Pixel Scroll 5/12/25  I Heard It Through The Godstalk

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(1) ARTHUR C. CLARKE SHORTLIST. The Arthur C. Clarke Award 2025 Shortlist was announced today. File 770 lists the six finalists at the link.

(2) HAPPY 90TH! On Wednesday May 14 “Griffith Observatory celebrates 90th birthday” reports LAist. (The official website with more detail about the celebration is here: “Griffith Observatory – Southern California’s gateway to the cosmos!”)

A star was born in 1935, when Griffith Observatory became the first public observatory west of the Mississippi.

Now, “Griffith Observatory is the most visited public observatory on the planet,” says Ed Krupp, longtime director of the observatory.

In the 90 years since its founding, more than 7 million people have peered through the historic Zeiss telescope that adorns the peak of Mount Hollywood in Griffith Park.

“More than any other telescope on Earth,” Krupp adds.

Celebrations kick off with a special opening ceremony on the observatory’s front lawn at 11:30 a.m., before doors open at noon. Visitors will receive limited-edition 90th anniversary buttons while supplies last.

Throughout the day, the observatory will host special programming highlighting both astronomical phenomena and the building’s history as a center for public astronomy.

“People on site will get to see how the sky really works,” Krupp said. “It’s a reminder that the observatory itself is an instrument.”

In the evening, a program in the Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon Theater will honor California’s Indigenous astronomical traditions. And visitors will gather on the West Terrace to salute the sunset “as the sun salutes Griffith Observatory’s birthday,” Krupp said. “It’s a cosmic party.”

As night falls, the celebration will continue with a rare event: the Southern Major Standstill Moonrise, part of an 18.6-year lunar cycle. The event will also be live-streamed on Instagram.

(3) IT’S BOT TIME. NPR’s TV reviewer says this is what to watch for: “On TV this week: ‘Murderbot’ and a Joan Rivers tribute on NBC”.

Think back to a time about six years ago, before the explosion of streaming services that included Apple TV+, and it’s tough to imagine a TV show like Murderbot getting made.

Not just because its star, dreamboat actor Alexander Skarsgård, might be more focused on big films. But because the eye-popping special effects and high-quality production involved in developing a project from Martha Wells’ ambitious science fiction novel series The Murderbot Diaries might be a stretch even for a major motion picture – let alone a TV series on a platform that struggles to build big hits.

In fact, Murderbot is the latest example of a trend I’ve noticed on streaming TV – exquisitely produced science fiction and fantasy shows that may not be seen outside of a small-yet-passionate fanbase.

Apple TV+’s Murderbot, debuting Friday, has quite a few hallmarks of high-quality TV. Not only is Skarsgård magnificent in playing a cyborg who has secretly become an independent, free thinking artificial being – he’s in a series created and executive produced by Chris and Paul Weitz, brothers who worked on acclaimed films like About a Boy and American Pie….

…It’s an innovative, creative story told in 10 short episodes, satirizing everything from ruthless corporatism to blithely naive social justice stands. And it will be catnip for science fiction fans who love all the actors who pop up in it. But it’s also not likely to get wide viewing, because Apple TV+ has made a habit of spending loads of money on beautifully shot science fiction stories that have a tough time making a wide impact….

(4) PARTING SHOT. The release of the pre-publication version of the third part of the Copyright Office’s report “Copyright and Artificial Intelligence” came the day before — “Copyright Chief Fired Amid AI Debate”. Publishers Weekly reports on the suspicious move.

On Saturday, the Trump administration fired Shira Perlmutter, the register of copyrights and director of the U.S. Copyright Office, just two days after the dismissal of Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, under whose auspices the U.S. Copyright Office operates. Perlmutter was appointed by Hayden in 2020….

… The move, like Hayden’s dismissal before it, was immediately blasted by Democratic members of Congress. Rep. Joe Morelle (Dem., N.Y.), the top Democrat on the Committee on House Administration, called the move “a brazen, unprecedented power grab with no legal basis,” adding, “It is surely no coincidence he acted less than a day after she refused to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models.”

On Friday, Perlmutter’s office released the pre-publication version of the third part of the Copyright Office’s report “Copyright and Artificial Intelligence,” following a first segment released in July 2024 and a second released this January. This third part focuses on the impact of generative AI training across a wide range of topics, from the origins of the technology, to AI companies’ possible infringement in training their data sets, to those companies’ defense that the training counts as fair use, to what potential licensing scenarios might look like.

Morelle and others have speculated that Perlmutter’s dismissal was likely due to her release of the preliminary report. But sources close to the office, who spoke with PW on condition of anonymity, suggest that it is more likely that Perlmutter, having heard of her impending dismissal, ordered the report released beforehand to ensure it entered the public record in spite of its incomplete status. (The report, for instance, lacks some citations.)…

(5) POSTER BOY. “’I add the human touch’: the beautiful, bespoke work of Berlin’s last cinema poster artist” – a Guardian profile.

Götz Valien is Berlin’s last movie poster artist, for more than three decades earning a modest living producing giant hand-painted film adverts to hang at the city’s most beloved historic cinemas – a craft he says will probably die with him, at least in western Europe. The studios’ own promotional posters serve as a template, but Austrian-born Valien, 65, adds a distinctive pop art flourish to each image coupled with the beauty of imperfection – part of the reason he has managed to extend his career well into the 21st century.

“Advertising is about drawing attention and I add the human touch, which is why it works,” he said. Valien’s work plays up the image’s essence: the imposing bow of a ship, the haunting eyes of a screen siren, a mysterious smile. He jokingly calls himself a Kinosaurier – a play on the German words for cinema and dinosaur….

(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

May 13, 1937 — Roger Zelazny. (Died 1996).

I’ve mentioned many times that Roger Zelazny, in conjunction with Tolkien, got me into fantasy. And you’ve possibly read my reviews of the collected Roger Zelazny short stories here at File 770. Or one of my many other reviews in various places over the years. 

