20 Yondo Lies The Pixel Of My Filer

Posted on October 22, 2020 by Mike Glyer

(1) GET READY TO LAUNCH. At Nerd and Tie, “Interview: Eliana González Ugarte and Coral Alejandra Moore of Constelación Magazine” conducted by Andrea Johnson,

NOAF: I am so excited for Constelación Magazine! When and how, and why did you decide to make this magazine a reality?
Coral Alejandra Moore: The entire process of building Constelación from the idea to what you can see on the website and social media now was really organic. Eliana and I met at a virtual convention called Flights of Foundry in May of this year, and a few weeks later we met again at the Nebulas convention. We both happened to be a in a zoom room where John Picacio and Mary Robinette Kowal started talking about Spanish language speculative fiction because of Eliana’s experience with it, and that got the hamsters in my brain turning. A few emails, and Twitter DMs later, Eliana and I were already moving forward at warp speed, and we really haven’t stopped since then. Lots of people got quarantine puppies during the pandemic, but we got a quarantine magazine!
NOAF: What makes Constelación Magazine different from other speculative fiction magazines out there?
Eliana González Ugarte: We take stories in both English and Spanish! One of our goals is to publish more Latin American and Caribbean authors who may not be able to submit their stories directly in English, or they’d have to first pay someone to translate it for them in order to be able to submit.

(2) NEXT REVELATION. Alastair Reynolds has delivered the latest book in the Revelation Space series. It will probably be called Inhibitor Phase: “I’ve delivered a book”.

… As may be apparent to those familiar with my work, the book takes place in the Revelation Space universe and is largely set in the years after ABSOLUTION GAP, my 2003 novel.
It’s not intended as a sequel to that book, but merely another entry in the mosaic of books and stories which illuminate a larger future history. That said, it does have connective tissue with some of the other novels. although I’ve scrupled as carefully as I can to make the book function as a standalone title, a single book which tells a complete tale in its own right and can be read as “just” an isolated story.
.. What happens in the book? I’m not going to say – just yet. I can state that some of the influences that have fed into the book include a film by Ingmar Bergman, a song by Scott Walker (in fact more than one), and the closing track of a Muse album.

(3) HEINLEIN STANDING DOWN. “‘Starship Troopers’ is off the Marine commandant’s reading list, but ‘White Donkey’ by Terminal Lance is in”. Would you like to know more? Task & Purpose has the story.

The Marine Corps commandant’s reading list saw some big changes this week, with the sci-fi military classic Starship Troopers getting the boot as newer works of fiction like The White Donkey took a place on the shelf.
The change came on Tuesday when Marine Commandant Gen. David Berger released the new reading list, which includes 46 books across a range of topics and genres….

(4) AFTERLIFE POSTPONED. Yahoo! Life reports ”End of the world delays Ghostbusters: Afterlife to June 2021″.

Perhaps sensing that the minds of the moviegoing public—as much as concepts like “moviegoing” and “public” exist during the COVID-19 pandemic—were otherwise occupied with images far more horrifying than a giant Slor, Sony announced this afternoon that the release of Ghostbusters: Afterlife has been pushed to June 11, 2021. For those keeping score at home, that’ll put the Jason Reitman-directed sequel into theaters 37 years after the original Ghostbusters, four months after its first revised release date, and approximately two-and-a-half years after self-proclaimed “first Ghostbusters fan” Reitman stuck his foot in his mouth upon announcing that his new addition to the comedy franchise was “for all the other fans.” But then again, what’s waiting 16 additional weeks in the midst of 40 years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes, and all of the other stuff that Dan Aykroyd might attribute to the difficulties of getting a third film set in the continuity of the first two Ghostbusters movies in front of people?

(5) A FLASH FROM FIFTY-EIGHT. Fanac.org has added 17 photos from the late Karen Anderson’s collection (thanks to Astrid Bear) to the Solacon (1958 Worldcon) album. These include half a dozen photos from “Alice in Thrillingwonderland” which was performed at the con.

In issue #795 of Karen’s fanzine Zed, you can read the script for the play starting on page 7. So now you can read the script, see the pix and imagine yourself there. There are also some wonderful masquerade photos and some individual photos as well. Thanks to Astrid for letting us put them up.

(6) SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL MAMMAL. “It’s a Wild City! Funny Wildlife PSAs Appear in NYC” – Untapped New York knows where they came from.

… Hynes got his start writing for Untapped New York and turned his animal-focused column into Wild City, which was released earlier this year. It’s an illustrated exploration that highlights everything from the return of the humpback whale to the pizza rat….
The illustrator of the animals on the posters is Kath Nash, who also illustrated Wild City. Each of the PSAs have more highlights about each creature. The Mandarin Duck one says “Remember this little guy? Used to be around all the time! Loved to swim in Central Park and have his picture taken. But now he’s just gone! We will always love you, Gucci duck. Please come home soon! ENJOY YOUR LOCAL WILDLIFE TODAY!” One of the mastodon says, “NEW YORK GIANTS. Mastodons were the original New Yorkers. These big buddies lived all over the city back in the day. Just imagine this furry elephant roaming around Inwood or wherever. It’s wild.”…

(7) VINTAGE 98.6. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] It’s a cold Halloween night. What better to curl up with than a warm bucket of blood? “Halloween Kills: Jamie Lee Curtis Jokes About All The Fake Blood Needed For The Sequel” at CinemaBlend.

[…L]egendary scream queen [Jamie Lee Curtis} recently joked about the massive amount of fake blood needed to make the project [Halloween Kills] into a reality.
Halloween Kills is in the can and was set to arrive in theaters this October, before being delayed a full year amid the pandemic. Jamie Lee Curtis is as disappointed as anyone else about this, although she recently posted an awesome video from the movie’s set. The Knives Out actress shared the story behind said clip, saying:
So the second movie that we shot takes place immediately where the first movie lets off, which is similar to what Hallowen II did. Halloween II picked up exactly after Halloween I. So I’ve been stabbed in the stomach by Michael. And the first sequence is us in the back of this truck which you see us climb into at the end of the movie. I posted on Instagram this video because you’re in the back of a truck, they’re trailing behind you. But I’m supposed to literally be bleeding out, I’m supposed to be hemorrhaging. So we had to freshen the sticky blood. And they have this big bucket, like a paint bucket. And by the end of it I was like ‘Give me my bucket. I want my bucket.’ Because it was warm, and it was super cold. David called it ‘the sauce.’ He said ‘Bring in more sauce.’
[…Y]ou can check out the video that Jamie Lee Curtis was referencing [at Instagram].

(8) MONTANARI OBIT. Gianni Montanari, writer, translator, curator of the Italian prozine Urania from 1985 to 1990, has died at the age of 71 reports Fumetto Logica. Francesco Spadaro called him, “A genius I’ve known for years through printed paper, then in person in an unexpected friendship like all the great gifts life gives you.”

Montanari was also creator of the Urania Prize.

(9) MEDIA ANNIVERSARY.

1990 — Thirty years ago at ConFiction, Hyperion by Dan Simmons wins the Best Novel Hugo. Runner-ups were George Alec Effinger’s A Fire in the Sun, Orson Scott Card’s Prentice Alvin, Poul Anderson‘s The Boat of a Million Years and Sheri S. Tepper‘s Grass. It is the first book of his Hyperion Cantos and was followed by The Fall of Hyperion. It would also be nominated for the BSFA and Clark, and win the Locus Award for Best SF Award. (CE)

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]

