Strangest of All, an anthology of astrobiological science fiction, edited by Julie Nováková, is now available as a free download. The book was created for the European Astrobiology Institute’s BEACON 2020 conference, cancelled because of the coronavirus outbreak.
The collected stories take readers on a journey to encounter life in the universe. The original nonfiction essays following each story consider our chances of finding life outside of the Earth, detecting it remotely, and learning its limits.
The stories are reprints by G. David Nordley, Geoffrey Landis, Gregory Benford, Tobias S. Buckell, Peter Watts and D. A. Xiaolin Spires, plus a bonus story by the editor.
DOWNLOAD. The anthology can be downloaded as a .pdf file here. It is also available as a .mobi and .epub file.
EUROPEAN ASTROBIOLOGY INSTITUTE. By fostering interdisciplinary and international research in astrobiology and bringing together scientists, industry and the general public, the EAI aims to educate and to present the exciting and relevant field of astrobiology.
One of the ways to introduce astrobiology to people of various ages, backgrounds, nations or interests is through popular fiction. Science fiction has long served as means to showcase new ideas, has always been inspired by science and vice versa. That’s why EAI developed a project team “Science Fiction as a tool for Astrobiology Outreach and Education”, whose first major project is the educational and outreach astrobiological SF anthology Strangest of All.
Do you have a passion for science, outreach/education and science fiction and would like to be involved in similar projects? Get in touch with the editor at [email protected].
ABOUT THE STORIES. Nordley’s “War, Ice, Egg, Universe” takes readers to an aquatic civilization inhabiting a Europalike world with an ice-covered ocean, and the accompanying essay focuses on what we know about conditions for life on Europa, Enceladus, Ganymede and other ocean worlds.
In “Into The Blue Abyss” by Landis, the protagonist dives into an entirely different ocean – the high-pressure liquid water layer on Uranus, where chemistry signifying possible life had been observed. Could life really exist in such conditions – and could high-pressure environments actually be one of the most common habitats in the universe?
Continuing the journey outward of the Sun, “Backscatter” by Benford finds life in an improbable place: an icy asteroid in the Kuiper Belt. The follow-up essay provides background on the possibility of life in asteroids and comets, and dives into the topic of exotic silicon-based life in such cold places with no liquid water.
In Buckell’s “A Jar of Goodwill”, we leave solar system and environments similar to it entirely, visiting a strange exoplanet where plants metabolize chlorine – but the main problem the hero faces is whether its ant-like inhabitants are intelligent creatures. Halogen-based photosynthesis was actually proposed in theory – so we can look at where we could expect such exotic life.
Even more exotic is the titular creature in Watts’ novelette “The Island”: a live Dyson sphere. In the essay, we look at how we can search for Dyson spheres, what the surveys yielded up-to-date, and whether we could presume anything about the origin and thought processes of a nigh impossible being like the Island.
Benford returns with a microstory “SETI for Profit”, an interesting take on how to revive interest in SETI. What efforts to listen to potential extra-terrestrial messages have been taken so far, and what can we expect in the future?
The topic of SETI is inextricably linked with the Fermi Paradox, one of the themes of Spires’ “But, Still, I Smile”. How can we explain the paradox with what we know so far, and how does the explanation in the story relate to our world?
Finally, in the bonus story by Nováková, “Martian Fever”, we look at Mars exploration gone awry – and the risks of interplanetary biological contamination and the question of planetary protection.
Each story is followed not only by the science essay complete with references for readers craving more, but also a couple of ideas for classroom discussions or tasks (best-suited for higher high school grades or undergraduate university students), such as thinking of how to devise a message for a potentially listening alien civilization, bearing in mind what we know of sensory and cognitive differences between species here on Earth. For most of the questions, there is no definitive answer – but all the more curiosity should they elicit.
[Thanks to Gregory Benford and Nina Shepardson for the story. Based on a press release.]
So, when I first started wearing a mask a few weeks ago, I could not stop thinking about one of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s best known compositions, “The Flight of the Bumblebee”, which was also adapted and famously used as the theme music for the radio and television versions of The Green Hornet.
When I was gifted with a black mask by a relative, I made it a priority to buy a classic patch and sew it on myself.
I get a few off looks but that’s ok. When I put it on along with my fedora and jacket, I feel like the outlaw vigilante I was always meant to be…
“The Green Hornet! He matches wits with racketeers and saboteurs, risking his life so that criminals and enemy spies will feel the weight of the law by the sting of the Green Hornet!”
If you want to see this series continue, send photos of your mask and social distancing reads to mikeglyer (at) cs (dot) com
With at least 200 comic, sff and pop culture conventions having cancelled or postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak, Tampa NBC affiliate WFLA’s report today that “Tampa Bay Comic Con gets green light to go on in July” was an unexpected piece of news.
Tampa Bay Comic Con has received the green light to go on as planned in July, after months of uncertainty due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Tampa Bay Comic Con will be held from July 10-12.
In a post to their Facebook page on Tuesday, Tampa Bay Comic Con confirmed it has received confirmation from the Tampa Convention Center and Tampa Fire Marshal that TBCC 2020 will move forward with numerous health measures to keep everyone safe.
Those measures include:
Mandatory temperature screenings for all occupants prior to entering the convention center
Increased cleaning and disinfection procedures in high-traffic areas of the convention center
Hand santizing stations through the pre-function space and high traffic areas
Interior occupancy of the exhibit hall, ballrooms and meeting rooms will be strictly limited, with one-way entrances and one-way exits of all interior spaces
Nevertheless, the trend for now is strong in the other direction, as cancellation announcements continue to mount.
Major gaming convention Gen-Con cancelled on May 19. The event was to be held in Indianapolis, IN on July 30-August 12. Peter Adkison, the event’s co-owner and chairman of the board, began his statement —
This decision will not be surprising to many of you, but due to health and safety concerns related to COVID-19, we announced today that we are canceling Gen Con 2020 in Indianapolis and planning an online event in its place.
This will be the first time in the 50+ year history of Gen Con that we will miss the chance to see each other in person, and it hurts, but nothing is more important to us than the health and safety of our attendees and the communities they hail from….
Others that went public with a decision this week include events in Mississippi, South Carolina and Missouri.
“Because of the uncertainty surrounding the current state order and the overall lack of certainty surrounding the safety of our patrons, guests, vendors, and staff for Mississippi Comic Con, we are forced to cancel our 2020 event. After speaking extensively with the management at the Trade Mart, and advisement from the Mississippi State Department of Health, we have rescheduled Mississippi Comic Con for June 26-27, 2021. We are in the process of trying to re-book some of this year’s guests for those dates but nothing is certain at this time,” said AVC Conventions co-owner Greg Hanks.
On Monday, officials announced the cancellation of this year’s Soda City Comic Con.
