By Daniel Dern: Whether you want to call it, as Jane Yolen does it in her
introduction to this book, a multi-generational “mosaic” novel, or, per the
listing on publisher Mythic Delirium’s site, “A book of linked stories,”
Barbara Krasnoff’s The History of Soul 2065 is, simply, a remarkable
book, combining elements of both fantasy (ghosts, spirits, magic time/space
portals, demons) and science fiction (cyberspace/virtual reality, and other
elements in a multi-generational story that (a) I heartily recommend, and (b)
I’m ready to nominate (or add my nom for) this year’s Nebula Awards.
(Disclaimer: I know Barbara Krasnoff professionally and
socially, from the technology journalism and sf con-attending world(s).)
The stories mostly focus, or are from the points-of-view, of two
Jewish girls starting in just-before-World-War-I Russia and Germany, and their
families, friends and descendants, through World War II and the Holocaust, to
our present day, and beyond, to the latter half of this century. This includes
a lot in New York, notably during Prohibition and the Depression.
The 216-page book consists of twenty stories, including “Sabbath
Wine” (2016 Nebula Award Finalist for Best Short Story), plus Yolen’s
introduction, and summary family trees of the main characters). Five of the
stories are original to this volume; the others have appeared in various
publications between 2000 and 2017, although, as Krasnoff notes in the
copyright information list at the end of the book, “they were slightly revised
so that they could take their proper place in the histories of Chana’s and
Sophia’s families.”
Each story is intense — both in the prose and the content. (And
I found that I wanted to take a break after each story, rather than plowing
through the book in a few long sessions.)
Each story can stand on its own. But they also fit together. So
the further you get into the book, the more you the reader begin to see things
the characters may not themselves know.
If you aren’t ready to buy/borrow the book yet, you can read
sample stories from Krasnoff’s book online for free (and then go get the book):
One final note/suggestion: If you are a SFWA member and planning
to do any (more) Nebula nominations — which close in February 15, 2020 — now is
the time to read the freebies and get the book. (My apologies for not getting
this done sooner; my Mount To-Be-Done is a twin peak to my Mount To-Be-Read.)
The winners of the 62nd
GRAMMY Awards included two composers of interest to Filers:
60.
Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media Award to Composer(s) for an original score created specifically for, or as a
companion to, a current legitimate motion picture, television show or series,
video games or other visual media.
CHERNOBYL Hildur Guðnadóttir, composer
62.
Best Instrumental Composition A Composer’s Award for an original composition (not an adaptation) first
released during the Eligibility Year. Singles or Tracks only.
STAR WARS: GALAXY’S EDGE SYMPHONIC SUITE John Williams, composer (John Williams)
The 2020 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction were announced at the RUSA Book and Media Awards event, sponsored by NoveList, during the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia on Sunday, January 26. Carnegie Medal winners each receive $5,000
Fiction
Valeria Luiselli Lost Children Archive
Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC
Intense and timely, Valeria Luiselli’s novel tracks husband-and-wife audio documentarians as they travel cross-country with their two children and deep into the painful history of the Apache people and the present immigration crisis on the Southwest border, while freshly exploring themes of conquest and remembrance, and powerfully conveying the beauty of the haunted landscape.
Adam Higginbotham has created a thoroughly researched, fast-paced, engrossing, and revelatory account of what led up to and what followed the explosion of Reactor Four at the Chernobyl nuclear-power plant on April 26, 1986, focusing on the people involved as they faced shocking circumstances that are having complex and significant global consequences.
In an appropriately shocking character resurrection, fan-favourite Doctor Who character Captain Jack Harkness has made a surprise return to the BBC sci-fi series, with John Barrowman’s immortal Time Agent popping up in the latest episode to deliver a message to Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor.
…Kept secret through a mass of codenames, disguises and carefully-planted lies, Jack’s return is sure to make a splash with fans – just last year, RadioTimes.com readers voted him the character they’d most like to see return to the series – and ahead of the episode’s airing, Barrowman said he was prepared for a big reaction.
(2) VIEW FROM THE BOTTOM RUNG. Saturday Night Live suited
up guest host Adam Driver to parody his Star Wars character.
Undercover Boss checks in with one of its more notorious bosses, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), to see if he kept his promise to change his company.
(3) IMAGINARY PAPERS LAUNCHES. Imaginary Papers is a new quarterly (free) newsletter from the Center for
Science and the Imagination. Edited by Joey Eschrich, it features analysis and commentary on science
fiction worldbuilding, futures thinking, and the imagination. The first issue is available here.
…Each issue will feature brief, incisive pieces of writing from a diverse array of contributors, from scholars and journalists to cultural critics, designers, technologists, poets, and more.
We hope you’ll join us in thinking carefully and whimsically about the tangled relationships between how we envision the future and how we see ourselves and our world today.
(4) BRADBURY CENTENNIAL EXHIBIT AT BOOK FAIR. The 53rd California International Antiquarian
Book Fair, which takes place in Pasadena from February 7-9, will include
two special exhibits —
Votes for Women. The Book Fair celebrates the 100th anniversary of Women’s Suffrage with a special exhibit documenting women’s effort to secure political equality. Materials will be on display from the special collection libraries of The Claremont Colleges, University of Southern California, University of California, Los Angeles, California State University, Dominguez Hills and the Los Angeles Public Library.
Something Wonderful This Way Came: 100 Years of Ray Bradbury. The Book Fair marks the centennial of the beloved science fiction and fantasy writer. This special exhibit features Bradbury works and related cultural treasures from the Polk Library at California State University including the manuscripts for Fahrenheit 451 and the short story “The Fireman,” from which the classic novel originated.
The Book Fair takes place at the Pasadena Convention Center at 300
East Green Street, Pasadena, CA. Tickets
on Friday, February 7 are $25 for three-day admission.
Next week, the last of four NASA space-based observatories will retire. The Spitzer Space Telescope brought the universe into a new light (literally), revealing images of planets, solar systems, stars and more in infrared — renderings that human eyes aren’t able to see otherwise
30 years after last appearing as squad leader Peter Venkman in 1989’s Ghostbusters 2, Bill Murray is set to reprise his beloved role in the upcoming sequel Ghostbusters: Afterlife. The new movie stars Paul Rudd as a science teacher whose students find themselves in the middle of a ghostbusting mystery.
Though Murray, 69, made a cameo in the 2016 all-women Ghostbusters, he will be back as his parapsychologist character in the new movie directed by Jason Reitman, the son of original director Ivan Reitman.
… The production uses lightweight, less detailed packs for
stunts and distant shots, but I was saddled with the 30-pound heavy-duty
version used for close-ups, which is loaded with batteries and rumble motors to
make the blasters shudder and jolt in the hands of the user.
…Later, [Ivan] Reitman said he hopes the film will help fans feel the excitement of suiting up themselves: “I wanted to make a movie about finding a proton pack in an old barn and the thrill of actually putting it on for the first time. I’ve had friends come to the set and hoist on the packs, and it always turns grown-ups into children.”
