Barkley — So Glad You (Didn’t) Ask: A Column of Unsolicited Opinions — #25

Sonequa Martin-Green

File 770’s Black History Month Part Two, Star Trek: Discovery, Season One

By Chris M. Barkley:

Star Trek: Discovery (CBS All Access, ***1/2) with Sonequa Martin-Green, Jason Isaacs, Doug Jones, Shazad Latif, Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman, Wilson Cruz with guest appearances by Michelle Yeoh, James Frain, Riann Wilson, Jayne Brook, Clare McConnell, Mary Cheiffo and Rekha Sharma and Chris Obi. Created by Bryan Fuller and Alex Kurtzman based on Star Trek by Gene Roddenberry.

The defining factor of Roddenberry’s vision is the optimistic view of the future … Once you lose that, you lose the essence of what Star Trek is. That being said… Star Trek has always been a mirror to the time it reflected and [the topical question now] is how do you preserve and protect what Starfleet is in the weight of a challenge like war and the things that have to be done in war.

—Executive producer Alex Kurtzman on the balance between classic Star Trek and new elements in Discovery.

SPOILER WARNING

Before we dive in here, I must say in full disclosure that I have purposefully avoided a great many critiques of the first season of Star Trek: Discovery to avoid copycatting anyone else’s opinion or views. I would like to think that as a fan of a certain age (sixty -one, for the record), and having watched every incarnation of the series since it started, I have a uniquely comprehensive view of the franchise.

On Sunday morning at Capricon 38, I joined forty-five fans and three panelists gathered in a small meeting room. The subject of the panel was Star Trek: Discovery vs. The Orville.

Basically this was a contrast and compare panel but the vibe of the room felt as though there were some very passionate feelings about both shows, but especially against Discovery. and as the hour-and-a-half panel unfolded, most of the discussion was centered on that issue.

When I was asked point-blank by an audience member how I would compare the two side by side, I pointedly stated that for the most part, Discovery was professional grade television and The Orville was some very nice fan-fiction.

Mind you, I stated in my review in a previous column that Seth McFarlane’s show was a pretty decent effort for someone who is demonstrably a big fan sf, of the original series and The Next Generation in particular. But the first several episodes featured some very off-color and rude humor mixed into the rudimentary sf concept. There were several outstanding episodes as their first season progressed (“Pria”, “In the Fold,” “Cupid’s Dagger” and “Mad Idolatry” among them) and for the most part, the show is worth keeping an eye on.

Star Trek: Discovery however, dazzled me right out of the gate with its pilot episodes, “The Vulcan Hello” and “The Battle of Binary Stars”, as I recounted in my impressions from another previous column. At the end of these episodes that Captain Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) of the Shenzhou is dead after a surprise raid on an enemy ship went sideways, the Federation is in an all out war with the Klingon Empire and that First Officer Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) was convicted of mutiny and imprisoned for life.

And then things got decidedly more complicated.

Six months into her sentence, Burnham’s transfer to another prison is delayed by an emergency “rescue” engineered by Captain Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaacs) of the USS Discovery. Lorca deliberately sought to have her diverted to serve on his ship under the title “Specialist” in order to help the Federation’s war efforts. (Or so it seems.) Burnham, who is still feeling quite a considerable amount of guilt about Georgiou’s death and her part in starting the war, somewhat reluctantly accepts the assignment over the objections of First Officer Saru (Doug Jones), who was the Science Officer aboard the ill-fated Shenzhou. The only person besides Lorca who welcomes her aboard is her roommate, Syvia Killy, a somewhat ambitious (and talkative) Starfleet Cadet.

Captain Lorca is unlike any officer Burnham or any of the crew has ever served with before. Having lost his own crew in a wartime disaster, he seems to be driven by a desire to avenge his loss at any means necessary. Starfleet has seen fit to overlook his obvious symptoms of post traumatic distress and the bending or breaking regulations and laws because of his success in battle against the Klingons.

Aiding in those victories is the innovative spore-drive developed by (and eventually guided by) Science Officer Lt. Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp) that can teleport the Discovery to practically any point in known space. But what Staments has withheld from Lorca and the ship’s chief medical officer (and his lover) Dr. Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz) is that there are some debilitating side effects each time he uses it.

Meanwhile, the Klingons have not been idle; following the death of T’Kuvma, the leader who briefly unified the twenty-four houses of the Empire, two outcasts, L’Rell (Mary Cheiffo) and Voq (initially played by Javid Iqbal) formulate their own plan to take the USS Discovery and the spore drive for themselves…

As the season progresses, Burnham faces off against a future frenemy of Captain Kirk, Harcourt Fenton Mudd (Rainn Wilson), is reluctantly attracted to a former prisoner of war turned crewmate, Lt. Ash Tyler (Shazad Latif), is forced to deal with her relationship while close proximity to Saru, who is wary of her and her motivations for being on the Discovery and is plunged, along with the rest of the crew, into the infamous “mirror universe” where the Federation’s xenophobic counterpart, the Terran Empire, holds sway.

One of the great storytelling devices of all time is to throw the protagonist(s) into a very deep hole and see if they can claw their way out. I think that the creators of Discovery knew that this would be the only way to start the series out, with the Federation being faced with its greatest challenge; how does an organization dedicated to peace stay true to their beliefs in a time of crisis.

Since there has been little in the way of a historical accounting of the ten years prior to the adventures of the original Star Trek series, creators Bryan Fuller and Alex Kurtzman (who also was involved in the big screen “Kelvan Universe” films) decided that this would be a fertile ground to explore.

The biggest complaint that I have heard among critics and fans was simply, “This is not Star Trek.”

Star Trek, with the notable exception of Deep Space Nine, has been mainly about peacekeeping, diplomacy, seeking out new life forms and civilizations and boldly going where no one had gone before. And, under the dictum of creator Gene Roddenberry and his successors, Rick Berman and the late Michael Piller, personnel in Starfleet NEVER engage in significant personal conflicts (unless they are mentally ill, possessed by an alien life form or worse, whatever that might be) discouraged to show any basic human flaws. This rule has been inconstantly enforced at times over the course of the series but many a writer and producer have found out the hard way that while this may be noble cause in practice, but it is a hell of a roadblock for storytellers to hurdle on weekly basis.

Refreshingly (as far as I’m concerned), series creator Bryan Fuller and his team of producers decided to brilliantly defenestrate this rule in the very first episode and had its main character commit mutiny to put an exclamation point on it. “The rules of Starfleet remain the same,” producer Gretchen J. Berg told Entertainment Weekly in June of 2017. “But while we’re human or alien in various ways, none of us are perfect.”

