(1) WIRED DOES A JOB ON SANDERSON. In his WIRED article: “Brandon Sanderson Is Your God”, Jason Kehe slags Sanderson, his writing, his fans, his business, his religion, his taste in movie musicals, and anything else that comes to mind — and it really feels like puppy-kicking – in the original sense, not that Sanderson is/was a Sad Puppy.
…Sanderson, when I eventually meet him in person, makes versions of these excuses, plus others, for his writerly obscurity. It’s kind of fun to talk about, until it isn’t, and that’s when I realize, in a panic, that I now have a problem. Sanderson is excited to talk about his reputation. He’s excited, really, to talk about anything. But none of his self-analysis is, for my purposes, exciting. In fact, at that first dinner, over flopsy Utah Chinese—this being days before I’d meet his extended family, and attend his fan convention, and take his son to a theme park, and cry in his basement—I find Sanderson depressingly, story-killingly lame.
He sits across from me in an empty restaurant, kind of lordly and sure of his insights, in a graphic T-shirt and ill-fitting blazer, which he says he wears because it makes him look professorial. It doesn’t. He isn’t. Unless the word means only: believing everything you say is worth saying. Sanderson talks a lot, but almost none of it is usable, quotable. I begin to think, This is what I drove all the way from San Francisco to the suburbs of Salt Lake City in the freezing-cold dead of winter for? For previously frozen dim sum and freeze-dried conversation? This must be why nobody writes about Brandon Sanderson.
So, recklessly, I say what’s on my mind. I have to. His wife is there, his biggest fan, always his first reader, making polite comments; I don’t care. Maybe nobody writes about you, I say to Sanderson, because you don’t write very well….
There’s such an uproar that Sanderson’ has posted a letter to his fan community about the WIRED story on his sub-Reddit — “On The Wired Article” — in which he expresses his own confusion about the article but asks his fan community not to harass Jason Kehe over it (apparently this has been happening on Twitter.)
I appreciate the kind words and support.
Not sure how, or if, I should respond to the Wired article. I get that Jason, in writing it, felt incredibly conflicted about the fact that he finds me lame and boring. I’m baffled how he seemed to find every single person on his trip–my friends, my family, my fans–to be worthy of derision.
But he also feels sincere in his attempt to try to understand. While he legitimately seems to dislike me and my writing, I don’t think that’s why he came to see me. He wasn’t looking for a hit piece–he was looking to explore the world through his writing. In that, he and I are the same, and I respect him for it, even if much of his tone seems quite dismissive of many people and ideas I care deeply about.
The strangest part for me is how Jason says he had trouble finding the real me. He says he wants something true or genuine. But he had the genuine me all that time. He really did. What I said, apparently, wasn’t anything he found useful for writing an article. That doesn’t make it not genuine or true.
I am not offended that the true me bores him. Honestly, I’m a guy who enjoys his job, loves his family, and is a little obsessive about his stories. There’s no hidden trauma. No skeletons in my closet. Just a guy trying to understand the world through story. That IS kind of boring, from an outsider’s perspective. I can see how it is difficult to write an article about me for that reason….
(2) NEW AWARD COMPETITION. The Oxford Centre for Fantasy and Pushkin Children’s Books announced creation of The Oxford/Pushkin Children’s Fantasy Prize for fantasy novels aimed at Middle Grand and YA. (Entry fee: £5)
Calling all fantasy novelists at the beginning of their career to a new adventure. To mark this 50th Anniversary year since the death of J R R Tolkien, we are looking for fresh ideas and new voices in the fantasy genre. This is your chance to win our brilliant prize of £2000, as well as the incredible opportunity for mentorship with an editor at Pushkin Children’s Books.
Four runners-up will win further prizes to help them develop their writing skills.
… We will be looking for finalists writing novels for the following reading ages:
…When chatting with AI today, I decided I needed to know whether or not it could give me a good answer to one of our most burning questions here at Winter is Coming. Could it tell me, or even just predict, when George R.R. Martin will release The Winds of Winter? We’re going on 12 years now since the last entry in the A Song of Ice and Fire book series was released, so maybe I’m a little desperate to find out. Does AI know something we don’t? Well… no. I discovered that it doesn’t….
… Inside Octavia’s Bookshelf is a carefully curated set of books and non-book items that High has sourced from mainly independent Bipoc-owned businesses – “not on Amazon”, she emphatically said. Beyond books, Octavia’s Bookshelf has everything from quirky book-nerd socks to prayer candles dedicated to iconic Black women literary figures such as Toni Morrison and Audre Lorde.
“I had been thinking about [this bookstore] for about 10 years, but not in a way where I was ready to leave my job and do it,” said High, who managed communications for 15 years at Trader Joe’s.
But what pushed High to lean into her dream was the May 2022 death of her grandmother, who had always championed her granddaughter’s pursuits. High took the leap a few months later in October of that year and began the process of starting her own business….
The central relationship in Gabrielle Zevin’s best-selling novel “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” is the lifelong creative partnership between Sam and Sadie, childhood friends who go on to start a video game company. The novel depicts the exhilarating highs and enraging lows of collaboration, including fights over recognition — that is, how Sam and Sadie see each other’s contributions to their work compared with how the world sees them.
One of the games they develop together, “Solution,” is now caught up in a real-life debate about artistry and credit.
On Thursday, game designer Brenda Romero wrote in a Twitter thread that Zevin had drawn on the ideas and structure of her board game Train without acknowledging its inspiration.
“A theme in the book is how women struggle to get credit for their work,” Romero wrote….
Nearly a third of the LGBT+ characters to have featured on US TV over the past year will not be returning in future, a new report has revealed.
Over the period between 1 June 2022 and 31 May 2023, a total of 596 LGBT+ characters were featured on scripted TV.
Of these, 175 will not be returning in the following season, as a result of series being cancelled or coming to a pre-agreed end. The majority of these characters (140) are the result of series being cancelled.
The statistics are taken from the annual report published by the US media monitoring organisation GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation).
The report takes into account LGBT+ characters across scripted primetime broadcast networks, scripted primetime cable networks, and scripted series on the eight major US streaming platforms: Prime Video, Hulu, Netflix, Apple TV+, Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock, and Paramount+.
Sarah Kate Ellis, CEO of GLAAD, describes the significant cancellation rates of LGBT+ “disappointing”.
“Some of the year’s biggest hits have been LGBTQ-inclusive series – including HBO’s The Last of Us, ABC’s Abbott Elementary, FX’s What We Do in The Shadows, Showtime’s Yellowjackets, Netflix’s Stranger Things, and HBO Max’s Hacks, to name only a few,” she wrote in a statement….
I invite you to take a seat at the table with my guest Annalee Newitz at Tony and Elaine’s, a casual, old school, Italian red sauce restaurant in the North End of Boston.
Annalee is the author of three novels — The Terraformers (just out in January), The Future of Another Timeline, and their debut novel Autonomous, which won the Lambda Literary Award, and was nominated for the Nebula and Locus Awards. Their short story “When Robot and Crow Saved East St. Louis” won the 2019 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. Their nonfiction books include Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age, which was a national bestseller and was praised in The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The New Yorker, and Scatter, Adapt and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction, which was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize in science.
They’re also the co-editor of the essay collection She’s Such A Geek (Seal Press), and author of Pretend We’re Dead: Capitalist Monsters in American Pop Culture (Duke University Press). They’re the co-host with Charlie Jane Anders of the Hugo Award-winning podcast Our Opinions Are Correct, and in addition to having been the founder of io9, served as the editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.
We discussed how difficult (and disappointing) it would have been to eat a trilobite, what writing their non-fiction books taught them about creating the arcs of novels, why their brain seems more suited for novels than short stories, how best to include a message in fiction without the soapbox overwhelming the story, the greatest bad review one of their books ever got (it involved creamed corn), how to inhabit characters who are hundreds of years old, fun facts they learned about moose which helped make their new book better, the music they blasted to rev up for one of the novel’s big action scenes, how to make the growth of a fictional romance believable to readers, the serendipitous way in which Ken McLeod rekindled their love of science fiction, and much more.
(8) NBCC. The National Book Critics Circle Awards for the publishing year 2022 have been announced, however, I did not recognize any genre works among the winners. If I missed any, drop a comment to fill me in!
(9) MEMORY LANE.
2016 – [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Our Beginning this Scroll is one of P. Djèlí Clark’s Dead Djinn Universe stories, to wit A Dead Djinn in Cairo which has as its central character Fatma el-Sha’arawi, a fascinating Muslim woman who will show up again in his Hugo nominated A Master of Djinn novel.
This was published on the Tor website in 2016. There’s a third story here so far, The Haunting of Tram Car 015, also first published by Tor.
It’s a perfect Beginning in my mind as it very nicely introduces us to Fatma el-Sha’arawi and the Djinn in all their chilling awesomeness.
And now for our most perfect Beginning…
Fatma el-Sha’arawi, special investigator with the Egyptian Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities, stood gazing through a pair of spectral goggles at the body slumped atop the mammoth divan.
A djinn.
An Old One, at that—near twice the size of a man, with fingers that ended in curved talons, long as knives. His skin was a sheath of aquamarine scales that shifted to turquoise beneath the glare of flickering gas lamps. He sat unclothed between tasseled cushions of lavender and burgundy, his muscular arms and legs spread wide and leaving nothing to the imagination.
“Now that’s impressive,” a voice came. Fatma glanced back at the figure hovering just over her shoulder. Two long graying whiskers fashioned in the style of some antiquated Janissary twitched on a plump face. It belonged to a man in a khaki uniform that fit his thick frame a bit too tightly, particularly around the belly. He jutted a shaved round chin at the dead djinn’s naked penis: a midnight-blue thing that hung near to the knee. “I’ve seen full-grown cobras that were smaller. A man can’t help but feel jealous, with that staring him in the face.”
Fatma returned to her work, not deigning to reply. Inspector Aasim Sharif was a member of the local constabulary who served as a police liaison with the Ministry. Not a bad sort. Just vulgar. Cairene men, despite their professed modernity, were still uncomfortable working alongside a woman. And they expressed their unease in peculiar, awkward ways. It was shocking enough to them that the Ministry had tapped some sun-dark backwater Sa’idi for a position in Cairo. But one so young, and who dressed in foreign garb—they’d never quite gotten used to her.
Today she’d chosen a light gray suit, complete with a matching vest, chartreuse tie, and a red-on-white pinstriped shirt. She had picked it up in the English District, and had it specially tailored to fit her small frame. The accompanying walking cane—a sturdy length of black steel capped by a silver pommel, a lion’s head—was admittedly a bit much. But it added a flair of extravagance to the ensemble. And her father always said if people were going to stare, you should give them a show.