The popular event, which has been held since 2015, was set to take place at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center on August 22-23.
“Given the current environment and with a heavy heart, we have decided to cancel the 2020 Soda City Comic Con,” event officials wrote in a message posted on the Soda City Comic Con Facebook page. “We do not take this decision lightly, as many hours have been dedicated to planning the 2020 event.”
Wizard Entertainment Inc. has postponed its Wizard World St. Louis convention, originally set for June 5-7 at America’s Center. The event will now take place March 12-14, 2021.
Wizard World is a convention for fans of multiple genres, including science fiction and fantasy, comic books, movies and digital media. Fans who purchased general admission or VIP tickets for the original dates may use those same tickets for the rescheduled event, officials said.
The US/Canada Convention Status Sheet (Google docs) tracks almost 300 comic, sff and pop culture cons. Nearly 200 events on their list have already cancelled or postponed. All the events through June (with a single exception) have been shuttered. For the next three months beyond that, the number of events that have yet to be called off amount to 17 in July (vs. 13 cancelled), 15 in August (vs. 5 cancelled), and 18 in September (only 1 cancelled).
The lone September cancellation so far is Rose City Comic Con in Portland, OR, which decided a few days ago:
As a consequence of the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, Rose City Comic Con, originally scheduled to take place on September 11-13, 2020, will now be held at the Oregon Convention Center, Portland on September 10-12, 2021.
(1) ITALCON: FATE UNKNOWN. The winners of Italy’s Premio Italia are known – what’s unknown Is when they can be revealed. There were 438 voters, compared to last year, when 500 was reached.
The award ceremony was due to take place at Italcon in San Marino on 13 June. The health situation naturally makes it implausible that Italcon could actually take place on that date. At the moment, a date of convenience is indicated on the website of the Prize, September 1st (for technical reasons, a date must necessarily be indicated); however, decisions on the progress of Italcon are awaited. Decisions that evidently depend only in part on the organization of Italcon, but primarily on the decisions of the government of San Marino and on the progress of the epidemic. Probably no decision will be made before September.
(2) SOUL SURVIVOR. Filmmaker Fabrice Mathieu has released another ingenious fantasy short film, Memorium.
After the death, what happens? Where do we go? “Memorium” invites you to a journey of a man into the afterlife.
Inspired from the world created by the french artist Marc Giai-Miniet.
…One of the weirder things always danced around on Star Trek is how its myriad bridge crews, despite being from the 23rd and 24th centuries, are fascinated with a popular culture that is not their own, but more reflective of our own recent past as peoples of the 20th and 21st century. Sisko loves baseball, a sport that, hilariously, apparently just stops being played professionally in 2042 according to Deep Space Nine. Picard loves the pulpy noir fiction of Dixon Hill, an original character for Trek but specifically rooted in the detective fiction boom of the 1940s. Janeway, when she’s not palling around with Leonardo DaVinci, is writing 19th-century Irish village self-insert fic or participating in a dull as hell Austen-esque choose your own adventure type stories.
Former Big Talk Productions duo Edgar Wright and Nira Park have teamed up with writer-director Joe Cornish and producer Rachael Prior to launch a London and Los Angeles-based film and TV outfit called Complete Fiction.
The company’s debut development slate includes three new series for Netflix. Cornish is directing Lockwood & Co, a supernatural detective series based on Jonathan Stroud’s novel series of the same name, while the company has also optioned Tade Thompson’s literary sci-fi horror trilogy The Murders Of Molly Southbourne and S.A. Chakraborty’s historical fantasy series inspired by Islamic folklore The City Of Brass (The Daevabad Trilogy).
Complete Fiction is presently in post on Wright’s Last Night In Soho, produced with Working Title Films for Focus Features and Film4, as well as Wright’s untitled feature documentary about the band Sparks which it produced with MRC.
….“We wanted to just do something as wild as we could imagine,” Kindt said. “Getting David to do the art really just made it a slam dunk proposition, because he can just draw absolutely anything. He’s the Catalonian Moebius. And he’s going to hate that I said that, but he’s got a visual intelligence and creativity that really only shows up once every generation or so. He’s it. It’s not just design and art for art’s sake, because he’s a writer too. Everything has meaning. Every color and costume and gadget. It all feeds into the story. So I think David was truly one of our greatest inspirations for this book.”
…In the process of becoming the first museum to host the exhibit, which was created by Bruce Rosenbaum and is part of Imagine Exhibitions’ traveling exhibits, the Museum of Idaho tackled one of the dilemmas of steampunk: how to make the unfamiliar concept accessible to general audiences. Months before the exhibit opened in May 2018, the Museum of Idaho displayed steampunk statues, advertised on billboards, and created events in tandem with the exhibit, such as a steampunk street party and a steampunk ball. They started with steampunk’s dynamic visual presentation and then lured the general public into asking what it was they were looking at.
(7) PITCH MEETING. Jessica Camerato, in “Doolittle Finds Balance, Focus In Love of Books” on MLB.com, notes that Washington Nationals closer Sean Doolittle isn’t just an avid cosplayer, but reads quite a lot. His signed first edition of Octavia Butler’s Parable Of The Sower is on his top shelf right next to a baseball signed by Nationals players after his 2019 World Series win. Doolittle is also a fan of Juliette Wade. In January, the American Booksellers Association named him the Indie Bookstore Day Ambassador because Doolittle patronizes independent bookstores whenever he’s on the road.
“I will totally judge a book by its cover,” Doolittle said. “If I think it looks cool, I’ll buy it. I have one waiting for me at home that I bought just because the cover was so sick. It was a fantasy book — it’s called ‘Mazes of Power’ by Juliette Wade. It came out right before Spring Training.”
(8) NONVERBAL MEMORY. James P. Blaylock’s 2019 piece “My Life in Books: A Meditation on the Writer’s Library” for Poets & Writers sounds like my original plan – to own and keep the books I read, and if I needed to refresh my memory, the volume would be on my shelves.
…Not long ago I was reading a collection of essays by Hilaire Belloc titled One Thing and Another, and, as is sometimes the case when I read other people’s essays, I got the idea of writing this one. The “idea,” such as it was, had nothing to do with the subject matter of any of the forty essays contained in Belloc’s book; what struck me was that the pages smelled as if they had been soaked in gasoline. I remembered abruptly that it had smelled that way when I’d bought it, and although it has sat on the shelf in my study for twenty years, waiting to be read, the odor hasn’t diminished. It could be fatal to light a match anywhere near it.
This olfactory discovery sent me off in a nostalgic search for my copy of Philip K. Dick’s Dr. Bloodmoney, which Phil gave to me in 1975….