So what else can I tell you about my relationship with Zelazny that you haven’t read already?  Surely you know that I started with Zelazny’s work with Nine Princes in Amber, and so with Zelazny, I gained a permanent love of multiversal fiction that would lead me to Moorcock and many other authors in due course. Amber also was one of my entry points into RPGs and so along with D&D, and Traveller, and Call of Cthulhu, there was the tiny but influential Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game. So Zelazny has been always a part of my RPG life.

Imagery. Powerfully invoked scenes. Poetic prose (the collected Zelazny, with his poetry, was revelatory as to where all that came from). Sharp archetypal characters, that feel like they came out of a tarot deck (or a Trump deck?) As a stylist, in my personal constellation of reading, he has no equal. 

As I have said in my reading of the collections, I inadvertently stumbled upon many Zelazny stories outside of his novels when I was young, and not knowing what they really were. There are several Zelaznys inside of himself, as he changed, evolved and always trying new things. The author of Amber is also the author of Damnation Alley and also the author of Lord of Light and also the author of “24 views of Mount Fuji, by Hokusai”. All of these are very different, and yet indubitably Zelazny.

Zelazny has been part of my reading since the beginning of my SFF reading, and will continue to do so for as long as I have strength. For as long as I have that strength, I will keep walking that Road to Amber, revisiting the sights and wonders Zelazny has left for us along the way.

I never got to meet him, alas. Requiescat in pace

Roger Zelazny

(7) COMICS SECTION.

(8) ON A MISSION. James Bacon’s article “The Leprechaun, and the Irish War on Comics” at downthetubes.net is a companion piece to his article here, “Greann — Ireland’s First Comic Book, from a veteran of the 1916 Rising”.

With its colourful front cover and striking red masthead The Leprechaun may have seemed very attractive to children in 1953, and this tabloid-sized Irish comic feels like it may have been influenced by and created to compete with the likes of the British comic Eagle – but in actual fact it was not, although its publisher, like the Eagle’s editor, the Reverend Marcus Morris, did have similar aims. The Leprechaun was also created to combat “the outcry against the harm being done by imported comics” and to provide for “the need for clean comics” for Irish readers.

As Mr. French of Bray Urban District Council noted about American Comics they “were nothing but sensual cesspools of iniquity” when he proposed a resolution calling on the Minister for Justice to ban the importation of all comics emanating from American publishers (reported in the Irish Independent on Wednesday, 11th June 1952).

The Horror Comics Campaign in Britain that the late Martin Barker so brilliantly wrote of in A Haunt of Fears encompassed a movement between 1949 and 1955 that brought about the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act of 1955. The fear was mirrored in Ireland, and comics continually featured in contemporary newspaper reports across the country. 

On 8th November 1952, the Connacht Tribune reported about the “COMICS: DÁIL QUESTION” with the Minister for Justice responding to a question with, “I have no information that objectionable comics are printed in Ireland.”

Into this hot fray of emotion, intellectual anxiety and fear of God, the first issue of the fortnightly comic The Leprechaun was published in early July 1953…..

(9) IF LOVING YOU IS A CRIME, I’LL ALWAYS BE GUILTY. [Item by Steven French.] As with fantasy, so with games – GTA comes over all romantic: “GTA6 gets it on: can the notoriously cynical action series finally find time for romance?” asks the Guardian.

Something new is coming to the Grand Theft Auto universe next year. I don’t mean super-high-definition visuals, or previously unexplored areas of Rockstar’s take on the US. This time it’s something much more profound. If you’ve seen the newly released second trailer from GTA6 – somewhat cruelly released just days after we discovered the game won’t be out until next May – then you might know what I mean. The brand new thing is romance.

It’s now clear that the key protagonists of the latest gangland adventure are Lucia Caminos and Jason Duval, two twentysomething lovers from the wrong side of the tracks. He’s ex-army, now working for drug runners; she’s fresh out of jail, looking to make a better life for herself and her beloved mom. They fall for each other, hatch a plan to get out of Vice City, and then when their simple heist goes wrong, they find themselves at the sharp end of a state-wide conspiracy. You always knew that if Rockstar were going to tell a love story, it would involve a formidable cast of underworld kingpins, gang members, conspiracy nuts and corrupt politicians, and you were right….

(10) OLD IN NEW YORK. Deadline is there when “Nicolas Cage Makes Photo Debut As Aging Web Slinger in ‘Spider-Noir’”.

Nicolas Cage made his photo debut in Spider-Noir at Amazon’s annual upfronts presentation this afternoon and can be seen below. Spider-Noir will be available in both black and white and color when it premieres in 2026.

The live-action series from MGM+ and Prime Video, based on the Marvel comic Spider-Man Noir, tells the story of an aging and down-on-his-luck private investigator (Cage) in 1930s New York, who is forced to grapple with his past life as the city’s one and only superhero….

(11) ANIME MVP’S. “MLB Anime: Heroes of the Game (ft. Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, more!)”

MLB has teamed up with a crew of creators from the world of anime, tapping animators from One Piece and Full Metal Alchemist to release Heroes of the Game! The power, precision, and skill needed for MLB players to reach the top of their game is almost superhuman. Now, that intensity is being showcased through the world of anime—connecting fans from America, Japan, the UK, and beyond. The campaign features Shohei Ohtani as the Master of Both Sides of the Game, Paul Skenes as the pitcher with ferocious power to unleash, Aaron Judge as the Herculean hitter on a mission to become one of the all-time greats, and Juan Soto as the man who sees all and can change the game with just one swing.

(12) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Isaac Arthur’s latest video title made me think of J. G. Ballard’s book. However I am not sure I buy into the concept of complex crystal biology as Isaac does.  (Though I loved Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain.) “Crystal Aliens: Life, But Not As We Know It”.

Crystals are not alive, yet they grow, form complex structures, and even conduct electricity. Could life emerge from crystals rather than carbon-based molecules? Explore the intriguing possibility of crystal-based lifeforms, the challenges they would face, and the conditions where they might thrive. We journey to five exotic worlds—Vulcan, Ribbon World, Longenacht, Telluride, and Tempest—each offering unique environments where crystalline life might take hold. Could such life develop naturally, or might humanity one day engineer it? Join us as we dive into the cutting-edge science and speculative possibilities of crystalline biology.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Paul Weimer, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Arthur C. Clarke Award 2025 Shortlist

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The shortlist for the 39th Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction book of the year was announced today. The six shortlisted books are:

  • Private Rites – Julia Armfield (4th Estate)
  • The Ministry of Time – Kaliane Bradley (Sceptre)
  • Extremophile – Ian Green (AdAstra)
  • Annie Bot – Sierra Greer (The Borough Press)
  • Service Model – Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tor UK)
  • Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock – Maud Woolf (Angry Robot)

This year’s winner will be announced on June 25.

