Cloud-Castles by Dave Freer (Magic Isle Press) has won the 2023 Prometheus Award for Best Novel for novels published in 2022.
The citation says:
Set on diverse habitats floating above a gas-giant planet, this zestful and often funny coming-of-age adventure charts the progress of a mis-educated, socially awkward and well-meaning young man, brilliant but naïve, thrust into a succession of strange human and alien cultures and life- and liberty-threatening situations.
With help from a street-smart sidekick, he escapes imprisonment and slavery and forges innovative, profitable businesses with decentralized, stateless people scattered through the planet’s clouds.
Through such entrepreneurship, cooperative individualism and fish-out-of-water encounters with an “outback” frontier culture reflecting the Australian novelist’s own heritage, the story (formally a comedy in structure according to the classic Greek definition) reveals how markets work, why profits are moral and necessary in a free society and how societies flourish through reinvestment and market innovation.
The other 2023 Best Novel finalists were Widowland by C.J. Carey (Quercus); Captain Trader Helmsman Spy by Karl K. Gallagher (Kelt Haven Press); A Beast Cannot Feign by “Dr. Insensitive Jerk” (AKA Gordon Hanka) (Amazon); and Summer’s End by John Van Stry (Baen Books.)
THE PROMETHEUS HALL OF FAME FOR BEST CLASSIC FICTION
“Free Men,”a Robert Heinlein novelette, won the 2023 Best Classic Fiction award and will be inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.
Robert A. Heinlein
The citation says:
Heinlein’s 1966 novelette, first published in his collection The Worlds of Robert A. Heinlein and later collected in Expanded Universe, offers a strong defense of freedom and American ideals.
The novelette focuses on the aftermath of an invasion and U.S. occupation after a nuclear “20 Minute War” and how a small band of heroic but practical guerrilla fighters survive, adapt and resist tyranny at great cost.
The other Prometheus Hall of Fame finalists were “Primary Education of the Camiroi,” a 1966 short story by R.A. Lafferty; That Hideous Strength, a 1945 novel by C.S. Lewis; Circus World, a 1981 collection of linked stories by Barry B. Longyear; and The Truth, Terry Pratchett’s 2000 novel and part of his Discworld series.
AWARDS CEREMONY. The 43rd annual Prometheus Awards will be presented online in mid-August in a Zoom awards ceremony.
PROMETHEUS AWARDS HISTORY. The Prometheus Awards, sponsored by the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), was first presented in 1979, making it one of the most enduring awards after the Nebula and Hugo awards, and one of the oldest fan-based awards currently in sf.
In the words of the LFS:
The Prometheus Awards recognize outstanding works of science fiction and fantasy that dramatize the perennial conflict between liberty and power and champion cooperation over coercion as the root of civility and social harmony.
Such works may critique or satirize authoritarian trends, expose abuses of power by the institutionalized coercion of the State, imagine what forms a fully free society might take or imagine paths to creating such societies, and/or uphold individual rights and freedom for all as the only moral and practical foundation for peace, prosperity, progress and justice.
The Best Novel winner receives a plaque with a one-ounce gold coin, and the Hall of Fame winner a plaque with a smaller gold coin.
(1) HOW THE BESTSELLER LIST IS WON. Several authors responded to Sarah Pinborough’s question about whether certain kinds of sales affect the UK bestseller lists.
… a new generation of writers now believes it is impossible to write “near future” sci-fi without putting the climate emergency at the forefront of their speculative fiction. For many, this is because they are living through the crisis and can imagine all too easily what may happen if real-life behaviour doesn’t change….
… [EJ Swift says] “Climate breakdown is escalating so rapidly that events which 10 years ago might have seemed like the distant future are happening now. Everything is filtered through that lens – even when it’s not the main focus, climate anxiety is there in the periphery.”
Other recent books dealing with the devastation to the climate include Kate Sawyer’s The Stranding, which begins with the striking image of two strangers sheltering in the mouth of a dead, beached whale as a calamitous extinction event hits the world, Susannah Wise’s This Fragile Earth, in which the complete failure of all technology brings into focus our uneasy relationship with nature, and Sarah K Jackson’s Not Alone, about a mother and son surviving in the aftermath of a microplastics storm that has decimated the population.
The science fiction writer Adrian Tchaikovsky, known for his huge, widescreen space opera novels set in distant galaxies, is turning his attention to the climate crisis next year with a horror novella called Saturation Point….
(3) PARSING THE 2023 HUGO BALLOT. John Scalzi shares insights “about why the Hugos are the way they are these days: Why Tor seems to get a lot of nominations, for example, and why diverse groups are represented in the finalist list as they are, and whether the Hugo voters are an insular and monolith bloc” in “Hugo Neepery, Via Reddit” at Whatever.
… If you are wondering how marginalized groups have started to become widely represented in SF/F awards (as they are not just in the Hugos, but also the Nebulas, the Locus and the World Fantasy Awards) there are three factors I want you to consider. The first is the (relative) decline of the “Big Three” short fiction magazines in SF/F (Asimov’s, Analog, F&SF) and the commensurate rise of a series of online short fiction publishing venues like Uncanny, Clarkesworld and Strange Horizons (among others). The Big Three ran on Silent, Boomer and Elder GenX writers, and the market forces for the genre those writers came up in was heavily cis and white and male. The newer venues, by inclination and necessity, cultivated younger generations of writers from more diverse backgrounds. When the Big Three declined and the online magazines rose, their respective stables of authors more or less rose or declined with them, in terms of award consideration.
The second thing to consider is who is buying science fiction and fantasy, both in the magazine and in the publishing houses. Surprise! The editorial stratum of SF/F/H is not the straight, white and (predominately but not exclusively) male enclave it was before; the editorial bench of SF/F/H publishing (and publishing generally) is much more queer and of color than it has been in years past. They are interested in publishing more than just the “usual suspects” in SF/F/H as defined by previous decades and — this is important — the diverse SF/F/H they are acquiring is selling very well. This will naturally have an impact on what is considered at awards time.
The third thing to consider with respect to the Hugos specifically is that close to a decade ago a group of right-wing fans and writers, alarmed by what they saw as left-wing, SJW, politically-correct, etc work creeping into the awards, decided to try to run slates of work to counter that trend. This did not go well, in no small part because their tactics energized a very large group of fandom to counter their actions, including a significant number of more progressive Hugo voters. When the “takeover” of the Hugos failed, most of these right-wing folks flounced from the Hugo voting pool; some of the more progressive voters stayed and continue to vote today. This is reflected in what gets nominated and thus, what eventually becomes a finalist….
…WEST: The parents are really an interesting part of the strip. In a way they’re foils, but the thing that interests me is that it’s extremely rare for them to express any love for Calvin. Is that simply because it doesn’t have any comic potential, or is it something inherent in their characters?
WATTERSON: Again, I feel like I’m falling into the trap of psychoanalyzing the characters and I don’t want to say, “Well, this character acts this way,” because that’s confining. I think the way they relate to Calvin is more a reflection of my misanthropic tendencies than any literary concern.
Many strips have, you know, the funny character, the straight man, the foil — those characters are stereotypes and fairly flat. The role of these characters in the strip is entirely defined by their function as a member of a social group or age group, or whatever, and I’m trying to avoid that as much as I possibly can. I try to make each character, even the ones that aren’t that important, a unique personality that, over time, will develop. Some of the minor characters appear less often than Calvin and Hobbes, but, hopefully, over years, each one will become a unique personality that will be every bit as complex and interesting as Calvin and Hobbes.
In other words, I don’t want the parents to simply function as parents. I want them to be unique individuals as well. They are parents, of course, and, as sane people, they have to react to Calvin’s personality. What I try to do in writing any character is to put myself in his position, to the extent that I can, and I know that if I was Calvin’s dad or Calvin’s mom that I would not react to him with the gooey sentimentality that sometimes appears in other strips. Given Calvin’s usual behavior, I think his parents show admirable restraint in theirs….
…The report comes from a New Yorker profile on the 81-year-old Delany, which mentioned that Gaiman was adapting Nova for a Prime Video series. Gaiman was briefly interviewed for the article, and called Delany a profound influence whose work inspired him to attempt a similar sophisticated tone in his comics such as The Sandman. “I was used to very functional prose,” Gaiman said, calling the author by his nickname Chip. “Chip felt like I’d taken a step into poetry… There was no limit to how good you could be in your chosen area.” Prime Video has not yet confirmed a Nova series at this time….
Adult Swim has released the first full episode of My Adventures with Superman on YouTube – or you can watch it below. The series, which features Jack Quaid as Clark Kent, Alice Lee as Lois Lane, and Ishmel Sahid as Jimmy Olsen, is Warner Bros. Animation and DC’s newest animated series. The first two episodes are now streaming on Max. One new episode will debut every Thursday at midnight on Adult Swim and the next day on Max. It is unknown if future episodes will hit YouTube as well.
A serialized coming-of-age story, My Adventures with Superman follows 20-somethings Clark Kent, the bright and driven Lois Lane, and their best friend Jimmy Olsen as they begin to discover who they are and everything they can accomplish together as an investigative reporting team at the Daily Planet….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuuZSAm-PaI
(7) MEMORY LANE.
2010 – [Written by Cat Eldridge from a choice by Mike Glyer.]
South Africa is one of those countries just starting to get known for its genre fiction. Though it goes back a century in terms of a history of science fiction being created there, that fiction like the greater culture there has been irretrievably changed by Apartheid and the novel Mike has chosen this time is one of those works.
Lauren Beukes is our author this time, she’s written six novels including the forthcoming Bridges, some of which are SF, some of which are mysteries.
Great mysteries too though the cringe factor is really high in them. Blood and gore everywhere. Now the SF she has written is first rate — imaginative storytelling that is noticeably different has it is, well, rooted in South African history and culture. One most of us aren’t familiar with.
Zoo City was published in trade paper thirteen years ago by Umuzi / Random House Struik. The cover art is by Joey Hi- Fi. It would win both a Clarke Award and a Kitschie, and be nominated for a BSFA, Otherwise, and a World Fantasy Award.
And now for our Beginning…
In Zoo City, it’s impolite to ask.
Morning light the sulfur color of the mine dumps seeps across Johannesburg’s skyline and sears through my window. My own personal bat signal. Or a reminder that I really need to get curtains.