…Upon graduating, I knew that I was moving to LA one-way without much money or even a job lined up. It was like that back then. You packed up your car and hit the road. You had to have blind faith. You chased after your dream. You lived on ramen. You had a roommate. You got paid $500 bucks a week. You ran errands and answered phones and started at the bottom. My first job was at Michael Bay’s new company Platinum Dunes. The first film we made was a remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. We were the first to do the remake thing. Everyone thought we were crazy. My parents wondered if my tuition money had gone to waste.
The film was a hit, earning over $80 million at the domestic box office. Within a year of moving West, I landed my dream job working for the executive producer of The Lord of the Rings. Did I mention that I’m a giant nerd? I’d read Tolkien’s classics cover to cover numerous times. A run of book-to-film properties followed on our slate, including The Golden Compass, Love in the Time of Cholera, and Inkheart. Working in Hollywood was a dream come true, albeit a complicated one with its share of workplace toxicity (which has now become quite public).
Despite loving my job, I had an itch that started to grow stronger. It needed scratching. After working on so many wonderful authors’ books and helping bring their worlds to life on the big screen, I found myself wanting to write my own big sci-fi trilogy….
…Though she’s perhaps best known for her proximation to her husband, Annie Glenn was an American hero in her own right, veteran reporter Bob Greene wrote in a 2012 CNN Opinion piece.
“Glenn has had a hero of his own,” Green wrote, “Someone who he has seen display endless courage of a different kind: Annie Glenn.”
And she was at the center of this legendary moment in The Right Stuff.
As John’s prowess as a pilot culminated in his historic orbital flight on Feb. 20, 1962, the spotlight shone ever more intensely on the Glenn family, which by then included a son, David, and a daughter, Lyn. After becoming the first American to orbit the Earth, John and his wife were cheered in a ticker-tape parade in New York City. Celebrity pursued them relentlessly and each brush with the media and famous people painfully revealed Annie’s stuttering.
With reporters in tow after the flight, then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was intent on visiting the Glenns at their home in Arlington, Virginia, but John angered Johnson by refusing to receive him, proffering the excuse that Annie was in bed with a migraine to spare her from the attention. Even so, the Glenns became good friends with Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird.
(11) TODAY IN HISTORY.
May 19, 1956 — Science Fiction Theatre’s “The Flicker” first aired. Each episode was supposedly based on scientific fact though the host weaseled his way out of that in his narration. This story has a sociology graduate student committing murder after watching a badly flickering movie. Subliminal images I presume. It starred Victor Jory, Michael Fox and Judith Ames. You can watch it here.
(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]
Born May 19, 1901 – George Pendray. Early rocketeer; co-founded the American Interplanetary Society (its successor Am. Inst. Aeronautics & Astronautics gives the Pendray Award); invented the time capsule, for the 1939 World’s Fair; coined the word “laundromat”; helped establish Guggenheim Jet Propulsion Center at Cal. Tech., Guggenheim Labs at Princeton U., U.S. Nat’l Aeronautics & Space Adm’n. Wrote SF as science editor of Literary Digest, e.g. “A Rescue from Jupiter”. Co-edited The Papers of Robert H. Goddard. (Died 1987) [JH]
Born May 19, 1920 – Walter Popp. Prolific pulp illustrator for e.g. Amazing, Fantastic, Startling, Thrilling; see here. Also Gothic-romance fantasy, see here, some becoming limited-edition prints for fine-art galleries, see here. Outside our field, true-crime and men’s-adventure magazines, paperbacks including Popular Library; toy and sporting-goods manufacturers; greeting cards. (Died 2002) [JH]
Born May 19, 1921 – Pauline Clarke. Children’s fantasy The Twelve and the Genii won the Carnegie Medal and the DeutscherJugendliteraturpreis. The Pekinese Princess has talking animals and trees. Thirty novels for various readers; Warscape, for adults, “lurches into the future”, says a remarkable 4,300-word Wikipedia entry. (Died 2013) [JH]
Born May 19, 1937 — Pat Roach. He was cast in the first three Indy Jones films as a decided Bad Person though he never had a name. His first genre appearance was in A Clockwork Orange as a Milkbar bouncer. His first name role was Hephaestus in Clash of Titans. He was of an unusually stocky nature, so he got cast as a Man Ape in Conan the Destroyer, and as Bretagne the Barbarian in Red Sonja. And, of course, he had such a role as Zulcki in Kull the Desttoyer. Oh, and he played an very large and mostly naked Executioner in the George MacDonald Fraser scripted The Return of The Musketeers. (Died 2004.) (CE)
Born May 19, 1944 — Peter Mayhew. Chewbacca from the beginning to The Force Awakens before his retirement from the role. The same year he first did Chewy, he had an uncredited role as the Minotaur in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger. He also shows in the Dark Towers series as The Tall Knight. (Died 2019.) (CE)
Born May 19, 1946 — Andre the Giant. Fezzik in The Princess Bride, one of my all-time favorite films. Also, an uncredited role as Dagoth In Conan the Destroyer. He’s actually did a number of genre roles such as The Greatest American Hero with his American acting debut playing a Bigfoot in a two-part episode aired in 1976 on The Six Million Dollar Man titled “The Secret of Bigfoot”. (Died 1993) (CE)
Born May 19, 1946 – Ken Kelly. 240 covers; interiors; The Art of Ken Kelly, Ken Kelly Fantasy Art Trading Cards (2 sets), Escape (collection); album covers for KISS, Manowar, Ace Frehley. See here (Amazing), here (The Stars My Destination), here (The Lincoln Hunters), here (Ace Frehley). [JH]
Born May 19, 1948 – Paul Williams. Created Crawdaddy! Literary executor of Philip K. Dick, co-founder of PKD Society, biography of PKD Only Apparently Real; worked with David Hartwell on Age of Wonders – also The Int’l Bill of Human Rights; edited vols. 1-12, Complete Works of Theodore Sturgeon; also The 20th Century’s Greatest Hits (including Winnie-the-Pooh; The Little Prince; God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater), four on Bob Dylan, twenty more. (Died 2013) [JH]
Born May 19, 1948 — Grace Jones, 72. First genre appearance was as Stryx in Rumstryx, an Italian TV series. Her next was Zulu in Conan the Destroyer followed by being May Day in A View to Kill and Katrina in Vamp. She was Masako Yokohama in Cyber Bandits which also starred Adam Ant. Her last several genre role to date was Christoph/Christine in Wolf Girl, and Death aka The Devil in Gutterdammerung, a film that also featured Henry Rollins, Slash and Iggy Pop! (CE)
Born May 19, 1955 – Elise Primavera. Author and illustrator of children’s books, some fantasy: The Secret Order of the Gumm Street Girls, Fred & Anthony Meet the Heinie Goblins from the Black Lagoon (as Esile Arevamirp), Marigold Star. Here’s a book cover. [JH]
Born May 19, 1966 — Jodi Picoult, 54. Her Wonder Women work is exemplary (collected in Wonder Women, Volume 3 and Wonder Woman: Love and Murder). She also has a most excellent two-volume YA series called the Between the Lines Universe which she wrote with Samantha van Leer. ISFDB lists her Second Glance novel as genre but I’d say it’s genre adjacent at best. (CE)
Born May 19, 1996 — Sarah Grey, 24. Before DC Universe cast the present Stargirl in Brec Bassinger for that series, Legends of Tomorrow cast their Stargirl as this actress for a run of three episodes. The episodes (“Out of Time”, “Justice Society of America” and “Camelot 3000”) are superb. I’ve not seen her as Alyssa Drake in The Order but I’ve heard Good Things about that series. (CE)
(13) COMICS SECTION.