The winner will receive a trophy in the form of a commemorative engraved bookend and prize money to the value of £2025.00; a tradition that sees the annual prize money rise incrementally by year from the year 2001 in memory of Sir Arthur C. Clarke.

The judging panel for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2025 are: Dolly Garland and Gene Rowe for the British Science Fiction Association; Nic Clarke and John Coxon for the Science Fiction Foundation; and Glyn Morgan for the SCI-FI-LONDON film festival. Dr. Andrew M. Butler represented the Arthur C. Clarke Award directors in a non-voting role as the Chair of the Judges.

[Based on a press release.]

Warner Holme Review: A Call to Cthulhu

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  • A Call to Cthulhu by Norm Konyu (Titan Nova, 2023)

By Warner Holme: This is an interesting spin on a few old pieces of art and artists that manages to entertain those who are either very and slightly familiar with the properties. It is a slim volume released by a comics publisher, though it is at least as much a picture book.

The basic narrative has the titular entity picking up his phone and getting verbally attacked with an entire narrative’s worth of earful about how the individual calling hates pretty much. Everything relating to Lovecraft and the fiction that the man produced. It does so step by step, not quite in order of writing but still burning up many of the man’s more famous works.

Almost all of the book is in verse, but the exceptions are rather notable. These include humorous quotations on the back from fictional creatures and individuals, as well as a full page biography of Lovecraft, quick summaries of a number of the man’s stories, and an even shorter piece on the author of this particular book.  They are all well written and work extremely well in context.

The book is told in carefully measured poetry of a sort that will be familiar to fans of Doctor Seuss. The rhyming scheme isn’t identical to that used by Theodor Geisel, but it is close enough to evoke him and that is a clear deliberate choice. Further while reminiscent in style, the content is obviously and noticeably different. This first becomes clear thanks to the simple subject matter however it continues on throughout in some detail with “You Suck Cthulhu!” on one of the last narrative pages.

The art, on the other hand doesn’t even begin to compare to that of the man, in no small part because the style is so radically different as to avoid comparison in the interest of accurate reporting. Instead it uses deep color contrast as much as shape to make the scenes and creatures stand out clearly on the page. Such contrasting images start on the cover where windows and stars are in white but the other imagery is in reds, blacks, grays and greens. The use of white as a contrast in particular is strong throughout with even the final page describing the notable flaws and influence of H.P. Lovecraft sporting a stylized portrait of him with pure white pupils and deliberate color runs and in a surprisingly accurate image relating to the man’s unfortunate weaknesses without breaking from the style.

And arguably, that’s a bit of a point. While Lovecraft was a deeply flawed human being even factoring in his times, the fact is that his work is hugely influential and known this volume illustrates the inescapability of the work of the man to fans of horror in particular and general fiction in general. For a small man who died young he had a long reach, and a late one.

Lovecraft fans are sure to enjoy this comic particularly, if they understand the man in question had flaws. While formatted like a children’s book in many ways. It’s not really recommended for the youngest and indeed, even if it wouldn’t offend, many of the elements would be less likely to entertain until one reaches an older and more experienced mindset.

Remembering Tommy and Vince De Noble

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Tommy De Noble

By Steve Vertlieb: I met Tommy De Noble in 1967 when I was working as an announcer at WDVR Radio in the old Reynolds Aluminum Building in Bala Cynwyd, Pa. We were introduced by Phil Stout, the Station Manager. Tommy was one of the most handsome men I’d ever met. He was a singer, recording artist, and actor. He might have passed for James Darren’s twin brother. Dick Clark wrote in his book that Tommy was “the most popular dancer in the history of American Bandstand.”

Tommy De Noble

Tommy had just returned from a stint in the Army on the West Coast, and was looking for work in the Philadelphia area. Tommy and his brothers, Vince and Lou, were all from Philadelphia, but Tommy had gone to Hollywood to make his fortune. He had won a gold record for his recording of “Count Every Star,” and appeared in several motion pictures and television shows but, after his required stint in the military, gigs out West had somehow disappeared.

When Tommy returned at last to Philadelphia, he began singing at a variety of clubs and restaurants in The Delaware Valley, and became quite popular in the local nightclub scene. I’d often visit him at these gigs, and trade barbs and one-liners from the floor.

Somewhere around 1975, Tommy landed a position as film director at WTAF TV 29 in Philadelphia. We had become best friends and brothers in the ensuing years, and Tommy offered me a job as a film editor at the television station. He said that he wanted people around him that he could trust. I accepted, and there began the happiest employment that I’ve ever known. I was with WTAF for twelve years, from 1976 until 1988. Fleshing out the remainder of the film department were a very gifted artist named Bill Levers, and Tommy’s younger brother, Vince.

Tommy De Noble, Bill Levers, Vince De Noble, Steve Vertlieb
Bill Levers, Steve Vertlieb, Tommy De Noble
Steve Vertlieb, Tommy De Noble, Bill Levers, Vince De Noble.
Vince De Noble

The four of us soon became inseparable. We went everywhere together, and laughed from morning until night. Bill was one of the funniest men I’ve ever known, and Vince became like my own little brother. We were quite literally “The Four Musketeers.” I’d grow excited each morning when I left for work, and become depressed in the late afternoon when it came time to leave work and return home.

In 1979 when Tommy and his sweetheart, Loretta, married, Tommy asked me to invite my parents to his wedding, and asked if I’d serve as an usher in his wedding party. I said that I’d be honored to be a part of the ceremony. Here are Tommy and Loretta, Vince and Patty, Lou and Terry, and I on that wonderful day forty-two years ago. Our friendship and association were so immeasurably tied to one another that, for a time, I even dated Edie, the daughter of his long-time accompanist, Eve Ross.

