“The Tinker and the Timestream,” Carolyn Ives Gilman (5.95)
“Flying CARPET,” Rajnar Vajra (4.36)
“To Fight the Colossus,” Adam-Troy Castro (3.95)
“The Elephant-Maker,” Alec Nevala-Lee (3.54)
NOVELETTES (1.12)
“The Deviltree,” Monalisa Foster (2.46)
“Apollo in Retrograde,” Rosemary Claire Smith (2.26)
“Didicosm,” Greg Egan (2.10)
(TIE) “Recruit,” Stephen L. Burns (1.95) (TIE) “The House on Infinity Street,” Allen M. Steele (1.95)
SHORT STORIES (0.29)
“Blowout,” Wole Talabi (1.85)
“Cornflower,” Victoria Navarra (1.74)
“The Echo of a Will,” Marie Vibbert (1.28)
“Second Sight,” Gray Rinehart (1.18)
“An Infestation of Blue,” Wendy N. Wagner (1.13)
FACT ARTICLES (1.30)
“The Science Behind ‘The Power of Apollo (16),’” Marianne J. Dyson (2.36)
“Black Holes and the Human Future,” Howard V. Hendrix (2.00)
(TIE) “Evolving Brainy Brains Takes More than Living on a Lucky Planet,” Christina De La Rocha (1.74) (TIE) “The Science Behind Kepler’s Laws,”Jay Werkheiser (1.74)
“Another Way to the Stars,” Christopher MacLeod (1.44)
POETRY (3.59)
“How to Conquer Gravity,” Mary Turzillo (3.95)
“What Xenologists Read,” Mary Soon Lee (3.64)
“Object Permanence,” Marissa Lingen (2.36)
“The Observer,” Bruce Boston (2.10)
“I Dreamt an Alien Was in Love with My Ex-Girlfriend,” Don Raymod (1.49)
COVER (2.28)
May/June, by Tomislav Tikulin for “The Elephant Maker” (5.23)
January/February, by Eldar Zakirov for “Aleyara’s Descent” (3.23)
September/October, by Tomislav Tikulin (2.21)
HOW THE VOTE SCORING WORKS. In each category readers are asked to list their three favorite items, in descending order of preference. Each first place vote counts as three points, second place two, and third place one. The total number of points for each item is divided by the maximum it could have received (if everyone had ranked it 1) and multiplied by 10. The result is the score listed below, on a scale of 0 (nobody voted for it) to 10 (everybody ranked it first). In practice, scores run lower in categories with many entries than in those with only a few. For comparison, the number in parentheses at the head of each category is the average for that category.
January/February 2023: Tomislav TikulinMay/June 2023: Eldar ZakirovSeptember/October 2023: Tomislav Tikulin
Ese Erheriene has won the 2024 Future Worlds Prize for Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers of Colour with her short story “The Suit Sellers of Kowloon”, described by the judges as “evocative and well-executed”. It is the first time a short story has won the competition.
The runner-up is Farah Maria Rahman for her novel Tribe of the Snow Leopards.
Ese ErherieneFarah Maria Rahman
Erheriene, winner of the £4,500 prize, is an emerging writer of short stories, fiction and poetry. Born and raised in South East London, she has lived in France, Norway, and across Asia. A journalist, she wrote for The Wall Street Journal — in London and Hong Kong — for almost six years. In 2020, she moved to Portugal for a year to write about identity, disconnection and culture.
“The Suit Sellers of Kowloon” is set among the men who work as suit sellers and tailors on the streets of Kowloon, in Hong Kong. The reader follows Siddharth as, one by one, sellers begin to go missing under mysterious circumstances — but the thread running through it all is the love story between Siddharth and his wife Onovughakpor.
The judges said: “The Suit Sellers of Kowloon stayed with us, and is surprising without giving too much away at the beginning. Good scene-setting and slick character introductions make for an evocative and well-executed story.”
Rahman, the runner-up, lives in London and studied English at the University of Sussex and Goldsmiths College. Her novel, Tribe of the Snow Leopards, is set on Aurotopia, a planet much like Earth, where Tahmina is growing restless. The rules of her village are constantly revised by the all-powerful ‘elders’, and following orders is not what she’s best at. When her closest friend goes missing, Tahmina must go against all that she knows to find her. But what she discovers goes beyond anything she could have imagined… her home is being colonised by the Earth-born, and her ‘best friend’ is on their side.
The judges said: “The stakes are set out clearly from the beginning in Tribe of the Snow Leopards, which is a story with heart and soul. It is a clear and well-written story, with an exciting twist.”
The other six shortlisted writers get £850 each: Zita Abila, Nelita Aromona, Isha Karki, Inigo Laguda, Ruairidh MacLean, and M.A. Seneviratne.
Founder of Originate Literary Agency, Natalie Jerome
Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author Tade Thompson.
Future Worlds Prize for Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers of Colour aims to find new talent based in the UK writing in the SFF space, from magical realism and space operas to dystopia and more. In addition to the cash prizes, all shortlisted writers, the runner-up and the winner will also receive mentoring from one of the prize’s publishing partners Bloomsbury Publishing, Daphne Press, Orion Books’ Gollancz, Penguin Random House’s Michael Joseph, Hachette’s SFF imprint Orbit, Hodder’s Hodderscape, and Pan Macmillan’s Tor.
Future Worlds Prize was founded by bestselling author Ben Aaronovitch in 2020, and was previously named the Gollancz and Rivers of London BAME SFF Award. The prize is financially supported by Aaronovitch and Bridgerton actor Adjoa Andoh. It is administered by Future Worlds Prize CIC, a not-for-profit organisation.
Today, Literary Arts announced that the Le Guin family will donate their home to Literary Arts to create the Ursula K. Le Guin Writers Residency. This will be Oregon’s first significant permanent recognition of Le Guin’s 50-year literary legacy since she died in 2018.
Andrew Proctor, executive director of Literary Arts, shared, “Our conversations with Ursula and her family began in 2017. She had a clear vision for her home to become a creative space for writers and a beacon for the broader literary community. With the launch of the public phase of our Campaign for Literary Arts this month, we are closer than ever to making this dream a reality. This campaign will allow us to raise funds to launch the Ursula K. Le Guin Writers Residency and plan for its future. The Le Guin family had many partners to choose from and we are honored that they are entrusting Literary Arts with this cherished cultural treasure.”
Originally built in 1899 from a Sears & Roebuck catalog plan, the three-story house and garden were purchased by Ursula and her husband, Charles, in the early 1960s when Northwest Portland was home to many academics, artists and working-class households. With a view of Mount St. Helens and decorated with her personal collection of rocks and well-loved art and books, Ursula’s corner room evolved throughout the years from a nursery for her children to the place where she wrote some of her best-known work, from novels to her blog. There is still a designated space on her desk for the typewriter on which Ursula would type her final manuscripts. A redwood tree, planted in the 1960s, now towers over that corner of the house, a reminder of Ursula’s Northern California roots.
Once established, the new Ursula K. Le Guin Writers Residency, to be operated by Literary Arts, will welcome writers from around the world, with a focus on those residing in the western United States.Staying true to the organization’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, the program will invite writers of different genders, races, ages, economic status, education and literary genres to apply for residencies. The writers will be selected by an advisory council made up of literary professionals and a Le Guin family member. Appointed writers will be asked to engage with the local community in a variety of literary activities, such as community-wide readings and workshops. The residency program is currently in the development phase, with plans for future renovations to the home for improved accessibility.
Theo Downes-Le Guin, son of the late author Ursula K. Le Guin, remembers well the second-floor room where his mother worked on some of her most famous novels.
Or at least how it seemed from the outside.
“She was very present and accessible as a parent,” he says. “She was very intent on not burdening her children with her career. … But the times when she was in there to do her writing, we knew that we needed to let her have her privacy.”
