Editor Sheila Williams’ overview of the eligible work, “Our Year in Review” begins —
I’ve enjoyed every story that ran in Asimov’s is this past year. What makes a story special is often obvious, but sometimes the gems are hidden. That’s why I’m once again reflecting on the 33 short stories, 22 novelettes, and 11 novellas that appeared in our pages (or on our electronic devices) in 2018. It’s a coincidence that each of those categories contains repeating integers, but the high-entertainment value of each tale is not coincidental. Since we’re doing at least one podcast per issue, you’ll find links to these recordings as well. A word of warning: this is a highly opinionated and spoiler-filled essay. e0a1b
Entries in the Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award writing contest are
being accepted through February 1, 2019. See rules and specifications at the
site.
Judging will be by Baen Books editors Hank Davis,
Jim Minz, Tony Daniel, David Afsharirad, and Baen author David Drake.
Ten finalists will be announced no later than March 8, 2019.
The GRAND PRIZE winner will be published as the featured story on the Baen Books main website and paid at the normal paying rates for professional story submittals, currently .07/word. The author will also receive an engraved award, free entry into the 2019 International Space Development Conference, a year’s membership in the National Space Society and a prize package containing various Baen Books and National Space Society merchandise.
SECOND and THIRD place winners will receive free entry into the 2019 International Space Development Conference, a year’s membership in the National Space Society and a prize package containing various Baen Books and National Space Society merchandise.
The three winners will be announced and notified no later than March 22, 2019. The winners will be honored at the 2019 International Space Development Conference in Arlington, VA, June 6-9 2019.
The AnLab ballot comes pre-loaded with all the eligible works.
From short stories and novellas to novelettes and poems – and even best covers! – let us know your Analog Science Fiction and Fact favorites this year. Winners join the pantheon of Analog authors who represent the Who’s Who of science fiction writers over the past thirty years.
(1) RECONCILIATION AT
ARISIA. When Arisia, the controversy-plagued Boston convention, takes place
this weekend they plan to face up to their troubles with a Reconciliation
track of 15 program items —
Arisia 2019 will offer a special Programming track called “Reconciliation”. These sessions will provide attendees opportunities to communicate about recent events involving the Arisia community, the convention itself, and Arisia, Inc. (our parent corporation).
Sessions use several approaches, allowing space for our community’s diversity. These methods range from silent work an attendee can do with trained facilitators, to town-hall discussions allowing community members to share their feelings, reactions and desire for change. We will also have a set of “chill out” programming for people who want to decompress after this kind of emotional labor as well as training and workshops for people who want to contribute to making change happen and being part of rebuilding our community.
Arisia will be collecting all feedback given by attendees at the sessions listed below, and will attempt to address salient items at the State of Arisia Community Update on Monday. Arisia Leadership from both the Convention and Corporation will be in Feedback sessions to provide our community the opportunity to talk directly with them.
(2) RSR’S POLL INFO
RESOURCE. Rocket Stack Rank’s Eric
Wong has created a central place to find ballots for
SF/F awards that are open to all or open to members (of associations or
conventions). It has links to ballots, shows due dates, links to RSR resources
to help with voting such as longlists with story blurbs and scores and covers. http://www.rocketstackrank.com/p/2018-best-sff.html
The info will be updated as ballots for some awards close and others open.
Also of interest to fans is the Best SF/F section (below the SF/F Ballots), which if you expand it, shows the progress of the various award finalists + winners, year’s best anthologies, and reviewers recommendations that contribute to the score of each story. Currently, the scores are 32% complete, based on 0/26 awards announced, 1/7 year’s best anthologies TOCs shared, and 14/14 reviewers posted. The table shows expected dates for each award and year’s best, and the story scores will be updated with each release. Clicking on a completed award/year’s best/reviewer link will highlight the stories whose score was increased by that award/year’s best/reviewer.
Again and again, in M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass — the sequel to 2016’s Split, which was itself a stealth sequel to 2000’s Unbreakable — there are moments that should, by any reasonable measure, work. In the language of superhero films, they’re now-familiar turns of phrase that can be depended upon — and often have been depended upon — to elicit a jolt of adrenaline in the eager viewer.
Take the moment, late in the film, when a character heralds his return to super-form by finding a singular component of his old costume. Everything about the shot is set up to punch our buttons: The figure stands in stark silhouette. It’s filmed from a low, Spielbergian angle. The costume component in question unfurls with a dramatic snap and rustle painstakingly engineered by some hardworking Foley artist somewhere in Burbank, probably. The music swells to an insistent crescendo.
And yet … nothing.