“Exsanguination,” she declared. Fatma pulled off the copper-plated goggles and handed them over to a waiting boilerplate eunuch. The machine-man grasped the instrument between tactile metal fingers, folding it away with mechanical precision into a leather casing. She caught her reflection in its featureless brass countenance: dark oval eyes and a fleshy nose set against russet-brown skin on a slender face. Some might have called it boyish, if not for a set of full, bold lips passed on by her mother. As the boilerplate eunuch stepped away, she used her fingers to smooth back a mop of cropped black curls and turned to the constable. Aasim stared as if she’d just spoken Farsi.
“Those markings.” She tapped the floor with her cane, where curving white script engulfed the divan in a circle. “It’s an exsanguination spell.” Seeing Aasim’s blank look, she reached down to her waist to pull her janbiya free and placed the tip of the knife at the djinn’s thigh before sliding it beneath a scale. It came back out clean. “No blood. Not a drop. He’s been drained.” The inspector blinked, catching on.
“But where did it … the blood … go?”
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born March 24, 1834 — William Morris. Credited with creating the modern fantasy literature genre, he certainly wrote some of it its earlier works, to note his epic poem The Earthly Paradise, The Wood Beyond the World and The Well at the World’s End, plus his entire artistic motif fits nearly within a fantasy literature as it looks as if it was created by the Fey Themselves. (Died 1896.)
Born March 24, 1874 — Harry Houdini. His literary career intersects the genre world in interesting ways. Though it’s not known which, many of his works were written by his close friend Walter B. Gibson who as you know is the creator of The Shadow. And one famous story of his, “Imprisoned with the Pharaohs”, was actually ghost-written by Lovecraft! ISFDB lists another piece of genre fiction for him, “The Spirit Fakers of Hermannstad.” (Died 1926.)
Born March 24, 1924 — Peter George. Welsh author, most remembered for the late Fifties Red Alert novel, published first as Two Hours To Doom and written under the name of Peter Bryant. The book was the basis of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. (Died 1966.)
Born March 24, 1941 — Henry Glassie, 82. Folklorist who’s the author of one of my all-time fav Christmas books, All Silver and No Brass: An Irish Christmas Mumming. I was delighted to see that ISFDB say he has two works of genre fiction, “Coals on the Devil’s Hearth“ and “John Brodison and the Policeman”. Both are to be found in the Jane Yolen anthology, Favorite Folktales from Around the World which is available at all the usual digital suspects.
Born March 24, 1946 — Andrew I. Porter, 77. Editor, publisher, fan. Major member of NYC regional fandom starting in the early Sixties. APA publisher and editor of Algol: The Magazine About Science Fiction (later renamed Starship) which won the Best Fanzine Hugo in 1974 (in a tie with Richard E. Geis’ SFR.) He also won two Best Semiprozine Hugos for his news publication Science Fiction Chronicle which he started in 1980 and ran for over 20 years. He has won myriad awards, including the Big Heart Award. He has attended hundreds of science fiction conventions and most Worldcons since his first in ‘63. He has been Fan Guest of Honor at several conventions, including the 1990 Worldcon. And he is an indispensible daily contributor to the Pixel Scroll!
Born March 24, 1946 — Gary K. Wolfe, 77. Monthly reviewer for Locus for 27 years now and, yes, I enjoy his column a lot. His brief marriage to Ellen R. Weil, which ended with her tragic early death, resulted in them co-writing Harlan Ellison: The Edge of Forever. Old Earth Books has reprinted many of his reviews done between 1992 and 2006. He’s also written several critical looks at the genre, Critical Terms for Science Fiction and Fantasy and The Known and the Unknown: The Iconography of Science Fiction. Finally I’ll note that he’s involved with editor Jonathan Strahan on the stellar Coode Street podcast
(11) COMICS SECTION.
Eek! remembers the time Dr. Frankenstein made a mistake…
(12) AVENGERS AT 60. Alex Ross celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Avengers and the X-Men with new connecting variant covers that will run on various titles, starting with August’s UNCANNY AVENGERS #1. For more information, visit Marvel.com.
“In the case of the Avengers, I wanted to capture something of the era I grew up with, but also something extensive,” Ross said. “So I captured the first 30 years of that team, from the ‘60s through the ‘80s. I end where 1989 closes. I’m trying to make sure my work is aligning with how the character looked and also the attitudes the characters had.”
(13) JEOPARDY! Last night David Goldfarb watched the contestants strike out against this Jeopardy answer:
In the Double Jeopardy round, “TV Lingo” for $1600:
This substance powers spaceships on “Star Trek”
A triple stumper.
(14) BRAIN POWER. Meanwhile, Daniel Dern sends along a trivia challenge of his own:
A: (1) Peter Watts’ Blindsight (protagonist Siri Keaton, who has only one organic hemisphere; (2) (IMHO) Gene Wolfe’s story “The Island of Doctor Death And Other Stories,” Tackman Babcock (has both hemispheres, but they’re not connected fully).
Jack Daniel’s wants you to know that its shit doesn’t stink. Because it doesn’t poop. Sort of. NPR reports that the whiskey distiller made its case to the Supreme Court on Wednesday that a poop-themed dog toy resembling a bottle of Jack was an issue of trademark infringement.
The dog toy is made to look like a square Jack Daniel’s whiskey bottle, and its label says “Bad Spaniels” instead of “Jack Daniel’s.” Where a normal Jack Daniel’s label notes that it’s “40% alcohol by volume,” Bad Spaniels reads “43% poo” and “100% smelly.” Jack Daniel’s took issue with the toy because it’s potentially equating itself with the whiskey brand in the eyes of the consumer….
VIP Products, the company that makes the dog toy, retorted that a reasonable person would not mix up the two, and that it’s just a joke. The brand also manufactures dog toys spoofing beer, wine, and soda, with products like Dos Perros (instead of Dos Equis), Kennel-Relax’n (instead of Kendall-Jackson), and 7Pup (goes without saying)….
…There are institutions like the Pontifical Academy of Science that tell the Vatican what’s going on in the world of science, but we actually do the science,” said Brother Guy Consolmagno, an asteroid honoree (4597 Consolmagno) and director of the observatory, whose website tagline is “faith inspiring science.”
(17) BIG DUMB OBJECT? [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] It is never aliens except when it is aliens…. “A compelling explanation for the enigmatic small object ‘Oumuamua”: Research reported in Nature presents a simple and realistic framework for understanding the object’s many peculiarities…
Interstellar objects have long been thought to transit our Solar System. Planetary systems eject large quantities of small bodies during the initial phases of their formation and, once ejected, these small ‘planetesimals’ travel through interstellar space for millions of years. It stands to reason that some of their paths will pass by the vicinity of the Sun. When ‘Oumuamua was first discovered, astronomers therefore expected it to behave like one of these fragments — not too dissimilar from the comets that form on the outskirts of our own Solar System.
From the beginning, however, something was amiss. ‘Oumuamua did not look like a comet and did not display the usual defining features of comets — a tail and a fuzzy envelope called a coma, both made from gas and dust. Instead, it resembled an inactive object, like an asteroid, which moves mainly as a result of gravity. However, it soon became evident that the motion of ‘Oumuamua was not exclusively due to gravity: it was being pushed along its path in a similar way to that routinely observed in comets, which are subject to an acceleration caused by the recoil of emitted gas and dust. How was it possible that this object looked inactive, but was showing indirect evidence of activity?…”
The primary research paper with the explanation is here.
[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mike Kennedy, Jennifer Hawthorne, Bill, David Goldfarb, Daniel Dern, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Andrew Porter, and Michael Toman for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Camestros Felapton.]
EXCERPTS FROM THE DECISION. John G. Koeltl, District Judge of the U.S. Southern District of New York, granted summary judgment based on the record, as was requested by both sides. His analysis of the case is illustrated in the following quotes from the decision.
The plaintiffs in this action, four book publishers, allege that the defendant, an organization whose professed mission is to provide universal access to all knowledge, infringed the plaintiffs’ copyrights in 127 books (the “Works in Suit”) by scanning print copies of the Works in Suit and lending the digital copies to users of the defendant’s website without the plaintiffs’ permission. The defendant contends that it is not liable for copyright infringement because it makes fair use of the Works in Suit.
…In the two years after the NEL, IA’s user base increased from 2.6 million to about 6 million…. As of 2022, IA hosts about 70,000 daily ebook “borrows.” …
…IA argues, however, that this infringement is excused by the doctrine of fair use. This doctrine allows some unauthorized uses of copyrighted works “to fulfill copyright’s very purpose, ‘[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.’” Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., 510 U.S. 569, 575 (1994). While rooted in the common law, fair use is a statutory exception to copyright infringement. The Copyright Act of 1976 provides that “the fair use of a copyrighted work” for “purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.” Id. § 107. “In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use,” the Copyright Act directs courts to consider the following factors:
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. 17 U.S.C. § 107. The four factors are not exclusive, but each must be considered in a “case-by-case analysis,” with the results “weighed together[] in light of the purposes of copyright.” Fox News Network, LLC v. TVEyes, Inc., 883 F.3d 169, 176 (2d Cir. 2018). Fair use presents a mixed question of law and fact and may be resolved on summary judgment where, as here, the material facts are undisputed.
FIRST FACTOR. In this Circuit, consideration of the first factor focuses chiefly on the degree to which the secondary use is “transformative.” Id. A transformative use “adds something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the first with new expression, meaning, or message, rather than merely superseding the original work.”
…There is nothing transformative about IA’s copying and unauthorized lending of the Works in Suit.7 IA does not reproduce the Works in Suit to provide criticism, commentary, or information about them. See 17 U.S.C. § 107. IA’s ebooks do not “add[] something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the [originals] with new expression, meaning or message.” Campbell, 510 U.S. at 579. IA simply scans the Works in Suit to become ebooks and lends them to users of its Website for free. But a copyright holder holds the “exclusive[] right” to prepare, display, and distribute “derivative works based upon the copyrighted work.” 17 U.S.C. § 106. An ebook recast from a print book is a paradigmatic example of a derivative work. Authors Guild v. Google, Inc., 804 F.3d 202, 215 (2d Cir. 2015) (”Google Books”) (citing 17 U.S.C. § 101). And although the changes involved in preparing a derivative work “can be described as transformations, they do not involve the kind of transformative purpose that favors a fair use finding.”…
The first factor also directs courts to consider whether the secondary use “is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes.” 17 U.S.C. § 107(1)…
…IA exploits the Works in Suit without paying the customary price. IA uses its Website to attract new members, solicit donations, and bolster its standing in the library community…. Better World Books also pays IA whenever a patron buys a used book from BWB after clicking on the “Purchase at Better World Books” button that appears on the top of webpages for ebooks on the Website…. IA receives these benefits as a direct result of offering the Publishers’ books in ebook form without obtaining a license. Although it does not make a monetary profit, IA still gains “an advantage or benefit from its distribution and use of” the Works in Suit “without having to account to the copyright holder[s],”… The commercial-noncommercial distinction therefore favors the Publishers….