Murray just stood by nodding and smiling. “You’ll see what it feels like,” he said.
“The first 30 seconds are okay,” I told him.
The actor snorted. “It’s that last 30,” he said, shaking his head. “And the dismount.”
(8) SLURP THE FANTASTIC. BBC
Sounds finds the connections between “Fantasy, fiction and
food”. Mary Robinette Kowal and others are
interviewed.
What do Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stoneand Lady and the Tramp have in common? Both use food in subtle ways to immerse us in their stories and help us make sense of fictitious worlds – from jumping chocolate frogs to kissing over spaghetti. The same is true for many novels, where food can be an integral part of building characters, plots, even entire worlds. Graihagh Jackson speaks to three world-acclaimed writers – two authors and one Nollywood script writer and film director – to find out how and why they employ food in their work. How do you create make-believe foods for a science fiction world, yet still imbue them with meanings that real world listeners will understand? When you’re trying to appeal to multiple audiences and cultures, how do you stop your food references getting lost in translation? And can food be used to highlight or send subtle messages about subjects that are traditionally seen as taboo?
(9) TODAY IN HISTORY.
January 26, 1995 — Screamers premiered. This Canadian horror starred Peter Weller, Roy Dupuis and Jennifer Rubi. It was directed by Christian Duguay. The screenplay was written by Dan O’Bannon, with an extensive rewrite by Miguel Tejada-Flores, is based on Philip K. Dick’s “Second Variety” novelette first published in Space Science Fiction magazine, in May 1953. It earned almost unanimously negative reviews from critics and has a 45% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It has since developed a cult following.
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born January 26, 1915 — William Hopper. I’m reasonably sure his first genre first was the Thirties The Return of Doctor X. Twenty years later, he’s Dr. George Fenton in Conquest of Space, and just a few years later he’ll be Col. Bob Calder in 20 Million Miles to Earth. Unless we count Myra Breckinridge as genre or genre adjacent, he was Judge Frederic D. Cannon on it, that’s it for him as none as his series acting was genre related. (Died 1970.)
Born January 26, 1923 — Anne Jeffreys. Her first role in our end of things was as a young woman in the early Forties film Tarzan’s New York Adventure. She’s Jean Le Danse (note the name) around the same time in the comedy Zombies on Broadway (film geeks here — is this the earliest zombie film?). And no, I’ve not forgotten she had the lead role as Marion Kerby in the Topper series. She also had one-offs in The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Fantasy Island and Battlestar Galactica. (Died 2017.)
Born January 26, 1927 — William Redfield. He was in two SF films of note. He was Ray Cooper in Conquest of Space, a Fifties film, and later on he was Captain Owens in Fantastic Voyage. In addition, Wiki lists him in the cast of the Fifties X Minus One radio anthology series, and Jerry Haendiges Vintage Radio Logs site confirms he was in nine of the plays. His series one-offs included Great Ghost Tales (a new one for me), Bewitched, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Tales of Tomorrow. (Died 1976.)
Born January 26, 1928 — Roger Vadim. Director, Barbarbella. That alone gets a Birthday Honor. But he was one of three directors of Spirits of the Dead, a horror anthology film. (Louis Malle and Federico Fellini were the others.) And not to stop there, he directed another horror film, Blood and Roses (Et mourir de plaisir) and even was involved in The Hitchhiker horror anthology series. And Don Juan, or If Don Juan Were a Woman is at least genre adjacent… (Died 2000.)
Born January 26, 1918 — Philip José Farmer. I know I’ve read at least the first three Riverworld novels (To Your Scattered BodiesGo, The Fabulous Riverboat and The Dark Design) but I’ll be damned if I recognize the latter ones. Great novels those first three are. And I’ll admit that I’m not familiar at all with the World of Tiers or Dayworld series. I’m sure someone here read here them. I do remember his Doc Savage novel Escape from Loki as being a highly entertaining read, and I see he’s done a number of Tarzan novels as well. (Died 2009.)
Born January 26, 1929 — Jules Feiffer, 91. On the Birthday list as he’s the illustrator of The Phantom Tollbooth. Well, and that he’s also illustrated Eisner’s Spirit which helped get him into the Comic Book Hall of Fame. Let’s not overlook that he wrote The Great Comic Book Heroes in the Sixties which made it the first history of the superheroes of the late Thirties and Forties and their creators.
Born January 26, 1957 — Mal Young, 63. Executive Producer of Doctor Who for the Ninth Doctor. A great season and Doctor indeed. As all have been in the New Who. He was the Assistant Producer thirty years ago of a series called Science Fiction hosted by none other than the Fourth Doctor Himself. Anyone watch this?
Born January 26, 1960 — Stephen Cox, 60. Pop culture writer who has written a number of books on genre subjects including The Munchkins Remember: The Wizard of Oz and Beyond, The Addams Chronicles: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about the Addams Family, Dreaming of Jeannie: TV’s Primetime in a Bottle and The Munsters: A Trip Down Mockingbird Lane. I’ll admit to being puzzled by his Cooking in Oz that he did with Elaine Willingham as I don’t remember that much for food in the Oz books…
DEMOKRITOU: We have the tools to make these engineered nanomaterials and, in this particular case, we can take water and turn it into an engineered water nanoparticle, which carries its deadly payload, primarily nontoxic, nature-inspired antimicrobials, and kills microorganisms on surfaces and in the air.
It is fairly simple, you need 12 volts DC, and we combine that with electrospray and ionization to turn water into a nanoaerosol, in which these engineered nanostructures are suspended in the air. These water nanoparticles have unique properties because of their small size and also contain reactive oxygen species. These are hydroxyl radicals, peroxides, and are similar to what nature uses in cells to kill pathogens. These nanoparticles, by design, also carry an electric charge, which increases surface energy and reduces evaporation. That means these engineered nanostructures can remain suspended in air for hours. When the charge dissipates, they become water vapor and disappear.
Very recently, we started using these structures as a carrier, and we can now incorporate nature-inspired antimicrobials into their chemical structure. These are not super toxic to humans. For instance, my grandmother in Greece used to disinfect her surfaces with lemon juice — citric acid. Or, in milk — and also found in tears — is another highly potent antimicrobial called lysozyme. Nisin is another nature-inspired antimicrobial that bacteria release when they’re competing with other bacteria. Nature provides us with a ton of nontoxic antimicrobials that, if we can find a way to deliver them in a targeted, precise manner, can do the job. No need to invent new and potentially toxic chemicals. Let’s go to nature’s pharmacy and shop.
While we knew that this was a project that had been underway for a while, it’s now actually going to be a real thing. In that, this October a walking Gundam will be unveiled in Yokohama, Japan.
The plans to make a Gundam walk were announced back in 2015 and at the time the idea was to have it finished by 2019.
So while this has been delayed a bit, it does look like we will have a Gundam that can walk later this year.
Well, when I say “walk” it looks like this is not some free-roaming Gundam but will be attached to a support mechanism at the waist, to avoid it from falling over.