Shielding my eyes—morning has broken and there’s no picking up the pieces—I yank back the sheet and peel out of bed. Benoît doesn’t so much as stir, with only his calloused feet sticking out from under the duvet like knots of driftwood. Feet like that, they tell a story. They say he walked all the way from Kinshasa with his Mongoose strapped to his chest.
The Mongoose in question is curled up like a furry comma on my laptop, the glow of the LED throbbing under his nose. Like he doesn’t know that my computer is out of bounds. Let’s just say I’m precious about my work. Let’s just say it’s not entirely legal.
I take hold of the laptop on either side and gently tilt it over the edge of my desk. At thirty degrees, the Mongoose starts sliding down the front of the laptop. He wakes with a start, tiki tavi claws scrabbling for purchase. As he starts to fall, he contorts in the air and manages to land feet first. Hunching his stripy shoulders, he hisses at me, teeth bared. I hiss back. The Mongoose realizes he has urgent flea bites to attend to.
Leaving the Mongoose to scrolf at its flank, I duck under one of the loops of rope hanging from the ceiling, the closest I can get to providing authentic Amazon jungle vines, and pad over the rotten linoleum to the cupboard. Calling it a cupboard is a tad optimistic, like calling this dank room with its precariously canted floor and intermittent plumbing an apartment is optimistic. The cupboard is not much more than an open box with a piece of fabric pinned across it to keep the dust off my clothes—and Sloth, of course. As I pull back the gaudy sunflower print, Sloth blinks up at me sleepily from his roost, like a misshapen fur coat between the wire hangers. He’s not good at mornings.
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born July 9, 1906 — Walter Sande. He’s best remembered for being on Red Planet Mars, The War of the Worlds and Invaders from Mars, but he also showed up playing a heavy in such serials as The Green Hornet Strikes Again! and Sky Raiders, the latter being at least genre adjacent. He’s had a recurring role as Col. Crockett on The Wild Wild West, and one-offs on Voyage to the Bottom of The Sea, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Lost in Space and Bewitched. (Died 1971.)
Born July 9, 1911 — Mervyn Peake. Best remembered for the Gormenghast series which is quite delightfully weird. Most fans hold that there are but three novels in the series (Titus Groan, Gormenghast and Titus Alone) though there’s a novella, “Boy in Darkness”, that is a part of it. Peake planned a fourth book, Titus Awakes, but it was barely begun when he died. Maeve Gilmore, Peake’s widow, wrote the manuscript of a version titled Search Without End which remained unpublished until decades after her death. It incorporates a fragmentary text written by Peake. The Gormenghast series has been adapted for radio three times and television once, and it was announced in 2018 that Gaiman is writing the script for an adaptation. (Died 1968.)
Born July 9, 1944 — Glen Cook, 79. Yes, I’ve read his entire excellent Black Company series. I’ve also mostly liked his far lighter Garrett P.I. series (though not the last novel for reasons I’ll not discuss here) which it seems unfortunately he’s abandoned. And I really should read the Instrumentalities of the Night as I’ve heard good things about it. I’m really, really surprised not only that he hasn’t won any awards, but how few he’s been nominated for.
Born July 9, 1945 — Dean Koontz, 78. The genres of of mystery, horror, fantasy and science fiction are all home to him. Author of over a hundred novels, his first novel was SF — it being Star Quest (not in print) published as an Ace Double with Doom of the Green Planet by Emil Petaja. ISFDB claims over half of his output is genre, I’d say that a low estimate.
Born July 9, 1954 — Ellen Klages, 69. Her story “Basement Magic” won a Nebula Award for Best Novelette. I strongly recommend Portable Childhoods, a collection of her short fiction, published by Tachyon Publications, my favorite publisher of fantasy. They released another collection from her, Wicked Wonders, which is equally wonderful. Passing Strange, her novel set in 1940s San Francisco, which won a BSFA Award and a World Fantasy Award, is also really great. Ok, I really like her.
Born July 9, 1970 — Ekaterina Sedia, 53. Her Heart of Iron novel which was nominated for a Sidewise Award for Alternate History is simply awesome. I’d also recommend The Secret History of Moscow and the recent The House of Discarded Dreams as well, the latter is a fantastic audio work which is narrated by Robin Miles. It’s worth noting that the usual suspects list several collections by her, Willful Impropriety: 13 Tales of Society, Scandal, and Romance and Wilfill Impropriety that ISFDB doesn’t list. They’re quite superb it turns out as is Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy for which she won a World Fantasy Award. She had a story out just last year, “Ghost Shop”, in Professor Charlatan Bardot’s Travel Anthology to the Most (Fictional) Haunted Buildings in the Weird, Wild World. She’s amply stocked at the usual suspects. She’s also very deeply stocked at the audio suspects as well which sort of surprised and delighted me as I’ve added a number of her works to my To Be Listened to list, including The House of Discarded Dreams which sounds really fascinating in the manner of Gaiman’s Sandman.
(9) COMICS SECTION.
JumpStart involves some surprisingly early memories of Isaac Asimov.
Herman shows aliens getting their own first encounter.
(10) BEWARE THE BLINDING LIGHT. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] No, not the blinding light of atomic explosions in the Oppenheimer biopic, but the blinding light of full nudity, at least one sex scene, and an on-again-off-again love triangle. All involving Oppenheimer himself.
Christopher Nolan movies do love — sometimes. Memento and Inception feature dead wives who haunt their heroes. There’s a tragic love triangle in The Dark Knight and a tragic love quadrangle in The Prestige. That’s it! What he doesn’t do is sex and/or nudity. Oppenheimer, his forthcoming film about the “father of the atomic bomb,” is going to change that. If you thought the film’s R-rating — Nolan’s first since 2002’s Insomnia — was due to graphic A-bomb carnage…well, you may be right about that. But it’s also because there’s apparently a fair amount of kink….
… This celebrated span, in short, will do an immeasurable amount of good for an incredible number of critters that both roam and home in the area.
That important education? It comes courtesy of the National Wildlife Federation’s #SaveLACougers campaign, which is shedding an informative light on the upcoming Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing via several docent-helmed tours at the Agoura Hills site.
The under-construction skyway, or “wildway” if you prefer, will allow animals to move safely above the 101 freeway, significantly (and safely) expanding their frontiers.
And while the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, which broke ground in the spring of 2022, still has a ways to go before the jubilant ribbon-cutting, supporters of urban wildlife can take a look at the progress now and find out more about the bridge’s development and progress….
After 2,000 years under thesea, three flat, misshapen pieces of bronze at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens are all shades of green, from emerald to forest. From a distance, they look like rocks with patches of mold. Get closer, though, and the sight is stunning. Crammed inside, obscured by corrosion, are traces of technology that appear utterly modern: gears with neat triangular teeth (just like the inside of a clock) and a ring divided into degrees (like the protractor you used in school). Nothing else like this has ever been discovered from antiquity. Nothing as sophisticated, or even close, appears again for more than a thousand years.
For decades after divers retrieved these scraps from the Antikythera wreck from 1900 to 1901, scholars were unable to make sense of them. X-ray imaging in the 1970s and 1990s revealed that the device must have replicated the motions of the heavens. Holding it in your hands, you could track the paths of the Sun, Moon and planets with impressive accuracy. One investigator dubbed it “an ancient Greek computer.” But the X-ray images were difficult to interpret, so mainstream historians ignored the artifact even as it was championed by fringe writers such as Erich von Däniken, who claimed it came from an alien spaceship. It wasn’t until 2006 that the Antikythera mechanism captured broader attention. That year, Mike Edmunds of Cardiff University in Wales and his team published CT scans of the fragments, revealing more details of the inner workings, as well as hidden inscriptions—and triggering a burst of scholarly research….
After a devastating battle against a diabolical turtle, a team of five avengers – known as the TOBACCO FORCE – is sent on a mandatory retreat to strengthen their decaying group cohesion. Their break goes wonderfully well until Lézardin, Emperor of Evil, decides to annihilate planet Earth… But will they repair their relationship in time for a final epic battle?
[Thanks to Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Ersatz Culture, Daniel Dern, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day SocialInjusticeWorrier.]
Author S. B. Divya announced today in social media why she declined a 2023 Hugo nomination for the novelette “Two Hands, Wrapped in Gold” and removed her name from the list of Hugo-nominated semiprozine Escape Pod’s team members.
I was really excited to receive notice of a Hugo Award nomination back in 2018 – my first! I got the email at the office, and I had to step outside so that my co-editor, Mur Lafferty, and I could properly squee over the news that Escape Pod was a finalist for Best Semiprozine.
A few weeks ago, I was very surprised to receive another such email – that my story, “Two Hands, Wrapped in Gold,” had been nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Novelette. In addition, Escape Pod was nominated again for Best Semiprozine. As is customary, the awards team asked if I wished to accept the nominations or withdraw from consideration. Unfortunately, I’ve decided to choose the latter option.
Along with many other writers, I signed a petition last year against hosting the 2023 World Science Fiction Convention (AKA “WorldCon”) in Chengdu, China. The reason was to protest the Chinese government’s treatment of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang province. I believe that mass human rights violations and possible genocide have occurred in the region.
Given that China is primarily a state-run nation, no event of a magnitude like WorldCon’s will be free of government involvement. To compound this, one of this year’s Guests of Honor is Sergei Lukyanenko, an apologist for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, another act of aggression that I cannot support. I hold no ill will toward Chinese fandom, writers, or artists, and I know that many of them are working under repressive conditions, however I cannot in good conscience participate in this year’s WorldCon.
For these reasons, I chose to withdraw my novelette from consideration for the Hugo Award. I also asked the Escape Pod team to remove my name from the list of editors on the ballot. Non-participation in WorldCon includes staying out of the awards ceremony. I deeply regret having to take this action, and I have tremendous gratitude for everyone who loved “Two Hands, Wrapped in Gold,” and chose to nominate it for this great honor. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
By Steve Vertlieb: Elmer Bernstein once commented that, in his considered opinion, Bernard Herrmann and Miklos Rozsa were the two greatest practitioners of symphonic motion picture composition in the long history of the genre. The centennial of Herrmann’s birth was celebrated in 2011, and so we thought it appropriate, then, to commemorate his enormous contribution to the art of cinema by applauding some of his more outstanding works. While choosing merely ten scores by the composer to discuss is a daunting task, it is nevertheless the assignment for which we were chosen. For my own singular collection of titles, I have decided to include those Herrmann scores which have had the most profound emotional influence, and impact upon me. My reasons, as you will read, are purely personal, reflecting an unabashed affection for both the composer and his incomparable artistic legacy.
THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR (20th Century Fox, 1947) – Among the most searingly romantic, and deeply sensitive scores ever composed for a motion picture, Herrmann’s outward bravado, as Elmer Bernstein tellingly observed in the documentary, Bernard Herrmann: Music For The Movies, was belied by the musical expression of his secret soul. For the timeless story of star crossed lovers, whose depth of passion for one another transcended mortal barriers, finding resolution at last, beyond the ethereal veil of eternal sleep, Bernard Herrmann composed, perhaps, his most profoundly beautiful score…a haunting, emotional masterpiece on wings of lyrical romanticism. The score, like the film that sired it, remains a gloriously tender rhapsody of idealized love and eternal devotion.
VERTIGO (Paramount, 1958) – Perhaps Herrmann’s masterpiece, as well as Hitchcock’s, this unforgettable film and score remain as arresting and fresh as when first released. Herrmann reached the zenith of his artistry with this heart breaking, Wagnerian score, filled with near operatic aspirations and tonality. Once again, idealized love is frustrated to the point of madness as the woman of James Stewart’s dreams is lost to him, an apparent victim of suicide. Obsession drives him literally to the brink and back again, realizing the living specter of his dead love embodied in another woman. Herrmann’s music rises achingly to levels of exquisite torment as Stewart fights to recover both the woman he lost, and his own sanity.
FAHRENHEIT 451 (Paramount, 1966) – Ray Bradbury, an American treasure, lent his genius to the motion picture screen when Francois Truffaut filmed the visionary science fiction classic. A tale of intellectual and emotional repression, Bernard Herrmann masterfully captured and conveyed the longing of souls yearning for freedom with his beautiful score, particularly expressed in the hauntingly eloquent final track, “The Road,” in which the chords of melancholy transition, from ashes to rebirth rise, as a phoenix of hope, in the rustling winds.
OBSESSION (Columbia, 1976) – Brian DePalma, who unashamedly found his own cinematic voice while emulating Alfred Hitchcock, filmed his own singular masterpiece in tribute to the Master’s Vertigo. A ghostly apparition of the earlier film, Obsession is, nonetheless, a stunningly erotic tale of romantic love lost, as Cliff Robertson (channeling James Stewart) finds his dead wife once more, seemingly reincarnated as a young Italian girl he meets at an art gallery. Consumed with her uncanny likeness to his deceased bride, he blindly and selfishly works to recreate the past and restore her to his personal happiness. Herrmann, having lost none of his sentimental heart, fills the soundtrack with one of his most deeply felt and passionate scores for this hauntingly psychotic story of love and betrayal. Reportedly, Herrmann wept openly when viewing the finished picture. It would be, sadly, his next to last work for the screen.
NORTH BY NORTHWEST (MGM, 1959) – Bernard Herrmann was one of a gifted hand full of screen composers equipped to write a truly exciting main title sequence. The overture for this Hitchcock classic is as remarkable an achievement musically, as was Hitchcock’s stunning, accompanying visual text. David Raksin remarked that only “Benny” Herrmann could get away with using a Fandango for a theme. However one describes it, Herrmann’s opening title music for North By Northwest is an exhilarating roller coaster ride through a cinematic amusement park that sparks the flame for one of the most entertaining thrillers ever conceived, either by director or composer. The main titles set the uncertain stage and, like the fragile instability of exposure to an earthquake, we remain off center and on tilt for the remainder of the film. The exuberance and sheer vitality of the score weaves a dizzying maze from which neither Cary Grant nor the audience will soon recover.
GARDEN OF EVIL (20th Century Fox, 1954) – Herrmann proved himself as adept at writing period scores as he was at home with contemporary music. This Gary Cooper vehicle, despite its western setting, contained all of the elements of great drama…survival, greed, heroism, and lust. Bernard Herrmann obliged the studio by writing richly expressive, full bodied and expansive themes, filling his musical landscape with one of his most colorful scores. So visual was his thematic material that 20th Century Fox chose to use elements of this score, along with his comparable music for Five Fingers, as the basis for its stock music library, in trailers advertising the studio’s products for years to come.
PSYCHO (Paramount, 1960) – This is, unquestionably, among the most influential motion pictures scores since sound transformed the movies. Herrmann’s music for Hitchcock’s most grizzly, and infamous production, haunted both showers and bathroom tile for decades, foreshadowing countless succeeding scores, and contemporary composer’s inspiration. In the absence of Herrmann’s unforgettable presence, Psycho remains an excellent film. With the addition of his haunting main title music, and searingly abrasive accompaniment to murderous thrusts of a blade most “foul,” the picture becomes at once a masterwork of terror and, ultimately, poignant depravity. It is a testament to Herrmann’s power and inspiration that the score for Alfred Hitchcock’s most notorious motion picture is continually performed today by orchestras around the world.
FIVE FINGERS (20th Century Fox, 1952) – Written and Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and based upon the book Operation Cicero, this wartime thriller focused on the exploits of a renowned British spy. James Mason tendered his usual finely tuned, cultured, and dapper performance as the spy in the employ of the British Consulate, while Bernard Herrmann contributed the superb and thrilling themes that would add immeasurably to the suspense, and eventual undoing of the greedy, albeit brilliant, valet. As noted earlier, the generous thematic musical materials were used often in subsequent trailers, and television series produced by Twentieth Century Fox.
THE SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO (20th Century Fox, 1952) – Based quite loosely upon the story by Ernest Hemingway, this stirring production directed by Henry King became a thoughtful, poetic, heart breaking romantic melodrama centered upon the tragic consequences of indulgence, war and remembrance. For the main titles Herrmann composed one of the most thrilling preludes, perhaps, in the history of cinema. His opening theme is a startling revelation, pulsing with dramatic urgency, compelling the listener to follow in rapt, spellbinding attention. Herrmann’s raging overture is among the most exciting pieces of music in his career, or any other. Rarely has the screen produced so ravenous and intense a musical salutation.
JANE EYRE (20th Century Fox, 1944) – Charlotte Bronte’s sweeping novel offered the composer the groundwork for one of his most profoundly passionate and romantic scores. Alternately somber and rhapsodic, the tragic tale of a lonely heroine accepting a position as a governess at a Victorian mansion, lorded over by a dark, brooding widower, was the stuff of classic love, and legendary devotion. Beautifully directed by Robert Stevenson, and performed by Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine, the heroic grandeur of Bronte’s haunting adventure gave Bernard Herrmann wondrous license to explore the full breadth, and limitless horizons of his fierce, artistic palette. Herrmann’s lush, deeply sensitive translation of Bronte’s stormy romantic fantasy, awakened memories of love’s awesome power and beauty, expressed so eloquently by his tortured, yet exquisite musical tapestry.
Bernard Herrmann was a legendary force in Hollywood, contributing some of the most singularly remarkable music in motion picture history. Over a period of thirty five years, he composed the symphonic accompaniment and inspiration for our most treasured dreams and aspirations. If music is the light by which cinematic imagery is emotionally defined and illuminated, then Bernard Herrmann was the flame that danced atop the candle. Dominating the expressive, new art form, Herrmann’s massive contributions forever changed the way we listen to movies, turning a largely polite, arid background into a psychologically complex, meaningful exploration of character and definition. Herrmann was prolific in the concert hall, as well as related media. For television, he wrote the ethereal background music for Rod Serling’s bittersweet tale of childhood’s wonder lost in “Walking Distance” for The Twilight Zone. It was a memorable achievement in a rich lifetime of memorable achievements. On this, the one hundredth anniversary of his birth…we celebrate his life.
The award is given by the Maltese Falcon Society of Japan for the best hardboiled/private eye novel published in Japan in the previous year.
The winning author receives a certificate of merit and a falcon sculpture crafted in wood.
The Maltese Falcon Society was founded in San Francisco in 1981, and later added chapters in New York and Japan. The Japanese chapter is the last one still active, and holds meetings in Tokyo and Osaka.
2023 FINGERPRINT AWARDS
Capital Crime, a crime fiction con in London, has announced the finalists for The Fingerprint Awards 2022. The public can vote for the winners at the link. The winners will be announced August 31.
CRIME BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022
The Botanist by M W Craven
The It Girl by Ruth Ware
Bleeding Heart Yard by Elly Griffiths
The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell
The Twist of a Knife by Anthony Horowitz
THRILLER BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022
Like a Sister by Kellye Garrett
Do No Harm by Jack Jordan
Truly Darkly Deeply by Victoria Selman
Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister
A Good Day to Die by Amen Alonge
HISTORICAL BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022
The Lost Man of Bombay by Vaseem Khan
The Clockwork Girl by Anna Mazzola
A Fatal Crossing by Tom Hindle
Miss Aldridge Regrets by Louise Hare
Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson
GENRE-BUSTING BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022
The House of Ashes by Stuart Neville
The Skeleton Key by Erin Kelly
The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd
Wild and Wicked Things by Francesca May
Suicide Thursday by Will Carver
DEBUT BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022
The Maid by Nita Prose
Wahala by Nikki May
That Green-Eyed Girl by Julie Owen-Moylan
A Fatal Crossing by Tom Hindle
Death and the Conjuror by Tom Mead
AUDIO BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022
Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith; narrated by Robert Glenister
The Skeleton Key by Erin Kelly; narrated by Helen Keeley
One Last Secret by Adele Parks; narrated by Kristin Atherton
The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett; narrated by Thomas Judd
Better the Blood by Michael Bennett; narrated by Miriama McDowell and Richard Te Are
2023 DAVITT AWARDS
Sisters in Crime Australia have announced the 2023 Davitt Awards longlist. The award is given for the best crime and mystery books published by women in 2022..