Born October 22, 1882 – N.C. Wyeth. One of America’s greatest illustrators; his masterpiece Treasure Island; over a hundred books. For us e.g. Rip Van Winkle, Robin Hood. Outside our field e.g. Coca-Cola, Lucky Strike; Beethoven, Liszt, Wagner for Steinway & Sons; public and private buildings; patriotic images during both World Wars. Besides illustration – “Painting and illustration cannot be mixed” – portraits, landscapes. Here is a gallery. (Died 1945) [JH]
Born October 22, 1927 – Lee Jacobs. When he wrote “The Influence of Science Fiction on Modern American Filk Music”, filk was a typo. But it acquired a life of its own. Active in Washington, D.C, fandom; then Los Angeles. Took part in FAPA (Fantasy Amateur Press Ass’n, our oldest apa), SAPS (Spectator Am. Pr. Society, our second-oldest), SFPA (Southern Fandom Pr. Alliance), The Cult. Wrote The Ballard Chronicles (pulp-magazine parody featuring Wrai Ballard) and Redd Boggs – Superfan. (Died 1968) [JH]
Born October 22, 1938 — Derek Jacobi, 82. He played a rather nicely nasty Master in “Utopia”, a Tenth Doctor story. He’s currently Metatron on Good Omens. And he was Magisterial Emissary in The Golden Compass. I’ll single out that he’s played Macbeth at Barbican Theatre in London as part of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre ensemble. (CE)
Born October 22, 1939 — Suzy McKee Charnas, 81. I’d say The Holdfast Chronicles are her best work to date. “Boobs” won the Best Story Hugo at ConFiction. She’s also won the Otherwise, Nebula, Gaylactic Spectrum, and Lambda Literary Awards. Any of you read her Sorcery Hall series? (CE)
Born October 22, 1943 — Jim Baen. Editor of Galaxy and If for three years. He edited the sf line at Ace ad then Tor before starting his own namesake company in 1983. In late 1999, he started Webscriptions, now called Baen Ebooks, which is considered to be the first profitable e-book service. He also was the editor of Destinies and New Destinies which I remember fondly. He was nominated for Best Editor Hugo five times between 1975 and 1981 but never won. At Nippon 2007, he’d be nominated for Best Editor, Long Form. (Died 2006.) (CE)
Born October 22, 1948 – Debbie Macomber, 72. Over 200 million copies of her books in print worldwide. First winner of the Quill Award; Romantic Times Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award; RITA Award. For us, three novels about three angels who work miracles but have a hard time resisting the use of human technology, which sometimes lands them in trouble; they are named – which I couldn’t resist – Shirley, Goodness and Mercy. [JH]
Born October 22, 1952 — Jeff Goldblum, 68. The Wiki page gushes over him for being in Jurassic Park and Independence Day (as well as their sequels, The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Independence Day: Resurgence, but neglects my favorite film with him in it, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, not to mention the Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake he was in. (CE)
Born October 22, 1954 — Graham Joyce. Selecting his best novel is a futile exercise as everything is fantastically good but I’ll single out Some Kind of Fairy Tale and The Tooth Fairy as the ones I found the most interesting reads. (Died 2014.) (CE)
Born October 22, 1956 — Gretchen Roper, 63. Long-time member of fandom, filker and con-runner. She co-founded Dodeka Records with her husband, Bill Roper. She received with her husband the Pegasus Award for Best Original Humorous Song, “My Husband The Filker”, and was inducted into the Filk Hall of Fame. She runs The Secret Empire, a business selling filk-related stuff and other things at cons. (CE)
Born October 22, 1958 – Keith Parkinson. A hundred forty book covers, a hundred eighty interiors. Three artbooks, most recently Kingsgate. Cards. Video and online games. Here is the May 85 Amazing. Here is In the Shadow of the Master (in Dutch; English title After the King; Tolkien). (Died 2005) [JH]
Born October 22, 1960 – Dafydd ab Hugh, 60. Eight Star Trek novels, four others; four shorter stories including “The Coon Rolled Down and Ruptured His Larinks, a Squeezed Novel by Mr. Skunk” (novelette; Hugo & Nebula finalist). Served in the U.S. Navy. [JH]
Born October 22, 1992 – Carrie Hope Fletcher, 28. Four novels for us; career onstage including A Christmas Carol (Menken, Ahrens & Ockert 1994), The Addams Family (Lippa, Brickman & Elice 2009), Cinderella (Lloyd Webber, Zippell & Fennell 2019), Mary Poppins (Sherman, Sherman, Drewe & Fellows, 2004). Singer, Internet celebrity. YouTube channel with 650,000 subscribers. [JH]

(11) COMICS SECTION.

At Bizarro, Trolls and Gremlins come to an agreement.

(12) HELD FOR RANSOM. Brenton Dickieson found an unexpected connection between some works of C.S. Lewis: “My Paper, “A Cosmic Shift in The Screwtape Letters,” Published in Mythlore” at A Pilgrim in Narnia.

…It isn’t that Lewis wrote these Screwtapian letters; rather, as he says in the preface published in your copy of The Screwtape Letters:
“I have no intention of explaining how the correspondence which I now offer to the public fell into my hands.”
What is intriguing about the handwritten preface, is that Lewis makes a link between Screwtape and his Ransom book–Out of the Silent Planet from 1938 and Perelandra, which he was writing at this time. This is the first sentence of the “Ransom Preface,” as I call it:
“Nothing will induce me to reveal how my friend Dr. Ransom got hold of the script which is translated in the following pages.”
It is a pretty exciting discovery and one that I have spent years working on….
…. You can purchase Mythlore here, and the free open-access copy of this paper is available here.

(13) VIDEO OF THE MINUTE. In “Honest Trailers: Us” the Screen Junkies take on the 2019 film, which has “enough social commentary to trick snobs into watching B-movie sci-fi horror action.”

(14) POE IN TOWN. In “Edgar Allan Poe And The Rise Of The Modern City” on CrimeReads, College of Charleston English professor Scott Peeples looks at Poe’s story “The man In The Crowd” to discuss Poe’s attitudes towards urban life.

First published in December 1840, Poe’s story “The Man of the Crowd” encapsulates the mystery and fear that attended the rapid development of cities and the influx of “strangers.” Though set in London, where Poe had lived as a child and whose density and growth exceeded those of American cities in 1840, the tale reflects the future shock of mid-nineteenth-century urban experience generally. For the first third of the story, the narrator, recuperating from an unnamed illness, sits alone at the “large bow-window” of a coffee house, watching the parade of pedestrians at the workday’s end. A shrewd taxonomist of urban types, he identifies the professions and social stations of passersby. The first group includes “noblemen, merchants, attorneys, tradesmen, stock-jobbers . . . men of leisure and men actively engaged in affairs of their own.” He proceeds down the social ladder, calling attention to visible clues…

(15) SHARDS OF PLENTY. Gizmodo finds Bennu is ready for its close-up. “Stunning Images Show NASA’s Attempt at Scooping Samples From an Asteroid”.

…Pictures snapped by the spacecraft’s SamCam imager show the 1-foot-wide (0.3-meter) sampling head absolutely bathed in debris. Though I’m no expert, it would be hard to believe that nothing got scooped up by the collection system, known as Touch-and-Go, or TAG. But images can be deceiving, and the team, led by the University of Arizona, will spend the next week trying to figure out how much debris was collected.
Approximately one second after making touchdown, the probe fired a nitrogen gas bottle, which produced the debris cloud, according to a NASA statement. OSIRIS-REx arrived at a predetermined site called Nightingale and reached the surface during its first attempt….

(16) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “Bob Marley — Redemption Song” on Vimeo is an animation of the classic Marley song by Octave Marsel and Theo de Gueltzl.

[Thanks to Rob Thornton, John King Tarpinian, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, Rich Horton, Cat Eldridge, JJ, John Hertz, Michael Toman, Michael J. Walsh, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jeff Smith.]

Richard Lupoff (1935-2020)

Posted on October 22, 2020 by Mike Glyer

Richard Lupoff, known to friends as Dick, died October 22 at the age of 85. His sons Tom and Ken announced on Facebook:

My dad passed away early this morning in the hospital after a brief final illness. It was peaceful. And despite severe pandemic visitation restrictions my brother and/or I were allowed to be with him at all times so that he was not alone and we got to say proper goodbyes.

A longtime fan who worked as a technical writer, or when feasible a full-time sf pro, Lupoff with his wife Pat (and Bhob Stewart) edited the Hugo-winning fanzine Xero. They were among the founders of the Fanoclasts, and of New York’s Eastercon. Dick participated in APA-F and the New York Futurian Society. As a pro, he produced 20 novels and enough short fiction to fill several collections. He edited hardcover editions of Burroughs books, wrote a biography of Burroughs, and other nonfiction books drawing on his expertise in pulp, comics and sf history.

Lupoff already was an avid sf reader when he encountered fandom in 1952 via Amazing Stories. “And suddenly I discovered a subculture of people who valued the intellectual over the physical, ideas over objects, imagination over conformity, cooperation over competition.” He decided the fastest way to become part of that world was to publish a fanzine, even though the only means of production available to him was to type each page on a sandwich of original and carbon paper. Once he had made eight copies of a zine he called SF52 he sent them to the leading faneditors of the day. A single recipient – Lee Hoffman – wrote back, which encouraged him to stick around.

In contrast to most fans, Lupoff was already a selling writer by the time he got involved. As a 14-year-old he was earning pocket money as a stringer for metropolitan newspapers, filing stories on prep school sports with the New York Times and Herald-Tribune, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Bulletin. Later, while an undergraduate at the University of Miami, he wrote news items for the Coral Gables, Florida, Times, and for WIOD, Miami’s 6:00 o’clock news five days a week. “It was like living in a movie,” he remembered.

After college and a two-year hitch as a conscript in the U.S. Army, he was hired as a technical writer for what was then Sperry Univac at a salary of $350 a month. This enabled Dick and Pat Lupoff to marry in 1958. They lived in Westchester County just north of New York City, where “it was possible for a young couple to lead a very pleasant upper-middle-class life on that salary.”

He was impressed by his first sight of a computer:

Univac I. It had 1000 *words* of memory, roughly the equivalent of 12K bytes. The storage medium was a mercury delay line, and if you wanted to look at the memory you had to open a door in the side of a garage-sized metal structure and walk inside. It held half a dozen people comfortably.

He worked for Sperry for five years, then IBM for seven. The last several years at IBM were spent writing and directing movies. In the evenings and other free time he wrote. His first book, Edgar Rice Burroughs: Master of Adventure, came out in 1965, and his first novel, One Million Centuries, in 1967.

Lupoff said that first novel and his fiction-writing career generally was helped with a push in the right direction from Andrew Porter:

Pat and Dick Lupoff in Poughkeepsie in 1965. Photo taken by and (c) Andrew Porter.