I imagine that a lot of fans felt put out that these drastic variances in the series were completely outside of their previous experiences with Star Trek.  Factors such as the décor and uniforms not matching previous incarnations, the addition of openly LGBTQ characters or the introduction of more women and people of color and in command positions. But this is the 21st century and Discovery, by far, has the most diverse cast in the Star Trek canon, especially with the casting of people of different ethnicities in key roles and a black woman in the lead role.

Critics of Discovery also nitpicked about the aesthetics of the art and set direction (which Kurtzman freely admits was based on the current movie sets). Other complaints were aimed the design of the Klingon’s makeup and costumes; some enormous, balding prosthetics along with the organically baroque looking uniforms designed by Neville Page and Glenn Hetrick are reminiscent of the best work of the late H. R. Giger. I, for one, was not as bothered by all of that as much as I was by how slowl*y and deliberately the Klingon characters were speaking and acting.

Admittedly, this new look was very interesting and invigorating to me, a long time Star Trek watcher. But I rolled with it because I appreciated what these creators were doing, forging a new, sustainable path for Star Trek.

While most of the main storyline involved the redemptive path of Michael Burnham, I was also very intrigued and ultimately surprised by others, especially her ill-fated friendship with Ash Tyler, L’Rell’s long game of treachery, seeing the chemistry between Lt. Stamets and Dr. Culber (Wilson Cruz), the depths of duplicity committed by Captain Lorca and revelation of Tilly’s lofty career ambitions, which reach some shockingly surprising heights by her counterpart in the mirror universe. The only major criticism I have is that the bridge crew, as stalwart, loyal, upstanding and brave as they are, remain ciphers to me. I am hoping that the writers and producers have some big plans for including them in more storylines in season two.

THE biggest and most vocal objection I have read online or heard from fans and at conventions was CBS’s decision to place the series on its All-Access streaming channel after airing the first episode. Full disclosure; I signed up immediately for a monthly subscription immediately. Because (a) I liked what I saw and (b) the freaking cliffhanger!

My continuing subscription is $5.99 a month, which comes out to a little over $2.50 an episode for the fifteen episodes of the first season. I am still paying. Why, you might ask? Because that nearly $6.00 a month not only grants me access to thousands of hours of CBS programming (Hello Perry Mason and NCIS and Medium), it also supports original programming like Discovery, The Good Fight (a sequel to The Good Wife) and the just announced revival of The Twilight Zone which will be produced by the newly minted media mega-hyphenate and Oscar nominee, Jordan Peele. Other shows, genre and otherwise are currently in development.

And Discovery was not cheaply made. The actual cost of each episode of Discovery was estimated to be between $8 and 8.5 million dollars each, the cost of a small independent film!

It’s been twelve years since a Star Trek series was on the air. Would Discovery have been a smash hit if were broadcast on cable or the network instead of streaming? It’s certainly possible. But it’s already a moot point; Star Trek: Discovery was considered so successful from CBS’s point of view in the form of paid subscriptions, that they ordered a second season in October of last year the day after the sixth episode aired.

I have encountered people who think that the shows they love should be available at no charge. But someone is paying and it is you. Television shows produced for legacy networks and syndication were never really “free. They charge a premium price to allow advertisers to showcase products on programs and in turn, those costs have been passed along to you, the consumer, through the prices of those products you buy. As the decades have passed, this business model has been changing; first, the advent of cable eroded traditionally huge audiences for networks, and further divided them as hundreds of cable channels were created, giving the limited pool of viewers an unprecedented amount of material to see.

So, for better or worse, this may be the model that the broadcast networks may follow in the next decade.  And the success of Star Trek: Discovery is just another indication that it works.

Like it or not, welcome to the future. And if you love Star Trek, you’ll be there, too.

(Just a word of warning: The photo is actually an Instagram post from August of 2015 and has been photoshopped to convey the message above.  BUT, in this December 2017 interview from Gulf News, Sir Patrick gave his enthusiastic approval to discovery (even though he hasn’t seen the show yet) so that is my justification for including it here. Discretion is advised for using it , but, what the hell, it’s cute!

Cats Sleep on SFF: Rivers of London

Hampus Eckerman shares a wide-awake cat in front of a wide variety of paperbacks:

Here’s Vlad, not sleeping and about 10 seconds from wrecking havoc among the SF-books I’m trying to pack for my Australia trip. Among 5-6 ended up on the floor and the dreaded toothbrush nemesis was defeated once again.


Photos of your felines resting on genre works are welcome. Send to mikeglyer (at) cs (dot) com

HWA Awards 2018 Scholarship From Hell

The Horror Writers Association has announced that Kenesha Williams has been picked to receive the 2018 Scholarship From Hell.

The scholarship provides a for travel, accommodation, and membership in HWA’s StokerCon™ — held this year in Providence, RI — where the winner participates in Horror University, a series of intensive writing workshops taught by top industry professionals.

Scholarship From Hell applicants submit a 250-word essay outlining their goals in attending the convention; the winner is chosen by the convention’s chairs.

Kenesha Williams

“We read dozens and dozens of excellent essays this year,” said HWA President Lisa Morton, “but Kenesha had exactly the right combination of dedication to the craft of writing and to the genre that we look for.”

Kenesha Williams is an independent author, speaker, and Founder/Editor-in-Chief of Black Girl Magic Literary Magazine. She took to heart the advice, “If you don’t see a clear path for what you want, sometimes you have to make it yourself,” and created a speculative fiction literary magazine featuring characters that were representative of the diversity of Black womanhood. She has happily parlayed her love for the weird and the macabre into Black Girl Magic Literary Magazine, finding the best in undiscovered talent in speculative fiction. She currently lives in the DC Metro Area with her husband and three little boys.

Pixel Scroll 2/25/18 I, Pixel

By JJ:

(1) ALSO #METOO. In a follow-on to Myke Cole’s mea culpa as reported in the February 15 Pixel Scroll (item #3) about a thread on industry harassment at School Library Journal, author Janci Patterson, in a post entitled “Sexual Harassment, Apologies, and Forgiveness” explains how Cole’s willingness to own, and apologize for, his past behavior has made a huge difference in her life:

That is what it was like being a woman in publishing who had been harassed. I watched people discrediting the women who spoke up on the basis of their comments being anonymous. If it was true, why would they need anonymity?

I knew why. After Zoe Quinn, women in my position all know. We are all one internet post away from being Zoe Quinn.