ADULT NOVELS
N D Campbell, Daughters of Eve (Allen & Unwin) Debut
Jane Caro, The Mother (Allen & Unwin) Debut
Lucy Christopher, Release (Text Publishing)
Aoife Clifford, When We Fall (Ultimo Press)
Maryrose Cuskelly, The Cane (Allen & Unwin) Debut
Kerry Greenwood, Murder in Williamstown (Allen & Unwin)
Margaret Hickey, Stone Town (Penguin Random House Australia)
Julie Janson, Madukka the River Serpent (UWA Publishing)
Tracey Lien, All That’s Left Unsaid (HQ Fiction) Debut
Fleur McDonald, Broad River Station (Allen & Unwin)
Dinuka McKenzie, The Torrent (HarperCollins Publishing Australia) Debut
Dervla McTiernan, The Murder Rule (HarperCollins Publishing Australia)
Mercedes Mercier, White Noise (HarperCollins Publishing Australia) Debut
Vikki Petraitis, The Unbelieved (Allen & Unwin) Debut
Sally Piper, Bone Memories (University of Queensland Press)
Hayley Scrivenor, Dirt Town (Pan Macmillan Australia) Debut
Emma Styles, No Country for Girls (Sphere, an imprint of Hachette Australia) Debut
Susan White, Cut (Affirm Press)
YOUNG ADULT NOVELS
Louise Bassett, The Hidden Girl (Walker Books) Debut
Sarah Epstein, Night Lights (Fourteen Press)
Ellie Marney, The Killing Code (Allen & Unwin)
CHILDREN’S NOVELS
Deborah Abela, The Book of Wondrous Possibilities (Puffin, an imprint of Penguin Random House Australia)
Charlie Archbold, The Sugarcane Kids and the Red-bottomed Boat (Text Publishing)
Fleur Ferris, Seven Days (Penguin Random House Australia)
Emily Gale, The Goodbye Year (Text Publishing)
Nicki Greenberg, The Detective’s Guide to New York City (Affirm Press)
Lian Tanner, Rita’s Revenge (Allen & Unwin)
Sue Whiting, Pearly and Pig and the Great Hairy Beast (Walker Books)
NON-FICTION
Wendy Davis, Don’t Make a Fuss: It’s only the Claremont Serial Killer (Fremantle Press) Debut
Meg Foster, Boundary Crossers: The hidden history of Australia’s other bushrangers (NewSouth Books) Debut
Ellis Gunn, Rattled (Allen & Unwin) Debut
Katrina Marson, Legitimate Sexpectations: The power of sex-ed (Scribe Publications)
Megan Norris, Out of the Ashes (Big Sky Publishing)
Half a million Duolingo users are currently learning High Valyrian. But how do you make a language out of nothing? The linguists behind top fantasy TV shows and films explain:
If a language offers clues to the culture of its speakers, then the experience of learning Game of Thrones’s High Valyrian on Duolingo conjures visions of a bustling historic civilisation in which owls stalk the skies, magic abounds, and the spectre of death forever haunts the imaginations of the living. You learn to say “The woman is sweating” before that most basic greeting, “Hello”. An incongruously cheerful cartoon asks you to translate “All men must die, goodbye.” And, of course: “Ñuhyz zaldrīzesse gevī issi.” (“My dragons are beautiful!”).
Described in George RR Martin’s books as the language of the dragon-taming rulers of a once-great empire, Old Valyria has been compared to the Roman Republic, and High Valyrian to classical Latin. The language only assumed full life when linguist David J Peterson took it on for season three of the television series in 2012. Working from the few High Valyrian phrases mentioned in the book – names, places, and the infamous strapline, “Valar Morghūlis” (“All men must die”) – Peterson created an entire language. The Duolingo course was launched in 2017….
(2) HUGO ANALYSIS. Cora Buhlert has posted “Some Thoughts on the 2023 Hugo Finalists”. Cora also says she is “Still trying to hunt down information on some of the Chinese finalists, but it’s difficult due to multiple spellings and multiple people with the same names. But I’ve made friends with the two Chinese fan writer finalists.”
Speaking about the Best Series category:
… Personally, I’m sad that Elric by Melniboné by Michael Moorcock did not make the ballot, because not only is it a seminal sword and sorcery series, it’s also the longest running series written by a single author ever, as far as I know. The first Elric story “The Dreaming City” appeared in 1961, The Citadel of Forgotten Myths in 2022, i.e. the series has been going for a whopping 61 years. Plus, Michael Moorcock has never won a Hugo due to the longstanding anti-fantasy bias of the Hugos and the undeserved dominance of John W. Campbell’s Analog in the 1960s, when he was editing New Worlds. That said, a new Elric story will appear later this year in New Edge Sword and Sorcery No. 1, so maybe we can rectify this oversight next year….
(3) SWORD SLINGER. Marion Deeds has a nice overview of the Jirel of Joiry stories by C.L. Moore in her latest “WWWednesday” column at Fantasy Literature.
Jirel of Joiry is arguably the first pulp-fiction sword-and-sorcery female protagonist. The creation of C.L. (Catherine Lucille) Moore, Jirel first appeared in Weird Tales in 1934. Did she pre-date Red Sonya? Well, yes and no. Also in 1934, Robert E. Howard (creator of Conan) wrote a historical fantasy “The Shadow of the Vulture” featuring a woman called Red Sonja of Rogatino, of Ukranian-Polish ancestry, who wielded pistols, not swords. In the 1960s, the chainmail-bikini- clad woman-warrior named Red Sonja emerged, but it’s hard to look at her and not see Moore’s tempestuous, red-tressed warrior—actually, probably staring in smirking disbelief at Sonja’s bikini….
(4) MAGIC KINGDOM. Former Disney Imagineer Jim Shull regularly tweets photos and history about the several international Disney theme parks he worked on. Here are some recent examples. (DCA = “Disney California Adventure”.)
In 20/20 the train near the entrance of DCA wasn't all that bad as it has been made out to be. There was an idea behind it, and it featured a real engine. There has been worst. #dca2023#Disneylandpic.twitter.com/EexT9jSSw3
One lesson learned while providing creative direction on global projects is that construction in different countries use different method to achieve the same objectives. In France a electric vault was made from pre cast concrete, where in China it was built brick by brick. pic.twitter.com/LDnKrYht26
Once the model for Toy Story Playland was complete, the question arose where the review for the model would occur? The image documents the scale of the model and so moving it would be no easy task. #ToyStory#Disneylandparispic.twitter.com/3BKFiyZtAI
The answer of how to move the Toy Story Playland model was to load it into this truck and drive the 6 1/2 hours up I 5 from Glendale to Emeryville. Harris Ranch was around the half way point and served a good lunch. #ToyStory#WDIpic.twitter.com/16pvt1fkGw
Our job complete and the model approved we drove back to Glendale picking up even more bugs on the 6 1/2 drive from Emeryville. The life of a Imagineer is filled with glamorous stories such as this one. #bugs#insects#WDW#Imagineerpic.twitter.com/6DfooTH74n
…Okay, time for the caveat. I’m not going to be participating in programming at Worldcon this year. (To be clear, I have not been invited to do so yet, not having an attending membership. And I have never attended before, though that hasn’t been by choice, simply logistics. Every year I say, “maybe next year I’ll be able to travel again… ah well.” So this isn’t as much of a sacrifice as I know it will be for others making similar decisions….
(6) NOW ON THE SHELVES. Lisa Tuttle’s “The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror – reviews roundup” in the Guardian covers The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi; Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs; Silent City by Sarah Davis-Goff; Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia; and Red Smoking Mirror by Nick Hunt.
It’s become tradition for my family to spend the Fourth of July watching a vaguely patriotic movie in which things are blown up in pursuit of a common good. Independence Day, both National Treasure movies, Team America: World Police … you get the idea. This year, we chose the Tim Burton film Mars Attacks!, in which an overstuffed cast must fend off an army of killer Martians. Released in late 1996, the film drew on the legacy of cheesy alien-invasion and disaster movies, and culminated in a couple of major musical reveals.
[This missive contains several Mars Attacks! spoilers. Stop reading now if you wish to remain in the dark about this 27-year-old film and the fate of its bloodthirsty villains.]
Given that parts of Mars Attacks! take place in Las Vegas, it wasn’t a huge surprise that Tom Jones, already an established presence in three decades of movies and TV, would pop up in several scenes — first performing “It’s Not Unusual” and later as part of a small band of heroes who make their escape from a city under siege. The bigger surprise was the identity of the musician whose voice, when blared through a loudspeaker, vibrated at a frequency that caused Martian heads to explode. His name was Slim Whitman, and he was one of the best-selling musicians of the 20th century. As we watched the film, we quickly realized that I was the only person in the room who’d heard of him….
(8) MEMORY LANE.
1996 – [Written by Cat Eldridge from a choice by Mike Glyer.]
One of the joys of doing these Beginnings as a collaboration with Mike is that I get to discover writers such as Gill Alderman.
She had a short genre career with just four novels, two in her Guna sequence – The Archivist: A Black Romance and The Land Beyond: A Fable, plus two others, Lilith’s Castle and The Memory Palace, plus two stories in a career that lasted about a decade starting in the Eighties.
And she’s done some screenplay writing including for HBO’s The Undoing mystery series. Outside of the genre, she has written are Gone Girl, Sharp Objects, Dark Places and the “The Grownup” novella.
The Memory Palace (Voyager, 1996) which is what Mike selected for our Beginning was nominated for British Science Fiction Award the year Kim Stanley Robinson’s Blue Mars won.
And now for this Beginning…
His hands ached badly, as they often did at the end of a long keyboard session. He flexed his fingers while he looked out, beyond the screen, into the twilit garden of the old rectory. It was a little cooler; he thought the rosebushes trembled slightly. There might be a breeze, one zephyr only: just a breath of air to end the stifling day. The lawns merged with churchyard and field and, in Humfrey’s Close, the Norman castle mound looked bigger than it was, worn down by nine hundred years of weather, rabbits and grazing sheep. A mile or so away, Karemarn’s dark slopes were beginning to merge with the night sky.
The sun had set. The only light in the room came from the screen of the computer before the window, a luminescent shield which occulted the world outside as effectively as the steep hill hid the rising moon. It was covered with words, the conclusion of his newest novel and–as necessary an adjunct to his storytelling as the hallowed and familiar phrase ‘Once upon a time’–with his authorial adieu to the reader, that essential phrase with which he always signed off at the finish of the task: ‘THE END’. Then, his last words, his hand upon the creation: ‘Guy Kester Parados, The Old Rectory, Maidford Halse, June 24th 1990’.
He stretched, reaching high, yawned wide. A grisaille light as glamorous as that cast by his mind-mirroring screen filled the garden and the small field beyond it. It was time to be gone. He clicked the mouse under his right hand and saw his work vanish into the machine. He would leave it now, to settle and sift out of his mind; when he returned after the break, he would come to it refreshed. Then, one or two readings, a little tweaking (especially of the unsatisfactory last chapter) and a punctuation check should suffice and he could be rid of it for ever, in the future seeing it only as an entity given public birth by others, separate from him, one more title on the shelf–He made a copy and, reaching up, hid the floppy disk in the customary place in the cracked mullion.