Or the scene where another character dramatically intones his comic-book codename, then employs a [SOMETHING] to [ACT UPON] someone; and then — in case we missed it (we didn’t), we cut back to that previous shot of said character pronouncing his comic-book codename, which … oh, ha ha ha … we now realize, cheekily references the [SOMETHING]. (No spoilers.)
In any other film, that moment would provide the proceedings with a sardonic punch. Here, it’s just flat seltzer.
(4) YOLEN WINS AWARD. The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators
today announced the 2019 Golden Kite
and Sid Fleischman Awards, and sff author Jane Yolen was one of the
winners. [Via Locus Online.]
Young Adult Fiction:
Jane Yolen – MAPPING THE BONES (Philomel)
Influenced by Dr. Mengele’s sadistic experimentations, this story follows twins as they travel from the Lodz ghetto, to the partisans in the forest, to a horrific concentration camp where they lose everything but each other.
Tolkien, the biopic about The Lord of the Ringsauthor J.R.R. Tolkien starring Nicholas Hoult and Lily Collins, has had everything lined up as fans continue to buzz about the upcoming Amazon series based on his Lord of the Rings series. Now fans can mark on their calendars that director Dome Karukoski’s biopic will hit screens this summer on May 10.
Space colonization stories are a subgenre of SF. Space colonization stories in which the Earth has become a backwater world, cut off from thriving colony planets, are a thriving sub-subgenre.
At first glance, this seems odd. Earth is rich in resources and offers humans a shirt-sleeve environment . Why wouldn’t it continue to be the leader of the pack?
Sometimes it’s because we have trashed the Earth, rendering it uninhabitable….
(9) BARRETT OBIT. New
Zealand fan Mervyn Barrett died
January 16 in Wellington. At various times Barrett was active in the Melbourne MSFC, London, and New
Zealand fandoms. He’s credited with organizing the first New Zealand sf convention.
He was 86. One of his claims to fame was this article about the night the Melbourne club almost burned down
(from the 1975 Aussiecon program book).
…Anyhow, it was because of the activities of the film group that the Melbourne Science Fiction Club almost burnt down. I’d started the group and used to run it: hustling films and running the little Ampro 16mm projector. When I left, Paul Stevens took over the group and did all sorts of enterprising things like renting proper cinemas so that 35 mm films could be shown and stuff like that. Then, some time later, when an enthusiast who happened to own a couple of 35 mm film projectors joined the club, they installed these in the clubroom and started showing classic old movies – some of them on nitrate film. Mervyn Binns had complete confidence in the projectionist and the equipment. “This guy really knew what he was doing.” He told me, but the introduction of nitrate film into the clubroom was just too much for one of the members, who had the clubroom inspected by the Health Department and closed down as a fire hazard. Admittedly nitrate film has one or two unfortunate characteristics like becoming unstable with age and being just plain highly inflammable and becoming downright explosive. But even when this is coupled with the fact that the clubroom was on the top floor of a 90-year-old brick building with wooden floors, roof, ceilings and staircases, that it had no fire escape and that its only entrance was through a narrow wooden staircase (which McGill’s grudgingly allowed to be used when the lift was finally taken out of commission when the Melbourne Water Board decided it was no longer an economical proposition to go to the trouble of supplying compressed water for it) one still has difficulty seeing the reason for his excessive nervousness….
(10) TODAY IN HISTORY.
January 17, 1982 — The Ray Bradbury-penned “The Electric Grandmother” premiered on television.
January 17, 1992 — Freejack premiered in theaters with Mick Jagger as the bad guy.
(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled
by Cat Eldridge.]
Born January 17, 1899 – Nevil Shute. Author of On the Beach. It originally appeared as a four-part series, The Last Days on Earth, in the London weekly Sunday Graphic in April 1957. It was twice a film. He has other SF novels including An Old Captivity which involves time travel and No Highway which gets a review by Pohl in Super Science Stories, April 1949. There’s In the Wet and Vinland the Good as well. (Died 1960.)
Born January 17, 1927 – Eartha Kitt. Though you’ll have lots of folks remembering her as Catwoman from the original Batman, she appeared in but four episodes there. Genre wise, she was in such series as I-Spy, Mission: Impossible, Matrix, the animated Space Ghost Coast to Coast and the animated My Life as a Teenage Robot. Film wise, she played Freya in Erik the Viking, voiced Bagheera in The Jungle Book: Mowgli’s Story and was Madame Zeroni In Holes.(Died 2008.)
