This October, Marvel Comics presents Marvel’s Voices: Comunidades! This latest one-shot in the groundbreaking Marvel’s Voices series will continue the tradition of highlighting the cultural richness of Marvel Comics and uplifting new voices in the comic book industry. Following the success of Marvel’s Voices: Legacy and Marvel’s Voices: Pride, Marvel’s Voices: Comunidades will turn the spotlight to Latinx heroes and creators from the Marvel Universe.
These all-new stories will feature adventures of some of Marvel’s most popular heroes — Miles Morales, Ghost Rider, America Chavez, and more — while celebrating the range of their cultural heritage as told by fan-favorite writers and artists and those making their Marvel Comics debut.
Writer Terry Blas introduces a brand-new hero in an adventure spinning out of his acclaimed Reptil series.
New York Times best-selling author Daniel José Older revisits the legacy of Marvel’s first super hero of Latino descent, Hector Ayala aka White Tiger, in an inspiring story rooted in real history.
Catch up with the current White Tiger, Ava Ayala, when author Amparo Ortiz has the young hero confront the dark nature of her powers.
Travel to the past with writer Juan Ponce to witness Nina the Conjuror, the Brazilian Sorcerer Supreme of the 1950s, battle the raging nature spirit known as Anhangá.
Plus an introduction by renowned comics scholar Frederick Luis Aldama about the history of Latinx heroes and creators in the comic book industry.
“This is such an excellent project, and I’m very happy to get to be part of it,” Daniel José Older said. “I’ve read all the Marvel’s Voices collections and loved them, so it’s great to be able to write for one! ¡Pa’lante!”
Marvel’s first Latino super hero, White Tiger, was created by writer Bill Mantlo and artist George Pérez in 1974’s Deadly Hands Of Kung Fu #19. Since then, Marvel has introduced many heroes of Latino-descent from a multitude of different backgrounds including current stars such as Miles Morales, America Chavez, and Reptil.
Marvel’s Voices: Comunidades #1 hits stands on October 20th! For more information, visit Marvel.com.
[Based on a press release.]
MARVEL’S VOICES: COMMUNITY (COMUNIDADES) #1
Variant Cover by MATEUS MANHANINI
Variant Cover by MARIA WOLF & MIKE SPICER
Variant Cover by NABETSE ZITRO & JESUS ABURTOV
Remastered Variant Cover by GEORGE PÉREZ & JAVA TARTAGLIA
(1) OMENANA. The new issue of Omenana Speculative Fiction Magazine is available to read online. The tri-monthly magazine takes submissions from speculative fiction writers from across Africa and the African Diaspora.
Omenana is the Igbo word for divinity – it also loosely translates as “culture” – and embodies our attempt to recover our wildest stories. We are looking for well-written speculative fiction that bridges the gap between past, present and future through imagination and shakes us out of the corner we have pushed ourselves into.
(2) WINNIPEG WORLDCON BID. The Winnipeg in 2023 Worldcon bid will hold a “Question Time” Zoom session on Sunday, July 25, at 1:00pm CDT. The session will also be streamed live on their YouTube channel.
We will start off with standard questions and then take submitted questions. Questions may be submitted via our social media accounts , Discord server and our “Contact Form“. During the session, questions may be submitted through Zoom and YouTube chat. As with all “Question Time”, moderation will be applied.
(3) SUMMIT MEETING. There’s a photo on the Chicago Worldcon Facebook page showing that Chicon 8 Chair, Helen Montgomery, and DisCon III Chair, Mary Robinette Kowal, “met up in DC yesterday for convention strategizing. They have Plans with a capital P for their attendees!”
Sources say that Outlier Society has hired a writer who is currently working on the script, though we were unable to ascertain their identity. Though it was initially unclear whether the Val-Zod project would be a movie or a limited series, sources have since reached out to clarify that as of right now, it is, in fact, being written as a limited series that Jordan will produce and possibly even star in, though he has yet to officially commit on the latter front.
As previously reported, J.J. Abrams and his company Bad Robot are set to produce a Black Superman movie for Warner Bros. that is expected to follow the Kal-El/Clark Kent version of the character. Though Clark Kent is traditionally depicted as white in the DC comics, the character will be played by a Black actor in the Bad Robot movie, which will likely be directed by a Black filmmaker, as Abrams is simply expected to produce. Author and cultural critic Ta-Nehisi Coates is already hard at work on the script for that project.
While Jordan did work with Warner Bros. on developing a Black Superman movie at one point, he recently shot down rumors that he would star in Abrams’ new film, saying “I’m flattered that people have me in that conversation. It’s definitely a compliment, but I’m just watching on this one.”
The question is, why?
A recent editorial penned by Jamie Broadnax for Black Girl Nerds provides some context and prompted Collider to do some digging, as Broadnax’s sources told her that “Jordan has not wanted to engage in conversations about racebending Kal-El for the same reasons many of the fans are pushing back on the current Warner Bros. re-imagined version of Clark Kent, but that he would be interested in engaging on a Black Superman project centering on the Val-Zod storyline.”
(5) CANADIAN SFF HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES. Stan Hyde, the late Monica Hughes, and Jean-Louis Trudel are the 2021 inductees into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame reports Robert J. Sawyer. He and Carolyn Clink, along with fellow jurors Clint Budd, Marcie Tentchoff, and Chris Sturges, made the selections. Here are excerpts from the citations (full text at the link).
Stan Hyde is an exemplar of passionate, lifelong devotion to SF&F fandom and fan activity, specifically in the areas of club organization, writing, film media, and model kit making, painting, and collecting.
Stan is also noted for the numerous articles he has written for G-Fest, a magazine devoted to the topic of Godzilla, about whom Stan is a world-renowned expert and recognized as such by Toho Studios where he is always welcome. (He visits once every two years on average.)
Monica Hughes (1925-2003), an Officer of the Order of Canada, wrote about 40 books including more than 20 that ISFDB covers as speculative fiction novels. Although she spent a large part of her life writing, she was almost fifty when her first book was published (Gold-Fever Trail: A Klondike Adventure, a Canadian historical novel.) …Invitation to the Game (Toronto: HarperCollins, 1990) won the Hal Clement Award as the year’s best science fiction novel for young adults.
Jean-Louis Trudel holds degrees in physics, astronomy, and the history and philosophy of science. Since 1994, he has authored (alone or in collaboration with Yves Meynard as Laurent McAllister) three science fiction novels published in France, four fiction collections, and twenty-six young adult books published in Canada…. He has received several literary distinctions, including the “Grand Prix de la Science-Fiction et du Fantastique québécois” in 2001 and several Prix Aurora Awards.
(6) WELCOME TO THE THE TAR TAR PITS. SYFY Wire tells about “La Brea: Trailer for NBC sci-fi series strands Los Angeles family in time”. “When a massive sinkhole opens in the middle of Los Angeles, those who fall find themselves in a strange world.” At the risk of being a party pooper, I can see this show lasting about one week.
Can anyone explain how there’s a hole in the Earth — the kind that supernaturally swallows up hapless Los Angeles residents and spits them out in the frightening primeval past? That’s just the first mystery launching with NBC’sLa Brea, the highly awaited sci-fi series that’s set to make its TV debut this fall….
On the other side of the time warp are Gavin’s wife and son, all while a “disparate group of strangers” work alongside the family’s stranded half to “uncover the mystery of where they are and if there is a way back home,” according to NBC’s earlier series description. Are all these stuck strangers merely the random victims of fate, or might they be connected by something deeper?
The actor repeatedly called the film “s****”, and claimed that he had received a refund after seeing it in a cinema, in a message which tagged Shyamalan himself.
Old is directed by Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense) and tells the story of an island where people age extremely rapidly….
(8) A QUOTATION. “There is no trick or cunning, no art or recipe, by which you can have in your writing that which you do not possess in yourself.” —Walt Whitman
Bob Gale is asking fans not to be too hard on Netflix for a censored version of Back to the Future: Part II, which was streaming for a short while.
Fans of the series were irate when they discovered a tiny portion of the 1989 sequel was changed, poorly. It has since been replaced with the standard version. The alteration happened when Marty (Michael J. Fox) finds the Oh La La magazine within the sports almanac dustcover. The moment was cut short, with the cover of the magazine edited out.
Gale, the screenwriter of the beloved trilogy, explained what happened and why it was not Netflix’s fault.
(10) PATRICIA KENNEALY-MORRISON (1946-2021). Author Patricia Kennealy-Morrison died a few days ago reported Liz Williams on Facebook. She wrote eight books and a collection of short stories in her genre series The Keltiad. She also wrote the Rennie Stride mystery series. She was a widely-read rock journalist, and widow of the late Jim Morrison of The Doors.
(11) MEMORY LANE.
2003 – Eighteen years ago at Torcon 3, Neil Gaiman wins a Hugo Novella for Coraline. (Other nominated works were “Bronte’s Egg” by Richard Chwedyk, “Breathmoss” by Ian R. MacLeod, “A Year in the Linear City” by Paul Di Filippo, “The Political Officer” by Charles Coleman Finlay and “In Spirit” by Pat Forde.) It also won a Nebula, a Locus Award for Best Young Adult Book and a BSFA Award for Short Fiction, along with a Stoker for Superior Achievement in a Work for Young Readers. It would become an animated film written and directed by Henry Selick, and both musicals and operas were based off it.