FWIW, I want to offer a tip of the tam to Andy Porter. In 1965 I brought out my first book. It was nonfiction. I kept saying that I was going to write a novel but I kept stalling. Finally Andy took the train from New York City up to Poughkeepsie, where Pat and I were living at the time.
He kept pressuring me to stop talking about writing a novel and for heaven’s sake sit down and write. I finally did, and the result was One Million Centuries, certainly not an “Eighty-Yard Run” quality effort, but a respectable novel which went through a couple of editions (Lancer, later Timescape/Pocket) and got my career as a fiction writer rolling.
If it hadn’t been for Andy, I might have spent the next thirty years writing computer manuals and regretting what-might-have-been.
Andy, did I ever thank you for what you did? Probably not. So even at this very late date, and in front of the large and distinguished audience that we call Fictionmags — Thank you!

But it wasn’t until 1970 that, with Pat’s support and encouragement, he went full-time as a pro sff writer. His work was well-received. His novella “With the Bentfin Boomer Boys on Little Old New Alabama” in Harlan Ellison’s Again, Dangerous Visions was a Nebula nominee (1973). He earned two Hugo nominations for his short fiction, “After the Dreamtime” (1975), and “Sail the Tide of Mourning” (1976 – a Nebula nominee, too). His books during the decade included Sacred Locomotive Flies (1971), Into the Aether (1974), The Triune Man (1976), and two Buck Rogers novels under his Addison E. Steele pseudonym. His entertaining collection of parodies on other sf authors, The Ova Hamlet Papers came out in 1979.

During that period he also wrote the short story “12:01 P.M.” (1973), adapted as the Oscar-nominated short film 12:01 pm (1990) and the TV movie 12:01 (1993). (Lupoff appeared in both films as an extra.) The major plot device is a time loop, so similar to that of 1993’s Groundhog Day that Lupoff and Jonathan Heap, director of the 1990 film, were “outraged” by the apparent theft of the idea, but “After half a year of lawyers’ conferences and emotional stress, we agreed to put the matter behind us and get on with our lives.”

An economic downturn at the end of the Seventies affected Lupoff’s markets and pushed him back into the workforce for a few years. But when given the opportunity to write full-time again, he said he found “The lesson that I had to accept was that the field had moved on, leaving me behind. It’s painful to say this, but it was nonetheless true.” However, he was able to rebrand himself as a mystery writer, and in that genre he enjoyed fresh success with The Comic Book Killer, featuring the detective team of insurance investigator Hobart Lindsey and Berkeley police officer Marvia Plum. That was followed by The Classic Car Killer, The Bessie Blue Killer, The Sepia Siren Killer, and (coming in 1995) The Cover Girl Killer.

By the start of the 21st century, Dick and Pat Lupoff, who had raised three children, also were looked on as the lineal ancestors of comics fandom, a fact they celebrated by publishing a book of selections from their famous fanzine, The Best of Xero (2004) – which was, in turn, nominated for the Best Related Book Hugo (2005). John Hertz’ review describes the fanzine’s early days and names some of the well-known contributors:

Pat & Dick Lupoff typed stencils in their Manhattan apartment, printed them on a machine in Noreen & Larry Shaw’s basement, collated by hand, and lugged the results to s-f cons or stuffed them in mailboxes. The machine had not been given by Damon Knight, A.J. Budrys explained in a letter after a while, but lent. Eventually drawings could be scanned by electro-stencil, a higher tech. Colored ink joined colored paper, sometimes wildly colored. Xero could be spectacular.

…You’ll also see Anthony Boucher, Harlan Ellison, Ethel Lindsay, Fred Pohl, Rick Sneary, Bob Tucker as “Hoy Ping Pong”, Harry Warner — fans and pros mixing it up. Roger Ebert, later a movie critic, contributed poetry, often free-style, or formal and funny…

Even before starting Xero, the Lupoffs paid tribute to comics in their iconic costumes for the 1960 Worldcon masquerade, as Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel.

Pat Lupoff died in 2018. Dick was in Assisted Living these last few years, but still got around. He was a fixture at the annual Paperback Show in LA (see the photo of him at the 2019 event), one of the many places his absence will be felt.

Richard Lupoff, Sunni Brock, William F. Nolan, Jason Brock in 2019.

Not at the KGB Bar, Hunts in Weird October with Joe Hill and Laird Barron

Posted on October 22, 2020 by Mike Glyer

By Mark L. Blackman: On the night of Wednesday, October 21, the Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series in a pre-Halloween event featured horror writers Joe Hill and Laird Barron. In its new normal (or abnormal), with the Series’ longtime venue, the KGB Bar in Manhattan’s East Village shut down due to the pandemic (though it’s starting to reopen with limited capacity), for the eighth time, the presentation was livestreamed on YouTube. (Hill called the Bar “one of my New York City happy places.” Missing the full KGB Bar experience, I considered climbing several flights of stairs before logging on.)

As the evening began, Hill and Barron schmoozed with co-hosts Ellen Datlow (who has been hosting these readings for 20 years) and Matthew Kressel about everything from what they were and weren’t drinking (Madeira is too sweet), masks and pizza breath, candied bacon (a mix of sweet and savory), and that no one liked getting apples or food trick or treating. Kressel relayed that the evening was sponsored by Tor’s Nightfire line (and not by Jeffrey Toobin), then introduced the first reader.

Laird Barron is the author of several books, including The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All, Swift to Chase and Worse Angels., and short fiction that has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, “stories about the evil that men do.” He spent his early years in Alaska and currently resides in the Rondout Valley in upstate New York. His reading selection was “Lorn,” a work in progress set in the wilderness around a dying town (“Lorn” is all that remained on its sign), which he began with a caution that it was “R-rated” and included animal violence. “Animals can be murderers,” he said, and related a true story about a Husky serial killer that had slaughtered sled dogs. Two brothers, Paul and Casey Arnaz, are recruited by an old buddy to hunt a predator killing the area’s pets; it could be a late eccentric’s menagerie on the loose or “local yokels who’ve gone back to the old ways.”

During a break, Hill was asked about the TARDIS behind him. He and his family were huge fans of David Tennant’s stint as the Doctor, and he even (with help from Neil Gaiman) pitched stories to Doctor Who; but they don’t, never have and never will accept scripts written by Americans. Datlow segued into his introduction.

Joe Hill (yes, I saw Joe Hill last night) is the author of Full Throttle, Strange Weather, The Fireman, NOS4A2, Heart-Shaped Box and Horns, the short story collection 20^th Century Ghosts, and the comics and graphic novels Locke & Key, Basketful of Heads and Plunge.(the latter under his Hill House Comics imprint with DC, ). Much of his work has been adapted or is in development for film and TV. He is, incidentally, the son of Stephen and Tabitha King, and, he joked, his wife “collects writers’ tears.”

He read from “Faun,” a short story in Full Throttle. A very wealthy young man is invited to a presentation in Boston about joining a curated hunt in Maine. For a quarter of a million dollars he can go through a little door and stalk a faun (a variety of satyr, a goatman with hooves and horns). (Hill got to do a Maine accent and a sort of Mickey Mouse voice.) The story alludes to Bradbury’s “A Sound of Distant Thunder,” but, as Hill revealed during the Q&A that followed, was also inspired by Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia; however, instead of decent English children going through a wardrobe, here a spoiled young man is the traveler. Imagine running hunts, he said, into Middle Earth or Narnia, he said.

The Q&A and discussion that followed was far-ranging. The X-Files, Hill thought, was better as a romance (will they or won’t they) than as horror (the monster of the week). Is it easier to write horror when the world feels like a horror story? Barron said that he’s as isolated as when he lived in the woods. Hill said that when he writes, he’s buried in the mechanics of each paragraph, and described himself as “a wicked overwriter” (“Faun” should have been shorter, had “fewer words”). What he writes, he felt, “isn’t scary;” other people’s stories scare him.

Some horror stories, Hill continued, are “like comfort food;” Barron also finds horror “comforting” – “there’s a filter.” In some horror stories (and movies), observed Datlow (who’s edited more than a few horror anthologies), the good are saved and evil punished, though not always. Said Hill, if you make sacrifices, the worst things in the world can be driven back. Horror reminds us of our shared humanity. “Good horror is about empathy, not sadism” (“torture porn”).

The conversation shifted, appropriately, to horror movie viewing for Halloween. Barron said that a favorite was John Carpenter’s The Thing, also Hawks’ and Campbell’s short story “Who Goes There?” Datlow cited Personal Shopper, Get Out and Hereditary. Hill quipped that his horror viewing was the next night’s Presidential Debate. The Swedish film Sauna and Let the Right One In were also mentioned.

Favorite villain? Hannibal Lecter was shared, though Barron liked Nicholson’s. Hill said that he wants heroes to root for, but then cited Walter White and Bruce the Shark from Jaws, who’s “the perfect menace.” Barron observed that Jaws is, in essence, “a slasher film.” The shark is a shark; she isn’t evil. This reminded Datlow of Peter Watts’ “The Things,” The Thing from the Thing’s point of view.