Bizarro jokes about a bed that shares a name with a law.
(14) MOVING PICTURES. Not Pulp Covers hosts four GIFs made from clip of The Best from 20,000 Fathoms. They really pop out of the page, despite being black-and-white. The film’s stop-motion animation special effects are by Ray Harryhausen. Its screenplay is based on Ray Bradbury’s short story The Fog Horn, specifically the scene where a lighthouse is destroyed by the title character. (I’m not going to put a sample here because people tell me GIFs in the Scroll drive them crazy.)
(15) THAT’S PUTTING IT MILDLY. In John Scalzi’s post “A Reminder, Re: Famous People I Know” he reasonably says he’d rather keep his friends. (So he won’t be starting a news blog.)
So, it turns out I know, and am friends (or at least I have been friendly) with, people who are notable or famous to some degree or another. Yes, I am as amazed about that as anyone else. Sometimes, those notable/famous people:
* Are disliked by a large group of people, for whatever reason(s);
* Have a life event, often not a happy one, that gains attention in the public sphere;
* Will have a public conflict with some other person who is also generally notable;
* Says or does something that causes the Internet to fall on their head;
* Some combination of two or more of the above;
* Otherwise attracts attention to themselves in some manner or another that elicits general comment.
What better time to zip into a happily unfamiliar realm? The DIY History project at the University of Iowa Library, which invites people to help transcribe digitized objects from the library’s special collections and other holdings, could use your help with its massive trove of science-fiction zines. Some date back to the 1930s; all were collected by the late James L. “Rusty” Hevelin. More than 10,780 pages of the Hevelin Fanzines collection have been transcribed so far, but there are still around 500 left to go. If you need a mental break from this planet and its familiar troubles, pop into this project and spend a little time somewhere else.
(17) CELEBRITY BURIAL. Atlas Obscura also introduces readers to “Nicolas Cage’s Pyramid Tomb” in a New Orleans cemetery. (He won’t be in residence for some time to come, though.)
…The empty grave is a stark, nine-foot-tall stone pyramid that stands in obvious contrast to the blockier, above-ground burial sites that have been crumbling away in the cemetery for over two centuries. There is no name on the pyramid yet, but it is emblazoned with the Latin maxim, “Omnia Ab Uno,” which translates to “Everything From One.”
The actor himself has chosen to remain silent about his reasoning for the flamboyant tomb. Some speculate it’s an homage to the “National Treasure” movie franchise, though given that many cemeteries host pyramid grave markers, it may have simply been a stylistic choice.
(18) THE VISIBLE BOOSTER. Popular Mechanics sets the frame for a video showing “Here’s What the Guts of Four Famous Rockets Look Like During Launch”. You see side-by-side the Saturn V, Space Shuttle, Falcon Heavy and the Space Launch System (SLS) rockets launching from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39.
A new video reveals what the launches of four famous spacecraft would look like if the rockets were transparent. Seeing how the sausage is made, so to speak, is mesmerizing.
Youtuber Hazegrayart posted the video, which also includes audio from the four launches, to YouTube earlier this week. Hazegrayart has a number of other animated videos on their page. (This 52-year time lapse of Launch Complex 39 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida from the artist’s page is super cool, too.)
[Thanks to Ita, John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, Chip Hitchcock, JJ, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, Michael Toman, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jayn.]
The Waukegan Public Library posted a picture on Facebook showing that in the spirit of the times statue of Ray Bradbury has been outfitted with a mask.
They say:
Thank you to Waukegan High School soon to be graduate, Austin Cantu, for making sure Ray Bradbury is doing his part in stopping the spread!
In this case the masked man is riding a silver bullet…
(1) MISKATONIC SCHOLARSHIP. Scott Gray is the 2020 winner of George R. R. Martin’s Miskatonic Scholarship, which supports a promising new writer of Lovecraftian cosmic horror attending the Odyssey Writing Workshop.
As a boy, Martin came across his first story by H. P. Lovecraft. He says, “I had never read a story that scared me more . . . so of course I sought out more Lovecraft wherever I could find it.” Martin’s love of weird fiction grew, and he found that “No werewolf, no vampire, no thing going bump in the night could give me chills to equal those provided by the cosmic horrors that Lovecraft evoked.”
With the annual Miskatonic Scholarship, Martin hopes to provide “encouragement and inspiration to a new generation of writers.” And to one special scholarship candidate, Martin wants to offer the opportunity to learn and improve at the Odyssey Writing Workshop, one of the top programs in the world for writers of the fantastic. The scholarship covers full tuition and housing at the workshop.
Scott Gray lives in New Hampshire.
…He developed a love of stories as a young boy, especially those that transported him to other worlds.
…Jeanne Cavelos, one of the scholarship judges and director of the Odyssey Writing Workshops Charitable Trust, says, “The other judges and I loved the unique way that Scott’s story brought heart and a deep sense of humanity to this tale of cosmic horror. It evoked not only fear but also hope and joy.”
(2) FEELING DISCONNECTED. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] Michael Cavna has a piece in the Washington Post about how comedians miss people getting together in groups and laughing. Among the people Cavna talks to are Pixar head Pete Docter, who says that Soul is being edited in hundreds of homes of Pixar employees, and Patton Oswalt, who says that when he performs, “each crowd is its own separate sentient living thing” and without an audience, “you lose a check-in with humanity. You lose a reminder that ‘OK, I’m connected with the planet–I’m connected with the present.” “Without movie theaters, we’re missing communal laughter: ‘You lose a check-in with humanity’’.
…Docter, the chief creative officer of Pixar, says that early filmmakers, in both animation and live-action, understood how their movies were made to be seen with an audience.
“Strange pauses and gaps in Bugs Bunny cartoons suddenly made sense when I saw them with a live audience — those blank areas were filled with audience laughter,” Docter says while self-quarantining in his Bay Area home. “The same was true of Laurel and Hardy and [Buster] Keaton films — they were timed to allow space for the audience to respond.”