It doesn’t look like you will be able to pilot it either, as this walking Gundam will be remote controlled.
To be honest, I was expecting limitations like this. Simply because the engineering requirements to make an 18-meter-tall mecha walk are not exactly trivial.
Two astronauts aboard the International Space Station conducted their fourth and final spacewalk Saturday to finish a series of repairs aimed at extending the functioning of a cosmic ray detector attached to the spacecraft.
The six-hour, 16-minute foray outside the space capsule began shortly after 7:00 a.m. ET and ended at 1:20 p.m.
NASA flight engineer Andrew Morgan and the commander of the space station’s Expedition 61, Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency, completed leak checks on their installation of a new cooling system meant to extend the lifespan of the externally attached Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer dark matter and antimatter detector.
They were assisted by two other Expedition 61 crew members, NASA flight engineers Jessica Meir and Christina Koch, who operated a Canadarm2 robotic arm capable of fine-tuned maneuvers.
The AMS, as the cosmic ray detector is known, was installed about nine years ago on the spacecraft and was designed to function for only three years. It was not meant to be serviced in flight.
But the scientific data collected by the AMS — to date, it has recorded more than 140 billion particles passing through its detectors, 9 million of which have been identified as the electrons or positrons that compose antimatter — have proven so valuable that NASA scientists now aim to keep it operating for the full 11 years of a complete solar cycle in order to better understand the possible impact of solar radiation variation on astronauts traveling to Mars.
(14) CAT SUITS. The Guardian shows how cats can be
more divisive than Brexit: “Claws
out! Why cats are causing chaos and controversy across Britain”.
Tagline: “Whether it is local ‘cat-seducers’,
out-and-out thievery or marauding toms, our feline friends are prompting
furious rows and rivalries between neighbours.”
…It’s a sad case,” says the Halls’ barrister, Tom Weisselberg QC. “If she’d seen sense, everyone’s time and money would have been saved.” He worked pro bono on the case, because the Halls are friends. There are few legal options for someone wanting to stop their neighbour stealing their cat. Technically, it’s theft, but generally the police won’t get involved. “You have to show that they intend to deprive you permanently of possession,” Weisselberg says. “That’s a high threshold to satisfy.”
When he was a junior barrister, Weisselberg worked on a legal dispute between Kuwait Airways and Iraqi Airways. The Kuwaitis argued, successfully, that the Iraqis had in effect stolen some Kuwaiti planes, because they had painted their own colours on them, thereby converting them. “I said: ‘Look, if the Kuwaitis can say the Iraqis converted their aircraft by putting different colours on the planes, why can’t you say the defendant has converted your cat by changing its collar?’” Weisselberg planned to use this precedent in court but, at the courthouse door, Lesbirel agreed to a number of restrictions on contact with Ozzy.
[Thanks to Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Martin
Morse Wooster, JJ, John King Tarpinian, Cliff Ramshaw, and Andrew Porter for
some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the
day Jon Meltzer.]
The International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood, announced the winners of its 47th Annual Annie Awards™ at a ceremony on January 25.
There are 32 categories spanning features, TV/shortform media and VR, recognizing the year’s best in the field of animation.
Love, Death & Robots won four Annies, including Best Editorial – TV/Media for the episode based on John Scalzi’s short “Alternate Histories.”
Klaus, Sergio Pablos’
Santa Claus origin story and the first original animated motion picture out of
Netflix, dominated the evening with seven wins.
Klaus
Best Feature
Klaus, Netflix Presents A Production of
The Spa Studios and Atresmedia Cine
Best Indie Feature
I Lost My Body, Xilam for Netflix
Best Special Production
How to Train Your Dragon
Homecoming, DreamWorks
Animation
Best Short Subject
Uncle Thomas: Accounting for the
Days,
Ciclope Filmes, National Film Board of Canada, Les Armateurs
Best VR
Bonfire, Baobab Studios
Best Commercial
The Mystical Journey of Jimmy
Page’s ‘59 Telecaster, Nexus Studios
Best TV/Media — Preschool
Ask the Storybots, Episode: “Why Do We Have To
Recycle?,” JibJab Bros. Studios for Netflix
Best TV/Media — Children
Disney Mickey Mouse, Episode: “Carried Away,”
Disney TV Animation/Disney Channel
Best TV/Media — General Audience
BoJack Horseman, Episode: “The Client,” Tornante
Productions, LLC for Netflix
Best Student Film
The Fox & the Pigeon, Michelle Chua
Love, Death & Robots
Best FX for TV/Media
Love, Death & Robots, Episode: “The Secret War,” Blur for Netflix
FX Artist: Viktor Németh
FX Artist: Szabolcs Illés
FX Artist: Ádám Sipos
FX Artist: Vladimir Zhovna
Best FX for Feature
Frozen 2, Walt
Disney Animation Studios
Benjamin Fiske: Benjamin Fiske
Alex Moaveni: Alex Moaveni
Jesse Erickson: Jesse Erickson
Dimitre Berberov: Dimitre
Berberov
Kee Nam Suong: Kee Nam Suong
Best Character Animation — TV/Media
His Dark Materials, Episode: “8,” BBC Studios
Lead Animator: Aulo Licinio Character:
Iroek
Best Character Animation — Animated Feature
Klaus, Netflix Presents A Production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia
Cine
Animation Supervisor: Sergio
Martins
Character: Alva
Best Character Animation — Live Action
Avengers: Endgame, Weta Digital
Animation Supervisor: Sidney
Kombo-Kintombo
Best Character Animation — Video Game
Unruly Heroes, Magic Design Studios
Character Animator: Sebastien
Parodi
Character: Heroes Kid version,
Underworld NPC
Lead Animator: Nicolas Leger
Character: Heroes (Wukong, Kihong, Sandmonk, Sanzang), All enemies (except
Underworld levels) and cinematics
Best Character Design — TV/Media
Carmen Sandiego, Episode: “The Chasing Paper Caper,” Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publishing and DHX Media for Netflix
Character Designer: Keiko
Murayama
Character: Carmen Sandiego,
Paper Star, Player, Shadowsan, Chief, Julia Argent, Chase Devineaux
Best Character Design — Feature
Klaus, Netflix Presents A Production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia
Cine
Character Designer: Torsten
Schrank
Character: All Characters
Best Direction — TV/Media
Disney Mickey Mouse
Episode: For Whom the Booth
Tolls
Disney TV Animation/Disney
Channel
Director: Alonso Ramirez Ramos
Best Direction — Feature
Klaus, Netflix Presents A Production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia
Cine
Director: Sergio Pablos
Best Music — TV/Media
Love, Death & Robots, Episode: “Sonnie’s Edge”
Blur for Netflix
Composer/Lyricist: Rob Cairns
Best Music — Feature
I Lost My Body, Xilam for Netflix
Composer: Dan Levy
Best Production Design — TV/Media
Love, Death & Robots, Episode: “The Witness,” Blur for Netflix
Production Design: Alberto
Mielgo
Best Production Design — Feature
Klaus,
Netflix Presents A Production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia Cine
Production Design: Szymon
Biernaki
Production Design: Marcin
Jakubowski
Best Storyboarding — TV/Media
Carmen Sandiego, Episode: “Becoming Carmen Sandiego: Part 1,” Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt Publishing and DHX Media for Netflix
Storyboard Artist: Kenny Park
Best Storyboarding — Feature
Klaus,
Netflix Presents A Production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia Cine
Storyboard Artist: Sergio Pablos
Best Voice Acting — TV/Media
Bob’s Burgers, Episode: “Roamin’ Bob-iday,” 20th Century Fox / Bento Box
Entertainment
Cast: H. Jon Benjamin Character:
Bob
Best Voice Acting — Feature
Frozen 2,
Walt Disney Animation Studios
Josh Gad: Josh Gad
Character: Olaf
Best Writing — TV/Media
Tuca & Bertie, Episode: “The Jelly Lakes,” Tornante Productions, LLC for
Netflix
Writer: Shauna McGarry
Best Writing — Feature
I Lost My Body, Xilam for Netflix
Writer: Jérémy Clapin
Writer: Guillaume Laurant
Best Editorial — TV/Media
Love, Death & Robots, Episode: “Alternate Histories,” Blur for Netflix
Nominee: Bo Juhl
Nominee: Stacy Auckland
Nominee: Valerian Zamel
Best Editorial — Feature
Klaus, Netflix
Presents A Production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia Cine
Nominee: Pablo García Revert
The following juried awards were also presented:
Winsor McCay Award for their exemplary industry careers —
Satoshi Kon (posthumously), Japanese film director, animator, screenwriter and manga artist;
Henry Selick, stop motion director, producer and writer who is best known for directing the stop-motion animation films The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach, and Coraline; and
Ron Clements & John Musker, animators, animation directors, screenwriters and producers of one of the Walt Disney Animation Studio’s leading director teams.
