— Diary of the Deb, by Debbie Rochon, FANGORIA
— The Doctor Is In-Sane, by Dr. Gangrene, SCARY MONSTERS
— File 770 columns, by James H. Burns, FILE 770 online
— Fright Gallery, curated by Gary Pullin, RUE MORGUE
— Grey Matters, by Richard Schellbach, MONDO CULT ONLINE
— It Came from Bowen’s Basement, by John W, Bowen, RUE MORGUE
— Larry Blamire’s Star Turn, VIDEO WATCHDOG
— Ralph’s One and Only Traveling Reviews, by Richard Klemensen, LITTLE SHOPPE OF HORRORS
— Rondo Remembers, by Ron Adams, MONSTER BASH MAGAZINE
— Scare-News, by John Skerchock, SCARY MONSTERS
— They Came from the Krypt, by Jon Kitley, HORRORHOUND
— Or write in another choice:
Voting continues through April 10. Everyone is eligible to vote, and voting is done by email.
HOW TO VOTE:
All voting is by e-mail only. Simply copy this ballot (cut-and-paste works fine) and send an e-mail with your picks to me, David Colton, at [email protected] by Sunday night at midnight, April 10, 2016.
You can send a quick e-mail, or you can cut-and-paste the ballot and highlight your choices, or place an X next to your choices; or you can type your choices in an e-mail. And no, you do not have to vote in every category.
One vote per person, please. Every e-mail must include your name to be counted. All votes are kept strictly confidential. No e-mail addresses or personal information will ever be shared with anyone.
Feel free to spread the word about the Rondo voting — go social on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram; place Rondo banners on websites, urge friends and fans to vote. But please do not mass-produce or duplicate ballots; suspicious ballots will be rejected at the sole discretion of Rondo organizers. Let’s keep this a fun vote!
Edited by Monica Valentinelli and Jaym Gates, the anthology’s concept “highlights the long-standing tradition of writers who tackle tired tropes or clichés prevalent in popular media and twist them to tell fresh and interesting stories.”
Each author in this collection has examined a specific trope or cliché that includes:
Chainmaille Bikini
The Magical Negro
The Super Soldier
The Chosen One
Guys Smash, Girls Shoot
Love at First Sight
Damsels in Distress
Heroine Loves a Bad Man
Yellow Peril
The Black Man Dies First
The Villain Had a Crappy Childhood
The City Planet
Prostitute with a Heart of Gold
The Singularity Will Cause the Apocalypse
First Period Panic
Girlfriend in the Refrigerator
Retired Pro’s “Last” Job
The anthology features cover art by award-winning artist Galen Dara, and includes speculative stories from Maurice Broaddus, Anton Strout, Shanna Germain, Sara Harvey, Delilah Dawson, John Hornor Jacobs, Rahul Kanakia, Alethea Kontis, Haralambi Markov, Sunil Patel, Kat Richardson, Nisi Shawl, Alyssa Wong, and many others.
The Kickstarter raised $2,596 of its $10,000 goal on the first day.
San Diego Comic-Con International figured in two mainstream news stories today.
(1) SETTLEMENT EXPECTED. The Salt Lake Comic Con and San Diego Comic-Con are inching closer to settling a court battle over naming rights reports the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Lawyers for the two pop-culture conventions said they have been able to resolve many of their disagreements over whether the names are too similar, and are working on the remaining sticking points.
They asked a federal judge to give them more time, until March 1, to work on a possible agreement, according to court documents filed Friday in Southern California.
SDCC alleges that the name of Salt Lake City’s event is too similar. In court papers filed in August 2014, SDCC claimed that SLCC had piggybacked on its “creativity, ingenuity, and hard work,” and by using the Comic Con name “intended to suggest, mislead and confuse consumers into believing that the Salt Lake Comic Con convention is associated with, authorized by, endorsed by or sponsored by SDCC.”