Our happiness was not to last, however. After a dozen years with the station, Taft Broadcasting sold us to a tiny, fly-by-night chain that set about cutting corners, and eliminating personnel. I was laid off, and never again returned to the field that I hoped would constitute my life’s career. Some years later, on January 19, 2004, after Tommy had suffered a series of strokes, he passed away of sepsis. Vince asked me to read the scriptures at his funeral service.

At Tommy’s memorial, a group of us stood around, in disbelief, talking and remembering our friend and co-worker. As we prepared to leave, one by one, the room had grown silent. A CD of Tommy’s recordings had been playing over the loudspeaker. Tommy’s voice sang ever so sweetly across the room. The lyrics of that last song haunt me still … “For all we know, we may never meet again.” Tommy was singing goodbye to his many friends and loved ones.

I received a telephone call a few years ago from Vince’s wife, Patty. She said that, like his older brother before him, Vince had suffered a stroke. I wanted to come and visit my old friend and co-worker, but Patty was valiantly protecting her beloved husband’s dignity.

She wanted Vince to be remembered as we had known him in happier times. Vince passed away, sadly, in June of 2019, joining Tommy in Heaven. As I left the funeral home and church, I got into my car, and turned on the radio. I drove along the lonely streets in quiet disbelief, and softly cried. Nat King Cole was singing “For all we know, we may never meet again.”

++ Steve Vertlieb January, 2021

Pixel Scroll 5/11/25 Scrollers Of The Purple Pixel

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(1) PARDON MY FRENCH. Mental Floss remembers “When Isaac Asimov Decided to Secretly Write Under the Name Paul French”.

If there was one author Henry Bott disliked more than any other, it was Isaac Asimov.

Bott, a book reviewer for the science fiction publication Imagination, had spent years lobbing insults at the respected writer and his work. Of Asimov’s Second Foundation, published in 1953, Bott wrote that Asimov was “neither a writer nor a storyteller” and could churn out only “elephantine prose.” Second Foundation was, Bott observed, “not a good book.”

After another seemingly personal review followed, this one for The Caves of Steel, an irritated Asimov penned a fiery retort in which he referred to Bott as “The Nameless One” in the fan publication Peon [PDF]. More volleys followed, and Asimov continued to take a shelling.

But when Asimov picked up the February 1955 issue of Imagination, he was amused to read Bott’s enthusiastic review of Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus, a spirited sci-fi adventure yarn that was part of an ongoing series by writer Paul French. The story, Bott effused, was gripping and worthy of a reader’s attention, though he felt it fell short of the young adult works by Robert Heinlein.

Asimov put the magazine down and began typing a letter to Imagination. This time, he would not attempt to argue with Bott. “I am sure that Mr. French, on reading this review, would feel quite good about the kind words and would feel no rancor at all about the eminently fair criticism,” Asimov wrote. “In fact, I am sure he would say he does his best to make his juveniles as good as Mr. Heinlein’s, and that perhaps he will improve as he continues to try.

“I am positive that Mr. French would say all this. The reason I am positive is that Paul French and Isaac Asimov are the same person.”…

It reminds me of the time Jerry Pournelle told us about a fan letter John W. Campbell received on the issue of Analog that contained one story by Pournelle and another under his pseudonym Wade Curtis. The fan’s verdict was: “Keep Wade Curtis but get rid of that Jerry Pournelle!”

(2) A POEM FOR BĴO.

By John Hertz: (reprinted from Vanamonde 1643) Learning that Bĵo Trimble was in the West Los Angeles Veterans Home, registered as Betty Trimble (Bĵo is short for Betty JoAnne), I sent her this.

Before others knew,
Enterprise was in your mind;
Talking, drawing, you
Took what could be to what was;
Yet humility, yet strength.

The ĵ in Bĵo is an Esperanto device indicating pronunciation bee•joe; her name has sometimes alas been written Bjo {i.e. without the circumflex over the j) – which, when I first saw it, I thought must be some Nordic name pronounced b’yo; she served in the United States Navy; the poem is an acrostic (read down the first letters of each line) in unrhymed 5-7-5-7-7-syllable lines like Japanese tanka.

(3) BAFTA TV AWARDS. Genre got totally shut out of the 2025 BAFTA awards (complete list of winners at the link).

One show of genre adjacent interest won the Specialist Factual category – Atomic People (BBC), which gathers the testimony of some of the last ‘Hibakusha’, survivors of the two atomic bombs the U.S. dropped on Japan in 1945.

(4) PARTS NOT UNKNOWN. In “A Tolkienian miscellany at Kalimac’s corner, David Bratman says another posthumous Tolkien publication is coming out this year.

If you’ve heard a rumor that yet another new book by JRRT is coming out, it’s true. The Bovadium Fragments will be appearing in the UK in October and in the US in November. “First-ever publication” as it says in the blurb is true, but “previously unknown”? Not a chance. As with some other posthumous Tolkien publication touted as “previously unknown,” its existence was first revealed in Humphrey Carpenter’s biography nearly 50 years ago. The Bovadium Fragments is mentioned there in a footnote as “a parable of the destruction of Oxford (Bovadium) by the motores manufactured by the Daemon of Vaccipratum (a reference to Lord Nuffield and his motor-works at Cowley) which block the streets, asphyxiate the inhabitants, and finally explode.” Which makes it something of a pair to an almost incoherently angry alliterative poem about motorcycles, written probably over 40 years earlier, which is no. 63 in the Collected Poems published last year, and which I think was previously unknown.

(5) CHRISTIE REANIMATED. “Agatha Christie, Who Died in 1976, Will See You in Class” reports the New York Times (behind a paywall).  

Amelia Nierenberg, who reported from London, considers “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” to be one of the greatest books ever written.

Agatha Christie is dead. But Agatha Christie also just started teaching a writing class.

“I must confess,” she says, in a cut-glass English accent, “that this is all rather new to me.”

The literary legend, who died in 1976, has been tapped to teach a course with BBC Maestro, an online lecture series similar to MasterClass. Christie, alongside dozens of other experts, is there for any aspiring writer with 79 pounds (about $105) to spare.