The June Foray Award —
Jeanette Bonds, writer, independent animator,
and co-founder and director of GLAS Animation; and
The Ub Iwerks Award —
Jim Blinn, computer scientist who first
became widely known for his work as a computer graphics expert
at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), particularly his work
on the pre-encounter animations for the Voyager project.
The winners
of the 72nd DGA Awards presented by the Directors Guild of America on January
25 included the directors of a Watchmen episode, and the genre-adjacent Chernobyl
miniseries.
Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic
Series
NICOLE KASSELL – Watchmen, “It’s Summer and We’re Running Out of Ice” (HBO)
Ms.
Kassell’s Directorial Team:
Unit
Production Managers: Karen Wacker, Ron Schmidt, Joseph E. Iberti
First
Assistant Director: Keri Bruno
Second
Assistant Directors: Lisa Zugschwerdt, Ben White
Second
Second Assistant Director: Jessie Sasser White
Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for
Television and Limited Series
The Agatha Awards honor the “traditional mystery,” books
typified by the works of Agatha Christie and others. The genre is loosely
defined as mysteries that contain no explicit sex, excessive gore or gratuitous
violence, and are not classified as “hard-boiled.”
A ballot listing each category’s nominees will be given to all
attendees of Malice Domestic 32, which will be held May 1-3, 2020. Attendees
will vote by secret ballot and the winners will be announced at the Agatha
Awards Banquet.
The Agatha Award Nominees (for works published in 2019)
Best Contemporary Novel
Fatal Cajun Festival by Ellen Byron (Crooked Lane Books)
The Long Call by Ann Cleeves (Minotaur)
Fair Game by Annette Dashofy (Henery Press)
The Missing Ones by Edwin Hill (Kensington)
A Better Man by Louise Penny (Minotaur)
The Murder List by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Forge)
Best First Mystery Novel
A Dream of Death by Connie Berry (Crooked Lane Books)
One Night Gone by Tara Laskowski (Graydon House, a division of Harlequin)
Murder Once Removed by S. C. Perkins (Minotaur)
When It’s Time for Leaving by Ang Pompano (Encircle Publications)
Staging for Murder by Grace Topping (Henery Press)
Best Historical Mystery
Love and Death Among the Cheetahs by Rhys Bowen (Penquin)
Murder Knocks Twice by Susanna Calkins (Minotaur)
The Pearl Dagger by L. A. Chandlar (Kensington)
Charity’s Burden by Edith Maxwell (Midnight Ink)
The Naming Game by Gabriel Valjan (Winter Goose Publishing)
Best Nonfiction
Frederic Dannay, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and the Art of the Detective Short Story by Laird R. Blackwell (McFarland)
Blonde Rattlesnake: Burmah Adams, Tom White, and the 1933 Crime Spree that Terrified Los Angeles by Julia Bricklin (Lyons Press)
Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep (Knopf)
The Mutual Admiration Society: How Dorothy L. Sayers and her Oxford Circle Remade the World for Women by Mo Moulton (Basic Books)
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold (Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt)
Best Children/Young Adult
Kazu Jones and the Denver Dognappers by Shauna Holyoak (Disney Hyperion)
Two Can Keep a Secret by Karen MacManus (Delacorte Press)
The Last Crystal by Frances Schoonmaker (Auctus Press)
Top Marks for Murder (A Most Unladylike Mystery)
by Robin Stevens (Puffin)
Jada Sly, Artist and Spy by Sherri Winston (Little Brown Books for Young Readers)
Best Short Story
“Grist for the Mill” by Kaye George in A Murder of Crows (Darkhouse Books)
“Alex’s Choice” by Barb Goffman in Crime Travel (Wildside Press)
“The Blue Ribbon” by Cynthia Kuhn in Malice Domestic 14: Mystery Most Edible (Wildside Press)
“The Last Word” by Shawn Reilly Simmons, Malice Domestic 14: Mystery Most Edible (Wildside Press)
“Better Days” by Art Taylor in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
A rather familiar S shield was used as the sign-off to a classic 1930 science fiction fanzine
STATUS:
True
This is an interesting legend because I’m not trying to prove that something is a specific influence or anything like that, which I normally do in stuff like this (or, in the alternative, show that it WASN’T an influence). No, here, the POSSIBLE inspiration is so interesting in and of itself that I’m still going to feature it. It’s just THAT freaky.
… [Mort] Weisinger and the others (including [Julie] Schwartz) referred to themselves as “The Scienceers.”
In the third issue of The Planet (and yes, by the way, there’s a reasonable chance that the name of the fanzine, itself, was an inspiration for the Daily Planet, as well), they tried out a logo for “The Scienceers”.
Julien Tabet is a 21-year-old French artist who creates incredible photo manipulations of animals. He started creating his clever edits a little over a year ago and in this short time gathered a whopping 95k followers on Instagram.
(3) JEOPARDY! GOAT. [Item by David Goldfarb.] I went back and
watched the first episode of the Jeopardy! “Greatest of All
Time” tournament (yes, this is out of order: I blame Hulu’s UI) and there
was a category “Greatest of All Time Travelers” in the preliminary
round of the second game. All answers were successfully questioned. I’ll put
the answers first, in case readers want to try themselves:
$200: In Stephen King’s “11/22/63”, Jake Epping travels back in time to prevent this event from ever happening.