Coraline by Neil Gaiman (Chinese edition), art by Sija Hong
(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born July 24, 1878 — Lord Dunsany whose full name and title was a jaw dropping Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany. So ISFDB lists him as genre for the Jorkens body of work among works. H’h. Gary Turner, who some of you will recognize from Golden Gryphon Press and elsewhere, reviewed The Collected Jorkens: Volumes One, Two, and Three for Green Man, so I’ve linked to the review here. They also list The King of Elfland’s Daughter which I’m going to link to another review on Green Man as it’s a audio recording with a very special guest appearance by Christopher Lee. (Died 1957.)
Born July 24, 1916 — John D. MacDonald. Though better known for the Travis McGee series which I really like, he wrote three genre novels of which I think the best by far is The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything. He also wrote some sixty genre short stories, many of them collected in End of The Tiger which is available from the usual digital suspects. (Died 1986.)
Born July 24, 1936 — Mark Goddard, 85. Major Don West, the adversary of Dr. Zachary Smith, on Lost in Space. Other genre appearances were scant. He played an unnamed Detective in the early Eighties Strange Invaders and he showed up on an episode of The Next Step Beyond which investigated supposed hauntings as Larry Hollis in “Sins of Omission”. Oh and he was an unnamed General in the Lost in Space film.
Born July 24, 1951 — Robert Hood, 70. Australian horror writer who won a William Atheling Jr. Award for Criticism or Review for “Weight of Water: Vengeance from Beyond the Grave?” and another Atheling for “Divided Kingdom: King Kong Versus Godzilla”. The latter is included in David Brin and Leah Wilson’s King Kong Is Back! An Unauthorized Look at One Humongous Ape. He won a Ditmar for his Daikaiju! Giant Monster Tales collection, and an Australian Shadows Award for his Peripheral Visions: The Collected Ghost Stories.
Born July 24, 1951 — Lynda Carter, 70. Wonder Woman of course. But also Principal Powers, the headmistress of a school for superheroes in Sky High; Colonel Jessica Weaver in the vampire film Slayer; Moira Sullivan, Chloe Sullivan’s Kryptonite-empowered mother in the “Prodigy” episode of Smallville; and President Olivia Marsdin In Supergirl. She has a mid credit appearance in Wonder Woman 1984 as Asteria.
Born July 24, 1964 — Colleen Doran, 57. Comics artist and writer. The work she’s done includes Warren Ellis’ Orbiter graphic novel, Wonder Woman, Legion of Superheroes, Teen Titans, the “Troll Bridge” by Neil Gaiman and her space opera series, A Distant Soil. She also did portions of The Sandman, the “Dream Country” and “A Game of You”. She’s tuckerized Into Sandman as the character Thessaly.
Born July 24, 1971 — Patty Jenkins, 50. Director of Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 1984, she appears in Robert Kirkman’s Secret History of Comics as herself in ‘The Truth About Wonder Woman’ episode. She’s the director and producer of the forthcoming Star Wars film, Rogue Squadron. She’ll also be directing Gal Gadot in Cleopatra.
Born July 24, 1981 — Summer Glau, 40. An impressive run in genre roles as she’s was River Tam in the Firefly series and of course the Serenity film, followed by these performances: Tess Doerner in The 4400, as Cameron in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Bennett Halverson in Dollhouse (is this worth seeing seeing?), Skylar Adams in Alphas, and Isabel Rochev who is The Ravager in Arrow. Her latest role is Miss Jones (The Water Wu) on The Wu Assassins series.
(13) COMICS SECTION.
Speed Bump introduces a familiar character whose phone asks a well-known question.
(15) EYECATCHERS. See the ads for sff books that appeared in the New York Times back in the day: “Advertisements for the Otherworldy”. Includes Philip K. Dick and Ray Bradbury.
Science Fiction was extraordinarily popular in the 1940s and 1950s — and so were books about U.F.O.s. Coverage of mysterious objects in the night sky was plentiful in The Times, too. On July 6, 1947, the front page featured an article headlined “Flying Saucers Mystify Experts; May Be Prank of Nature.” Two days later, a follow-up appeared, also on the front page, with a more provocative headline: “‘Disks’ Soar Over New York, Now Seen Aloft in All Colors.” It should perhaps come as no surprise that those years saw the Book Review filled with ads looking to sate this interest in the extraterrestrial and dystopian.
(16) LOOKS FAMILIAR. [Item by David Doering.] Surely this design is no accident! Whoever designed this high school in PA deserves a medal. (Or at least a Hugo.) I wonder if the school mascot is the Falcon??
(17) NOLAN APPRECIATION. Mr. Sci-Fi, Marc Scott Zicree, in “Logan’s Run Writer Passes Away”, remembers the help William F. Nolan gave him when Zicree was researching his Twilight Zone book.
…And he was an astonishing man. He was basically — the great thing about Bill Nolan was not only was he very articulate and very enthusiastic but he had kept notes on everything and recordings on everything and so he knew an enormous amount about Charles Beaumont and Ray Bradbury and all of these characters who were central to what i was working on but also central to science fiction…
(18) TALK TO THE DOCTOR. Louis Moorhouse, a blind fan who’s been raising money for Living Paintings, to make a set of Touch to See books about Doctor Who, interviews Tom Baker in this YouTube video.
Blind Doctor Who super fan meets one of his heroes, Tom Baker, thanks to inspirational fundraising campaign. Louis,19, from Bradford, has been blind since he was 18 months old. A few weeks ago, Louis launched a fundraising campaign on Crowd Funder in an attempt to raise £15,000 to make it possible for a charity, Living Paintings, to make a set of Touch to See books which will bring him and other blind and partially sighted people closer to the incredible world of Doctor Who. Having blasted through his first fundraising target Louis is now looking to raise an incredible total £25,000 to support the charity that has helped him since he was two years old. Louis says of his motivation to carry on with the campaign:“Living Paintings has had such a hugely positive impact on my life, from the first time I received a book and found out what Thomas the Tank Engine looks like (until then I had no idea what a train with a face could possibly mean), to helping me learn to read and express myself. I wouldn’t be who I am today without this wonderful charity and I hope people continue to support me on this journey so I can help other children facing the struggles I overcame with their help.” Louis and Living Paintings have been overwhelmed by the support shown by the Doctor Who community and this week he met one of his favourite ever Doctors on Zoom, the wonderful Tom Baker.
(19) MUSIC OF THE SPHERES. This is a NASA video that dropped on July 14 about June flybys of Jupiter and Ganymede.
[Thanks to Andrew Porter, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, Jannie Shea, David K.M. Klaus, David Doering, Michael Toman, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to contributing editor of the day Tom Becker.]
Introduction: Barry Hoffman’s Gauntlet Press is a specialty press devoted to publishing signed limited edition collectibles and trade paperbacks. Many of the authors published by the press work in the horror, dark fantasy and sf genres.
With our signed limited editions we don’t simply publish a book with the author’s signature (as do too many specialty presses). We are not an assembly line publisher releasing a dozen or more books per year. We work with the author closely to produce a definitive edition of each of our books. Many of our authors have provided deleted chapters, alternate endings, handwritten first drafts, sketches and interior art (Clive Barker and Marie Lu are accomplished artists and Ray Bradbury is famous for both his “doodles” and oil paintings), introductions and more. Our authors choose the artist for the dustjacket and have final approval of cover art. Our goal is to provide an edition of a book the author can be proud of and customers feel in truly unique.
Of course, the author’s signature is a crucial part of the overall package. Barry shared a glimpse of how this is arranged on the business side of things in his June newsletter, reprinted here with permission.
Barry Hoffman
By Barry Hoffman, Publisher, Gauntlet Press: Authors are a unique bunch when it comes to signing tipsheets, especially when they are writing an introduction or afterword for a book. For those unfamiliar, we can’t send 500 books to an author to sign. That’s not how it works with signed limited editions. We send 52 copies for the lettered edition and 500 copies for the numbered edition of a “tipsheet” paper. The author signs all 550 copies and returns them to us (or the printer). They are then bound into the book as part of the printing process.
All but a few authors do this without charging a penny. One of our first books was Bob Bloch’s PSYCHO. Ray Bradbury agreed to write an introduction and sign tipsheets for all 500 copies. Richard Matheson agreed to write an afterword and sign tipsheets for all 500 tipsheets. At the time (30 years ago) we didn’t have a lettered edition for our first few books. Neither charged a penny for either writing their piece or signing the tipsheets.
A few authors have asked for money to sign. That’s their prerogative. Harlan Ellison always asked for a modest sum. I only mention Harlan because he was outspoken about the practice. At a convention where the two of us were on a panel he told the assembled group that he never wrote anything for free. He didn’t make it a secret that he would charge a nominal fee to sign tipsheets. I may not agree with him but he was consistent and never charged an outrageous amount.
It’s more of a mixed bag when it comes to celebrities. Neither Robert De Niro nor Martin Scorsese asked for payment for signing tipsheets for TAXI DRIVER. None of the many celebrities who signed our 10-volume Twilight Zone script series asked for a dime to sign tipsheets for the lettered edition of the book. However, we did pay William Shatner to sign tipsheets for NIGHTMARE AT 20,000 FEET.