And then Myke apologized. If you haven’t yet, take a minute and read what he wrote. What he says describes my experience exactly. It’s a damn good apology. He admits to what he did, in specific terms. He expresses that he was unaware that he did it, but he doesn’t treat that as an excuse. He addresses his victims directly and says he’s sorry. He expresses additional sorrow. He talks about both what he’s going to do to make reparations and also how he’s going to address his behavior going forward.

Reading that changed the whole world for me. I had been watching the cultural shifts in our post-#metoo, post-Weinstein-scandal world, but for me, this was the final piece. In that moment, I went from a scared woman with a difficult secret to a woman who could speak authentically. Who could tell the truth. No one could jump on me in any kind of credible way anymore. It was true. It happened. Myke admitted it was true. He saw the hypocrisy in his feminism. He owned it.

He set me free.

Another SFF author who was mentioned in the comments on the SLJ thread, Dan Wells, also posted his thoughts on harassment and being willing to step up and do better:

I have always believed that you should believe a woman who says she’s been harassed, so I believe these women, too.

And then I was accused of being a harasser.

And then the same woman recanted her accusation.

I do not know who this woman is, as she posted anonymously both times, but I want to take this opportunity to pubicly accept her apology, and to thank her for coming forward.

But here’s the thing: I believed her. Obviously I didn’t believe that I had assaulted someone and then forgotten about it, or anything ridiculous like that. But I was – and am – willing to believe that without intending to and without noticing I had done something to make a woman feel uncomfortable or unwelcome or unsafe…

I could have raged against the injustice of this comment – and to be perfectly honest, a part of me did – but the more useful, more helpful response was to sit down and take a good hard look at myself and my actions. What have I been doing, and what can I do in the future, to make the conventions I attend and the spaces I inhabit safer for other people?

Recanted accusation or not, I found some stuff I need to work on. Not a long history of abusive behavior, but a tune-up on boundaries, and on thinking before I speak.

(2) THE LATTER IS NOT RECOMMENDED. SFF author Jeremiah Tolbert spent last Saturday at the Planet ComicCon Kansas City 2018, and he says, “ComicCons Are More Fun With Children. You Should Make Some, or Steal Somebody’s”.

So given that I’m not big on photos with famous people (but definitely not above walking past autograph alley to oogle them and say, without fail, “oh, they’re shorter than I expected”), and I am not really a collector of toys or comics, why would I ever attend these things? Two simple reasons: to meet up with professionals attending who are good friends and to watch my tiny human
lose.
his.
shit.
Little Dude Tolbert (hereafter referred to LDT) will be four in June, and he’s developing into quite the little protogeek.

 

(3) CONTRACTUALLY DEFICIENT. In a public post on Patreon, Jason Sanford reported:

Since the first of the year I’ve written a couple of times about Spectacle Magazine, a new quarterly speculative fiction publication (see here and here for previous articles). The magazine is published and edited by Kevin Hale and Danny Dumas and aims to be a high-end venue for thought-provoking fiction and non-fiction focused on SF/F themes.

Three days ago the Spectacle’s editors sent out a number of story acceptances. Normally you’d expect authors to be excited about acceptances, but news quickly spread that many of them were not happy with the contract terms being offered. I personally had multiple authors contact me about issues around the contracts they were offered…

There are several issues there, including with derivative rights. At worst this derivative rights grab could allow Spectacle to create films or video games or nearly anything else using the stories they purchased and the authors wouldn’t be able to object.

There are also other issues with the contract, such as not laying out when the work would be published or that the rights will revert to the author in the case the story is never published.

Shortly afterward, Spectacle Magazine published the following tweet:

Another author on Twitter noted, with astonishment:

(4) DEADLINE EXTENDED. Worldcon 76 has announced that the deadline for submissions to their Academic Track have been extended to March 1, 2018:

Participants in the Academic Track will have a chance at winning a “Best Academic Track Paper” cash prize from The Heinlein Society.  This $250 prize will be awarded based on the presentations as given at Worldcon 76.  Given this new opportunity, we will extend the submission deadline to March 1st.

Details on submitting can be found at the Worldcon 76 website.

(5) THIS IS THE FUTURE THAT FILERS WANT. Via Foz Meadows:

http://peppylilspitfuck.tumblr.com/post/171099260572/fozmeadows-majorgenerally-writing-prompt-s

(6) TAKING CREDIT. Kristine Kathryn Rusch, in her latest column “Business Musings: Editorial Encroachment”, comments on the recent trend she’s been seeing of editors requiring equal authorial credit on books:

Last week, as I was searching for a friend’s book on Amazon, I made a loathsome discovery. My friend’s book, which is up for preorder, lists her name and the name of someone else on the byline.

I had never heard of that someone else. So I clicked on the preorder, and what did I see? A cover, with just my friend’s name on it.

So I glanced up at the title. Beneath it was this byline:

My Friend (Author), Annoying Person (Editor)

I went through the roof. My friend wrote that book. She hired Annoying Person to edit the book.

I looked up Annoying Person and found her terms and conditions. She sounds like a fairly knowledgeable editor. She only handles copy editing and line editing (although it sounds like she would have a pretty heavy hand). She explicitly says she does not do developmental editing.

Which means she has done exactly nothing on this book. She didn’t come up with the concept. She didn’t brainstorm the characters. She didn’t improve the plot. She didn’t imagine the setting.

All she did was tweak the words.

So why the hell is she getting credit for this book?

Rusch explains in detail why she believes that going along with this is damaging to an author’s brand, and offers advice to authors who are faced with such contracts by their editors.

(7) CHESHIRE CATS. In a Twitter thread, lindsay beth explains how your SJW Credential always manages to magically appear, despite not having been in any of the places you’ve looked: (click the date/time stamp to read the whole thread)

(8) NEBULOSITY. Filer Cora Buhlert has posted “Some Thoughts on the 2017 Nebula Award Nominees”, and offers her thoughts on the shortlists of the various categories as well as some possible trends.

In general, what’s notable about the adult fiction categories is that Uncanny dominates the short fiction categories, followed by Tor.com and Clarkesworld. Tor.com absolutely dominates the novella category, while Orbit dominates best novel. The decline of the big three print magazines continues. F&SF and Asimov’s managed to garner one nomination each, while Analog didn’t get any at all. Only a single nominee in the fiction categories is self-published. Thematically, I don’t see a clear trend beyond a preferences for works with historical settings.

Buhlert’s piece contains more detailed analysis of individual entries, as well as of the levels of diversity reflected by the shortlist authors.

 

(9) DOCTOR WHEN. The Gallifrey Times says that during the February 21 BBC Worldwide Showcase Panel at Liverpool’s Echo Arena, it appeared to be confirmed that Doctor Who will be returning in October 2018.