$400: In this Audrey Niffenegger novel, Clare is married to Henry, who suffers from Chrono-Displacement Disorder.
$600: In chapter 16 of “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”, Hank meets this woman whose first name is the same as his surname.
$800: In this 1969 classic, Tralfamadorians abduct the protagonist who has unfortunately become “unstuck in time”.
$1000: “Kindred”, about an African-American woman transplanted back to a plantation in antebellum Maryland, is a novel by this author.
And
here are the questions:
$200: What is the Kennedy assassination?
$400: What is “The Time Traveler’s Wife”?
$600: Who is Morgan Le Fey?
$800: What is “Slaughterhouse-5”?
$1000: Who is Octavia Butler?
Also,
in the Double Jeopardy round of that game, this was the $800 answer in the
category “Potpourri”:
When she said she was leaving “Star Trek”, MLK asked her to stay, saying, “Through you, we see ourselves and what can be”.
I assume that all File 770 readers will know, “Who is Nichelle Nichols?”
(3) A FAR, FAR BETTER THING. James Davis Nicoll starts “Five
SF Works Involving Epic Space Journeys” starts by telling Tor.com readers
he’s running for DUFF – because he, too,
wants to make an epic journey, get it?
… Of course, the tradition of sending people very far away for various laudable reasons is an old one. Unsurprisingly, this is reflected through the lens of science fiction. Various SF protagonists have been sent quite astonishing distances; sometimes they are even permitted to return home. Here are five examples.
(4) NOW ON SALE. Stephen Blackmoore, one of the game
designers for Evil Hat’s game Fate of Cthulthu, wants
to make something very clear:
Let me get this straight. In Fate of Cthulhu we specifically pointed out the racism of HP Lovecraft because well, he was a racist motherfucker, and we couldn’t in good conscience ignore that.
Somebody asked why, then, try to monetize Lovecraft’s material at all? How dare someone ask a question like that! Jeeeze, dude, next thing you’ll be asking the Emperor where’s his clothes!
(5) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS. [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born January 25, 1905 — Margery Sharp. Her best remembered work is The Rescuers series which concerns a mouse by the name of Miss Bianca. They were later adapted in two Disney animated films, The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under. I’m reasonably sure I’ve seen the first one a very long time ago. Her genre novel, The Stone of Chastity, is according to her website, based on English folklore. Other than the first volume of The Rescuer series, she’s not really available digitally though she is mostly in print in the dead tree format. (Died 1991.)
Born January 25, 1918 — King Donovan. Jack Belicec in the original and by far the best version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Thirty years later, he’d be Lunartini Husband in Nothing Lasts Forever, a SF comedy film with a contentious history. His only other genre appearence was a one-off on Night Gallery. (Died 1987.)
Born January 25, 1920 — Bruce Cassiday. Under two different pen names, Con Steffanson and Carson Bingham, he wrote three Flash Gordon novels (The Trap of Ming XII, The Witch Queen of Mongo and The War of the Cybernauts) and he also wrote several pieces of nonfiction worth noting, The Illustrated History of Science Fiction, with Dieter Wuckel, and Modern Mystery, Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers. The latter done in ‘93 is safely out of date and OOP as well. Checking the online digital publishing concerns shows nothing’s available by him. (Died 2005.)
Born January 25, 1931 — Dean Jones. An actor in some of the sillier and most entertaining genre and genre adjacent films undertaken in the Sixties. He was Jim Douglas in The Love Bug, Steve Walker in Blackbeard’s Ghost and Peter Denwell in Mr. Superinvisible. May I count his later appearance in Agent Zeke Kelso in That Darn Cat! as a SJW cred? Around the the time of the film, he was a Dean Webster Carlson in The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes. His final role before he retired from acting was as Ebenezer Scrooge in Scrooge & Marley. (Died 2015.)
Born January 25, 1943 — Tobe Hooper. Responsible for the Texas Chainsaw Maasacare, which heco-wrote with Kim Henkel. That alone gets him Birthday honors. But he has also directed the Salem’s Lot series, also Poltergeist, Lifeforce and Invaders from Mars. And this is hardly a full listing. (Died 2017.)
Born January 25, 1950 — Christopher Ryan, 70. He’s played two different aliens on Doctor Who. First in the Sixth Doctor story, “Mindwarp,” he was Kiv where he looked looked akin to Clayface from the animated Batman series. Second in the era of the Tenth Doctor (“The Sontarian Experiment”, “The Poison Sky”) and the Eleventh Doctor (“The Pandorica Opens”), he was the Sontarian General Staal Commander Stark.
Born January 25, 1958 — Peter Watts, 62. Author of the most excellent Firefall series which I read and enjoyed immensely. I’ve not read the Rifters trilogy so would welcome opinions on it. And his Sunflower linked short stories sound intriguing. Queen of Air and Darkness he’s written lot!
Born January 25, 1963 — Catherine Butler, 57. Has published a number of works of which his most important is Four British fantasists: place and culture in the children’s fantasies of Penelope Lively, Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones, and Susan Cooper. Anotherimportant work is Reading History in Children’s Books, with Hallie O’Donovan. Her website ishere.
Born January 25, 1973 — Geoff Johns, 47. Where to begin? Though he’s done some work outside of DC, he is intrinsically linked to that company having working for them for twenty years. My favorite work by him in on Batman: Gotham Knights, Justice League of America #1–7 (2013) and 52 which I grant which was way overly ambitious but really fun. Oh and I’d be remiss not to notehis decade long run on the Green Lantern books.
(6) COMICS SECTION.
Tom Gauld predicts the Jack Reacher series will veer off in surprising new directions.
On Friday, Trump unveiled the new insignia for the United States Space Force — which was signed into effect in late December — and was met with a flurry of comparisons to the emblem worn by the members of Star Trek‘s fictional Starfleet organization.
“After consultation with our Great Military Leaders, designers, and others, I am pleased to present the new logo for the United States Space Force, the Sixth Branch of our Magnificent Military!” Trump tweeted alongside the Space Force’s new logo.
George Takei, who starred as Hikaru Sulu in the original Star Trek series, was quick to respond. Amid accusations from other Trekkies that the emblem had copied the Starfleet logo, the actor responded to Trump in a tweet, “Ahem. We are expecting some royalties from this…”
…Compare and contrast: On the left side of the image above is the logo for Space Force (which, for those of you wondering, is part of the air force and not actually a separate branch of the military); and on the right is the emblem of Starfleet Command, the scientific and military space force for the United Federation of Planets.
…Now, in fairness, the new Space
Force logo is actually based on the preexisting Air Force Space Command logo,
which was established in 1982 and rendered obsolete by Space Force. Here’s what
that looks like:
Okay, here, I’ve run the story – you all can stop sending me links
to it.
