studying astrophysical phenomena, from supermassive black holes to the emissions of exploding stars…
(12) MERCHANT OF MENACE. Actor Vincent Price gave an entertaining interview on Aspel & Co in 1984.
(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Ryan George invites us step inside the Pitch Meeting that led to The Crow (2024).
[Thanks to Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Joe Siclari, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, and Kathy Sullivan for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
The Ditmar subcommittee has announced the finalists for the 2024 Australian SF (“Ditmar”) Award. Eligible voters have until September 30 to cast their ballot. The award winners will be revealed at Conflux 18, to be held in Canberra from October 4-7.
BEST NOVEL
BEST NOVELLA OR NOVELETTE
BEST SHORT STORY
BEST COLLECTED WORK
BEST ARTWORK
BEST FAN WRITER
BEST FAN ARTIST
BEST FAN PUBLICATION IN ANY MEDIUM
BEST NEW TALENT
WILLIAM ATHELING JR AWARD FOR CRITICISM OR REVIEW
[Thanks to Roger Silverstein for the story.]
By Steve Vertlieb: During a particularly sad and lonely Christmas for my friend and hero, I wrote the brilliant motion picture director Frank Capra a few ineffectual words of hope and encouragement. It was a time of deep reflection and melancholy for the famed director, and I felt that I needed to reach out to him in compassion and support.
This was the man who brought such incalculable joy and hope to so many millions of filmgoers with his quintessential Christmas classic, It’s A Wonderful Life. His nearly heartbreaking response remains, after all these years, one of my most treasured, and cherished pieces of personal correspondence.
He was a legendary film director, and became a personal friend in his later years. Clad in his distinguished white jacket, this was our first lovely meeting together in the Spring of 1972 at The Walnut Street Theater in Philadelphia. Frank directed Lost Horizon, It’s A Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, Meet John Doe, Mr. Deeds Goes To Town, You Can’t Take It With You, and A Hole In The Head, among many other classic films.
Later that year I spent a quiet afternoon with one of cinema’s greatest, most distinguished motion picture directors. It was truly a memorable afternoon in which Frank and I sat together at the home of a mutual friend…just the two of us…watching a 16 mm print of his Oscar winning classic. It Happened One Night. At its conclusion, the two of us posed proudly beside a poster of his Oscar winning film.
This cherished afternoon with the acclaimed director of so many classic motion pictures, was absolutely sublime, and a wondrous remnant from a lifetime of cinematic memories and unforgettable experiences.
Here’s a lost treasure from fifty years ago. I was having dinner at my friend Pat Valentine’s home in Flourtown, Pa in July, 2022. He was looking through some old 4×6 photographs and showing them to my lady, Shelly, when he stumbled upon this amazing shot of beloved motion picture director Frank Capra and I. I’d never even seen this photograph until that night. It was taken in 1972 at the home of local television movie host and pal David Mallery.
Frank was visiting David, and I’d received an invitation to join them for an afternoon. Between us are Pat’s little brother, Todd, with his wife Wendy and their daughter, Ashley Valentine. I nearly fell off of my chair when I saw this picture, and longingly asked Pat if I could borrow it.
I ran over to my local camera shop this afternoon, and had them scan it for me. Frank Capra remains one of my lifelong heroes, as well as a cherished friend in his latter years. Life can bring both surprises and blessings out of nowhere when one least expects them to surface … and I shall remain ever grateful to Pat for discovering this lost treasure from half a century ago.
Yours will always be “The Name Above The Title” in my book, Frank.
Frank Capra defined the best of American values and optimism during difficult times in our country in the 1930’s and 40’s when life was often brutally challenging. He brought us laughter and optimism, during the great depression, and in the Second World War, with hope for a more meaningful tomorrow. There are critics, jaded and empty, who regard his work as naive, and yet there was a beauty … a primordial innocence, if you will, that is both uplifting and tender. With films like It Happened One Night, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Meet John Doe. Capra’s work is cherished by millions of ordinary people across the globe. There is something inside of us, somehow reflective of an inner purity and goodness, that aspires to the best of humanity, a secret longing for happiness rarely expressed in contemporary cinema. George Bailey, as exemplified by Jimmy Stewart in It’s A Wonderful Life, is a supremely caring individual who sees only the best in people, and in the world around him, until fate assails his soulful purity, turning his innate goodness against him as he is forced to imagine and confront a lonely world without his defining presence, an embittered plateau in which he had never existed. In Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Stewart once again confronts the tyranny and greed of those whose personal ambitions nearly supersede his own sublime goodness, and belief in humanity. Capra’s films portray an America for all the people, a Utopian plateau in which mankind aspires to kindness and divine ascension.
Capra’s purest vision of humanity came, however, from an ethereal portrait wholly unlike any other of his films, a classic fantasy from the pen of author James Hilton whose romantic idealism was earnestly expressed in Random Harvest (1942) with Ronald Colman and Goodbye Mr. Chips (1939) starring Robert Donat. Hilton dreamed of a special land, lost to antiquity … a sacred shelter known as Shangri-La, hidden from the struggles and bitterness of the outside world, shrouded in mystery within the Tibetan mountains, where one might live hundreds of years in serenity, kindness, and love. There, a disillusioned American Diplomat finds respite and solace in a secluded monastery ‘neath the “Valley of the Blue Moon.”
