Judging by the linked descriptions for all the longlisted books, it seems the only one that might be claimed as sff is Marie-Helene Bertino’s Parakeet.(Farrar), because “The Bride receives a visit from her long-dead grandmother in the form of a very alive parakeet.”
Two more longlisted authors have been up for sff awards in the past, but Emily St. John Mandel’s The Glass Hotel has a Ponzi scheme at its core and no fantastic elements are mentioned in the linked synopsis. Likewise, Charles Yu, whose many genre works include How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (2010), is listed for a non-sff book Interior Chinatown.
A six-title shortlist—three each for the fiction and nonfiction medals—will be chosen from longlist titles and announced on November 17, 2020. The two medal winners will be announced online on Thursday, February 4, 2021. The Carnegie Medal winners will each receive $5,000.
(1) I’M NOT YOUR HERO. A creator who goes by the handle mar has produced an impressive Murderbot tribute video.
I’M NOT YOUR HERO – THE MURDERBOT DIARIES ANIMATIC after over 2 months, 22 sketchbook pages of brainstorming, thumbnails & sketches, and 111 individual panels, my #Murderbot animatic is finally done!!! hope you enjoy
CONTENT WARNINGS: blood, guns, scopophobia, slight body horror and injuries (toned down in comparison to the books)
(2) FINAL WORDS. At LitHub, Emily Temple proposes a list of “The 50 Greatest Apocalypse Novels”. I’ve read a solid 8 of these – I recognize another four as being books I just decided I didn’t want to read. Survey says — I’m not that big a fan of apocalypses.
The end of the world is never really the end of the world—at least not in fiction. After all, someone must survive to tell the tale. And what tales they are. Humans have been pondering the end of existence for as long as we’ve been aware of it (probably, I mean, I wasn’t there), and as a result we have a rich collection of apocalypse and post-apocalypse literature to read during our planet’s senescence.
I’ve done my best to limit this list to books in which there is—or has been—some kind of literal apocalypse, excluding dystopias (like The Handmaid’s Tale) or simply bleak visions of the future.
“The marine biologist hauled himself onto the shore, his air tanks spent, the assassin close behind. Immediately the biologist stripped out of his heavy equipment and grabbed his dive knife. He couldn’t believe it. He’d finally cracked the mysterious language of Linear A and found the location of the ancient sunken city. Now he just had to make it back to his team alive.
“The sound of scratching beside him caused him to snap his head down, spying a leatherback turtle, the largest amphibian on the island, crawling across the sand to return to the water.“
Were you going along with the story until that last bit, and then were pulled out of the narrative?
We can believe that a marine biologist was somehow able to crack Linear A, a language that has utterly confounded scholars. We can believe that he found a lost civilization, and is ready to knife fight an assassin. But a turtle is a reptile, gosh darn it, not an amphibian. We are distracted and pulled out of the narrative.…
The fans who inhabit my comments section would never let him get away with it, that’s for sure.
(4) YEAR’S BEST. The staff at Powell’s Books in Portland, OR have made their picks for “The Best Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Horror, and Graphic Novels of 2020”. Since one of the selections is Arkady Martine’s 2020 Hugo winner A Memory of Empire, treated as eligible because there was a trade paperback edition in February of this year, your mileage may vary for how “2020” this list is.
Sometimes we reach for sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and graphic novels because we want to be transported away from the present; never mind that all of these genres use the tropes of technology, magic, history, myth, and the future to scrutinize the present. In a way, 2020 embodies the contradiction inherent in using genre fiction as a form of escapism: More than ever, we need to be confronting the very grave problems of racism, climate change, illness, economic crisis, and anti-democratic politics; and more than ever, we need an occasional rest from the exertion of those confrontations.
(5) DIFFERENT KINDS OF MYSTERIES. In “Elizabeth Hand On Outsiders, Punks, and the Crime Fiction of Subcultures” on CrimeReads, Lisa Levy interviews Hand about her fourth Cass Neary crime novel, The Book Of Lamps And Banners, as Levy talks to Hand about her love of punk music and how the Neary novels are explorations of different cultures, including Scandinavian death metal and the world of ancient Britain.
Levy:What I think is so cool about them and about Cass is her curiosity is not stereotypical crime fiction curiosity. It’s real intellectual curiosity. She’s not just chasing a clue. She’s opening up a whole strange world of Scandinavian death metal or life in ancient Britain. A lot of crime fiction writers really pull back from letting their characters have rich intellectual lives and Cass—for all of her issues, and she has issues—does have a really interesting brain.
Hand: It’s interesting. I’ve never thought of it that way before. I find I read crime fiction, but I don’t read a huge amount. The books I like tend to be ones that explore a mystery other than the mystery involving the actual crime.
Levy: Exactly. … These books show what crime fiction can do in the hands of somebody who’s an intelligent person, who’s not just interested in crime fiction, which is how most crime fiction people are. It’s not a monoculture and every smart crime fiction writer reads voraciously, right? Lots of interests.
Hand: I like to write about topics that I’m learning about, but it’s not just a chance to show off my knowledge. It’s a chance for me to research and learn and get ideas. I find that really exciting. And I try to transfer some of that to what Cass is doing.
Levy: It is exciting. It’s what gives the book another dimension.
Hand: Oh, well, thank you. She always ends up in a world which is unfamiliar to her, so she’s very defensive. She doesn’t quite acclimate cause she never acclimates, but she earns the respect of the people she needs to.
I felt from the outset when I realized that this would be more than one book that she had to stay in motion. She was like a pinball: as long as she was in play it worked, but if she ever settled down anywhere, that would be the end of it.
Dear friends, I need your help! Back before the lockdown, I loaned 5 pieces of my original comic art from the 70s for a planned exhibit at Sacramento State college. Then along came the lockdown and the exhibit never happened. In May, the woman responsible for the exhibit suffered the tragic loss of her daughter to cancer, so I told her to take her time returning my art. Then, this month I ran out of patience and demanded my art back, only to discover she had returned my pages via FedEx back in May! I saw the FedEx receipt — someone had signed for the package, signing my name as “RTRINA” — I have NEVER signed my name like that! The woman from Sacramento, almost as upset as me, is filing a claim with FedEx, but I’m appealing to you: if anyone, at any time since May, has offered any of my art for sale, PLEASE let me know ASAP! (Yes, I’ve already looked on eBay!) I have very little art from the 70s left, because back in the day I was desperately poor and sold my pages for peanuts. My surviving work from those days is no longer for sale, but if I had been willing to sell those pages, they would have been worth about $5,000. I know this is a longshot, but please be on the lookout for any art by me that’s for sale!
I myself have no problem with lengthy periods of enforced isolation. There are so many things to do: alphabetizing the house spiders, teaching cats to dance, talking with my knives… Still, not everyone deals with isolation well. If that’s you, you might derive some consolation from reading (or watching, or listening to) stories of folks who are even worse off than you are.