On January 9, the World Health Organization notified the public of a flu-like outbreak in China: a cluster of pneumonia cases had been reported in Wuhan, possibly from vendors’ exposure to live animals at the Huanan Seafood Market. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had gotten the word out a few days earlier, on January 6. But a Canadian health monitoring platform had beaten them both to the punch, sending word of the outbreak to its customers on December 31.
BlueDot uses an AI-driven algorithm that scours foreign-language news reports, animal and plant disease networks, and official proclamations to give its clients advance warning to avoid danger zones like Wuhan.
Speed matters during an outbreak, and tight-lipped Chinese officials do not have a good track record of sharing information about diseases, air pollution, or natural disasters. But public health officials at WHO and the CDC have to rely on these very same health officials for their own disease monitoring. So maybe an AI can get there faster…
Content moderators are being asked to sign forms stating they understand the job could cause post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to reports.
The Financial Times and The Verge reported moderators for Facebook and YouTube, hired by the contractor Accenture, were sent the documents.
Moderators monitor objectionable materials and often view hundreds of disturbing images in a day’s work.
Accenture said the wellbeing of workers was a “top priority”.
In a statement the company added only new joiners were being asked to sign the forms, whereas existing employees were being sent the form as an update.
“We regularly update the information we give our people to ensure that they have a clear understanding of the work they do,” Accenture said in a statement.
(10) SPOT INSPECTION. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Tested Labs has begin a year-long series of tests of Boston Dynamics dog-like robot Spot. Former Mythbuster Adam Savage will be a tester and the on-camera host of the video series, available on their YouTube channel. Nerdist:“Adam Savage Tested Boston Dynamics’ ‘Spot’ Robot Dog”
Boston Dynamics’ robot dog, “Spot,” has been in the news ever since the robotics company debuted its ancestor, BigDog, a decade ago. Over the last ten years, we’ve seen Spot evolve from prototype into polished product, and now it’s finally time to see how the mechanical quadruped performs out in the real world. And what better way to do that than by having legendary myth-buster Adam Savage put the robo-pup through its paces?
Savage and the rest of the Tested YouTube channel crew recently announced they’ll be testing Spot over the next year, with an initial video (above) showing the team unboxing the robot dog and having it perform some initial tasks including walking, climbing, and crawling; feats, incidentally, that would make most other four-legged droids quake in their metallic foot cups.
(11) VIDEO OF THE DAY.
In “Time Travel in
Fiction Rundown” on YouTube, Minute Physics explains different
theories of time travel, including in Ender’s Game and Harry Potter.
[Thanks to JJ, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, John King Tarpinian, N., Olav Rokne, Hampus Eckerman, Michael Toman, James Davis Nicoll, David Goldfarb, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Chris S.]
By Dale Arnold: The Baltimore Science Fiction Society has received a permit to construct an ADA compliant ramp outside its headquarters after a two year process which was delayed by both lost government records (improper hand recopying of data still held on physical index cards) at the Baltimore Zoning and Planning Department Office and not one but two ransomware attacks at that department which brought their computer systems down to the point where they had to rebuild the entire system… After explaining that even though the zoning code did not have a category for science fiction society or literary society, that the Baltimore Science Fiction Society was not like a union hall or a dance club or other things that the zoning folks believed might be similar…
BSFS
is happy to announce we finally received the permit. This ramp will finally
allow people using wheelchairs to enter the front of the Baltimore Science
Fiction Society Building and not use the steep scary freight ramp at the back
of the building.
The
final ramp design is more complex than we had originally hoped adding to some
of the approval delays and boosting up the price due to the slope of the
property, placement of doors on the building, and location of gas and plumbing
lines. Engineering drawings and fund raising for this project began in
2013 and it has been a long haul, but we now have the funds, permit, and
contractors lined up to perform construction in March 2020. (when the weather
breaks as concrete sets poorly in the cold)
All
of the surplus funds raised at Balticon 50 where George R. R. Martin was guest
of honor, as well as many thousands of dollars raised from fandom at other
events will go to cover the total cost of over $30,000.00 for the project.
BSFS thanks everyone in fandom that contributed for their faith and
generosity toward this project.
This week TFL takes a look at all the iconic characters getting third acts, what’s good, what’s bad and who’s missing. I also take a look at the excellent charity ‘zine Visitor’s Pass, inspired by The Magnus Archives, process the emotions of my partner finally being out of the Visa system, embrace the joy of getting weird fiction-related and talk about what’s next for The Full Lid.
Keep a very, very close eye on the Captain’s Biography series from Titan. Firstly because they’re immense fun (the ‘Edited by’ tag kills me every time) and secondly because they’re a useful canary. Or to put it another way, we’ll know the Pike-Era Enterprise show is a go (and I’m 99% sure it is), once the Chris Pike biography is announced…
Anyway, Janeway is a perfect fit for the Picard treatment. She successfully guided a disparate crew home across an incalculable distance, assisted in dealing a near-mortal blow to Starfleet’s most relentless enemy and happily accepted a promotion, something we know Picard struggled to do. I’d love to see a show following her in the same time period. Interestingly, and with typical eloquence, Kate Mulgrew is less sure. I can see why too. (Incidentally, Mulgrew is fantastic as the narrator of The Space Race, which I’ll be writing about the remainder of here shortly.)
It’s happened. You’ve finally taken that dream trip to England. You have seen Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, and Hyde Park. You rode in a London cab and walked all over the Tower of London. Now you’ve decided to leave the hustle and bustle of the city and stretch your legs in the verdant countryside of these green and pleasant lands. You’ve seen all the shows. You know what to expect. You’ll drink a pint in the sunny courtyard of a local pub. You’ll wander down charming alleyways between stone cottages. Residents will tip their flat caps at you as they bicycle along cobblestone streets. It will be idyllic.
Unless you end up in an English Murder Village. It’s easy enough to do. You may not know you are in a Murder Village, as they look like all other villages. So when you visit Womble Hollow or Shrimpling or Pickles-in-the-Woods or Nasty Bottom or Wombat-on-Sea or wherever you are going, you must have a plan. Below is a list of sensible precautions you can take on any trip to an English village. Follow them and you may just live….
It wasn’t like any color I’d ever seen before,” explains a dazed New England patriarch, trying to describe the unearthly phenomena at the center of Color Out of Space. Such an assertion might work in “The Colour Out of Space,” the 1927 story by H.P. Lovecraft, whose work oozes with mysteries that can’t be fully comprehended or even perceived. But viewers of the movie have already seen the unearthly hue by the time it’s so described.
It’s purple.
So are many things in this indigestible stew of modern sci-fi and antiquarian horror, notably Nicolas Cage’s characteristically unhinged performance. Cage plays Nathan Gardner, a failed painter and would-be farmer who’s frantic to protect his wife, three kids, dog, and flock of alpacas. Alpacas? They’re among many additions to the tale that would bewilder its original creator.
Like this movie, Lovecraft’s pulp-fiction mythos combines extraterrestrial and occult threats, although the author was never concerned with plausible science. So it’s not such a stretch that the first Gardner to be introduced is one invented altogether by the filmmakers: teenage Lavinia (Madeleine Arthur), whose blonde tresses are partly dyed, yes, purple. She’s an aspiring witch spied by the movie’s narrator, visiting hydrologist Ward Phillips (Elliot Knight), as she’s performing a ritual in the woods.