[Theo] Downes-Le Guin, who also serves as his mother’s literary executor, now hopes to give contemporary authors access to her old writing space. Literary Arts, a community nonprofit based in Portland, Oregon, announced Monday that Le Guin’s family had donated their three-story house for what will become the Ursula K. Le Guin Writers Residency.
…No date has been set for when the residency will begin. Literary Arts has launched a fundraising campaign for maintaining the house and for operating an office in town….
…While writers in residence will be welcome to use her old writing room, the author’s son understands if some might feel “intimidated” to occupy the same space as one the world’s most celebrated authors.
“I wouldn’t want anyone to be in there in this constant state of reverence, which would be against the spirit of the residency,” he says….
(2) TAKE THE TARDIS TO TATTOOINE. Camestros Felapton tells us what all fifteen of them would wear to “Doctor Who’s Star Wars Cosplay Party”. Very funny!
If Doctor Who went to a Star Wars-themed costume party, what costume would they wear? In this clickbaity listicle post, I will give the definitive answers! Yet, as The Doctor is the ultimate space wizard shouldn’t every version of them dress as a Jedi? No, not at all…
(3) PASSIVUM. In case you didn’t get enough discussion of the passive voice yesterday, KW Thomas has some wisdom to contribute. Thread starts here.
OK, so that might be a bit OTT, but I honestly think the advice to avoid passive voice does more harm than good. I see writers tying themselves in knots over it, and there’s really no need.
Fiction writers generally aren’t doing this. They’re writing things in their voice, and their characters’ voices, & most people actually have a decent instinct for when passive voice is appropriate and when it isn’t when they’re not trying too hard to be formal and neutral.
But most fluent speakers of English will, most probably, only be using passive voice when it's actually needed. ("My father was murdered." "I feel like I've been hit by a bus.")
So, fiction authors, if you are worried about passive voice, my advice is just… don’t be ???????
(4) ARGUING WITH ART. Here is the cover of Savannah Mandel’s forthcoming book Ground Control : An Argument for the End of Human Space Exploration from Chicago Review Press. It asks, “Is it worth it – socially, politically, and economically – to send humans to space?”
Seeing that tagline reminded Andrew Porter of the posters Frank Kelly Freas did for NASA back in the Seventies, one of which said —
…Martin knew how good he was, and meted out his treasures to lucky editors with a certain lofty care. One of my first calls when I got to Vanity Fair was to ask him to write a piece about a new play by David Hare. His first question was: “Do I have to see it?” I found myself wavering, knowing that whatever he filed would be better than anyone else’s. Over the years, he became graver, more wary perhaps, but unchanged in his satirical glee.
Last February Isabel arranged for me to visit Martin at their home in Brooklyn. They loved each other devotedly, to the death. It hurt to see him so frail, but he was still Martin, undiminished: “I went in to have this special chemo treatment,” he said. “The doctor’s office was full of posters of happy cured people, windsurfing.” The italics dripped with the delighted disgust that Martin reserved for that wishful – and peculiarly American – fraudulence.
Mostly he reflected on “this new stage”, as he called it with an aloof curiosity. “There is absolutely no spiritual dimension to any of this,” he said. “No one writes anything really good after 70, anyway. It feels all right to look back at my life as ‘then’ – the past, belonging to someone else. The only thing I regret is not knowing how all this” – he gestured – “turns out. I’d like to have seen Trump finally finished.”
The truth is that none of us gets to know how it turns out, because it keeps going and we don’t….
(6) BRUSH UP YOUR DRAGON LORE. [Item by Andrew Porter.] I’ve been binge watching HBO’s House of the Dragon series 1; the second season starts June 16.
I found the Wikipedia article, which explains who is what, and has episode guides, useful: House of the Dragon.
(7) PAT SIMS (1937-2024). Past Big Heart Award winner Pat Sims, who served as secretary/treasurer for the Cincinnati Fantasy Group and later as VP of the Orlando Area Science Fiction Society, died June 9 at the age of 87. Deborah Oakes told the Cincinnati Fantasy Group: “She slipped away peacefully last night about 9:30 pm. Her niece Clara was with her in hospice when she passed away. She will be cremated, and her ashes spread at sea with Roger’s ashes, per their wishes.”
Pat first encountered fandom in the early 1960s after she moved to Chicago, where a roommate took her to meetings of the University of Chicago Science Fiction Club. She was recruited to work registration for Chicon 3, the 1962 Worldcon.
The following year she met Roger Sims (1930-2022) at Midwestcon, and they married in 1964. Pat and Roger were active in Detroit fandom for many years, then in Cincinnati. They later moved to Florida.
Pat and Roger Sims at Noreascon One (1971). Photo by Jay Kay Klein.
Together they hosted Ditto 10 (1997), Ditto 17 (2004) and FanHistoriCon 9 (1999).
Roger and Pat also became the 1995 Down Under Fan Fund delegates. Non-fan honors bestowed on them (through fannish connections) included being commissioned as Kentucky Colonels, and being named Honorary Captains of The Belle of Louisville.
Pat received the Big Heart Award in 2002.
Pat and Roger Sims at Midwestcon 40 in 1989. Photo by Mark Olson.
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born June 10, 1952 — Kage Baker. (Died 2010.) Kage Baker was one of those writers that I had a close relationship by email and phone for many years until she passed on. I’m still sad that she died early but relieved that she is no longer in constant pain.
Kage Baker in 2009. Photo by Stepheng3.
Though most knew her as a genre writer, she was very proud of her other life. As Kathleen noted on the site she keeps about her life with Kage, Kathleen, Kage and the Company: “Kage Baker taught Elizabethan English (also known as Language I when we had time for lots of classes) for the performers at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire. She taught it for most of 30 years; we team-taught at workshops, she and I, in a spiel I can still recite. Well, I can recite my half – I get stuck pausing for her lines here and there. We had worked out a class recitation that was half improv and half thesaurus.”
Kage told me how they both dressed up on in their best Elizabethan cosplay finery for the Renaissance Pleasure Faires, surely the social highlight of their year from the way she described it way such obvious delight. I know they even took Harry the Space Pirate with them on occasion.
Yes Harry, a most unusual bird. Let’s have her explain: “Well, a Household Bench Mark is approaching — my parrot, Harry Redux, is about to reach his first birthday. Or his twenty-first, as he is the reincarnation of my first parrot, Harry Prime. He is the Dalai Parrot. I rescued Harry Prime from an abusive situation 20 years ago, and he was the love of my life; when he died last year, I decided my middle-aged life had enough tragedy and it was time to invoke Mystic Forces. I made sure of a clutch laid shortly after he entered the Higher Plane, and waited anxiously for his return — the system works for Tibetan religious leaders, and I saw no reason why it would not do so for my evolved dinosaur. Sure enough, this brand new little bird exhibits unnerving knowledge of his past life, including where we hide the McVittie’s Digestive Biscuits in the kitchen. When he gazes dulcetly from his pirate-gold-coin eyes, one must believe that here is an ancient and inhuman soul.”
She baked food a lot. Really she did. Quite a bit, much of it Elizabethan. And then there was Barm Brack: “Barm Brack is a soul cake — traditional Scots recipe calls for a bean or silver coin or some other token to be baked into it and the person getting the winning slice gets fame or good luck or sacrificed or whatever, deciding on how much of The Wicker Man you take seriously. I leave the tokens out of mine, personally. Life is enough of a lottery as it is.” Her recipe is here: “Barm Brack”.
No, I’m not talking about novels here though I liked them so much that we were supposed to do a Concordance for them for Golden Gryphon. I was supposed to draft a series of questions for each of the cyborgs for which she was would play out being that cyborg and answer the questions in detail. Each of these would be in turn become a chapter in the Corcordance. Sadly she got too ill before we could do it.
I’ll miss her a lot. She was a great conversationalist, a fantastic SF writer and she wrote a number of really great reviews for Green Man including this one authored with her sister about a series dear to both of them: “The Two Fat Ladies: The Complete 4 Series”.