The U.S. Patent and Trademark office is withholding judgment. It suspended its own ruling in November until the federal case could be resolved. In July, the office awarded Salt Lake Comic Con a trademark for its name. Officials said “comic con” was too generic to trademark but “Salt Lake Comic Con” was specific enough to qualify. While the Utah organizers called that a decisive step, San Diego disagreed.
(2) STADIUM POLITICS. The San Diego Chargers professional football team seemed to be using Comic-Con as a catspaw in its latest statement seeking support for a new stadium, by making a suggestion that the project include a permanent site for Comic-Con International and a Comic-Con museum.
At the same time, we have considered the potential benefits to both the greater San Diego region and the Chargers of a multi-use stadium/convention center facility downtown. The multi-use facility, when combined with Petco Park, the existing Convention Center, the Gaslamp Quarter, and a revitalized East Village, would create an unparalleled entertainment and sports district that will host Super Bowls and will ideally be a permanent home for Comic-Con and a Comic-Con museum. All of our research demonstrates that voters are more likely to approve a multi-use facility that would generate economic activity on hundreds of days per year, including by attracting major sporting and convention events that San Diego cannot now host. The downtown multi-use facility would also free up the existing Mission Valley site for potential use by educational institutions such as San Diego State and UCSD, as well as for a large riverfront park.
Comic-Con’s response made it clear they do not support the stadium-convention center plan.
“We have had no discussions with the Chargers and were surprised to be mentioned in their recent statement. We hope the public is aware, and we would like to reiterate our ongoing belief that a contiguous convention center expansion is the preferable solution to the limits on current convention center space. Comic-Con has doubts that a multi-use facility would serve the best interests of potential conventions hoping to exhibit in San Diego,” their own statement reads.
(1) BACK HOME AGAIN IN INDIANA. In 1936 the Marshall College Archaeological Review accepted Professor Jones’ journal article, but asked for a few teensy changes – in “Why Professor Indiana Jones Was Hated By His Colleagues” at Cracked.
The Title
Though your findings are certainly incredible and we understand your enthusiasm, we must say that the title “God Melted Some Nazi Faces In Front Of Me” simply doesn’t fit our journal’s aesthetic. I am only more distressed by the title when I read the first sentence of your abstract, which states “At least I think that’s what happened. Really, I just closed my eyes for a while, and when I opened them, all the Nazis had melted.” As men of science, it is our academic duty to at least entertain the notion that there was a corrosive substance inside the Ark of the Covenant that killed them. Or perhaps there was some sort of violent squabble that erupted while you and Miss Ravenwood had your eyes shut. Or anything, really. Any explanation beyond “God did it” should, at the very least, be mentioned. This segues nicely into my next concern.
Walt Disney’s new ‘Mary Poppins’ film, directed by Rob Marshall with Emily Blunt portraying everyone’s favorite magical nanny has found its male lead. Broadway wunderkind Lin-Manuel Miranda, the mastermind behind Broadway’s hottest show, ‘Hamilton’ (It’s sold out through 2018!) will play Jack, a lamplighter, a part similar to Bert the chimney sweep, played by Dick Van Dyke in the classic 1964 film.
The new movie is set 20 years after the original, in Depression-era London and will pull from one P.L. Travers’ seven other ‘Mary Poppins’ novels. (The 1964 film was based on the first, with hopes of turning them into a series, but Travers despised the film and nixed those plans.)
(3) IN TAVERNS TO COME. Rob Ehlert and Cathy Mate, the subjects of “Know Your Neighbors: Rob Ehlert of Dark Rogue Tavern” at Around Berwyn, are long time Chicago fans. Cathy’s husband, “Clash” DJed many Windycon dances prior to his death in 2013.
People will know it’s a tavern because in Chicago there will be snow around the entrance half the year…. (File 770 inside joke.)
When an opportunity arises to receive a $10,000 endorsement from Bar Rescue’s Jon Taffer, you take it. That’s what Berwyn resident Rob Ehlert did when he entered his bar concept, Dark Rogue Tavern, into a nationwide entrepreneurial contest sponsored by the famous TV personality.