In the background, we see a promotional photo of the Thirteenth Doctor with some text that reads:

Series 11 – 1×65 – 9×50 – delivers October 2018

You can view the Liverpool Echo’s photo gallery of the event here.

(10) ACHIEVEMENT GATEKEPT. Experienced gamer and blogger Mysty Vander describes how she conquered her social anxiety to attend a gaming convention in 2017, only to be confronted with outrageous sexism, in “Honey, Let the Real Gamers Play”:

We reached a point where my Gunslinger passed a search check nobody else did. I had found a letter. My character was quiet, stoic, and kept to herself – she likely would only divulge the necessary information. When the GM took the letter out, he handed it to the man playing Freya instead of myself. Okay…that’s fine, not a big deal, as long as I get to read it in the end (being partially deaf at a convention, I truly needed to read it with my own eyes to understand all of it).

That didn’t quite happen. Freya’s player read it, passed it along to the older man beside him, and then the note went no further. “Oh, so we need to find the South Gate?” Freya inquired.

The player beside him responded, “Seems like it,” and handed the note back to the GM.

“May I see the note?” I asked.

Without hesitation, the player playing Freya responded, “No need, we know what it meant, sweetie,” he said with a smile.

(11) JUMPING ON THE MAPWAGON. The February 19 Pixel Scroll (item #9), mentions an artist who has done Lord of the Rings-style maps of UK and US National Parks. Kim Huett points out that an Australian artist has done a map of Canberra in the style of Game of Thrones.

(12) BIRTHDAYS.

  • Born February 25, 1966Alexis Denisof (The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy)
  • Born February 25, 1966Téa Leoni (Deep Impact, Jurassic Park III)
  • Born February 25, 1971Sean Astin (The Lord of the Rings, Stranger Things)
  • Born February 25, 1986Jameela Jamil (The Good Place)

(13) BUG REPORTS. In xkcd’s 2018 CVE List, Randall Munroe details the most recently-discovered Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures of software, of which we must all be wary. Be sure to mouseover the image for a special Security Disclosure.

(14) DEBUNKING THE MYTHS. In “Hugo Myth Season Again”, Cheryl Morgan dispels the idea that nominators must have read exhaustively in order to be legitimate nominators:

Voting is open for this year’s Hugo Awards, and consequently I need to get back to dispelling the strange ideas about the Hugos that seem to proliferate at this time of the year.

This post has been inspired in particular by the latest episode of the Coode Street Podcast where Gary and Jonathan do their usual fine job, but don’t quite get everything right.

Something that they do get right is the “I haven’t read enough” myth. Every year people trot out the idea that if you haven’t read “everything” then you are not eligible to nominate. This is nonsense.

However, Morgan says that there is another persistent myth to which even the Coode Street Regulars have fallen, which must be corrected:

Finally we come to the bit where the podcast goes totally off the rails. Jonathan resurrects one of the best known zombies of Hugo lore, the idea that the Hugos were once for science fiction only and were later changed to include fantasy. This is not entirely Jonathan’s fault. He got the story from Justin Ackroyd. I have had this discussion with Justin before. He was wrong then and he is still wrong now.

 

(15) I GOT YOUR EXHIBIT RIGHT HERE. Filer von Dimpleheimer, after seeing the announcement in the February 18 Pixel Scroll (item #21) that the exhibit “A Conversation Larger Than the Universe: Science Fiction and the Literature of the Fantastic from the Collection of Henry Wessells” would be taking place at The Grolier Club, stopped by when he was in the neighborhood. You can see his photos of the exhibit here.

– photo by von Dimpleheimer

(16) INADVERTENT DOXXING. In an article entitled “Furry Website Leaks Real Identities”, Medium contributor Sky raises some issues for concern regarding the registration software system used by a number of fannish conventions.

A “feature” in the popular convention registration system ‘Convention Master’ lets anyone find out your fursona name just by typing your real name.

The software is used widely by many conventions, especially in the furry scene. Civet Solutions, the maker of the software, boast “over one hundred and fifty thousand registrations processed.” If you’ve ever attended a furry convention, there’s decent odds they have your data on file… and are now leaking it with no plans to ever stop.

During online pre-registration, you enter your first and last name to see if you have an account at that convention. Unfortunately, anyone can do this. If you’ve ever pre-registered for that convention, or registered on site in a previous year, you have an account. And everyone can see you’ve attended that con with just your first and last name.

Even worse, your fursona name is also displayed.

Yep, that’s right. Anyone can find your fursona name if they know your real name.

Known affected furry cons:

  • Alamo City Furry Invasion
  • Califur
  • Fur-Eh!
  • Furlandia
  • Pacific Anthropomorphics Weekend
  • Scotiacon
  • Vancoufur
  • Wild Prairie Fur Con

Known affected non-furry cons:

  • Arisia
  • RustyCon

The article’s author discusses potential personal and professional implications of the public accessibility of members’ information, as well as possible avenues for remediation. They have also added a follow-up:

UPDATE NOTE: This article was updated with a section of feedback from Civet Solutions at the end of the article. Although the real name look-up feature in question will unfortunately not be removed from the software in future, I encourage you to read the update over to better understand their point of view and their future development plans.

(17) OLD PEOPLE READ YOUR SFF. In the past, James Davis Nicoll took requests on a commission basis only. However, he has now opened a Suggestion Box. There’s no guarantee that the work you suggest will be reviewed; however, submissions are welcome.

(18) YOU SHOULD SEE THIS. At Skiffy and Fanty, Stephen Geigen-Miller offers his “Best Graphic Story Hugo Recommendations”:

One of my biggest personal goals with these reviews – I mention this in the introduction to every column, and unpacked it a bit in my Month of Joy post – is to bring more, and different, deserving SFFnal comics, webcomics and graphic novels to the attention of SF&F readers.

That’s especially important when when it gets to be Hugo nomination season; I want to see a diverse, inclusive, smart Best Graphic Story category that reflects the breadth of the material that’s out there, and I want other genre readers to have the chance to find and fall in love with those comics, like I have.

(19) WHY SETI IS CONTRAINDICATED.

(20) ANNIHILATED. At The Verge, Annihilation and Ex Machina director Alex Garland talks about using sci-fi to explore self-destruction:

I think the main thematic preoccupation probably belongs primarily to the film, which is really about self-destruction. It’s about the nature of self-destruction in a literal sense: cells have life cycles and stars have life cycles and plants and the universe and us. You, me, everyone. But also psychological forms of self-destruction.