…In the original, the narrator arrives years after the events have occurred, and struggles to piece it all together. His investigation leaves questions and doubts, allowing readers to complete the story in their heads and decide for themselves what they believe. Color Out of Space takes a more explicit, less artful course: It turns ominous possibilities into a gory mess that proves utterly unbelievable.
(5) SOMTOW’S NEW OPERA. A story behind a paywall at the Financial Times, however, I was able to access the article from Google (no idea if that will work for you.) The headline is: “Helena Citrónová — Somtow Sucharitkul’s Auschwitz-set opera premieres in Bangkok.”
A work of intriguing moral ambiguity was sung with passionate commitment at the Thailand Cultural Centre
When he first saw the BBC’s landmark 2005 documentary on Auschwitz, the Thai-born, British-educated composer and author Somtow Sucharitkul was immediately struck by a Slovakian prisoner’s interview about her relationship with a Nazi officer. Sensing its operatic potential, he soon fashioned a libretto inspired by their story.
The music came later, mostly in fits and starts. But last autumn Somtow unveiled a suite from the opera during a European concert tour, and the piece quickly gained traction after a broadcast in Slovakia. All this helps explain why, amid this month’s 75th anniversary commemorations of the liberation of Auschwitz, the opera Helena Citrónová made its premiere last week in Bangkok with the imprimatur of the German and Israeli ambassadors to Thailand.
Opera Siam, which Somtow originally formed as the Bangkok Opera in 2001, is a scrappy outfit largely moulded from its founder’s diverse interests. Halfway through presenting south-east Asia’s first Ring Cycle — its Siegfried has been postponed at least twice — the company began devoting resources to Somtow’s epic cycle Ten Lives of the Buddha (it has now reached chapter six).
Emotionally, the evening took its cues directly from Cassandra Black’s Helena and Falko Hönisch’s Nazi guard Franz Wunsch, who acutely revealed their emotional range in one standout scene, in which Franz is interrogated and Helena is tortured (at opposite ends of the stage), smoothly transitioning from dramatic quartet to lyrical love duet. Other standouts (in multiple roles) were Stella Grigorian’s maternal presence as Helena’s sister and Franz’s mother, and Damian Whiteley’s all-round villainy as both chief prisoner and a German captain.
Pre-production on the Obi-Wan Kenobi-focused TV series in the works at Disney Plus has been put on hold as the streamer and Lucasfilm look to overhaul early scripts and find new writers, sources tell Variety.
Hossein Amini had been attached to write. The news follows recent talk that the entire series was being scrapped altogether.
(7) TODAY IN HISTORY.
January 24, 1969 – Trek’s “That Which Survives” first aired on NBC.
“What is it, Jim?”
“A planet that even Spock can’t explain.”
– McCoy and Kirk, on the Kalandan outpost
This episode has the Enterprise crew members stranded on a ghost planet and terrorized by Losira, the image of a beautiful woman. (Former Miss America Lee Meriwether plays her.) It was the seventeenth episode of the final season. It was directed by Herb Wallerstein. It was written by John Meredyth Lucas as based on a story by D.C. Fontana under the pseudonym Michael Richards. In her original “Survival” story, Losira is much more brutal, and actively encourages the crew to turn on each other and fight.
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born January 24, 1911 — C. L. Moore. Author and wife of Henry Kuttner until his death in 1958. Their collaborative work resulted in such delightful works as “Mimsy Were the Borogoves” and “Vintage Season”, both of which were turned into films which weren’t as good as the stories. She had a strong writing career prior to her marriage as well with such fiction as “Shambleau” which involves her most famous character Northwest Smith. I’d also single out “Nymph of Darkness” which she wrote with Forrest J Ackerman. I’ll not overlook her Jirel of Joiry, one of the first female sword and sorcery characters, and the “Black God’s Kiss” story is the first tale she wrote of her adventures. She retired from writing genre fiction after Kuttner died, writing only scripts for writing episodes of Sugarfoot, Maverick, The Alaskans and77 Sunset Strip, in the late fifties and early sixties. Checking iBooks, Deversion Books offers a nearly eleven-hundred page collection of their fiction for a mere three bucks. Is their work in the public domain now? (Died 1987.)
Born January 24, 1917 — Ernest Borgnine. I think his first genre role was Al Martin in Willard but if y’all know of something earlier I’m sure you’ll tell me. He’s Harry Booth in The Black Hole, a film whose charms still escape me entirely. Next up for him is the cabbie in the superb Escape from New York. In the same year, he was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor as Isaiah Schmidt in the horror film Deadly Blessing. A few years later, he’s The Lion in a version of Alice in Wonderland. Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders is horror and his Grandfather isn’t that kindly. He voices Kip Killigan in Small Soldiers which I liked, and I think his last role was voicing Command in Enemy Mind. Series wise let’s see… it’s possible that his first SF role was as Nargola on Captain Video and His Video Rangers way back in 1951. After that he shows up in, and I’ll just list the series for the sake of brevity, Get Smart, Future Cop, The Ghost of Flight 401, Airwolf where of course he’s regular cast, Treasure Island in Outer Space and Touched by an Angel. (Died 2012.)
Born January 24, 1937 — Julie Gregg. A performer that showed up in a lot of SFF series though never in a primary role. She was in Batman: The Movie as a Nightclub Singer (uncredited) in her first genre role, followed by three appearances on the series itself, two as the Finella character; one-offs on I Dream of Genie, Bewitched, The Flying Nun, Mission: Impossible, Kolchak: The Night Stalker and Incredible Hulk followed. Her only lead role was as Maggie Spencer in Mobile One which can’t even be stretched to be considered genre adjacent. (Died 2016.)
Born January 24, 1944 — David Gerrold, 76. Let’s see… He of course scripted “The Trouble With Tribbles” which I absolutely love, wrote the amazing patch-up novel When HARLIE Was One, has his ongoing War Against the Chtorr series and wrote, with Robert J. Sawyer, Boarding the Enterprise: Transporters, Tribbles, and the Vulcan Death Grip in Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek. Besides his work as a novel writer, he’s been a screenwriter for Star Trek, Star Trek: The Animated Series, Land of the Lost, Logan’s Run (the series), Superboy, Babylon 5, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Sliders, Star Trek New Voyages: Phase II, and Axanar. Very, very impressive.
Born January 24, 1949 — John Belushi. No, he was no in a single SFF series or film that I can mention here though he did voice work on one such undertaking early in his career that I’ll not mention here as it’s clearly pornographic in nature. No, he’s here for his brilliant parody of Shatner as Captain Kirk which he did on Saturday Night Live which you can watch here. (Died 1982.)