Dark Rogue Tavern will be Berwyn’s newest bar and grill scheduled to open in July 2016. The concept is the brainchild of Amy Mate and Rob Ehlert, who felt inspired to create “a ‘Cheers’ for nerds.” According to Ehlert, Dark Rogue Tavern will be a place for geeks, gamers, comic book collectors, sci-fi fans, and fantasy role-players to come together and enjoy a space dedicated to them. They can come with friends, or make new ones, and watch their favorite shows and movies, play their favorite games and enjoy craft beers, cocktails, and elevated bar food.
After pitching this idea to Taffer’s entrepreneurial contest, Mate and Ehlert made it into the top 10 but ultimately did not win the contest. But never fear! Dark Rogue Tavern will eventually be here, even without the $10K grant. “We will make this bar open regardless of the support from Jon Taffer,” said Ehlert.
(4) THE BRANDENBURG GREAT. Neil Clarke is the guest fiction editor of a science and sf theme issue of The Berlin Quarterly, a European print review of long form journalism, literature, and the Arts. Clarke says —
Their budget permitted me to select four reprints, so in this issue you’ll find:
“Slipping” by Lauren Beukes
“Tying Knots” by Ken Liu
“A Brief Investigation of the Process of Decay” by Genevieve Valentine
Calling themselves “Meow Wolf,” they have earned a reputation for using whatever materials they can scavenge to build fantastical exhibits that are part haunted house and part jungle gym — giant artwork that people can step inside.
These immersive shows — a psychedelic cave, a junk-filled dome — have grown progressively more elaborate. Now, after years of surviving on shoestring budgets, Meow Wolf has persuaded investors to pour millions of dollars into something even bigger.
The Santa Fe group has procured an abandoned bowling alley in a struggling part of town to house a massive, permanent exhibit. King and his friends call it a dream come true, but it comes at a price.
Martin has invested $3.5 million in the project, says the LA Times.
(6) BERLITZKRIEG. I have it on the highest authority that Vox Popoli isn’t a result of an inability to spell vox populi, it’s a combination of the Latin phrase with the Italian la voce dei popoli.
And Vox Day isn’t “the voice of God” either. It’s a trilingual pun, Latin-Greek-English.
George R.R. Martin has officially decided to write in the big twist he planned for his new book, The Winds of Winter. The twist on the twist? The Game of Thrones TV show won’t be able to pull it off, because it’s already killed off a key character involved in the storyline. Watch Martin give us the scoop in the video above.
This is just one awesome moment from our full 27-minute sit down with Martin and Colony co-creator Ryan Condal, where we talk the suggestions that changed their series completely, the sci-fi/fantasy properties that made them fans, dream casting and how to end a story.
(8) CONTINUING COVERAGE OF MARK OSHIRO AND CONQUEST. Selina Rosen and Mark Oshiro exchanged comments on Facebook, and Oshiro said he appreciated Rosen’s apology.
[Selina Rosen:] It was never my intention to make you uncomfortable. I am not aware of touching you but know that if I did it was not meant as an insult or to make you uncomfortable. FYI till Monday of this week I did NOT even know that you were the one who turned me in. I apologize for any perception you had that I was in any way sexualizing or trying to demean you. I will be more aware in the future that fandom has changed and I must change with it or stay home.
[Mark Does Stuff:] Thank you very much for this, Selina. For what it’s worth, I believe you in that you may not have even known you were touching me. I appreciate your apology. I wish ConQuesT had just TOLD you about this so that you didn’t have to find out this way. Regardless, I genuinely thank you for posting this.
[Selina Rosen:] Not knowing who had told made it imposable for me to address the issue with you directly. Only know I am not that person and never have been.