It was born out of a funny kind of preoccupation I started to have, that everybody is self-destructive, which is a strange thing to notice. I think a lot of self-destruction is very obvious. [Gestures to cigarettes on the table.] That’s an obvious self-destruction, right? And if a friend of yours is a heroin addict or an alcoholic, that’s an obvious kind of self-destruction. But there are also… You’ve also got friends, or people you encounter, who are super comfortable in their own skin, and very self-possessed, and feel like they have understood some sort of secret to existence that you’re not party to. And then you start to see, no, that’s not quite right. It’s more complicated than that. And fissures and fault lines appear, and between the fissures and the fault lines, you see bits of behavior that doesn’t really make sense – like they’re dismantling things in their lives for no good reason.

In “People Have Accused Annihilation of Whitewashing. Here’s How Its Director and Stars RespondedTIME Magazine reports:

Anticipation for the movie has been high since the release of the first trailer last fall. But recently, some, including the advocacy group Media Action Network for Asian Americans, have accused the film of whitewashing the roles played by Portman’s and Leigh’s characters, saying the characters on which they are based are of Asian descent and Native American descent, respectively, in the trilogy. In a statement, Alieesa Badreshia, an MANAA board member, said that writer-director Alex Garland “exploits the story but fails to take advantage of the true identities of each character.”

Others have pointed out that revelations of the two characters’ ethnic backgrounds are not made until subsequent books in the series.

In response to the criticism, Garland provided the following statement to TIME:

This is an awkward problem for me, because I think whitewashing is a serious and real issue, and I fully support the groups drawing attention to it.

But the characters in the novel I read and adapted were not given names or ethnicities. I cast the film reacting only to the actors I met in the casting process, or actors I had worked with before. There was no studio pressure to cast white. The casting choices were entirely mine.

As a middle-aged white man, I can believe I might at times be guilty of unconscious racism, in the way that potentially we all are. But there was nothing cynical or conspiratorial about the way I cast this movie.

While Portman, Leigh and Novotny are white, co-stars Thompson and Rodriguez are women of color. Oscar Isaac, who plays Portman’s character’s husband in the film, is of Guatemalan and Cuban descent.

 

[Thanks to Cora Buhlert, James Davis Nicoll, Jason Sanford, Kim Huett, RedWombat, ULTRAGOTHA, and von Dimpleheimer for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 Contributing Editor of the Day JJ.]

Tähtivaeltaja Award 2018 Shortlist

The Tähtivaeltaja (“Star Rover”) Award finalists have been posted. The award goes to the best science fiction book published in Finland in the previous year,

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.

  • Tuomo Jäntti: Verso (Gummerus)
  • Heikki Kännö: Mehiläistie (Sammakko)
  • Jukka Laajarinne: Pinnan alla pimeä (Atena)
  • David Mitchell: Luukellot (Sammakko, suom. Einari Aaltonen)
  • Jani Saxell: Tuomiopäivän karavaani (WSOY)

2018 D.I.C.E. Video Game Awards

The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) presented the 21st annual D.I.C.E. awards on February 22 at a ceremony following the 2018 D.I.C.E. (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) Summit.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was the night’s most-awarded game, receiving four awards, while Cuphead earned a total of three awards.

The D.I.C.E. Awards also celebrated Genyo Takeda, Special Corporate Advisor at Nintendo, with a Lifetime Achievement Award. He was recognized for having been at the forefront of shaping the video games hardware industry in his career-long tenure at Nintendo with the development of the Nintendo 64, Nintendo GameCube and the Wii system.

The AIAS membership honored video games in 24 award categories:

Game of the Year

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

  • Publisher: Nintendo
  • Developer: Nintendo

Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

  • Publisher: Nintendo
  • Developer: Nintendo

Outstanding Achievement in Game Design

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

  • Publisher: Nintendo
  • Developer: Nintendo

Immersive Reality Technical Achievement

Lone Echo/Echo Arena

  • Publisher: Oculus Studios
  • Developer: Ready At Dawn

Immersive Reality Game of the Year

Lone Echo/Echo Arena

  • Publisher: Oculus Studios
  • Developer: Ready At Dawn

Mobile Game of the Year

Fire Emblem Heroes

  • Publisher: Nintendo
  • Developer: INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS and Nintendo

Handheld Game of the Year

Metroid: Samus Returns

  • Publisher: Nintendo
  • Developer: MercurySteam and Nintendo

D.I.C.E. Sprite Award

Snipperclips

  • Publisher: Nintendo
  • Developer: SFB Games

Outstanding Achievement in Online Gameplay

PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS

  • Publisher: Bluehole
  • Developer: PUBG Corporation

Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle

  • Publisher: Ubisoft Entertainment
  • Developer: Ubisoft Milan and Ubisoft Paris

Sports Game of the Year

FIFA 18

  • Publisher: Electronic Arts
  • Developer: Electronic Arts

Role-Playing Game of the Year

NierR: Automata

  • Publisher: Square Enix
  • Developer: PlatinumGames

Racing Game of the Year

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

  • Publisher: Nintendo
  • Developer: Nintendo

Fighting Game of the Year

Injustice 2

  • Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
  • Developer: NetherRealm Studios

Family Game of the Year

Snipperclips

  • Publisher: Nintendo
  • Developer: SFB Games

Adventure Game of the Year

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

  • Publisher: Nintendo
  • Developer: Nintendo

Action Game of the Year

PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS

  • Publisher: Bluehole
  • Developer: PUBG Corporation

Outstanding Technical Achievement

Horizon Zero Dawn

  • Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
  • Developer: Guerrilla Games

Outstanding Achievement in Story

Horizon Zero Dawn

  • Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
  • Developer: Guerrilla Games

Outstanding Achievement in Sound Design

Super Mario Odyssey

  • Publisher: Nintendo
  • Developer: Nintendo

Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition

Cuphead

  • Publisher: StudioMDHR
  • Developer: StudioMDHR

Outstanding Achievement in Character

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice – Senua

  • Publisher: Ninja Theory
  • Developer: Ninja Theory

Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction

Cuphead

  • Publisher: StudioMDHR
  • Developer: StudioMDHR

Outstanding Achievement in Animation

Cuphead

  • Publisher: StudioMDHR
  • Developer: StudioMDHR

 

A Strange Discovery in China

By Carl Slaughter: Got a real treat for you.  Under the east train station in Guangzhou, China, is the Po Park Mall.  At the entrance to the Po Park Mall, next to the Food Republic food court, is a statue of Dr. Strange.  One of the signs says in English and Chinese, “Photo only.  Don’t damage me.”  Another sign has the Marvel logo.  Here are photos of the signs, a full body photo of the Dr. Strange statue, and a head shot of the statue.