‘You may now switch off safely.’ He read the prompt and, reaching for the switch, said ‘I shall, I shall.’ It had been a long haul, this one, through the fifteenth. The landscape of the novels was so familiar that he no longer had to consciously invent it, only travel the road with his chosen company, as used to his fictional country of Malthassa as to the hedged and crop-marked fields of the rural Midlands outside his study window. It was an old picture, this place outside the house; he no longer needed to look at it to remember it, but only inwards, into his mind, where those more perilous places, the dangerous rocks, the wild steppes and untameable floods he had created called him persistently.
If I had gone in for the Church, he thought, would it have made me any happier? Would that honest life have felt more just, more true, than this of spinning the thread, weaving the cloth, cutting and stitching the garment of the storyteller? Would Helen have avoided me, or seen me as a greater challenge? I was a pushover for her after all, most eager to co-operate.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born July 8, 1914 — Hans Stefan Santesson. Trifecta of editor, writer, and reviewer. He edited Fantastic Universe from 1956 to 1960, and the US edition of the British New Worlds Science Fiction. In the Sixties, he edited a lot of anthologies including The Fantastic Universe Omnibus, The Mighty Barbarians: Great Sword and Sorcery Heroes and Crime Prevention in the 30th Century. As a writer, he had a handful of short fiction, none of which is available digitally. His reviews appear to be all in Fantastic Universe in the Fifties. (Died 1975.)
Born July 8, 1933 — Michael Barrier, 90. One of the few actors not a regular crew member on the original Trek who shows in multiple episodes under the same name. He was DeSalle in “The Squire of Gothos”, “This Side of Paradise” and “Catspaw”. While he has the same name each time, he does not have the same shipboard job as he serves as a navigator in the first episode, a biologist in “This Side of Paradise” and assistant chief engineer in “Catspaw”.
Born July 8, 1942 — Otto Penzler, 81. He’s proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City who edits anthologies. Oh does he edit them, over fifty that I know of, some of genre interest including The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories, Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! and The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories which an original Lester Dent story in it. Back in the Seventies, with Chris Steinbrunner, he co-wrote the Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection for which they won an Edgar Award.
Born July 8, 1944 — Jeffrey Tambor, 79. I first encountered him on Max Headroom as Murray, Edison’s editor. Later on, he’s Mayor Augustus Maywho in How The Grinch Stole Christmas. Finally I’ll note he was in both of the only true Hellboy films that there was playing Tom Manning, director of the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense.
Born July 8, 1951 — Anjelica Huston, 72. I’m going to single her out for her performance as The Grand High Witch of All The World, or Eva Ernst in The Witches, a most delicious film. She was also wonderful as Morticia Addams in both of the Addams Family films, and made an interesting Viviane, Lady of the Lake in The Mists of Avalon miniseries.
Born July 8, 1953 — Mark Blackman, 70. Mark has often written about the Fantastic Fiction at KGB and New York Review of Science Fiction readings series for File 770. He was a member of Lunarians and chaired Lunacon 38 in 1995. He was a member of the New York in 1989 Worldcon bid. (OGH)
Born July 8, 1955 — Susan Price, 68. English author of children’s and YA novels. She has won both the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Prize for British children’s books. The Pagan Mars trilogy is her best known work, and The Sterkarm Handshake and its sequel A Sterkarm Kiss, will please Outlander fans.
Born July 8, 1988 — Shazad Latif, 35. If you watched Spooks, you’ll remember him as Tariq Masood. (Spooks did become genre.) He was Chief of Security Ash Tyler in Discovery,andDr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in Penny Dreadful. He voiced Kyla in The Dark Crystal: Voice of Resistance. And he was in the Black Mirror episode “The National Anthem” as Mehdi Raboud.
(11) OPPENHEIMER ACTOR. [Item by Steven French.] There’s some marginal genre interest here insofar as Cillian Murphy was the central character in the zombie apocalypse flick 28 Days Later but I was also struck by this comment regarding his role as Oppenheimer: “I had dinner with all these geniuses. I’ll never understand quantum mechanics, but I was interested in what science does to their perspective.” “Cillian Murphy on Oppenheimer, sex scenes and self-doubt: ‘I’m stubborn and lacking in confidence – a terrible combination’”: a profile in the Guardian.
…I raise method acting and Murphy tilts his head and frowns. “Method acting is a sort of … No,” he says, firm but with a half smile. Oppenheimer had many defining characteristics, not least walking on the balls of his feet and a vocal tic that sounded like nim-nim-nim, but Murphy didn’t want to do an impression. Nolan was obsessed with the Brillo-texture hair, so they spent “a long time working on hair”. And the voice. The real question for Murphy was what combination – ambition, madness, delusion, deep hatred of the Nazi regime? – allowed this theoretical physicist to agree to an experiment he knew could obliterate humankind. “He was dancing between the raindrops morally. He was complex, contradictory, polymathic; incredibly attractive intellectually and charismatic, but,” he decides, “ultimately unknowable.”…
(12) IT IS YOUR DESTINY. [Item by Dann.] Ryan George dropped a new Pitch Meeting for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Selling that concept had to be super easy! Barely an inconvenience!
(13) JEOPARDY! [Item by David Goldfarb.] The Thursday episode had three clues in the single Jeopardy round, and (at least arguably) the Final Jeopardy.
A TV Series, $200: Captains of the Enterprise: William Shatner; This man from 1987 to 1994; then Scott Bakula
Challenger Carol Oppenheim identified this as Patrick Stewart.
So I’m Reading This Book, $400: A novel, writing the clue for us: “The is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure”
Challenger Alex Gordon knew this one.
A TV Series: $1000: This big fella on “Game of Thrones”: Conan Stevens, Ian Whyte, Hafthor Julius Bjornsson
Returning champion Anji Nyquist responded: “Who is the Mountain?”
Ken Jennings said, “Gregor Clegane, well done.”
Final Jeopardy: Squashing the allegory theory, the daughters of the author of this novel say it’s “just a story about rabbits”
I watched Eurovision and this awesome Finnish dude with a bowl cut, a lime green bolero, and a name that’s a multi-level pun (Käärijä = wrapper) reminded me why I love performing and gave me some desperately needed inspiration with a song called “Cha Cha Cha.” If by some small chance, Käärijä himself hears this/sees the lyrics, I hope that he laughs and enjoys what we managed to accomplish. Despite how nerdy and funny the language is that I’m singing in, we always push for good musical arrangements. We had a fun day in the recording studio and I hope that fans of Käärijä, of which I am one, will catch the small details musically, in the translation effort, and in the accompanying lyric video. It’s my sincere hope that Käärijä fans who know nothing about Star Trek or Klingon enjoy this acoustic cover as much as my nerdy Trekkie fans.
[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, David Goldfarb, Cora Buhlert, Dann, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Xtifr.]
Named for Frank A. Munsey, publisher of the first pulp magazine, the award recognizes someone who has contributed to the betterment of the pulp community through disseminating knowledge, publishing, or other efforts to preserve and to foster interest pulp magazines.
Here are the nominees and the citations that explain why they are up for this honor.
As the publisher of Wildside Press,John Betancourt has made available hundreds of stories from pulp magazines, digests, and early paperbacks available in print and ebook form, particularly in his Megapack format. John was an assistant editor at Amazing Stories and later helped to revive Weird Tales. The magazine went on to garner a World Fantasy Award in 1992 and a Hugo Award in 2009. In 2015, Betancourt helped the revived Weirdbook get off the ground. Originally published by W. Paul Ganley — for which he won a World Fantasy Award in 1992 — Weirdbook continues to appear on a fairly regular basis from Betancourt and Wildside Press. He also serves as the publisher of Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine and the infrequently issued Adventure Tales, which presents classic tales from the pulp magazines. In 2021, John revived Startling Stories, the classic science fiction pulp originally published by Ned Pines’ Standard Magazines. John is also a writer of science fiction, fantasy, and mystery fiction and will be a panelist at this year’s PulpFest.
The Collections Librarian at the University of Connecticut, Richard Bleiler is a bibliographer and researcher in the areas of science fiction, fantasy, horror, crime, and adventure fiction. In 2002, he was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Best Non-Fiction for the second edition of Supernatural Fiction Writers: Fantasy and Horror. With his father, Everett Bleiler, Richard compiled Science Fiction: The Early Years and Science Fiction: The Gernsback Years, both published by Kent State University Press. His other work includes The Index to Adventure Magazine, The Annotated Index to The Thrill Book, the second edition of Science Fiction Writers: Critical Studies of the Major Authors from the Early Nineteenth Century to the Present Day, and Reference and Research Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction. Richard’s essay, “Forgotten Giant: A Brief History of Adventure Magazine,” originally published in Extrapolation: A Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy, is considered the finest overview of the classic pulp magazine. He has also written essays on early science fiction, fantasy, and mystery authors for The Dictionary of Literary Biography and other reference works, as well as articles on the writings of Frank Belknap Long and Clark Ashton Smith for Gary Hoppenstand’s Pulp Fiction of the 20s and 30s.
A researcher of fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and adventure fiction for over thirty years, Gene Christie has extensively studied and indexed the magazines of the pulp era, especially those published by the Frank A. Munsey Company. Never too busy or tired to help, Gene has volunteered his time, knowledge, and editorial abilities, contributing to projects published by Adventure House, Off-Trail Publications, Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, and others. He annually volunteers at the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention, in addition to proofing their program book, and has been a long-time attendee at other pulp-related conventions. In conjunction with Black Dog Books, he has compiled and edited several rare and previously unreprinted works, including Cornell Woolrich’s The Good Die Young, George Allan England’s The Empire in the Air, Seabury Quinn’s Demons of the Night, Murray Leinster’s The Silver Menace, and the excellent Munsey anthologies The Space Annihilator and The People of the Pit. He also served as the editor for Black Dog Books’ Talbot Mundy Library. At PulpFest 2019, Gene offered convention attendees a wonderful presentation on Robert Hobart Davis, considered by many to be the greatest editor of the pulp magazine era.