[Selina Rosen.] Seriously I’m so sorry that I did this mostly because it’s the joke that will not die. I played to the audience. The joke is so old I have to go to the banks of antiquity to ask permission to use it. I will not do it again. I am sorry that he was so upset in any way. No one should be uncomfortable.
I’m wrapping these two together because they’re the big hitters of the Hugos even though the Campbell isn’t a Hugo. They’re also, well… kind of obvious. The Campbell website even has a list of eligible authors….
As for what to nominate, well, that’s up to you folks. I can guarantee that what shows up on my ballot will not be what bubbles to the top of the List, because I’m doing the List as a service to anyone who’s interested and trying to boost interest and involvement in the entire Hugos process. Also because I’m just weird.
Now the administrative stuff:
I will start closing comments on the Sad Puppies recommendation threads starting around 5pm US Eastern Time on Monday 29th February. This is so I don’t have new recommendations coming in while I’m trying to collate what’s there.
The Featured Book section of the website appears on the righthand side of the website’s front page and is open to new books at the time of their release. While filling that out, you might also fill out the Featured Author section.
The New Release Newsletter is a recent addition that lists forthcoming publications by SFWA members. It is not limited to books, but can encompass shorter fiction and alternate forms. Backlist books being newly released can be listed in the newsletter.
The SFWA Discussion Forums have multiple ways to promote your book. Mention details in your personal thread, list interviews and reviews in the Self Promotion section, where you can also find a link to Don Saker’s The Dealer’s Room, where SFWAmembers can list free book promotions.
(12) CONSTRUCTION TOYS. These items come from Andrew Porter.
James May (not the Puppy James May) hosts the BBC show James May’s Toy Stories, where he built a Meccano bridge which supported a man, in Liverpool — part of a series which included running electric model trains for five miles in open country, building a two-story house out of LEGO, and creating a life-size plastic Airfix Spitfire model.
You can download issues of Meccano Magazine as PDFs here
Back in January, ABC gave the green light to Marvel Television’s ‘Most Wanted’ after a period of will they/won’t they. Since then, the ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ spinoff starring Adrianne Palicki and Nick Blood has been ramping up. First, Delroy Lindo joined the cast as the swashbuckling adventurer Dominic Fortune. Now, we have our first description of the series that gives us a glimpse at Bobbi Morse and Lance Hunter’s new mission.
The first official synopsis for the latest show set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was recently shared and as anticipated, we learn about Mockingbird and Hunter’s less than ideal situation where they find themselves with bounties on their heads. But there’s also some new information about Fortune’s role in the whole thing and how the three will come together…
(14) OLD FEDEX COMMERCIAL. Saw this getting replayed today…
[Thanks to Steven H Silver, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Nigel.]
In honor of the show’s 200th episode, which airs tonight, February 25 has been declared “Big Bang Theory Day” in Pasadena. The city is celebrating this milestone by giving the show an honorary street name.
Here is a video the cast being shown the sign on Conan O’Brien. They seemed able to restrain their enthusiasm….
The sign will be hung near the Pasadena City Hall for the weeks surrounding the official day.
The [200th] episode, airing at 8pm on Thursday, February 25, is called “The Celebration Experimentation,” and features the gang celebration Sheldon’s birthday. And, naturally, Wil Wheaton, Adam West, and others come along for the ride.
As the show’s viewers’ know, some of the main characters teach and work at CalTech in Pasadena.
Turku Science Fiction Society (TSFS), founded in 1976, turned 40 on January 27 reports Partial Recall.
TSFS is the oldest sf club in Finland. Its activities are held in Terrakoti —
Terrakoti is the office and geek living room of six societies located in Turku. It is a safe haven for everyone interested in science fiction, fantasy, horror, Japanese popular culture, roleplaying or console games in Turku.
The other five societies TSFS shares the office with are:
The nominees for the Tähtivaeltaja Award, given to the best science fiction book published in Finland in the previous year, have been reported by Partial Recall.