Marvel and More: A Superhero Roundup

Compiled by Carl Slaughter:

BLACK PANTHER

  • Marvel Studios’ Black Panther – Warriors of Wakanda

  • Black Panther / Fantastic Four animated episode

  • How the Black Panther’s suit works

To bring Wakanda, Black Panther’s fictional African nation, to the screen, director Ryan Coogler and his crew travelled throughout Africa and drew from various African cultures and practices to create a new African nation….

  • Wesley Snipes as the Black Panther

“5 ways Wesley Snipes would have made a vastly different ‘Black Panther'”

Before Blade, Wesley Snipes tried and failed to get a Black Panther movie made. It would have been dramatically different from the new film.

“Wesley Snipes Remembers Trying to Get ‘Black Panther’ Made in 1992: ‘There Were Three Scripts Penned’”

Snipes recently joined Variety for an interview in which he looked back at trying to adapt “Black Panther” for the big screen in 1992. Snipes felt the material was rich enough to appeal to all kinds of audience demographics, and he was particularly excited about the character’s utilization of African martial arts.

“We thought it would be very cool and atypical for a Marvel comic-book character,” Snipes said of “Black Panther.” “Something that would be appeal to white people, black people, Asian people, and have some martial arts in it and expose the world of Africa in a way that most people were unfamiliar with and very contrary to the stereotypes that are projected about the continent.”

AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.

“Jemma, it’s me. Don’t turn around. Just play it cool…. Oh, I’ve missed you so much. I spent six months locked up in an off-the-books military prison, not to mention 80 years frozen in space, all just hoping to find you. But here you are…. You know, I realized something: the universe can’t stop us, because we have crossed galaxies, we have traveled through time, we survived the bottom of the Atlantic just so we could be together. And a love like that, that is stronger than ANY curse. You and I, we are UNSTOPPABLE together. I don’t want to live another day without you. So Jemma Simmons, will you marry me?”  –  Fitz to Simmons, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., season 5, episode 6

Warning: This story contains major spoilers from Tuesday’s episode of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Read at your own risk!

Friday’s episode of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was, quite literally, a bloodbath.

Though Fitz (Iain de Caestecker) suggested the Destroyer of Worlds take part in a fight to the death, Daisy (Chloe Bennet) was one of the few who did not die. Telepathic Inhuman Ben (Myko Olivier) was killed for lying to Kasius (Dominic Rains). Tess (Eve Harlow) was strung up for protecting new Inhuman Flint (Coy Stewart), who killed Grill (Pruitt Taylor Vince) to save Coulson (Clark Gregg) & Co. from being turned over to Kasius. May’s (Ming-Na Wen) fate hangs in the balance after being sent to the surface of the Earth. Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) slit Kasius’ throat, so he might be dead.

“She’s a great cause and she takes action, so there’s so many things going on socially from the 50s to when she passes, that I think she’d have loved to be a part of, There are so many things so could have been a part of, and probably did do. It could probably fill another season, I’m sure. I hope.”

OTHER SUPERHEROES

  • Top 10 Superhero Origin Story Movies

  • Best superhero opening scenes

The point is, while the Rotten Tomatoes score of a certain movie or TV show certainly helps bring some clarity to whether or not it’s worth watching, it often doesn’t tell the whole story. That said, chances are that if a television show was canceled after just one season (like so many shows on this list were), then it likely had a crappy score on Rotten Tomatoes.

With that in mind, it got us thinking, what are the superhero shows with the worst Rotten Tomatoes scores of all-time? While some of the items on this list have a decent Rotten Tomatoes score, they’re only included because most (basically all) of the superhero cartoons ever made aren’t rated on the website, nor are many older shows.

So without further ado, these are the 15 Worst Superhero Shows Ever (According To Rotten Tomatoes).

15. Gotham (78%)

  • Superheroes who died in 2017

  • Jodie Foster on superhero movies:

“Jodie Foster Slams Superhero Movies, Compares Studios’ “Bad Content” To Fracking”

In an interview with the magazine version of Radio Times (via DailyMail), Foster, who recently directed the “Arkangel” episode in the fourth season of Black Mirror, did not hold back when talking about movies of the Marvel and DC variety saying, “Going to the movies has become like a theme park.”

She added, “Studios making bad content in order to appeal to the masses and shareholders is like fracking — you get the best return right now but you wreck the earth.” Then in a final jab she said, “It’s ruining the viewing habits of the American population and then ultimately the rest of the world.”

“Director James Gunn Calls Jodie Foster’s Superhero Take-Down ‘Old-Fashioned’”

Gunn certainly isn’t dismissing Foster’s opinion completely, but he does think she’s being a bit out-dated. “I think Foster looks at film in an old-fashioned way where spectacle film can’t be thought-provoking. It’s often true but not always.”

Gunn concedes that “most studio franchise films are somewhat soulless” but that creating “spectacle films that are innovative, humane and thoughtful is what excites me about this job.”

2018 Phoenix and Rebel Awards

Winners of three traditional DeepSouthCon awards were announced in Bowling Green, KY on February 24 during Concave 39, host of DSC 56.

The Phoenix Award is given to the professional (writer, editor or artist) who has done the most for Southern fandom. This year’s honoree is Joseph Green. His son-in-law, Guy H. Lillian III, summed up Green’s career: “Author of 7 published SF novels and 2 volumes of short stories, host for Apollo launches during the moon landing days, [and] founder of Greenhouse Scribes.”

The Rebel Award is awarded to the fan who has done the most for southern fandom. The 2018 winner is Rick Norwood, who is also the con’s Fan Guest of Honor.

The winner of the facetious Rubble Award, given to the individual who has done the most TO the Southern Fandom, was worthy of the name — it went to the broken sidewalk responsible for Claude Mills’ (the con chair) broken leg.

[Thanks to Rich Lynch for the story.]

Pixel Scroll 2/24/18 I Am Just A Pixel, Though My Story’s Seldom Scrolled

(1) HIGH CONCEPT. This quartet of movie posters for Solo features Han Solo, Qi’ra, Lando, and Chewie.

(2) WAIT A MINUTE. Mark Hamill is going to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. You mean he didn’t already have one? And this guy did? —

Trump was awarded a Walk of Fame star in 2007 for his role in reality series “The Apprentice.”

The official ceremony for Hamill’s star will take place on Mar. 8, according to Variety magazine. “Star Wars” creator George Lucas and Hamill’s costar, Harrison Ford, will assist in hosting the event.

(3) WORLDCON 76 PROGRESS REPORT 2. Available to read here [PDF file].