Born January 24, 1967 — Phil LaMarr, 53. Best known I think for his voice work which, and this is a partial list, includes Young Justice (Aquaman among others), the lead role on Static Shock, John Stewart aka Green Lantern on Justice League Unlimited, Robbie Robertson on The Spectacular Spider-Man, various roles on Star Wars: The Clone Wars and T’Shan on Black Panther. Live roles include playing a Jazz singer in the “Shoot Up the Charts” episode of Get Smart, a doctor on The Muppets in their ”Generally Inhospitable” segment, a lawyer in the “Weaponizer” episode of Lucifer and the voice of Rag Doll in the “All Rag Doll’d Up” episode of The Flash.
Born January 24, 1970 — Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, 50. It’s been awhile since I’ve done an academic so let’s have one. He’s not a specialist — instead he’s tackled the Gothic (The Cambridge Companion to the American Gothic), cult television (Return to Twin Peaks: New Approaches to Materiality, Theory, and Genre on Television), popular culture (Critical Approaches to Welcome to Night Vale: Podcasting Between Weather and the Void) and even cult film (Reading Rocky: The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Popular Culture). His The Age of Lovecraft anthology (co-edited with Carl Sederhlm) has an interview by him with China Miéville on Lovecraft.
Born January 24, 1985 — Remy Ryan, 35. You most likely remember as her as ever-so-cute hacker urchin in RoboCop 3 who saves the day at the end of that film. She actually had her start in acting in Beauty and the Beast at four and was in The Flash a year later. At twelve, she’s in Mann & Machine. A year later is when she’s that urchin. Her last genre undertaking was in The Lost Room eight years ago and she retired from acting not long after.
“The Lake” is a short story by Ray Bradbury, which was first published in the May 1944 issue of Weird Tales and is therefore eligible for the 1945 Retro Hugos. The story may be found online here. This review is also crossposted to Retro Science Fiction Reviews.
Warning: There will be spoilers in the following….
New Worlds is an eclectic mixture this month and there are signs that Moorcock is making his own stamp on the magazine. The addition of factual science articles and more literary reviews reflect this, and it must be said that the expansion of literary criticism has been one of Mike’s intentions since he took over as Editor. It’ll be interesting to see how the regular readers respond to it.
By including such material of course means that there’s less space for fiction, and I suspect that whilst that might ease Moorcock’s load a little – he is writing and editing a fair bit of it, after all – it may not sit well with readers. But then we are now monthly…
(11) TROPES IN SPACE. If, like me, you don’t remember ever
hearing about 1990’s computer game “Master of Orion”,
no problem — Digital Antiquarian tells us everything we missed. And
about a few other PC sff games, too.
…A new game of Master of Orion begins with you choosing a galaxy size (from small to huge), a difficulty level (from simple to impossible), and a quantity of opposing aliens to compete against (from one to five). Then you choose which specific race you would like to play; you have ten possibilities in all, drawing from a well-worn book of science-fiction tropes, from angry cats in space to hive-mind-powered insects, from living rocks to pacifistic brainiacs, alongside the inevitable humans. Once you’ve made your choice, you’re cast into the deep end — or rather into deep space — with a single half-developed planet, a colony ship for settling a second planet as soon as you find a likely candidate, two unarmed scout ships for exploring for just such a candidate, and a minimal set of starting technologies.
(12) ABOUT WHAT YOU’D EXPECT. Mad Genius Club’s Peter
Grant hasn’t quite learned how to fake sincerity: “Things To Ponder”.
…Whilst I don’t sexually objectify (or subjectify, for that matter) attack helicopters in any way (the ones I saw in my younger days, I was usually trying to shoot down!), and I’m more of a transgressor than a transgender, I nevertheless sympathize with the author.
The Lion King won’t be the only Disney film about an animal losing a parent to be made even more realistic and emotional thanks to modern technology. Now the 1942 animated classic Bambi will be getting what Disney calls a “live-action” remake (even though it’s actually impressive CGI that aims to be photoreal).
The voice of a 3,000-year-old ancient Egyptian priest has been recreated using cutting-edge 3D printing and speech technology.
Nesyamun’s voice was reproduced as a vowel-like sound that is reminiscent of a sheep’s bleat.
The research – carried out by academics at Royal Holloway, University of London, the University of York and Leeds Museum – is published in the Scientific Reports journal.
Chocolate chip cookies have become the first food to be baked in space in a first-of-its-kind experiment.
Astronauts baked the cookies in a special zero-gravity oven at the International Space Station (ISS) last month.
Sealed in individual baking pouches, three of the cookies returned to Earth on the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft on 7 January.
The aim of the experiment was to study cooking options for long-haul trips.
The results of the experiment, carried out by astronauts Luca Parmitano and Christina Koch, were revealed this week.
The question is: how do they taste? The answer: nobody knows, yet
A spokesman for Double Tree, the company that supplied the dough, told the BBC the cookies would “soon undergo additional testing by food science professionals to determine the final results of the experiment”.
These tests will establish whether the cookies are safe to eat.
While the West tends to see robots and artificial intelligence as a threat, Japan has a more philosophical view that has led to the country’s complex relationship with machines.
At a certain 400-year-old Buddhist temple, visitors can stroll through peaceful stone gardens, sit for a quiet cup of tea, and receive Buddhist teachings from an unusual priest: an android named Mindar. It has a serene face and neutral appearance, neither old nor young, male nor female. Beyond the realistic skin covering its head and upper torso, it looks unfinished and industrial, with exposed tubes and machinery. But Mindar is philosophically quite sophisticated, discoursing on an abstruse Buddhist text called the Heart Sutra.
If you had to figure out where you could find this robotic priest, you might need only one guess to conclude it’s in Japan, at the beautiful Kodai-ji Temple in Kyoto. Japan has long been known as a nation that builds and bonds with humanoid robots more enthusiastically than any other. While this reputation is often exaggerated abroad – Japanese homes and businesses are not densely populated by androids, as hyperventilating headlines imply – there is something to it.
Some observers of Japanese society say that the country’s indigenous religion, Shinto, explains its fondness for robots. Shinto is a form of animism that attributes spirits, or kami, not only to humans but to animals, natural features like mountains, and even quotidien objects like pencils. “All things have a bit of soul,” in the words of Bungen Oi, the head priest of a Buddhist temple that held funerals for robotic companion dogs.
According to this view, there is no categorical distinction between humans, animals, and objects, so it is not so strange for a robot to demonstrate human-like behaviours – it’s just showing its particular kind of kami. “For Japanese, we can always see a deity inside an object,” says Kohei Ogawa, Mindar’s lead designer.
Japan’s animism stands in contrast with the philosophical traditions of the West. Ancient Greeks were animistic in that they saw spirits in natural places like streams, but they thought of the human soul and mind as distinctly separate from and above the rest of nature.
(18) VIDEO OF THE DAY. In “Le Silence de la Rue” on Vimeo, Marie Opron discusses
the hazards of city life.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, Cat
Eldridge, JJ, Mike Kennedy, Chip Hitchcock, Michael Toman, Jeffrey Smith, Daniel
Dern, N., and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to
contributing editor of the day Andrew.]