Uusi maa (MaddAddam) by Margaret Atwood (Otava)
Kudottujen kujien kaupunki by Emmi Itäranta (Teos)
Haikaran silmä (The Eye of the Heron) by Ursula K. Le Guin (Vaskikirjat)
Hävitys (Annihilation) by Jeff VanderMeer (Like)
Liktorin miekka (The Sword of the Lictor) by Gene Wolfe (Gummerus)
The nominees were selected by a jury of journalist Hannu Blommila, editor Toni Jerrman, critic Elli Leppä, and critic Antti Oikarinen. The award winner will be announced in May.
The Fan Activity Achievement (FAAn) awards voting will remain open until April 23. The award honors the best in fan writing, drawing, publishing and posting. The awards will be presented at Corflu 33 on May 15.
Claire Brialey, the award administrator, encourages fans to get involved:
Anyone interested in science fiction fanzines is eligible to vote on the FAAn awards; please do take part if you’d like to recognize and celebrate what you’ve enjoyed about fanzines in the past year. The awards are voted on by fanzine fans around the world and the results are now usually announced at Corflu – but you don’t need to be a member of this year’s, or any other, Corflu in order to vote.
The FAAn Award categories are Genzine, Personalzine, Special Publication, Fan Website, Fan Writer, Fan Artist, Letterhack, and Fanzine Cover.
More information about this and previous year’s awards, together with a downloadable ballot form with voting instructions, can be found on the Corflu 33 website.
There will be further reminders, but don’t let that stop you voting relatively early. If you vote often, only the last ballot received before the deadline will count.
So I was leery of spending my publisher’s money to get a Kirkus review done. The review was glowing, but without the coveted star that tends to get notice from other reviewers and purchasing agents. I was interested in how they had treated other genre books, so I did a quick survey.
It appears that in the past, Kirkus assigned reviewers who were less than sympathetic to the book’s genre and intended audience. This review [of GHOST by John Ringo] made me laugh: …
But other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln? This is Ringo. His books aren’t likely to be accidentally purchased by people like the reviewer, so the review is useless for deciding which violent testosterone-infused male fantasy adventure book to buy for people who enjoy that sort of thing.
One of the best writers of science fiction and fantasy, Lois McMasters Bujold, never got a starred review from Kirkus. Here’s the summary of their review of middle Miles Vorkosigan in Mirror Dance: “A well-conceived series, solidly plotted and organized, though heavy going in places and, finally, lacking that spark of genuine originality that would blazon it as truly special.” Kind of missing the point, no?
(2) DOCTOR WHO PUN OPPORTUNITY. We ought to be able to do something with a character who is married to River, and whose series will be hstreamed on Amazon Prime beginning in March.
Welp, it wasn’t the longest of national nightmares, but now it appears it is over. Last week, I wrote about how and where you could watch Doctor Who following its abrupt pulling from streaming services on February 1 of this year. But it wasn’t to last, it seems; Amazon announced today via their Twitter that Series 1-8 of the show will be back on their Prime streaming service beginning in March.
1- Nothing is ever easy, nor simple. Say you are walking across the street to get a gallon of milk. A rare make of car will almost run you down. The store that sells the milk will be out of milk. You’ll have to walk across the most dangerous area of town to get to the next store.
This means someone is making you terminally interesting….
My journey to being a writer almost never happened. With my new book, United States of Japan, coming out, I wanted to reflect on how I got here and what it’s been like working with the fantastic Angry Robot Books.
Perfect Edge
Back in 2009, almost seven years before I joined the robot army, I’d gotten so many short story rejections, I wondered if I was even meant to be a writer. While I’d had a series of short stories published when I was younger, there’d been a gap of about five years where I’d only gotten one piece accepted. I was devastated when I received that issue and found all sorts of typos and formatting errors in my story. What I thought would be a brief moment of victory had been ruined…..