(10) FREE COMIC EXPO. The Bowers Museum Comic Art Expo will be held in Santa Ana, CA on June 15-16. Schedule at the link.
This free two-day event promises to be a dynamic gathering for comic enthusiasts, artists, and collectors alike, in celebration of our current exhibit, Asian Comics: Evolution of an Art Form. The Comic Art Expo will feature a variety of artists, live DJs, and family-friendly activities.
During the Expo, arrive in cosplay* to get FREE General Admission, and gain exclusive access to Asian Comics for just $10! Join us for a season of color, creativity, and community!
Never-before-seen at a museum and making its American debut, Asian Comics: Evolution of an Art Form presents the largest ever selection of original artworks from Asian comics, displayed alongside their printed, mass-produced forms. This exhibition is a vivid journey through the art of comics and visual storytelling across Asia. From its historical roots to the most recent digital innovations, the exhibition looks to popular Japanese manga and beyond, highlighting key creators, characters, and publications. Explore thriving contemporary comics cultures and traditional graphic narrative artforms from places including:
Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mongolia, North Korea, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Tibet, and Vietnam.
Visitors to Asian Comics will dive into a kaleidoscope of diverse stories, from fantastical folklore, pivotal historical moments, revealing memoirs, and challenging expressions of freedom. Discover acclaimed and influential creators from Osamu Tezuka, Zao Dao, Morel, Hur Young Man, and Lat, to genre innovators and under-represented artists including Abhishek Singh and Miki Yamamoto. See how their work has influenced cinema, animation, fashion, visual art, music, and videogames, and get creative in the accompanying makerspace that’s fun for all ages….
(11) TAX CREDITS ARE PEACHY. “Jobs IRL: How Georgia makes movie makers”, a podcast at Marketplace, provides a look at Georgia’s film production tax credits and the pipeline for show business jobs.
You ever see that peach as the credits come to an end on screen for shows like “The Walking Dead” or “WandaVision”?
That peach means filmed in Georgia, a state set to surpass California for sound stages by square foot. The names that come before the peach — best boy, gaffer or, in this case, “key rigging grip” — they all come with a paycheck.
“We do things ranging from putting cameras onto dollies and cranes to hanging heavy lights above people’s heads,” said Francis Harlan. He does this for a show called “The Bondsman” being shot here on a set designed to look like a honky-tonk bar. It’s about an undead bounty hunter starring one Kevin Bacon. (Talk about fewer than six degrees.) Blumhouse, the production company, spun up a program to give a trainee his shot….
(12) LINGUA FRANCA. “Young people, especially, are choosing to read in English even if it is not their first language because they want the covers, and the titles, to match what they see on TikTok and other social media,” says the New York Times. “English-Language Books Are Filling Europe’s Bookstores. Mon Dieu!”
When the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jennifer Egan was in the Netherlands a few years ago promoting her most recent novel, “The Candy House,” she noticed something unexpected. Most of the people who asked her to sign books at author events were not presenting her with copies in Dutch.
“The majority of the books I was selling were in English,” Egan said.
Her impression was right. In the Netherlands, according to her Dutch publisher, De Arbeiderspers, roughly 65 percent of sales for “The Candy House” were in English.
“There was even a sense of a slight apology when people were asking me to sign the Dutch version,” Egan said. “And I was like, ‘No! This is what I’m here to do.’”
As English fluency has increased in Europe, more readers have started buying American and British books in the original language, forgoing the translated versions that are published locally. This is especially true in Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands and, increasingly, Germany, which is one of the largest book markets in the world.
Publishers in those countries, as well as agents in the United States and Britain, worry this could undercut the market for translated books, which will mean less money for authors and fewer opportunities for them to publish abroad.
“There is this critical mass,” said Tom Kraushaar, publisher at Klett-Cotta in Germany. “You see in the Netherlands: Now there is a tipping point where things could really collapse.”
The English-language books that are selling abroad are generally cheap paperbacks, printed by American and British publishers as export editions. Those versions are much less expensive than hardcovers available in the United States, for example, and much less expensive than the same books in translation, which have to observe minimum pricing in countries like Germany.
“People should read in whatever language they want,” said Elik Lettinga, publisher of De Arbeiderspers in the Netherlands. But the export editions, she continued, “undercuts on price.”…
[Thanks to Kathy Sullivan, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, and Teddy Harvia for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
New Adventures in Space Opera edited by Jonathan Strahan (Tachyon, 2024)
Review by Paul Weimer. The Jonathan Strahan-edited New Adventures in Space Opera places a big marker on the definitive anthology heralding the newest iteration of New Space Opera.
Space Opera, as Strahan notes in the introduction, has gone through a number of iterations, evolutions and attempts at definition, some more serious than others (Norman Spinrad’s description of Space Opera as “straight fantasy in science fiction drag” is not quite as far off the mark as one might think). But the amusing thing is that, there have been several times that there has been a next crest of space opera, another “New” Space Opera. The previous New Space Opera hit the field in 2003, and Strahan edited The New Space Opera and The New Space Opera 2 at that time.
Here, now, in the 2010s and the 2020s, we have yet another new iteration of a “new” Space Opera, another stop on the journey of the subgenre. Strahan notes that this is a time where “the fascination with empire faded and its terrible impact was more deeply interrogated.” He thus marks Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice as a herald of this latest iteration of space opera, and also notes the “pulpy energy” of works such as Guardians of the Galaxy.
It is in this spirit, and this mode, and this energy that Strahan seeks to chart the New Adventures of Space Opera in this volume. And we get a strong set of stories by a wide variety of authors exploring this latest set of dimensions of Space Opera.
I’ve always thought an anthology like this (or any anthology, really) needs a strong opener and a strong closer. The first story is going to dictate whether you are going to continue on to the next story or start randomly skipping stories or go off and play Balatro instead. The last story in an anthology works like the anchor in a relay race. Done right, it leaves you in a good place for the anthology as a whole, and you are far more likely to remember. “Hey, Strahan is a good editor. What’s his next anthology? Or one I missed?”
So with that in mind, the opener for the anthology is Tobias Buckell’s “Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance”. It is, as one might suspect, set in his diverse and wild Xenowealth space opera universe, and centers around the relationship between a robot and a CEO. It’s a story about the rich and powerful trying to escape punishment and retribution, and willing to try and manipulate a robot and its rules and laws in order to do it. The robot’s solution to the dilemma raised by Armand is ingenious and clever.
For a closer, Strahan picks Karin Tidbeck’s “The Last Voyage of Skidbladnir”. The conceit of putting fake television shows, series, podcasts and other media as codified by Martha Wells in the Murderbot Chronicles is now standard furniture in the new space opera. In this story, the story of the Andromeda Station tv show’s narrative is point and counterpoint to the story of the titular ship Skidbladnir, a living biological ship which itself feels like a callback and a call out to Farscape’s Moya. It’s a story in rapturous and joyous reference and dialogue with recent space opera. It’s a story that is designed to get you “dancing out into the streets” after you have finished the story, and thus the anthology.
And there are a meaty set of stories in between these two. Some of the highlights include:
“Extracurricular Activities”, a Yoon Ha Lee story set in the Machineries of Empire, following the story of a special forces operative/spy. It’s funny, it’s sexy and it is queer, and paints a corner of their Empire verse in the familiar colors of the novel. T Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon) comes in with a story, “Metal like Blood in the Dark”, that feels like it is as much in dialogue with fairy tales (particularly Hansel and Gretel) as it is with the new space opera, as a pair of constructed sentient machines learn some harsh life lessons.
“The Justified”. Here we have an Ann Leckie story, and a corker of a one. It is NOT set in the Ancillary Justice universe and instead borrows from Mesopotamian and Egyptian myth and religion as much as space opera and science fiction tropes. And it definitely fits the mission of the new space opera as outlined by Strahan in critiquing and analyzing the consequences and problems of Empire.