There are celebrities who also make a living (a pretty good one, at that) going to conventions. At Chiller Con, where I would host a table with Jack Ketchum, there was an eclectic group of celebrities who autographed photos for a fee. Carl Weathers was at Chiller at least once. Makeup artists and other cult figures would have a steady stream of customers. There were always several Playboy centerfolds who, years later, were still making money selling signed photos of themselves. There is nothing wrong with that. Still, Ketchum (aka Dallas Mayr) never charged for his signature. Neither did F. Paul Wilson, who attended several of the Chiller Cons I went to.
Why do most authors not ask for compensation for writing an introduction/afterword or signing tipsheets? I can’t offer a definitive answer, but I think it lies with the respect authors have for one another and their novels. Matheson and Bradbury both had enormous respect for Bob Bloch the man and the author. And, PSYCHO was his masterpiece. No one had to twist their arms.
Authors are a unique bunch and I thank each and every one for the contributions they have made to our books.
“When the Menopausal Carnival Comes to Town,” by Mimi Pond, in Menopause: A Comic Treatment (Graphic Medicine/Pennsylvania State University Press)
BEST SINGLE ISSUE
Sports Is Hell, by Ben Passmore (Koyama Press)
BEST CONTINUING SERIES
Usagi Yojimbo, by Stan Sakai (IDW)
BEST LIMITED SERIES
Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, by Matt Fraction and Steve Lieber (DC)
BEST NEW SERIES
Black Widow, by Kelly Thompson and Elena Casagrande (Marvel)
BEST PUBLICATION FOR EARLY READERS (UP TO AGE 8)
Our Little Kitchen, by Jillian Tamaki (Abrams Books for Young Readers)
BEST PUBLICATION FOR KIDS (AGES 9-12)
Superman Smashes the Klan, by Gene Luen Yang and Gurihiru (DC)
BEST PUBLICATION FOR TEENS (AGES 13-17)
Dragon Hoops, by Gene Luen Yang (First Second/Macmillan)
BEST HUMOR PUBLICATION
Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, by Matt Fraction and Steve Lieber (DC)
BEST ANTHOLOGY
Menopause: A Comic Treatment, edited by MK Czerwiec (Graphic Medicine/Pennsylvania State University Press)
BEST REALITY-BASED WORK
Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio, by Derf Backderf (Abrams)
BEST GRAPHIC MEMOIR
The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist, by Adrian Tomine (Drawn & Quarterly)
BEST GRAPHIC ALBUM—NEW
Pulp, by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (Image)
BEST GRAPHIC ALBUM—REPRINT
Seeds and Stems, by Simon Hanselmann (Fantagraphics)
BEST ADAPTATION FROM ANOTHER MEDIUM
Superman Smashes the Klan, adapted by Gene Luen Yang and Gurihiru (DC)
BEST U.S. EDITION OF INTERNATIONAL MATERIAL
Goblin Girl, by Moa Romanova, translation by Melissa Bowers (Fantagraphics)
BEST U.S. EDITION OF INTERNATIONAL MATERIAL—ASIA
Remina, by Junji Ito, translation by Jocelyne Allen (VIZ Media)
BEST ARCHIVAL COLLECTION/PROJECT—STRIPS
The Flapper Queens: Women Cartoonists of the Jazz Age, edited by Trina Robbins (Fantagraphics)
BEST ARCHIVAL COLLECTION/PROJECT—COMIC BOOKS
The Complete Hate, by Peter Bagge, edited by Eric Reynolds (Fantagraphics)
BEST WRITER
James Tynion IV, Something Is Killing the Children, Wynd (BOOM! Studios); Batman (DC); The Department of Truth (Image); Razorblades (Tiny Onion)
BEST WRITER/ARTIST
Junji Ito, Remina, Venus in the Blind Spot (VIZ Media)
BEST PENCILLER/INKER OR PENCILLER/INKER TEAM
Michael Allred, Bowie: Stardust, Rayguns & Moonage Daydreams (Insight Editions)
BEST PAINTER/MULTIMEDIA ARTIST (INTERIOR ART)
Anand RK/John Pearson, Blue in Green (Image)
BEST COVER ARTIST
Peach Momoko, Buffy the Vampire Slayer #19, Mighty Morphin #2, Something Is Killing the Children #12, Power Rangers #1 (BOOM! Studios); DIE!namite, Vampirella (Dynamite); The Crow: Lethe (IDW); Marvel Variants (Marvel
(1) TWITTER SUSPENDS CHUCK TINGLE. Chuck Tingle’s Twitter account has been suspended for reasons he explains on Facebook. He used music with some of his tweets, believing it was fair use, but the rights holder served Twitter with “many” DMCA takedown notices and his entire account was locked. Since this morning Tingle has been trying to get social media users to pressure the rights holder to withdraw the takedown notices. Getting paid for use of the music is what the rights holder would want, one expects.
From Emmy-nominated actor to children’s television host to movie director to Grammy-winning Spoken Word artist, LeVar Burton has nearly done it all in his career. However, one dream has alluded him until now, and that is to host Jeopardy! But that is about to change.
The Star Trek: The Next Generation actor — and self-confessed Jeopardy! superfan — finally gets his go at hosting the long-running quiz show Monday, July 26 to Friday, July 30, as the conveyor belt of guest hosts keeps moving. Burton and his fans have actively been campaigning for the Reading Rainbow host to permanently take over from the late Alex Trebek.
During its Comic-con gig on Friday, the streamer unveiled the teaser poster which features Pike’s Moiraine. The series adaptation of Robert Jordan’s books, is set in a sprawling, epic world where magic exists, but only women can use it. The Wheel of Time is co-produced by Amazon Studios and Sony Pictures Television and comes from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and Chuck writer Rafe Judkins, who is showrunner and exec producer.
(5) MANGA’S OLYMPIC AMBASSADORS. In the Washington Post, Kyle Melnick says customers at Purple Narwhal Music and Manga in Rockville, Maryland are buying lots of Olympics-related manga and anime. “Anime and manga take center stage at the Olympics”. Nine Japanese anime characters are ambassadors for the Tokyo Olympics.
…Many anime — an umbrella term for animation produced in Japan — are adapted from manga, similar to how American comics are shaped into movies. The Olympics ambassadors, who are featured on official Olympics merchandise, are Son Goku (from the Dragon Ball series), Usagi Tsukino (“Sailor Moon”), Naruto Uzumaki (“Naruto”), Monkey D. Luffy (“One Piece”), Astro Boy (“Astro Boy”), Cure Miracle and Cure Magical (“Pretty Cure”), Shin-chan (“Crayon Shin-chan”) and Jibanyan (“Yo-kai Watch”).
Goku is perhaps the most well-known of the group. He’s a naive but determined warrior who is the main character of “Dragon Ball Z,” which was one of the first popular anime in the United States in the 1990s and introduced many fans to the genre. Usagi Tsukino, whose alter ego is Sailor Moon, is the star of another popular 1990s anime, and she welcomed many women into what had previously been a predominantly male fan base.
(6) RICK BOATRIGHT (1955-2021). Rick Boatright, stalwart supporter of and contributor to the 1632 series, died Thursday July 22 of pancreatic cancer at the age of 66. Eric Flint mourned him on Facebook:
My old friend Rick Boatright died today. It wasn’t exactly unexpected, because he’d been diagnosed with state four pancreatic cancer, but it came quicker than anyone had expected. I talked to him on the phone just a few days ago and he was in pretty good spirits and thought he still had at least a few weeks left and possibly even a few months. But… he didn’t.
I don’t have anything more to say about it right now. I’ll be writing encomiums about him in the future. But today… Today just sucks.
His ISFDB bio notes Boatright had been a software developer since the early 1970s for not-for-profit social service agencies. Since 2001 he’d been a writer and editor, as well as the Head Geek, for Eric Flint’s 1632 alternate history world. (He also held the Head Geek title for Jim Baen’s Universe magazine.) He also was famous for providing tech support for other authors at Baen Books. Boatright taught high school physics and chemistry in his home town of Topeka, Kansas.
Boatright said in 2014 that despite his fiction credits his real gift was, “… explaining science fiction from the inside. What are the limits and potentials of a slower-than-light multi-stellar civilization? What happens to radio in a time travel story to the 17th century? How do you make records in the 17th century? What is the likely social impact and the biological effect of the English War Unicorn on 21st century warfare?”
(7) ANDERSSON OBIT. Horror/fantasy writer C. Dean Andersson, who also wrote as Asa Drake, passed away July 5 after a long illness. He published 8 novels, the first in 1981 co-authored with Nina Romberg. His short fiction “The Death Wagon Rolls On By” received a Bram Stoker Award nomination in 2008. G.W. Thomas did an in-depth interview with him for Dark Worlds Quarterly.
(8) MEMORY LANE.
2002 – Nineteen years ago, Jo Walton wins the Astounding Award for Best New Writer. She had finished second in the balloting for that award the previous year. It was her first major award. A year later, she would win the World Fantasy Award for her ever so tasteful Tooth and Claw.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born July 23, 1888 — Raymond Chandler. He of the hardboiled detective genre who I hold in very high esteem is listed by ISFDB as doing some stories of a genre nature, to be exact ”The Bronze Door”, “The King In Yellow”, “Professor Bingo’s Snuff” and “English Summer: A Gothic Romance”. I’ve neither heard it nor read these. So who here has read them? (Died 1959.)