As the decision to publish was made by the whole of Angry Robot and Watkins Media staff, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. It took USJ about four months to get to “acquisitions” which is the meeting where they make their choice to “acquire” or not. I got an email from Phil the week of the acquisition meeting telling me when it was going to happen. I could not sleep the night before and kept on hitting refresh on my emails, awaiting final word. The notification came from Phil on March 5, 2015 with a simple subject line: “You’re in.” Even though it was late, I got up and started dancing in what might be better described as an awkward fumbling of my hips.
EXCLUSIVE:Selma director Ava DuVernay has just been set by Disney to direct A Wrinkle In Time, an adaptation of the 1963 Newbery Medal-winning Madeleine L’Engle fantasy classic novel that has a script by Oscar-winning Frozen writer and co-director Jennifer Lee. Deadline revealed February 8 that DuVernay had been offered this film and was also in the mix at DreamWorks for Intelligent Life, a sci-fi thriller scripted by Colin Trevorrow and his Jurassic World collaborator Derek Connolly. DuVernay now has the offer on that film and is in negotiations on a pic that has 12 Years A Slave Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o attached to a fable about a UN worker in a department designed to represent mankind if there was ever contact with aliens, who falls for a mystery woman who turns out to be one. That film is produced by Frank Marshall, Trevorrow and Big Beach principals Peter Saraf and Marc Turtletaub.
(6) TRUST & SAFETY. Here’s Twitter’s announcement of the Trust & Safety Council in case you want more info, tweeted February 9. It lists all the members of the Council. (Somebody may have put that in a comment here already.)
As we develop products, policies, and programs, our Trust & Safety Council will help us tap into the expertise and input of organizations at the intersection of these issues more efficiently and quickly. In developing the Council, we are taking a global and inclusive approach so that we can hear a diversity of voices from organizations including:
Safety advocates, academics, and researchers focused on minors, media literacy, digital citizenship, and efforts around greater compassion and empathy on the Internet;
Grassroots advocacy organizations that rely on Twitter to build movements and momentum;
Community groups with an acute need to prevent abuse, harassment, and bullying, as well as mental health and suicide prevention.
We have more than 40 organizations and experts from 13 regions joining as inaugural members of the Council. We are thrilled to work with these organizations to ensure that we are enabling everyone, everywhere to express themselves with confidence on Twitter.
Enter the lawyers. Obviously, they can claim to own Star Trek because they acquired the series from Lucille Ball’s Desilu Productions in the late 1960s. Now they’ve been merged with CBS and that’s how we’re getting both a new TV series and a continuing film franchise. But the Axanar team has a card up its sleeve.
The Paramount lawsuit claims that this infringes upon “thousands of copyrights” and the Axanar team has asked the simple question: “Which ones?” Because Star Trek now exists over several different universes, time periods, and casts, it’s not so simple. The universe is so spread out, it is almost impossible to define what Star Trek actually is. To that end, the burden is on Paramount to explain what Star Trek is — in a legal sense.
(8) CLIFF AMOS OBIT. Louisville fan Cliff Amos passed away February 22 after a long battle with heart disease. Bob Roehm wrote a fine appreciation on Facebook:
Louisville fan Cliff Amos passed away February 22. Cliff was the founder of Louisville fandom, creating both the Falls of the Ohio Science Fiction Association (FoSFA) and RiverCon. I first met Cliff around 1970 while he was teaching a free university course in SF at the University of Louisville. We had both separately attended the St. Louis worldcon the year before, but had not met. Seeing an announcement of the Free U. meeting, I began attending the weekly gatherings. A year… or two later, the local fan club was organized and in 1975 Cliff chaired the first RiverCon (combined with DeepSouthCon that year). Cliff continued to head RiverCons for several years and was a regular at Midwestcon and Kubla Khan. He was given the Southern Fandon Confederation Rebel Award in 1979, and also chaired the second NASFiC, NorthAmeriCon, that year. His interests were certainly wide-ranging and eclectic (for example, he once appeared on Tom Snyder’s late night talk show as warlock Solomon Weir), and he will be missed by his many friends both within and without the science fiction community. There will no funeral service or visitation but a memorial wake is being arranged for the near future (probably this coming Sunday); details forthcoming.