Born January 17, 1931 – James Earl Jones, 88. His first SF appearance was in Dr. Strangelove as Lt. Lothar Zogg. And I think I need not list all his appearances as Darth Vader here. Some genre appearances include Exorcist II: The Heretic, The Flight of Dragons, Conan the Barbarian as Thulsa Doom and I actually remember him in the role, Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold, did you the the 1995 Judge Dredd had a Narrator? Well he’s listed as doing it, and Fantasia 2000.
Born January 17, 1949 – Donald Palumbo, 70. Well someone has to take us seriously. In this case, it’s this scholar. He’s done such studies as Chaos Theory, Asimov’s Foundations and Robots, and Herbert’s Dune: the Fractal Aesthetic of Epic Science Fiction, Eros in the Mind’s Eye: Sexuality and the Fantastic in Art and Film and Worlds Apart?: Dualism and Transgression in Contemporary Female Dystopias. He has an interesting essay, “Reiterated Plots and Themes in the Robot Novels: Getting Away with Murder and Overcoming Programming” in Foundation, #80 Autumn 2000.
Born January 17, 1962 – Jim Carrey, 57. His first genre film is Once Bitten whose content is obvious from its name. The ‘dorable Earth Girls Are Easy was next followed up by Batman Forever in which he played a manic Riddler, then there’s the The Truman Show which has stretches genre boundaries I think, may we not talk about How the Grinch Stole Christmas?, and is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind genre?, who’s seen Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events?, Horton Hears a Who! (FUN!), A Christmas Carol of which I know nothing, Mr. Popper’s Penguins (well it sounds cute) and, I’m not you, Sonic the Hedgehog. Busy, isn’t he?
Born January 17, 1970 – Genndy Tartakovsky, 49. Russian-American animator, director, producer, screenwriter, storyboard artist, comic book writer and artist. Yeah he really is. Hell he created Star Wars: Clone Wars! And let me list some of the many other things he’s involved in: Batman: The Animated Series, Iron Man 2, Hotel Transylvania, Duck Dodgers, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Luke Cage series as Cage! and the Dexter’s Laboratory series as well.
Born January 17, 1989 – Kelly Marie Tran, 30. Rose Tico in Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Star Wars: Episode IX. She also voices the character in the Star Wars Forces of Destiny animated series. She was the first woman of color to be cast in a leading role in the Star Wars franchise, something she should be proud of.
One of the most cherished science fiction scenarios is using a black hole as a portal to another dimension or time or universe. That fantasy may be closer to reality than previously imagined.
… My team at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and a colleague at Georgia Gwinnett College have shown that all black holes are not created equal. If the black hole like Sagittarius A*, located at the center of our own galaxy, is large and rotating, then the outlook for a spacecraft changes dramatically. That’s because the singularity that a spacecraft would have to contend with is very gentle and could allow for a very peaceful passage.
The first full assessment of risks to the world’s coffee plants shows that 60% of 124 known species are on the edge of extinction.
More than 100 types of coffee tree grow naturally in forests, including two used for the coffee we drink.
Scientists say the figure is “worrying”, as wild coffee is critical for sustaining the global coffee crop.
About one in five of the world’s plants is threatened with extinction, and the 60% figure is an “extremely high” one.
“If it wasn’t for wild species we wouldn’t have as much coffee to drink in the world today,” said Dr Aaron Davis of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
“Because if you look at the history of coffee cultivation, we have used wild species to make the coffee crop sustainable.”
(14) ONE STEP AT A TIME. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] The article title very much overstates the state of the art
(Wired: “Bio-Printers Are Churning out Living
Fixes to Broken Spines”; partial paywall), but it does appear that an
incremental advance has been made toward that goal. In one experiment, partial
mobility was restored to a rat’s paralyzed hindquarters after a multistep
boiprinted device was inserted into a severed section of spinal cord.
For doctors and medical researchers repairing the human body, a 3D printer has become almost as valuable as an x-ray machine, microscope, or a sharp scalpel. Bioengineers are using 3D printers to make more durable hip and knee joints, prosthetic limbs and, recently, to produce living tissue attached to a scaffold of printed material.
Researchers say that bio-printed tissue can be used to test the effects of drug treatments, for example, with an eventual goal of printing entire organs that can be grown and then transplanted into a patient. The latest step toward 3D-printed replacements of failed human parts comes from a team at UC San Diego. It has bio-printed a section of spinal cord that can be custom-fit into a patient’s injury.
[…] Bio-printers use a computer-guided pipette to layer living cells, referred to as bio-ink, on top of one another to create artificial living tissue in a laboratory. Most bio-printers can only print down to 200 microns, but this group developed a method of producing tissue down to 1 micron, Chen says. This higher resolution meant they were able to more accurately reconstruct the mixture of gray and white matter that makes up the spinal cord.