Hilton’s exquisite fantasy, Lost Horizon, published in 1933, became the basis for Frank Capra’s solitary excursion into infinite wonder, a film unlike any other in the director’s legendary career. Released by Columbia Pictures on March 2nd, 1937, under the auspices of producer Harry Cohn, Lost Horizon featured Ronald Colman as Idealist Robert Conway whose dreams of a gentle, kinder world are shattered by war. Yearning for rest, his visions of serenity are at last realized when his airplane, narrowly escaping marauding rebels, ascends to the clouds above chaos and civil disruption. Unknown to Conway and his fellow passengers, their plane has been taken hostage by an unseen pilot whose kidnapping begins a precarious journey across cloud lit skies toward a strange and distant land. Their arrival in this ethereal community has been authored by its founder, a withered priest (Sam Jaffe) whose sojourn as the high lama is nearing its inevitable end. George Conway, a solitary dreamer without a home, is brought to Shangri-La as spiritual heir to the throne of authority and wisdom, an inheritance made all the more attractive by a beautiful girl (Jane Wyatt) who shall one day become his bride.
The evocative screenplay by Robert Riskin (then married to Fay Wray) lends literate credibility to an invitation to paradise, as Conway’s soul finds inspiration and infinite peace at last. Joseph Walker’s haunting cinematography brings wondrous beauty to the Valley of the Blue Moon, while Stephen Goosen’s art direction paints a splendorous landscape of wondrous possibilities. However, it is the rapturous beauty of composer Dimitri Tiomkin’s miraculous musical score, richly illustrated by the voices of the Hall Johnson Choir, that truly brings romantic, ethereal aspiration and joyous ascension to Capra’s vision of Utopian fantasy and a nobler vision of humanity … of horizons lost, then found.
Perhaps James Hilton’s message of hope and inspiration struck a nerve within Capra, as it did within ourselves … longing to remain forever youthful and, like a boy from “Neverland,” never grow old. Quoting the final poetic words of dialogue in the film … “Here’s my hope that Robert Conway finds his Shangri-La. Here’s my hope that we all find ours.”
Thirty-five Emmy Awards were presented at Creative Arts, Night 1, four of them to Jim Henson Idea Man.
Forty-nine more Emmys will be handed out at Sunday’s Creative Arts ceremony, and 25 are set for TV’s Biggest Night — the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards — on Sunday, September 15.
The winners of genre interest from Night 1 follow below. The complete list of winners is here.
Emerging Media Program
Sound Editing for a Nonfiction or Reality Program
Music Composition for a Documentary Series or Special
Picture Editing for a Nonfiction Program
Documentary or Nonfiction Special
(1) SANS CLUE. Cora Buhlert declares, “The Guardian is Clueless about Masters of the Universe”.
…That said, the casting of Alison Brie has attracted more mainstream attraction than the casting of Galitzine and Mendes, probably because Brie is better known. And so Ben Child, who has a weekly geek media column in The Guardian, penned a spectacularly clueless article about the proposed live action Masters of the Universe movie.
Even the headline is terrible: “Can Travis Knight’s He-Man movie do for boys what Greta Gerwig’s Barbie did for girls?”
Yes, we all know how fiercely gendered the toy industry is, but must we really perpetuate those shitty stereotypes, especially when we know they’re wrong? Because in the 1980s, Mattel found to their own surprise that forty percent of all Masters of the Universe toys were sold to girls, which is what prompted the introduction of She-Ra. The 1980s Filmation cartoon was eagerly watched by both boys and girls and though Masters of the Universe fandom skews male, there are plenty of female fans, me among them. This isn’t surprising either, because Masters of the Universe has always featured plenty of impressive female characters such as Teela, Evil-Lyn, the Sorceress, Queen Marlena and of course, She-Ra and her entire supporting cast. Finally, there are plenty of male Barbie collectors as well….
… The main problem with the article is that Ben Child seems unable to view Masters of the Universe as anything other than a joke…
(2) FORMER BOARD MEMBER, NOW 404 ERROR. Sarah Gailey, who was on the NaNoWriMo “writers board” is no longer, as explained in “Some Thoughts on NaNoWriMo”.
…It’s reasonable for people to have reacted badly; the “statement” they released was very silly. To say “we will not take one of two positions, but we will say that one of those positions is classist and ableist” is not the deft rhetorical maneuver that NaNoWriMo seems to think it is. The arguments themselves around this so-called classism and ableism wave off the actual existence of writing communities, critique groups, beta readers, and critique partners; they also ignore the creative realities of the impoverished and disabled artists, marginalized authors, and indie authors who have been working all this time without the help of language learning model software that was trained on work stolen from their peers and colleagues. …
And this is the statement Gailey sent to Kilby Blades, Interim Executive Director of NaNoWriMo:
And Gailey said:
… I haven’t heard anything back. As of the time I’m writing this, the urls for the staff page and the Writers’ Board page are returning 404 errors. So does the url for my pep talk. …
(3) GOOD OMENS THIRD SEASON STILL HAPPENING. “’Good Omens’ season three on track at Amazon despite Neil Gaiman allegations” reports Screen Daily.
The third season of Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens is understood to be going ahead as planned at Amazon Prime Video, even though Disney has paused a feature adaptation of Gaiman’s novel, The Graveyard Book, following allegations of sexual assault against the UK author and screenwriter….
Amazon officially greenlit the third season of fantasy drama Good Omens in December 2023. Screen understands plans have not changed for the third season starring Michael Sheen and David Tennant to start filming in early 2025 in Scotland. Gaiman is executive producer, writer and showrunner of the series that is based on a book he co-wrote with Terry Pratchett.