Datlow concluded by announcing upcoming readers:

November 18: William Gibson and Cat Rambo
December 16: Priya Sharma and Justin Key
January 20, 2021: Lauren Beukes and Usman T. Malik
February 17: Kathleen Jennings and Shveta Thakrar

All dates are the third Wednesday of the month. The new setup allows readers from all over the world, noted Datlow, though time zones do limit things.

SFPA’s 2020 Grand Master Nominees

Posted on October 22, 2020 by Mike Glyer

Voting continues as Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) members decide who will be honored as Grand Master this year. Four candidates are under consideration: Linda Addison, F.J. Bergmann, Geoffrey A. Landis, and John Grey. SFPA members have until December 1 to cast their ballots.

Linda Addison

Linda D. Addison is the award-winning author of five collections, including The Place of Broken Things, written with Alessandro Manzetti, & How To Recognize A Demon Has Become Your Friend, and a recipient of the HWA Lifetime Achievement Award. She is the first African-American recipient of the HWA Bram Stoker Award®, co-editor of Sycorax’s Daughters, an anthology of horror fiction & poetry by African- American women, poetry editor of Space & Time Magazine since 2000, and editor of the 2018 Rhysling Anthology and the HWA StokerCon Anthology 2019. Her work has made frequent appearances over the years on the honorable mention list for Year’s Best anthology. She has a B.S. in Mathematics from Carnegie-Mellon University and currently lives in Arizona. Addison is a founding member of the writer’s group Circles in the Hair (CITH), and a member of HWA, SFWA and SFPA. For further information please see Linda’s website.

F. J. Bergmann

F. J. Bergmann has a distinguished body of speculative poetry from the last 20 years, winning the Rhysling (Short and Long), the Elgin Chapbook (twice), the SFPA Poetry Contest (several), and other contests. Her service to SFPA includes editing Star*Line, designing publications, and serving as webmaster and VP. Nor is her service to poetry limited to the SFPA.

Geoffrey A. Landis

Geoffrey A. Landis has had a strong body of work published over the last thirty-plus years, noted by his winning the Rhysling Long twice, the Asimov’s Reader’s Award for best poem four times, and the Dwarf Stars Award. In addition to his excellence in writing poetry, he has contributed to the SFPA by editing Eye to the Telescope and co-editing the 2012 Dwarf Stars anthology. He is active in the Cleveland poetry community, and for many years has run the Clevelandpoetics blog, which distributes news and information about poetry in the Cleveland area; he has also been active in the Ohio Poetry Day celebrations. He has published two collections of poetry, Iron Angels (Van Zeno, 2009) and The Book of Whimsy (Night Ballet, 2015). For more for more about Geoffrey visit his website.

John Grey

John Grey is Australian-born, U.S. resident, poet, short story writer, musician and playwright. He has had over 16,000 poems published throughout the world in magazines as diverse as Christian Science Monitor, Relix, Poetry East, Agni, Rhino, Rattle, Poet Lore and JAMA as well as numerous anthologies and books, including his latest, Leaves On Pages. A good percentage of those poems have been in genre magazines, (both sci-fi and horror, with the occasional fantasy) having grown up devouring the classic horror writers such as Blackwood, James, Bierce, Poe, etc. Publications in this field include work in Weird Tales, Space & Time, Dreams and Nightmares, The Pedestal, The Magazine Of Speculative Poetry, The Fifth Di, Leading Edge, Andromeda Spaceways, Not One Of Us, Strange Horizons, Chrome Baby and many many many more. Winner of the Rhysling Award (Short) in 1998. Was theater critic and poetry columnist for a local Providence, RI, weekly arts magazine and has had plays produced off-off Broadway and in Los Angeles.

Himebaugh Steps Up As New StarShipSofa Editor

Posted on October 21, 2020 by Mike Glyer

Tony C. Smith, Host/Producer of the Hugo Award winning StarShipSofa podcast, today announced that Fred Himebaugh is their new fiction editor.

Fred Himebaugh will be the new editor of StarShipSofa once Gary Dowell has officially stepped down from the role. I want to welcome Fred onboard the Sofa. It will be great to journey with him to see and hear what great stories he finds.

Smith told his mailing list last Friday that a search for a new editor was under way.

Himebaugh takes over from Gary Dowell, who succeeded Jeremy Szal when he stepped down in January 2020. Dowell was StarShipSofa’s fiction editor for just 10 months.

Himebaugh tweeted a comment about his selection:

Thrilled to join (rejoin, really) the District of Wonders team. StarShipSofa will always be the ur-podcast of the sci-fi universe to me. Thanks to Tony C. Smith for hiring me and I look forward to renewed closeness in our old friendship.

[Thanks to JJ for the story.]

Pixel Scroll 10/21/20 The Haunting Of Mount TBR House

Posted on October 21, 2020 by Mike Glyer

(1) ON THE FRONT OF F&SF. The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction’s Nov/Dec 2020 cover art by David A. Hardy is for “Skipping Stones in the Dark” by Amman Sabet.

(2) SOME TRICKS, SOME TREATS. A new trailer — Season 2 of The Mandalorian streams October 30 on Disney+.

(3) WATCH THE CHESLEYS. Association of Science Fiction & Fantasy Artists President Sara Felix reminds everyone, “The Chesley award ceremony is this weekend on line in conjunction with IX Arts, Saturday October 24th at 7 pm EST.”

It will be streaming on the ASFA website here.

(4) EARLY WARNER SYSTEM. SYFY Wire frames another new trailer: “The Animaniacs Catch Up On The 21st Century In Full, ‘Insany’ Trailer For Hulu Reboot”.

The Warner siblings are back and better than ever in the official trailer for Hulu‘s Animaniacs reboot. True to form, Yakko (Rob Paulsen), Wackko (Jess Harnell), and Dot (Tress MacNeille) are very much aware of how much time has passed since the original series was canceled in the late 1990s.
They’re right at home in a post-Deadpool world and have a lot to catch up on, like mobile tablets, quinoa wraps, and, most importantly, Queen Bae. Meanwhile, Pinky (also voiced by Paulsen) and the Brain (Maurice LaMarche) are still trying to take over the world, but must adapt to the modern woes of catfishing and Instagram likes.

(5) SCHOLARSHIP IN 2020. Livia Gershon’s article “The Self-Styled Sci-Fi Supermen of the 1940s” at JSTOR Daily is filed with the tagline: “Way before there were stans, there were slans. Too bad about their fascist utopian daydreams!” The author is eager to slap the fascist label on fans – and seems ignorant of the fact that that some of the people who lived in the Michigan “Slan Shack” were gay, and that their idea of a utopia free of persecution might not really match up with the author’s fascist stereotype. And treating Claude Degler as a representative of mainstream fandom is an idea as nutty as Degler was.

Science fiction is often a vehicle for social and political ideas, from celebrations of high-tech space colonialism to warnings about the misuse of technology. In the 1940s, English and technology scholar Andrew Pilsch writes, a utopian strain in science fiction fandom brought readers uncomfortably close to an alignment with fascism.
Pilsch writes that science fiction experienced a “superman boom” starting around 1939. This was driven largely by John W. Campbell Jr., editor of Astounding Stories. Campbell editorialized about the real-world possibilities of human enhancement. He also published many stories about super-human beings. Most notable among these was Slan, a novel by A.E. van Vogt. Amazing Stories serialized Slan in 1940—two years after Superman himself had debuted in Action Comics. In van Vogt’s story, the regular people of Earth persecute “slans,” genetically advanced humans.
The book gave the science fiction–reading community a new slogan: “fans are slans.”
Pilsch writes that some fans took this concept very seriously, imagining themselves as a group distinct from the rest of humanity. Among them were Al and Abby Lu Ashley, who proposed creating a “Slan Center”—a settlement as big as a city block, with homes, a library, and a space for publishing fanzines. Describing the concept, the Ashleys wrote that “Intellectually, fans far exceed the ordinary person.”
Dal Coger, a fan who was involved in the initial planning, explained later that “everyone had experienced the raised eyebrows of mundanes when you tried to discuss science fictional ideas with them. Slan Center would make it possible to be openly fannish any time we were away from work.”
While the Slan Center never became reality, the Ashleys did found an eight-room fan house in 1943. Those who moved into the Ashleys’ “Slan Shack” included fan artist Jack Wiedenbeck, fanzine publisher Walt Liebscher, and science fiction writer E.E. “Doc” Smith. Other fan houses popped up, including Tendril House in Los Angeles, the Ivory Birdbath in Massachusetts, and the Futurian Fortress in New York….

(6) MEDIA ANNIVERSARY.