She has been reanimated with the help of a team of academic researchers — who wrote a script using her writings and archival interviews — and a “digital prosthetic” made with artificial intelligence and then fitted over a real actor’s performance.

“We are not trying to pretend, in any way, that this is Agatha somehow brought to life,” Michael Levine, the chief executive of BBC Maestro, said in a phone interview. “This is just a representation of Agatha to teach her own craft.”

The course’s release coincides with a heated debate about the ethics of artificial intelligence. In Britain, a potential change to copyright law has frightened artists who fear it will allow their work to be used to train A.I. models without their consent. In this case, however, there is no copyright issue: Christie’s family, who manage her estate, are fully on board.

(6) FOR CERTAIN VALUES OF INFLUENCE. The Notion Club Papers – an Inklings Blog argues “Charles Williams Did influence JRR Tolkien’s writing – The Place of the Lion and The Notion Club Papers”.

For the past fifty years it has been normal to assume that JRR Tolkien disliked (probably because he was jealous of) Charles Williams; and that Williams did not influence Tolkien’s writing.

Despite that Tolkien personally claimed such things in writing; none of these are strictly correct. 

Tolkien was good friends with Williams, during Williams’s life – it was only some years after Williams died, when Tolkien became aware of some aspects of CW’s biography, that Tolkien turned against Williams and began to make misleading statements to play-down their friendship. 

The denial of Williams’s influence on Tolkien is more complex. As a generalization, it is true to say that the two men had different minds, aims, and literary styles – and there is no striking influence of Williams noticeable in the works Tolkien published during his lifetime – especially not The Lord of the Rings. 

But more can be said….

… It seems to me very likely that Tolkien’s writing of The Notion Club Papers was a direct consequence of the death of Charles Williams. 

The Williams derivation is seen firstly in the origins of the NCPs as a playful “alter-ego” discussion group, explicitly referencing The Inklings, read to The Inklings as work-in-progress in instalments, and with characters loosely-based on the post-Williams membership. 

In this respect I regard it as significant that there is no Notion Club member who is described as based-on the just-deceased Charles. It is as if the NCPs was a tribute to Charles’s memory, and as such to include CW among the somewhat facetious caricatures the NCP membership would have been disrespectful and altogether inappropriate. …

(7) WHERE TO START WITH PRATCHETT? Christopher Lockett begins a “Discworld Reread #1: The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic” at The Magical Humanist.

…Before I get into the novels proper, I feel it behoves me to address the perennial Discworld question: where to begin? I am starting at the beginning here and going in sequence for two reasons: (1) I want to be systematic and not haphazard about this, and (2) I want to watch Discworld develop and grow as I go.

But then, this is not the ideal way to approach Discworld if you’re just starting.

There are forty-one novels in total, but even though we refer to the Discworld series, it’s really not. Not a series, I mean … not in the sense of being serial, at any rate, wherein each instalment picks up where the last left off, and to have a grasp on the overarching story you must begin at the beginning and read in sequence.

That is not how Discworld works. As I’ve noted in this space previously, when asked by newbies what Discworld novel to start with, the lion’s share of Sir Terry devotees emphatically recommend against starting at the beginning…

Lockett follows with a chart of all the books that looks just one step away from being a Tom Gauld cartoon.

(8) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

So Weird series (1999)

The considerable joy of doing these anniversaries is finding these series that I’ve never heard of. So it is with a Disney series called So Weird which ran for sixty-five episodes. So Weird could best be described as a younger version of the X-Files and it far darker than anything which was on Disney when it debuted in 1999. It lasted for just three seasons. 

It was centered around teen Fiona “Fi” Phillips (played by Cara DeLizia) who toured with her rocker mom Molly Phillips (played by Mackenzie Phillips). They kept running into strange and very unworldly things. For the third and final season, she was replaced by Alexz Johnson playing Annie Thelen after the other actress gets the jones to see if she could make in Hollywood. (Well she didn’t.)

The story is that one of the characters, Annie, while visiting an Egyptian museum encounters a cat who once belonged to Egyptian queen that now wants her very much missed companion back. Yes, both the cat and the princess are either immortal or of the undead. 

The writer of this episode, Eleah Horwitz, had little genre background having written just three Slider episodes and a previous one in this series. He’d later be a production assistant on ALF. 

Now if you went looking to watch So Weird’s “Meow” on the Disney service after it debuted, that service which is not Disney+ originally pulled the second season within days of adding the series but returned it a month later within any reason for having pulled it. The show has never been released on DVD. 

However the first five episodes in the first season of the series were novelized and published by Disney Press as mass-market paperbacks, beginning with Family Reunion by Cathy East Dubowski. (I know the Wiki page says Parke Godwin wrote it but the Amazon illustration of the novel cover shows her name. So unless this is one of his pen names, it is not by him.) You can find the other four that were novelized in the Amazon app by simply doing So Weird + the episode name. No they are not available at the usual suspects.

I didn’t find hardly any critics who reviewed it, hardly surprising given it was on the Disney channel but those that did really liked it including John Dougherty at America: The Jesuit Review: “As a kid, my favorite show was about death. Well, not just death: it was also about faith, sacrifice and trying to make sense of life’s ineffable mysteries. Strangest of all, I watched it on the Disney Channel. ‘So Weird’ ran for three seasons from 1999 to 2001. It was Disney’s attempt to create a kid-friendly version of ‘The X-Files,’ tapping into an in-vogue fascination with ghosts, alien encounters and other paranormal phenomena. In practice, it became something more: a meditation on mystery and mortality.” 

I think I’ll leave it there. 

For those of you with Disney+, it’s streaming there.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) ALAN MOORE Q&A. At Alan Moore World: “Long London, Magic & the future of Humanity”.

…In many of your works, Imagination or the Elsewhere often invades Reality. We see this, obviously, in Long London, Providence, Promethea, the League, the story about Thunderman in Illuminations, and so on. Often the world of Imagination influences or interferes, when it does not directly override, the Real one. Could you elaborate on the interconnected relationship between Reality and Imagination, and how your concept of Idea-Space and Magic is linked to it?