John DeWalt has selflessly aided researchers, sharing his collection and knowledge of popular culture. He is a joy with whom to share his, and our, joy of pulps. He has quietly helped many people, sharing stories and his experience with no thought of anything in return. He is quiet about his generosity, never thinking to remark on it. His self-published Key to Other Doors: Some Lists from a Pulp Collector’s Notebook, is still an excellent source of information about pulp fanzines, pulp reprints, pulp conventions, and the single-character pulps. John has been a member of the Pulp Era Amateur Press Society since 1998.
Henry G Franke III is the editor of The Burroughs Bulletin, the journal of The Burroughs Bibliophiles, the nonprofit literary society devoted to the life and works of Edgar Rice Burroughs. He also edits The Gridley Wave newsletter for the organization and during the pandemic, began organizing a monthly Zoom meeting for the Bibliophiles. He is also a member of the Edgar Rice Burroughs Amateur Press Association. Henry has presented several times at PulpFest and has organized art shows for the convention. He has also contributed to The Pulpster. In 2021, Henry — along with Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. and the PulpFest organizing committee, organized the first ERBFest, a summertime convention for Burroughs fans. He was a contributing editor and penned the introductions for IDW Publishing’s Library of American Comics archival series reprinting Russ Manning’s Tarzan newspaper comic strips. The first volume of the series won the 2014 Eisner Award for Best Archival Collection – Strips. Henry also wrote introductions for IDW’s Library of American Comics reprint of the 1929 daily Tarzan strips by Hal Foster and Rex Maxon, and for Tarzan and the Adventurers, the fifth volume in Titan Books’ “Complete Burne Hogarth Comic Strip Library.”Additionally, he contributed the foreword to Tarzan the Untamed, the seventh volume in the “Edgar Rice Burroughs Authorized Library,” published by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., and is currently writing the afterwords for the Authorized Library books. Specializing in art inspired by Burroughs’ stories, Franke is currently working on an illustrated biography of Russ Manning. At this year’s PulpFest, Henry will be discussing jungle adventures found in the pulps with Ed Hulse.
Chris Kalb is known in pulp circles for his hero pulp websites, like The 86th Floor and The Spider Returns, ventures that have helped to attract people who are new to the pulps. There isn’t anyone out there making better use of all the new technology while still preserving the “oldness” of pulps and popular culture. He has become the person to go to for publishers who want a retro-design for their books or website, including Ed Hulse’s Murania Press. He is also the lead designer for Age of Aces Books, a pulp reprint house that specializes in air war fiction. In 2010, Age of Aces received two National Indie Excellence Awards for Chris’s work on the bestselling The Spider vs. The Empire State. Chris was the designer of PulpFest‘s original website and for many years, put together the convention’s print advertisements. Additionally, he has been one of the leading members of New York’s Gotham Pulp Collectors Club, welcoming new members into a group of humorous, knowledgable, and engaging personalities. A freelance designer and illustrator, he was formerly the Art Director of Sci Fi Magazine. With Will Murray and Gary Phillips, Chris will be saluting The Spider at PulpFest 2023.
William Patrick Maynard was born and raised in Northeast Ohio. An avid reader of vintage thriller fiction and a keen student of film and comic art, he has been writing fiction since childhood. Since 2009, he has been authorized by the Sax Rohmer literary estate to continue the Fu Manchu series. The Terror of Fu Manchu was released in 2009 and The Destiny of Fu Manchu in 2011. In addition to his novels, Bill also writes mystery and science fiction short fiction and screenplays. His recent fiction has appeared in George Mann’s Further Encounters of Sherlock Holmes, Flinch Books’ Occupied Pulp, Bold Venture’s Zorro: The Daring Escapades, and other anthologies. Bill has also authored nearly 300 pop culture articles and has contributed DVD commentaries for classic films of the last century. Bill has published articles in Blood and Thunder, The Cimmerian, The Pulpster, and Windy City Pulp Stories, among others. He has also penned a substantial number of pulp fiction columns for The Black Gate website. He was co-guest of honor — with Will Murray — at PulpFest 2013. In late 2018, Bill joined the PulpFest marketing department as a writer. Since then, he has contributed significantly to our website and our convention. Until recently, Bill served as PulpFest’s assistant director of marketing and the director of the convention’s afternoon programming.
From the beginning of his very varied career, writer Gary Phillips has always tipped his cap to those who came before and has been a living, breathing homage to pulp culture and aesthetics. From his graphic novels — Peepland and Angeltown — to his short stories — “L. A. Noir” and “Treacherous” — and his novels — including a pulp version of Matthew Henson, the first black explorer to reach the North Pole, his ethos has remained steadfast. A long-time native of Los Angeles who lives close to where he was born and raised, Phillips writes some of the most realistic crime fiction in the genre, filling his stories with characters that fit right into the context of their times. He particularly admires Dashiell Hammett for his plotting and ability to keep his stories “grounded in reality.” Phillips’ restless devotion to bettering his craft shows as he is still publishing some of his best work even after twenty-three years of being a professional author. Chantelle Aimée Osman, his editor at Agora Books, has written, “Knowing him for a decade before acting as his editor, I can’t think back to a single conversation where Gary didn’t refer me to some (usually obscure) pulp author or series. To me, and to many in the industry, Gary basically serves as the pulp ‘North Star,’ pointing the way for those who come after and making sure we remember those who came before.” In addition to his Doc Savage-inspired novel, Matthew Henson and the Ice Temple of Harlem, and his Hammett-inspired detective novels, Gary has contributed stories to Asian Pulp, The Avenger Chronicles, Bass Reeves, Frontier Marshall, Black Pulp, The Darker Mass: Heroes from the Shadows, Echoes of Sherlock Holmes, The Green Hornet Casefiles, Jewish Noir, Los Angeles Noir, The Spider: Extreme Prejudice, and similar pulp-inspired anthologies. To learn more about Gary, read “PulpFest Profile — Gary Phillips — To the North Pole and Beyond by Way of the Moon.” At PulpFest 2023, Gary will serve on panels saluting both The Spider and Doc Savage.
While some nominees are like Doc Savage — out front and known to most — others are like The Shadow — hidden from view for most of the time, yet still there and appearing when needed. A pulp collector since a teenager, Sheila Vanderbeek began attending pulp conventions in 1975. She has attended nearly all of the major pulp conventions since her first. She helped with all the radio recreations that were performed at Pulpcon. A member of the Battered Silicon Press pulp advisory committee, Sheila has helped with many books for the publisher. In addition to recommending authors and series, she has supplied all or most of the stories included in Battered Silicon’s Great Merlini, John Solomon, Needle Mike, Park Ave Hunt Club, Satan Hall, and Suicide Squad collections, as well as others. She has also provided copies of stories to Steeger Books and other pulp-related publishers. Owning one of the largest and wide-ranging pulp collections in existence, Sheila also provided content information to Leonard Robbins for his groundbreaking pulp magazine indices. She has also helped with countless other research projects in the pulp field. Sheila has been a member of the Pulp Era Amateur Press Society since 1997.
Although some may believe he is old enough to have purchased pulps off the newsstand, Chuck Welch is a mere whippersnapper. As one of the original Internet Fans of Bronze, Chuck started attending Pulpcon in the late 1990s. After meeting his future wife at one of those conventions, Chuck took some time off to start a family. At the behest of Bill Mann, he returned to attend PulpFest. As was his wont, Chuck immediately started volunteering and making suggestions to the organizing committee. Having enough of his puppy-dog eyes, he was asked to join the team. Chuck served as the convention’s technology director, helping to update the convention’s website. When the Internet began to take off, Chuck began Flearun, a Doc Savage group now at Facebook. He is also the creator of the Hidalgo Trading Company — perhaps the closest anyone has come to presenting an online Doc fanzine — and the current editor of the Doc Savage fan magazine The Bronze Gazette. He actively supports both the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention and PulpFest through his online activities.
For twenty-five years, Howard Wright was the publisher of the Doc Savage fan magazine The Bronze Gazette. He created his magazine when there was no real Internet and very little information readily available about Lester Dent’s “Man of Bronze.” His main reason for starting the publication was to gather information about Doc Savage, disseminate this news to the “Fans of Bronze,” and keep Doc fans going during the “lean” years when Doc was, for the most part, a mere memory. Through Howard’s sustained efforts, interest in Doc was maintained and his return to the limelight assured. His final issue of the Gazette was published at the beginning of 2016. The magazine is being continued by Terry Allen, Kez Wilson, and Chuck Welch, creator of the Hidalgo Trading Company and a former member of the PulpFest organizing committee. It takes three people to duplicate Howard’s superb work on the Gazette. Howard continues to write for The Bronze Gazette.
Dan Zimmer has been working to promote greater awareness of pulp artists by producing and distributing Illustration Magazine since 2001. He has published nearly eighty issues of the magazine. Dan has tirelessly contributed his time, expertise, and personal wealth to promote a more respectful awareness of the artistic accomplishments of pulp artists through the deluxe publication of the many biographical articles on such artists that have appeared in his magazine. He has done this despite the overwhelming fact that his creative vision is far beyond receiving any reasonable economic return for his efforts. His devotion to classic American illustrators is manifest in the elegant presentation of his magazine and has helped to turn the tide in our culture’s growing appreciation of pulp art. Dan has also published illustrated biographies of pulp artists Walter Baumhofer, Rafael DeSoto, Tom Lovell, Norman Saunders, and H. J. Ward through his book-publishing arm, The Illustrated Press. Additionally, he has supported the pulp community by drawing his readers’ attention to various pulp conventions, including the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention, Pulpcon, and PulpFest. He’s also helped them by sharing scans of original pulp art for advertising the convention and illustrating publications. Dan has also served as the sponsor of Windy City’s annual pulp art exhibit and created the limited edition print of David Saunder’s Munsey Award painting without cost to the PulpFest organizing committee.
Review by Gary Whitehouse: I’m in the habit of having something sweet with a bit of tea or coffee most evenings, an hour or two after dinner. My particular weakness has always been cookies. Of course, the best are homemade, especially if they involve chocolate, but I’m pretty much a cookie slut. As long as it’s sweet, chewy or crunchy (or better yet, a combination of both textures), and not gluten-free … I’ll eat it with gusto.
I’ve been known to enjoy Trader Joe’s regular Joe-Joe’s, especially their chocolate-peanut butter flavor. But I generally avoid them because they tend to be pretty high in fat, sugar, and therefore calories. And I find that so many of today’s store-bought treats tend to be very sweet. Very very sweet, not to put too fine a point on it. But the powers that be sent me a double pack of these goodies and wanted a review, so who am I to look a gift cookie in the mouth?