(9) GAMBLE OBIT. Australian childrens’ book artist Kim Gamble passed away February 19 at the age of 63.
The much-loved, award-winning artist is known for illustrating the best-selling Tashi books, written by mother and daughter authors Barbara and Anna Fienberg.
Gamble created the lively, elfin boy with the towering curl of hair and gypsy earrings, who looked nothing like the authors initially imagined, more than 20 years ago….
Anna Fienberg called Gamble’s imagination “a magic gift which he shared with the world”….
“Working with Kim was like learning a new way to see. It was perhaps the magical appearance of Tashi that inspired us to go deeper into the mythical land of dragons, witches, giants, ogres … the world lying beneath.”
…Gamble’s favourite book as a child was Moominsummer Madness, by Finnish writer Tove Jansson, and artists he admired included Marc Chagall and Odilon Redon.
When asked about the success of the Tashi series, Gamble said, “It’s very popular because he’s the smallest kid in the class and in every story he’s up against the odds … and he uses his head, he doesn’t fight to get out of the problem. I think kids really just enjoy how cleverness beats brawn.”
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOYS
Born February 24, 1786 — Wilhelm Grimm, historian and, with his brother Jacob, compiler of Grimm’s Fairy Tales.
3) MidAmeriCon II was the first to make a public statement, which you can find on their Twitter account. I wasn’t expecting a response from them, so I appreciated a very direct message about their commitment to safety for this year’s WorldCon. I *am* going to be at WorldCon, even if some of the people who were responsible at ConQuesT are on staff/the board. WorldCon has become a tradition for me because it was my first introduction to this community, so I will be there and be on programming. Say hello if you like!
4) Chris Gerrib was the first to apologize to me, and I appreciated and accepted the apology. I respect that he did so without being asked to.
5) Yesterday, Kristina Hiner sent me an apology. I am keeping it private because I see no reason to publish it. It is a *very* good apology, and I accepted it, too. I am very thankful for her response, and more so than anyone else, she was the only person I really *wanted* an apology from. I have also informed her that at this point, I actually don’t need each of the complaints followed up on at this point. It seems redundant to me. Everyone knows about the post now, and I don’t need an apology from anyone else. I just wanted someone to inform these people that their behavior was unwelcoming, rude, or hostile. I’ve now done that, so I think the board and ConQuesT can devote time and energy to future conventions instead of last year’s.
I get invited to a lot of cons that have a diversity problem. I also get a lot of requests from cons that claim to want to create anti harassment policies. Aside from my feelings on an expectation that I donate hours of work to strangers for events I have no interest in attending, there’s the sad reality that many small cons are so entrenched on reinventing the wheel they’ve missed the window to do better. Younger fans, fans of color, disabled fans…they don’t have to keep going to cons that aren’t welcoming to be able to connect with other fans. They can go to the big commercial cons, to the smaller cons that do get it & to social media for their community needs. So no, they won’t keep giving cons with bad reps chance after chance. They won’t be patient with serial offenders or the places that enable them. Why should they donate that time & energy to some place that doesn’t want them, that thinks they deserve to be hazed, deserve to be mistreated in order to prove something to bigots?
Bluntly? Most small cons will age out of existence because of bad behavior, because of a focus on the past that prioritizes the social mores of the dead over the actual experiences of the living.
It was on, off and now back on again. Universal and Legendary Pictures are moving ahead with Pacific Rim 2, probably for a 2018 release date….
This has unfortunately meant that Guillermo Del Toro will be unable to return to direct, having already moved on to other projects. However, Del Toro will still co-write (with Jon Spaihts) and produce the movie. The new director is Steven S. DeKnight, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer veteran who went on to create Spartacus and is currently working on Netflix’s Daredevil. The film will be DeKnight’s directorial debut.