Alan Moore: I have to start by carefully defining what is meant by the term ‘reality’. It seems to me that what you most probably mean is material reality. My own position is that while we are indeed apparently part of and surrounded by a material reality (I say apparently because we all compose material reality moment by moment on the loom of our perceptions and are unable to prove that it is actually there, this being the hard problem of consciousness), we are just as evidently part of and immersed in the immaterial reality of our own thought processes. Since material science, which rightly requires empirical testing and repeatable experiments, cannot measure or meaningfully investigate human consciousness, it has tended to argue away consciousness as a ‘ghost in the machine’, and to insist that the only true reality is the material reality for which it has metrics and theories. This has percolated down into the ordinary person on the street’s default worldview, where to say that something is only happening in someone’s mind is to say that it isn’t happening, and by extension that our thoughts and inner workings are not real. Now, thanks to the hard problem of consciousness referred to earlier, while I cannot conclusively state that everybody else’s thoughts and inner workings are real, I can assure you that mine definitely are. In fact, again thanks to the hard problem of consciousness, my thoughts and inner workings are the only things in all existence that I know to be real. The imagination is the sole phenomenon that we know not to be imaginary….

(11) YESTERDAY’S SCALZI BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION. That was clever.

Horatio and his paid intern Jojo wish author @scalzi.com a happy birthday!#Caturday #StarterVillain #HoratioTheCat #JojoThePirateCat

— Centre County Library & Historical Museum (@centrecolibrary.bsky.social) 2025-05-10T15:10:08.924Z

(12) CONAN OUTSIDE THE BOX. “Frazetta Icon Collectibles Conan 1:12 Action Figure Demo”.

As FrazettaGirls designer and project manager I am proud to invite you to join me at the Coffee table for an exciting unboxing and demonstration of the upcoming Frazetta Icon Collectibles Action Figure, Conan The Barbarian!

(13) WHAT IS THE WEIRDEST FILM EVER MADE? [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Moid Moidelhoff over at Media Death Cult asks this question over three days of weed-enhanced film watching.  He comes up with a few recommendations and also asks cult members to provide their suggestions in the ‘comments’ (worth having a skim). In the process, he scares himself sh*tless and has a nervous breakdown…  But he comes up with some interesting choices including a previous film by the folk behind the Hugo-winning Everything, Everywhere, All at Once and also the best killer tyre film of all time.  You can see the 21-minute video here:

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, and Teddy Harvia  for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Paul Weimer.]

Michaele Jordan Review: Orlando, a Biography

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By Michaele Jordan: Ready for a Blast from the Past?

Try Orlando, a Biography by Virginia Woolf.

I suppose I should admit up front that I didn’t care much for this book. But many of you might. The subject matter is provocative, the issue still timely, despite a 1928 publication date, and Ms. Woolf is  a truly splendid writer. Her descriptions in the lyrical passages take ones breath away.  Orlando, a Biography, by Virginia Woolf begins, appropriately, in about 1560 (No date is given – at least one commentator places the date as late as 1588.)

Why, appropriately?  At that time, Queen Elizabeth I, was also suffering gender issues. She was only the second English queen to rule in her own right, and her half sister Mary had not fared well in the job. She was always seen as a woman doing a man’s job, and felt a need to avoid the traditional definitions of a woman’s role: marriage and motherhood. Although the queen would never marry, lest a husband subvert her power, she took a great interest in handsome young men. This we know.

The book opens with the young Orlando throwing on some fresh clothes and tearing down the steps to serve the visiting queen. He kneels before her, bowing his head and offering her a bowl of rose water. 

It’s an odd moment, as neither can see the other’s face, and yet the meeting is all about her appreciation of his personal beauty. (There are also, not one but two, startling references to the queen’s yellow eyes — yellow eyes? Ms. Woolf usually keeps close to the known facts, but portraits and letters alike assure us the queen had dark eyes.) The queen is charmed, brings him to court, and showers him with gifts and honors. But when she spots him kissing a pretty girl in the corridor, she dismisses him from her service.

He remained in or near London until 1607, when a great carnival, or Frost Fair, was held on (not over, or next to, but on top of) the Thames, which was frozen to a depth of twenty feet. King James (who paid for the carnival as a public service) stepped out to see the porpoise frozen deep under the surface.

Orlando was there. And so was the ship which had transported the Russian diplomatic team, including the Russian princess, Sasha. Orlando saw the lady skating toward him across the ice, and lost his heart on the spot.

Sasha spoke no English, and Orlando no Russian, so they conversed in that most romantic of tongues: French. Soon they were madly in love, and planning to elope.

Orlando was so nervous and eager that he arrived for the rendezvous more than an hour early. He paced and fretted and, when midnight finally came, he counted each stroke of the church bell. And then it was midnight, and she had not come. He continued to wait for hours in the cold, pouring rain. The next day he saw that the ice had broken and the Russian ship had sailed.

He fled London and went home. What else could he do? He fell into bed and slept – deeply, as if in a coma – for a week.

 He lay as if in a trance, without perceptible breathing; and though dogs were set to bark under his window; cymbals, drums, bones beaten perpetually in his room; a gorse bush put under his pillow; and mustard plasters applied to his feet, still he did not wake, take food, or show any sign of life for seven whole days. On the seventh day he woke at his usual time . . . he showed no consciousness of any such trance, but dressed himself and sent for his horse . . . Yet some change, it was suspected, must have taken place [for] . . . he appeared to have an imperfect recollection of his past life . . . Had Orlando, worn out by the extremity of his suffering, died for a week, and then come to life again?

Many commentators assure us that at this point he was changed to a woman, but you will note that the text does not say so. (Just the opposite – that revelation remains a long way off.) His pronouns remained masculine. Whatever their gender, Orlando never made any comment on the change, and neither did anyone else; instead he remained in seclusion, wandering the corridors at night, bewailing the treachery of women and scaring the servants. 

So it was, and Orlando would sit by himself, reading, a naked man.