Born July 23, 1914 — Virgil Finlay. Castle of Frankenstein calls him “part of the pulp magazine history … one of the foremost contributors of original and imaginative art work for the most memorable science fiction and fantasy publications of our time.” His best known covers are for Amazing Stories and Weird Tales. “Roads”, a novella by Seabury Quinn, published in the January 1938 Weird Tales, and featuring a cover and interior illustrations by him, was originally published in extremely limited numbers by Arkham House in 1948. It’s now available from the usual suspects. (Died 1971.)
Born July 23, 1923 — Cyril M. Kornbluth. I certainly read and really liked The Space Merchants and The Syndic which are the two I remember reading these years on. His only Hugo was at Torcon II (1973) for “The Meeting” which he wrote with Frederik Pohl (the co-winner was “Eurema’s Dam” by R. A. Lafferty). He later was awarded a Retro Hugo for “The Little Black Bag” at Millennium Philcon, and was inducted into the First Fandom Hall of Fame. (Died 1958.)
Born July 23, 1938 — Ronny Cox, 83. His first genre role was in RoboCop as OCP President Dick Jones who comes to a very bad end. Later roles Gen. Balentine in Amazon Women on the Moon in “The Unknown Soldier” episode, Martians Go Home as the President, Total Recall as Vilos Cohaagen, Captain America as Tom Kimball and a recurring role for a decade on Stargate SG-1 as Senator Robert Kinsey/Vice President Robert Kinsey.
Born July 23, 1956 — Kate Thompson, 65. Author of the New Policeman trilogy which I highly recommend. Though written for children, you’ll find it quite readable. And her Down Among the Gods is a unique take on a Greek myths made intimate. She got nominations for the Hal Clement (Golden Duck) Award and Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature.
Born July 23, 1947 — Gardner Dozois. He was founding editor of The Year’s Best Science Fiction anthology and was editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine for twenty years. He won fifteen Hugos for his editing and was nominated for even more. He also won the Nebula Award for Best Short Story twice, once for “The Peacemaker” and once for “Morning Child”. Stories selected by him for his annual best-of-year volumes have won, as of six years ago, 44 Hugos, 32 Locus, 41 Nebulas, 18 Sturgeon Awards and 10 World Fantasy. Very impressive! (Died 2018.)
Born July 23, 1982 — Tom Mison, 39. He is best known as Ichabod Crane on Sleepy Hollow which has a cross-over into Bones. He’s Mr. Phillips in The Watchmen. It’s barely (if at all) genre adjacent but I’m going to note that he’s Young Blood in A Waste of Shame: The Mystery of Shakespeare and His Sonnets. Currently he’s got a main role in second season the See SF series on Apple TV which has yet to come out.
Born July 23, 1989 — Daniel Radcliffe, 32. Harry Potter of course. (Loved the films, didn’t read the novels.) Also Victor Frankenstein’s assistant Igor in Victor Frankenstein, Ignatius Perrish in Horns, a horror film, and Rosencrantz in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead at the Old Vic in London.
Ziggy encounters a strange example of truth in advertising.
xkcd has a guide to commonly mispronounced equations. I know you’ll find it as helpful as I did. Daniel Dern says it reminds him of this equation from Fritz Leiber’s “Nice Girl With 5 Husbands” in the April 1951 issue of Galaxy –
In Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez’s comics series La Borinqueña, the eponymous superhero swoops down to Puerto Rico to solve problems that range from guiding lost turtles to rescuing people from a hurricane. Turns out the Puerto Rican superwoman comes to the rescue in real life, too.
Miranda-Rodriguez created La Borinqueña five years ago as a superhero who would entertain readers with her superpowered adventures, express Puerto Rican pride, and make more people aware of the island’s economic problems. Just like in the comics, though, there have been unexpected twists, and La Borinqueña and her creator are not only raising awareness of Puerto Rico and its dilemmas, but is also raising cold, hard cash to help Puerto Ricans recover from Hurricane Maria, fend off the pandemic, and move toward self-determination.
The third volume of La Borinqueña (with artist Will Rosado) will come out this month, and Miranda-Rodriguez plans to do a book tour in the fall. He will be bringing chocolate: He contracted with the 92-year-old chocolate maker Chocolate Cortés P.R., to include an original, four-episode La Borinqueña story on the inner wrappers of its bars. Proceeds from the sale of the limited-edition chocolate bars will go to the Fundación Cortés as part of the La Borinqueña Grants Program, which distributes grants to local nonprofits….
(12) JOHN NO LAST NAME. Stephen Haffner previewed some of the beautiful work on The Complete John the Balladeer by Manly Wade Wellman, which can be preordered from Haffner Press.
(13) PRODIGY. This teaser trailer for the new animated Nickelodeon series, Star Trek: Prodigy debuted during the “Star Trek Universe” panel at Comic-Con@Home 2021.
Developed by Emmy® Award-winners Kevin and Dan Hageman (“Trollhunters” and “Ninjago”) the CG-animated series STAR TREK: PRODIGY is the first “Star Trek” series aimed at younger audiences and will follow a motley crew of young aliens who must figure out how to work together while navigating a greater galaxy, in search for a better future. These six young outcasts know nothing about the ship they have commandeered – a first in the history of the Star Trek Franchise – but over the course of their adventures together, they will each be introduced to Starfleet and the ideals it represents
Space flight company Space Perspective has debuted a $125,000 package that brings travelers to the edge of our atmosphere on a space-age hot air balloon.
The Florida-based firm aims to usher in a “new era in luxury travel experiences” with their groundbreaking — or air-breaking, if you will — tour aboard the Spaceship Neptune, a massive, hydrogen-supported balloon with a passenger capsule in tow that can float atop Earth’s atmosphere. There, amateur astronauts can soak up the splendor of our home planet, thanks to panoramic windows and reclining seats.
(15) DINO DRIVE-BY. Jurassic Quest has returned to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena from July 23-August 1. The concept kind of reminds me of the Lion Country Safari that used to be in Orange County.
The new Jurassic Quest Drive Thru version of the show features over 70 life-like dinosaurs including the very popular T. Rex, Spinosaurus and Triceratops. Jurassic Quest’s herd of animatronic dinos are displayed in realistic scenes that allow guests to experience them roaring and moving from their own vehicles as they drive their way through the tour. Baby dinosaurs greet guests and bring big smiles to explorers of all ages. During the drive-thru experience, guests are guided by an engaging and informative digital audio tour featuring show entertainers and dino wranglers that lasts about an hour. Guests stay in their cars throughout the tour with limited contact, if any, with staff who wear masks, social distance, and follow all state and local guidelines regarding health and safety. To further ensure the safety of patrons and staff, all equipment and workstations undergo regular sanitization throughout the show. All attendees receive a free, safari-style family photo in their vehicles set against a dinosaur backdrop as a memento of their experience.
(16) FRANK. Here’s an alarming item you can squeeze into that empty space on your bookshelf. (As if any Filer would have that!) “Peeping On The Bookshelf Booknook” at Souamer.
(17) THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY. Wait, we’re not talking about just the end of the week — the End of the World is coming! But when and how? Isaac Arthur explores all the options from manmade to natural, tomorrow to a trillion years in the future.
(18) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In a spoiler-filled “Space Jam 2: A New Legacy Pitch Meeting” on Screen Rant, Ryan George says the writer at the pitch meeting’s goal is to make a film that will convince children to tell their parents, “You know, Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. really is my favorite multi-media and mass entertainment conglomerate.”
[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Paul Weimer, David K.M. Klaus, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Daniel Dern, Michael J. Lowrey, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, Michael Toman, John King Tarpinian, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to contributing editor of the day Jack Lint (suggested in June 2019).]
We Begin At The End, a New YorkTimes bestseller, has been optioned for film and is currently in development. Whitaker was interviewed here when his book made the shortlist.
Whitaker’s earlier book Tall Oaks was honored with the CWA John Creasey New Blood Dagger Award.
The prize was created to celebrate “excellence, originality, and the very best in crime fiction from UK and Irish authors” whose novels were published in paperback during the eligibility period. The winner receives £3,000 and a handmade, engraved beer barrel provided by Theakstons Brewery.
By James Bacon: Fantasy Forest Festival took place this year at Sudely Castle, Gloucestershire in the beautiful Cotswolds.
An excitingly adventurous event, only in its second iteration, it combines Art, Music, Performance and a wide variety of family entertainments but is seeking a broad audience and welcoming of all fans and ably demonstrated with appearances of Daleks to Deadpool.
The traders, and three stages for entertainment are the main attractions. With over seventy traders selling everything from medieval-style furniture to delicate jewelry, there is a strong emphasis on crafting, be it in leather, crochet, paper, or even role playing swords.
Anne Stokes was on hand with a pavilion of art wonders and “Stoked 2021” took place, a mini-convention within the festival, with a dedicated talk and crafting space, continually on the go. Kids loved this, while fans were excited by the huge hand-sculpted dragon’s head, sculpted by John J. Woodward based on Anne’s art. Anne in leather armour was busy engaging and meeting her fans continuously from what I could see.
Chris Achillios, Anne Sudworth, and Micheal Meech were among the other artists attending while armourer Terry English also had an impressive stand full of historical things to see, with affordable items to purchase.
The music ranged from Inkubus Sukkubus, English Underground Goth Rock, The Dolmen, Celtic Rock and Slainte traditional Irish players. There were three stages, two were for music the third for performances, talks, and costume competitions.
A wooden Phoenix sculpture was set alight, but first this beautifully made offering was allowed to be written on, and held a basket full of notes, wishes, hopes and so on. We watched on as it was lit and soon burning furiously.