Gaiman is also executive producer and a screenwriter on Anansi Boys, a Prime Video series based on Gaiman’s novel of the same name. While production wrapped on the series last year, no official release date has been set. Screen understands there are no plans to not stream the series….
(4) CRIME ACTUALLY DOES PAY. For seven years! “FBI busts musician’s elaborate AI-powered $10M streaming-royalty heist” – Ars Technica tells how the scheme worked.
On Wednesday, federal prosecutors charged a North Carolina musician with defrauding streaming services of $10 million through an elaborate scheme involving AI, as reported by The New York Times. Michael Smith, 52, allegedly used AI to create hundreds of thousands of fake songs by nonexistent bands, then streamed them using bots to collect royalties from platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music.
While the AI-generated element of this story is novel, Smith allegedly broke the law by setting up an elaborate fake listener scheme. The US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams, announced the charges, which include wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy. If convicted, Smith could face up to 20 years in prison for each charge.
Smith’s scheme, which prosecutors say ran for seven years, involved creating thousands of fake streaming accounts using purchased email addresses. He developed software to play his AI-generated music on repeat from various computers, mimicking individual listeners from different locations. In an industry where success is measured by digital listens, Smith’s fabricated catalog reportedly managed to rack up billions of streams.
To avoid detection, Smith spread his streaming activity across numerous fake songs, never playing a single track too many times. He also generated unique names for the AI-created artists and songs, trying to blend in with the quirky names of legitimate musical acts. Smith used artist names like “Callous Post” and “Calorie Screams,” while their songs included titles such as “Zygotic Washstands” and “Zymotechnical.”
…The district attorney announcement did not specify precisely what method Smith used to generate the songs….
(5) BULGACON. Начална страница (bulgacon.org) – Bulgacon, the Bulgarian national convention – takes place September 21-23 with Ian McDonald and Farah Mendlesohn as guests of honor. Dr. Valentin D. Ivanov reports, “Many panels will be in English and the committee is considering opening the online panels to everybody.”
(6) LEARNEDLEAGUE SFF: NARNIA AND MURDERBOT. [Item by David Goldfarb.] Question 1 on day 9 of the current regular LearnedLeague season asked us:
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, and The Magician’s Nephew are all books set in what mythical realm?
(I’ve spoiled the answer in my header, but I daresay very few Filers would have had any trouble with it.) This had a get rate of 89%, with no single wrong answer getting to 5% of the submissions.
In the most recent off-season there was a One-Day Special about File 770’s favorite rogue death machine: follow this link to see Murderbot for Everyone. As the title suggests, the questions try to include general-knowledge paths to the answers as well as knowledge of the books themselves. I actually didn’t do all that well on it: 9 right out of 12, and only 63rd percentile in the scoring. Filers may enjoy seeing if they could have done better.
(7) FLASH SF NIGHT. Space Cowboy Books of Joshua Tree, CA presents “Flash Science Fiction Night” online on Monday September 9 at 6:00 p.m. Pacific. Register to attend for free here.
This is the last Flash Science Fiction Night of the season! Join us online for an evening of short science fiction readings (1000 words or less) with authors Jenna Hanchey, Eric Fomley, and Marie Vibbert. Flash Science Fiction Nights run 30 minutes or less, and are a fun and great way to learn about new authors from around the world.
(8) SFWA TOWN HALL COMING. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association Board will conduct the organization’s first SFWA Town Hall for members on September 10, 2024.
This event is part of the ongoing effort to foster communication with the membership, talk about what the organization is current doing and planning, and to take an opportunity to listen.
By working together, the board can address concerns and begin writing the next chapters in the history of SFWA.
(9) TRIBUTE TO BROTHER. Inverse remembers, “40 Years Ago, a Cult Classic Sci-Fi Movie Beat John Carpenter to the Punch”.
…Compared to the bloated multiverse era where “less is more” is an alien concept, 1984 cult favorite The Brother from Another Planet seems like it’s been beamed in from an entirely different celestial body. Its $350,000 budget — a small sum even for the time — would be lucky to cover 30 seconds of a Marvel flick. Its special effects are limited to a few glowing lights and a deformed toe. And far from delivering any grandstanding speeches, its superhero is entirely mute.
The titular Brother, who’s not even given the luxury of a name, is an extra-terrestrial whose powers are far more intuitive (he can hear voices from the past by touching his surroundings) than communicative. But thanks to a nuanced performance from future Emmy winner Joe Morton, he still manages to convey the emotional complexities of the immigrant experience (just to make it clear the film is allegorical, his primitive spaceship crashlands on Ellis Island)….
(10) MEMORY LANE.
[Written by Paul Weimer.]
Anniversary: Land of the Lost series (1974)
By Paul Weimer. “Marshall, Will and Holly, on a routine expedition…”
Before Buck Rogers, or Battlestar Galactica, or reruns of TOS Star Trek, the first genre shows I can recall watching, in the misty lands of the 1970’s, were reruns of the Sid and Marty Krofft TV shows, including and most especially, Land of the Lost.
What was not to love in those days? The Marshall family trapped in another world. Dinosaurs! Lizardmen! Weird alien technology crystals? I watched the show avidly, until it fell away from TV screens, and other tv series took their place in my mind in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. And I mostly didn’t think about Land of the Lost for two decades.
Until Bubble Boy.