It wasn’t until the 1950s – after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 – that science fiction would see a resurgence, albeit for a brief period. And then too written primarily for children, or to popularise science, as a vehicle for propaganda, and with a lot of translations of Russian books and influenced heavily by science fiction from the Soviet Union before the relationship soured. Notable works of Chinese science fiction by Chinese authors from this period are A Tour of the Solar System by Zhang Ren and the adventure tale of three Chinese children stealing a spaceship to go off on an adventure, From Earth to Mars as also the space-colonisation story, Builders of Mars by Zheng Wenguang, an author who would fall out of favour with the establishment during the Cultural Revolution and exiled, much like the genre itself, with anything remotely suspected of bearing a similarity to ‘western culture’, not least capitalism, being regarded as harmful.
One might think that robots would have some measure of job security, especially when they work in a robot hotel. It would seem that this is not the case — even in a robot hotel, robots, replicants, and androids can be “retired.”
According to The Verge, the Henn-na “Strange” Hotel in Japan has “laid off” half of the 243 robots that maintained the hotel because they created more problems than they ended up solving. In trying to substitute robots for human workers, the hotel ended up creating more work for humans. As advanced as the hotel’s robot velociraptors that worked the check-in desk were, they couldn’t figure out how to properly photocopy a passport. Nothing in the previous sentence was a joke.
On the list for early retirement is Churi, a robot doll assistant that was placed in each room. Churi was meant to be a kind of Siri/Alexa hybrid, but proved incapable of answering any questions…
(17) THE
MARTIAN OENOPHILES. [Item by Mike
Kennedy.]Georgia—no, not the
American state—is looking for grape varieties that might survive on Mars.
Because, you know, colonists will want to relax with some wine (Smithsonian: “Why the Nation of Georgia Wants to Make
Wine on Mars”). I mean, potatoes alone just aren’t going to cut it.
“Researchers there are looking for grape varieties that can grow in Martian soil and survive high radiation and carbon monoxide.”
When and if humanity establishes a colony on Mars, it’s likely someone will want to kick back after a hard day of terraforming with a nice glass of Chardonnay. Luckily, the nation of Georgia has them covered. Amie Ferris-Rotman at The Washington Post reports the nation is funding a research project to develop varieties of wine grapes that can survive on the Red Planet.
So why is a small country in the Caucasus spending its resources on space wine? The most recent archaeological evidence suggests that the oldest known wine making in the world took place in the region 8,000 years ago, pegging Georgia as the birthplace of vino. Logically so, Georgia wants to keep that title on other planets as well.
“If we’re going to live on Mars one day, Georgia needs to contribute,” Nikoloz Doborjginidze, founder of Georgia’s Space Research Agency, part of the wine project tells Ferris-Rotman. “Our ancestors brought wine to Earth, so we can do the same to Mars.”
(18) NEW SFF SATIRE. Space Force: Steve Carell will star in a new Netflix series from The Office’s Greg Daniels lampooning Donald Trump’s proposed Space Force. (Via io9.)
[Thanks to
Chip Hitchcock, Alan Baumler, Mike Kennedy, JJ, Cat Eldridge John King
Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, Carl Slaughter, Daniel Dern, and Andrew Porter
for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of
the day Ken Richards.]
We’re looking for compelling storytelling with heroes you want to root for and villains you love to hate. Whether your heroes win the day with swords or sorcery, fireballs or flamethrowers—or even by their wits alone—all are welcome. Modern, medieval, and otherworldly settings are all acceptable, as long as you tell a rip-roaring good tale with a fantastical element!
“I can hardly believe it’s been more than five
years since we first created the Baen Fantasy Adventure Award. And we’re very
excited to announce that this year, we’ll be presenting the winners at SpikeCon
in Layton, Utah,” said Baen executive editor Jim Minz. “Not only is SpikeCon
this year’s Westercon, it’s also the NASFiC, not to mention the 1632 minicon.
It’s the perfect event to showcase the award.”
The contest opens for
submissions January 21, 2019 and all entries must be received by midnight on
April 30, 2019. Each entry is limited to an original short story in the
English language of no more than 8,000 words, and only one entry per author.
Complete guidelines here.
Entries will be judged by Baen editors and the award will be presented at the SpikeCon, which will be held July 4-7, 2019, in Layton,
UT.
The GRAND PRIZE winner will be published as the featured story on the Baen Books main website and paid at industry-standard rates for professional story submittals. The author will also receive an engraved award and a prize package containing $500 of free Baen Books.
SECOND place winner will receive a prize package containing $500 of free Baen Books.