IA makes a final argument that the first factor favors fair use because, according to IA, by reproducing and distributing only ebook editions of print books that were lawfully acquired, IA furthers the goals of copyright’s “first sale” doctrine. This argument is without merit….
… Acknowledging this, IA refashions a first sale argument within its fair use analysis. IA argues that although “Section 109 does not expressly encompass the reproduction right, neither does it abrogate the common-law principle favoring the ability of the owner of a copy to freely give, sell, or lend it.”…. But IA points to no case authorizing the first recipient of a book to reproduce the entire book without permission, as IA did to the Works in Suit….
… Nor does IA’s promise not to lend simultaneously its lawfully acquired print copies and its unauthorized reproductions help its case. As an initial matter, IA has not kept its promise. Although the Open Library’s print copies of the Works in Suit are non-circulating, IA concedes that it has no way of verifying whether Partner Libraries remove their physical copies from circulation after partnering with IA…. To the contrary, IA knows that some Partner Libraries do not remove the physical books from their shelves, and even if a Partner Library puts a physical book into a non-circulating reference collection, it could be read in the library while the ebook equivalent is checked out….
… The crux of IA’s first factor argument is that an organization has the right under fair use to make whatever copies of its print books are necessary to facilitate digital lending of that book, so long as only one patron at a time can borrow the book for each copy that has been bought and paid for. See Oral Arg. Tr. 31:10-15. But there is no such right, which risks eviscerating the rights of authors and publishers to profit from the creation and dissemination of derivatives of their protected works….
The first fair use factor strongly favors the Publishers…
SECOND FACTOR. The second fair use factor directs courts to consider “the nature of the copyrighted work.”
…IA argues that because most of the Works in Suit were published more than five years before IA copied them, IA has not interfered with the authors’ “right to control the first public appearance of [their] expression.”… Published works do not lose copyright protection after five years….
THIRD FACTOR. Under the third fair use factor, courts consider “the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole.” 17 U.S.C. § 107(3). IA copied the entire Works in Suit and made the copies available for lending….
It is true that copying an entire work is sometimes necessary to make a fair use of the work… In this case, however, IA copied the Works in Suit wholesale for no transformative purpose and created ebooks that, as explained below, competed directly with the licensed ebooks of the Works in Suit. IA’s wholesale copying therefore cannot be excused, and the third factor weighs strongly in the Publishers’ favor…
FOURTH FACTOR. The fourth fair use factor is “the effect of the [copying] use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work[s].” 17 U.S.C. § 107(4). This factor focuses on whether a secondary use “usurps the market for the [original] by offering a competing substitute.”
… In this case, there is a “thriving ebook licensing market for libraries” in which the Publishers earn a fee whenever a library obtains one of their licensed ebooks from an aggregator like OverDrive…. This market generates at least tens of millions of dollars a year for the Publishers…. And IA supplants the Publishers’ place in this market. IA offers users complete ebook editions of the Works in Suit without IA’s having paid the Publishers a fee to license those ebooks, and it gives libraries an alternative to buying ebook licenses from the Publishers. Indeed, IA pitches the Open Libraries project to libraries in part as a way to help libraries avoid paying for licenses….
… It is also irrelevant to assessing market harm in this case that IA and its Partner Libraries once purchased print copies of all the Works in Suit. The Publishers do not price print books with the expectation that they will be distributed in both print and digital formats,…
… Finally, the Court must consider “the public benefits [IA’s] copying will likely produce.” Andy Warhol Found., 11 F.4th at 50. IA argues that its digital lending makes it easier for patrons who live far from physical libraries to access books and that it supports research, scholarship, and cultural participation by making books widely accessible on the Internet. But these alleged benefits cannot outweigh the market harm to the Publishers….
SUMMARY ANALYSIS. … Each enumerated fair use factor favors the Publishers, and although these factors are not exclusive, IA has identified no additional relevant considerations. At bottom, IA’s fair use defense rests on the notion that lawfully acquiring a copyrighted print book entitles the recipient to make an unauthorized copy and distribute it in place of the print book, so long as it does not simultaneously lend the print book. But no case or legal principle supports that notion. Every authority points the other direction. Of course, IA remains entitled to scan and distribute the many public domain books in its collection. See Pls.’ 56.1 ¶ 294. It also may use its scans of the Works in Suit, or other works in its collection, in a manner consistent with the uses deemed to be fair in Google Books and HathiTrust. What fair use does not allow, however, is the mass reproduction and distribution of complete copyrighted works in a way that does not transform those works and that creates directly competing substitutes for the originals. Because that is what IA has done with respect to the Works in Suit, its defense of fair use fails as a matter of law. …
Attempted book bans and restrictions at school and public libraries continue to surge, setting a record in 2022, according to a new report from the American Library Association released Thursday.
More than 1,200 challenges were compiled by the association in 2022, nearly double the then-record total from 2021 and by far the most since the ALA began keeping data 20 years ago.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” says Deborah Caldwell-Stone, who directs the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. “The last two years have been exhausting, frightening, outrage inducing.”
Thursday’s report not only documents the growing number of challenges, but also their changing nature. A few years ago, complaints usually arose with parents and other community members and referred to an individual book. Now, the requests are often for multiple removals, and organized by national groups such as the conservative Moms for Liberty, which has a mission of “unifying, educating and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government.”
Last year, more than 2,500 different books were objected to, compared to 1,858 in 2021 and just 566 in 2019. In numerous cases, hundreds of books were challenged in a single complaint. The ALA bases its findings on media accounts and voluntary reporting from libraries and acknowledges that the numbers might be far higher….
… Science fiction, fantasy and horror were born in the pulps and short fiction has long been the beating heart of the genre. However, the focus of attention is increasingly moving towards novels and series. So why do you think SFF short fiction is important and worthy of attention?
I think that the reason SFF short fiction is so important is that it is constantly evolving and keeping up with what is happening in the world. Short fiction can be written, edited, and published long before a novel outline is finished. There is something immediate and satisfying about short fiction that does not exist in longer works of SFF. A great short story can be devoured in a single sitting, giving the reader a complete narrative arc in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee. Whole worlds can be created, inhabited, and destroyed on a single bus ride. There’s something about that that always attracted me to short fiction….
She also has a new “Fancast Spotlight” about the “Chrononauts” podcast hosted by JM, Gretchen, and Nate.
Tell us about your podcast or channel.
JM: Chrononauts is a podcast that delves into the history of science fiction literature, and seeks to discuss more obscure works in tandem with or in relation to more well-known stories and writers. In the beginning, I don’t think we had a very precise vision of what we wanted to do, besides: “Hey, let’s talk about some cool sci-fi books! And maybe we can proceed sort of chronologically through the genre’s history!” As time has gone on I think we’ve gotten a more firm handle on this, but also adopted a somewhat relaxed approach, so that while we are still, roughly speaking, moving forward chronologically, we are also taking many tangential side-steps, and are open to including newer works “out of sequence” as it were, particularly if they match up thematically with something from the past. Since I’ve always been into hunting down obscure treasures, I think one of my goals, from the beginning, was always to highlight things that were lesser-known, either because they simply didn’t get as much promotion or, in some cases, had no exposure in the English-speaking world….
(3) WORLD BUNDLE. The 2023 World SF StoryBundle curated by Lavie Tidhar is available for another three weeks. Full information at the link.
For StoryBundle, you decide what price you want to pay. For $5 (or more, if you’re feeling generous), you’ll get the basic bundle of four books in .epub format—WORLDWIDE.
Unto the Godless What Little Remains by Mário Coelho
Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Ion Curtain by Anya Ow
Hadithi & the State of Black Speculative Fiction by Eugen Bacon and Milton Davis
If you pay at least the bonus price of just $20, you get all four of the regular books, plus six more books for a total of 10!
Nova Hellas: Stories from Future Greece edited by Francesca T Barbini and Francesco Verso
The Love Machine & Other Contraptions by Nir Yaniv
& This is How to Stay Alive by Shingai Njeri Kagunda
And What Can We Offer You Tonight by Premee Mohamed
Of Dragons, Feasts and Murders by Aliette de Bodard
HebrewPunk by Lavie Tidhar (StoryBundle Exclusive)
…What I remember most about reading in childhood was falling in love with characters and stories; I adored Judy Blume’s Margaret and Beverly Cleary’s Ralph S. Mouse. In New York, where I was in public elementary school in the early ’80s, we did have state assessments that tested reading level and comprehension, but the focus was on reading as many books as possible and engaging emotionally with them as a way to develop the requisite skills. Now the focus on reading analytically seems to be squashing that organic enjoyment. Critical reading is an important skill, especially for a generation bombarded with information, much of it unreliable or deceptive. But this hyperfocus on analysis comes at a steep price: The love of books and storytelling is being lost.
This disregard for story starts as early as elementary school. Take this requirement from the third-grade English-language-arts Common Core standard, used widely across the U.S.: “Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, distinguishing literal from nonliteral language.” There is a fun, easy way to introduce this concept: reading Peggy Parish’s classic, Amelia Bedelia, in which the eponymous maid follows commands such as “Draw the drapes when the sun comes in” by drawing a picture of the curtains. But here’s how one educator experienced in writing Common Core–aligned curricula proposes this be taught: First, teachers introduce the concepts of nonliteral and figurative language. Then, kids read a single paragraph from Amelia Bedelia and answer written questions.
For anyone who knows children, this is the opposite of engaging: The best way to present an abstract idea to kids is by hooking them on a story. “Nonliteral language” becomes a whole lot more interesting and comprehensible, especially to an 8-year-old, when they’ve gotten to laugh at Amelia’s antics first. The process of meeting a character and following them through a series of conflicts is the fun part of reading. Jumping into a paragraph in the middle of a book is about as appealing for most kids as cleaning their room….
Fans of beloved children’s writer and illustrator Tomie dePaola will be able to get stamps honoring the “Strega Nona” author in just a few weeks.
The U.S. Postal Service said the stamps will be released on May 5. dePaola, a longtime New Hampshire resident whose books sold nearly 25 million copies, died in 2020 at 85 years old.
The Forever stamp shows the titular grandmother with her magic pasta pot. “Strega Nona,” published in 1975, is a Caldecott Honor book and was voted one of the “Top 100 Picture Books” by the School Library Journal.
(6) IN PASSING. [Item by Cora Buhlert.] Three deaths in the sff field to report.
Eric Brown, science fiction, mystery and children’s book writer as well as the Guardian’s SFF reviewer, has died aged 62. The Guardian’s tribute is at the link.
So the Beginning this Scroll is not one of the more upbeat ones we’ve done to date as it of Keith Roberts’ Pavane.
The ending of this novel, yes the ending, a novellette, “Pavane: The Signaller”, came out in Impulse: The New Science Fantasy in their March 1966 issue. The complete stories that are Pavane would first be printed by Hart-Davis in 1968. Why the ending first? I’ve no idea, but perhaps one of you knows why.