I wanted to ask you about the now-famous quote attributed to Jameson, which is actually a bit of a paraphrase: “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.” It strikes me this book is coming out in a year when it’s become pretty easy to imagine the end of things, and that the real challenge is to imagine the beginnings of some kind of socialist system. As much as The Ministry is about the future, it suggests that those beginnings we need are already here with us now and that it’s really a matter of scaling up some of those alternatives.
I’m a novelist, I’m a literature major. I’m not thinking up these ideas, I’m listening to the world and grasping — sometimes at straws, sometimes just grasping at new ideas and seeing what everybody is seeing.
If we could institute some of these good ideas, we could quickly shift from a capitalism to a post-capitalism that is more sustainable and more socialist, because so many of the obvious solutions are contained in the socialist program. And if we treated the biosphere as part of our extended body that needs to be attended to and taken care of, then things could get better fast, and there are already precursors that demonstrate this possibility.
I don’t think it’s possible to postulate a breakdown, or a revolution, to an entirely different system that would work without mass disruption and perhaps blowback failures, so it’s better to try to imagine a stepwise progression from what we’ve got now to a better system. And by the time we’re done — I mean, “done” is the wrong word — but by the end of the century, we might have a radically different system than the one we’ve got now. And this is kind of necessary if we’re going to survive without disaster. So, since it’s necessary, it might happen. And I’m always looking for the plausible models that already exist and imagining that they get ramped up.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]
Born October 27, 1923 – Takumi Shibano. (Name Japanese-style would be Shibano Takumi, personal name last.) Author, editor, translator, fan. Starting as a high-school math teacher he published SF under the name Kozumi Rei (i.e. “cosmic ray”) and founded the first Japanese fanzine Uchûjin (“cosmic dust” and by a pun also “Space man”). Translated five dozen books including Smith’s Lensman series and Niven’s Known Space series. Chaired Federation of SF Fan Groups in Japan. Big Heart, our highest service award. Fan Guest of Honor at L.A.con III the 54th Worldcon, and Nippon2007 the 65th which could not have happened without him; here is the story of bringing him to a Worldcon the first time. (Died 2010) [JH]
Born October 27, 1938 — Lara Parker, 82. Best known for her role as Angelique on Dark Shadows which aired from 1966 to 1971. She also played Laura Banner in The Incredible Hulk pilot, and Madelaine in the Kolchak: The Night Stalker “The Trevi Collection” episode. And she was on Galactica 1980 in “The Night The Cylons Landed” two-parter. (CE)
Born October 27, 1939 — John Cleese, 81. Monty Python of course, but also Time Bandits, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, two Bond films as Q and even two Harry Potter films as Nearly Headless Nick. He’s definitely deep into genre film roles. And let’s not forget he shows up as an art lover on the “City of Death” story, a Fourth Doctor story. (CE)
Born October 27, 1940 – Maxine Hong Kingston, 80. National Medal of Arts, Nat’l Humanities Medal, Nat’l Book Award. Memoir The Woman Warrior. “On Discovery” from China Men, “Trippers and Askers” from Tripmaster Monkey are ours, maybe more in these and six other books, fantasy and reality interspersing. [JH]
Born October 27, 1940 – Patrick Woodroffe. For us, four nonfiction books, half a dozen short stories, four dozen poems, ninety covers, a hundred interiors; record jackets, etchings, bronzes, much else. Not knowing the word was already used in medicine he coined tomograph for photos of actual objects combined with cut-outs from his paintings. Artbooks Mythopœicon; Hallelujah Anyway; A Closer Look; The Forget-Me-Not Gardener; PW. Here is Day Million. Here is The Green Hills of Earth. Here is the May 02 Asimov’s. (Died 2014) [JH]
Born October 27, 1943 — Les Daniels. Writer of a series concerning the vampire Don Sebastian de Villanueva. During the Seventies, he was the author of Comix: A History of Comic Books in America with illustrations by the Mad Peck — and Living in Fear: A History of Horror in the Mass Media. Later on, he’d write myriad histories of DC and Marvel Comics, both the Houses and individual characters. (Died 2011.) (CE)
Born October 27, 1948 — Bernie Wrightson. Artist who with writer Len Wein is known for co-creating Swamp Thing. He did a lot of illustrations from Cemetery Dance magazine to Stephen King graphic novels to DC and Marvel comics. Tell me what you liked about his work. Some of his horror work at Creepy magazine is now available as Creepy Presents Bernie Wrightson at the usual digital suspects. (Died 2017.) (CE)
Born October 27, 1950 – Susan Lowell, 60. A score of books, many for us with fantasy elements, e.g. The Three Little Javelinas (pronounced “ha-veh-LEE-nas”; lovable wild southwestern cousins of pigs); Josefina Javelina who longing to be a ballerina packs her concertina, leaves her favorite cantina, and goes to Pasadena seeking her cousin Angelina; The Bootmaker and the Elves; The Boy with Paper Wings. [JH]
Born October 27, 1965 – Roberto de Sousa Causo, 55. Three novels, half a dozen shorter stories. Regular reporter to Locus of SF in Brazil. His entry in the SF Encyclopedia (3rd ed., electronic) by Elizabeth Ginway is worth reading. [JH]
Born October 27, 1970 — Jonathan Stroud, 50. His djinn-centered Bartimaeus series is most excellent. Though considered children’s novels, I think anyone would enjoy them. I’ve also read the first two in his Lockwood & Co. series as well — very well done. (CE)
Born October 27, 1984 — Emilie Ullerup, 36. Best known for playing Ashley Magnus on Sanctuary. She’s had one-offs in Battlestar Galactica, Supernatural, Smallville and Almost Human. She played Ehren in Witchslayer Gretl, one of those awful Syfy films. (CE)
Born October 27, 1986 – Lauren Cannon, 34. A dozen covers, half a dozen interiors. Here is The Song of Darkness (in German; tr. of The Painted Man). Here is the Spring 13 Subterranean. Here is When Will You Rise. [JH]
One of New York’s oldest bookstores pleaded for help from customers — and help poured in.
Nancy Bass Wyden, owner of the Strand Bookstores, took to Facebook and Twitter on Friday to say the business was “unsustainable.” Sales had slumped 70 percent since 2019 because of the pandemic, and the company’s cash reserves were running low, she wrote.She asked patrons to “#savethestrand” with some early holiday shopping, noting that “for the first time in The Strand’s 93 year history, we need to mobilize the community to buy from us so we can keep our doors open until there is a vaccine.”
The response was explosive: The store received more than 25,000 online orders over the weekend, causing the website to crash, Wyden told The Washington Post. It normally gets 300 orders a day.
An organ plays, a door creaks open, and a man with a baritone voice says, “Oh, hello there. I’m so glad you came tonight” in a way that makes you wonder if it would have been safer to stay home. With one foot in mystery and the other placed firmly in horror, Inner Sanctum was an anthology series of strange and chilling tales that guest starred film greats like Bela Lugosi, Orson Welles, and Claude Rains.