Charlie Jane Anders’ “A Temporary Embarrassment of Spacetime” is a sexy and funny story of an unusual pair of aliens that start off trying to escape a giant space blob. And things get really weird. And yet it is also a heartwarming story of found family that has resonances with a lot of other found families in space opera. And it definitely has the pulpy energy of Guardians of the Galaxy.
Aliette de Bodard comes in with a Xuya story, “Immersion”, that is a devastatingly powerful story about colonialism, language, customs, cultural assimilation and assumptions and much more. It has a sharpness that can be missed in some of her other stories and novels. The story cuts its themes into a reader, ruthlessly, even through its veneer of politeness.
These and the other stories in the volume together are an excellent representation of what space opera is doing in the short-of-novel space. Space Opera is hard to do at short lengths, and short fiction in general these days has a lot of challenges in publication and reaching readers. This anthology brings together a set of stories that you may have missed. New Adventures in Space Opera gives you another chance to become part of the continuing genre conversation within Space Opera.
By Chris M. Barkley: On February 17, 2024, I received the following email:
Feb 17, 2024, 4:25 AM
Dear Hugo and Related Award Winners,
Many of you are wondering when Hugo Awards, and Finalist pins and certificates will be shipped out to those who did not take possession of them in Chengdu. We could not distribute Finalist pins to Acceptors at the convention as is generally the custom, because we were not yet in possession of a large enough supply. So only attending Finalists received pins, and we missed some of them if they showed up early.
The award materials were shipped in bulk to the US for individual mailing, and arrived just recently. We need you to send us the shipping addresses(es) of the Winner or Winners. This needs to be a facility that can take delivery of a medium sized box. A PO Box will not do, unless you have a really understanding post office or a really large PO box. While we have a list of who got their Hugo Finalist pins in Chengdu, we would appreciate you confirming that you did or didn’t receive yours in your responses so that we can be sure we’re getting everyone handled appropriately.
Even if you have previously sent us an address, we would appreciate it if you could send it to us again to confirm things before we ship items out.
Thank you so much for all your cooperation during the preparations for the Awards Ceremony. Everything went really well, and we were pleased with the participation level of our Finalists and Winners at a Worldcon so far away from many of us. The Chinese fans experiencing all of this for their first time were thrilled to see so many finalists and winners there.
Should you have any questions regarding these instructions, please feel free to contact me at [email protected] and [email protected] Because, of course, the HugoTeam email address is still occasionally having hiccups.
Congratulations again to all of you.
——————
Ann Marie Rudolph Hugo Award Selection Committee Chengdu Worldcon https://en.chengduworldcon.com/
Now, after reading this message, I, and everyone else who received this email, had every expectation of the delivery of all of the materials and awards due to the recipients.
But this is not the case.
On January 20, fandom was rocked by the release of the 2023 Hugo Awards Long List and nominating ballot statistics, which inexplicably excluded a number of nominees and works, from within and outside the People’s Republic of China, and some without any explanation whatsoever.
Thirty-two days later, on Valentine’s Day, matters were confounded even further when my colleague Jason Sanford and I published a revealing investigative report that provided part of the answer; with material provided by award administrator Diane Lacey, it was revealed that the Chengdu Hugo Award Administration team, headed up by Dave McCarty, had ruled that some of works had been ruled “ineligible” because of their alleged or perceived bias against China.
The Hugo Awards arrived in the United States in late January, but, as I have reported here in an afterword to my interview with Dave McCarty, all of the display cases and some of the awards were damaged in transit from China. As of this writing, there has been no comment from the Chengdu Worldcon Committee how the awards were shipped nor has anyone ascertained how the damage occurred or taken responsibility for their condition.
Before and during these tumultuous events, I made several inquiries as to when the recipients might expect their awards to arrive. Other than an email asking for my correct mailing address in mid-March (from an administrator not implicated in the scandal), I have not received any other news regarding the awards.
I must take a moment to commend the work and artistry of Liu Cheng and his team, who designed and manufactured the beautiful and exquisite base of the 2023 Hugo Award. I have often said that I was envious of those who received the 2007 Hugo Award depicting the rocket alongside the Mt. Fuji and the iconic tokusatsu hero, Ultraman (designed by Takashi Kinoshita and KAIYODO).
2023 Hugo Award by Richard Man
After the ceremony, I couldn’t take a step in any direction as I was besieged by fans for nearly 45 minutes as they clamored to pose for photographs with this magnificent piece of sculpture (and me), a yearning panda, reaching out of a stargate towards the Hugo rocket. I indulged everyone I could that frenzied and crazy evening because who knows when they might have a chance to see and hold such a fine work of art.
A lot has happened since the end of the Hugo Awards Ceremony nearly eight months ago; most notably an extensive delay in the delivery of a number of Hugo Award trophies won by those residing outside of the People’s Republic of China (estimated to be 29 in total) to the United States to be dispersed by the 2023 Hugo Awards Administrator, Dave McCarty.
In the past few weeks, as I marked the seventh month since the Hugo Awards Ceremony, I began to wonder if any of the 2023 recipients had either received their awards or have had any other contact regarding their Hugo Awards.
And so, starting on May 15th, I set out to contact all of the twenty-nine recipients via email or social media to conduct a survey of who and who did not receive their Hugo Awards.
(Note: I did not attempt to contact Samantha Mills (Best Short Story, “Rabbit Test”) or Adrian Tchaikovsky (Best Series, “Children of Time”) since they have publicly declined to accept their awards due to the controversy surrounding their selection. I also did not contact any of the Chinese recipients, for obvious reasons.)
I made a concerted effort to contact the following people:
T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon), Best Novel,Nettle & Bone
Seanan McGuire, Best Novella, Where the Drowned Girls Go
Bartosz Sztybor, Filipe Andrade, Alessio Fioriniello, Roman Titov, Krzysztof Ostrowski, Best Graphic Story or Comic, Cyberpunk 2077: Big City Dreams
Rob Wilkins, Best Related Work, Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Best Dramatic Presentation – Long Form, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Daniel Abraham, Ty Franck, Naren Shankar and Breck Eisner, Best Dramatic Presentation – Short Form, The Expanse: “Babylon’s Ashes”
Neil Clarke, Best Editor – Short Form
Lindsey Hall, Best Editor – Long Form
Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas, Chimedum Ohaegbu, Monte Lin, Meg Elison, Erika Ensign and Steven Schapansky, Best Semi-Prozine, Uncanny Magazine
Haley Zapal, Amy Salley, Lori Anderson, and Kevin Anderson, Best Fancast, Hugo, Girl!
Richard Man, Best Fan Artist
Out of all of the queries sent, I received the following responses:
T. Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon) conveyed to me, via social media, that as of this writing, she had not received her award. She also stated that she was vociferously ambiguous about keeping it, saying that she would decide whether or not to keep it after she received it.
Daniel Abraham’s assistant, Ms. Rogers, reported on May 23rd:
“Nope, no award, no emails, no nothing. I’m just answering for Daniel but I will check with Ty and Naren. Please keep us posted if you hear anything.”
Lindsey Hall, responding on a social media site on May 18th, was surprised; she kept her Hugo Award after the ceremony and had fully intended to have it shipped but never connected again with Mr. McCarty, so she decided to squeeze the case and award into her luggage and she cleared customs in China and the US with no problems at all. She also expressed surprise that none of the other recipients had received their awards yet.
Lynne M. Thomas commented via social media a few days ago that the Hugo Awards she and her husband Michael Damian Thomas won were dropped off at their Chicago area home by Mr. McCarty at an unspecified date. She also said that both trophies did not show any damage but they were given without the display boxes. She also stated that they did inquire by email in May about the other awards for their staff members but have not received any response as of this writing.