Locus Awards Weekend, June 26-28, 2020 in Seattle WA
We are keeping a close eye on the COVID-19 status, and will be diligent about canceling as needed. At this time it seems likely we will not have a physical event, but we are exploring virtual alternatives. We are in a holding pattern and have suspended general ticket sales.
(4) DISNEY WORLD MEETS FLORIDA MAN. Really, you’d think it would have happened before now. From behind a paywall at The Week:
A Florida man has been caught trying to self-isolate on a private island in Disney World. Richard McGuire, 42, insisted that he hadn’t seen the numerous ‘no trespassing signs’ on the island, or heard the loudspeaker warnings from Disney officials who became aware of his presence. He claimed to be ‘unaware’ of the police helicopter that hovered overhead because he was asleep on an abandoned building on Discovery Island. When he was arrested, McGuire told police it felt as if he’d discovered a ‘tropical paradise.’
(5) CLOCKING IN. In “Here’s How Time Works Now” at McSweeney’s, Eli Grober has the 411 about the changing nature of time. For example —
A Day
You may remember that a day used to take place over the course of 24 hours. We felt this was too much. A day is now over the moment you first ask yourself, “What time is it?”
It does not matter what time it actually is when you do this. As soon as you ask or think, “What time is it” for the first time that day, even if it is still ten in the morning, it will suddenly be eight at night. Does that make sense?
(6) THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS. And it feels appropriate to follow with The Lewis Carroll Society of North America’s post “If you knew Time …”, a collection of links to resources about the author.
“Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her, and to wonder what was going to happen next.”
For so many of us, this topsy-turvy world of shelter-in-place has left us with time on our hands. Our president, Linda Cassady, has some suggestions for some fine online Carrollian resources. And who knows? You might discover some unknown or little-known item or a fresh perspective that we can tell the world about!
(7) TAKE THE CHALLENGE. “Antidepressants or Tolkien”— it’s a quiz. The Filer who sent the link says, “It’s more difficult than you would expect.” I racked up a score of 17/24.
(8) A PIONEER. In this video the late D.C. Fontana being interviewed by Rob Word from the A Word On Westerns podcast. Her comments are mostly regarding the shows for which she wrote episodes and bounced from westerns to sci-fi and back.
President Donald Trump on Saturday shared a heavily altered video clip from the 1996 film Independence Day in which it appears that he gives the iconic speech from the President of the United States.
Not only is Trump superimposed, but so are others in the crowd, including Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, Jr., as well as Fox News’ personalities Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity.
As of 8:30 p.m., the president’s post had been retweeted 50,000 times and had more than 153,000 “likes.”
Actor Bill Pullman, who played President Thomas J. Whitmore in Independence Day, was among those who saw the clip. And he responded.
“My voice belongs to no one but me, and I’m not running for president — this year,” Pullman told The Hollywood Reporter.
(10) TODAY IN HISTORY.
May 18, 1962 —They make a fairly convincing pitch here. It doesn’t seem possible, though, to find a woman who must be ten times better than mother in order to seem half as good, except, of course, in the Twilight Zone. — Intro narration. On this date The Twilight Zone aired “I Sing The Body Electric,” an episode based on a story by Ray Bradbury. Although Bradbury contributed several scripts to the series, this was the only one produced. The script was written by Bradbury himself. An large ensemble cast was needed, hence Josephine Hutchinson, David White, Vaughn Taylor, Doris Packer, Veronica Cartwright, Susan Crane and Charles Herbert all being performers. This was the year that the entire season of the series won Best Dramatic Presentation at Chicon III.
(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz. Typoed by Mike Glyer.]
Born May 16, 1918 — Sam Dann. Scriptwriter who wrote 311 episodes of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater between 1974 and 1982. The show despite its name broadcast a lot of horror and science fiction stories as well. Much of his work was adaptations such as A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and Murder on the Space Shuttle (Holmes meets Rogers!), the SF content was largely his. (Died 2004.) (CE)
Born May 18, 1919 – Margot Fonteyn. Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire; named prima ballerina assoluta of the Royal Ballet by Elizabeth II. Danced many fantasies e.g. The Firebird, Giselle, Raymonda, Swan Lake. (Died 1991) [JH]
Born May 16, 1930 — Fred Saberhagen. I’m reasonably sure I’ve read the entirety of his Berserker series though not in the order they were intended to be read. Some are outstanding, some less so. I’d recommend Berserker Man, Shiva in Steel and the original Berserker collection. Of his Dracula sequence, the only one I think I read is The Holmes-Dracula File which is superb. And I know I’ve read most of the Swords tales as they came out. (Died 2007.) (CE)
Born May 18, 1931 – Don Martin. Album covers for Prestige Records (Miles Davis, Art Farmer, Stan Getz). A cover and thirty interiors for Galaxy. Mad’s Maddest Artist, of hinged feet, onomatopoeia – his car license plate was SHTOINK – and National Gorilla Suit Day. Fourteen collections. Ignatz Award, Nat’l Cartoonists Society’s Special Features Award, Will Eisner Hall of Fame. (Died 2000) [JH]
Born May 18, 1948 – R-Laurraine Tutihasi. Active in fanzines, the N3F (Nat’l Fantasy Fan Fed’n; won its Kaymar and Franson awards), and otherwise. Loccer (“loc” also “LoC” = letter of comment, the blood of fanzines) at least as far back as Algol and The Diversifier, also Janus, Tightbeam, Broken Toys. Her own fanzine is Purrsonal Mewsings. [JH]
Born May 16, 1952 — Diane Duane, 68. She’s known for the Young Wizards YA series though I’d like to single her out for her lesser known Feline Wizards series where SJW creds maintain the gates that wizards use for travel throughout the multiverse. A most wonderful thing for felines to do! (CE)
Born May 16, 1958 — Jonathan Maberry, 62. The only thing I’ve read by him is the first five novels in the Joe Ledger Series which has a high body count and an even higher improbability index. Popcorn reading with Sriracha sauce. I see that he’s done scripts for Dark Horse, IDW and Marvel early on. And that he’s responsible for Captain America: Hail Hydra which I remember as quite excellent. (CE)
Born May 16, 1958 — Toyah Willcox, 62. English actress who’s done quite a bit of genre work starting with being in The Quatermass Conclusion as Sal and then again in the Quatermass series. She shows up on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as Janet, and as Dog in the superb Ink Thief series. She plays Dialta Downes in Tomorrow Calling based off Gibson’s “The Gernsback Continuum“ with the screenplay by Tim Leandro. (CE)
Born May 18, 1959 – Debbie Dadey. A hundred sixty books, of which six dozen are (with Marcia Jones) short Bailey School Kids, also Ghostville Elementary, The Keyholders. Int’l Reading Ass’n Children’s Choice, Young Adults’ Choice awards; ABC Best Book for Children; Sunshine State Young Reader’s Awards. [JH]
Born May 18, 1959 – Sophie Masson. Member of the Order of Australia. Forty novels, twenty shorter stories. Aurealis Award for The Hand of Glory. [JH]
Born May 17, 1963 – Greg Beatty. Ph.D. in English. Rhysling Award. Stories, poems, articles, essays, reviews, interviews, in Abyss & Apex, Aeon, Asimov’s, Audiofile, Helios, Independent Scholar, Internet Review of SF, N.Y. Review of SF, Philological Quarterly, SF Studies, Starline, Strange Horizons, Tangent Online. Children’s picture books too. [JH]
…With the rainbow-solid queer credentials brought to the table by creator Noelle Stevenson (Lumberjanes, Nimona, The Fire Never Goes Out) and her team, and with the equally sparkling queer representation present in the series from the very beginning (Bow’s nerdy dads, thirtysomething Princess couple Spinerella and Netossa, Scorpia’s whole Scorpianess), fans needn’t have worried that their favorite friends-to-enemies lesbian ‘ship would right itself in the end. Still, when the frenemies’ long-awaited admission of love gave Adora enough strength to stop that apocalyptic countdown in the final minutes of “Heart Part 2,” you could almost feel the internet breathe a collective sigh of relieved joy.