Bubble Boy was a 2001 film, and I can’t really counsel you to seek it out and watch it. It has a young Jake Gyllenhaal playing the titular immunocompromised character who goes on adventures despite being in a bubble. But he is as sheltered emotionally and otherwise as he is physically, having not been allowed to even watch much TV. One of the shows he has been able to watch was, in fact, Land of the Lost…and very early in the movie, the titular character does a “punk rock version” of the theme song. It brought me back immediately to my young watching of the show. That song really is an earworm.
Later on, a few years later, I met a friend who was obsessed with the show, and insisted I watch it again. So, with the suck fairy an idea that had not formulated in popular culture, but was in my mind, I decided to rent it on Netflix DVDs and rewatch it. I was nervous it was more going to be than wasted time, that my fond distant memories of the show would burst like a bubble.
Yes the show is cheesy, the special effects not so much, and it is a kids tv show…but I was surprised at how much I liked the show for what it was.
Watching the entire arc from start to finish, I saw the creative seeds of genius in the show (and also saw at least one episode I had missed back in the day. Crucially, an episode written by Larry Niven (!) where the Marshalls try to paddle out of the Land of the Lost, run into a Confederate Gold miner and discover they are, in fact, in an enclosed pocket universe. Combine that with the crystal powered pylons that allow time and space travel, a time loop episode and more, the strong SF roots of the show came to mind.
And then there is Enik. Poor, poor Enik, the intelligent Sleestak..who thought he had traveled into the past to see the barbaric ancestors of his high-tech civilization. And the soul crushing realization he gets when he realizes that he has in fact traveled far to the future, and his high-tech civilization is doomed to fall to barbarism. Heady stuff for a kids TV show, eh?
Land of the Lost crops up again, visually and otherwise in fantasy novels and tv series. In the novel Paragaea, for instance, the main character, trapped on another planet, stumbles onto a jungle temple ruin, complete with Sleestaks, described exactly in terms of the tv series.
But the remake movie with Will Farrell? Skip it. Just skip it. I’ve never seen the reboot series, either (that is apparently currently on Apple TV).
“When I look all around, I can’t believe the things I found…”
(11) COMICS SECTION.
(12) CAMPY CRANIUM. “New horror musical arrives in Ypsilanti just in time for Halloween” – The Eastern Echo has details.
Getting antsy for the spooky season? Kick off those calendars with the premiere of “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die!”, a new musical written by Ypsilanti-area vocalist and stage director Carla Margolis.
Inspired by the 1960s cult classic of the same name, the musical is a reimagining that takes audiences through the infamous, campy storyline with an all-new original soundtrack. When a brilliant yet, reckless scientist’s fiancé is decapitated in a car accident, he uses a magical serum to keep her head alive. The head, while completely immobile, keeps its ability to sing and talk.
Fans of the movie can expect a more serious look at the same themes found in the original.
“It focuses on bodily autonomy for women; now that it’s more perilous than ever, I don’t really address it specifically, but there was definitely an inspiration. There’s a lot of misogyny baked into this story,” Margolis said.
Margolis’ unique take is rooted in a time period when feminist themes were less accepted in media, and that elevates the script to new levels, they said….
(13) ALL ABOARD FOR ALL ALONG. “How Marvel expands ‘WandaVision’ corner of MCU with ‘Agatha All Along,’ ‘Vision Quest’” – Entertainment Weekly interviews a Marvel TV exec and a showrunner.
…These two shows will broaden what Schaeffer refers to as “the WandaVision corner” of the MCU, and Winderbaum says Agatha All Along, titled after Hahn’s chart-topping song of the same name as performed in that first series, “really led the charge.”
The premise kicks off when a mysterious goth teen who’s obsessed with witchcraft (Joe Locke) helps Agatha break free of Wanda’s spell, only now she’s completely left without her powers. This “Teen,” who’s been hexed by…someone so that he can never share his name or any identifying information with other witches, plants the idea of traversing the Witches’ Road, a mystical realm that faces wanderers with deadly trials. If conquered, Agatha could regain all her magic once more. She just needs a coven to pull it off. Enter Aubrey Plaza’s Rio Vidal, Patti LuPone’s Lilia Calderu, Sasheer Zamata’s Jennifer Kale, and Ali Ahn’s Alice Wu-Gulliver….
(14) SAIL SIGHTED. “NASA spacecraft captures 1st photo of its giant solar sail while tumbling in space” – Space has the story.
On April 23, NASA launched a solar sail protype to orbit around our planet — a piece of technology that could very well revolutionize the way we think about spacecraft propulsion. Then, on Aug. 29, the agency confirmed this sail successfully unfurled itself in outer space. Yet, we still didn’t have official photographic evidence of this for some time.
Now, as of Sept. 5, we indeed do. NASA has released the first image of the open solar sail, formally called the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System, and stated that the spacecraft from which the sail was released will continue to send back more footage and data as time goes on….
… As NASA says in the statement, it’s important to first remember there are four wide-angle cameras in the center of the spacecraft anchoring the sail.
Near the bottom of the image, one camera view shows the “reflective sail quadrants supported by composite booms” while at the top of the photo, we can see the back surface of one of the craft’s solar panels. Most spacecraft are lined with solar panels because that’s how they power themselves up: with sunlight.
“The five sets of markings on the booms close to the spacecraft are reference markers to indicate full extension of the sail,” the statement says. “The booms are mounted at right angles, and the solar panel is rectangular, but appear distorted because of the wide-angle camera field of view.”…
(15) WHIP IT. Gizmodo says “Bear McCreary Wants to Bring an Obscure Lord of the Rings Song to Rings of Power”.