2000 — Twenty years ago at Chicon 2000, Vernor Vinge‘s A Deepness in the Sky won the Hugo for Best Novel. The novel is a loose prequel (set twenty thousand years earlier) to A Fire Upon the Deep. Published by Tor Books in 1999, it decidedly beat out Lois McMaster Bujold’s A Civil Campaign with the rest of the final ballot being Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Greg Bear‘s Darwin’s Radio and J. K. Rowling‘s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. It would also win the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and Prometheus Award along with being nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke, Nebula, Locus, BFA and HOMer awards.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]

Born October 21, 1772 – Samuel Coleridge. This complicated genius wrote, among much else, in 54 lines of poetry, “Kubla Khan”, one of the finest fantasies. See also the Raymond F. Jones story “The Person From Porlock”; C’s title may lie behind the Theodore Sturgeon story “The Skills of Xanadu”. Poet, critic, philosopher. Coined the expression “suspension of disbelief”. (Died 1834) [JH]
Born October 21, 1904 – Edmond Hamilton. Seven novels of the Interstellar Patrol; two of Star Kings; three of Starwolf; a score of Captain Future; a dozen more. Two hundred fifty shorter stories; see The Best of Edmond Hamilton edited posthumously by his widow Leigh Brackett. For DC Comics he particularly wrote Batman and Superman; co-created Batwoman (1956). He reached far. (Died 1977) [JH]
Born October 21, 1914 — Martin Gardner. He was one of leading authorities on Lewis Carroll. The Annotated Alice, which incorporated the text of Carroll’s two Alice books is still a bestseller. He was considered the doyen (your word to learn today) of American puzzlers. And, to make him even more impressive, in 1999 Magic magazine named Gardner one of the “100 Most Influential Magicians of the Twentieth Century”. Cool! (Died 2010.) (CE)
Born October 21, 1929 — Ursula Le Guin. She called herself a “Narrative American”. And she most emphatically did not consider herself to be a genre writer instead preferring be known as an “American novelist”. Oh, she wrote genre fiction with quite some brilliance, be it the Earthsea sequence, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, or Always Coming Home. Her upbringing as the daughter of two academics, one who was an anthropologist and the other who had a graduate degree in psychology, showed in her writing. And the home library of the family had a lot of SF in it. If you’re interested in the awards she won in her career, she garnered the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Locus Award, and World Fantasy Award, each at least once and she was also awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters It won’t surprise you that she was made a Grandmaster of Science Fiction, one of a few women writers to take the top honor in the genre. (Died 2018.) (CE)
Born October 21, 1933 — Georgia Brown. She’s the actress who portrayed Helena Rozhenko, foster mother of Worf, in the Next Gen’s “Family” and “New Ground” episodes. She was Frau Freud in The Seven-Percent Solution, and was Rachel in “The Musgrave Ritual” episode of the Nigel Stock fronted Sherlock Holmes series. (Died 1992.) (CE)
Born October 21, 1936 – Ken Cheslin. Famously published Fables of Irish Fandom (with John Berry); The Bleary Eyes (about the Goon Defective Agency; JB was Goon Bleary); a second ed’n of Vincent Clarke’s tributezine Atom, and one of his own, Atom 2000 – to this day we still quarrel over writing the fanartist Arthur Thomson’s signature and nickname as “ATom” or “Atom”. (Died 2000) [JH]
Born October 21, 1945 — Everett McGill, 75. Stilgar in the first Dune film. Earlier in his career, he was a Noah in Quest for Fire. Later on, he’s Ed Killifer in License to Kill, and on Twin Peaks, he’s Big Ed Hurley. He was also Rev. Lowe in Stephen King’s Silver Bullet, a werewolf flick that actually has a decent rating of 55% at Rotten Tomatoes! (CE)
Born October 21, 1955 – Nancy Wirsig McClure, 65. Revived, ran, and was Master of Ceremonies for the Masquerade costume competition at ICON (Iowa City); Fan Guest of Honor (with husband Martin McClure), ICON 18. Originated, ran, and MC’d Masquerades at Demicon (Des Moines). Con committees at Minicon, edited the Bozo Bus Tribune at Minicon 30. Moved to Portland; OryCon committees. Runs a design & illustration business; designed e.g. this OryCon flier, this Bruce Schneier book; see here. [JH]
Born October 21, 1956 — Carrie Fisher. In addition to the original Star Wars trilogy, Star Wars Holiday Special, The Force Awakens, Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, she was in Amazon Women on the Moon, The Time Guardian, Hook, Scream 3, and A Midsummer Night’s Rave. (Died 2016.) (CE)
Born October 21, 1958 – Julie Bell, 62. Graphic artist in her own right and with husband Boris Vallejo. Three Chesleys (one with him). Three artbooks and eight with BV. A hundred covers, four hundred interiors. Here is Stonehenge. Here is Falling Stars. Here is Beguilement. Here is Soft as Steel. Also horses and other wildlife. [JH]
Born October 21, 1973 — Sasha Roiz, 47. I know him only as Captain Sean Renard on the excellent Grimm series but he’s also been Sam Adama on Caprica as well. And he’s also been on Warehouse 13 in the recurring role of Marcus Diamond. He even showed up once on Lucifer as U.S. Marshal Luke Reynolds. (CE)
Born October 21, 1974 – Chris Garcia, 46. Fanziner and immeasurable being. Edited Tightbeam and The National Fantasy Fan, served as President of the N3F (Nat’l Fantasy Federation). Hugo for The Drink Tank. Nova for Journey Planet (with James Bacon). Also Claims Department; Exhibition Hall. TAFF (Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund) delegate, his report Rockets Across the Waters. Fan Guest of Honor at SFContario 3, ConQuest 44, Westercon 67, Baycon 2018. He and I were separated at birth; he got the hair. [JH]

(8) COMICS SECTION.

Close To Home shows how one witch is adapting to the latest technology.

(9) IN DYING COLOR. On Bruce Sterling’s Tumblr today he has a number of crayon Lovecraftian illustrations “by a young Robert Bloch”.

Lovecraftian illustrations by a young Robert Bloch, (original Cthulhu Mythos fanboy, later famous as the author of Psycho) doodled in crayon on various notebooks and pieces of cardboard between 1933 and 1937.

Here’s one —

(10) CHOW CALL. Pirate Stew by Neil Gaiman and Illustrated by Chris Riddell goes on sale December 1.

Meet LONG JOHN McRON, SHIP’S COOK . . . and the most unusual babysitter you’ve ever seen.
Long John has a whole crew of wild pirates in tow, and—for one boy and his sister—he’s about to transform a perfectly ordinary evening into a riotous adventure beneath a pirate moon. It’s time to make some PIRATE STEW.
Marvelously silly and gloriously entertaining, this tale of pirates, flying ships, doughnut feasts and some rather magical stew is perfect for all pirates, both young and old.

(11) REVOKE THE VOTE? Camestros Felapton addresses the question: “Should John C Wright be allowed to vote?” It doesn’t take long.

Today’s politico-ethical question is easily answered. Yes, science fiction author John C Wright should be allowed to vote in whatever nation he chooses to live in, because people who are held accountable to laws should have a say in those laws AND also the legitimacy of government should derive from the broad consent of the governed….

But why is this a question? Because John C. Wright posed it himself in “It is Time to Reconsider”, although it’s not his own franchise but that of women, that he has doubts about:

Is it time to reconsider the 19th Amendment?
The argument for female suffrage is that women are not more prone to bouts of emotionalism than men, and hence is it equally worthwhile, as the whole, to consult with them over the conduct and control of public business.
Unfortunately, it is evident that there are but rare and few men in the current generation show any particular manly or masculine virtues which would entitle them to a say in the public business, if stoicism, reason, and virtue were preconditions for the franchise.
The argument against female suffrage is that voting is a peaceful substitute for revolution, wherein the less numerous party, seeing himself outnumbered, agreed without bloodshed to abide by the vote of the more numerous. Women, being largely less ready, willing, or able to take up arms than men, have no place in these military questions.….

Yes, if only the legislators who ratified the 19th Amendment – virtually all of whom were men, by the way – had been aided by the prophetic vision of that six-time Hugo nominee and Grand Inquisitor of the Evil Legion of Evil, John C. Wright.

(12) PKD’S POLITICAL ADVICE. Meanwhile, back in 1952, Philip K. Dick wrote to the editors of the Oakland Tribune naming his candidate to save the country:

Editor: Unless we elect Justice William O. Douglas President this country will surely continue to drift toward militarism and uniformity of thought. Only Justice Douglas seems to realize that our military outlook is fast destroying our liberty and economy. We must see that he is nominated and elected, or America may become another Spain. Governments all over the world are gaining in diabolical powers; with a great liberal President this trend might be reversed. . . .
— PHILIP K. DICK
Berkeley.
[Feb 21, 1952]

Thanks to Bill for the clipping.

(13) SAVING THROW. Whereas this author’s advice was posted by Polygon just yesterday. “We asked Kim Stanley Robinson: Can science fiction save us?”

Can science fiction save us in our present political and cultural circumstances? Is it a useful teaching tool to help us think about how to solve our present problems, or model better ways of living?
Well, it’s the latter, for sure. Whether it’s the former depends on whether we pay attention. But let me answer a little more at length.
If you think of science fiction as just a kind of modeling exercise, everybody is a science fiction writer in their own lives. You make plans based on modeling in your mind. When you’re feeling hopeful, you have a kind of utopian plan: if you do these things, you’ll get to a good place. And then when you’re afraid, you have these worries that if you do these things, you’ll get to a bad place. So the fundamental exercise of science fiction is a very natural human thing. And then when it gets written down in long narrative forms, like science fiction novels, everybody recognizes the exercises involved there. Although when I say that, I realize that, actually, lots of people don’t like to read science fiction, so they’re not recognizing the way books are the same as what they do for their own lives. That’s surprising to me, but it happens a lot….