THIRD place winner will receive a prize package containing $300 of free Baen Books.
Finalists will be announced no later than June 14, 2019
Winners will be notified no later than June 17, 2019.
Since its beginning the contest has received
thousands of entries of fantasy stories from all over the globe.
The Visual Effects Society (VES) announced
the nominees for the 17th Annual VES Awards on January 15. The awards recognize
outstanding visual effects artistry and innovation in film, animation,
television, commercials and video games and the VFX supervisors, VFX producers
and hands-on artists who bring about this work.
Avengers: Infinity War topped the feature film categories with six nomination.
Incredibles 2 is the top animated
film contender with five nominations. Lost
in Space leads the
broadcast field with six nominations.
As previously announced, the VES Visionary
Award will be presented to acclaimed writer-director-producer Jonathan
Nolan. The VES Award for Creative Excellence will be presented to
award-winning creators-executive producers-writers-directors David Benioff and
D.B. Weiss.
The nominees in the 24
categories of the 17th Annual VES Awards follow the jump.
(1) GHOSTBUSTERS 3. Though few details seem to be available, it looks like
there will be a fourth live-action Ghostbusters movie
(Variety: “Jason Reitman to Direct Secret
‘Ghostbusters’ Movie”), with a new generation of Reitman taking over
in the director’s chair.
Sony Pictures is getting the wheels in motion for the next installment in the “Ghostbusters” franchise, and it knows who it’s going to call to direct: Jason Reitman.
Sources tell Variety that Reitman, whose father, Ivan, directed the first two “Ghostbusters” movies, will direct the latest pic in the famous franchise.
Reitman has also co-written a screenplay with Gil Kenan and plans to shoot the film this summer, with Sony planning to release the latest sequel in summer 2020. Insiders say this film will be a continuation of the 1984 sequel and will not be connected to the 2016 film. Sources couldn’t say if that means that the original cast members will be back, as exact story details are still being kept under wraps but sources say Reitman has begun testing teenagers for four mystery roles.
“I’ve always thought of myself as the first Ghostbusters fan when I was a 6-year-old visiting the set. I wanted to make a movie for all the other fans. This is the next chapter in the original franchise. It is not a reboot. What happened in the ‘80s happened in the ‘80s, and this is set in the present day.”
…I believe that SFWA is an important organization and that volunteering for it is a way that we can each help to pay it forward by making the field stronger. As a group, we can improve things within the industry in ways that individuals cannot, but we are dependent on our volunteers. We are dependent on you. I would very much like to help SFWA move forward so that it can continue to inform, support, promote, defend and advocate for our members.
Besides health care, what else am I interested in accomplishing?
New opportunities to help our members diversify their income streams
Strengthening the Nebula Conference as a professional development conference
Protecting our rights for free speech
Outreach to underserved and underrepresented writers in the SFF community
Taking full advantage of our 501c3 status to apply for grants that will allow SFWA to be a more active and useful organization for our members
…Some of you may recall that I was SFWA president once, from 2010 to 2013. Mary Robinette was my vice president for two of those years, 2010 through 2012, and was secretary of SFWA for two years before that. In my role as president, I got a chance to see her work for SFWA up close. She was, in a word, excellent. As my VP she gave me sound advice and counsel (up to and including telling me when I was wrong), she executed on policy and strategy in ways that were smart and effective, and she was my not-so-secret weapon in instances that required tact and delicacy. She was, in sum, the very best of vice-presidents….
(3) NEXT STAR WARS COMICS
ON THE WAY. Marvel’s “celebration of Star Wars
characters” continues in April, with epic one-shots of heroes and villains of
the original film trilogy in Age of
Rebellion. For more information, visit StarWars.com.
Following the legendary sagas of the Jedi, the Sith, and more from AGE OF THE REPUBLIC, join writer Greg Pak (The Incredible Hulk, Weapon H) and artist Chris Sprouse (Black Panther) for new tales about some of the most iconic Star Wars heroes and artist Marc Laming (Beckett, Star Wars Annual) for new stories about the galaxy’s most dangerous villains. With covers by Terry and Rachel Dodson, these are stories you don’t want to miss!
Also in April, discover brand new sides of some of your favorite – and deadly – heroes and villains in AGE OF REBELLION SPECIAL #1, written by superstar team Marc Guggenheim (X-Men Gold), Jon Adams (The New Yorker, Love Romances), and Si Spurrier (Doctor Aphra), and drawn by Adams, Caspar Wijngaard (Doctor Aphra Annual), and Andrea Broccardo (Star Wars), with cover art by Giuseppe Camuncoli and Guru-eFX!