It turns out Lori Anderson of the Hugo, Girl podcast team was just as curious as I was; my inquiry to her prompted her to email Dave McCarty on May 28th:
Email screenshots with permissions from Lori Anderson
Undeterred, she sent a follow up email on June 6th:
As of this writing, there has been no response from Mr. McCarty.
On May 16th, Richard Man sent this DM response via Facebook:
“Nope, heh.” And, he followed up by asking, “Have you? Has anyone?”
And I responded, nope.
As for myself, I had a chance to receive my Hugo Award twice; I considered taking it home in my luggage but decided against it on the evening of the ceremony because I did not know what level of bother to expect at customs. So, I can easily attest that my Hugo was the very first to be boxed up. Which I regret to this very day.
Hugo Award in a display box by Chris Barkley, 21 October, 2023
The second time was the weekend of Capricon 44 on February 3rd; when Juli and I arrived, we encountered Mr. McCarty in the upper-level lobby near the dealer’s room and the art show. He told me that the damage to the display box was so bad that it was totally unusable. The Hugo base needed to be tightened up and there was a notable chip in the paint on the panda. He generously offered to bring it to me to take home the next day but also said that he could have it repaired and restored.
After agonizing over it for a few minutes, I told him, yeah, please have it repaired. Which I also regret to this day because not more than an hour later I was taking custody of a flash drive and emails from Diane Lacey that would completely upend Mr. McCarty’s life, and fandom as well.
With the exception of passing along my condolences on the death of a mutual friend, I have not attempted to contact Mr. McCarty.
On Saturday, June 8th, 2024, I attended the 50th Anniversary celebration of my high school, Purcell-Marian High School, Class of 1974.
I was invited back by the alumni association on the 25th anniversary back in 1999 but I was still feeling a bit resentful and raw from my experiences there; the teasing, fights, bullying and being made to feel as though I was a social outcast still weighed heavily on me.
But I had grown a lot a quarter century ago and I decided to attend, if anything, to finally put this part of my life behind me for good.
And from the moment my partner Juli and I arrived, we were warmly greeted. Several people personally sought me out and we shared some personal memories that reminded me that not everything was as hellish as I remembered.
When they asked what I had been doing over the past 50 years, I regaled them with stories about my daughter Laura, my four grandchildren, jobs I held over the decades and my many adventures in fandom.
Of course, this all culminated with me (repeatedly) whipping out my phone and showing them a photo of myself, holding the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer, proudly holding it while being in the People’s Republic of China.
Chris M. Barkley with 2023 Fan Writer Hugo Award by Pablo Vasquez, 21 October 2023
I was delighted to find that there were some sff fans among my classmates and their partners who KNEW what a Hugo Award was and there was much eye-popping and praise.
And when my classmates inevitably ask where I keep it, I cryptically replied that I have a special space reserved in our dining room.
As of today, June 10th, there has been no response from Mr. McCarty, Ms. Rudolph, Chengdu Worldcon Co-Chairs Chen Shi, Ben Yalow and Hongwei He and convention liaison Joe Yao about this situation.
What we have at the moment is an astonishing lack of responsibility, accountability and transparency regarding this issue.
We all know what needs be done:
All of the Hugo Award Finalists should be sent their pins and certificates, immediately.
If there is a condition or repair issue regarding anyone’s Hugo Award, they should be sent a notice stating what the current situation is and when a delivery can be expected.
If an award needs to be replaced in its entirety, the recipient should be notified.
If the awards are going to be disbursed to everyone at the same time or as each award has been repaired, recipients should be made aware of that status.
Each and every Finalist should receive a written apology for the convention’s lack of transparency and delay of their materials and awards.
While I can safely say that no one’s life is at stake here, I can also say that once again, fandom’s black eye from the trials and tribulations of its own making continues to be on public display and, at this point, may actually be festering.
…Custom guitar brand Devil & Sons has launched a new series of sci-fi inspired guitars called Craftcasters, and their bodies are hand-constructed via the ‘kit bashing method’, where parts of old model kits, everyday items, hand cut plastic, sculpted epoxy, and yes (in this case), unused Covid tests, are pieced together to create unique artwork.
The uber-cool, spacecraft-like models were created across three years by artist and luthier Daniel Wallis, and according to him, they’ve been made using the same techniques model makers have been using for screen props since the original Star Wars and Alien films. Upon close inspection, you’ll be able to spot bits of train sets, remote controls, Warhammer models, and even old vacuum cleaner parts on their surfaces….
(2) DEFIANT PREQUEL. Abigail Nussbaum’s new blog post shares thoughts on Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, “a film that is missing its final act, that has a great gaping hole at its center, and which is nevertheless an exhilarating and entirely satisfying action extravaganza, and worthy companion to Fury Road.” ”Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” at Asking the Wrong Questions.
…And now of course it must be acknowledged that Furiosa does work. I won’t get into the question of whether it’s as good as Fury Road; it obviously can’t deliver the same sharp blow to the head as that movie did, and once you allow for that, the two movies are too different for a side-by-side comparison to make much sense. But it does make you feel the same exhilaration, the same joyful disbelief at the fact that someone can do this with the cinematic medium, the same pulse-pounding desire for this ride to just keep going and going, and the same profound connection to and investment in its characters. Which obviously raises the question: how?…
(3) STOKERCON GOH SUBTRACTION. One of StokerCon 2025’s announced guests of honor, Graham Masterson, has backed out due to a scheduling conflict the committee told Facebook readers today. “Whether it can be worked out or not remains to be determined,” they said.
…The same reliance on aging cowboys was evident at movie theaters. John Wayne was still the top western movie star until his death at age 72.
You can laugh at that, but Hollywood has pushed to even more ridiculous extremes with Harrison Ford. The studios cast him in three action franchises (Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and Blade Runner) at an even older age than Wayne in his final film. (In a curious twist, this was Wayne’s little known role in Star Wars.)
This is not the sign of a healthy genre. Hollywood is now suffering at the box office, but you could have predicted it years ago, just based on its aging stars and franchises….
… How will this play out in the future? Well, let’s summarize what we learned from the rise and fall of the western genre.
Genres die slowly, especially popular genres with large mass audiences. In those instances, the decline can continue for decades after a genre’s commercial peak.
The final stages of decline are marked by total market saturation—reaching ridiculous levels. Far more product is churned out than even the core audience can absorb.
The proliferation of merchandise aims to expand the franchise, but actually accelerates the pace of decline.
During the period of decline, the average age of the core fan base gets older. Youngsters may continue to have some interest in the genre, but without the enthusiasm of the old days.
Even more ominous, the box office stars start showing their age—and are far too old to lead any movement. They are hired out of desperation, because holding on to old fans is now more important than attracting new ones.
As a result, everything about the genre starts to feel stale. The stories were fresher twenty years ago. The lead stars were definitely fresher twenty years ago. The only thing that isn’t stale is the movie popcorn out in the lobby—and even that’s not a sure thing.
This is obviously happening with almost every major Hollywood franchise today. We’re now almost fifty years beyond the release of Star Wars (1977)—that was long ago and in another galaxy. But even never-ending franchises eventually come to an end….
(5) VERY COOL BEANS.[Item by Danny Sichel.] Yes, it’s a few years old, but James D. McDonald posted an interesting little short story on his blog Madhouse Manor, and I felt it deserved more attention.
It’s called “The Coldest Equations Yet”, from 2017, and it’s a remix that might have made Tom Godwin smile and John W. Campbell grumble.
(6) THE REALLY BIG ONE. [Item by Jeffrey Smith.] I buy various volumes of The Best American series of short stories and essays every year, often starting them but rarely finishing them. I’ve decided to start cleaning some of them up, and am almost finished with The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2016. In her introduction, the editor said she felt the most important piece in the book was “The Really Big One” by Kathryn Schulz. (See The New Yorker version from 2015, “The Earthquake That Will Devastate the Pacific Northwest”.)