So I’ll just say that Pavane is a brilliant telling of an alternative England that mercifully never happened. So without further commentary, here’s the perfect Beginning that the author gave it…
PROLOGUE
On a warm July evening of the year 1588, in the royal palace of Greenwich, London, a woman lay dying, an assassin’s bullets lodged in abdomen and chest. Her face was lined, her teeth blackened, and death lent her no dignity; but her last breath started echoes that ran out to shake a hemisphere. For the Faery Queen, Elizabeth the First, paramount ruler of England, was no more …
The rage of the English knew no bounds. A word, a whisper was enough; a half-wit youth, torn by the mob, calling on the blessing of the Pope. … The English Catholics, bled white by fines, still mourning the Queen of Scots, still remembering the gory Rising of the North, were faced with fresh pogroms. Unwillingly, in self-defence, they took up arms against their countrymen as the flame lit by the Walsingham massacres ran across the land, mingling with the light of warning beacons the sullen glare of the auto-da-fé.
The news spread; To Paris, to Rome, to the strange fastness of the Escorial, where Philip II still brooded on his Enterprise of England. The word of a land torn and divided against itself reached the great ships of the Armada, threshing up past the Lizard to link with Parma’s army of invasion on the Flemish coast. For a day while Medina-Sidonia paced the decks of the San Martin, the fate of half the world hung in balance. Then his decision was made; and one by one the galleons and carracks, the galleys and the lumbering urcas turned north toward the land. Toward Hastings and the ancient battleground of Santlache, where history had been made once centuries before. The turmoil that ensued saw Philip ensconced as ruler of England; in France the followers of Guise, heartened by the victories across the Channel, finally deposed the weakened House of Valois. The War of the Three Henrys ended with the Holy League triumphant, and the Church restored once more to her ancient power.
To the victor, the spoils. With the authority of the Catholic Church assured, the rising nation of Great Britain deployed her forces in the service of the Popes, smashing the Protestants of the Netherlands, destroying the power of the German city-states in the long-drawn-out Lutheran Wars. The Newworlders of the North American continent remained under the rule of Spain; Cook planted in Australasia the cobalt flag of the Throne of Peter.
In England herself, across a land half ancient and half modern, split as in primitive times by barriers of language, class, and race, the castles of mediaevalism still glowered; mile on mile of unfelled woodland harboured creatures of another age. To some the years that passed were years of fulfillment, of the final flowering of God’s Design; to others they were a new Dark Age, haunted by things dead and others best forgotten; bears and catamounts, dire wolves and Fairies.
Over all, the long arm of the Popes reached out to punish and reward; the Church Militant remained supreme. But by the middle of the twentieth century widespread mutterings were making themselves heard. Rebellion was once more in the air…
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born March 23, 1904 — H. Beam Piper. I am reasonably sure that the first thing I read and enjoyed by him was Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen followed by Little Fuzzy and related works which are damn fun reading. Has anyone here read Scalzi’s Fuzzy novel? And how’s his Federation series? Not a Hugo to be had by Piper, amazingly, but Little Fuzzy was nominated at the first Discon when The Man in the High Castle won. (Died 1964.)
Born March 23, 1934 — Neil Barron. Certainly best known for Anatomy of Wonder: A Critical Guide to Science Fiction which actually is still a damn fine read which is unusual for this sort of material. If memory thirty years on serves me right, his Fantasy Literature and Horror Literature guides were quite good too. (Died 2010.)
Born March 23, 1937 — Carl Yoke, 86. One of those academics that I stumbled upon when I was looking for information on Zelazny. His 1979 study of him, Roger Zelazny, is quite excellent, as is his essay, “Roger Zelazny’s Bold New Mythologies” which is in Tom Staicar’s Critical Encounters II: Writers and Themes in Science Fiction. He also wrote “What a Piece of Work is a Man: Mechanical Gods in the Fiction of Roger Zelazny” which you’ll find in Contributions to the Study of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Yoke does have four genre stories to his credit.
Born March 23, 1947 — Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, 76. Though her only award was a Nebula for The Healer’s War, I remember her best for a three book series called The Songkiller Saga which was wonderful and the Acorna series that she did with Anne McCaffrey which they co-wrote all but two as the first two were written by McCaffrey and Margaret Ball. She wrote a tribute to McCaffrey, “The Dragon Lady’s Songs”, that appeared in Dragonwriter.
Born March 23, 1952 — Kim Stanley Robinson, 71. If the Mars Trilogy was the only work that he’d written, he’d rank among the best genre writers ever. But then he went and wrote the outstanding Three Californias Trilogy. I won’t say everything he writes I consider top-flight, the Science in the Capital series just didn’t appeal to me. His best one-off novels I think are without argument (ha!) The Years of Rice and Salt and New York 2140. I should note he has won myriad Awards including the Hugo Award for Best Novel, BSFA Award for Best Novel, the Nebula Award for Best Novel and the World Fantasy Award. And the Heinlein Society gave him their Robert A. Heinlein Award for his entire body of work!
Born March 23, 1959 — Maureen Kincaid Speller. British reviewer and essayist who has been nominated for Hugos for Best Semiprozine and Best Fan Writer. She had an extensive career with her writing showing up in Matrix, Steam Engine Time, The Gate and Vector (all of which she either edited or co-edited), Barbed Wire Kisses, Fire & Hemlock, Local Fanomena, Red Shift, Interzone and The BSFA Review. A brief collection by BSFA, And Another Thing … A Collection of Reviews and Criticism by Maureen Kincaid Speller, leave room for an additional collection. OGH’s obituary writeup is here. (Died 2022.)
Born March 23, 1958 — John Whitbourn, 65. Writer of a number novels and short stories focusing on an alternative history set in a Catholic universe. It reminds me a bit of Keith Robert’s Pavane but much more detailed. A Dangerous Energy in which Elizabeth I never ascends the throne leads off his series. If that’s not to your taste, Frankenstein’s Legion’s is a sheer delight of Steampunk riffing off Mary Shelley‘s tale. He’s available at the usual digital suspects.
[GdM] The expression of characters’ sexuality is something you have always written about that feels open and honest. Has the way you approached sex scenes and sensuality changed between the first novel and now, and if so, how?
Answer: When I started writing the series my plan was to have every kiss, every caress so amazing that we wouldn’t need to ever complete the act. What actually happened was that I built up the anticipation higher and higher so when it came to the point where Anita was finally ready to have full blown sex I had to live up to all the amazing foreplay. I was incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of doing it on paper, but I’d written crime scenes and fight scenes with extreme violence in them and not hesitated. The fact that sex between two people that cared about each other bothered me more than writing violent murder made me question my priorities. Was sex really worse than violence? No, no it wasn’t, but in America we’re conditioned that it is, and once I realized where the bias came from I was determined not to be trapped by it. I promised myself that every sex scene would be as well written and unflinching as my murder scenes had been. I think I’ve kept that promise to myself and to my readers.
Are you still sending your subscribers a poem a day? To produce the poem a day, are you influenced by the news, world happenings, or something beautiful you saw while about in your daily life?
JY: All of the above, plus lines from favorite poems, newspaper clippings, something someone asked, or watching out my window and seeing squirrels and foxes and bobcats and bears and….it’s an old New England farmhouse with a lot of out buildings and farmland! Lots happening there every day.
… Sword-and-sorcery is a subgenre of influence, to varying degrees. The various “Clonans”—Brak, Thongor, Kothar, and their ilk—bear the obvious influence of Robert E. Howard’s famous creation. Michael Moorcock read and was influenced by Howard, but with Elric created a protagonist wholly different than Conan or Kull—civilized, decadent, his strength dependent on a cocktail of drugs.
We also consume and enjoy derivative products. I like my Kothar books—they’re fun (no, they’re not, they’re terrible—DMR), and sometimes they’re just what I need (no, they’re not, they’re terrible!—DMR). The Clonans sold, but creatively arrested the subgenre in the ‘60s and ‘70s. S&S became so narrowly focused and artistically stultified that it suffered a collapse in the early 1980s.
It’s important we recognize true innovators and mavericks. And offer venues and support creators that strive for originality.
Today the issue of originality vs. derivative work has risen to greater prominence and debate with the rise of AI. Now our art is threatened not by derivative authors, but by machines capable of turning it out in choking quantities….
(12) BEAGLE VISITS GLENDALE. Here’s a beautiful photo of author Peter S. Beagle, taken by Krystal Rains, while Beagle was signing at the LA Vintage Paperback Show in Glendale on Sunday.
Peter S. Beagle. Photo by Krystal Rains.
[Thanks to Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Daniel Dern, Krystal Rains, Cora Buhlert, Mike Kennedy, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern – folding more references together than the ingredients in a Scalzi burrito.]
After the last original member of First Fandom, Bob Madle, died last October, the organization’s leadership decided to canvass the membership, now composed of Associate Members who have been active in fandom for more than three decades, asking whether First Fandom should continue and in what form. President John L. Coker III has shared the results of the survey in the group’s newsletter and with File 770.
First Fandom Questionnaire
(Reprinted from Scientifiction, the First Fandom quarterly newsletter, No. 75 – 1Q2023, edited by John L. Coker III.)
(75) questionnaires were sent out to the members. (57) members responded (that’s an approximately 78% participation rate). Here are the four questions:
(1) Now that there are no original members left, should we continue as an organization?
(2) If you do feel that we should continue, should we reorganize under a new name to legitimately continue our original mission of presenting awards, issuing our publications, keeping alive the memories, and having fun?
(3) Do you agree that, in the new organization, the members’ annual dues should be current?
(4) Do you wish to become a Charter Member?
Results
(1) An overwhelming majority of respondents said that we should continue as an organization, and only four said we should not continue as an organization. One respondent felt that “it was time everyone moved on to something else, whether it be a foundation or something not yet thought of.” One stated that they did not care. Another: “I like the idea of an organization bringing together long-time fen interested in the history of fan-dom. I’m not enthusiastic about organizing the group as a memorial to a generation of folks all of whom I love to read about but not all of whom I necessarily feel comfortable lionizing.” Another: “I think First Fandom should now be ended. Some kind of organization to honor the first fans is a nice idea. I’ll applaud it, but probably won’t join it. Another: “First Fandom was *their* thing. I was friends with some of them, but I wasn’t *one* of them. Some of those guys made it clear to me that they wanted the organization to end when they did. So, I say, let it end.”
(2) An overwhelming majority of respondents said that we should reorganize under a new name so that we could continue our original mission, and only three respondents said that we should not reorganize under a new name. One person stated “…they had no problem keeping the organization going with the original name.” One stated they did not care. Another wrote: “Count me in!” Another person wrote: “If the questionnaire were longer, I’d vote for measures to broaden rather than freeze the definition of ‘First’.”
(3) All but two respondents felt that, in order to belong to the new proposed organization, the members needed to be current in their dues. One person felt that if some members were unable to afford dues, that their dues should be paid for them by a reserve fund. One person noted that in the past some members had made a lifetime dues payment.