The soundtrack for Amazon’s Lord of the Rings prequel has afforded composer Bear McCreary a canvas as vast as Middle-earth to play with: Howard Shore-ish riffs, unique orchestral pieces, and increasingly in season two, lots of song work. We already know the lumbering hill-troll Damrod is getting his own heavy metal infused piece this season, and this week, McCreary weaved one of Tolkien’s own poems into a beautiful song to welcome Tom Bombadil to the show. But the composer has a much more obscure, and much more intriguing ditty from the franchise’s adaptive past he wants to make a nod to.
That song? “Where There’s a Whip, There’s a Way” from the Rankin Bass adaptation of Return of the King. “I’m looking. I’m looking for the moment,” McCreary said in a recent Instagram live chat of his desire to bring the song to Rings of Power (via /Film). “It hasn’t happened yet but I would love to make that happen.”
[Thanks to Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, David Goldfarb, Paul Weimer, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Steven French for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Ken Richards.]
This Island Earth: Features from the Drive-In by Dale Bailey (Electric Dreamhouse, 2023)
Review by Warner Holme: Dale Bailey’s This Island Earth: Features from the Drive-In has the interesting gimmick of being a series of eight stories titled after well-known horror/sci fi films. Most of these would be considered B-movies by today’s standards, one of them being an uncompleted release from the famous and infamous Examples Wood. Others, such as the fairly centrally placed “The Creature from the Black Lagoon”, are considered classics of the general impressive amount of nuance and poise.
Probably the most famous film given a love letter in this book comes through the story “The Creature From the Black Lagoon.” Taking a page from Shadow of the Vampire, this story treats the titular creature as if he was actually found as a real monster in such a location. It does, however, go much further than that. Depicting the creature as an individual is nothing new. The depiction of the creature as bitter and damaged by a life far outside of that he would have chosen is something else altogether.
The ability of love to transcend barriers and differences is perhaps the oldest theme in Creature from the Black Lagoon in one way or another. Many of the productions featuring gill-men of other sorts in tribute give very much the same messaging, down to the award-winning Guillermo del Toro film Shape of the Water. On the other hand, the misery of being in a place in the world one hates, of having every dream and hope repeatedly shattered, would be difficult to overcome. The idea of misery spreading as one’s life is increasingly out of their hands and, furthermore, somewhat unlivable is a theme that goes by the wayside much of the time. In the pages of this short piece it is allowed to blossom delightfully.
Original to this collection is “Night Caller From Outer Space” referencing the 1965 sci-fi film of that name. One of the longer stories in the book it gives much theme on loss as well, though this time of an individual through a woman called Abigail (birth name Abby). A man named Ezra loved her very much, only for her to have been abducted by aliens. It’s a hilarious-sounding set up in a lot of ways, not the least because flying saucers and alien abductions bring to mind some of the cheesiest stories and most uncredible first person accounts that could easily be named.
In this story, however, the focus is on Ezra as a man who has lost that which was most important to him. He tries to continue at his overnight radio job, only to be convinced he is hearing voices in the background of the call in line, and the voice of the lost Abby in particular. His reactions, and the ways those around him see him falling apart, are devastating.
Other stories exist in this collection, even a love letter to a never finished picture in “The Ghoul Goes West”. Still each of these stories is impressive for taking an idea that was considered well-worn at best and silly and cheesy at worst only to produce an impressive look at the human condition. Curious parties and fans of the author should definitely pick it up.
By Denise Kitashima Dutton: With folks scarfing down old-school comfort foods old like crazy, why not try a few new things? Don’t go crazy; I’m not talking about marmite out of the jar. (Unless that’s your thing; then go nuts.) But something close to what you love, but with a twist. Me, I’m getting into different types of chocolate. And yes, that’s different from my usual new chocolate I try on any other day. Because I’m eating it all by myself. Fine. It’s that I don’t even have to pretend that I’d share. Happy now?
Well, with this Hu Kitchen Almond Butter + Puffed Quinoa Dark Chocolate bar I’m definitely happy. Rich, luscious dark chocolate that’s so smooth and creamy I had to triple check to see that there’s no dairy in this bar. Nope, just good ol’ cocoa butter. In fact, there are only five ingredients in this delicious block of goodness, every single one of them something I can pronounce. No weird stabilizers, no funky preservatives (do bear that in mind if you’ve got leftovers from your first taste – pop this into the fridge to maintain its peak freshness), just 70% cacao, sugar, almonds, quinoa and cocoa butter. Boom.
I don’t know how Hu is able to craft such a delectable bar from these basic ingredients. Yes, it’s all in the proportions and whateverall. But it’s amazing and I love it. There’s a crunch of the popped quinoa, the slide of the soft almond butter, and of course the snap and chew of that chocolate. Absolutely lovely.
I think I need another. Perhaps in hazelnut? And maybe get myself another pair of sweatpants while I’m at it. Might as well get maximum cozy while I enjoy this treat.
Denise Kitashima Dutton has been a reviewer since 2003, and hopes to get the hang of things any moment now. She believes that bluegrass is not hell in music form, and that beer is better when it’s a nitro pour. Besides GMR, you can find her at Atomic Fangirl, Movie-Blogger.com, or at that end seat at the bar, multi-tasking with her Kindle.
(1) PROS FOR SALE. Galactic Journey’s Gideon Marcus is at the Worldcon – the 1969 Worldcon: “[September 6, 1969] A hot time in the old town (Worldcon in St. Louis!)”.