(14) IMITATION IS THE SINCEREST FORM OF FLATTENING. The LA Times takes notes on “What scientists hope to learn from a beetle that can survive being run over by a car”.

It’s a beetle that can withstand bird pecks, animal stomps and even being rolled over by a Toyota Camry. Now scientists are studying what the bug’s crush-resistant shell could teach them about designing stronger airplanes and buildings.
“This beetle is super tough,” said Purdue University civil engineer Pablo Zavattieri, who was among a group of researchers that ran over the insect with a car in the name of science.
So, how does the seemingly indestructible insect do it?
The species — the aptly named diabolical ironclad beetle — owes its might to an unusual armor that is layered and pieced together like a jigsaw, according to the study by Zavattieri and his colleagues published in Nature on Wednesday. Its design, they say, could help inspire more durable structures and vehicles.

(15) THE LAND AND THE DRAGON ARE ONE. Restore peace. Find the last dragon. See the new trailer for Raya and the Last Dragon, in theaters March 2021.

Long ago, in the fantasy world of Kumandra, humans and dragons lived together in harmony. But when an evil force threatened the land, the dragons sacrificed themselves to save humanity. Now, 500 years later, that same evil has returned and it’s up to a lone warrior, Raya, to track down the legendary last dragon to restore the fractured land and its divided people. However, along her journey, she’ll learn that it’ll take more than a dragon to save the world—it’s going to take trust and teamwork as well.

(16) VIDEO OF THE DAY. In “Honest Game Trailers: Star Wars: Squadrons” on YouTube, Fandom Games says in this game “you can fly an X-Wing and it makes a “pu-pu’ sound. What more do you want?”

[Thanks to JJ, Michael Toman, Bill, Andrew Porter, Gordon Van Gelder, John King Tarpinian, John Hertz, N., Cat Eldridge, Sara Felix, Martin Morse Wooster, Dennis Howard, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Diana Glyer Talks Inklings with Babylon Bee

Posted on October 21, 2020 by Mike Glyer

In a new episode of The Babylon Bee Podcast, hosts Kyle Mann and Ethan Nicolle talk to Diana Glyer, author of Bandersnatch: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Creative Collaboration of the Inklings.

The Babylon Bee calls itself “Your Trusted Source For Christian News Satire” and going by posts I’ve seen linked on Facebook, they’re pretty good at teasing the foibles of the church. I had no idea they did anything as serious as an interview podcast prior hearing about this episode, and be warned in advance that the set decorations suggest the hosts would not be shocked to meet someone who voted for Trump, although contemporary politics are not under discussion this time.

Dr. Glyer is on the show because —

She has spent 40 years combing through archives, studying old manuscripts, and is considered a leading expert on C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Her scholarship, her teaching, and her work as an artist all circle back to one common theme: creativity thrives in community. Kyle and Ethan talk to Dr. Glyer about Tolkien, Lewis, and the creativity that can happen in a community like The Inklings.

Diana plays it straight, giving good information about the writers while the hosts nibble around the edges for punchlines. Indeed, one host remarks, “Such deep answers to my stupid questions. That’s what makes a good guest.”

A free excerpt is on YouTube, and the rest of the conversation is available to subscribers.

Second Volume of Classic Ms Tree Comics from Hard Case Crime

Posted on October 21, 2020 by Mike Glyer

From the minds of Road to Perdition author Max Allan Collins and artist Terry Beatty comes the second collection of five classic Ms Tree comics. Hard Case Crime released the 288-page softcover today.

Ms. Michael Tree, the 6ft, 9mm carrying private detective, solves crimes and fights to get her revenge for her murdered husband. No case is too small, no violence too extreme, just as long as it gets the job done.

Max Allen Collins was hailed in 2004 by Publisher’s Weekly as “a new breed of writer.” A frequent Mystery Writers of America nominee in both fiction and non-fiction categories, he has earned an unprecedented eighteen Private Eye Writers of America nominations, winning for his Nathan Heller novels, True Detective (1983) and Stolen Away (1991). And he is the official heir to Mickey Spillane’s classic creation, Mike Hammer,

Terry Beatty is the artist and co-creator of the long-running private eye series, Ms. Tree. Collaborations with Collins also include Mike Mist, Mickey Spillane’s Mike Danger and Johnny Dynamite. Beatty has been the primary inker of DC Comics’ “animated-style” Batman comics, including a four-year stint inking Chris Jones’ pencils on The Batman Strikes! From 2012 to 2017, Beatty was the artist for the Sunday episodes of the King Features comic strip, The Phantom.

Sample pages follow the jump.

Continue reading →

Pixel Scroll 10/20/20 Obi-Wan Said, Padawan, You’re Gonna Drive Me To Stalking If You Don’t Stop Flying That Millennial Falcon

Posted on October 20, 2020 by Mike Glyer

(1) THE DOCTOR AND ROSE. Bustle previews a new installment of David Tennant Does A Podcast With…Billie Piper.

…Tennant met Piper 15 years ago on the set of Doctor Who. He entered in her second series and it’s hard looking back to imagine it as anything other than an immediate success. However, Piper said that when Dr Who was brought back to our screens with Christopher Eccleston in the leading role, that wasn’t the case. “When we started making it, everyone said it was going to be a failure. So you just didn’t imagine it being on for longer than three months,” she said. “Imagining that 15 years later, it’s still probably the biggest job you will have ever done and you’ll still be talking about it and going off and meeting people and, you know, celebrating it… That was a big reach.”
… Thinking about whether the reboot would be popular wasn’t the only thing on Piper’s mind. Doctor Who was the first big acting role she got after leaving the music world. “I wanted to prove myself as an actress; to myself, family, and this dream I had,” she said, “people don’t greet you with open arms when you’re trying new things, especially in this country. The attitude is very much ‘let’s see it then.’” Piper and Tennant made such a lasting impact on the series they’ve bot returned for guest appearances in Doctor Who.

Listen to the full conversation between Tennant and Piper at the link.

(2) THE ANCESTORS. Vulture’s Lila Shapiro profiles Rebecca Roanhorse and challenges to her as an “OwnVoices” writer in “The Sci-Fi Author Reimagining Native History”.

…Roanhorse is speaking from her home in Santa Fe, overlooking the Sun and Moon mountains. She lives there with her husband, a Diné (or Navajo) artist, and their 12-year-old daughter. She rarely speaks with her birth mother. “I’m sure some people may come home and find joy,” she said, “but that has not been my experience.” Her new book, Black Sun, is an epic set in an imaginary world inspired by the indigenous cultures of North America as they were before European explorers invaded the shores of the continent. Her work has been embraced by the literary world and often appears on lists of the best “OwnVoices” fantasy novels. (The phrase, which originated in 2015 as a Twitter hashtag and has since turned into a publicity tool, signifies that the author shares the same background or experiences as the characters they write.) And since entering the scene a few years ago, she’s already received many of the genre’s most prestigious awards. Black Sun, which was published on October 13, was one of the most eagerly anticipated titles of the fall. Some have compared it to the monumental achievements of N.K. Jemisin and George R.R. Martin. Screen adaptations of several projects are already underway.
But within Native communities, the book’s reception has been mixed. Although Roanhorse has many Native fans who have hailed her work as groundbreaking and revelatory, she also has a number of vocal detractors. Not long after her debut, Trail of Lighting, was published, a group of Diné writers released a letter accusing her of cultural appropriation, mischaracterizing Diné spiritual beliefs, and harmful misrepresentation. They took issue with Roanhorse’s decision to write a fantasy inspired by Diné stories, since she is only Diné by marriage, and wondered why she hadn’t written about her “own tribe,” referring to the Ohkay Owingeh people of New Mexico. Some have even expressed doubts about Roanhorse’s Native ancestry and her right to tell Native stories at all.
At a time when the publishing industry is throwing open its doors to authors who traditionally faced barriers to entry, the controversy over Roanhorse’s work reveals a fault line in the OwnVoices movement. Native identity is exceptionally complex. It consists of hundreds of cultures, each of which has its own customs. Further complicating all this is the fact that Roanhose grew up estranged from Native communities, an outsider through no choice of her own. This complexity is reflected in her writing — both her debut and her latest work concern protagonists who are at odds with their communities. “I’m always writing outsiders,” she says. “Their journey is usually about coming home, and sometimes they wished they’d stayed away.”

(3) MEET MR. SCIENCE. At Black Gate, Doug Ellis browses a pamphlet sent to drum up advertising for Analog in the early Sixties: “A Man of Science: A Study of the Readership of Analog Science Fact-Fiction”. (Scans of the pamphlet can be read at the link.)

… The report discusses how Mr. Science’s income is about double that of Mr. Average’s, and that 38.4% of Mr. Science have had graduate study, compared to 2.3% of Mr. Average. It discusses various professional societies Mr. Science belongs to, and the credentials of some of its authors. It also spends two pages touting the background and editorship of John Campbell….

(4) A CLOSE SCRAPE. “NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Successfully Touches Asteroid” reports the space agency. Still awaiting word on sample quality as of this PR.

NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft unfurled its robotic arm Tuesday, and in a first for the agency, briefly touched an asteroid to collect dust and pebbles from the surface for delivery to Earth in 2023.
This well-preserved, ancient asteroid, known as Bennu, is currently more than 200 million miles (321 million kilometers) from Earth. Bennu offers scientists a window into the early solar system as it was first taking shape billions of years ago and flinging ingredients that could have helped seed life on Earth. If Tuesday’s sample collection event, known as “Touch-And-Go” (TAG), provided enough of a sample, mission teams will command the spacecraft to begin stowing the precious primordial cargo to begin its journey back to Earth in March 2021. Otherwise, they will prepare for another attempt in January.
… All spacecraft telemetry data indicates the TAG event executed as expected. However, it will take about a week for the OSIRIS-REx team to confirm how much sample the spacecraft collected.

(5) LEHRER GOES PUBLIC. [Item by Daniel Dern.] Tom Lehrer has put all his lyrics in the public domain: Songs and Lyrics by Tom Lehrer. The site includes lyrics and sheet music, but, alas, no recordings.

My rough quick count shows about 45 songs I’m familiar with (including several from The Electric Company, of which at least four are on a Lehrer multi-CD compilation and on Spotify), although some posted include revisions and/or private versions (and, according to a separate list poster, not all known revisions/updates). Also about 60 songs that I’ve never heard of.

By the way, the home page advises: “Note: This website will be shut down on December 31, 2024, so if you want to download anything, don’t wait too long.”

As noted, some of the Electric Company songs are on (free) Spotify. And elsewhere, like YouTube (search “Tom Lerher Electric Company”). (And see http://www.tomlehrer.org/covers/electric.html for related info.)

I also recommend the (PBS) Tom Lehrer Live In Copenhagen concert, from decades ago, it shows what a great (IMHO) performer he is – available here at the Internet Archive.

(6) THE VERDICT ON CATS. John Hodgman ruled on a thorny issue in the February 16 New York Times Magazine.

Question: My friend Abby insists that the movie CATS is good. She has even persuaded our friends to perform a live version of it on her backyard on St. Valentine’s Day. She says this is not a sarcastic bit. Please order her to admit that this is some sort of joke.
HODGMAN: I am truly impartial, as I have never seen either the film or the stage production of CATS. However, I have processed enough of my friends’ trauma after they watched the recent movie to establish these principles: 1) There is no way Abby can actually replicate the C.G.I. strangeness of that movie unless her backyard is a literal uncanny valley; 2) Thus, Abby is simply putting on the stage version of CATS, which everyone seems to have liked, even without sarcasm; 3) People like what they like, and it’s not your job to police your friends’ Jellicle thoughts. Happy Valentine’s Day. Now and forever.

(7) HE’S DEAD, JAMES. ‘Tis the season – so James Davis Nicoll lists “Five SFF Books Built Around Dead People (Or Mostly Dead People)”. Was Miracle Max wrong when he said “If he were all dead, there’s only one thing you can do”?

Inherit the Stars by James P. Hogan (1977)
Charlie is an enigma: a human corpse found in a cave on the Moon. A missing man should be easy to identify, given how few humans have made it out into space. Inexplicably, all of them can be accounted for. So who is the dead man?…

(8) ANOTHER DAM BOOKSTORE. “A Surreal New Bookstore Has Just Opened in China” – Architectural Digest takes a look inside.

…For a book lover, stepping into a bookstore is always exciting, but a new bookstore in China makes the experience absolutely spellbinding. Dujiangyan Zhongshuge, located in Chengdu, was designed by Shanghai-based architecture firm X+Living, which has created several locations for Zhongshuge. The two-story space appears cathedral-like, thanks to the mirrored ceilings and gleaming black tile floors which reflect the bookcases, creating a visual effect that feels akin to an M.C. Escher drawing. “The mirror ceiling in the space is the signature of Zhongshuge bookstore,” says Li Xiang, founder of X+Living. “It effectively extends the space by reflection.”
Upon entering, shoppers encounter C-shaped bookcases, which create a series of intimate spaces. In the center of the store, towering arches and columns take advantage of the full height of the space. These bookcases were inspired by the history and topography of the region. “We moved the local landscape into the indoor space,” says Li. “The project is located in Dujiangyan, which is a city with a long history of water conservancy development, so in the main area, you could see the construction of the dam integrated into the bookshelves.”

(9) FUTURE-CON. The success of their first event has encouraged Future-Con’s organizers to keep going. Thread starts here.

You can already save the stream in your list:https://t.co/RwdvTKO68n

More details on our website:https://t.co/VIEhHB8QZW

And join our Discord server for ongoing, endless talk about real global SF: https://t.co/RRFAEfEOKD.#TheFutureHappensEverywhere
— FUTURE·CON? (@futureconsf) October 20, 2020

(10) MEDIA ANNIVERSARY.

1979 — Forty one years ago, Robert Heinlein’s The Number of The Beast first saw publication as a serial staring with the October issue of Omni magazine which was edited by Ben Bova and Frank Kendig. New English Library would offer the first edition of it, a United Kingdom paperback, the following January. Fawcett Gold Medal / Ballantine would print the first U.S. edition, again a paperback, that summer. There would be no hardcover until twenty-years after it first came out when SFBC did one. It did not make the final voting list for Best Novel Hugo at Noreascon Two. It won no other awards.

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]

Born October 20, 1882 — Bela Lugosi. He’s best remembered for portraying Count Dracula in the 1931 film franchise Drácula. He came to hate that he played that character feeling he’d been Typecast. Now tell me what’s your favorite film character that he played? (Died 1956.) (CE)
Born October 20, 1905 — Frederic Dannay. One half with Manfred Bennington Lee of the writing team who created Ellery Queen. ISFDB lists two Ellery Queen novels as being genre, And on the Eight Day and The Scrolls of Lysis, plus a single short story, “ A Study in Terror”. (Died 1982.) (CE)
Born October 20, 1906 – Crockett Johnson. Of this simple genius – that’s praise – I wrote here: Barnaby and Mr. O’Malley, Harold and the purple crayon, the geometricals. A commenter mentioned Barkis. Also there’s The Carrot Seed; more. Fantagraphics’ fourth volume of Barnaby reprints is scheduled for 1 Dec 20. (Died 1975) [JH]
Born October 20, 1923 – Erle M. Korshak, 97. Sometimes known as “Mel”, hello Andrew Porter. Here he is with other pioneers at Nycon I the 1st Worldcon. Committee secretary, Chicon I the 2nd Worldcon. His Shasta Publishers an early provider of hardback SF 1947-1957; after its end, EMK dormant awhile, then Shasta-Phoenix arose 2009 publishing classic SF art. First Fandom Hall of Fame. Barry Levin Lifetime Collector’s Award. Announced as First Fandom Guest of Honor, Chicon 8 (80th Worldcon, 2022). [JH]
Born October 20, 1934 — Michael Dunn. He’s best remembered for his recurring role on the Wild Wild West as Dr. Miguelito Loveless, attempting to defeat our heroes over and over, but he has had another appearances in genre television. He would be Alexander, a court jester, in the Trek “Plato’s Stepchildren” episode and a killer clown in the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea “The Wax Men” episode. (Died 1973.) (CE)
Born October 20, 1937 – Betsy Haynes, 83. Eighty novels of history, mystery, comedy, the supernatural. In The Dog Ate My Homework a girl using a magic word can make things happen; to escape a test she says the school has been taken over by giant termites: suddenly she hears giant crunching steps. Two dozen Bone Chillers by BH became a television series, some based on her books, some by other authors although BH appeared at the end of each saying Use your imagination. [JH]
Born October 20, 1941 — Anneke Wills, 79. She was Polly, a companion to the Second and Third Doctors. She was also in Doctor Who: Devious, a fan film in development since 1991 with live-action scenes mostly completed by 2005 but the film still not released I believe. You can see the first part here. (CE)
Born October 20, 1955 – Greg Hemsath, 65. Active in Los Angeles fandom during the 1980s. While rooming with local fan Talin, worked on The Faery Tale Adventure, a computer game for the Amiga; here is a map Greg and Bonnie Reid made. Here is Talin in the “Dream Knight” vacuum-formed fantasy armor Greg helped with. Remarks from Greg appear in Bill Rotsler fanzines. Greg told Loscon XXVIII he was a past Guildmaster of the Crafters’ Guild of St. Gregory the Wonderworker. Applying that title to Greg himself would be disrespectful, so I shan’t. [JH]
Born October 20, 1958 — Lynn Flewelling, 61. The lead characters of her Nightrunner series are both bisexual, and she has stated this is so was because of “the near-absence of LGBT characters in the genre and marginalization of existing ones.” (As quoted in Strange Horizon, September 2001) The Tamír Triad series is her companion series to this affair (CE)
Born October 20, 1961 – Kate Mosse, O.B.E., 59. Author of fiction, some historical; playwright, journalist e.g. The Times, The Guardian, Bookseller; broadcaster e.g. Readers’ and Writers’ Roadshow on BBC Four. For us, three Languedoc novels (she and husband lived there awhile), two more. Co-founded the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Officer of the Order of the British Empire. First female executive director of Chichester Festival Theatre. [JH]
Born October 20, 1966 – Diana Rowland, 54. Marksmanship award in her Police Academy class. Black Belt in Hapkido. Math degree from Georgia Tech but has tried to forget. Eight novels about Kara Gillian accidentally summoning a demon prince, and then what. Six about white trash zombies. A story in Wild Cards 26; half a dozen more. [JH]
Born October 20, 1977 — Sam Witwer, 43. He’s had many genre roles — Crashdown in Battlestar Galactica, Aidan Waite in Being Human, Davis Bloome in Smallville, Mr. Hyde in Once Upon a Time and Ben Lockwood in Supergirl. He has voiced Starkiller in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, The Son in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, was the Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars Rebels. and also voiced Darth Maul in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels and Solo: A Star Wars Story. (CE)

(12) COMICS SECTION.