He read a lot – but then he always did.  He returned to his writing.  He had drawers and drawers full of his manuscripts. But his only work which seemed to matter to him was a poem he wrote in his boyhood, The Oak Tree. He invited writers to his home, and established writing circles. The writers he cultivated – and even gave pensions – took his money and badmouthed him, not just behind his back but in public print. Everything he touched turned to sludge.

Thus, at the age of thirty, or thereabouts, this young Nobleman had not only had every experience that life has to offer, but had seen the worthlessness of them all. Love and ambition, women and poets were all equally vain. Literature was a farce. The night after reading Greene’s Visit to a Nobleman in the Country, he burnt in a great conflagration fifty-seven poetical works, only retaining ‘The Oak Tree’, which was his boyish dream and very short.

Thirty? Assuming that he was in his teens when he first met the elderly queen (and so born around 1545), then he should have been in his sixties or at least his fifties if we go with later opening date. I’m guessing that it was not an error on Ms. Woolf’s part, but a reference to his failure to age.

He remained at home for some while, and come June, became enraptured with nature (as, I suspect, was Ms. Woolf, for she rhapsodizes at considerable length. She also includes extensive philosophical musings.)

King Charles (presumably the 2nd, as the first was executed) then appointed Orlando Ambassador to Constantinople. This was an indisputably male role, indicating that whatever their true gender, Orlando was publicly presenting as a man. While in Constantinople, he occasionally had women hauled up on a rope to his balcony window. He was awarded a Dukedom.

It is only now, at this late date that it is acknowledged what everybody has been waiting for. Orlando fell back into a coma – just as the Turks rebelled against the Sultan, and set the town on fire. There is a bizarre little scene of various feminine muses, prancing around and proclaiming that truth must be silenced.

The trumpeters, ranging themselves side by side in order, blow one terrific blast:– ‘THE TRUTH! at which Orlando woke. He stretched himself. He rose. He stood upright in complete nakedness before us, and while the trumpets pealed Truth! Truth! Truth! we have no choice left but confess–he was a woman.

For awhile, Orlando assumed feminine pronouns, and went to live with a band of Romani who declared her one of them, and taught her stealing and cheese-making. She went back to reveling in the beauty of nature, despite the disapproval of the Romani. Nor were they impressed by descriptions of her mansion back in England. She experienced a vision of green lawns, and decided to go home.

She put on women’s clothes, and wondered if it would be possible to swim in them. And began to chafe under the restrictions that bound women. And discovered she was still attracted to them. She started at the courtesies men offered her, but came to accept the attentions of the ship’s Captain. Once home she discovered she was party to numerous law suits.

The chief charges against her were (1) that she was dead, and therefore could not hold any property whatsoever; (2) that she was a woman, which amounts to much the same thing; (3) that she was an English Duke who had married one Rosina Pepita, a dancer; and had had by her three sons, which sons now declaring that their father was deceased, claimed that all his property descended to them. Such grave charges as these would, of course, take time and money to dispose of.

But her household – servants and animals alike – knew her and welcomed her home. She went back to her writing. The Archduchess from her past reappeared to her considerable annoyance.,ith the salver, and behold–in her place stood a tall gentleman in black. A heap of clothes lay in the fender. She was alone with a man.

Now, that I didn’t see coming. The Archduchess, or rather the Archduke, declared passionate love, claiming that he had been posing as a woman for years to get closer to Orlando, and begged her to run away with him to Romania. She was not impressed, and went to considerable pains (including dropping dead insects into his tea) to dissuade him.

What’s the good of being a fine young woman in the prime of life’, she asked, ‘if I have to pass all my mornings watching blue-bottles with an Archduke?’

He had barely departed – with promises to return – before she called a coach and set off to London, where she discovered that high society is boring.  So she tried to write some poetry, but spilled ink all over it. Then she found herself noticing people’s wedding rings. It seemed as if everyone else in the world was mated. She went for a walk. And walked and walked, until she tripped and fell.

A man, a Sea Captain on horseback appeared to assist her and within minutes they were engaged. He recognized her as a man, (although the courts had declared her female, unable to own property). She recognized him as a woman, for no clear reason. They married, (later it is mentioned she had a child) and he sailed off to the Horn. She discovered bookstores. Wandering around the city, she bumped into old acquaintances including that long lost first love, Sasha, now rich and fat. (No comment is made that she must have been as old as Orlando.)

So she went home – she was always going home, she was bound to the place. She was surrounded by swirling memories. And, once more she heard the bells toll midnight.

At this point, I should conclude with some remarks about what all this meant. But that seems so unnecessary. Perhaps back in 1928, when this book was written, the statement that a woman could do pretty much anything a man could do may have been startling, questionable. But not today.

And then there’s the movie. Although I am admirer of Tilda Swinton’s work, I found her utterly unconvincing as a man. The movie attempts to stick to the book, pecking at various incidents from the text, but cannot do justice to any of them within the minimal amount of time available. (The book is 300 pages long; the movie, 94 minutes). Plus, the movie was made in 1992, and, since Orlando is essentially immortal, it could not stop at 1928.  So World War II is squeezed in before the end, which included a tender lovers-in-bed scene, followed somewhat later by Orlando driving a motorbike with a child in a sidecar. I said above that I didn’t care for the book, but even so I gave it credit for excellent writing, and a solid point. The movie, however, was just plain stupid (in my not-in-the-least-bit-humble opinion).

Attention Faneds! Classic Fanzine Art Available

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By Dave Rowe: Bill Mallardi has released 78 illos and cartoons that would have appeared in Double:Bill (and maybe some of them did), which makes them over 55 years old and most of the artists are no longer with us, so they’re fannish memorabilia.

They are free to fan-eds.  The only stipulations are

1)   You print them soon (Bill is heading for his 88th birthday and is not in the best of health).
2)   You credit Bill for passing them on.
3)   You send a copy of the fanzine you’ve used them in to Bill (Address will be supplied).  If your fmz is on-line only, print out a copy and send that to Bill, who is not into the 21st Century as much as we are).

The lots are as follows:

Lot 1:  

  • Rotsler & Mike Gilbert cartoon sheets.  3 off.  8.5″x11″.

Lot 2:  

  • Tim Kirk & Rotsler “Fan Artist Feud”  8 off.  8.5″x11″.