Over the last few years I’ve come to really appreciate Kathryn Schulz’s writing, reading her pieces in The New Yorker and often reprinted in these volumes. (The next of these I will finish, The Best American Travel Writing 2017, also has a piece by her.)
The article is about the potential for a massive earthquake to hit the Pacific Northwest, the fault there being more dangerous than the San Andreas. The editor lives at the southern tip of the fault, and says a) that she knows people who sold their houses and moved away after reading it, and b) the state governments are looking into developing early warning systems and strengthening infrastructure because of it.
“I simply cannot overstate the power of this piece,” the editor wrote. “When you read it, imagine you live where I live. Your life would change because of this story, just like mine did. That’s the power of great writing.”
It’s a long piece, and starts out with a lot of background information. The second half, though, is terrifying.
It was interesting to read this now in part because we recently watched a set of three Norwegian disaster movies: The Wave; The Quake; and The Burning Sea. (You have to hunt them down — they’re each on a different streaming service.) Judging by the article, the filmmakers did reasonably well with the science.
Here’s the beginning of Schulz article in The New Yorker:
When the 2011 earthquake and tsunami struck Tohoku, Japan, Chris Goldfinger was two hundred miles away, in the city of Kashiwa, at an international meeting on seismology. As the shaking started, everyone in the room began to laugh. Earthquakes are common in Japan—that one was the third of the week—and the participants were, after all, at a seismology conference. Then everyone in the room checked the time.
Seismologists know that how long an earthquake lasts is a decent proxy for its magnitude. The 1989 earthquake in Loma Prieta, California, which killed sixty-three people and caused six billion dollars’ worth of damage, lasted about fifteen seconds and had a magnitude of 6.9. A thirty-second earthquake generally has a magnitude in the mid-sevens. A minute-long quake is in the high sevens, a two-minute quake has entered the eights, and a three-minute quake is in the high eights. By four minutes, an earthquake has hit magnitude 9.0.
When Goldfinger looked at his watch, it was quarter to three. The conference was wrapping up for the day. He was thinking about sushi. The speaker at the lectern was wondering if he should carry on with his talk. The earthquake was not particularly strong. Then it ticked past the sixty-second mark, making it longer than the others that week. The shaking intensified. The seats in the conference room were small plastic desks with wheels. Goldfinger, who is tall and solidly built, thought, No way am I crouching under one of those for cover. At a minute and a half, everyone in the room got up and went outside.
It was March. There was a chill in the air, and snow flurries, but no snow on the ground. Nor, from the feel of it, was there ground on the ground. The earth snapped and popped and rippled. It was, Goldfinger thought, like driving through rocky terrain in a vehicle with no shocks, if both the vehicle and the terrain were also on a raft in high seas. The quake passed the two-minute mark. The trees, still hung with the previous autumn’s dead leaves, were making a strange rattling sound. The flagpole atop the building he and his colleagues had just vacated was whipping through an arc of forty degrees. The building itself was base-isolated, a seismic-safety technology in which the body of a structure rests on movable bearings rather than directly on its foundation. Goldfinger lurched over to take a look. The base was lurching, too, back and forth a foot at a time, digging a trench in the yard. He thought better of it, and lurched away. His watch swept past the three-minute mark and kept going.
Oh, shit, Goldfinger thought, although not in dread, at first: in amazement. For decades, seismologists had believed that Japan could not experience an earthquake stronger than magnitude 8.4. In 2005, however, at a conference in Hokudan, a Japanese geologist named Yasutaka Ikeda had argued that the nation should expect a magnitude 9.0 in the near future—with catastrophic consequences, because Japan’s famous earthquake-and-tsunami preparedness, including the height of its sea walls, was based on incorrect science. The presentation was met with polite applause and thereafter largely ignored. Now, Goldfinger realized as the shaking hit the four-minute mark, the planet was proving the Japanese Cassandra right.
For a moment, that was pretty cool: a real-time revolution in earthquake science. Almost immediately, though, it became extremely uncool, because Goldfinger and every other seismologist standing outside in Kashiwa knew what was coming. One of them pulled out a cell phone and started streaming videos from the Japanese broadcasting station NHK, shot by helicopters that had flown out to sea soon after the shaking started. Thirty minutes after Goldfinger first stepped outside, he watched the tsunami roll in, in real time, on a two-inch screen.
In the end, the magnitude-9.0 Tohoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami killed more than eighteen thousand people, devastated northeast Japan, triggered the meltdown at the Fukushima power plant, and cost an estimated two hundred and twenty billion dollars….
(7) DON’T DO THIS, DO THAT. Editor Demi Michelle Schwartz decided this was a good day to share the writing problems she runs into most often. Thread starts here. Excerpted below are the first two out of five. The second one became a subject of dispute.
? Editorial Thread ? After editing tons of manuscripts for Amethyst Ink clients, I’ve noticed five things I comment on the most. I hope you find this thread helpful, and let’s hope there are no typos. Ready? Let’s go! 1/?
— Demi Michelle ???? (@demimschwartz) June 8, 2024
Here’s an example. Instead of saying something like, “She heard the wind rustle the leaves on the tree,” say, “The wind rustled the leaves on the tree.” 3/?
— Demi Michelle ???? (@demimschwartz) June 8, 2024
2. Passive Voice. Passive voice comes in many forms. In general, this includes descriptions that tell and don’t show and also verbs that aren’t active. 5/?
— Demi Michelle ???? (@demimschwartz) June 8, 2024
Here’s another one. Don’t tell me “There were birds in the sky.” Show me. Something like… “Bluejays soared through the azure sky.” 7/?
— Demi Michelle ???? (@demimschwartz) June 8, 2024
So, in a nutshell, a quick way to spot passive voice is if you have is, are, was, or were in a description or paired with a verb ending in “ing.” Passive voice has its place sometimes, but for the most part, try to have vivid descriptions and active voice instead. Okay, next. 9/?
— Demi Michelle ???? (@demimschwartz) June 8, 2024
One of my toxic traits is my urge to explain the passive voice to every editor on Twitter who explains it wrong.
Passive voice is not ‘when you use a form of the verb ‘to be’.’ It’s when the subject of the sentence is acted upon by the verb rather than performing the action.
Born, sort of, June 9, 1934 — Donald Duck, 90. Before I get to the history of Donald Duck, let me tell you why I chose this date.
The first ever reference to the character by name was in The Adventures of Mickey Mouse, published by David McKay Company, Philadelphia in 1931 — although the actual character wasn’t shown. On the first text page, it says, “Mickey has many friends in the old barn and the barnyard, besides Minnie Mouse. They are Henry Horse and Carolyn Cow and Patricia Pig and Donald Duck…” Not characteristic at all of what is to come, just animals in a barnyard.
The following year, a duck with the same name made another printed appearance in Mickey Mouse Annual #3, a 128-page British hardback. This book included the poem “Mickey’s ‘Hoozoo’: Witswitch, and Wotswot”, which listed some of Mickey’s barnyard animal friends: “Donald Duck and Clara Hen, Robert Rooster, Jenny Wren…” Again, nothing to do with the Disney character.
So when do we get that character? That was really when he was made the star of the Silly Symphony strips in 1937 and his nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie, who debuted who debuted later that year. The team who did the strip made a city sophisticate instead of, as they called him, a country bumpkin. (Never saw him as the latter.)
“The Wise Little Hen”, officially released on June 9, 1934 was his first animated appearance. It was directed by Wilfred Jackson and of course produced by Walt Disney from a script by Otto Englander. It is based on the fairy tale The Little Red Hen. I have not looked for videos of it on YouTube or Vimeo as the film’s copyright was renewed in 1961, so it will not enter the public domain until January 1, 2030.
What does he look like there? Pretty much like he does today as you can see for yourself. He really hasn’t changed that much since introduced physically, just his character become more of the smart ass that I think he is.