(4) An overwhelming majority of respondents felt that they did want to become charter members of the new organization. Only four respondents did not want to become charter members. One respondent said it depended on the cost. Another suggested that we could merge with or align themselves with another organization (for example, the Science Fiction Research Association) so that our members would have opportunities to be published.
Conclusions
Based on written responses to the questionnaire, the great majority of our members agree that we should continue, but that we should reorganize under a new name. Most agreed that members should pay annual dues. Nearly all respondents felt that if a new organization was formed, they wanted to be charter members of that new organization.
So, according to our membership, it seems that “First Fandom is not dead.” It is just reorganizing. Dinosaurs that adapt will not as easily go extinct. More information about our path forward will be made available soon.
First Fandom has announced the candidates for the organization’s three annual awards. Members have until May 1 to vote
FIRST FANDOM HALL OF FAME
The First Fandom Hall of Fame, created in 1963, is a prestigious achievement award given to a living recipient who has made significant contributions to Science Fiction throughout their lifetime.
Michael Moorcock
“Michael John Moorcock is an English writer, particularly of science fiction and fantasy, who has published a number of well-received literary novels as well as comic thrillers, graphic novels and non-fiction. He has worked as an editor and is also a successful musician. He is best known for his novels about the character Elric of Melniboné, which were a seminal influence on the field of fantasy in the 1960s and ’70s.” “As editor of the British science fiction magazine New Worlds, from May 1964 until March 1971 and then again from 1976 to 1996, Moorcock fostered the development of the SF “New Wave” in the UK and indirectly in the US, leading to the advent of cyberpunk.” “He also has published pastiches of writers including Edger Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, and Leigh Brackett. He was a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers’ Guild of America. The SFWA named him their 25th Grand Master.” “Novels and series such as the Cornelius Quartet, Mother London, King of the City, the Pyat Quartet and the short story collection London Bone have established him in the eyes of critics.” (Excerpted from a longer article in Wikipedia)
Will Murray
William Patrick Murray is a prolific author, essayist, contributing editor, series writer, movie tie-in writer, producer of audio books and ebooks, ghostwriter, comics novelist, literary executor, collector, and contributor to encyclopedias and dictionaries. His work has kept alive beloved characters from the past. He is the award-winning author of hundreds of stories, non-fiction articles, books, and dozens of introductions to anthologies. He has written many short stories of the characters Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Iron Man, Nick Fury, Spider-Man, Honey West, the Hulk, Green Hornet, Zorro, and Lee Falk’s The Phantom. And, with Steve Ditko he created the super hero Squirrel Girl. He is a genuine enthusiast who has worked with the estates of prominent authors such as Lester Dent and Edger Rice Burroughs to write authorized adventures of characters from the days of radio and pulps, including the Shadow, Doc Savage, Tarzan, John Carter of Mars, the Spider, the Whisperer, Sherlock Holmes, Black Mask, Operator #5, G-8 and His Battle Aces, Spicy Zeppelin, King Kong, and H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. (Based on a longer article in Wikipedia)
POSTHUMOUS HALL OF FAME
The Posthumous Hall of Fame was created in 1994 to acknowledge people in Science Fiction who should have, but did not, receive that type of recognition during their lifetimes.
Ken Kelly
“Ken William Kelly (May 19, 1946 – June 2, 2022) was an American fantasy artist. Over his 50-year career, he focused in particular on SCIENTIFICTION 1Q2023 New Series #75, Page 6 paintings in the sword and sorcery and heroic fantasy subgenres.” “Throughout the 1970s he was a prominent cover artist for Warren Publishing’s Creepy and Eerie magazines.” “His work often portrays exotic, enchanted locales and primal battlefields. He depicted Conan the Barbarian, Tarzan, and the rock acts KISS, Rainbow, and Ace Frehley.” (Excerpted from a longer article in Wikipedia)
Conrad H. Ruppert
Conrad H. Ruppert was an early STF fan, a card-carrying reporter for Gernsback’s Science and Invention magazine (1924-25), a printer, and a pioneering science fiction journalist. He will likely best be remembered as the person who painstakingly set the type by hand for many of the earliest and finest fanzines such as The Time Traveller, Science Fiction Digest, Fantasy Magazine, The Fantasy Fan, and later, The Weinbaum Memorial Volume (1938) and The Souvenir Journal of the World Science Fiction Convention (1939). The professional appearance of Ruppert’s typeset publications set the highest standard for other fan printers and helped to legitimize the idea of fans publishing science fiction. He won a cash prize from Gernsback in an early contest that promoted science fiction. Ruppert was also a life-long photographer who stood outside the entrance to the first Worldcon on July 2, 1939, and made pictures of the big-name fans and pros as they arrived. Three dozen of Ruppert’s photos that he made at the 1939 New York World’s Fair are part of the Smithsonian Museum’s Collection. It is due to Ruppert’s tireless efforts as science fiction’s preeminent printer during a critical time in early fandom history that he is still remembered and highly-regarded today.
SAM MOSKOWITZ ARCHIVE AWARD
Sam Moskowitz Archive Award was created in 1998 to recognize not only someone who has assembled a world-class collection but also what has actually been done with it.
John L. Coker III
For more than thirty-five years, hundreds of John’s photos and articles in the imaginative literature genre have been published widely in magazines, newspapers, on book covers, in digital media, as well as in program books for numerous World Fantasy and World Science Fiction Conventions and have been featured in such publications as The New York Times and USA Today Weekend. John has been a regular photographer and reporter for Scientifiction, columnist for Tangent magazine, and a contributor to LOCUS and SF Chronicle. John edited three books for Days of Wonder Publishers about David A. Kyle (2006), Ray Bradbury (2008), and Forrest J Ackerman and Julius Schwartz (2009). He was a contributing editor for The Sam Moskowitz Bibliography and Guide by Hal W. Hall (2017), and Futures Past: A Visual History of Science Fiction, 1926 (Jim Emerson, 2014). A founding member of First Fandom Experience, John is a contributing editor and principal historian for their books. John has assembled a large collection of vint[1]age photos, fan magazines, and personal interviews which he incorporates into his publications. He is an active member of FAPA and N3F. With co-author Jon D. Swartz, he has published six volumes of the First Fandom Annual. John helped establish and nurture the First Fandom Archive to help preserve original science fiction-related items and make them available for historic research.
[From Scientifiction, the First Fandom quarterly newsletter, No. 75 – 1Q2023, edited by John L. Coker III.]
(1) ADOBE FIREFLY. [Item by Mike Kennedy.]The Verge is reporting “Adobe made an AI image generator — and says it didn’t steal artists’ work to do it”. The difference from others? Supposedly no copyrighted material was used to train the AI. Unless Adobe owned the copyright or licensed it for training. See the article for some illustrations.
Adobe is finally launching its own AI image generator. The company is announcing a “family of creative generative AI models” today called Adobe Firefly and releasing the first two tools that take advantage of them. One of the tools works like DALL-E or Midjourney, allowing users to type in a prompt and have an image created in return. The other generates stylized text, kind of like an AI-powered WordArt.
This is a big launch for Adobe. The company sits at the center of the creative app ecosystem, and over much of the past year, it’s stayed on the sidelines while newcomers to the creative space began to offer powerful tools for creating images, videos, and sound for next to nothing. At launch, Adobe is calling Firefly a beta, and it’ll only be available through a website. But eventually, Adobe plans to tightly integrate generative AI tools with its suite of creative apps, like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere.
“We’re not afraid of change, and we’re embracing this change,” says Alexandru Costin, VP of generative AI and Sensei at Adobe. “We’re bringing these capabilities right into [our] products so [customers] don’t need to know if it’s generative or not.”
Adobe is putting one big twist on its generative AI tools: it’s one of the few companies willing to discuss what data its models are trained on. And according to Adobe, everything fed to its models is either out of copyright, licensed for training, or in the Adobe Stock library, which Costin says the company has the rights to use. That’s supposed to give Adobe’s system the advantages of not pissing off artists and making its system more brand-safe. “We can generate high quality content and not random brands’ and others’ IP because our model has never seen that brand content or trademark,” Costin said.
Costin says that Adobe plans to pay artists who contribute training data, too. That won’t happen at launch, but the plan is to develop some sort of “compensation strategy” before the system comes out of beta….
People who identify as gay in Uganda risk life in prison after parliament passed a new bill to crack down on homosexual activities.
It also includes the death penalty in certain cases.
A rights activist told the BBC the debate around the bill had led to fear of more attacks on gay people.
“There is a lot of blackmail. People are receiving calls that ‘if you don’t give me money, I will report that you are gay,'” they said.
The bill is one of the toughest pieces of anti-gay legislation in Africa….
What does the bill say?
The final version has yet to be officially published but elements discussed in parliament include:
A person who is convicted of grooming or trafficking children for purposes of engaging them in homosexual activities faces life in prison
Individuals or institutions which support or fund LGBT rights’ activities or organisations, or publish, broadcast and distribute pro-gay media material and literature, also face prosecution and imprisonment
Media groups, journalists and publishers face prosecution and imprisonment for publishing, broadcasting, distribution of any content that advocates for gay rights or “promotes homosexuality”
Death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality”, that is sexual abuse against a child, a person with disability or vulnerable people, or in cases where a victim of homosexual assault is infected with a life-long illness
Property owners also face risk of being jailed if their premises are used as a “brothel” for homosexual acts or any other sexual minorities rights’ activities
A small group of Ugandan MPs on a committee scrutinising the bill disagreed with its premise. They argue the offences it seeks to criminalise are already covered in the country’s Penal Code Act….
(3) GATHERING OF BOOK LOVERS. The Los Angeles Vintage Paperback show continues to rebound from the pandemic years. John King Tarpinian took this photo of the event forty-five minutes after it started last Sunday morning in Glendale, CA. (I spotted Matthew Tepper on the left margin. And the back of Craig Miller’s head, at the far end of the hall.)
(4) A LITERARY KNOCKOUT. The three novels in Liu Cixin’s Three-Body Problem series had enjoyed a resurgence to the top of China’s bestseller list due to interest generated by two TV adaptations, however, its reign at the top is over: “February’s China Bestsellers: A Crime Drama Knockout” at Publishing Perspectives.
The Knockout (Qingdao Publishing House)—by Zhu Junyi, Xu Jizhou, and Bai Wenjun—has vaulted to the No. 1 spot on the fiction list from no previous ranking, effectively blindsiding consumers and the industry.
The trilogy that The Knockout has shoved down to Nos. 2, 3, and 4 is the mighty “Three-Body Problem” series by Liu Cixin, which, as Publishing Perspectives readers know, has been surging to the tops of the monthly lists on the strength of both an animated and a live-action television adaptation….