In Covid times, having everything outdoors was very helpful, hand san was everywhere while there were ample hand washing facilities and a social distancing rule. Seats were set out in a spacious manner, and Orcs rambled about encouraging the 2-metre rule where people gathered. Generally people kept apart and it felt safe.
The fusion appears unique. This was not a music festival, yet music was very much a part of the weekend. It was about bringing together a variety of elements. Arts and crafts were very much to the forefront.
The festival organisers state, “A festival that brings fans from all genres of fantasy together for the weekend, providing a feast of entertainment and spectacle. Whether you’re into sci-fi & fantasy films, books and TV, fantasy art, comics, Anime, Cosplay, LARP, Steampunk or historic re-enactment, all are welcome. A gathering place to meet like-minded people – get together with old friends and make new ones! For fans of Lord of the Rings to Star Wars; Star Trek to Harry Potter; Game of Thrones to Doctor Who; Marvel superheroes to Tim Burton; pirates, fairies and medieval days of yore – there’s something for everyone.”
Having attended Ren Faire events in the US, this was far from that experience, which I generally felt was a forced Disney-esque experience. Here, the armourers made armour, historically accurate, the falconry people save and care for all types of birds of prey, and also ravens, and would not fly them in the heat of the day, happy to chat. Once in, one did not have to pay for anything else and could still have a terrific time. Many experiences were gathering funds for charity or welcoming tips, but in a discreet and nice way. There were a few things you could learn, blacksmithing for instance, and I admit smashing a white hot metal rod twixt an anvil and heavy hammer not only appeared appealing but an affordable good value training session.
Obviously as people encounter new things, it’s exciting and we talked to LRP weapon sculptor Simon Medlock (Medlock Armoury) who had a cracking weekend, surpassing his expectations, but then considering the personality, detail and individuality of his pieces, with incredible attention to detail, pieces of art in their own right, people found then wonderfully attractive.
There was a Dalek display, a Star Wars group but really the event benefited hugely from the ingenuity and willingness to dress up that so many attending really got into. The amount of whimsically wonderful summer frocks, pirates, especially the Salty Dog Pirate Crew gang who were handing out medals made of snot to the “best farter” or “biggest booger picker” and number of wonderful costumes was incredible and that buy-in made the event so colourful and exciting.
I was very fortunate to have camper van accommodations and I know the hot weather was a struggle for some. With a background in Dutch events, the organisation heavily relies on volunteers, with many people wearing the purple shirt, gaining access in return for six hours of volunteering a day, although one got to recognise the stalwarts who enjoy the festival work, despite the sun trying to kill them.
With Covid in mind the organisers had put a 3,000 person limit one third of capacity, camping and glamping had sold out with reduced limits, and there was a roll over arrangement from 2020 which was cancelled, day tickets were readily available and many families attended for the day.
The growth potential here is huge. I pondered what sort of weekend booksellers or authors would have had, notably in their absence, but I assume welcome to apply for space like anyone else, and I did then think how publishers will no doubt focus on this potential market as it grows.
A cracking day out awaits anyone who heads to Fantasy Forest, which I hope returns next year.
I knew we’d bought the right house in Tallahassee when, two years ago, a raccoon rang our doorbell at four in the morning. Granted, the doorbell glows blue at night and, for some reason, is at waist height. But, still, this seemed like something that belonged in the Guinness Book of World Records for urban wildlife.
Dear reader, I hope you understand that we did not answer the door and it was only from the muddy pawprints we saw when we ventured out at a more reasonable hour…that we understood who had visited us….
John Plotz (JP): You have said that science fiction is the realism of our times. How do people hear that statement today? Do they just hear the word COVID and automatically start thinking about dystopia?
Kim Stanley Robinson (KSR): People sometimes think that science fiction is about predicting the future, but that isn’t true. Since predicting the future is impossible, that would be a high bar for science fiction to have to get over. It would always be failing. And in that sense it always is failing. But science fiction is more of a modeling exercise, or a way of thinking.
Another thing I’ve been saying for a long time is something slightly different: We’re in a science fiction novel now, which we are all cowriting together. What do I mean? That we’re all science fiction writers because of a mental habit everybody has that has nothing to do with the genre. Instead, it has to do with planning and decision making, and how people feel about their life projects. For example, you have hopes and then you plan to fulfill them by doing things in the present: that’s utopian thinking. Meanwhile, you have middle-of-the-night fears that everything is falling apart, that it’s not going to work. And that’s dystopian thinking.
So there’s nothing special going on in science fiction thinking. It’s something that we’re all doing all the time.
And world civilization right now is teetering on the brink: it could go well, but it also could go badly. That’s a felt reality for everybody. So in that sense also, science fiction is the realism of our time. Utopia and dystopia are both possible, and both staring us in the face.
(3) THE TRANSOM IS OPEN. The Dark Magazine is accepting submissions. Do you have what editors Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Michael Kelly, and Sean Wallace are looking for?
A head’s up: I am almost out of inventory for The Dark. I have just enough for August, and nothing after that. So that means nearly sixteen slots are available! If you have something dark and unsettling and unique, send it over!
(4) DUNE TRAILER. Warner Bros. has dropped the main trailer for Dune, set for an October 22 release. Here’s the story they’re telling:
A mythic and emotionally charged hero’s journey, “Dune” tells the story of Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, who must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet’s exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence—a commodity capable of unlocking humanity’s greatest potential—only those who can conquer their fear will survive.
(5) PATTEN IN HUMBLE BUNDLE. The late Fred Patten’s essay collection Watching Anime, Reading Manga is part of Humble Bundle’s new Japanese Culture bundle: Humble Book Bundle: Japanese Culture & Language by Stone Bridge Press. The entire 26-item bundle includes four books about anime and manga. Pay at least $18 to get all of them, pay less to get fewer items, or pay extra to give more to publishers, Humble, and charity.
Discover the rich history and culture of Japan!
There are thousands of years of rich history and culture to be found in Japan, and Stone Bridge Press wants to help you discover plenty of it with books like Crazy for Kanji: A Student’s Guide to the Wonderful World of Japanese Characters, Family Crests of Japan, and Japaneseness: A Guide to Values and Virtues. Plus, your purchase helps support the Book Industry Charitable Foundation and a charity of your choice!
(6) 2021 SEIUN AWARDS. Locus Online’s 2021 Seiun Awards post has translations into English of all the titles up for Best Japanese Novel and Best Japanese Story, as well as the correct English titles of the works nominated for Best Translated Novel and Best Translated Story (i.e. of works into the Japanese language.) And I don’t! So hie thee hence.
AE: How much or little do current events impact your writing?
RCS: Looking back, it strikes me that “The Next Frontier” was born of a desire to live in a world with greater cooperation between nations on important projects requiring global efforts. I took international cooperation much more for granted in the 1990s and 2000s than I do now.
(8) MEMORIES. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In the July 17 Financial Times, Henry Mance interviews Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber and his wife, Lady Madeleine Lloyd Webber.
‘Do we mention the other lowest of the low moments?’ says Madeleine. “The Cats film. I’ve never seen Andrew so upset.’ He had sold the rights and was sidelined. ‘I’ve never known anything so ghastly. It was disgraceful, the whole process,” he (Andrew Lloyd Webber) says. ‘I wrote a letter to the head of Universal Pictures, Donna Langley, which I didn’t even get (a response to) and I said, ‘this will be a car crash beyond belief if you don’t listen to me.’
He blames the director Tom Hooper. ‘You’ve got to have somebody who understands the rhythm of music…I had right of approval over some of the musical elements. But they really rode roughshod over everything.’ Things were so bad that he had to console himself by buying a Havanese puppy.
(9) LUCKY SEVEN. Cora Buhlert was interviewed by Stars End, a podcast about the works of Isaac Asimov in general and Foundation in particular: Episode 7 – Stars End: A Foundation Podcast.
…Cora is an amazingly prolific and eclectic writer. So prolific that Jon joked about her owning “Asimov’s Typewriter” and we suddenly had a new imaginary episode of Warehouse 13 in our heads. So eclectic that no matter your tastes there’s a good chance that she’s written something that you’d enjoy. If you like stories about galactic empires like Foundation, she’s written two full series you might like, In Love and War and Shattered Empire. She’s also a two-time Hugo Finalist for Best Fan Writer.
(10) MARS IN CULTURE. “Exploring the Red Planet through History and Culture” with Nick Smith (past President of LASFS) is hosted by the Pasadena Museum of History. The free virtual presentation* is available for viewing Thursday, July 22 through Sunday, July 25.
The planet Mars has long been connected to humankind through religions, literature, and science. Join Nick Smith, guest curator of PMH’s 2018 exhibition Dreaming the Universe, to explore our fascination with Earth’s neighboring planet, and discover some of the many ways Mars is part of our culture.
*Pre-recorded presentation from Spring ArtNight 2021.
(11) HAPPY BIRTHDAY ARNIE KATZ. Alan White posted a photo on Facebook of his wife, DeDee, presenting Arnie Katz, 76, with a fanboy cake.
(12) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.