He would star in his own series that started in 1937 and ran for 24 years with “Donald’s Ostrich”, although two previous shorts, “Don Donald” and “Modern Inventions”, both from 1937, were later included in this series, with “The Litterbug” being the conclusion to this series.
Though he appeared in “The Wise Little Hen” short, the Walt Disney company officially lists the Don Donald short which was released in 1937 as his official release. No idea why. It off is still under copyright as are allthe myriad shorts he did until Disney stopped producing his shorts in 1961.
The one I now want to see is the second one which was released on May 29, 1937 titled “Museum of Modern Marvels” as it’s full of SF wonders including Robot Butler.
I think I’ve prattled on long enough tonight. I do like the character a lot. I’m not a Disney fan first, being a Warner Brothers fan deep in the bone but I appreciate them.
Dynamite Entertainment has become the source for Disney fans who yearn for the return of some of their ’90s favorites. Gargoyles has found new life at the publisher, and now Darkwing Duck is making his comeback.
Today Dynamite announced that they’ll be launching a new Darkwing Duck comic book series with the involvement of original animated series creator/writer Tad Stones. But before that book gets off the ground, Dynamite will be rereleasing every previous Darkwing Duck comic in a trio of graphic novel compendiums…
…Dynamite is turning to Kickstarter to crowdfund the Darkwing Duck reprints. The first volume will collect the entirety of writer Amanda Deibert and artist Carlo Cid Lauro’s 2023 series. The second volume will collect Lauro and writer Roger Langridge’s miniseries Justice Ducks and writer Jeff Parker and artist Ciro Cangialosi’s miniseries Negaduck. The third volume will collect all of the pre-Dynamite Darkwing Duck comics, including stories originally published in Disney Adventures magazine.
(11) FAKE NEWS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Well this is firmly genre adjacent as fake news is fiction and it is spread by technology.
No, not Big Brother, but by the people themselves. Orwell could not have made it up. Anyway, this is the cover story of this week’s Nature.
Online misinformation is frequently highlighted as a blight that threatens to undermine the fabric of society, polarize opinions and even destabilize elections. In this week’s issue, a collection of articles probe the scourge of misinformation and try to assess the real risks. In one research paper, David Lazer and colleagues examine the effects of Twitter deplatforming 70,000 traffickers of misinformation in the wake of violent scenes at the US Capitol in January 2021. In a second paper, Wajeeha Ahmad and co-workers explore the relationship between advertising revenue and misinformation. A Comment article by Ullrich Ecker and colleagues discusses the risks posed by misinformation to democracy and elections, and an accompanying Comment article by Kiran Garimella and Simon Chauchard assesses the prevalence of AI-generated misinformation in India. Finally, David Rothschild and colleagues put the harms of misinformation into perspective, highlighting common misperceptions that exaggerate its threat and suggesting steps to improve evaluation of both the effects of misinformation and the efforts made to combat it.
…Futurama Season 12 will be launching with Hulu on July 29th, and has finally given fans the first look at what to expect from the next wave of episodes. Confirmed to have many more seasons now in the works, the first look at Season 12 showcases a tease of where the next season will go to further differentiate itself from what went down during Season 11….
(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] How the generations have changed. Is it true that the new generation of fans have never heard of The Prisoner? Moid Moidelhoff at Media Death Cult has a feeling that many have not as he takes a 24-minute dive into this remarkable show (one of my personal favorites). This is shot on location in Portmeirion where the series was set…. “The Most Influential Show You’ve (Probably) Never Seen”.
[Thanks to Teddy Harvia, Kathy Sullivan, Mike Kennedy, Danny Sichel, Jeffrey Smith, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Steven French for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Ingvar.]
The award judges and administrators are: Frank Wu, Brianna Wu, Linda Pierce, Alan F. Beck, Jannie Shea, and Bill Engle (Frank R. Paul’s grandson).
The 2024 Buffalo NASFiC is sponsoring this year’s awards and will host the presentation ceremony. The winner will receive a trophy (featuring a 3D print of the “Tiger-bot” smashing a car, from FRP’s cover for the September 1935 Wonder Stories), and an honorarium of $500.
2024 FRANK R. PAUL AWARDS (for 2023 calendar year)
NOTE: The rules state that no artist can have more than 2 nominations; 3 Kurt Miller pieces scored highly enough to be nominated, so the lowest scoring was moved to the Honorable Mention listing.
NOTE: AI-generated images and art from stock image companies (or derivatives thereof) are ineligible; three covers (Asimov’s, Jan-Feb, 2023; Asimov’s, May-June 2023; and Galaxy’s Edge, May 2023) scored highly enough to be nominated but were disqualified on these grounds.
See the award website for more information and instructions on how to submit work for consideration for next year’s awards (for the 2024 calendar year).
Mammoths at the Gates(The Singing Hills Cycle #4) by Nghi Vo (Tordotcom, September 2023)
Review by Lis Carey: Cleric Chih travels widely, gathering stories, with a talking hoopoe bird. The hoopoe, Almost Brilliant, has perfect recall and serves as Chih’s neixin, ensuring that the stories will be retained perfectly, even as Chih records them on paper.
For the first time in years, Chih and Almost Brilliant are arriving home at the Singing Hills Abbey, to add their stories to the archives, and to rest. But there have been some changes at the abbey.
Cleric Thien, mentor to Chih and others when they were young and still new to the abbey, has died. Thien’s hoopoe, Myriad Virtues, is mourning as only a being with perfect memory can, and it’s been somewhat disruptive.
More disruptive than that, however, are the royal mammoths at the gates of the abbey, and the two sisters demanding the return of the body of their grandfather, once the patriarch of the Coh clan of Northern Bell Pass. Which is to say, the body of Cleric Thien, who intended to be buried according to the rites of the Singing Hills Abbey, not those of his former clan.
The granddaughters are not taking no for an answer, and the mammoths, if given the order, could crush the entire abbey, including all its treasured archives.
Chih finds themself, with less assistance than usual from Almost Brilliant, needing to learn a great deal very quickly about the clan, about Thien’s history both before joining the abbey and since, and about the history of the hoopoe. What’s Almost Brilliant doing instead? Spending a lot of time with Myriad Virtues, helping, comforting and maybe something more.
I’ve loved all the Chih and Almost Brilliant novellas. In this one, because Chih themself needs to learn more about the abbey’s history, there are some fascinating additions to the reader’s understanding of what they are all about.
By Lee Weinstein: While Scottish castles are famously noted for their ghostly hauntings, only Glamis castle is reputed to be not only haunted, but allegedly once the home of a monster, a flesh and blood one.
It was August of 1995, Diane and I were in Edinburgh after the World Science Fiction convention in Glasgow, and we decided to visit the former home of the legendary monster.
I had read, years earlier, accounts of the so-called monster; supposedly a badly malformed heir to the title of Earl of Strathmore, who had been kept hidden from view in a secret room.
In the 19th century such people were often termed “monsters,” and well into the 20th century, badly malformed fetuses and infants were still termed “monstrosities” in medical literature.
I recalled reading about the Glamis monster years earlier in a book of oddities, with an illustration showing a hunched figure from the back, sitting in an empty room.
I had also seen a horror movie on TV back in the sixties called The Maze (1953) about a deformed heir to the title of baronet, who was kept hidden. It was only years later, after I had come across several accounts of the Glamis legend, that I realized the movie had been based fairly closely on it.
While touring Scotland, I discovered that the castle was open to tourism, in part because it had been the childhood home of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother and the birthplace of Princess Margaret. In addition, MacBeth, in Shakespeare’s play, was titled, “Thane of Glamis.”
We had traveled to Edinburgh after the convention and it seemed like we were close enough to Glamis to take a trip there, before proceeding to Wales and England.
As we discovered, the castle is in a rather remote location, about five miles from the closest town, and somewhat off the beaten track for us, but we decided to go for it. Who knew when another opportunity would present itself? As it turned out, it was a somewhat lengthy and roundabout trip.