(13) THIS COULD RUIN ANDY WEIR’S SEQUEL. This video argues we can reach relativistic speeds using new technologies.
Imagine getting to Mars in just 3 days… or putting points beyond our solar system within our reach. New propulsion technologies could one day take us to these cosmic destinations making space travel truly interstellar! NASA 360 joins Professor Philip Lubin, University of California Santa Barbara, as he discusses his NASA Innovative Advanced Concept (NIAC) for energy propulsion for interstellar exploration.
Even though all the things the engineers do to mess with the robot are done to showcase its ability to correct itself, recover from falls, and persevere in performing tasks, the human tendency to anthropomorphize non-sentient objects is so strong as to override our common-sense knowledge that Atlas is an object incapable of feeling. Engineers commonly kick robots to demonstrate their ability to recover, and it always feels a tiny bit cruel. It’s a strange quirk of the brain—though the tendency is stronger in some people than in others.
Let’s talk first about what I like to call the “pre-history” of the Sad Puppies. For the past fifteen years (at least), the character of fandom has shifted in a way that many Puppies find very troubling — and by the way, for the vast majority of our number, this has nothing to do with race, gender, or sexuality. A significant number of us are women who accept the precepts of first wave feminism at the very least. A number of us are “people of color.” And a number of us are gay or, at minimum, amenable to leaving gay people alone to live their lives as they see fit. No — what has disturbed the Puppies is the increasingly strident tone that many fans have adopted in support of their favored cultural and political causes. In our perception, the vague “codes of conduct,” the “shit lists,” the pilings on, the endless internet flame-wars, and the non-falsifiable accusations of racism/sexism/homophobia/etc. have all created an environment that is extraordinarily hostile to points of view that don’t hew to a particular left-wing party line. The result? We’ve felt unwelcome and stomped on for what, to our mind, should be recognized as sincere and well-meant differences of opinion.
Over the same time frame, the Puppies have also become concerned about the artistic direction of our field. The “Human Wave” movement, the “Superversive” movement, and the more generalized complaints about “message fic” and “grey goo” that started gaining steam before last year’s Sad Puppies campaign are all flailing attempts by the Puppies to describe the flatness we’ve perceived in many recent award winners — particularly in the shorter fiction categories, where the stylistic sophistication and emotional catharsis beloved by creative writing professors and MFA programs the world over appear to be crowding out more accessible stories with identifiable plots and recognizably science-fictional ideas.
Yes, these are editors I’ve worked with. Each one of them has contributed both to the quality of my work as well as my ever-ongoing education as a writer. They are also lovely humans, which goes a very long way with me.
Let’s be honest: magic is great and everything, but if Hogwarts didn’t have WiFi, we probably wouldn’t be so interested.
A Tumblr account called The Setup Wizard took this premise and ran with it. The blog is the fictionalised account of an American muggle named Jonathan Dart working as Hogwarts’ first IT guy. The somewhat grumpy character is constantly solving problems and handling the struggles of being a Muggle in a magic world.
How is it that the first person in this school I’ve successfully been able to explain network bandwidth to is the 500 year old partially decapitated ghost?
Today I taught a centaur how to use a hands free Bluetooth headset. Apparently he really felt the need to make phone calls while wielding a bow and arrow.
[Thanks to Will R., Michael J. Walsh, Reed Andrus, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Steve Davidson.]
The Speculative Literature Foundation has announced one month remains to submit applications for the Older Writers Grant.
SLF is offering two $500 grants to applicants who are at least 50 years of age and just starting to work at a professional level as a speculative fiction writer.
They have only 18 applications right now and would like to see more. Writers are urged to send their best work — the writing samples can be previously published.
Guidelines to apply for the Older Writers Grant can be found here. Questions can be emailed to Managing Director, Malon Edwards, at: [email protected].
Founded in January, 2004 to promote literary quality in speculative fiction, the all-volunteer Foundation is led by Mary Anne Mohanraj and 30 other committed volunteers.