(13) CAREER PATH. Amy K. Bruni, host of the ghost hunting show Kindred Spirits, insists “Ghost Hunting Is A Hobby” in a post for CrimeReads.
The question I get asked the most is how to get a job like mine, traveling the country in search of haunted experiences, making a living doing what most consider to be a very odd, very expensive weekend hobby.
The answer is: I have no idea.
There isn’t a traditional path to finding a career in the paranormal. It started out as a hobby for me, too….
(14) A HEAD’S UP. [Item by Daniel Dern.] The problem with being a (superhero) comics reader, in terms of reading the press release below, is that my immediate image is a panel including (Marvel’s) M.O.D.O.K., Green Lantern foe Hector Hammond, The Leader (from Hulk’s foes), Brainwave (the original JSA comics version)… mmm, and maybe Marvel’s Kree’s Supremor (Supreme Intelligence). Perhaps also (Marvel’s) Ego the Living Planet.
BIG TECH HEADS TO TESTIFY IN FRONT OF CONGRESS, PARLER FREE
SPEECH SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM CEO JOHN MATZE AVAILABLE TO COMMENT
Washington, DC- Facebook, Twitter and Google CEOs Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and Sundar Pichai, respectively, are scheduled to appear before Congressional leaders on Wednesday, October 28th for a hearing regarding free expression on the internet, involving the 1996 Communications Decency Act….
Gliding over the primeval landscape of ancient China like a living jet airliner, pterosaurs were the kings of the airways during the Age of the Dinosaurs and existed in their prime between 210 and 65 million years ago on Earth.
These magnificent airborne reptiles were the planet’s first flying vertebrates, arriving far earlier than bats or birds, and many species, like the giant azhdarchids, were the biggest soaring creatures ever to have existed, with impressive wingspans of more than 30 feet and standing as tall as today’s African bull elephants and even adult male giraffes.
Adding to the awesome aviary of lofty pterosaurs, a freshly identified species officially named Ordosipterus planignathus has just been identified and detailed in a new report recently published in the online journal China Geology. Unearthed in remote Inner Mongolia, Ordosipterus planignathus thrived in the Early Cretaceous period between 120 and 110 million years ago…
(16) GENTLEMEN, BE SEATED. In Two Chairs Talking Episode 39: Completely zoned out, past Aussie Worldcon chairs David Grigg and Perry Middlemiss visit the Eastern Block and discuss Solaris by Stanis?aw Lem, and the two films, one directed by Andrei Tarkovsky and the other by Steven Soderberg, based on that book. They follow up with a discussion of “Roadside Picnic” by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, and then the film “Stalker” based loosely on that book.
NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) has confirmed, for the first time, water on the sunlit surface of the Moon. This discovery indicates that water may be distributed across the lunar surface, and not limited to cold, shadowed places.
SOFIA has detected water molecules (H2O) in Clavius Crater, one of the largest craters visible from Earth, located in the Moon’s southern hemisphere. Previous observations of the Moon’s surface detected some form of hydrogen, but were unable to distinguish between water and its close chemical relative, hydroxyl (OH). Data from this location reveal water in concentrations of 100 to 412 parts per million – roughly equivalent to a 12-ounce bottle of water – trapped in a cubic meter of soil spread across the lunar surface. The results are published in the latest issue of Nature Astronomy.
“We had indications that H2O – the familiar water we know – might be present on the sunlit side of the Moon,” said Paul Hertz, director of the Astrophysics Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Now we know it is there. This discovery challenges our understanding of the lunar surface and raises intriguing questions about resources relevant for deep space exploration.”
As a comparison, the Sahara desert has 100 times the amount of water than what SOFIA detected in the lunar soil. Despite the small amounts, the discovery raises new questions about how water is created and how it persists on the harsh, airless lunar surface….
(18) VIDEO OF THE DAY. In “Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory Pitch Meeting” on Screen Rant, Ryan George says that despite many “scenes of excruciating death” including children nearly blowing up, Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory is a children’s movie and not a horror flick.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Mike Kennedy, JJ, Martin Morse Wooster, Cat Eldridge, John Hertz, Michael Toman, Michael J. Walsh, Rob Thornton, James Davis Nicoll, Daniel Dern, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Anna Nimmhaus.]
There are 20 categories overall. Here is what Goodreads recommended in the primary categories of genre interest – Best Fantasy, Best Science Fiction, Best Horror, and Best Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction.
There also are some genre works in the Best Graphic Novels and Comics, Best Middle Grade & Children’s categories.
In the opening round, write-ins are also allowed and the top five write-in votes in each of the categories become official nominees.
“Brian Aldiss was my Dad and I have produced a photographic book which is a selection of the images I made after he died. I photographed all of his possessions,” writes Wendy Aldiss. “I’m crowdfunding the printing of the book.” : “My Father’s Things – A beautifully designed photobook”.
His shaving brush, his books, a handful of ties, his Hugo Awards … these are amongst the things my father left behind him when he died.
This book, beautifully designed and ready to print, contains a selection from the 9,000+ images I took of all my father’s things. There is a foreword by celebrated British novelist Christopher Priest and an essay by cultural sociologist Dr Margaret Gibson.
With more than 250 pages of full colour images, including 8 fold-outs, it is at once a depiction of one person’s property, a record of design across the decades and a meditation on the extraordinary nature of ordinary things.
Wendy Aldiss also quoted the encouraging words of people who have seen it:
On seeing the draft Philip Pullman said, “This is a book to pore over and marvel at, beautiful and funny and moving. I loved it”.
Elizabeth Edwards, Visual Anthropologist, says; “..the camera transfigures these ordinary traces, makes them appear luminous with interest, even exotic.”
Margaret Gibson says to me: “There are real generational and intergenerational resonances in your book that will speak to many people in many places around the world”.
Neil Gaiman said: “Now we have a chance to see into his [Brian Aldiss] rich and varied life, through the lens of his daughter Wendy, whose inspired idea it was to photograph pretty well everything that was in his possession when he died”.
The appeal has raised $5,046 of its $8,862 goal on the first day.
Those who pledge £35 or more will receive a first edition of the book, and there are other incentives for larger donations.
By pledging money towards the funding goal you will receive a reward of your choice. Most of the rewards include the book itself (£35, or £40 for a signed copy), but you could additionally get a 2021 calendar featuring 13 additional images, a signed print from a selection of ten, or a copy of my limited edition artist’s book.
Each book includes a unique page marker previously a page marker from one of the books in my Dad’s library. Everyone who contributes will get a mention in the book’s separate Thank You letter. Books should arrive in time for Christmas.
She asks in closing –
Remember, it’s all or nothing. If I don’t manage to raise the required funds by November 27th I don’t get any of the money for printing (and everyone who made a pledge will get their money back).
Brian Aldiss being serenaded with “Happy Birthday” at LonCon 3 in 2014. Photo by Francis Hamit. (Not part of book.)