These cookies start out as naked TJ’s chocolate-peanut butter Joe-Joe’s sandwich cookies. Then they’re “enrobed” in a peanut butter coating, which is then decorated with a chocolate drizzle. True to TJ’s form, on first bite the overwhelming impression is of sweetness. Then the peanut butter flavor kicks in, and as it’s chewed, the crispy cookie layers give up their chocolate flavor. Ever since Reese’s invented the peanut butter cup, it’s been common knowledge that chocolate and peanut butter go well together, and this cookie is no exception. And, it’s kinda good? But.
It’s really sweet. And it’s not my imagination, either. Sugar is the top ingredient in the peanut butter coating, which hits your tongue first. Next is palm kernel oil, followed by “partially defatted peanut flour,” and several other things like emulsifiers. I mean, they can’t just smear actual peanut butter on the outside of a cookie, right? So it has to be a peanut butter flavored stuff that will hold its shape, not melt in the package, and not come off on your fingers when you eat it. It does that job quite well, and tastes passably peanutty, just very sweet. And a bit … gummy? Those emulsifiers give it an odd texture, if you’re paying too much attention. The crispy cookie pieces are nice and crunchy and chocolatey, and the chocolate drizzle … well, it’s mostly for decoration but I’m sure it adds a little bit of chocolate flavor to the peanut buttery exterior. Sugar’s the top ingredient in the drizzle too. It’s not the top ingredient in the chocolate cookies (that would be flour) but they contain three types of sugar, so, yeah.
The first time I tried these I had them with hot English Breakfast tea, and overall I wasn’t that impressed. Next night I tried one with coffee, and it was much better! The bitter, savory nature of the coffee cuts through both the sweetness and the emulsifiers better than tea. In fact, TJ’s on its website suggests having this cookie with coffee or milk. I’m not a milk drinker so I can’t address that, but the coffee suggestion is right on.
Going through the Nutrition Information label, they’re pretty high in fat and added sugars, at 130 calories per serving, which is one cookie. I’d be hard pressed to eat more than one at a time. You won’t gobble up this pack of eight cookies in one sitting. Good to put on a platter at a social occasion! They’re tasty and definitely satisfy your sweet tooth. I don’t think they need to be as sugary as they are, but then I’m not the one making gazillions of dollars selling high-end snacks to the bougies, so what do I know?
Gary Whitehouse (he, him), a lifelong resident of the U.S. Pacific Northwest, is a retired reporter, editor, and government communicator. He’s also a lifelong lover of books and music, which he has been writing about online for nearly a quarter of a century. His other passions include birding, standard poodles, chocolate, coffee, and craft ales.
The Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) of the United Kingdom announced the winners of the 2023 CWA Dagger Awards on July 6.
GOLD DAGGER
This award is for the best crime novel by an author of any nationality.
The Kingdoms of the Savannah by George Dawes Green
IAN FLEMING STEEL DAGGER
Eligible books in this category are thrillers set in any period and include, but are not limited to, spy fiction, psychological thrillers and action/adventure stories.
Agent Seventeen by John Brownlow
JOHN CREASEY (NEW BLOOD) DAGGER
This award is for the best crime novel by a first-time author of any nationality.
Dirt Town by Hayley Scrivenor
HISTORICAL DAGGER
This award is for the best historical crime novel, set in any period up to 50 years prior to the year in which the award will be made.
The Darkest Sin by DV Bishop
ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION
This award is for any non-fiction work on a crime-related theme by an author of any nationality.
Unlawful Killings by Wendy Joseph
CRIME FICTION IN TRANSLATION DAGGER
This award is for a crime novel not originally written in English and which has been translated into English for UK publication.
Even the Darkest Night by Javier Cercas (tr Anne Mclean)
SHORT STORY DAGGER
This award is for any crime short story first published in the UK in English in a publication that pays for contributions, or broadcast in the UK in return for payment.
Cast A Long Shadow by Hazell Ward
PUBLISHERS’ DAGGER
This prestigious Dagger is awarded annually to the Best Crime and Mystery Publisher of the Year.
Viper
DAGGER IN THE LIBRARY
The Dagger in the Library is a prize for a body of work by an established crime writer who has long been popular with borrowers from libraries, and who has supported libraries and their users.
Sophie Hannah
DIAMOND DAGGER
Awarded every year to an author whose crime-writing career has been marked by sustained excellence, and who has made a significant contribution to the genre. Votes from CWA members go forward to be deliberated on by an independent panel. This year’s recipient is:
(1) BE UPSTANDING. The space shuttle Endeavour will be rehoused in a new building that will allow it to be displayed upright in its original launch position, mated to the orange external tank and two booster rockets: “Space shuttle Endeavour preps for move to new museum” reports the LA Times.
After more than a decade on display at the California Science Center, the space shuttle Endeavour will begin the final trek to its permanent home at a new Los Angeles building in the coming months.
To get ready for the grand move, the state-run museum announced Thursday that crews will begin the installation of the base of the shuttle’s full stack on July 20. Workers will use a 300-ton crane to lower the bottom sections of the twin solid rocket boosters, which are 10,000 pounds apiece and roughly 9 feet tall, to the freshly built lowest section of the partly constructed $400-million Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center.
It’ll be the first of many delicate maneuvers conducted over roughly six months (if the weather cooperates). Eventually, all half-million pounds of the full stack — including the shuttle Endeavour and a giant orange external tank — will rest on the base of the solid rocket boosters, bolted to the ground by eight supersized, superalloy fasteners that are 9 feet long and weigh 500 to 600 pounds….
(2) OCTOTHORPE. John Coxon, Alison Scott, and Liz Batty have uttered Episode 87 of the Octothorpe podcast, “We Didn’t Imagine the Third Option”.
Wheeeeeee we’re Hugo finalists again! Huge congratulations to Alison Scott and España Sheriff who are finalists in Best Fan Artist, huge congratulations to John Coxon who’s a finalist with Journey Planet in Best Fanzine, and of course congratulations to transatlantic besties and cocky cake-makers Hugo, Girl! We also discuss the Locus and the BSFA Awards, plus (of course) picks.
(3) MEET RIVERFLOW. Chinese fan RiverFlow, a two-time 2023 Hugo finalist, tweeted this self-introduction:
Hello everyone, I am a Chinese Sci-fi fans RiverFlow, very happy to be shortlisted for the Hugo Awards for Best Fanzine and Best Fanwriter,and wrote some shortlist feelings.Thank you all for your help. pic.twitter.com/Vi4cBHVU5f
I have been nominated for a few things in my life. I’ve even won a few. But I have not won way more often than I have. Based on my experience, the “I won!” thing is awesome for a short time, but where that euphoria fades quickly, the genuine honor of “I was nominated!” lasts forever. With that in mind, I looked at the other nominees this morning, and … I think it’s very unlikely I’ll be making space for a Hugo statue in my house. But that’s okay! I got to reach out to my TNG family today and tell them about it, and everyone who replied made me feel the love and pride that I imagine kids feel from parents who love them unconditionally.
If Still Just A Geek wins in its category, it’s going to be awesome. I’m not going to lie: I think it would be pretty great if I got to have a Hugo in my house, next to my Tabletop trophies. But if it doesn’t, the excitement, joy, and gratitude I feel that my story even made the finalists this year will never go away, and I get to have that whether I get the statue or not.
(5) COMPLETE LISTS OF HUGO FINALISTS. The Chengdu Worldcon Hugo Administrator limited the number of names they would place on the ballot announcement. As a result, several finalists have tweeted links to the complete lists of people they believe should be included.
We're finalists for the 2023 @TheHugoAwards Best Semiprozine!
— FIYAH Literary Magazine (@fiyahlitmag) July 6, 2023
We're honored and excited to be one of the finalists for the Hugo award for Best Semiprozine! We would have loved to see team kh?ré?'s names listed in full on the website and ballot, but in lieu of that, here's a list of our team members whose work made this happen in 2022 ?? pic.twitter.com/6Pg9hnZU35
Nerds of a Feather (@NOAFzine) is a Hugo Award Finalist again this year and we'd like to thank all of our readers and everyone who voted for us. https://t.co/jrrx4Jhqks
(7) CLARION CROWDFUNDING. The Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Workshop at UC San Diego is in the midst of a 2023 crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo to support the next generation of science fiction, fantasy, and horror writers. They have raised over $5,500 of their $20,000 with over three weeks remaining.
Would you be interested in these perks on offer to donors?
Want to have your name in a new Cory Doctorow novel?
Talk worldbuilding with Sue Burke?
Get a signed proof of Kim Stanley Robinson’s story “UCSD and Permaculture”?
Or name a scholarship to support making attending Clarion possible for a student next year? (Donation = $1,000)
All these — and t-shirts! — are on offer through the Clarion Workshop IndieGogo campaign.
(8) ROGERS: THE MUSICAL. [Item by Daniel Dern.] I’d lost track that info about this was already scrolled — Item 7 in the June 30 Scroll — but it doesn’t look like there were any links to the actual show.
Here’s the five-and-a-half-minute trailer, from Marvel’s D23 Ex (watching the full thing once was enough for me, and it’s not the same without seeing Clint “Hawkeye” Barton in the audience shaking his head…
And here’s two of many links to the full 37-minute show. (The first one seems to have more close-ups, but “features” some MST3K back of somebody’s head mid-left…):
Rogers: The Musical | Full Show, Disney California Adventure Park
Full Show: Rogers: The Musical | Disney California Adventure
(9) MEMORY LANE.
1963 – [Written by Cat Eldridge from a choice by Mike Glyer.]
This Scroll, Mike picked a work by Clifford Simak who I knew thot y’all know, so I see no need to introduce him to you. I will say that he was one of the first genre writers that I read deeply of.
I’m fairly sure the first work by him that I read was City, a work that remains my favorite by him. But tonight we’re here to talk about Way Station, the source of the Beginning the Mike choose, another favorite of mine.
It was published by Doubleday in 1963 with the cover at by Ronald Fratell. It would win a Hugo at Pacificon II for the original publication as Here Gather the Stars in Galaxy’s June and August 1963 issues.
And now let us turn to the Beginning…
The noise was ended now. The smoke drifted like thin, gray wisps of fog above the tortured earth and the shattered fences and the peach trees that had been whittled into toothpicks by the cannon fire. For a moment silence, if not peace, fell upon those few square miles of ground where just a while before men had screamed and torn at one another in the frenzy of old hate and had contended in an ancient striving and then had fallen apart, exhausted.