… Jack Gaughan was the first artist since Frank Paul in ’56 to be the convention Guest of Honor. Harlan Ellison was the toastmaster, a job he’s quite good at. A little longwinded, but always funny. On Friday, he auctioned off Bob Silverberg for $66 before Silverbob, in turn, auctioned Harlan off for $115 to a bunch of young ladies wearing Roddenberry sweatshirts….
(2) SFWA’S NEW QUARK. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association has inaugurated a monthly public-facing roundup of the organization’s news: “Quark – A SFWA Public Digest”.
In an effort to maintain transparency and foster communications with all members of the SFF community and the public, SFWA would like to introduce Quark, a monthly digest which will give quick updates on what’s been happening within the organization….
(3) I WISH I WAS A SPACEMAN, THE FASTEST GUY ALIVE [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] This week’s Word of Mouth over at BBC Radio 4 took a look at what it is like to be an astronaut. It began with a quick dive into the film Gravity musing on what was real – an encounter with an imaginary George Clooney who somehow imparted unknown but critical information – and what was not. But soon the programme got into the real meat of what it is like to be a spaceman with an interview with Chris Hadfield. I have to say it was one of the best interviews I have heard with an astronaut. Topics covered included: the why’s of space techno-speak, overcoming fear, sense of place and Chris’ getting into being a fiction author. All good stuff.
Colonel Chris Hadfield is a veteran of three spaceflights. He crewed the US space shuttle twice, piloted the Russian Soyuz, helped build space station Mir and served as Commander of the International Space Station.
Getting words and language right in as clear and a concise way is a matter of life and death for astronauts. Crews are traditionally made up of different nationalities and Russian is second to English on board. Chris Hadfield who flew several missions and captained the International Space Station talks about how astronauts communicate and the special language they use that he dubs NASA speak. He speaks several languages and lived in Russia for twenty years. As an author he has written several novels based on his experience in Space and as a fighter pilot the latest of which is The Defector. His books The Apollo Murders are being made into a series for TV. He tells Michael about the obligation he feels to share in words as best he can an experience that so few people have – of being in space and seeing Earth from afar.
You can hear the 25-minute programme here.
(4) HOMEWARD BOUND. Starliner Updates reports:
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station on Friday, Sept. 6, with separation confirmed at 6:04 p.m. Eastern time.
The reusable crew module is expected to land at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time (10:01 p.m. Mountain time) Saturday at White Sands Space Harbor at the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
AP News posted this overview: “Boeing Starliner returns to Earth without NASA astronauts”.
After months of turmoil over its safety, Boeing’s new astronaut capsule departed the International Space Station on Friday without its crew and headed back to Earth.
NASA’s two test pilots stayed behind at the space station — their home until next year — as the Starliner capsule undocked 260 miles (420 kilometers) over China, springs gently pushing it away from the orbiting laboratory. The return flight was expected to take six hours, with a nighttime touchdown in the New Mexico desert….
… A minute after separating from the space station, Starliner’s thrusters could be seen firing as the white, blue-trimmed capsule slowly backed away. NASA Mission Control called it a “perfect” departure.
Flight controllers planned more test firings of the capsule’s thrusters following undocking. Engineers suspect the more the thrusters are fired, the hotter they become, causing protective seals to swell and obstruct the flow of propellant. They won’t be able to examine any of the parts; the section holding the thrusters will be ditched just before reentry….
(5) NESFA SHORT STORY CONTEST. The New England Science Fiction Association is having a Short Story Contest (again) for non-professional writers. Deadline is September 30. Submissions must be less than 7500 words, and sent to [email protected]. Full details here: “Short Story Contest”.
…The winner, runners-up, and honorable mentions will be announced during the awards ceremony at Boskone, in NESFA’s newsletter following Boskone, and in various electronic media, including e-zines, newszines, and the Boskone and NESFA websites, blogs, and Facebook pages.
The winner will receive a certificate of achievement, three NESFA Press books, and a free membership to their choice of the next Boskone or the Boskone after that.
Runners-up will receive a certificate and two NESFA Press books. Honorable mentions will receive a certificate and one NESFA Press book….
(6) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to munch on Mattar Paneer with horror writer William J. Donahue in Episode 235 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.
Horror writer William J. Donahue is the author of such novels as Burn Beautiful Soul (2020), Crawl on Your Belly All the Days of Your Life (2022), and most recently, Only Monsters Remain (2023). His short story collections include Brain Cradle (2003), Filthy Beast (2004) and Too Much Poison (2014). When not writing fiction, Donahue works as a full-time magazine editor and features writer. Over the past 15 years, his writing and reporting have earned nearly a dozen awards for excellence in journalism from the American Society of Business Publication Editors.
We discussed the artistic endeavor which had him performing under the name Dirty Rotten Bill, why the first three novels he wrote will never see the light of day, what he was doing with one of those heads from the film 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag, why he finds playing with the apocalypse so appealing, the reason he’s neither a plotter or a pantser, but a plantser, how a vegetarian is able to do damage to human flesh in his fiction, the way our journeys were different and yet we managed to wind up at the same destination, how wrestling changed his life, why we keep writing and submitting in the face of rejection, and much more.
(7) GAME ON! N. helps readers evaluate potential game Hugo nominees in “Hugo Award Gamer Grab Bag 2025: Indelible Indies” at the Hugo Book Club Blog.