(4) MEXICANX INITIATIVE HITS 50. Worldcon 76 guest of honor John Picacio and supporters have reached a milestone:

WE DID IT. Thanks to my Mexicanx Initiative teammates, we have now reached our goal of 50(!!!) Sponsored Attending Memberships to Worldcon 76 in San Jose for deserving Mexicanx pros and fans. I had envisioned doing this since last August, but it was exactly one month ago that I was able to announce this endeavor. My good friend John Scalzi immediately joined in, and together with some amazing friends, here we are — ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED. My friends at ALAMO pushed us over the top with the final seven memberships! This was truly a team effort and you’re looking at everyone responsible for this win: John Scalzi Mary Robinette Kowal Chris Rose Fast Forward: Contemporary Science Fiction Ctein John O’Halloran Elizabeth McCarty Chris Brown Kate Elliott Kat Angeli Rina Elson Weisman Randall Shepherd Richard Flores IV Amazing Stories Worldcon 76 in San Jose Joanna Volpe, Ty Franck, Mur Lafferty, Christine O’ Halloran, BWAWA, and of course, Canadiense Anónima. Muchas gracias, all!

Picacio reveals there will be a follow-on fundraiser:

For those still wanting to contribute — ping me. I’ll share more on this tomorrow, but I’ve been building a secondary fund called ‘The Mexicanx Initiative Assistance Fund’, to assist with travel and food needs for Mexicanx facing an expensive journey to Worldcon 76 in San Jose. I’ve done this quietly, but it’s been building and it’s a complementary, but very separate fund from what we’ve achieved above. And yes, Worldcon’s treasury handles all the money. I never touch it. I just go get it.

(5) PROFESSIONAL DISCOURTESIES. John Picacio came back online later to chastize Terry Goodkind for belittling the artist of one of Goodkind’s book covers.

Heads up to everyone in the publishing industry: Authors, please take note, especially those new to the sf/f field — Pictured here is some of the most unprofessional behavior you will ever witness. This is a writer publicly throwing his cover artist under the bus, while embarrassing his publisher and their art director. This is the behavior of a child throwing a tantrum. It’s pathetic and it’s bush league. Never make the same mistake this guy just did. EVER. To Bastien Lecouffe-Deharme: Hold your head high. We’ve got your back.

And on Twitter they do have his back — lots of supportive tweets like these —

(6) NONFICTION FICTION. In “Why Adding Monsters and Fairies to a Memoir Can Make It Even More Real”, Matthew Cheney, Carmen Maria Machado, Rosalind Palermo Stevenson, and Sofia Samatar discuss the speculative memoir.

Sofia Samatar: Since I am starting this adventure, let me tell you why I chose to bring this particular group together. Carmen has written some of my favorite short stories, and one time when we were sharing a hotel room at a conference, I told her I’d been thinking about the intersection of memoir and speculative fiction, and she said she was actually working on a speculative memoir at the moment. Matt’s a fiction writer, too, and I invited him because, also at a conference, at some reception in a dark room, we were standing around with our paper plates, and he told me he was writing a dissertation on the blurry space between fiction and nonfiction, looking at Virginia Woolf and J.M. Coetzee and Samuel R. Delany. Rosalind is a brilliant writer, whose story “Insect Dreams” I have read many times. Her work plays with history and the fantastic, and recently she told me her new book is about the idea of the female Adam, and described it as a “hybrid” and a “faux autobiography.”

I started thinking about the idea of “speculative memoir” because I was a fantasy and science fiction writer whose work was becoming more and more autobiographical. Of course, all writing draws from experience, but there’s a particularly weird energy to writing memoir, in a deliberate way, in a fantastic or uncanny mode. It seems to announce a certain relationship to memory, and to experience. I wonder if each of you could start by talking a bit about this in relation to your own work. What do you find compelling about the concept of speculative memoir?

(7) REALLY EVERYTHING. Jeb Kinnison’s after action report about Life, The Universe & Everything 2018 covers some dimensions not heard about in the earlier File 770 account.

The LibertyCon contingent was well-represented, with local writers Larry Correia and Brad Torgersen, and Sarah Hoyt in from Colorado. Baen did its roadshow and the infamous Lawdog attended. While I met Larry briefly at LibertyCon two years back, I saw a lot more of him and his charming wife Bridget this time. We had listened to the audiobook of “Tom Stranger, Interdimensional Insurance Agent” (written by Larry, read by Adam Baldwin) on the drive up. As Larry’s media empire has grown and the movie options for some of his worlds are pending, it’s kind of a thrill that he now knows who I am and lets me hug him (his excuse being his arm was injured and couldn’t take too many handshakes.)

(8) NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED. Allegedly. “PETA Hands Out Awards to ‘Star Wars,’ ‘Jumanji’ for Being Animal-Friendly”.

From Star Wars: The Last Jedi to Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals on Thursday revealed the Hollywood actors and movies it recognizes for animal-friendly achievements this year with its first-ever Oscats Awards.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi nabbed the prizes for best live-action movie and best original screenplay for positive storylines, like Finn and Rose liberating fathiers used for racing and Chewbacca choosing not to eat a porg.

Wait a minute, in the movie I saw, Chewie already killed and cooked one of the damn things! How does PETA square giving an award after that?

(9) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • February 24, 1886Thomas Edison married Mina Miller. He wooed the 19-year-old woman via Morse code. Who says online dating is new?

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

  • Born February 24, 1786 — Wilhelm Karl Grimm, the younger of the two Brothers Grimm, is born in Hanau, Germany.
  • Born February 24, 1945Barry Bostwick (The Rocky Horror Picture Show)
  • Born February 24, 1947Edward James Olmos (Battlestar Galactica, Blade Runner 2049)
  • Born February 24, 1961Kasi Lemmons (Candyman, Vampire’s Kiss)
  • Born February 24, 1966Billy Zane (The Phantom, Back to the Future II)
  • Born February 24, 1970Ungela Brockman (Starship Troopers, Mystery Men)

(11) RELENTLESS. Kameron Hurley isn’t willing to coast: “From Good to Great: Starting With ‘Why'”.

It’s easy to stay motivated when you’re crushing yourself against a system. I loved being a young, scrappy writer in my 20’s, speaking truth to “the establishment,” and coming up through the slings and arrows of SFF publishing to claim my space within it. But what happens when you become the establishment? Do you just head off to do the movie deals, to expand your work to a new audience? Do you spend your time mentoring new writers? Do you just blurb a lot of books?

Accepting that I was an established author has been a hard road, for me. There are young people coming into SFF now who don’t know of an SFF without me in it. I’ve been publishing novels for seven years, which feels like a blink compared to my hard road to get here, but plenty of readers have come of age during those seven years, and for some that’s half or a third or a quarter of their lives. I know I have a long way to go, still. A huge career ahead. But I need to find my passion again for why I’m doing this. I have to find the why, or the road just stops here.