(4) SFWA READINGS. There are four SFWA readings coming up in the Seattle/Portland
area:
Seattle
Seattle
events are held at theWilde Rover Irish Pub and Restaurant, 111 Central Way,
Kirkland, WA 98033. Phone: (425) 822-8940. Readings start at 7pm and go until
8:30
January 29, 2019. KG Anderson, Joe Follansbee, Edd Vick
April 23, 2019. Rebecca Roanhorse, Kari Maaren, Sam J. Miller
September 10, 2019. Ted Chiang, Jack Skillingstead, Daryl Gregory
November 12, 2019. Jeff Grubb, Shanna Germain, Caroline M. Yoachim
Portland
Portland
events are held atLucky Lab on Hawthorne. 915 SE Hawthorne
Blvd. Portland, OR 97214. (503) 236-3555Readings start at 7pm and go until 8:30
(5) OOPS. You could be
forgiven for thinking that yesterday’sTor’s promotional message contains a
premature prediction, although I think it was just intended to be a list of the
author’s accomplishments. See if you can spot the issue. (Image comes from here.)
(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled
by Cat Eldridge.]
Born January 16, 1903 – Harold A. Davis. Notable as another writer of the Doc Savage novels under the pseudonym Kenneth Robeson. He was the first ghostwriter to fill in for Lester Dent on Doc Savage. Davis would create the character of Ham’s pet ape Chemistry in Dust of Death. (Died 1955.)
Born January 16, 1927 – Anne R. Dick. Author of Search for Philip K. Dick, 1928-1982: A Memoir and Biography of the Science Fiction Writer. Her importance to Philip despite their short marriage can be appreciated in this New York Times obit for her. (Died 2017.)
Born January 16, 1946 – Graham Masterton, 73. English horror writer with numerous titles to his credit. I want to to single out Rules of Duel, a short novel from the early 1970s that he wrote with William S. Burroughs. And The Manitou film based off his novel is a lot of bloody fun.
Born January 16, 1948 – John Carpenter, 71. My favorite films by him? Big Trouble in Little China and Escape from New York. His films include the Halloween franchise, The Thing, Starman (simply wonderful), The Philadelphia Experiment, Ghosts of Mars and many other films. What do you consider him to do particularly well?
Born January 16, 1949 – Caroline Munro, 70.Active in SF and horror films in the Fifties and Sixties. Amongst her many films are Hammer Horror films such as Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter and Dracula A.D. 1972. Later films include Starcrash (Christopher Plummer is in it so it can’t be that bad, can it?) and At the Earth’s Core. She appeared also as Tammy, a nursing employee of a sinister health farm, in “The Angels of Death” of The New Avengers, a vastly underrated show in my opinion if only for the fact it had the young and quite sexy Joanna Lumley on it .
Born January 16, 1980 – Lin-Manuel Miranda, 39. Sometimes I find that the Birthday honorees have the oddest genre credits but this is the first singer and composer I’ve run across. His first genre credit is voicing Shag Kava in Star Wars: The Force Awakens but he also gets credited as special featured composer. Next up is as composer and singer for the animated Moana film. His most recent, and I’ve no idea if he sings in it but I assume he does, is in Mary Poppins Returns
(7) THEY’RE DEAD JIM (OR
WHATEVER YOUR NAME IS). Easy come, easy go? Newsweek lets us know that, “China’s Moon Plants That Sprouted Are
Already Dead.” The experiment kicked off just before the mission’s landing
site on the back side of the Moon did its monthly thing and earned the
otherwise misleading title Dark Side of the Moon, (No, not that Dark Side.)
Yesterday the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) announced that cotton seeds carried to the far side of the moon by its Chang’e 4 lander had sprouted, marking the first time that humans had successfully grown living material on the surface of another world.
But just a day later, it has emerged that the sprouting cotton buds died as night fell over the lunar far side, bringing the brief experiment to an end. The cotton seeds formed part of a “mini-biosphere” experiment aimed at understanding how plants and animals can grow and live on the moon.
The experiment involved a “mini-biosphere” consisting of a sealed metal canister filled with water, soil and air, which was designed to be its own self-sustaining ecosystem. To this mix, scientists added yeast, fruit fly eggs and the seeds of cotton, rapeseed, potato and rock cress—a flowering plant in the mustard family.
The biosphere was powered by natural light from the Sun, so the death of the sprouts as the canister entered the lunar night—where temperatures can dip to as low as -280 degrees Fahrenheit—was anticipated by mission planners.
“Life in the canister would not survive the lunar night,” Xie Gengxin, leader of the experiment from Chongqing University, told Xinhua, China’s state-run, English language news agency.