For endless time, it seemed, there had been belching thunder rolling from horizon to horizon and the gouted earth that had spouted in the sky and the screams of horses and the hoarse bellowing of men; the whistling of metal and the thud when the whistle ended; the flash of searing fire and the brightness of the steel; the bravery of the colors snapping in the battle wind.
Then it all had ended and there was a silence.
But silence was an alien note that held no right upon this field or day, and it was broken by the whimper and the pain, the cry for water, and the prayer for death—the crying and the calling and the whimpering that would go on for hours beneath the summer sun. Later the huddled shapes would grow quiet and still and there would be an odor that would sicken all who passed, and the graves would be shallow graves.
There was wheat that never would be harvested, trees that would not bloom when spring came round again, and on the slope of land that ran up to the ridge the words unspoken and the deeds undone and the sodden bundles that cried aloud the emptiness and the waste of death.
There were proud names that were the prouder now, but now no more than names to echo down the ages—the Iron Brigade, the 5th New Hampshire, the 1st Minnesota, the 2nd Massachusetts, the 16th Maine.
And there was Enoch Wallace
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born July 7, 1907 — Robert Heinlein. Let’s have Paul Weimer tell about his favorite Heinlein works: “If I had to pick one favorite Heinlein novel, and that’s a tough road to hoe, I am going to go with the novel I’ve re-read the most and it’s probably not going to be the one you think. It’s Glory Road. Yes, Glory Road. The back matter once the quest is done can be overcooked, but Heinlein had a keen eye for epic fantasy quests, the good and the bad, long before the rise of Tolkien clones. It was an early Heinlein for me, and the novel has stuck with me since, with a number of audio re-reads. I survived a boring drive across the flatness of the Great Plains by listening to the adventures of Oscar Gordon.” // If I had to pick one Heinlein story, I have a strong fondness for All You Zombies, which encapsulates all the potential paradoxes of time travel in a way that has been done at greater length, but not, I’d argue, with better effect. (The movie Predestination with Ethan Hawke is pretty darned good by the way). Oh, and my favorite book ABOUT Heinlein is Farah Mendelsohn’s The Pleasant Profession of Robert Heinlein. (Died 1988.)
Born July 7, 1919 — Jon Pertwee. The Third Doctor and one that I’ll admit I like a lot. He returned to the role of the Doctor in The Five Doctors and the charity special Dimensions in Time for Children in Need. He also portrayed the Doctor in the stage play Doctor Who – The Ultimate Adventure. After a four-year-run here, he was the lead on Worzel Gummidge where he was, errr, a scarecrow. And I must note that one of his first roles was as The Judge in the film of Toad of Toad Hall by A. A. Milne. (Died 1996.)
Born July 7, 1946 — Lisa Seagram. I’m noting her here because she was in the Batman episode “Louie, the Lilac” as Lila in which Milton Berle played the title character. She also had one-offs in both The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., plus My Favorite Martian and Bewitched. (Died 2019.)
Born July 7, 1931 — David Eddings. Prolific and great, with his wife Leigh, they authored several best-selling epic fantasy novel series, including The Belgariad, The Malloreon and The Dreamers to name but three of their series. He’s written but one non-series novel, The Redemption of Althalus. (Died 2009.)
Born July 7, 1959 — Billy Campbell, 64. There are some films so good in my memory that even the Suck Fairy can’t spoil them and The Rocketeer in which he played stunt pilot Cliff Secord is one of them. (IDW did a hardcover edition called Dave Stevens’ The Rocketeer: The Complete Adventures which Amazon has it for a mere twenty bucks! And the ePub is available from the usual suspects for a mere five dollars and ninety nine cents.) Yes, he did other work of genre interest including the main role of Jordan Collier on The 4400, Quincey Morris on Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Captain Thadiun Okona in “The Outrageous Okona” episode of Next Gen, the Maine Dr. Alan Farragut on Helix and he’s currently voicing Okona once again on Prodigy.
Born July 7, 1968 — Jeff VanderMeer, 55. Ok I’ll admit that I’m ambivalent about the Southern Reach Trilogy and am not sure if it’s brilliant or not though it is I’ll say quite disturbing. (Haven’t seen the film and have no desire to so.) I will say the pirate anthology he and his wife Anne did, Fast Ships, Black Sails, is quite tasty reading. Now let’s see what the Hugos would hold for him. At Noreascon 4 for The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases which I truly, madly love, he got a Hugo. He along with his Ann picked up at Anticipation up one for Best Semiprozine: for Weird Tales. It would be nominated the next year at Aussiecon 4 but Clarkesworld would win as it would the Renovation losing out again to Clarkesworld. The Steampunk Bible: An Illustrated Guide to the World of Imaginary Airships, Corsets and Goggles, Mad Scientists, and Strange Literature which he co-edited with S. J. Chambers was nominated at Chicon 7. Another Best Related Work was nominated at Loncon 3, Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction. Finally the film Annihilation based off the Southern Reach trilogy was nominated for Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo at Dublin 2019.
Born July 7, 1987 — V.E. Schwab, 36. I’m very pleased with her A Darker Shade of Magic which explores magicians in a parallel universe London. It’s part of her Shades of Magic series. Highly recommended. Her Cassidy Blake series is also good provided you’re a Potter fan because she makes a lot of references to that series.
(11) COMICS SECTION.
Arlo and Janis know there’s always someone ready to jump in and correct the details. Just like in the comments here!
(12) THE VOID CAPTAINS. Mark and Evelyn Leeper today reminded people of the history of their prolific fanzine in today’s issue, the 2278thMT VOID:
The MT VOID started as a zine for the newly formed Science Fiction Club at Bell Labs in Holmdel in August 1978, but we have always been the editors (and primary writers). It has been weekly for decades, and has continued even after we retired and the Science Fiction Club dissolved. The current issue is #2278, making it (I’m pretty sure) the perzine with the most issues ever, and at 45 years, one of the longest running.
In July 1981, our area was split off and moved to Lincroft. At that point we thought we needed to spin off a new club, so we started re-numbering the MT VOID (not yet called that) at that point. Hence the volume roll-over in July. Eventually we ended up remerging the clubs and newsletters, but kept the new numbering.
At some point in the 1980s we also renamed the club as the “Mt. Holz Science Fiction Club”. “Mt. Holz” came from the inter-company mail designations for the three New Jersey locations of AT&T et al where we once had meetings: MT Middletown HO Holmdel LZ Lincroft
As the work environment changed, meetings eventually ended, but the MT VOID kept rolling along. We retained the “Mt. Holz” name in the heading until last year, when we decided it was misleading to pretend there was an actual club behind this. [-mrl/ecl]
In 2019, Greta Gerwig became the latest in a line of writers, directors, and producers to make a pilgrimage to a toy workshop in El Segundo, California. Touring the facility, the Mattel Design Center, has become a rite of passage for Hollywood types who are considering transforming one of the company’s products into a movie—a list that now includes such names as J. J. Abrams (Hot Wheels) and Vin Diesel (Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots). The building has hundreds of workspaces for artists, model-makers, and project managers, and it houses elaborate museum-style exhibitions that document the company’s history and core products. These displays can help a toy designer find inspiration; they can also offer a “brand immersion”—a crash course in a Mattel property slated for adaptation. When a V.I.P. visits, Richard Dickson, a tall, bespectacled man who is the company’s chief operating officer, plays the role of Willy Wonka. He’ll show off the sixty-five-year-old machines that are still used to affix fake hair to Barbies; he’ll invite you to inspect life-size, road-ready replicas of Hot Wheels cars. The center even boasts a giant rendering of Castle Grayskull, the fearsome ancestral home of He-Man. “The brand immersion is the everything moment,” Dickson told me. “I have met with some of the greatest artists, truly, in the world. . . . And, if you don’t walk out drinking the Kool-Aid, then it was a great playdate, but maybe we don’t continue playing.”
The actress Margot Robbie, who had toured the center in 2018, wanted to continue playing. She’d signed up for a Barbie movie, and had approached Gerwig about writing the script. She saw in Gerwig’s filmography the right combination of intelligence and heart: “You watch something like ‘Little Women,’ and the dialogue is very, very clever—it’s talking about some big things—but it’s also extremely emotional.” The project wasn’t an obvious fit for someone whose screenplays included the subtle dramas “Lady Bird” and “Frances Ha,” and Gerwig wavered for more than a year. At one point, Dickson called her when she was mixing “Little Women” in New York. “I don’t have a ton of friends in corporate America,” she told me, over Zoom. “But he was very excited. It was sweet.” She finally agreed to come to El Segundo…
…The book makes no apologies and shows no respect for genre boundaries. With a chatty, out-going narrator, multiple sections about the trials of clearing out the home of a hoarder, friendly neighbours and a welcoming coffee shop, the story has many elements associated with, dare I say, “cosy” fiction. The latter sections head more into the realm of portal-fantasy. However, these elements are simply flesh hung upon the bones of the horror of thoughts that overwhelm you….
…Harrison Ford roasted Conan O’Brien on a recent episode of the “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” podcast after the “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” icon discovered O’Brien had “Han Solo” written down in his notes for the interview. The two men were playfully arguing about Ford’s ancestry, which led O’Brien to consult some info he had jotted down prior to the interview.
“I refer you to this piece of paper right here,” O’Brien said. “That says, ‘Born and raised in Chicago to an Irish German father—’”
Ford leaned over to take a look at O’Brien’s notes and then interrupted the host when he realized they included a reminder that Ford played Han Solo in the “Star Wars” franchise. Along with Indiana Jones, Han Solo is Ford’s most iconic character.
“Well if that’s a quality of your research, and I imagine it is because right there it says ‘Harrison Ford’ and then you had to write ‘Han Solo,’” Ford said. “You can’t fucking remember that?”
“No I can’t. I can’t remember Han Solo,” O’Brien hilariously fired back. “I wrote it down because I heard that you were in some of the ‘Star Wars’ films, and this was news to me because I’ve seen those films and I don’t exactly think that you ‘pop.’”
O’Brien continued, “I’m sorry. But I mean, I remember Chewbacca, I remember the bad guy with the black helmet and then… there’s some people.”
Ford took matters into his own hands, asking O’Brien, “How come you’re not still on television?”…
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, Kathy Sullivan, Daniel Dern, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mike Kennedy, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jon Meltzer.]