Off The Mark shows why witches prefer cats.
Crankshaft knows who to call when you absolutely, positively have to have a facemask right away.

(13) SALADIN AHMED LEAVING MS. MARVEL. In January, writer Saladin Ahmed and artist Minkyu Jung will end their run on Magnificent Ms. Marvel with an oversized finale issue.

Since launching last year, Magnificent Ms. Marvel has been a revolutionary era for Kamala Khan, with surprising developments in both her personal life and burgeoning super hero career. Between saving the alien planet of Saffa to fighting against the mysterious and deadly entity known as Stormranger, Kamala Khan also teamed up with new allies to defend her home of Jersey City.
Ahmed and Jung will end this thrilling journey with an issue that sees Ms. Marvel facing down Stormranger with the help of new hero Amulet, all while confronting the ongoing drama surrounding her family and friends. The special giant-sized issue also happens to the be the 75th issue of Kamala Khan’s solo adventures and will be a worthy capstone to a run that has greatly enhanced the legacy of one of Marvel’s brightest stars.
Here’s what Saladin had to say about closing out his tenure on the title:
“Forget super heroes, Kamala Khan is just plain one of the most important fictional characters of her generation. I knew that was true even before I came to write comics. But meeting and hearing from fans since launching The Magnificent Ms. Marvel has made it clearer and clearer. Kamala means so much to so many! Muslim readers. South Asian readers. But also people of all ages and cultures from all over the world who want to root for a selfless, kindhearted (possibly slightly dorky) hero in this grim, stingy era.
“Minkyu Jung’s pencils and designs went effortlessly from the streets of Jersey City to the alien plains of Saffa to night sky battles, always maintaining the human emotion that drives this book. From homicidal battlesuits to awkward conversations, he constantly pushed our story in new visual directions. I can’t imagine a more perfect artist for this run, and I’m so happy we got to work together.
“Of course a hero’s myth becomes most fully realized when it is passed between storytellers, changing with each telling. We’ve brought Kamala face to face with new enemies and to new places in her personal life, sent her to space and to the edge of the law. Now others will tell her story their way. I can’t wait to see what that looks like.”

(14) LIVING IN THE PRESENT. In the Washington Post, David Betancourt interviews Star Trek: Discovery star Sonequa Martin-Green, who says she gave birth to her second child in July. She promotes the series (where filming wrapped in March) as well as her appearance in the forthcoming Space Jam 2. “Sonequa Martin-Green stars in a future she hopes one day can be a reality”.

.. The year 2020 and all that has come with it has been a monumental one for Martin-Green, who has become the face of the next generation of “Star Trek” storytelling while also strengthening her voice in support of the Black Lives Matter movement in a moment of American social awakening. She and her husband, “Walking Dead” actor Kenric Green, welcomed their second child, Saraiyah Chaunté Green, on July 19 (via a home birth that was planned pre-pandemic). Martin-Green describes 2020 as a “doozy” but says that, despite all its difficulties, it will always be highlighted by the birth of her daughter.
This year’s racial reckoning in America has weighed heavily on Martin-Green, an Alabama native, who says she is keenly aware of the “new” and in some cases “old” world that awaits her Black children.
“Being Black in America, but also being raised in the South — where racism is quite in your face, it’s not so subtle down there — I feel like this is a time of exposure and a time of enlightenment,” Martin-Green said.

(15) TAKE COVER. “Wear a Mask” parodies the “Be Our Guest” number from Beauty and the Beast.

(16) SPIRITS QUEST. Richard Foss will offer a free virtual talk for the Palos Verdes Library called “Imbibing LA: Boozing it Up in the City of Angels” on October 29 at 7 p.m. reports EasyReader News.

In the talk he explores the history of alcohol in Los Angeles, which the library describes as a “historical center of winemaking and brewing, a region where cocktails were celebrated by movie stars and hunted down by prohibitionists, and a place where finely balanced drinks and abysmal concoctions were crafted by bartenders and celebrities. This talk explores that lively history from the first Spaniards to the end of Prohibition.”
Foss says if you want to appreciate the skill and the artistry of a chef or a bartender or anyone else who is in the restaurant industry, “it helps to know the cultural background, and that’s one of the things that I try to do with this particular talk. It’s about the history of drinking in Los Angeles from the time of the Spanish on to the current era.”
…When not reviewing restaurants or giving talks about food history, Foss is busy curating an exhibition for the Autry Museum of the American West called “Cooking up a New West.”
It’s about the waves of immigration that came to California and how it changed the way America eats. “At the time I proposed this I didn’t think of it as remotely political but in the current environment anything that you do about the value immigrants have added to our culture has suddenly become more political than it used to be.”
The exhibit is expected to open in 2021.

Readers can register for “Imbibing LA: Boozing it Up in the City of Angels” here.

(17) SETTING THE BAR WHERE IT BELONGS. [Item by Dann.] I came across this via Grimdark Magazine: “Five Things Netflix Must Get Right For Conan”. I didn’t see any mention of this development until recently. FWIW, I think their points are pretty good. I would summarize them as:

Conan should be a character that demonstrates violence
Conan is more than a brooding hulk of muscles. Get the character right by reflecting his humor and intelligence.
Get the casting right. The lead actor has to be a physical specimen capable of presenting a broad array of emotions.
Respect and represent the source material.
This isn’t generic fantasy. RE Howard created a complete alternative history and mythos. Use that creation to tell better stories.

I’ve got a Kindle edition of the complete Conan stories by RE Howard. I’ll read a story or two in between novels. Too many times, it turns into a story or ten!

(18) HARRY POTTER AND THE LIBERATED TOME. MailOnline is hot on the trail: “Harry Potter and the £40k lost library book: Bosses at British reading centre want to reclaim book that went missing two decades ago… before selling for a fortune at US auction”.

… The book was one of three original editions of JK Rowling’s debut purchased by the city’s library in 1997. Only 500 hardbacks were ever printed.
In 2004, two were sold to raise extra money. It was then that staff discovered that the third was missing.
Its whereabouts remained a mystery until it appeared at Heritage Auctions in Dallas, Texas, being sold by a Californian owner. A Portsmouth City Library stamp inside the book appears to be from August 1997.
It went on to sell for $55,000 (£42,500), nearly three times its $20,000 estimate.
Portsmouth City Council library service says the book in question was not officially checked out.
Eric Bradley, Heritage Auctions’ public relations director, told the BBC: ‘If the Portsmouth library was interested in getting it back… I think it would set a precedent, because I think it would be the first time a library took a serious case to reclaim a Harry Potter book.’

(19) SECRET HISTORY. Is this how Europe got fractured?

2030: Kent is now officially part of France. Manchester is the southernmost city in Scotland. Now in its tenth year, the war between Phil Collins and his ex-wife has laid waste to large parts of the American Midwest.
— Davey Six-Toes (@HutchinsonDave) October 20, 2020

(20) VIDEO OF THE DAY. In “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Pitch Meeting” on ScreenRant, Ryan George explains the reason the hobbits can float down a raging river on barrels without the barrels filling up with water is that they’re on the river of questionable physics.”

[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, Jeffrey Smith, Dann, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, John Hertz, Michael Toman, John King Tarpinian, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel “Confuse The Force, Luke” Dern.]

Suzanne Palmer Wins 2020 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award

Posted on October 20, 2020 by Mike Glyer

The winner of the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best short science fiction of 2019 is Suzanne Palmer for “Waterlines,” published by Asimov’s Science Fiction.

The second-place story for the Sturgeon was Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone’s “This is How You Lose the Time War.” The third-place story was Karin Tidbeck’s “The Last Voyage of Skidbladnir.”

The winner was selected by a jury composed of Elizabeth Bear, Andy Duncan, James Gunn, Kij Johnson, and Nöel Sturgeon, Trustee of the Theodore Sturgeon Literary Estate.

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the in-person presentation of the award will be postponed until next year’s Gunn Center Conference, date and location to be announced.

The Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award recognizes the best science fiction short story of each year. It was established in 1987 by James Gunn, Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at KU, and the heirs of Theodore Sturgeon, including his partner Jayne Engelhart Tannehill and Sturgeon’s children, as an appropriate memorial to one of the great short-story writers in a field distinguished by its short fiction.

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Monthly Archives: October 2020

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Suzanne Palmer Wins 2020 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award