(1) TITLE BOUT. Shelf Awareness publicized the release of the six-book shortlist for the 2020 Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year. “Founded by Trevor Bounford and the late Bruce Robertson in 1978 ‘as a way to stave off boredom at the Frankfurt Book Fair,’ the Diagram Prize has had a home at the Bookseller and with legendary diarist Horace Bent since 1982.” The finalists are —
A Dog Pissing at the Edge of a Path by Gregory Forth
Introducing the Medieval Ass by Kathryn L Smithies
Classical Antiquity in Heavy Metal Music by K.F.B. Fletcher and Osman Umurhan
How to Make Love to a Despot by Stephen D. Krasner
Lawnmowers: An IllustratedHistory by Brian Radam
The Slaughter of Farmed Animals: Practical Ways to Enhance Animal Welfare by Temple Grandin and Michael Cockram
The winning title will now be chosen by members of the public via an online vote. The public vote closes on Friday 20th November, with the winning entry to be announced on Friday 27th November. There is no prize for the winning author or publisher, but traditionally a passable bottle of claret is given to the nominator of the winning entry. If a title wins that was nominated by The Bookseller staff, the claret will be given at random to a member of the public who participated in the online voting.
(2) FIYAH FOUNDER Q&A. The latest episode of The Imagination Desk, a podcast from the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University, is live now, featuring an interview with speculative fiction author Troy L. Wiggins, who is also one of the founders of FIYAH Literary Magazine. Listen in here.
The next episode will be with science fiction author and researcher Regina Kanyu Wang.
Here is the CSI newsletter on Black Speculative Fiction Month activities, which features this podcast, among other things. And here are direct links to the podcast, on the CSI website (which links out to the other services), Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RadioPublic, and Libsyn.
(3) ROCKY HORROR LIVE FUNDRAISER. This invitation was sent in Tim Curry’s name for a Rocky Horror Live virtual event to aid the Wisconsin Democratic party.
Right now, we can almost see blue skies through the tears… of the Trump presidency, of course. But we absolutely must keep the pressure on!
That’s why we’re doing the Rocky Horror Show — LIVE — this Halloween night — to help get out the vote in Wisconsin. RSVP and reserve your spot today!
This is a live, once-in-a-lifetime musical livestream event, featuring cast members both old and new. There will be singing, dancing, laughs and plenty of fun.
…Chip in any amount to join us for the Rocky Horror Show Livestream on Halloween with Tim Curry, Wilmer Valderrama, Lance Bass, Rosario Dawson, Jason George, Nell Campbell, Seth Green, Jason Alexander, David Arquette, and more!
Featuring musical performances by The Dresden Dolls, Miss Peppermint, Eiza Gonzalez, Josh Gad, Ben Barnes, Jenna Ushkowitz, Rachel Bloom, Karen Olivo, Marissa Jaret Winkour, Madison Uphoff, Kalen Chase, and Rumer Willis.
This event is only going to be livestreamed once at 9pm CT on Saturday, October 31st.
…These are the similarities between the Dupin stories and Sherlock Holmes, and there are many. One writer said that “The only difference between Dupin and Holmes is the English Channel.” Similarity number one: in both stories we have at the heart a highly intelligent but somewhat eccentric and enigmatic detective. The word detective did not actually exist when Poe was writing, which gives you a sense of how novel he was. He might have taken the idea from a series of magazine articles about a French policeman. Otherwise, he was on his own. This was all his….
… Examples of the mad scientist/evil genius in everything from comic books to classics spring to mind without even breaking a sweat: Dr. No of James Bond fame, whose experiments with atomic energy cost him his hands as well as his conscience; Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus, whose unquenchable thirst for knowledge drove him to a deal with the devil; Dr. Henry Wu, who fooled around with genetics and opened a questionable theme park in Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park, and, my personal favorite, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll, whose work brought to the surface his baser self as Mr. Hyde.
It is the last example, I think, that speaks most clearly to our fears. Scientists are people like the rest of us—multi-faceted, unpredictable and (for the most part) human. Like all of us humans, there’s always that slim chance that they’re going to turn to the proverbial dark side, especially when they get a taste of power….
(6) MEDIA ANNIVERSARY.
2000 — Twenty years ago at Chicon 2000, the Hugo for Best Novella went to Connie Willis for “The Winds of Marble Arch”, a precursor to her Blackout/All Clear novel which would win the Best Hugo Novel eleven years later at Renovation. Runner-ups were Harry Turtledove‘s “Forty, Counting Down”, Adam-Troy Castro and Jerry Oltion‘s “The Astronaut from Wyoming”, Mike Resnick‘s “Hunting the Snark” and Kage Baker‘s “Son, Observe the Time”. It can be found in The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories, the Subterranean Press collection, which is available from the usual digital suspects.
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]
Born October 26, 1942 — Bob Hoskins. I’ll insist his role as Eddie Valiant in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? is his finest genre role though I suppose Mario Mario in Super Mario Bros. could be said… Just kidding! He’s the Director of The Raggedy Rawney which he also had a role, a strange might-be genre film, and he’s Smee in Hook as well. (Died 2014.) (CE)
Born October 26, 1945 – Jane Chance, Ph.D., D.Litt., 75. Mellon Distinguished Professor emerita at Rice; first woman appointed to tenure track in English; founder president of the Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages; doctorate of letters, Purdue. For us, six books on Tolkien; a score of others, a hundred articles. [JH]
Born October 26, 1951 – Melanie Herz, 69. Hardworking Florida fan. Many regionals and Worldcons; chaired Traveling Fête 1996, Tropicon 21, OASIS 6. When we’ve been on the same con committee, and particularly when we were on the same DUFF (Down Under Fan Fund) ballot, we tried to make sure our mail didn’t get crossed. Still wasn’t as bad as when I had an office down the hall from a man named Heitz. [JH]
Born October 26, 1954 — Jennifer Roberson, 66. Writer of of fantasy and historical romances. The Chronicles of the Cheysuli is her fantasy series about shapeshifters and their society, and the Sword-Dancer Saga is the desert based adventure series of sort, but the series I’ve enjoyed is her Sherwood duo-logy that consists of Lady of the Forest and Lady of Sherwood which tells the Robin Hood tale from the perspective of Marian. Her hobby, which consumes much of her time, is breeding and showing Cardigan Welsh Corgis. (CE)
Born October 26, 1960 — Patrick Breen, 60. He’s Redgick, a Squid, a minor character that appeared in Men in Black. In beloved Galaxy Quest, he’s Quellek, a Thermian who forms a bond with Alexander Dane. it’s a wonderful role. And he has a recurring role as Larry Your-Waiter, a member of V.F.D. on A Series of Unfortunate Events series. (CE)
Born October 26, 1960 – David LaRochelle, 60. A score of children’s books, many with fantasy elements. Also an amazing astounding stellar thrilling pumpkin carver; see here. [JH]
Born October 26, 1962 — Cary Elwes, 58. He’s in the ever-so-excellent Princess Bride as Westley / Dread Pirate Roberts / The Man in Black. He also shows up in Dr. Lawrence Gordon in the Saw franchise, and was cast as Larry Kline, Mayor of Hawkins, for the third season of Stranger Things. (CE)
Born October 26, 1969 – Mary Ting, 51. A score of novels; taught a score of years, toured with the Magic Johnson Foundation. Makes Twilight-themed jewelry. Besides husband, children, has two dogs Mochi and Mocha. [JH]
Born October 26, 1971 — Anthony Rapp, 49. Lieutenant Commander Paul Stamets on the most Discovery series . His first role ever was Wes Hansen in Sky High, and he showed up early in his career as Jeff Glaser in the “Detour” episode of X-Files. He was Seymour Krelbourn in a national tour of Little Shop of Horrors. (CE)
Born October 26, 1972 – Zetta Elliott, Ph.D., 48. Five novels, seven shorter stories for us; poetry; essays; plays; children’s illustrated books under her Rosetta Press. “I write as much for parents as I do for their children because sometimes adults need the simple instruction a picture book can provide.” [JH]
Born October 26, 1973 — Seth MacFarlane, 47. Ok, I confess that I tried watching the Orville which he created and is in and it just didn’t appeal to me. For those of you who are fans, why do you like it? I’ll must admit that having it described as trying to be a better Trek ain’t helping. (CE)
Born October 26, 1975 – David Walton, 45. Author and engineer. Seven novels, a dozen shorter stories. Baen Memorial Award, Campbell Memorial Award, Philip K. Dick Award. Plays chess and go. “Science fiction can show us the viewpoints of people whose lives and experiences are so far away from ours that … our minds are stretched and our vision is expanded.” [JH]
(8) COMICS SECTION.