(5) CINEMA STORY ORIGINS PODCAST RECEIVES WARNING FROM MOVIE STUDIO. [Item by Dann.] The Cinema Story Origins Podcast began originally as the Disney Story Origins podcast. Author and podcaster, Paul J. Hale, was inspired to review movies and the books that inspired them by comparing the two. Where there are multiple written works, he frequently compares the movie with the more notable written works in parallel.
Paul told Facebook followers yesterday he was recently contacted by a lawyer for a major studio and advised that he was pushing the line on fair use of the studio’s property. Paul did not name the studio, the lawyer, or the property in question. He did, however, say that fans of his podcasts include Disney executives including at least one that made a sizeable financial contribution to Paul’s efforts.
…I recently had a major film studio warn me about how perilously close to the wind I’m sailing when I use their IPs (though the lawyer told me she likes the podcast very much).
I promised that I’ll watch myself, and reminded them that there has never been a charge for people to listen to the podcast and that those who pledge and donate do so out of love for the podcast, and the kindness of their hearts. I told them that this is well meaning content, and free advertising of their products. I also shared many e-mails from listeners, telling me that because of the show they watched the movie(s), and/or read the books.
“We appreciate that,” the lawyer said, “just don’t get carried away.”
I appreciate that they contacted me and gave me a warning rather than a cease and desist order, because if that happens the show’s over. Believe. I can’t fight billion dollar corporations. …
Cinema Story Origins is currently comparing Richard Adams’ Watership Down with the movie that it inspired. The first two episodes of the Watership Down arc come in at a total of 3 hours and 41 minutes. The final episode will probably be over 2 hours.
As always, Paul’s presentations are well-researched, presented with footnotes, lively, and entertaining. You never know when he is going to toss in a moment of clarity (either humorous or serious – sometimes both!)
(6) SPUR AWARDS. The Western Writers of America recently announced the 2023 Spur Awards. (I doubt any of them are genre.)
Best Western Historical Nonfiction Book: Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America by Megan Kate Nelson
Script: Dead for a Dollar (CHAOS a Film Company/Polaris Pictures) by Walter Hill
Romance Novel: Proving Her Claim: On the Dakota Frontier by CK Van Dam (Pasque Publishing)
First Novel: Proving Her Claim: On the Dakota Frontier by CK Van Dam (Pasque Publishing)
Biography:Before Billy the Kid:The Boy Behind the Legendary Outlaw by Melody Groves (TwoDot).
Children’s Picture Book:The Rowdy Randy Wild West Show: The Legend Behind the Legendby author Casey Day Rislov and illustrator Zachary Pullen (Mountain Stars Press).
Contemporary Nonfiction Book: A Place of Thin Veil: Life and Death in Gallup, New Mexico by Bob Rosebrough (Rio Nuevo Publishers).
Contemporary Novel:Beasts of the Earth by James Wade (Blackstone Publishing).
Documentary Script:The Battle of Red Buttes by Candy Moulton and Bob Noll (Boston Productions Inc./National Historic Trails Interpretive Center).
First Nonfiction Book: American Hero, Kansas Heritage: Frederick Funston’s Early Years, 1865-1890by Clyde W. Toland (Flint Hills Publishing).
Historical Novel: Properties of Thirst by Marianne Wiggins (Simon & Schuster).
Juvenile Nonfiction Book: American Ace: Joe Foss, Fighter Pilot by Hector Curriel (South Dakota Historical Society Press).
Juvenile Fiction: Wish Upon a Crawdad by Curtis W. Condon (Heart of Oak Books for Young Readers).
Original Mass-Market Paperback Novel: Dead Man’s Trail by Nate Morgan (Pinnacle/Kensington).
Poem: “New Mexico Bootheel: A Triptych” by Larry D. Thomas (San Pedro River Review).
Short Fiction:“No Quarter” by Kathleen O’Neal Gear, published in Rebel Hearts Anthology (Wolfpack Publishing).
Short Nonfiction:“Texas Jack Takes an Encore” by Matthew Ross Kerns (Wild West).
Song:“Way of the Cowboy” by Randy Huston, released on Times Like These(Outside Circle Records).
Traditional Novel: The Secret in the Wall: A Silver Rush Mystery by Ann Parker (Poisoned Pen Press).
(7) BRUCE COULSON. Bruce Coulson, longtime fan and son of Buck and Juanita Coulson, died March 21 of cancer. His passing was announced on Facebook by his wife, Emily Vazquez-Coulson.
Tom Smith recalls, “…I knew him for a long time. He was involved in many conventions and fannish activities over the years, especially in filk and gaming, and was a gentle, caring and fun-loving fellow.”
(8) NASFIC IN MEMORIAM LIST. Steven H Silver is running the in memoriam list for Pemmi-Con, the 2023 NASFiC, which on Twitter is still called “Worldcon In Memoriam”. That’s where I learned about four recent deaths of people I was acquainted with (Gustaveson – who did art for an early fanzine of mine – plus Clemmer, Blake — who wrote the occasional letter of comment to paper File 770 — and Reaves – who, while best-known for his writing, was someone I met when he was the TA for Theodore Sturgeon’s writing class at UCLA.)
Fan Rob Gustaveson died in early March. Gustaveson was a member of LASFS and ran Graphic Illusion, through which he sold comics and books.
Author Michael Reaves (b.1950) died on March 20. Reaves wrote the novels Dragonworld, Hellstar, Street Magic, and several media tie-ins. He was also a screenwriter and wrote Batman: Mask of the Phantasm and episodes of several animated series.
The Beginning is that of “What Can You Say About Chocolate Covered Manhole Covers?” whose author y’all know. It was published first in All the Myriad Ways by Ballantine Books in June 1971. And yes, it’s available from the usual suspects.
In case there’s a soul who hasn’t yet read this delightful speculation, I won’t tell you a single thing about it. You are in for a real treat as Larry Niven is at his very best here.
Now our Beginning…
It was the last party. Otherwise it was only one of many, so many that they merged in the memory. We all knew each other. George had invited around thirty of us, a heterogeneous group, aged from teen to retirement, in dress that varied from hippie to mod to jeans and sneakers to dark suits, and hair that varied from crew cut to shoulder length.
It was a divorce party.
Granted that it’s been done before, still it was done well. George and Dina had planned it a year earlier, to celebrate the night their Decree became Final. The cake was frosted in black, and was surmounted by the usual wax figures, but facing outward from opposite edges of the cake. Jack Keenan donned a minister’s reversed collar to officiate. His makeshift sacrament included part of the funniest prayer in literature: the agnostic’s prayer from Zelazny’s Creatures of Light and Darkness. George and Dina kissed with obvious sincerity, for the last time, and everybody clapped like mad.
Afterward I got coffee and a piece of divorce cake and found a flat place to set them. Without a third hand to handle the plastic fork, I was as good as trapped there; and there it was that Tom Findlay found me.
Tom Findlay was all red hair and beard. The beard was full and thick, the hair long enough to tie in back with a rubber band. Once he had gone to a costume party with his hair combed forward over his eyes and the bridge of his nose, and a placard around his neck that read NOT A SHEEP DOG. He generally wore knee-length socks and leather shorts. His legs too were thickly covered with red hair. He spoke in a slow midwestern drawl, and grinned constantly, as if he were watching very funny pictures inside his head.
He was always part of these groups. Once a month he held a BYOB party of his own. He had a tendency to monopolize a conversation; but even those who avoided him on that account had to admit that he gave fair warning. He would walk up to any friend or stranger he found standing alone and open conversation with, “Hey. Would a Muslim vampire be terrified of a copy of the Koran?”
Or, “It seems to me that anarchy would be a very unstable form of government, don’t you think?”
Or, “What about chocolate covered manhole covers?”
That one fell pretty flat, I remember. What can anyone say about chocolate covered manhole covers? Most of Findlay’s ideas were at least worth discussing. Vampires, for instance. What significance has the vampire’s religion? Or the victim’s blood type? Could you hold off a vampire with a sunlamp, or kill him with a stake of grained plastic wood? If a bullet won’t kill a vampire, what about a revolver loaded with a blank cartridge and a wooden pencil?
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born March 22, 1911 — Raymond Z. Gallun. An early SF pulp writer who helped the genre to become popular. “Old Faithful” published in Astounding (December 1934) was his first story and led to a series of that name. “The Menace from Mercury,” a story published in the Summer 1932 issue of Wonder Stories Quarterly, was penned from a suggestion by Futurian John Michel and is considered famous among fans. His first published novel, People Minus X, didn’t appeared until 1957, followed by The Planet Strappers four years later. You can get all of his fiction at the usual suspects. (Died 1994.)
Born March 22, 1920 — Werner Klemperer. Yes, he was Colonel Wilhelm Klink on Hogan’s Heroes which I’d be hard stretched to consider even genre adjacent, but he had a fair amount of genre of work starting with One Step Beyond, and continuing on with Men in Space, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, Batman (where he appeared in a cameo as Col. Klink, nice touch there), and Night Gallery. (Died 2000.)
Born March 22, 1920 — Ross Martin. Best known for portraying Artemus Gordon on The Wild Wild West. I watched the entire series on DVD one summer some decades back including the films in less than a month from start to finish. Now that was fun! It looks like Conquest of Space, a 1955 SF film, in which he played Andre Fodor was his first genre outing. The Colossus of New York in which he was the brilliant Jeremy ‘Jerry’ Spensser came next, followed by appearances on Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond, The Twilight Zone, Zorro, The Immortal, Night Gallery, Invisible Man, Gemini Man (a far cheaper version of Invisible Man), Quark (truly one of the worst SF series ever), Fantasy Island and Mork & Mindy. (Died 1981.)
Born March 22, 1923 — Marcel Marceau. Professor Ping in Roger Vadim‘s Barbarella. A French mime, and I assume you know that, this is the first time Marceau’s voice is heard on film. This is his only genre appearance unless you count the Mel Brooks film Silent Movie as genre adjacent in which case he says the only words in that film. (Died 2007.)
Born March 22, 1930 — Stephen Sondheim. Several of his works were of a fantastical nature including Into The Woods which mines deeply into both Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault for its source material. And there’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street which is damn fun even if it isn’t genre. Or is it? You decide. (Died 2021.)
Born March 22, 1931 — William Shatner, 92. Happy Birthday Bill! We all know he was Captain Kirk, but how many of us watched him as Jeff Cable on the rather fun Barbary Coast series? I did. Or that he was The Storyteller in children’s series called A Twist of The Tale? I was I surprised to discover that his police show T.J. Hooker ran for ninety episodes!
Born March 22, 1950 — Mary Tamm. Another one who did far too young, damn it. She’s remembered for her role as Romana, the companion to the Fourth Doctor in “The Key to Time” story. It seemed liked she was there longer only because another actress, Lalla Ward, played her in the following season. Tamm had only one other genre gig, to wit as Ginny in “Luau” on the Tales That Witness Madness series. (Died 2012.)