2016 – Five years ago on this date, Star Trek Beyond premiered. The third film in the rebooted series, and the thirteenth Trek film so far released. It directed by Justin Lin from the script from Simon Pegg and Doug Jung. It was produced by J. J. Abrams, Roberto Orci Lindsey Weber and Justin Lin. It starred cast of Chris Pine, John Cho, Simon Pegg, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Anton Yelchin (one of his last roles before his death) and Idris Elba. Almost unanimously critics loved it and audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes currently give it an excellent rating of eighty percent. It however was a box office failure losing money as it debuted in a crowded market that had the likes of Jason Bourne and Suicide Squad.
(13) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born July 22, 1926 — Bernhardt J. Hurwood. Author of The Man from T.O.M.C.A.T series which is more or less soft porn. He also did the Pulp series, the Invisibles series. He also had a deep and abiding fascination with the supernatural, publishing myriad non-fiction works on it including Passport to the Supernatural: An Occult Compendium from All Ages and Many Lands, Vampires, Werewolves and Ghouls and Monsters and Nightmares. (Died 1987.)
Born July 22, 1932 — Tom Robbins, 89. Author of such novels as Even Cowgirls Get the Blues and Another Roadside Attraction. ISFDB lists everything he’s done as genre and who am I to argue with them on this occasion at least? Well I will. Now Jitterbug Perfume, that’s definitely genre! Cowgirls Get the Blues got made into a rather excellent film by Gus Van Sant and stars Uma Thurman, Lorraine Bracco, and Keanu Reeves. Interesting note: Still Life with Woodpecker made the long list at one point for the Prometheus Award for Best Libertarian SF Novel.
Born July 22, 1940 — Alex Trebek. Remembered as the genial long term Host of Jeopardy!, he was but one genre credit to his name. It’s as a Man in Black who Agent Mulder says looks incredibly like himself in the “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space”. I actually think it’s only his acting role. (Died 2020.)
Born July 22, 1941 — George Clinton, 70. Founder and leader of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic, who incorporated science-fictional themes in his music throughout his career, perhaps most notably with his 1975 hit album, Mothership Connection, which was a huge influence on afrofuturism. (Xtifr)
Born July 22, 1941 — Vaughn Bode. Winner of Best Fan Artist Hugo at St. Louiscon. (He was nominated for Best Professional Artist as well but that honor went to Jack Gaughan.) He has been credited as an influence on Bakshi’s Wizards and Lord of the Rings. Currently there at least three collections of his artwork, Deadbone Erotica, Cheech Wizard and Cheech Wizard‘s Book of Me in print.(Died 1975.)
Born July 22, 1962 — Rena Owen, 59. New Zealand native who appeared as Taun We in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith as Nee Alavar. She also has minor roles in A.I. Artificial Intelligence, The Crow: Wicked Prayer, The Iron Man and The Last Witch Hunter. She had a lead role in Siren, a series about merfolk that lasted for three seasons and thirty six episodes. Set in the state of Washington, it was, no surprise, filmed in British Columbia.
Born July 22, 1964 — Bonnie Langford, 57. She was a computer programmer from the 20th century who was a Companion of the Sixth and Seventh Doctors. She also appeared in the thirtieth anniversary special Dimensions in Time. If you’re really generous in defining genre, she was in Wombling Free as Felicity Kim Frogmorton. Other than that, Who was all she did for our end of the universe.
Born July 22, 1972 — Colin Ferguson, 49. Best known for being Sheriff Jack Carter on Eureka. Damn I miss that series which amazingly won no Hugos. (I just discovered the series is on the Peacock streaming service which I subscribe to so I’m going to watch it again!) He’s also been in Are You Afraid of the Dark, The Hunger, The X-Files, The Outer Limits, the Eureka “Hide and Seek” webisodes (anyone seen these?) and The Vampire Diaries.
(14) COMICS SECTION.
At The Far Side, farmers have another visit from those darned saucer-flying kleptomaniacs.
Marvel’s Vice President of film production, Victoria Alonso, recently gave us the news of the studio’s grand ambitions for expanding into the world of animation…and she’s not stopping there….
According to Variety, Alonso confirmed that both Hawkeye and Ms. Marvel will be appearing on Disney+ for subscribers before the year is out….
Hawkeye sees the return of Jeremy Renner’s Clint Barton. Similar to Black Widow, however, a younger star in Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop will also be co-starring and appears set to take the reins from the much more established bow-wielding Avenger. And don’t forget, Florence Pugh’s Yelena is also set as a recurring character in the series, making the connections between the two productions even more apparent.
Ms. Marvel, meanwhile, will serve as the debut for Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) and strengthen ties between Disney+ and the Captain Marvel movies. Brie Larson is sure to be a mainstay in the MCU for years and years to come, of course, so this will likely resemble some Miles Morales and Peter Parker mentor/mentee storylines rather than a straightforward passing of the torch.
(16) REVIVING SWORD & SORCERY. [Item by Cora Buhlert.] Brian Murphy, who’s written a non-fiction book about sword and sorcery, which was on my Hugo ballot this year and which won the Robert E. Howard Foundation Award, muses about what sword and sorcery needs to experience a revival: “What sword-and-sorcery needs” at The Silver Key.
3. A cohesive community, perhaps organized around a fanzine. Guys like Jason Ray Carney are building this right now, with the likes of Whetstone, an amateur magazine that also has a Discord group. I belong to several good Facebook groups, and there are some reasonably well-trafficked Reddit groups and the like. You’ve got the Swords of REH Proboards and a few other hangouts for the diehards. But it all feels very disparate. Sword-and-sorcery lacks a common gathering space and watering hole, like Amra used to serve. Leo Grin’s now defunct Cimmerian journal is the type of publication I’m thinking of.
(17) OCTOTHORPE. Episode 36 of the Octothorpe podcast is now available, titled: “Worldcon Fire Service”.
We answer two letters of comment before we do a deep dive into convention communications. We plug Fantasy Book Swap and chat about books we loved as kids before wrapping up.
Here’s a neat patch to go with it.
(18) JEOPARDY! Andrew Porter witness this item trip up a contestant on tonight’s Jeopardy!
Final Jeopardy: category: 1970s Movie Scenes
Answer: Dan O’Bannon based a scene in the film on his own Crohn’s Disease, which felt like things inside him fighting to get out.
While picketing companies that deal with employers involved in labor disputes — known as a secondary boycott — is illegal under labor law, the board ruled that the use of oversized rats, which are typically portrayed as ominous creatures with red eyes and fangs, is not a picket but a permissible effort to persuade bystanders.
Union officials had stationed the rat in question, a 12-foot-tall specimen, close to the entrance of a trade show in Elkhart, Ind., in 2018, along with two banners. One banner accused a company showcasing products there, Lippert Components, of “harboring rat contractors” — that is, doing business with contractors that do not use union labor.
Lippert argued that the rat’s use was illegal coercion because the creature was menacing and was intended to discourage people from entering the trade show. But the board found that the rat was a protected form of expression.
“Courts have consistently deemed banners and inflatable rats to fall within the realm of protected speech, rather than that of intimidation and the like,” the ruling said.
The rise of the rodents, often known as “Scabby the Rat,” dates to the early 1990s, when an Illinois-based company began manufacturing them for local unions intent on drawing attention to what they considered suspect practices, such as using nonunion labor. The company later began making other inflatable totems, like fat cats and greedy pigs, for the same purpose….
Everybody knows that Mark Hamill is in Star Wars, unless you only know him from the credits of Batman: The Animated Series and have just had your mind blown, but did you know that he’s also in a lot of Star Wars movies? Like, almost all of them? Okay, yeah, you probably knew that as well, but we’re not talking about Luke Skywalker. We’re talking about an untold number of droids and aliens and other puppets who shared the distinct pleasure of having Mark Hamill’s voice come out of their mouth holes….
Did you know… I voiced multiple secret voice-cameos in every #StarWars movie released since 2015?*
(21) CHAIR PAIR. In Episode 57 of the Two Chairs Talking podcast, “From a skewed perspective”, just out, David Grigg and Perry Middlemiss discuss the nominees for Best Novella at this year’s Hugo Awards, then talk about some more recent reading.
It’s one of the great mysteries of the early space age. How did Mercury astronaut Gus Grissom, after a near-perfect flight on just the second U.S. space mission, inadvertently “blow” the escape hatch prematurely on his Liberty Bell 7 capsule, causing it to fill with water and sink in the Atlantic? In fact, did Grissom blow the hatch? Or was some technical glitch to blame?
Grissom himself insisted he hadn’t accidentally triggered the explosive bolts designed to open the hatch during his ocean recovery. His NASA colleagues, by and large, believed him. Years later, Apollo flight director Gene Kranz told historians Francis French and Colin Burgess, “If Gus says he didn’t do it, he didn’t do it.”…
(23) OUT ON A LIMB. Do you know Lego has come out with a LEGO Bonsai Tree and a Lego flower arrangement for Lego lovers who aren’t good at dealing with plants? But they better be good at assembling Legos – this item has 878 pieces!
(24) FROM PITCH MEETING. This video from Ryan George has him playing Chim Ontario, a seven-time Oscar winner who specializes in crotch composition because “you have to specialize in something.” His eighteen-hour days don’t leave him time for relationships or children, but he sold one of his Oscars on eBay and got a nice sleeping bag! — “THE Movie Special Effects Tutorial | Pro Tips by Pitch Meeting”.
[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Cora Buhlert, Bruce D. Arthurs, David K.M. Klaus, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, Michael Toman, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to contributing editor of the day Jamoche.]