Last year saw the formal introduction of the Best Game or Interactive Work category to the Hugo Awards, set for re-ratification in 2028. This year saw beloved RPG title Baldur’s Gate 3 win the prize (accepted by an attending dev team!), showing that this category does indeed have juice.
Still, questions remain on logistics, and how Worldcon attendees can best evaluate games in the face of the sprawling gaming industry. That’s what we hope to tackle in this (sporadic) series of guest posts, in which we plan to highlight various genre titles worthy of Hugo consideration (and plain worthy of playing). Easing into this inaugural post, here are three acclaimed indie SFF video games of note released so far in 2024 that we think voters would enjoy…
(8) CLOSING THE STARGATE. Slashfilm thinks they know “Why The Sci-Fi Channel Canceled Stargate SG-1 After Season 10”.
…So, what was “Stargate SG-1” about? The series picks up roughly a year after the events in [Roland] Emmerich’s movie, by which point the titular artifact has become common knowledge among the masses and the U.S. government has leveraged it to traverse distant worlds. An elite U.S. Air Force squad named SG-1 is deployed with the intention of warding off alien attacks, as the dark forest hypothesis comes into play with access to galactic civilizations both benign and malignant. The Goa’uld, the Replicators, and the Ori emerge as key threats to Earth, and the series draws heavily from history and mythology to weave intriguing cultural tapestries that intertwine, and often clash, with our own.
However, this well-oiled machine, which often ran on fumes due to budgetary constraints or a dearth of fresh creative directions, came to a halt in August 2006, when the Sci-Fi Channel (where the show had migrated to in 2002), announced that there would be no 11th season. Speculations about dwindling ratings, ever-expanding production costs, and poor marketing were cited to justify this cancellation. However, the real reason “Stargate SG-1” was axed can be traced to a network decision that had little to do with such logistical aspects. But what happened, exactly?
… In a now-archived interview with Variety, Mark Stern, former exec VP of original programming for the Sci-Fi Channel (now known as Syfy), clarified that “SG-1” cancellation was not ratings-based. “[The cancellation] was not a ratings-driven decision. We’re actually going out on a high note,” Stern said, while affirming that the cast and crew were given enough time to wrap up the narrative in a satisfactory manner, with all loose ends tied up in the series finale….
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Dr. Valentin D. Ivanov.]
September 6, 1951 — Aleksandar Karapanchev. (Died 2021.) Aleksandar Karapanchev was a Bulgarian speculative fiction writer, journalist and poet. He was also an active fan, publisher and editor. He graduated from the University of Sofia with degrees in Turkish and Russian languages. However, the most impactful part of his career was the work at the specialized speculative fiction publishers Rollis, Orphia and Argus in the 1990s.
He joined fandom well before that and came to love and enjoy genre literature. He edited many dozens of books, served in the juries of a host of writing competitions and on the boards of non-profit organizations aimed to support and advance the speculative fiction. The last ten years of his life he was the secretary of Terra Fantastica – the society of Bulgarian speculative fiction writers.
Karapanchev authored tens of stories, published in the periodicals and in various anthologies. He was the recipient of tens of accolades and awards, including two Eurocons – for the Fantastica, Euristics and Prognotics (FEP) magazine he edited in 1989 and for his debut book in 2002. In 1996 as an editor he won, together with the team of the Argus publishing house, the most prestigious speculative genre accolade in Bulgaria – the Graviton award.
His most notable pieces of fiction are the short stories Stapen Croyd, describing the consequences of a noise catastrophe that has left the humanity in constant unrest and In the UNIMO Epoch, about the destructive effect of the consumerism. His stories have been translated in English, German and Russian. He also authored some poetry and a lot of genre-related non-fiction – reviews, articles on the history and modern tendencies of the genre.
Many young Bulgarian writers owe major improvements in their style to the diligent and careful editorial work of Aleksandar Karapanchev. His passing in 2021 was a major blow to the community.
(10) COMICS SECTION.
(11) LATEST ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE NEWS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] “LLMs produce racist output when prompted in African American English” – a news report in Nature. “Large language models (LLMs) are becoming less overtly racist, but respond negatively to text in African American English. Such ‘covert’ racism could harm speakers of this dialect when LLMs are used for decision-making.”
From the research paper’s abstract:
Hundreds of millions of people now interact with language models, with uses ranging from help with writing1,2 to informing hiring decisions3. However, these language models are known to perpetuate systematic racial prejudices, making their judgements biased in problematic ways about groups such as African Americans4,5,6,7. Although previous research has focused on overt racism in language models, social scientists have argued that racism with a more subtle character has developed over time, particularly in the United States after the civil rights movement8,9. It is unknown whether this covert racism manifests in language models. Here, we demonstrate that language models embody covert racism in the form of dialect prejudice, exhibiting raciolinguistic stereotypes about speakers of African American English (AAE) that are more negative than any human stereotypes about African Americans ever experimentally recorded.
Primary research paper here, and it’s open access.
(12) NIGHT PATROL. Atlas Obscura explains how “In This Beautiful Library, Bats Guard the Books”.
THE 60,000 BOOKS IN THE Joanine Library are all hundreds of years old. Keeping texts readable for that long, safe from mold and moisture and nibbling bugs, requires dedication. The library’s original architects designed 6-foot (1.8 meters) stone walls to keep out the elements. Employees dust all day, every day.
And then there are the bats. For centuries, small colonies of these helpful creatures have lent their considerable pest control expertise to the library. In the daytime—as scholars lean over historic works and visitors admire the architecture—the bats roost quietly behind the two-story bookshelves. At night, they swoop around the darkened building, eating the beetles and moths that would otherwise do a number on all that old paper and binding glue….