Born March 22, 1969 — Alex Irvine, 54. I strongly recommend One King, One Soldier, his offbeat Arthurian novel, and The Narrows, a WW II Detroit golem factory where fantasy tropes get a severe trouncing. He’s also wrote The Vertigo Encyclopedia which was an in-house project so, as he told me back then, DC delivered him one copy of every Vertigo title they had sitting in the warehouse. For research purposes. And he’s written a fair number of comics, major and minor houses alike.
(11) FICTIONAL BIRTHDAY. James T. Kirk was born in Riverside, Iowa this day in 2233.
The issues Westworldwas exploring went from “sci-fi to documentary film” through the years, according to co-creator Lisa Joy, who hinted at what a fifth season of the HBO smash could have looked like.
Delivering a Series Mania keynote, Joy said that advances in AI and the invention of ChatGPT mean that Westworld’s subject matter has become more relevant and contemporaneous of late.
“These topics will continue to be explored if not in Westworld then in other series, taking [the topic] to new levels,” she said, in conversation with Deadline. “I think it’s an area rife with possibility.” …
The Writers Guild of America has proposed allowing artificial intelligence to write scripts, as long as it does not affect writers’ credits or residuals.
The guild had previously indicated that it would propose regulating the use of AI in the writing process, which has recently surfaced as a concern for writers who fear losing out on jobs.
But contrary to some expectations, the guild is not proposing an outright ban on the use of AI technology.
Instead, the proposal would allow a writer to use ChatGPT to help write a script without having to share writing credit or divide residuals. Or, a studio executive could hand the writer an AI-generated script to rewrite or polish and the writer would still be considered the first writer on the project.
In effect, the proposal would treat AI as a tool — like Final Draft or a pencil — rather than as a writer. It appears to be intended to allow writers to benefit from the technology without getting dragged into credit arbitrations with software manufacturers.
The proposal does not address the scenario in which an AI program writes a script entirely on its own, without help from a person.
The guild’s proposal was discussed in the first bargaining session on Monday with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Three sources confirmed the proposal….
In Harlan Ellison’s I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream, an artificial intelligence called IAM has become an all-powerful god. Driven by an existential hatred of mankind, it destroys the world, except for the very last remnants of humanity which it suspends in torture simulations where they’re plagued by giant monstrous birds.
Unlike Harlan Ellison’s semi-gnostic vision of a mad AI god, Theta Noir claims that a General AI—a self-sustaining machine that has far outstripped the abilities of its creators after the “singularity”—could instead prove benevolent, ending inequalities and reorganizing our mess of a world for the better. Theta Noir hopes to meld old spiritualist traditions with the cutting edge of computer engineering—a kind of mystical materialism that, on the one hand, recognizes that machines are made by mere people, but on the other, insists that one day they’ll be something more.
With a slick website, manifesto, paid membership tiers, NFT web store, and essays with titles like “Can AI heal the split between science and religion?” and “Will machines birth the next form of religious experience?,” the 10-artist collective founded in 2020 appears to be a combination of a mixed-media project, an entrepreneurial group riding the AI hype wave, and a new age AI cult.
(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Isaac Arthur’s Science & Futurism this month looks at that good old SF trope the apocalypse.
If the end of the world is nigh, it may be too late to avert a catastrophe. So what can we do to mitigate the damage or recover after a cataclysm comes?
[Thanks to Andrew Porter, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Dann, Cora Buhlert, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mike Kennedy, John King Tarpinian, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cat Eldridge.]
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) announced today that acclaimed performer and designer Cheryl Platz will serve as toastmaster for the 58th Annual Nebula Awards® Ceremony. The ceremony will take place in Anaheim, CA, on Sunday, May 14, 2023. This year marks the return of the ceremony to an in-person event and continues SFWA’s tradition of inviting the global science fiction and fantasy community to take part by livestreaming the festivities.
Cheryl Platz. Photo Credit: Michael Doucett
Cheryl Platz is a world-renowned designer, author, game developer, speaker, and actress best known for her work on cutting-edge products from Alexa to Azure, from Disney Parks to The Sims, and her work on multiple Internet TV shows. Her first book, Design Beyond Devices: Creating Multimodal, Cross-Device Experiences, was published by Rosenfeld Media in 2020. For folks new to design, she describes her book as “the design manual for folks who aspire to design the starship bridge of their dreams.”
In her current role as Director of User Experience for the Player Platform at Riot Games, Platz leads a team working to build a coherent cross-device experience for millions of players. Her past game development experience includes production, game design, and game writing on a variety of titles, from The Sims Makin’ Magic, The Sims 2, and The Urbz to the Chronicles of Narnia and Disney Friends.
Platz’s acting career includes credits on Internet shows such as Shadowrun: Corporate SINs, voice-over credits for The Sims 2 (DS) and BATTLETECH (2018) among others, and over 15 years of professional improv comedy performances with Unexpected Productions, Seattle Experimental Theater, and NERDprov. She also owns design education firm Ideaplatz, LLC and has delivered keynotes, workshops, and consulting services on 5 continents and in over a dozen countries.
SFWA President Jeffe Kennedy shared, “We are proud to welcome Cheryl Platz as our 2023 Toastmaster. Platz shares our love of game writing and exploring new worlds — from the page to the movie screen and onto our consoles. We can’t wait to see her on the stage of the Airship Nebula on the next stage of its journey.”
“Science fiction and fantasy have always been a huge part of my life,” remarked Platz, “from growing up with Star Trek to surviving college with Discworld and dreaming of alternative futures with today’s Lady Astronaut books. It is a tremendous honor to combine my own experience in writing, games, hosting, and improv to help bring this year’s triumphant re-launch of the live Nebulas experience to life not just for in-person audiences, but for live audiences around the world. I look forward to guiding you all on our away mission as the Airship Nebula docks for the first time in years this May for a memorable planetary visit.”
The antho’s preview story was posted today, Adrian Tchaikovsky’s “Silicon Hearts”.
“Next up is Johnny Zepter.” Steve called up the figures. At her own screen, Kate opened the spreadsheet and readied herself to make notes.
“This week, our good buddy Zee submitted four hundred and seventy-three stories to eight different outlets, of which four were accepted.” Steve nodded in appreciation. “Nice work Jay-Zee. That’s another forty quid in the kitty.”
“One percent takeup,” Kate noted. “We’re hitting the mark nicely there.”
“People’s tastes don’t change, right?” Steve said. Johnny Zepter wrote space adventure. He had a stable of half a dozen two-fisted, square-jawed action types who encountered alien planets or artifacts, defeated the locals with human ingenuity or just by punching them in what they had for faces, discovered something superficially revelatory and made a witty quip about it. Four hundred times this week alone….
Preorder the book via the links at the bottom of the story, or support them via Patreon.
(2) IN THE RUNNING. In the SFWA officer elections, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki is a write-in candidate for director-at-large he told Facebook readers today.
Early this morning there was an incident near the south tower elevators that created a disturbance which spread throughout the convention level at approximately 2 am.
The events occurred as follows:
• Attendees moved down the escalators away from the south tower
• They moved across the lobby and then back upstairs towards the sky bridge to the convention center
• Hotel security called Toronto Police Services (TPS) immediately following the incident
• The Nightingales responded shortly after hearing the attendees
• Together with the Toronto Police Service, they secured the area
• They then performed a sweep of the area
• A lockdown was initiated, and the gaming lounge was evacuated
• An “all clear” was called within two hours after no immediate threats were located.
The investigation is still ongoing. At this time we do not have more details, but will provide updates as we investigate further. Please allow us to continue to gather information and avoid spreading rumours.
We have been assured that the convention area is safe and Furnal Equinox attendees may enjoy the final day of the event as planned. If you have any concerns now or in the future, please feel free to contact there Nightingales in person or via email at [email protected] Your health and safety is our top priority.
We would also like to thank the Westin Hotel security team and Toronto Police Service for their quick response and assistance on this matter. And a thank you to all attendees for your cooperation and patience.
So what happened? “Sir Tillfred Laurier” knows, having had some too-personal experience with the offender. Twitter thread starts here.
Now have you figured out the answer? There’s video of Nakedman in action on Twitter here. Or there’s a version with “censored” blocks over the peccant parts, plus furry Odin Wolf’s commentary, here.
…British Book Awards—sometimes called the Nibbies, as the logo reminds us—are a brand of The Bookseller, the United Kingdom’s news medium of record for the publishing industry. There are 29 award categories. …
Fiction
Love Marriage by Monica Ali (Virago, Little, Brown)
Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes (Mantle, Pan Macmillan)
Fairy Tale by Stephen King (Hodder & Stoughton, Hachette)
Babel by R.F. Kuang (Harper Voyager, HarperCollins)
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell (Tinder Press, Headline Publishing Group)
Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart (Picador, Pan Macmillan)
Children’s Fiction
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Diper Överlöde by Jeff Kinney (Puffin, Penguin Random House Children’s)
Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun by Tọlá Okogwu (Simon & Schuster Children’s Books UK)
Tyger by SF Said, illustrated by Dave McKean (David Fickling Books)
The First to Die at the End by Adam Silvera (Simon & Schuster Children’s Books UK)
Skandar and the Unicorn Thief by A.F. Steadman (Simon & Schuster Children’s Books UK)
Loki: A Bad God’s Guide to Being Good by Louie Stowell (Walker Books)
After nearly three years of legal wrangling, the Internet Archive’s scanning and lending program finally got its day in court on Monday, March 20. And if Judge John G. Koeltl’s questions are any indication, the Internet Archive is facing an uphill battle.
Over the course of a 90-minute hearing on the parties’ cross motions for summary judgment, Koeltl appeared skeptical that there was sufficient basis in law to support the Internet Archive’s scanning and lending of print library books under a legally untested protocol known as controlled digital lending, and unconvinced that the case is fundamentally about the future of library lending, as Internet Archive attorneys have argued.
“To say that this case is about the ability of a library to lend a book that it owns ignores whether the library has a right to copy wholesale the book,” Koeltl offered at one point during an extended exchange with IA attorney Joseph Gratz. “Does a library have the right to lend a book that it owns? Of course,” the judge conceded. But the question at the heart of this case, he added, is “whether a library has the right to make a digital copy of a book that it owns and then lend that digital copy, which it has made without a license and without permission” to patrons. “To formulate the issue in this case as simply ‘does the library have a right to lend a book that it owns’ belies the issue in the case,” Koeltl said….
… But Koeltl peppered [the Internet Archive’s attorney] Gratz with questions throughout the hearing, appearing deeply skeptical that the Internet Archive’s fair use case was properly supported by case law, and unconvinced that the publishers’ market for library e-books was not impacted by libraries choosing to scan print books under CDL protocols.
“A library whether they hold a physical copy or not, has the ability to license an e-book from a publisher. Rather than pay that licensing fee to the publisher some libraries choose to make their own copy and to lend that copy. Why isn’t it self-evident that that deprives the publisher of the fees that the publisher could otherwise obtain from licensing an e-book to that library?” Koeltl asked.