Bizarro finds law enforcement pondering why no pumpkin is safe!
Yesterday’s Bizarro recalls that time Sesame Street fought for its independence. (Just when was that, anyway?)
Jonathan Muroya’s Greek Quarantology shows how all your favorite mythical figures are dealing with life during COVID-19.
After you take a look at this Wulffmorgenthaler cartoon for Denmark’s Politiken you’ll want a translation for the dialog (courtesy of Lise Andreasen):
“The death star is flat.”
“Actually, some of us believe, the death star is flat. That being round business is a conspiracy.”
This was a charming, thoughtful, often whimsical story full of a deep horror that at times wholly unnerved me. I’ll be discussing many key plot points and revelations….
(10) THE DOOM FROM THE SUN. [Item by Olav Rokne.] In a quirky bit of science news, astronomers recorded a large solar flare that happened to look like a prop from an old science fiction TV show… “NASA satellites capture massive ‘Doomsday machine’ solar flare”.
From the article: “The image of the explosion was described by some as the stuff of science fiction, specifically the Doomsday machine from Star Trek. Fortunately, the CME did not hit Earth.”
(11) SILENT GOLD. Leonard Maltin has a roundup of silent film releases — “Rare Silent Films On Blu-Ray And DVD”. One of them is the rediscovered 1916 version of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea. The poster for this movie is very cool.
It’s not a typo: Universal produced a feature-length version of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Seain 1916, and the new DVD/Blu-ray release is a 4K transfer of the surviving material. Luckily for us, silent film historian Anthony Slide delivers a highly informative commentary track that tracks the careers of underwater-photography specialists Ernest and George Williamson. Indeed, it is their work that makes this release so intriguing, not the hackneyed mishmash of Verne’s famous story and The Mysterious Island. Alan Holubar, then a prominent actor about to turn director, and Jane Gail star. The music score is credited to Orlando Perez Rosso.
(12) SOL SEARCHING. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] A new way has been found to determine which stars are likely to host weird planetary systems and those stars likely to have planetary systems more like our own Solar system.
The following will appear in next season’s SF² Concatenation but they’ve shared it with File 770 now…
How many Solar system type planetary systems are there in our spiral arm? We may soon be finding out from new research. Some planetary systems around stars are very unlike our Solar system. For example, they will have what are called hot Jupiters with a gas giant close to their star in an orbit similar to that of Mercury about our sun, rather than beyond the asteroid belt where Jupiter is in our system.
It had been thought that the type of planetary system that forms is determined by the star’s protoplanetary disk of gas and dust. While this may be so, there is also another factor at play – whether the star formed in comparative isolation or along with loads of others in a stellar nursery.
Up to now it has been impossible to address this question as stars disperse (as the Galaxy rotates, spiral arms oscillate, local stellar conditions etc) from when they were born within a billion years of their formation. However, ESA’s Gaia star mapping has helped British and German astronomers to determine that whether or not a star is born in a stellar nursery or more isolated by itself, is key to the type of planetary system it will host.
You see the Gaia probe not only maps stars positions, it does it so accurately that after a few years and the star is re-mapped, it is possible to discern its movement, velocity and direction. What the researchers have found is that they can correlate those stars that seem to be moving more or less parallel to, and with a similar velocity, to other stars. These stars can be assumed to have a common birthplace in a stellar nursery. Other stars that have no movement correlation with others, can be assumed to have been born in comparative isolation. With this in mind, the astronomers looked at 600 stars Gaia had mapped.
What the astronomers found was that systems with hot Jupiters tend to be formed in crowded stellar nurseries, while those with gas giants further from their star almost invariably saw the star’s birth in comparative isolation: there were few such systems with hot Jupiters – a hot Jupiter system was roughly ten times more likely in a star born in a stellar nursery.
As the researchers themselves point out, their discovery has “possible implications for planetary habitability and the likelihood of life in the Universe” questions. (See Winter, A. J., Kruijssen, J. M. D., Longmore S. N & Chevance, M. (2020) Stellar clustering shapes the architecture of planetary systems. Nature, vol. 586, p528-532.)
Planetary systems around stars born in stellar nurseries less likely to have Solar System type planetary arrangement, but will be more likely to have hot Jupiters.
…Available this fall for $60, the Star Wars: The Mandalorian the Child “Real Moves Plush” stands 11 inches tall, so it’s slightly smaller than the animatronic figure used in the series. Mattel still managed to stuff it full of electronics, including authentic sound effects and motors to bring it to life.
The Child’s head can turn from side to side, and look up and down while it’s giant ears wiggle, and all the mechanisms are hidden under a flexible outer skin, which makes sense when you say it, but out of context feels like a horrifying thing to say about a baby. His tiny, snuggly robes can also be further adorned with an included Mythosaur skull pendant, like the one gifted to him by Din Djarin at the end of the first season.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Mike Kennedy, JJ, Olav Rokne, Martin Morse Wooster, Cat Eldridge, John Hertz, Michael Toman, Joey Eschrich, Lise Andreasen, Jeff Smith, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day JJ.]
FIYAH Magazine is among the inaugural winners of the Asteroid Awards, announced October 24 at Outpost 2020, a new virtual popular science and entertainment convention hosted by Skeptoid Media and title sponsor Texas Tech.
The Asteroid Awards recognize “the impact of entertainers, educators and scientists working to further an informed future by inspiring audiences with innovation and the power of narrative.” Each winner receives a cash prize.