Scientists have made a surprising discovery about Mars by playing with muck in the laboratory.
An international team of researchers wondered how volcanoes that spew mud instead of molten rock might look on the Red Planet compared with their counterparts here on Earth.
In chamber experiments, simulated Martian mud flows were seen to behave a bit like boiling toothpaste.
Under certain conditions, the fluid even began to bounce.
The mucky gunge resembled a certain type of lava referred to as “pahoehoe”, which is observed at Hawaii’s famous K?lauea volcano.
The research results could now complicate some investigations at the Red Planet, believes study lead Dr Petr Brož from the Czech Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Geophysics.
“You’ll look at some features [from space] and you won’t know for sure whether they are the result of lava flows or mud flows.
“Without a geologist on the ground to hit them with a hammer, it will be hard to tell,” he told BBC News.
While much of the world is in lockdown, youngsters in one very unusual classroom are still having lessons.
At a forest school in Borneo, baby orangutans learn tree-climbing skills from their human surrogate parents.
The orphans spend 12 hours a day in the forest, preparing for a new life in the wild.
The orangutans were filmed and photographed before coronavirus struck, for the TV series Primates, on BBC One.
With human contact routinely kept to a minimum, life goes on much as before for the animals, says Dr Signe Preuschoft, leader of ape programmes for the charity Four Paws, which runs the rehabilitation centre in East Kalimantan.
As a precaution, the staff now have temperature checks, wear facemasks and change into uniforms on site.
…The young orphaned apes climb high into the treetops with their caregivers to help them acquire the skills they would have learned from their mothers in the wild.
They would otherwise spend more time on the ground than is natural for a species that feeds, lives and sleeps in the canopies of trees.
Baby orangutans have a huge advantage when it comes to climbing, as they can hold on “like an octopus”, says Dr Preuschoft.
“I think the orangutans were really completely thrilled when they realised that they could actually be in a canopy together with one of their moms,” she adds.
At least a dozen supercomputers across Europe have shut down after cyber-attacks tried to take control of them.
A pan-European supercomputing group says they seem to have tried to use the machines to mine cryptocurrency.
“A security exploitation” disabled access to the Archer supercomputer, at the University of Edinburgh, on 11 May.
Staff said they were working with the National Cyber Security Centre to restore the system, which had recently installed a pandemic modelling tool.
“We now believe this to be a major issue across the academic community as several computers have been compromised in the UK and elsewhere in Europe,” the team said.
(18) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “At Home With Roz Chast” on Vimeo is a portrait of the New Yorker cartoonist.
[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, N., Martin Morse Wooster, John King Tarpinian, John Hertz, Andrew Porter, Lise Andreasen, Olav Rokne, Dann, Michael Toman, JJ, and Chip Hitchcock for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jeff Smith.]
The longlists or shortlists for the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction, Glass Key Award and Margery Allingham Short Story Competition have been announced.
HARPER LEE PRIZE. The finalists for the 2020 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction have been announced by the University of Alabama School of Law. The three books chosen to compete for the prize are:
The Satapur Moonstone by Sujata Massey
The Hallows by Victor Methos
An Equal Justice by Chad Zunker.
The prize, previously authorized by Lee, is given annually to a book-length work of fiction that best illuminates the role of lawyers in society and their power to effect change.
GLASS KEY. The shortlist for the Glass Key 2020 for best Nordic crime novel have been announced.
Dødfunden (Found Dead)by Gretelise Holm (Denmark)
Den åttonde tärnan (The Eight Bridesmaid) by Eva Frantz (Finland)
Svik (Betrayal) by Lilja sigurðardóttir (Iceland)
Kniv (Knife) by Jo Nesbø (Norway)
Skuggjägaren (Shadow Hunter) by Camilla Grebe (Sweden)
(1) TIME TO BOW OUT. Bruce Sterling’s blog at WIRED, which he’s been writing since 2003, is ending: “Farewell to Beyond the Beyond”.
…If there are no big events due to pandemic, and nobody’s shopping much, either, then it’s mighty hard to keep a magazine empire afloat in midair. Instead, you’ve gotta fire staffers, shut down software, hunt new business models, re-organize and remove loose ends. There is probably no looser-end in the entire WIRED domain than this weblog.
…Although I wrote tons of “original content” elsewhere, long text-form essays like this were vanishingly rare on “Beyond the Beyond.” The blog never trolled for any viral hits, or tried to please any patrons. Also, I never got paid anything for my blogging, which was probably the key to the blog’s longevity. This blog persisted with such ease, because there was so much that I didn’t have to do.
…Also, the ideal “Beyond the Beyond” reader was never any fan of mine, or even a steady reader of the blog itself. I envisioned him or her as some nameless, unlikely character who darted in orthogonally, saw a link to some odd phenomenon unheard-of to him or her, and then careened off at a new angle, having made that novelty part of his life. They didn’t have to read the byline, or admire the writer’s literary skill, or pony up any money for enlightenment or entertainment. Maybe they would discover some small yet glimmering birthday-candle to set their life alight.
(2) ANTICLICK BAIT, BUT DON’T BLAME THE PARK SERVICE. Does Gizmodo think putting the President’s name in this headline generates more clicks? If so, they’re wrong . I only looked because Daniel Dern recommended the link. “These Social Distancing Posters Are the Best Thing the Trump Administration Has Done for Parks”. Very clever stuff! Then I went to the National Park Service’s Twitter feed and found the source art.
The posters have an important mission: promote social distancing in parks during the covid-19 pandemic, reduce the spread of disease in parks, and promote virtual opportunities and experiences at parks. To be fair, the posters have been around for a few weeks now, but these gems clearly haven’t received the attention they deserve….