After seven years, four seasons, eighteen episodes and two specials, the conversation around Black Mirror seems to have settled itself into distinct camps. There are those who see it as a meaningful commentary on the growing role of technology in modern society and the pitfalls of our growing dependence on it. And there are those who decry it as a cynical, reflexively anti-tech exercise in nastiness. I tend to think of myself as falling between the two extremes—there are a lot of ideas in Black Mirror that I find interesting and unique, especially when it comes to the intersection of technology and capitalism; but I often feel as if many of them have happened largely by accident. The show’s latest foray, however, the interactive movie “Bandersnatch”, written by series creator Charlie Brooker and directed by David Slade, has shaken my indulgence. Not only does it revel in some of Black Mirror‘s worst excesses, it’s also an extremely bad example of interactive fiction, at a moment when the form is enjoying a creative flowering.
(9) TODAY
IN HISTORY.
January 16, 1939 — The comic strip Superman appeared. Robert Kerr writes:
80 years ago today the first Superman daily strip appeared in the Houston Chronicle. This was the first place Superman had appeared outside of Action Comics. His own solo comic book was still a couple of months away. The daily strip was where Krypton was first mentioned by name and the first place Superman got a more detailed origin. This was full circle for Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Before DC Comics bought Superman for Action Comics #1, Superman was rejected by every major newspaper syndicate in the country. Before Superman pretty much created the comic book industry, cartoonist wanted their strips to be in newspapers.
The graph reveals several interesting trends. Some genres, for instance, have evidently fallen out of favor, such as musicals and westerns. In the 1930s, 15% of the movies released were musicals, while in 2018, the figure has fallen far below 5%. And although westerns saw a resurgence in the ’70s after its decline in the ’60s, the genre has had scant representation in recent years.
(11) TREK TRIVIA. ScienceFiction.com invites you to show
your mastery of Star Trek and “Match
The First Officer To The Starship”. The quiz is at the link. It was tougher than I expected – I scored only
3/10!
The ships of the United Federation of Planets have a long history of service, exploration, and combat in the Star Trek Universe. While the Captains of these ships usually end up getting most of the glory, it takes many, many crew members to effectively maintain a starship’s operations, and while the Captain is usually busy calling the shots, much of the administrative and personnel work falls to the First Officer.
This quiz will test your knowledge of those brave souls assigned to ships as the XOs. In some cases, these characters may have only served the First Officer role for a short while; in other cases, you may see names of officers whose adventures have squarely shown them in the second-in-command role. This will be no easy task, but hopefully you are up for the challenge. Engage!
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Lenovo and Verizon are soon to reboot the iconic aughts Razr flip phone, with a 2019 twist — or should we say…. fold!!!
The report claims that Lenovo Group, Inc. has teamed up with Verizon as an exclusive partner to sell a new version of the Razr, based on the word of “people familiar with the matter.”
The new Razr will be a smart phone, but it will be able to retain its flip phone form because the screen will be a foldable. It will reportedly become available as soon as February (!!!), and cost $1500. Which, ouch. But that’s maybe worth it for retro foldable screen glory?
2019 may finally be the year when American astronauts launch to orbit from American soil again, ending an eight-year drought that started when NASA’s Space Shuttle program shut down in 2011. The inaugural flights of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program are slated to take place in the coming months, and the launches will see privately owned vehicles carrying space agency astronauts for the very first time. If the current schedules hold, California-based SpaceX may be the first one to send its vehicle to space with two NASA astronauts on board.
For this Verge Science video, we visited SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, to meet those astronauts and see what one possible future of American crewed spaceflight looks like.
Author Stephen King – and his readers – have persuaded his local newspaper to reverse a decision to axe its book reviews.
The Portland Press Herald, based in his home state of Maine, had decided to stop running reviews of local books.
After King expressed dismay, the paper challenged him to get 100 followers to buy digital subscriptions. His fans did not disappoint him, prompting the paper to pledge that “book reviews will return”.
(15) DISNEY MUSIC. “A Place Called Slaughter Race” from Ralph Breaks the Internet. Performed by
Sarah Silverman, Gal Gadot, and Cast Music by Alan Menken, Lyrics by Phil
Johnston, and Tom MacDougall
[Thanks to Paul Weimer, Chip Hitchcock, JJ, Bill, Cat Eldridge, John King Tarpinian, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing Firesign reference editor of the day Kip Williams.]
The current 6c/word rate has been in effect since mid-2014. SFWA explains:
In accordance with our mission to support and empower science fiction and fantasy writers, SFWA periodically reviews and adjusts the minimum payment rates for professional short fiction markets, known colloquially as the SFWA Pro Rate… This change is the result of market analyses conducted by SFWA Board members, along with a review of the effects of inflation on author compensation.