(13) VOLCANISM ON THE MOON 120 MILLION YEARS AGO. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Back when the dinosaurs were scaring Raquel Welch (I have never really forgiven them for that) 120 million years ago, there was volcanic activity on the Moon. Research reported in this week’s Science looks at samples from China’s the Chang’e-5 spacecraft.
Igneous rocks on the Moon demonstrate that it experienced extensive volcanism, with the most recent precisely dated volcanic lunar rocks being 2 billion years old. Some types of volcanic eruption produce microscopic glass beads, but so do impacts. Wang et al. examined thousands of glass beads taken from a lunar sample collected by the Chang’e-5 spacecraft (see the Perspective by Amelin and Yin). They used compositional and isotopic measurements to distinguish volcanic- and impact-related beads, identifying three beads of volcanic origin. Radiometric dating of those volcanic beads showed that they formed 120 million years ago and were subsequently transported to the Chang’e-5 landing site. The results indicate recent lunar volcanism that is not predicted by thermal models.
See the primary research here.
(14) REV. B. HIBBARD’S VEGETABLE ANTIBILIOUS FAMILY PILLS. [Item by Andrew Porter.] From the site Daytonian in Manhattan. An advertisement in The Evening Post on August 25, 1837 promised in part:
They are highly appreciated for the relief they afford in affections of the Liver and Digestive Organs. The worst cases of Chronic Dyspepsia, Inveterate Costiveness, Indigestion, Dyspeptic Consumption, Rheumatism, Nervous or Sick Headache and Scurvy, have been entirely cured by a proper use of them. Also, Liver Complaints, Fever and Ague, Bilious Fever, Jaundice, Dysentery or Bloody Flex, the premonitory symptoms of Cholera, Dropsical Swelling, Piles, Worms in Children, Fits, Looseness and Irregularity of the Bowels, occasioned by Irritation, Teething, &c.
(15) WHERE WOLF? “’Wolf Man’ Trailer Sees Christopher Abbott’s Monster Unleashed”, and Deadline sets the scene.
Universal Pictures on Friday debuted the first teaser for Wolf Man, its new film in which Christopher Abbott (Poor Things) transforms into the classic movie monster.
Co-starring three-time Emmy winner Julia Garner (Ozark), Sam Jaeger (The Handmaid’s Tale) and young up-and-comer Matilda Firth (Subservience), the New Zealand-shot reboot helmed for Blumhouse and Universal by Leigh Whannell (The Invisible Man) follows a family that is being terrorized by a lethal predator. Pic is slated for release in theaters on January 17, 2025….
[Thanks to Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, N., Steven Lee, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, and SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jon Meltzer.]
By Steve Vertlieb: Shelly and I went to see “Les Miserables” this past Saturday afternoon at The Academy of Music in Philadelphia. It was her fifth time, and my sixth. I saw the production in the mid-Eighties, and thought then that it was simply the greatest play that I’d ever been privileged to see. Four decades have not changed my mind or altered that opinion in the slightest.
The new production is awesome. It is a magnificent staging of one of my very favorite stories. I grew up adoring the 1935 Fox Film presentation with Fredric March as Jean Valjean, and Charles Laughton as Javier, accompanied by the glorious music of Alfred Newman. It remains one of my favorite films. I was thrilled to learn that a major musical production was being prepared for Broadway, and when I first saw it at The Forrest Theater in Philadelphia in the mid-Eighties, I was blown away. Along with everyone else in the theater that wonderful night, I was on my feet at the end cheering, screaming, and crying sublime tears of joy.
The years have not diminished my feelings for this wonderful musical production in any way, shape, or form. “Les Miz” was, is, and always will be the greatest theatrical production that I have ever been fortunate enough to experience, while the musical score by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil is both breathtaking and inspiring.
“I Dreamed A Dream” remains a heartbreaking anthem of personal loss and despair, an eloquent plea for the freedom of personal expression, for hope, and compassionate individuality, while few but the lonely among us might deeply appreciate and understand the searing, bittersweet intensity of pain expressed so beautifully by “On My Own.” “Bring Him Home” is an eloquent, haunting prayer sung for shared humanity, while “The Song Of Angry Men” is as powerful and passionate a march as you’re ever likely to hear. The show is not to be missed. It is unforgettably poignant, and quite simply superb.
“Cameron Mackintosh presents the new production of Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg’s Tony Award®-winning musical phenomenon, Les Misérables, direct from an acclaimed two-and-a-half-year return to Broadway. With its glorious new staging and dazzlingly reimagined scenery inspired by the paintings of Victor Hugo, this breathtaking new production has left both audiences and critics awestruck, cheering “Les Miz is born again!” -NYT
Set against the backdrop of 19th-century France, Les Misérables tells an enthralling story of broken dreams and unrequited love, passion, sacrifice and redemption – a timeless testament to the survival of the human spirit. Featuring the thrilling score and beloved songs “I Dreamed A Dream,” “On My Own,” “Stars,” “Bring Him Home,” “One Day More,” and many more, this epic and uplifting story has become one of the most celebrated musicals in theatrical history.
While the touring ensemble is uniformly brilliant, it is Nick Cartell in the role Jean Valjean who brings stunning vibrance to the celebrated lead role. Seen by more than 70 million people in 44 countries and in 22 languages around the globe, Les Misérables is still the world’s most popular musical, breaking box office records everywhere in its 39th year.