A playlist of videos about the Summer Scares program, including resources for libraries to use to promote horror at their own libraries. Summer Scares is brought to you by the Horror Writers Association, Book Riot, Library Journal/School Library Journal, and United for Libraries.
Here’s the one from Stephen Graham Jones:
(4) VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA. SF Geeks go where only two men have gone before: “Thirty-six Thousand Feet”, in The New Yorker.
…Most submarines go down several hundred metres, then across; this one was designed to sink like a stone. It was the shape of a bulging briefcase, with a protruding bulb at the bottom. This was the pressure hull—a titanium sphere, five feet in diameter, which was sealed off from the rest of the submersible and housed the pilot and all his controls. Under the passenger seat was a tuna-fish sandwich, the pilot’s lunch. He gazed out of one of the viewports, into the blue. It would take nearly four hours to reach the bottom.
…The submarine touched the silty bottom, and the pilot, a fifty-three-year-old Texan named Victor Vescovo, became the first living creature with blood and bones to reach the deepest point in the Tonga Trench. He was piloting the only submersible that can bring a human to that depth: his own.
For the next hour, he explored the featureless beige sediment, and tried to find and collect a rock sample. Then the lights flickered, and an alarm went off. Vescovo checked his systems—there was a catastrophic failure in battery one. Water had seeped into the electronics, bringing about a less welcome superlative: the deepest-ever artificial explosion was taking place a few feet from his head.
If there were oxygen at that depth, there could have been a raging fire. Instead, a battery junction box melted, burning a hole through its external shell without ever showing a flame. Any instinct to panic was suppressed by the impossibility of rescue. Vescovo would have to come up on his own.
(5) MCWHORTER OBIT. Noted Burroughs collector George McWhorter (1931-2020), whose work in the sff field came after a long and fruitful career in music, died April 25. Legacy has details of both careers, as well as his family history.
…George’s most celebrated collection is the Edgar Rice Burroughs Memorial Collection, which he developed as a tribute to his mother Nell Dismukes McWhorter, who taught him to read when he was just five years old. “She tried everything,” George recalls, “Dickens, Dumas… but when she got to Burroughs, I was hooked!” The largest institutional collection of Burroughs in the world, this vast and comprehensive collection of rare editions, toys, posters, games, photographs, and film has attracted scholars and fans to the University of Louisville for more than thirty years.
In 1986 George was named Curator of the Edgar Rice Burroughs Collection, a fitting title for a man who has furthered scholarship, preserved unique treasures, and brought worldwide attention to Burroughs. Looking toward the future, George has established an endowment to provide continuous support for the Edgar Rice Burroughs Memorial Collection. In 2008, he designated a bequest for an endowed chair and curatorship. He also has been working with Burroughs Bibliophiles on their own gifts and bequests.
(6) TODAY IN HISTORY.
May 17, 1987 — The Return Of The Six Million Dollar Man And The Bionic Woman first aired. The series were loosely based off on Cyborg by Martin Caidin and The Bionic Woman by Kenneth Johnson. Michael Sloan wrote the screenplay which was based on the story he and Bruce Lansbury wrote. Lee Majors co-stars here with Lindsay Wagner. Martin Landau, Lee Major II and Gary Lockwood guest star. It was the fourth highest rate show of genre week, and holds a 82% approval rating among the audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes.
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]
Born May 17, 1913 — Peter B. Germano. Though neither of his SF novels was of great distinction, The Interplanetary Adventures and The Pyramids from Space (written as Jack Berlin), his scriptwriter duties are as he did work on The Time Tunnel, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Land of the Lost, Battle of the Planets and the revival version of The Next Step Beyond, do warrant his being noted here. (Died 1983.) (CE)
Born May 17, 1918 – Darrell Richardson. Baptist minister, authority on Frederick Faust (who wrote as “Max Brand”) and Edgar Burroughs, collector (30,000 books, 20,000 pulps). Early member of Cincinnati Fantasy Group. Co-founded Memphis SF Ass’n, who named their Darrell Award for Mid-South regional work after him. Served as a director of the Nat’l Fantasy Fan Federation; compiled An Index of the Works of Various Fantasy Authors 1947-1948 and An Index of Various Fantasy Publications 1947-1948. Member of First Fandom. Big Heart, Lamont, Phoenix awards. (Died 2006) [JH]
Born May 17, 1919 – Ronald Cassill. Lieutenant in U.S. Army; two exhibits of his artwork in Chicago; two stories reprinted in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Atlantic Monthly “first” prize, O. Henry short-story prize, American Academy of Arts & Letters Award for Literature; Fulbright, Guggenheim fellowships; Rockefeller grant; Professor of English, Brown University. (Died 2002) [JH]
Born May 17, 1926 – Ludvík Soucek. Probably still the best-known Czech SF author. Wrote also about puppet theater, photography, book printing. A dozen books, as many collections. (Died 1978) [JH]
Born May 17, 1946 – F. Paul Wilson. Sold to Analog while still in medical school, now an osteopath. Medical thrillers, interactive scripts e.g. FTL Newsfeed. Urban mercenary Repairman Jack first appeared in N.Y. Times best-seller The Tomb. Three Prometheus Awards, including the first (1979), most recently Lifetime Achievement (2015). Fifty novels in our field, sixty shorter stories, letters & reviews in Janus, SF Review, N.Y. Review of SF. [JH]
Born May 17, 1948 – Amanda Cockrell. Professor at Hollins University. Historical and other fiction for adults, young adults, children, under her own name and pseudonyms. Among us, novels about deer dancers (Daughter of the Sky, two more), goddesses (Persephone, Aphrodite, Athena), horse catchers (When the Horses Came, two more); six others; What We Keep Is Not Always What Will Stay named one of the best children’s books of 2011 by The Boston Globe. [JH]
Born May 17, 1954 — Colin Greenland, 66. His partner is the Susanna Clarke, with whom he has lived since 1996. The Entropy Exhibition: Michael Moorcock and the British ‘New Wave’ in Science Fiction study is based on his PhD thesis. His most successful fictional work is the Plenty series that starts with Take Back Plenty and continues with Seasons of Plenty, The Plenty Principle and wraps up with Mother of Plenty. In the Eighties and Ninties, he was involved in the editorial work ofFoundation: The Review of Science Fiction and Interzone. (CE)
Born May 17, 1958 – Dave Sim. Perpetrator of Cerebus the Aardvark. Twenty covers and interiors for Phantasy Digest, Dark Fantasy, Borealis. Harvey Award; Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame. [JH]
(8) COMICS SECTION.
The Flying McCoys seem to be in the middle of a monstrous misunderstanding.
La Cucaracha crosses aliens and masks for a topical laugh.