By Mark L. Blackman: On the evening of Wednesday, July 21, (the 52nd anniversary of the first Moonwalk, depending on your time zone), the Fantastic Fiction at KGB Reading Series, hosted by Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel, presented two “heavy-hitters” (Kressel’s categorization), authors Kim Stanley Robinson and Nancy Kress, in livestreamed readings on YouTube. (This is the 17th month of virtual readings, in place of in-person reading at the eponymous bar in the East Village in Manhattan, to which they plan to return – Delta variant willing – in October.)
After some schmoozing among hosts and readers (Datlow is looking forward to having dim sum with a group), Kressel gave a précis of the Series, which started in the 1990s. (For details, about how to support the Bar and the Series – which, even under the current setup, incurs expenses – visit www.kgbfantasticfiction.org.) He then introduced the first reader of the evening.
Nancy Kress is the author of 33 books, including 26 novels (among them, The Sleepless Trilogy, which opened with Beggars in Spain), four collections of short stories and three books on writing, work for which she has won five Nebula Awards, two Hugo Awards, a Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Her most recent works include Yesterday’s Kin, The Eleventh Gate, andSea Change, a stand-alone novella from which she read.
Nancy Kress
Sea Change by Nancy Kress, art by Elizabeth Story
Sea Change centers on the genetic engineering of crops, The section that she read opens in 2032 Seattle, about a decade after the Catastrophe. It is a world of homelessness and hunger, of “wandering buildings,” of electronic surveillance and counter-surveillance, the latter by a rebuilt resistance movement, the Org, which is out to save the world from itself. A member of the Org, “Carol,” is assigned to meet a new recruit, who bears a resemblance to her late son.
There was a short break (during which they discussed really bad names for cider).
The second reader, introduced by Datlow, was Kim Stanley Robinson – Stan – a multi-award winner (Hugo, Nebula, Locus, BSFA and World Fantasy Awards) probably best known for his Mars Trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars) and The Years of Rice and Salt. His most recent novels are Red Moon and The Ministryfor the Future, and it was from the latter that he read selections. He lives in Davis, California, but was coming to us from somewhere in Maine with a really lousy Internet connection. The audio came through, but not the video, so we were treated instead to a couple of photos of him. It looked like a really good ventriloquist act.
Kim Stanley Robinson
The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson, art by Lauren Panepinto
As in Kress’s story, the novel is set in the near future, here the catastrophe being climate change after a big heat wave, seen through the eyes of Frank. (It’s not just the heat, it’s the humidity.) Jumping ahead to a decade later (and reading from the middle of the book), an international organization has grown out of the Paris Agreement nicknamed the Ministryfor the Future, and its head, Mary Murphy, is meeting with bankers. For decades, they’ve shorted civilization and wealth has shifted to them, and they’ve become the world’s not so secret government.
Since the book was published last year, Robinson shared, he’s been reading from nine set pieces; but because we’re the Fantastic Fiction at KGB Reading Series, he decided to read from near the end (from Chapter 103 of 106), “after the bend in the arc of history is accomplished, following the sturm und drang.” He wanted to write “a best case scenario.” On one night, four billion people tap their phones and express their love of Mother Earth in “a worldwide lovefest.”
A Q&A session with the authors followed. (Datlow is working out the logistics on having a Q&A, as I suggested, when they return to the Bar.) Datlow asked Robinson, “How can you be so optimistic?” He replied that his mother was; she felt that it was our duty to be optimistic and to help people.
Kress was asked how she got into teaching writing. She said that she’s always been a teacher; she began teaching 4th Grade, and later college. (Kressel used one of her books on writing in a course that he took at the New School.) She was next asked why she sets so many of her stories in the near future. She answered that it’s “easier,” that she doesn’t have to create “an entirely different world society,” just “an intensification of the present,” such as food insecurity issues and genetic engineering, and it’s “a natural jumping-off point for conflicts.”
A viewer remarked that climate change has taken over sf. (I’ve even seen the acronym “cli-fi.”) Robinson observed that the Pandemic has reminded us that we’re all on one planet, and spoke about the need for renewable energy. Kressel noted that older workers who’ve been in one industry their whole life and face job loss tend to oppose new and unfamiliar renewable energy. Talk turned to CarbonCoin and decarbonization, paying people and businesses to do “good green work” and keep carbon in the ground. Robinson added that CarbonCoin wouldn’t be a cryptocurrency, but would have to be real, backed by a real currency. (He opined that the Biden Brain Trust is the best one since FDR, but it needs to communicate better.) Corn, said Kress, needs to be helped along to feed people. We’ve always hybridized plants, stated Robinson; he thought that objection to GMOs is really objection to Monsanto owning genomes.
Responding to a related question, Kress said that she writes so much about genetic engineering because “it’s here.” (At a previous Fantastic Fiction reading, she observed that genetic engineering is the wave of the future, as well as fascinating to her personally.)
Robinson was asked about his use of bureaucracy. Well, his wife is a bureaucrat, and bureaucracy may be interesting; accordingly, he takes time and goes on at length to build his extensive bureaucracies.
Both authors write characters who don’t look like them, led off another question. They consult friends about details; Robinson pointed out that writers need freedom to write about “The Other” or their stories “would be very dull.”
Robinson then told Kress that he found Beggars in Spain “scary” because he’s an insomniac. (Note: Despite her being based in Seattle, the Sleepless Trilogy did not inspire a certain rom-com.) Kress admitted that she needs her sleep and is “jealous” of people genetically engineered not to need sleep; how much more they can get done!
Finally, what’s next; what are they working on? Kress apologized; she doesn’t talk about work in progress. Robinson, surprisingly, is working on a nonfiction book about hiking the Sierras; the title will be The High Sierras: A Love Story.
All were looking forward to a good night’s sleep.
Upcoming readers are:
August 18 A.C. Wise & David Leo Rice
September 15 Mari Ness & Ellen Klages
On October 20th, the Series will be back in person at the KGB Bar! The readers will be Michael DeLuca and Daryl Gregory.
(1) HAUNTED. At Horrified: The British Horror Website, Sarah Jackson discusses the objects that become haunted in classic ghost stories written by women: “Haunted objects in women’s weird fiction”.
Like hermit crabs, ghosts and demonic forces are extremely adaptable when it comes to finding a new home. Especially fond of portraits, mirrors, and dolls, they have also been known to inhabit more mundane items. A saucepan. A fur boa. A pair of gloves. A snuff box.
Household items charged with supernatural power are a common motif in the large body of weird fiction written by British women in the first half of the twentieth century. Sometimes the effect is darkly comic, sometimes tragic, sometimes terrifying. As Melissa Edmundson notes in her introduction to Women’s Weird: Strange Stories by Women, 1890-1940 (Handheld Press, Melissa Edmundson, 2019) many of these haunted objects are ‘traditionally feminine’, and almost all have some connection to women’s changing roles and complicated relationship with domesticity and sexuality in this period.
(2) HE’LL RETIRE THE SERIES WITH THE RECORD. Stephen Jones reminded Andrew Porter about ending his Best New Horror anthology series in 2022. He wrote:
“I quietly announced it nearly two years ago.
“It was always the plan that when — or if! — I ever reached volume #31 (one more volume than THE PAN BOOK OF HORROR STORIES) then I would probably retire it. It’s an annual anthology that now takes nearly two years to compile!
“The final volume (in this format at least) will be published by PS Publishing towards the end of the year.
“It will hopefully set the record for the longest-running horror anthology series from the same editor.
“I decided to let Gardner Dozois’ record with THE YEAR’S BEST SCIENCE FICTION stand.”
…The streamer has given the limited series a six-episode order with plans in place to begin shooting in Scotland later this year. First published in 2005, “Anansi Boys” follows Charlie Nancy, a young man who is used to being embarrassed by his estranged father, Mr. Nancy. But when his father dies, Charlie discovers that his father was Anansi: trickster god of stories. And he learns that he has a brother. Now his brother, Spider, is entering Charlie’s life, determined to make it more interesting but making it a lot more dangerous.
The character of Mr. Nancy appears in both “Anansi Boys” and the Gaiman novel “American Gods,” the latter of which is currently airing a series adaptation on Starz. However, there is no connection between the two projects and “Anansi Boys” will serve as a stand-alone story.
I mentioned that making Good Omens two is half of what I’ve been working on, and will be working on for next eighteen months, and I said I’d tell you soon enough what the other secret project I’ve been working on is.
It’s this
…And I cannot tell you how happy I am to be making it, and making it in the way that we’re making it.
Anansi Boys started in about 1996. I was working on the original Neverwhere TV series for Lenny Henry’s film company, Crucial Films.
I loved a lot of what we were doing in Neverwhere. 25 years ago, it felt like we were doing something ahead of its time.
Lenny and I went for a walk. Lenny grumbled about horror films. “You’ll never get people who look like me starring in horror films,” he said. “We’re the hero’s friend who dies third.”
And I thought and blinked. He was right. “I’ll write you a horror movie you could star in,” I told him.
I plotted one. I tried writing the first half-dozen pages of the movie, but it didn’t seem to be right as a movie. And I was beginning to suspect that the story I was imagining, about two brothers whose father had been a God, wasn’t really horror, either.
… A top Hollywood director wanted to buy the rights to Anansi Boys, but when he told me that he planned to make all the characters white, I declined to sell it. It was going to be done properly or not at all.