Best Science Fiction
Recognizing excellence in publications and authors working to expand the boundaries of science fiction. Includes a $1,000 cash award sponsored by Texas Tech College of Media & Communication.
Science Influencer of the Year
Recognizing excellence in reaching a broad audience and making STEM content exciting and mainstream. Includes a $1,000 cash award sponsored by Texas Tech College of Media & Communication.
Best Streaming Content
Recognizing excellence in podcasting and web video series that inspire and entertain. Includes a $1,000 cash award sponsored by Skeptoid Media.
Award for Diversity and Inclusion in Scicomm
Recognizing excellence in ensuring that every child who dreams of a career in STEM has role models with whom they can identify. Includes a $1,000 cash award sponsored by Texas Tech College of Media & Communication.
The 37th issue of Uncanny Magazine, winner of five Hugos and a British Fantasy Award, will be available on November 3.
Hugo Award-winning Publishers Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas are proud to present the 37th issue of their five-time Hugo Award-winning online science fiction and fantasy magazine, Uncanny Magazine. Stories from Uncanny Magazine have been finalists or winners of Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy Awards. As always, Uncanny features passionate SF/F fiction and poetry, gorgeous prose, provocative nonfiction, and a deep investment in the diverse SF/F culture, along with a Parsec Award-winning monthly podcast featuring a story, poem, and interview from that issue.
All of Uncanny Magazine’s content will be available in eBook versions on the day of release from Weightless Books, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, and Kobo. Subscriptions are always available through Amazon Kindle and Weightless Books. The free online content will be released in 2 stages- half on day of release and half on December 1.
“The Uncanny Valley” by Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas
“Imagining Futures: They’re Trying to Sell You A Haunted House” by Elsa Sjunneson
Fiction
“50 Things Every AI Working with Humans Should Know” by Ken Liu (11/3)
“Proof of Existence” by Hal Y. Zhang (11/3)
“Words We Say Instead” by Brit E.B. Hvide (11/3)
“The Salt Witch” by Martha Wells (12/1)
“The Span of His Wrist” by Lee Mandelo (12/1)
“The Bottomless Martyr” by John Wiswell (12/1)
Reprint
“Cerulean Memories” by Maurice Broaddus (12/1)
Nonfiction
“Evoking the Gothic: The House That Anxiety Built” by Meghan Ball (11/3)
“Black and White and Red All Over: On the Semiotic Effect of Color (11/3)
Printing in Genre Fiction” by Meg Elison (11/3)
“Traveling Without Moving” by Michi Trota (12/1)
“This Isn’t the End: On Becoming a Writing Parent” by K.A. Doore (12/1)
Poetry
“Mourning Becomes Jocasta” by Jane Yolen (11/3)
“An Elder Resigns from the Chorus of Oedipus at Colonnus” by Peter Tacy (11/3)
“Cento for Lagahoos” by Brandon O’Brien (11/3)
“Making Accommodations” by Valerie Valdes (12/1)
“The Automaton Falls in Love” by Jennifer Crow (12/1)
Interviews
Ken Liu Interviewed by Caroline M. Yoachim (11/3)
Lee Mandelo Interviewed by Caroline M. Yoachim (12/1)
Podcasts
Episode 37A (November 3): Editors’ Introduction, “Proof of Existence” by Hal Y. Zhang, as read by Joy Piedmont, “Mourning Becomes Jocasta” by Jane Yolen and “An Elder Resigns from the Chorus of Oedipus at Colonnus,” by Peter Tacy, as read by Erika Ensign, and Lynne M. Thomas interviewing Hal Y. Zhang.
Episode 37B (December 1): Editors’ Introduction, “The Salt Witch” by Martha Wells, as read by Erika Ensign, “Making Accommodations” by Valerie Valdes, as read by Joy Piedmont, and Lynne M. Thomas interviewing Martha Wells.
(1) WOMEN AUTHORS REDISCOVERED. One of the books Danielle Trussoni reviews for the New York Times in “Grisly Slabs of Gothic Horror” is the Lisa Morton / Leslie Klinger collection Weird Women:
In the introduction to WEIRD WOMEN: Classic Supernatural Fiction by Groundbreaking Female Writers 1852-1923 (Pegasus, 384 pp., $25.95), the editors Lisa Morton and Leslie S. Klinger write that horror often seems to be a “genre bereft of female writers.” Here they set out to correct that misperception, highlighting stories by women writers whose work has fallen into obscurity.
One of my favorite stories in this excellent collection is by the British novelist Marie Corelli (1855-1924). A popular author in her day, she regularly outsold her contemporaries Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Conan Doyle, yet her work has all but disappeared from print. Her story, “The Lady With the Carnations,” is a compact masterpiece in which a woman is drawn to a portrait in the Louvre and begins to encounter the subject of the painting — a lady with carnations — first at the opera and again in Brittany. She concludes that the woman is an illusion, but whether she is real or a figment of her mind doesn’t matter: The narrator carries the scent of carnations with her like a curse.
The pandemic arrived early for Emily Powell, owner of Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon. The state had one of the first confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the US in February. As she watched more cases pop up across the country, “I felt an increasing sense of panic and crisis,” she said. On March 15, she abruptly closed her stores in the middle of the day. She immediately shrank her staff from 500 to 60 who were “just helping us turn the lights off and put out-of-office messages on the website.” Almost overnight, she shifted her business entirely to online orders.
She’s since been able to bring back around 150 employees, and thanks to a flood of online sales, a Paycheck Protection Program loan from the federal Small Business Administration, and partial reopenings of her stores, she’s made it this far.
Still, Powell’s and other independent bookstores across the country face an uncertain and undoubtedly difficult future: Government assistance has dried up, foot traffic is still low,…
(3) 2023 WESTERCON BID RESOURCES. The Tempe in 2023 Westercon bid’s website and Facebook page are live.
DC Comics’ long-awaited The Other History of the DC Universe from Oscar-winning writer John Ridley is set to debut next month. io9 spoke with Ridley recently about what it’s been like figuring out how to give fresh voices to an expansive cast characters who, while well-known in certain circles, have been historically marginalized both on the page and in the real world.
In the first issue of Ridley’s The Other History, you’re shown the birth of the modern age of superheroism from the perspective of a young Jefferson Pierce, the man fated to become a world-famous athlete, a teacher, and eventually, the hero Black Lightning. Unlike the Black Lightning we’ve been introduced to in DC’s various other continuities where he frequently works alongside legacy heroes, The Other History’s Jefferson is initially a much younger, angrier man with the firm belief that the world’s superheroes aren’t doing enough to help those in marginalized, overlooked communities like his own. Though Jefferson’s feelings about heroes seem harsh, they’re relatable and give you a sense of his own traumatic history featuring the death of his father and then a lifelong pursuit to be the best, strongest version of himself….
In honor of the late Mythbusters host Grant Imahara, a foundation has been established to empower young people to get involved in science, technology, art, engineering and mathematics.
The Grant Imahara STEAM Foundation will provide mentorships, grants, and scholarships to students — regardless of socioeconomic status, race or gender — who demonstrate interest in those areas.