And, you know, I realize this sounds like, “Wah, wah, I got everything I wanted!” but I’ve seen how many people get stuck at “good” on the way to great. And I don’t want to just be good. I want to be great. To get to great requires continuous learning, interrogation of what you want, and leveling up again and again. So while I may not have all the steps mapped out to get me to “great” yet… at least that seems to be the place I want to reach. I don’t want to stop at good. I’ve gotten to good.

(12) HI-TECH INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY POSSE. Fast Company profiles copyright violation search services in “Here Come The Copyright Bots For Hire, With Lawyers In Tow”.

“I climbed up 900 stairs on an island to take a photo of the whole island, and it was used on the cover of a local magazine out there,” she says.

[Photographer Christy] Turner might not have known about the photo theft if not for a pair of services called Copypants and Pixsy, which use algorithms to scour the internet for copies of photographers’ work and help them enforce their rights. They send stern letters to suspected infringers, demanding that their clients be compensated or that licensing fees be paid; in some cases, law firms that work with the companies will even initiate a lawsuit on their behalf. In Turner’s case, justice came in the form of $500 in damages.

(13) SIDE BY SIDE. Cat Eldridge says, “One of the firm memes of sf is that new technologies always replace existing technologies. Reality is far messier than that meme which is why shows like Firefly makes sense.” Fast Company contends “The CD Business Isn’t Dying—It’s Just Evolving”.

…“We felt like the culture dictated that people were going to buy vinyl, not CDs,” says Kevin Farzad, Sure Sure’s drummer and percussionist. “And we were kind of surprised that more CDs sold than not.”

The band could be forgiven for assuming CDs wouldn’t sell. From their peak of $13.2 billion in 2000, U.S. CD revenues have slid to just $1.2 billion in 2016, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. And as listeners flock to streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music, the CD’s decline isn’t slowing down. Earlier this month, Billboard reported that Best Buy will stop selling CDs in stores this summer, and that Target only wants to pay distributors for the CDs it actually sells. Some observers saw the news as a death blow to a fading format.

Yet it’s hard to reconcile that gloomy outlook with what’s happening in the indie music world, where the CD is still thriving. Earlier this week, the online music store Bandcamp reported 18% year-over-year growth in CD sales for 2017, up from 14% growth in 2016. (Bandcamp declined to comment for this story.)

(14) JOBS APPLICATION. History on the block: “Steve Jobs’s 1973 job application going on sale” and is expected to fetch $50K.

It is not known what the application was for, nor whether Jobs was successful.

He wrote his name as “Steven jobs” and his address as “reed college”, the school he attended briefly in Portland, Oregon before dropping out.

On the form, Jobs responded “yes” to having a driving licence but when asked if he had access to a car he wrote “possible, but not probable”.

Next to “Phone” the creator of the iPhone wrote “none”.

(15) PROXY CANCERS. In-vitro repro of specific tumors lets oncologists test drug efficacy without testing patients: “‘Mini-tumours’ created to battle cancer”.

Scientists have been able to predict how cancer patients will respond to therapy by growing miniature versions of their tumours in the laboratory.

They say the groundbreaking work could lead to “smarter, kinder and more effective treatments”.

The study, in the journal Science, was 100% accurate at telling which drugs would fail and this could spare patients from unnecessary side-effects.

Mini-tumours could also be a powerful way of testing new drugs.

(16) BEST HORROR. The cover for Ellen Datlow’s The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Ten, has been revealed:

(17) MEDIA TIE-IN. In the Washington Post, DeNeen L. Brown interviews Jesse Holland, who wrote the Black Panther novelization while spending a semester as the distinguished visiting professor of the ethics of journalism at the University of Arkansas: “He loved ‘Black Panther’ comics as a kid. Then Marvel asked him to write a novel for the movie.”

Holland, who teaches nonfiction writing at Goucher College outside Baltimore, had already written four books, including “The Invisibles: The Untold Story of African American Slaves in the White House,” when Marvel approached him.

They’d seen his companion novel for another blockbuster movie: “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” He’d written about Finn, a former First Order stormtrooper.

After “Finn’s Story” was published in 2016, an editor at Marvel called Holland. “She says, ‘We have this character, the Black Panther,’?” Holland recalled. “There’s never been a novel about the Black Panther.”

Marvel wanted to recount the origin of the Black Panther in novel form, update the story and introduce the superhero to new readers.

“Most of the world didn’t know the character until last year,” Holland said. “If you want a succinct origin story to tell you who he is, my novel is a good place to start. You’ll see a lot of characters in the movie in the novel. We are drawing from the same wellspring.”

(18) WAKANDA WEAR. Yahoo! Entertainment’s Gwynne Watkins, in “Behind ‘Black Panther’: The hidden meanings of those stunning Wakanda costumes”, looks at the costume designers for Black Panther and what statements they were trying to make in describing a country that had never been conquered by colonial powers.

Yahoo Entertainment: The concept of Wakanda as an African nation that was never colonized by the Dutch or British is so powerful. How did that inform your design choices?
Ruth Carter: 
I discovered so many things about Africa that I didn’t know — like, the cloth that we normally see in many African-inspired things, the wax cloth, was brought in from the Dutch. There are influences of the British; when you see a Nigerian wedding, you’ll see a Nigerian traditional drape and a guy with a top hat on. [laughs] So you have to dig deeper and go to the indigenous tribes of Africa. You’re not a real historian, you’re just kind of the temporary historian for the picture, so you’re looking at beadwork and you’re looking at carvings and you’re looking at masks. And you’re being inspired by patterns. There are a couple of patterns that I saw repeated throughout the continent: one is like a checkerboard, another one is a triangle.

And I looked at books on African ceremonies, since ceremonies reminded me of precolonization. So for example, the Dogon tribe were the first astronomers. They do a ceremony once a year where they adorn themselves in these brilliant raffia skirts and wood-carving masks that shoot up to the stars — they’re really tall. And they do these moves that sweep the earth….

(19) NOW BOARDING. Flying to Wakanda? Your connecting flight is ready in Atlanta.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is getting into the Marvel movie spirit by jokingly offering flights to Wakanda — the fictional country from Black Panther.

The airport tweeted out a digitally altered image of gate T3 showing its destination as Wakanda, the kingdom ruled by King T’Challa, aka the Black Panther, in the eponymous super hero film.

 

[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, Cat Eldridge, John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, Chip Hitchcock, and Carl Slaughter for some of these stories, Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Peer.]