We caught a train in the morning to Dundee, Scotland’s fourth largest city, some sixty miles away and where Mary Shelley had lived just before writing Frankenstein. We arrived in Dundee after about an hour-and-a-half of riding the rails through the picturesque countryside of the Scottish lowlands, but we had little time to do any exploring. There was no direct bus to where we were going, so we had to find and catch a bus to the town of Forfar, an additional fourteen mile ride. The half hour trip took us through more of the green Scottish countryside. Once in the town, we had to flag down a cab for the final leg of the journey, which turned out to be only a ten-minute jaunt. The cab took us up the long drive leading to the castle and deposited us by entrance.
Lithograph of Glamis Castle from around 1850.
The castle itself is an enormous, imposing structure with multiple towers, which dates back to at least 1372, but in its present form to the early 15th century. It was, and still is, owned and occupied by the Bowes-Lyon family, but portions of it are open to the public. We entered the lavish entrance hall and signed up for a guided tour. Our tour guide, a pleasant middle-aged woman, first told us of how the present Queen Mother had spent her childhood there. As we went through the beautifully appointed rooms she pointed out the numerous portraits of the family’s ancestors. It was years ago, but one that I remember in particular was of a previous earl clothed in somewhat unusual-looking armor. She explained it was “fantasy armor” invented by the artist. She eventually got to the tales of the ghosts who haunt the castle. One was the ghost of Janet Douglas, wife of the sixth lord of Glamis who was burned at the stake for witchcraft in 1537. Other ghosts include that of an unknown woman with no tongue and of a madman allegedly seen on a part of the castle roof called “The Mad Earl’s Walk.” The guide finished up with the oft-repeated tale of the Earl of Beardie, who committed the sin of playing cards on the Sabbath and was walled up by the Devil to play forever. She told us of a bricked-up window, supposedly to that room, which could be seen from the outside.
However, the one tale she did not tell was the one that had brought us there, the deformed earl who was kept hidden away in a secret room. I was puzzled. I thought it was the most well-known story connected with the castle.
At the conclusion of the tour I asked her about it. She looked at me with a quizzical expression that said “Oh, really”? I went on to tell her of a story I had read, that years ago a group of guests had hung towels out of all the windows, trying to find the secret room.
She merely smiled and replied, somewhat dismissively, “Oh, you’ve heard all the stories, haven’t you?”
That was disappointing. Afterward, in the gift shop, I repeated the story of the deformed heir and the secret room to the woman behind the counter, and she, at least, admitted to having heard it, but she didn’t think there was any truth to it. She also said the bricked up window we were told about had led to a passage for the earl to walk without the servants seeing him.
After leaving the castle, we had no way of calling a cab, so we took a long walk back to the main road. Before we had gone too far I turned around and saw the bricked up window we had heard about, in plain sight. I’m not sure how far it actually was to the highway, but it seemed like at least a mile. All in all I felt it had been worth the somewhat circuitous trip to get there.
Once we got back to the main road, Diane asked some locals about a bus for the return trip, and they showed us where the bus stop was. This was not the same bus route we had taken on the way there, but it had the added benefit of going through the town of Kirrimuir, which is the birthplace of Sir James Barrie. The driver pointed out the famous statue of Peter Pan as we passed through and eventually we reached Forfar and finally Dundee for the train to Edinburgh.
* * *
Back in the States I now wondered if there had been anything to the story of the “Glamis monster” or whether it was just an urban legend. Using the internet I did some further research on the subject. I had previously only read some accounts in books which were collections of strange facts. But now with the internet at my disposal I discovered, the legend was far from forgotten, and there was a great deal of material online. I discovered the legend specifically refers to Thomas Bowes-Lyons, 11th earl, and his wife, Charlotte, whose first born son, also named Thomas, was born in October of 1821. Contemporary records show he died shortly after birth on the same day. However, rumors began to spread at the time and long afterward that the baby didn’t die; that he was badly malformed and so unpresentable that he was kept hidden away in a secret room.
Tales were told repeatedly that as he grew older the succeeding generations of presumptive earls, when they reached the age of 21, were shown the secret room, and the true earl, often referred to as the “family secret,” at which they were both shocked and horrified. I read the 13th Earl’s heir noted a terrible change that came over his father after he was told the family secret, and he himself declined to be initiated.
There was an oft-repeated quote of the response of one of the earls to a visitor: “If you could even guess the nature of this castle’s secret, you would get down on your knees and thank God it was not yours.”
I also found variations of a story dating to about 1865 that a laborer in the castle accidentally discovered an unused tunnel and saw something at the other end he shouldn’t have. When he reported this to the castle’s manager, he was paid off to leave the country and resettle elsewhere.
Whether the legend is true or not, it was well enough known that Swiss author Maurice Sandoz based his novel The Maze (1945) on it, albeit somewhat fictionalized. It was illustrated by Salvador Dali. It tells of Gerald McTeam, next in line for the baronetcy after his uncle the baronet dies.
He mysteriously breaks his engagement to a young woman, takes up residency in the McTeam castle, and is found to be prematurely aged and a nervous wreck. He had been sworn to secrecy after being introduced to the legitimate baronet, who had the form of a human-sized toad, but the intelligence of a man. This true baronet was supposed to be 175 years old. (Accounts vary greatly of the age of his alleged real-life equivalent at death.) The titular maze was a hedge maze behind the castle where the true baronet was taken to exercise in private. The film I had seen, also titled The Maze (1953) was an accurate adaptation and had been filmed by John Cameron Menzies in 3-D.
Because of the numerous online references, as well as the novel and the film, I found it extremely odd that the tour guide had ignored it. I could only conclude that the family simply didn’t want the story repeated.
I continued my research and finally found excerpts from a book called The Queen Mother’s Story (1967), which contained what is apparently the only description of the alleged malformed true earl. The author, James Wentworth Day, had interviewed family members for his book and reported that “a monster was born into the family. He was the heir—a creature fearful to behold. It was impossible to allow this deformed caricature of humanity to be seen—even by their friends.…his chest [was] an enormous barrel, hairy as a doormat, his head ran straight into his shoulders and his arms and legs were toylike.”
However, there are no other sources for this and some members of the family have denied it. The varying death dates for the malformed earl, which range from 1905 to the 1940’s also detract from the credibility.
While the film, and the novel, do both build up an eerie atmosphere, the ending is ultimately a letdown. The novel’s denouement happens offscreen, and some critics have called the film unintentionally humorous, with the revelation of the baronet, as in the book, being a huge toad. There are some things that are better left unseen and unknown, like the legendary monster that inspired it.
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) announced the 59th Annual Nebula Awards® in Pasadena, CA on June 8.
NEBULA AWARD FOR NOVEL
The Saint of Bright Doors, Vajra Chandrasekera (Tordotcom)
NEBULA AWARD FOR NOVELLA
“Linghun”, Ai Jiang (Linghun)
NEBULA AWARD FOR NOVELETTE
“The Year Without Sunshine“, Naomi Kritzer (Uncanny 11-12/23)
NEBULA AWARD FOR SHORT STORY
“Tantie Merle and the Farmhand 4200“, R.S.A Garcia (Uncanny 7-8/23)
ANDRE NORTON NEBULA AWARD FOR MIDDLE GRADE AND YOUNG ADULT FICTION
To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, Moniquill Blackgoose (Del Rey)
NEBULA AWARD FOR GAME WRITING
Baldur’s Gate 3, Adam Smith, Adrienne Law, Baudelaire Welch, Chrystal Ding, Ella McConnell, Ine Van Hamme, Jan Van Dosselaer, John Corocran, Kevin VanOrd, Lawrence Schick, Martin Docherty, Rachel Quirke, Ruairí Moore, Sarah Baylus, Stephen Rooney, Swen Vincke (Larian Studios)
RAY BRADBURY NEBULA AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING DRAMATIC PRESENTATION