“There are many students, like my son Grant, who need the balance of the technical and the creative, and this is what STEAM is all about,” said Carolyn Imahara, Grant’s mother and Foundation co-founder. “I’m so proud of my son’s career, but I’m equally proud of the work he did mentoring students. He would be thrilled that we plan to continue this, plus much more, through The Grant Imahara STEAM Foundation.”
The interplanetary trader River of Stars has been lucky…so far. It works low-profit routes, has little cash to spend on repairs, and neglects maintenance. Eventually maintenance arrears catch up with the craft when a critical pump is disabled by asteroid debris. This setback might not be fatal for a competent crew. Unfortunately for the River of Stars, Captain Hand has assembled one of the least competent crews since the Méduse set off for Africa. This is all that is needed to turn calamity into catastrophe.
Appalling judgment: Captain Hand.
(8) TRIVIAL TRIVIA.
From the Profiles in History Icons & Legends of Hollywood auction catalog John King Tarpinian learned that the helmet worn by Michael Ansara in the Harlan Ellison-scripted Outer Limits episode “The Soldier” was also worn by Robin Williams in Mork & Mindy.
(9) RANDI OBIT. Famed skeptic, magician James Randi, died October 20. The AP profiled his career:
James Randi, a magician who later challenged spoon benders, mind readers and faith healers with such voracity that he became regarded as the country’s foremost skeptic, has died, his foundation announced. He was 92.
The James Randi Educational Foundation confirmed the death, saying simply that its founder succumbed to “age-related causes” on Tuesday.
Entertainer, genius, debunker, atheist ? Randi was them all. He began gaining attention not long after dropping out of high school to join the carnival. As the Amazing Randi, he escaped from a locked coffin submerged in water and from a straitjacket as he dangled over Niagara Falls.
Magical as his feats seemed, Randi concluded his shows around the globe with a simple statement, insisting no otherworldly powers were at play.
“Everything you have seen here is tricks,” he would say. “There is nothing supernatural involved.”…
(10) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.
October 25, 1989 — Thirty-one years ago the first part of Doctor Who’s “The Curse of Fenric” aired on BBC. This Seventh Doctor story involved ancient Viking curses, the Ultimata code breaker and vampires from the far future coming together during WW II. Ian Briggs wrote this story. He also wrote the ‘Dragonfire” story which introduced Sophie Aldred as Ace, the main companion to the Seventh Doctor. Briggs would later novelize both stories for the Target Books franchise.
(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]
Born October 25, 1881 – Pablo Picasso. The symmetric and invertible year (try it) could hardly be more appropriate to this revolutionary artist. He made this (The Old Guitarist) and this (The Ladies of Avignon). Here he is on Gravity’s Angels (back cover Three Dancers, front cover Three Musicians). Here he is on The Cyberiad. (Died 1973) [JH]
Born October 25, 1909 — Whit Bissell. You most likely know him as Station Manager Lurry on “The Trouble With Tribbles”, but his major contribution to the SFF genre was being in all thirty episodes of The Time Tunnel as Lt. Gen. Heywood Kirk. He also did one-offs on The Invaders, I Dream of Jeannie, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Science Fiction Theater, The Incredible Hulk and The Outer Limits. And yes, in the Time Machine film. (Died 1996.) (CE)
Born October 25, 1924 — Billy Barty. He shows up in a number of genre films, some well-known such as Legend and Willow, some not so well known such as the Thirties Alice in Wonderland where he was the White Pawn and Bride of Frankenstein. It’s worth noting that he’s in Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings as Bilbo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee. (Died 2000.) (CE)
Born October 25, 1932 – Kanamori Tôru, 88. Here is Captain Future and the Seven Space Stones. Here is The Emerald Elephant Gambit. Here is Run, the Spearmaker. Here is David Bull’s page about Kanamori-sensei’s Star Trek art. [JH]
Born October 25, 1939 – Fred Marcellino. Yale man. Five dozen covers, half a dozen interiors for us; much else. Began as an abstract-expressionist; record jackets for Capitol, Decca, PolyGram; fifteen years a mainstream book-jacket designer at 40 jackets a year; then children’s books. Here is The Handmaid’s Tale. Here is The Bonfire of the Vanities. Here is World’s End. Here is Dragondrums. His Puss in Boots won a Caldecott Honor. Here is The Steadfast Tin Soldier. Wrote and illustrated I, Crocodile. (Died 2001) [JH]
Born October 25, 1971 — Elif Safak, 49. Turkish writer not currently under arrest though considered an opponent of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. She’s got two genre novels, one written originally in Turkish (Mahrem), The Gaze in its English translation, and two written in English, The Architect’s Apprentice (which was translated into Turkish as Ustam ve Ben) and10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World. Note: no diacritic marks as WordPress won’t do them properly. (CE)
Born October 25, 1940 – Janet Fox. Author of prose and poetry, founder and sometimes editor of Scavenger’s Newsletter growing from the Small Press & Writers Organization of which she’d been secretary-treasurer. Wrote all the Scorpio novels but the first, under a house name. Ninety shorter stories, as many poems. Taught English and foreign languages at Osage City High School. Collections A Witch’s Dozen; Not in Kansas (though she was born and died there). (Died 2009) [JH]
Born October 25, 1955 — Gale Anne Hurd, 65. Her first genre work was as Corman’s production manager on Battle beyond the Stars.(A decent 42% among audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes.) From there, we’ve such films as Æon Flux, the Terminator franchise, Aliens, Alien Nation, Tremors, Hulk and two of the Punisher films to name just some of her genre work. (CE)
Born October 25, 1960 – June Brigman, 60. Five covers (with husband Roy Richardson), half a dozen interiors. Co-created preteen superheroes Power Pack; some work for DC Comics, more for Marvel. Illustrated and colored Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Drew Brenda Starr 1995-2011; now drawing Mary Worth. Inkpot Award. Here is Trapped in Time. Here is Power Pack Grow Up!Here is a 2016 birthday poster from Tampa Bay Comic-Con. Here is a Wonder Woman monochrome. Here are Mr. Boometrix (at left) and Jerry O’Leary. Here is Lonesome Dove. [JH]
Born October 25, 1963 — John Gregory Betancourt, 57. Writer best known most likely for his work In Zelazny’s Amber universe but who has written quite a bit of other franchise fiction including works in the Star Trek, Hercules, Robert Silverberg’s Time Tours, Dr. Bones and The New Adventures of Superman. Most of his original fiction was early in his career. He’s also edited in a number of magazines including Weird Tales, Amazing Stories, H. P. Lovecraft’s Magazine of Horror, Adventure Tales and Cat Tales. He even co-edited with Anne McCaffrey, Serve It Forth: Cooking with Anne McCaffrey. (CE)
Born October 25, 1982 – Victoria Francés, 38. Wider known since the XII Saló del Manga, Barcelona (2006). Favole Trilogy (see Integral Favole, 2011), Misty Circus (2 vols. so far), Dark Sanctuary (book + CD with a band of that name). Eleven covers for Shadow Kingdom (in German), two for Realms of Fantasy. Here is Clark’s Saving Solace. Here is one of VF’s vampires. This is from a YouTube of VF drawing one. [JH]
Born October 25, 1989 — Mia Wasikowska, 31. She’s Alice in Tim Burton’s creepy Alice in Wonderland and equally creepy Alice Through the Looking Glass. Rotten Tomatoes gave the first a 53% rating and the second a 29% rating. And no, I’ve no desire to see either. (CE)
(12) COMICS SECTION.