(9) ANOTHER ENTRY FOR YOUR HVP. Cora Buhlert, 2020 Best Fan Writer Hugo finalist, has put her Hugo Voter Packet online as well. Here is a link where you can download it in the e-book format of your choice here.
For more than 30 years, Emmy Award-winning television writer, director and producer Greg Daniels has spun comedy from the threads of ordinary life, turning its frustrations and awkward moments into such hit shows as The Office, Parks And Recreation, and King of the Hill.
Now he’s reflecting on these notions again in Upload, a futuristic comedy on Amazon Prime — but this time they play out in the afterlife too. He’s also behind the upcoming Netflix satire Space Force, launching May 29, starring Steve Carell.
Greg Daniels’ humor has all the makings of the British comedies he reveres, including Fawlty Towers and the original, British version of The Office.
“There’s something wonderful about the awkwardness of it and their kind of enjoyment of a pathetic situation that always appealed to me,” Daniels says.
…The problems in Daniels’ upcoming Netflix show Space Force include a military leader who doesn’t listen to the scientists around him. His new sci-fi comedy Upload explores the inequalities — and inhumanity — that emerges as advanced, expensive, digital technologies hit the market.
“These technologies are introduced and they all seem great. And then, you know, the law of unintended consequences kicks in and they are kind of flawed or sometimes outright evil when they’re actually executed,” Daniels says.
In Upload, only the wealthy get to experience an idyllic afterlife in the expensive, leafy resort called “Lakeview.” Even the commercial for Lakeview feels eerily familiar.
(11) LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS. Disney Parks posted a video flashback to Halloween 2019: “Jack Skellington reigns at Disney’s Not-So-Spooky Spectacular!”
Because we are halfway to Halloween, we are traveling back in time to last fall when Magic Kingdom Park was in the skeletal hands of the Pumpkin King. Join him in front of Cinderella Castle for a frightfully mischievous night of fireworks and creeps during Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party.
A young Hillary Rodham, madly in love with the man she met at Yale Law School, abandons her own path and heads to Arkansas. Slowly she starts to uncover Bill Clinton’s many infidelities and makes a choice.
What would have happened if Hillary Rodham had never married Bill Clinton?
“So in real life, Bill Clinton proposed to Hillary Rodham twice and she said no. Both times. And then he proposed a third time and she said yes,” says author Curtis Sittenfeld. “And in my version, she says no. The third time, too. And she goes her own way.” Sittenfeld’s new book Rodham follows Hillary as she goes on to become a law professor, and then a politician.
Interview Highlights
On wanting to write speculative fiction about someone who’s been written about so much already
Well, doesn’t everyone? Isn’t it a totally natural impulse? So actually, it’s funny because I agree with you that so much has been written about Hillary. And it was sort of in reaction to that that I think I wrote this book. So in the lead-up to the 2016 election, I was invited to write essays about Hillary, and I would decline because I felt like every possible thing there was to say about Hillary had been said. She had been analyzed from every angle.
And then an editor at Esquire magazine invited me to write a short story from Hillary’s perspective. And I accepted, and writing that story was this kind of strange exercise where I realized that the question was not, what do the American people think of Hillary Clinton, but what does Hillary Clinton think of the American people? And it turned out that that I had 400 pages worth of thoughts to say on that. So it was actually trying to sort of flip the narrative, and instead of making her the one who’s scrutinized, like giving her a voice — which, of course, is a totally fictionalized voice, like she did not write this book. I wrote this book.
The SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford, who is the MP for the island, told the Sunday Times the author’s journey was unacceptable.
He said: “What is it about people, when they know we are in the middle of lockdown that they think they can come here from the other side of the planet, in turn endangering local people from exposure to this infection that they could have picked up at any step of the way?”
Mr Gaiman – whose main family home is in Woodstock in the USA – has owned the house on Skye for more than 10 years.
(16) BACK TO THE FUTURE REUNION. Josh Gad’s stay-at-home show Reunited Apart summons Christopher Lloyd, Michael J. Fox, Lea Thompson and even Huey Lewis to reminisce about the 1985 movie.
Great Scott! Things get heavy during Episode Two of “Reunited Apart” as Josh is joined by the creative geniuses behind the Back to the Future trilogy.
(17) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Something sure to please that little bit of pyromania in everyone.
Match Chain Reaction – Space Rocket built with Matches TAKES OFF 1 Million matches is a lot of matches, which means lighting them all together is a lot of fire. The way it burns is crazy to watch. It took me a lot of hard work and time to make this rocket.
[Thanks to JJ, John King Tarpinian, John Hertz, Cat Eldridge, Chip Hitchcock, Dennis Howard, Martin Morse Wooster, Daniel Dern, Todd Mason, Mike Kennedy, Michael Toman, IanP, JeffWarner, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day the cryptic Daniel Dern.]
The British Science Fiction Association presented the 2019 BSFA Awards in a video ceremony on YouTube today.
The results ordinarily would have been announced at the 2020 Eastercon, Concentric, in April, but the convention was cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The winners are:
Best Novel
Adrian Tchaikovsky – Children of Ruin (Tor)
Best Shorter Fiction
Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone – This is How You Lose the Time War (Jo Fletcher Books)
Best Non-Fiction
Farah Mendlesohn – The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein (Unbound)
Best Artwork
Chris Baker (Fangorn) – Cover for ‘Wourism and Other Stories’ by Ian Whates (Luna Press)
The Prix Imaginales recognize the best works of fantasy of the year published in France in six categories, with a prize of 1,000 euros for the first five categories and 500 euros for the last two.
Catégorie roman francophone / French novel
Catherine DUFOUR, Danse avec les lutins (L’Atalante)
Catégorie roman étranger traduit / Foreign Novel translated into French
Marina and Sergueï DIATCHENKO, Vita Nostra – Les Métamorphoses 1 (L’Atalante) Translated into French by Denis SAVINE
Catégorie jeunesse / Youth category
Flore VESCO, L’Estrange malaventure de Mirella (L’École des loisirs)
Catégorie illustration / Illustration
François BARANGER, Les Montagnes hallucinées 1 (Bragelonne)
Catégorie nouvelle / Short Story
Thomas GEHA, Chuchoteurs du dragon et autres murmures (Elenya)
Catégorie prix spécial du Jury / Special Jury Award
S.T. JOSHI, Lovecraft je suis providence tomes 1 et 2 (ActuSF)
A jury composed of critics, journalists and specialists selected the nominees: Jacques Grasser (Président), Stéphane Wieser (Directeur du Festival), Christophe de Jerphanion, Natacha Vas-Deyres, Lloyd Chéry, and Frédérique Roussel.
The awards were announced online instead of at Imaginales, the Festival of the Imaginary Worlds in Épinal, France because it is one of the myriad events cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak.
[NOTE: The Prix Imaginales is a different award than the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire.]