“It is because with respect to the copies at issue in the CDL situation the question is not between OverDrive and nothing. The question is between physically lending a book to a particular patron, for which no payment would be due to a publisher, or digitally lending that book to the patron,” Gratz replied, adding that to find harm “there would need to be a reason to think that the publishers were worse off than the situation in which in which the fair use did not occur at all.” In fact, library e-book lending has grown throughout the existence of the IA’s scanning program, and actually surged during the height of the pandemic….
What’s a library like without books? My kid’s school library removed most of the books, creating a space to use in other ways. And apparently, the university system in Vermont wanted this, too. They proposed taking library books off the shelves of at least three campus libraries and offering digital copies instead. That would save money, but…
ROSIE PHELAN: I was shocked. I was really taken aback when I heard that that was happening.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Rosie Phelan is an English major who works in the library at Castleton University. That’s one of three colleges merging to create a new Vermont State University.
PHELAN: You go to a college and you expect to have these resources, and the next thing you know, they’re just taken away.
INSKEEP: Phelan insists students still use physical books….
(7) JEOPARDY! Tonight’s episode of Jeopardy! devoted an entire category to science fiction books. Andrew Porter noted these two entries gave contestants problems.
Category: Books: The Future is Now
Answer: He saw 2024 as a Hellish wasteland in his 1969 short story “A Boy & His Dog”
No one could ask, “Who is Harlan Ellison?”
***
In 2025, game shows are to the death in “The Running Man”, written by Stephen King under this pseudonym
On the one hand, 1099 income seems like a raw deal. You don’t get taxes taken out for you like at a standard job, meaning you owe more at tax time. And you even pay higher taxes in the FICA category. (FICA taxes include Social Security and Medicare. These are paid 50% by your employer and 50% by you. But if you’re a self-employed business, then you pay both halves.)
OTOH, you can and should lower your freelance tax bill with business deductions. Just as a regular company takes deductions, you get to take them as a solo business. The money you can write off lowers the income that is taxed, thus lowering your tax bill….
And from there he goes into more tax return issues.
(9) MEMORY LANE.
1965 – [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is one of my favorite SF works. I knew it had won a well deserved Hugo at NyCon 3 but I hadn’t realized it was nominated the previous year at Tricon. Isn’t that a tad unusual?
It had been first published in If magazine in five parts starting in the December 1965 issue. It was then published in hardcover by G. P. Putnam’s Sons in 1966. The Penguin Publishing Group has it for sale at the usual suspects as does what I suspect is one pirate publisher as it has no copyright information.
Now I really think that everyone here has read this novel but keeping with our very firm policy of absolutely no spoilers, I won’t say anything beyond the fact that I think that this is one of his best novels and I’ve throughly enjoyed it each and every time I’ve experienced it. Characters, stetting and story — what’s not to really like here?
So now to our most superb Beginning…
I SEE IN Lunaya Pravda that Luna City Council has passed on first reading a bill to examine, license, inspect—and tax—public food vendors operating inside municipal pressure. I see also is to be mass meeting tonight to organize “Sons of Revolution” talk-talk.
My old man taught me two things: “Mind own business” and “Always cut cards.” Politics never tempted me. But on Monday 13 May 2075 I was in computer room of Lunar Authority Complex, visiting with computer boss Mike while other machines whispered among themselves. Mike was not official name; I had nicknamed him for Mycroft Holmes, in a story written by Dr. Watson before he founded IBM. This story character would just sit and think—and that’s what Mike did. Mike was a fair dinkum thinkum, sharpest computer you’ll ever meet.
Not fastest. At Bell Labs, Buenos Aires, down Earthside, they’ve got a thinkum a tenth his size which can answer almost before you ask. But matters whether you get answer in microsecond rather than millisecond as long as correct?
Not that Mike would necessarily give right answer; he wasn’t completely honest.
When Mike was installed in Luna, he was pure thinkum, a flexible logic—“High-Optional, Logical, Multi-Evaluating Supervisor, Mark IV, Mod. L”—a HOLMES FOUR. He computed ballistics for pilotless freighters and controlled their catapult. This kept him busy less than one percent of time and Luna Authority never believed in idle hands. They kept hooking hardware into him—decision-action boxes to let him boss other computers, bank on bank of additional memories, more banks of associational neural nets, another tubful of twelve-digit random numbers, a greatly augmented temporary memory. Human brain has around ten-to-the-tenth neurons. By third year Mike had better than one and a half times that number of neuristors.
And woke up.
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born March 21, 1915 — Ian Stuart Black. British screenplay writer best known for scripting two First Doctor stories, “The Savages” and “The War Machines” (with Kit Pedler and Pat Dunlop) and a Third Doctor story, “The Macra Terror”. He wrote thirteen episodes of The Invisible Man as well as episodes of One Step Beyond, The Saint, Star Maidens and Danger Man. (Died 1997.)
Born March 21, 1931 — Al Williamson. Cartoonist who was best known for his work for EC Comics in the ’50s, including titles like Weird Science and Weird Fantasy, and for his work on Flash Gordon in the Sixties. He won eight Harvey Awards, and an Eisner Hall of Fame Award. (Died 2010.)
Born March 21, 1936 — Margaret Mahy. New Zealand author of over a hundred children’s and YA books, some with a strong supernatural bent. She won the Carnegie Medal twice for two of her fantasy novels, The Haunting and for The Changeover, something only seven authors have done in total. (Died 2012.)
Born March 21, 1947 — Terry Dowling, 76. I was trying to remember exactly what it was by him that I read and it turned out to be Amberjack: Tales of Fear and Wonder, an offering from Subterranean Press a decade ago. Oh, it was tasty! If it’s at all representative of his other short stories, he’s a master at them. And I see he’s got just one novel, Clowns at Minnight which I’ve not read. He’s not at all deeply stocked at the usual digital suspects but Kindle has this plus several story collections.
Born March 21, 1947 — Don Markstein. He was the creator and sole maintainer of Don Markstein’s Toonpedia which is subtitled “A Vast Repository of Toonological Knowledge”. It is an encyclopedia of print cartoons, comic strips and animation started in 2001. He said, “The basic idea is to cover the entire spectrum of American cartoonery.” (Died 2012.)
Born March 21, 1956 — Teresa Nielsen Hayden, 67. She is a consulting editor for Tor and is best known for Making Light, a blog she shares with her husband Patrick and which may yet resume activity. She is also one of the regular instructors for the Martha’s Vineyard writing workshop Viable Paradise.
Born March 21, 1970 — Chris Chibnall, 53. A showrunner for Doctor Who and the head writer for the first two (and I think) best series of Torchwood. He first showed up in the Whoverse when he penned the Tenth Doctor story, “42”. He also wrote several episodes of Life on Mars. He’s been nominated for a Hugo three times for work on Doctor Who, “Rosa” at Dublin 2019, “Resolution” CoNZealand and for “Fugitive of the Judoon” at DisCon III.
(12) EVANGELIZING FOR SUPERGIRL. [Item by Olav Rokne.] Some of the comic book nerds in the book club with me have all been quite impressed with Tom King’s latest work Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, which James Gunn has listed as the direct inspiration for the upcoming Supergirl movie. It’s eligible for the Hugo this year — and I think it’s something a lot of Worldcon folks would love. Smart, fun, serious, high adventure. “Kara Zor-El Unbound” at the Hugo Book Club Blog.
… These aren’t stories about saving the universe, defeating galactic tyrants, or challenges with world-shattering consequences. But the fact that the stakes are more personal shows what matters to Supergirl, and the human scale of the story makes it highly engaging.
On a technical level, this is a superhero comic book, but the writing takes much of its inspiration from heroic fantasy. This is a story about a sword-wielding hero and sidekick traveling across distant landscapes on a quest and getting pulled into side adventures. Given that it takes cues from the heroic fantasy work of Fritz Leiber, Woman of Tomorrow seems like something that would appeal to many Worldcon attendees….
What happened next followed a pattern seen in nearly a dozen attempts at defrauding artists of their paintings and money that were reviewed by The New York Times. In each case, young artists were offered an attractive price for artworks by “collectors” who sent them checks to cover the price of the work and the cost of shipping it. Each of them was then asked to forward the shipping fee by money order to a person who was arranging the delivery.
Ginsberg sent $2,060 to the aptly named Linda Shady, who was supposed to be a shipping agent based in Fond du Lac, Wis. That name turned out to be fictitious and the person apparently used fake identification to cash the money order before Ginsberg was told by his bank that the $6,210 check he had received — more than he asked for — had not cleared.
“That was when I realized it was fraud,” Ginsberg said.
Cybercrime experts said fake check scams were growing. Though it did not study art scams per se, a study published in February by the Federal Trade Commission’s Consumer Sentinel Network tallied more than $124 million in damages from more than 40,000 cases involving fraudulent foreign money offers or fake checks.
Most of the cases start with an email from a fictitious person, a subset of the surge in phishing that has greatly increased the vulnerability of communications online. A study by the tech security company SlashNext projected that there were more than 255 million phishing attacks in 2022 through email, mobile and other online channels. That was 61 percent higher than the rate of phishing attacks the company tallied a year before….
(14) BE THE MAN WHO BOUGHT THE MOON (NECKLACE). [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Christie’s is having an online-only auction (closing 28 March) of meteorites & meteorite-related objects. Several of the items have had their origin traced to the Moon, Mars, or a specific asteroid. “Deep Impact: Lunar, Martian, and Other Rare Meteorites”.
Perhaps the crown jewel (so to speak) of the auction is Lot #1—an 18 inch single-strand necklace, consisting of 48 8.25 mm beads derived from Lunar material. One particular asteroid, NWA 12691, has been sectioned for display and sale. Apparently some of the smaller bits from that were formed into these beads.
The estimated price for the necklace is $140,000-$200,000, though the top bid as I write this is a mere $10,000. There are a scant few items in the auction with a higher estimate, but none of those is likely to make as fine a red carpet display.
The catalog description notes:
Fastened with a white gold clasp and knotted when strung, each of these lunar beads are of the highest quality. As is the case with any other lunar feldspathic breccia, each bead is composed of fragments of olivine, pigeonite, augite, ilmenite and signature white anorthite — which is rare on Earth but common on the Moon. The different minerals and lithologies were naturally bound together by a melt of lunar regolith, the result of repeated impacts on the lunar surface prior to the collision responsible for launching NWA 12691 to Earth.
…Stephanie Shu co-stars as their daughter Joy, a character whose complex journey takes her to the edge of madness and back, playing both a teenager struggling to connect with her mom and an omnipotent nihilist seeking to destroy the universe. So of course she lost the Oscar to Jamie Lee Curtis as a mean lady with a funny voice… Let’s just pretend this was a makeup for True Lies….
[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Andrew Porter, Olav Rokne, Kathy Sullivan, Rich Lynch, Alex Shvartsman, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Tom Becker.]