And then, about ten years ago, two things happened at the same time. Hilary Bevan Jones, a producer who had made a short film I had directed (called Statuesque) mentioned she’d love to make Anansi Boys as a TV series, and a man named Richard Fee, who worked for a company called RED, spotted me eating noodles in a London noodle bar, waited outside so he didn’t seem like a stalker, and told me how much he loved Anansi Boys and that he’d love to make it into television.
I loved the TV that RED had made, loved Hilary and her team at Endor, and, unable to decide between them, suggested that they might be willing to work together. They both thought this was a good idea. …
How does one go about inventing a language? David J. Peterson is the creator of the Dothraki and Valyrian languages for fantasy series Game of Thrones, as well as many others. He joins Michael Rosen for a playful discussion about all things conlang, and Michael tries his luck at inventing a new language for bacteria.
Oscar winner Paul Franklin tells how visual effects changed and how they changed cinema. By the mid 1990s, Industrial Light & Magic, the VFX house at the heart of the rebirth of photochemical illusions, was home to a small but growing band of digerati convinced that the next breakthrough was at their fingertips. Jurassic Park not only proved their point but showed audiences and filmmakers that nothing could be the same again. The quest for the illusion of life, for the subtlety of performance would eventually lead back to Middle Earth and the evolution of Gollum – the perfect fusion of man and digits. Meanwhile the illusory world of The Matrix put its extraordinary moments of Bullet Time at the heart of its story and ideas. This was visual effects as both story and metaphor. Christopher Nolan’s Inception took that warping of reality to a different, hyper-real realm as Paul Franklin and his team folded the streetscapes of Paris upon each other. And now? What does the future hold for storytelling and visual effects?
(7) VERDANT ARTHURIANA. A second trailer has dropped for The Green Knight, to be released July 30.
An epic fantasy adventure based on the timeless Arthurian legend, THE GREEN KNIGHT tells the story of Sir Gawain, King Arthur’s reckless and headstrong nephew, who embarks on a daring quest to confront the eponymous Green Knight, a gigantic emerald-skinned stranger and tester of men.
(8) MEMORY LANE.
1995 – Twenty-six years ago, Patricia McKillip’s Something Rich and Strange won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature. The book was first published in hardcover by Bantam Spectra in November 1994. It was originally published as part of Brian Freud’s Faerielands series, a collaborative series of novels where the writer could choose from a set of illustrations that Froud did and write their novels around those pieces of art. Only two of the four planned books were published with the intended artwork, this one and The Wild Wood by Charles de Lint. A third illustration would be used but not as part of this series but rather as the U.K. edition of Terri Windling’s The Wood Wife which was intended to be part of this series but instead got a Susan Seddon Boulet cover.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born July 21, 1929 — John Woodvine, 92. He’s first shows up genre wise in An American Werewolf in London as Dr J. S. Hirsch, but shortly thereafter he’s Master West 468 in The Tripods and Prior Mordrin in the Knights of God children’s SF serial. Finally he’s Justice Dimkind in A Perfect State which is at least genre adjacent.
Born July 21, 1933 — John Gardner. Grendel, the retelling of Beowulf from the monster’s viewpoint, is likely the only work he’s remembered for. Gudgekin The Thistle Girl (and Other Tales) are genre fairy tales as are The King of the Hummingbirds (and Other Tales); A Child’s Bestiary is, well, guess what it says it is. Mickelsson’s Ghosts, his final novel written before his untimely death in a motorcycle accident, is a ghost story. OGH says he remembers Gardner’s short fiction collection The King’s Indian (1974) very fondly. It made a big impression on him when he was in college and still thought he might become an sf writer. (Died 1982.)
Born July 21, 1944 — David Feintuch. Astounding Award winner for best new writer. He wrote one science fiction series, the Seafort Saga, and a fantasy series, Rodrigo of Caledon. An eighth novel in his SF series, Galahad’s Hope, was apparently completed but never published. (Died 2006.)
Born July 21, 1948 — Garry Trudeau, 73. Best remembered for creating the Doonesbury franchise which I’m not pretending is genre but I wanted to note his birthday. The first daily strip was published Oct. 26, 1970 (he does new ones only on Sundays now) which means he’s been at it for over fifty years.
Born July 21, 1951 — Robin Williams. Suicides depress me. I remember a bootleg tape of a performance of him and George Carlin in their cocaine fueled days. No, not even genre adjacent but damn brilliant. Such manic energy. Genre wise, he was brilliant in most everything he did, be it Mork & Mindy, Hook which I adore, The Fisher King, Bicentennial Man or Jumanji. (Died 2014.)
Born July 21, 1969 — Christopher Shea, 52. Someone at casting likes him as he showed up in three Trek series, Voyager, Deep Space Nine and Enterprise playing a total of four roles. His only other genre was on Charmed.
Born July 21, 1976 — Jaime Murray, 45. If you watch genre television, you’ve most likely seen her as she’s been Helena G. Wells in the Warehouse 13, Stahma Tarr in Defiance, Fiona/the Black Fairy In Once Upon a Time, Antoinette in The Originals, and Nyssa al Ghul in Gotham. Film wise, she was Livinia in The Devil’s Playground and Gerri Dandridge in Fright Night 2: New Blood.
(10) THE EARLY BIRD. San Diego Comic-Con International has posted the Program Schedule for Comic-Con@Home, running July 23-25 – there are also some pre-con items on the schedule for today and tomorrow.
(11) IT’S A MYSTERY TO HIM. James Davis Nicoll has picked out some really good ones: “Five Captivating SFF Mystery Novels” at Tor.com. I want to read all of them.
The Apothecary Diaries 01 by Natsu Hyuuga (2020)
Kidnapped and sold as a maid to the rear palace, the sprawling residence for the emperor’s many wives and consorts, Maomao is determined to keep a low profile until her term of service is over and she can return to her old life as a would-be apprentice to her apothecary foster-father in a nearby red light district. Bright, pragmatic, and aloof, Maomao sees little to covet in the endless squabbles of the rear palace.
Sadly for this plan, Maomao’s observant nature, unusual skills, and inability to restrain from interfering in potentially lethal misadventures draw the attention of powerful eunuch Jinshi. Maomao has committed an error even riskier than offending one of the court’s most powerful functionaries. She has inadvertently shown that her deductive prowess could be useful. Which means, of course, when confronted with seemingly inexplicable mysteries—or even just the need for a toxin-resistant food taster—it is to Maomao that Jinshi turns. And if things go horribly wrong? Well, that probably won’t affect Jinshi.
…With the novel now a Hugo Finalist, and me, as the author, as a native New Yorker having re-read the book recently in audio, I thought a second look at the book was in order to explore other facets of the novel, and the audiobook in particular….
While I had highly enjoyed reading the book in ebook last year, my choice of re-reading it audio, first a way to fill some loose hours in my listening schedule and a way to tag back into the book in order to rank it as a Hugo Finalist on my ballot. I was, however, riveted from the beginning for a number of reasons.
The choice of narrator, Robin Miles, is an excellent choice. Miles has worked with Jemisin before (notably on the Broken Earth trilogy) and has a very good voice for Jemisin’s word choice and sentence style. It’s a wonderfully immersive performance on her part, and her voice kept me listening, to the point of NPR style “Driveway moments” throughout the production. This is a book I could have done even better listening to it on a long driving trip.
The use of sound in the audiobook was inspired. While this is not a full cast production, and just has the aforementioned Miles as narrator, the production is not content to just use her considerable vocal talents. The audiobook employs some sound effects and tricks to help immerse the reader into, particularly, the cosmic horror of the novel in a way that the print novel doesn’t quite manage….
… With the recent publication of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Shards of Earth, and now this, John Appel’s debut into novels, Assassin’s Orbit, there appears to be a mini boomlet in space opera stories set in a verse where Earth, the center, has been removed from the equation, and in point of fact, the power that ended Earth is one that might return in full force and flower and destroy what has been built in the meantime. And, also, the theme of how expatriates, if not outright refugees, try to build a new life far away from a home they cannot return to is one that is very much of this moment….
This is now a streaming show that you connect with using one of these platforms: YouTube; Facebook Live; or Twitch.
(15) DUNE CAST POSTERS. Warner Bros. has released a series of character posters from Dune, the film adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel directed by Denis Villeneuve. Its world premiere will happen at the Venice Film Festival in September before its October 22 release. See the character posters on Twitter. Thread starts here. Poster of Timothée Chalamet, who stars as Paul Atreides; Zendaya (Chani); Rebecca Ferguson (Lady Jessica); Jason Momoa (Duncan Idaho); Oscar Isaac (Duke Leto Atreides); Javier Bardem (Stilgar); Josh Brolin (Gurney Halleck); and Stellan Skarsgård (Baron Vladimir Harkonnen). Also Dave Bautista, Sharon Duncan Brewster, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Chang Chen and David Dastmalchian and Charlotte Rampling.
(16) PRO TIP. Larry Correia gave everyone a free lesson about “How To Write Your Author Bio” [Internet Archive link] at Monster Hunter Nation. The TL:DR version is: write a straight bio with your credits, then take the curse off by writing a blog post that belittles whatever you humblebragged about. For example:
And —
(17) VIDEO OF THE DAY. In “Honest Game Trailers: Scarlet Nexus,” Fandom Games says this game is “one of the most anime-friendly games ever” but not based on any actual anime, so you don’t have to prep before playing the game.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Chris M. Barkley, N., SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Andrew Porter, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, and Michael Toman for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