Garfield finds an amusing new setup for a familiar magical joke.
Are there going to be trick-or-treaters? If we postulate there will be, Real Life Adventures has the right idea about a scary costume.
(13) HEAR JAMES AND DUE DIALOG. The virtual LA Times Festival of Books will present “Marlon James, Author of ‘Black Leopard Red Wolf,’ Winner of the Inaugural Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, in Conversation with Tananarive Due” on October 28 at 9:00 p.m. Pacific. Register free here.
See the novelist Marlon James discuss his novel “Black Leopard, Red Wolf,” a work of science fiction, with Tananarive Due, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and an expert in Black horror and Afrofuturism, as part of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books — now in its 25th year. Mr. James is also the author of 2014’s “A Brief History of Seven Killings,” which won the Man Booker prize.
(14) POPOL VUH. On Monday, October 26, at 4:30 p.m. PT, LA Review of Books’s Editor in Chief Boris Dralyuk will join Greenlight Bookstore and Ilan Stavans to discuss the latest project from the publisher of Restless Books and acclaimed Latin American author and scholar: Popol Vuh: A Retelling. Learn more and register for the free online event here
Publisher of Restless Books and acclaimed Latin American author and scholar Ilan Stavans presents his latest project, Popol Vuh: A Retelling, an inspired and urgent prose retelling of the Maya myth of creation. Cosmic in scope and yet intimately human, the Popol Vuh offers invaluable insight into the Maya way of life before being decimated by colonization—their code of ethics, their views on death and the afterlife, and their devotion to passion, courage, and the natural world. Popol Vuh: A Retelling is a one-of-a-kind prose rendition of this sacred text that is as seminal as the Bible and the Qur’an, the Ramayana and the Odyssey. Stavans brings a fresh creative energy to the Popol Vuh, giving a new generation of readers the opportunity to connect with this timeless story and with the plight of the indigenous people of the Americas. Boris Dralyuk, Executive Editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books and award-winning literary translator, joins Stavans at this special virtual book reading and talk, with an audience Q&A to follow!
…Taking inspiration from the Narnia room her Nana Elizabeth had created for her as a young girl, Sophia created a magical reading tent using a double duvet cover.
‘The keys I glued wings on, put fishing wire on and hung to the ceiling with command hooks, and same with the floating candles.
‘I revamped her blinds by glueing wallpaper to them with bookbinding glue, and I did the same for the wardrobe doors.
To keep her room clutter-free, Sophia created a miniature Prison of Azkaban where her daughter could keep all of her plush toys.
(17) BOUND FOR BENNU. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] This week’s Nature went to press just as NASA’s OSIRIS REx probe took two years to get to asteroid Bennu, arriving at the end of 2018. Since then it has been mapping the 500 metre-wide asteroid. It had been hoped that the asteroid’s surface would be smooth but instead they found it covered in boulders that make a brief touch-and-go landing dangerous. Nonetheless, as this week’s Nature; went to press OSIRIS REx went in to collect a sample.
The interest in Bennu is that it formed between 100 million and a billion years ago when it broke away – presumably due to an impact from another asteroid – from its parent body. That parent body seems to have been geologically active as Bennu seems to have veins of carbonate which suggests that at one time hot water was percolating through carbonaceous material.
The aim is for OSIRIS REx to collect 60 grams of material from the surface and return them to Earth. This will be NASA’s first sample return but not the first ever asteroid sample return. Japan’s JAXA space agency previously sent Hayabusa-2 to asteroid Ryugu.
The OSIRIS REx mission’s other goal is to gain as much information as to the nature of the asteroid and its rocks so as to devise a way to possibly deflect it. The asteroid orbits uncomfortably close to the Earth. There is a small chance (fortunately only small) that Bennu could strike the Earth sometime in the 22nd century.
Researchers at Leiden University have 3D printed the smallest boat in the world: a 30-micrometer copy of Benchy the tug boat, a well-known 3D printer test object. This boat is so small, it could float down the interior of a human hair.
… The most interesting thing is how they were able to print the little boat’s cockpit, an open space that requires lots of geometric trickery to build.
(19) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by JJ.] From the catalog of “not really helpful, just wanted to prove I could do it.”
Special video to celebrate 5 years on YouTube! Join the Party, Pizza on us. Making Pizza is an art and love, making Pizza with Lego it is fun and satisfaction.
[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Daniel Dern, David K.M. Klaus, Lise Andreasen, Michael Toman, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, Cat Eldridge, John Hertz, John King Tarpinian, Contrarius, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cora Buhlert.]
The announcement of the winners for the African Speculative Fiction Society’s 2020 Nommo Awards, which had been rescheduled out of respect for the people injured in the recent protests in Lagos and other Nigerian cities, went ahead in a virtual ceremony on October 25 with awards being presented by Tade Thompson, past winner of the Ilube Nommo Award and the Clarke Award, Chinelo Onwualu, co-founder Omenana Magazine, Mame Bougouma Diene, author and ASFS officer, and Setor Fiadzigbey, co-winner of the 2018 Nommo Award for best comic.
The 2020 Ilube Nommo Award for Best Novel
David Mogo, Godhunter by Suyi Davies Okungbowa
Voting narrowly gave the victory that work over The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell.
The 2020 Nommo Award for Novella
Incompleteness Theories by Wole Talabi
This is his second Nommo Award. The novella comes from Talabi’s single-author collection Incomplete Solutions.
The 2020 Nommo Award for Short Story
[Tie]
“Tiny Bravery” by Ada Nnadi
“Sin Eater” by Chikodili Emelumadu
Both stories were published by the Nigeria-based online journal Omenana.
The 2020 Nommo Award for Graphic Novel/Comic
DANFO by Morakinyo Araoye, and Steven Akinyemi (authors) Ogim Ekpezu (artist) (TAG Comics)
The Nommo Awards were established in 2016. The roughly 200 published authors and artists who are members of the African Speculative Fiction Society first nominate and then vote for the winners. The Awards recognize work in the four categories by African creators across multiple genres including fantasy, interstitial fiction, science fiction, spiritual fiction, Afrofuturism, Africanfuturism and horror.
The Ilube Nommo Awards are named after Tom Ilube, CBE who sponsors the prize money for all four awards. This year additional funding was received via Africa Storybundle from Apex Publications and Shadreck Chikoti.
For a full listing of the short lists and winners of previous Nommos visit the ASFS website