… SFWA supports fair compensation for writers. We hope the new Pro Rate will encourage short fiction publishers to increase their payment rates.
Works in qualifying markets are judged by the date
they were purchased. Stories sold before September 1st, 2019 at the
then-current qualifying rate will continue to qualify a writer for SFWA
membership.
SFWA has slowly escalated its minimum rate over the past 15 years, as shown below:
Steve Vertlieb, William Shatner, and Erwin Vertlieb in 1969.
By Steve
Vertlieb: I interviewed
William Shatner for British magazine L’Incroyable
Cinema in the Summer of 1969 at The Playhouse In The Park whilst Star Trek was still in the final days of
its original network run on NBC. My old friend Allan Asherman, who joined Erwin
and I for this once-in-a-lifetime meeting with Captain James Tiberius Kirk,
astutely commented that I had now met all three of our legendary boyhood
“Captains,” which included Jim Kirk (Bill Shatner), Flash Gordon/Buck
Rogers (Larry “Buster” Crabbe), and Buzz Corry, commander of the Space Patrol (Ed Kemmer). It’s funny how
an often-charmed life can include real life friendships with childhood heroes.
Steve Vertlieb and Buster Crabbe in 1979.
Boyhood
hero Buster Crabbe was the special guest at a local Philadelphia nostalgia
convention during the Spring of 1979, and took the trouble to search for me in
the telephone directory. He telephoned my parents’ home and spoke with my
father, asking him if he knew Steve Vertlieb. My dad said that he did, indeed,
know me as I was his son. Buster said that he was in town for a few days, and
asked my dad to have me call him so that we might meet for dinner. It took my
father some thirty minutes to convince me that Buster had really called. I
called him back at his hotel, and we dined the next evening at a restaurant in
Philadelphia’s Chinatown where he playfully dumped some of his dinner into my
own plate, and urged me to “Eat, Eat, Eat.”
Ed Kemmer and Steve Vertlieb.
Together
with one of my earliest boyhood heroes and role models, Ed Kemmer, who starred
as Commander Buzz Corry of the Space
Patrol, broadcast every Saturday morning on ABC Television and radio in the
early-to-mid 1950’s. After this initial meeting, Ed and I remained friends
through correspondence until his passing. Ed was a great guy. It was a thrill
to meet him finally after some fifty years, and to develop a friendship with
him in the years before he passed.
The
Producers Guild of America (PGA) announced the motion picture and television
nominations for the 30th Annual Producers Guild
Awards on January 4. The full list is at the link.
The winners will be announced January 19 in Los Angeles. At the event, the Producers Guild will also present special honors to Toby Emmerich (Milestone Award), Kevin Feige (David O. Selznick Achievement Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures), Amy Sherman-Palladino (Norman Lear Achievement Award in Television), Kenya Barris (Visionary Award), and Jane Fonda (Stanley Kramer Award).
The
2019 nominees of genre interest follow:
The Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures:
“Black Panther” Producer: Kevin Feige
“A Quiet Place” Producers: Michael Bay, Andrew Form, Brad Fuller
The Award for Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures:
“Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch” Producers: Chris Meledandri, Janet Healy
“Incredibles 2” Producers: John Walker, Nicole Grindle
“Isle of Dogs” Producers: *Eligibility Determination Pending*
“Ralph Breaks the Internet” Producer: Clark Spencer
“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” Producers: Avi Arad, Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, Amy Pascal, Christina Steinberg
The Norman Felton Award for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television – Drama:
“The Handmaid’s Tale” (Season 2) Producers: Bruce Miller, Warren Littlefield, Elisabeth Moss, Daniel Wilson, Fran Sears, Mike Barker, Sheila Hockin, Eric Tuchman, Kira Snyder, Yahlin Chang, Frank Siracusa, John Weber, Joseph Boccia, Dorothy Fortenberry, Margaret Atwood, Ron Milbauer
The Danny Thomas Award for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television – Comedy:
“The Good Place” (Season 3) Producers: Michael Schur, David Miner, Morgan Sackett, Drew Goddard, Josh Siegal, Dylan Morgan, Joe Mande, Megan Amram, David Hyman, Jen Statsky
The Award for Outstanding Producer of Streamed or Televised Motion Pictures:
“Fahrenheit 451” Producers: Sarah Green, Ramin Bahrani, Michael B. Jordan, Alan Gasmer, Peter Jaysen, David Coatsworth
“Sense8: Together Until the End” Producers: *EligibilityDetermination Pending*