Lot 3:  

  • Wehrle (Man with knife)  1 off.  10.325″x14″;
  • Unsigned (Dave Verba?)  (Lizard Creature)  1 off.  7.25″x11.5″;
  • Jim Cawthorn (Space Female Nude)  1 off.  4.25″x10″.  (Some corflu, but reproduceable).

Lot 4:   NEGATIVES

  • Richard Katvzin (Tolkienish Trio)  1 off.  8.5″x10.75″.  (Some damage but not to linework).
  • David Prosser (Pan & Nymphs – Wash)  1 off.  9.25″x13″.

Lot 5:  

  • Jim Cawthorn  (Surreal Figure, Robert Fighter, and Nude)  1 of each.  Various sizes less than 5.25″x8.75″.
  • Rotsler Cartoons  11 off.  Alien illo  1 off.  All even smaller sizes.

Lot 6:  

  • Steve Fabian  (Alien Landscape)  1 off.  8.25″x4″.
  • Jay Kinney   Cartoon   1 off.  2″x6″.
  • Rotsler  Cartoons  14 off.  (Inc. Rotsler for Taff  6 off)  All less than 8.75″x5.25″.

Lot 7:  

  • Grant Canfield  Cartoon  1 off.  3.5″x6.75″.
  • REG   2 illos.  Less than 8.75″x5.25″.
  • Rotsler  9 cartoons  1 LoC Logo.  All less than 8.75″x5.25″.

You can request as many Lots as you wish but you probably won’t get them all.

Send requests to Dave Rowe at daverowe808@gmail.com

This e-address will only be in used until all the illos are distributed.  It is NOT a COeA for Dave. Please allow a month before you receive a reply.

Pixel Scroll 5/10/25 All Around The Scrollberry Bush, The Monkey Chased The Pixel

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(1) GUARDIAN BOOK REVIEWS. Past Best Fan Writer Hugo winner Abigail Nussbaum, and author of 2025 BSFA Award winner Track Changes penned the Guardian’s latest “The best science fiction, fantasy and horror – reviews roundup”. Nussbaum cover The Devils by Joe Abercrombie (Gollancz, £25), The Incandescent by Emily Tesh (Orbit, £20), Land of Hope by Cate Baum (Indigo Press, £12.99), and A Line You Have Traced by Roisin Dunnett (Magpie, £16.99).

(2) MEETING DEATH SCIENTIFICALLY. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] The BBC’s World Service  has a nifty weekly science programme Unexplained Elements.  This week’s programme was topical with this week’s news of the Pope popping off and the pomp and circumstance ceremony that garnered international attention. It was a topic in which the late Terry Pratchett would have been interested. 

It addressed questions such as when did humans first start burying their dead? The answer seems to be over 100,000 years ago, but this is for anatomically modern humans. Apparently some proto-human species (whose brain capacity was a third of modern humans) may have buried their dead, though the research (currently in peer review) is debatable.  Apparently, the pre-print has been amended to take criticisms into account and while one critic has been convinced, others remain sceptical.

Another topic was that of the biology of graveyards.  Because its ground remains largely untilled, and because of gravestones and the like, there are many micro-environments, and both these factors lead church graveyards have a higher local area biodiversity.

Then there is the issue of a dead person’s digital rights to their social media and online accounts. The European Union’s GDPR is the world’s most robust data protection regulation, though that does not seem to stop firms like Facebook or EventBrite failing to strictly follow it (just look as the small print when you sign up) or even Worldcons who arguably (it would be interesting to test this in court and I could write an essay on this) fail to strictly adhere to its provisions.  Nonetheless, despite GDPR being the world’s gold standard in data protection, the dead have no rights whatsoever under GDPR!

Talking of a dead person’s digital rights (or lack thereof), what of mobile (cell) phones and smartphones, what happens to them when they ‘die’?  Well, fans of Red Dwarf might say that they go to silicon heaven. The reality, however, is for most of them landfill!  Here there are multiple environmental sustainability issues.  All those heavy metals and rare earth elements leech out in landfill causing threats to water tables and other ecotoxicology issues.  And then there is the loss of these elements (which include silver and gold – many kilograms per tonne of mobile phones disposed) to the economy necessitating the mining of replacement elements and the environmental damage that this does.  So the next time a Worldcon tells you that they are ditching recyclable paper from sustainably managed forests (look for the kite mark when buying the paper for publications) don’t accept the Worldcon’s word for it: more greenwash!

It was a fascinating programme. You can access it here.

First up, we delve into the thorny issue of when early humans started to carry out funerary rituals, before turning our attention to graveyards and the life that thrives within these sacred environments.

Next, we are joined Carl Öhman from Uppsala University in Sweden, who reveals what happens to our data when we die and why we should care about it.

Plus, we discuss the precious materials hiding in our old devices, and find out whether animals mourn.

(3) DODGE THE SCAMS. Victoria Strauss points out “Two to Avoid: Book Order Scams and Fake Reviews”. Full details at Writer Beware.

Here are two newish frauds that appear to be on the rise. As with most writing scams these days, they target self-published authors.

The Book Order Scam

I’ve written before about book order scams, in the context of scammers impersonating bookstores such as Barnes & Noble with out-of-the-blue emails promising bulk purchases and big royalties. All the author has to do is pony up thousands of dollars or pounds to cover printing and/or shipping costs (the relevant note here: bookstores do not print the books they sell, and they typically order from the publisher or publishing platform, rather than from the author).

This newer version of the book order scam is somewhat different, arriving not from a bookstore impersonator, but from the self-publishing service provider the writer has hired to publish and/or market their book. That provider isn’t a true self-publishing company, though, but rather one of the many ghostwriting scams that waylay would-be indie authors in order to defraud them….

Fake Reviews

Fake reviews–sometimes just a few lines, sometimes elaborate essays with stars and number rankings–arrive unasked-for, attached to a complimentary email claiming that a book has been “discovered” by book scouts or book evaluators. Or they’re included as part of a pitch for a package of publishing and marketing services, to show how much the service provider believes in the author’s book.

Undoubtedly produced by feeding book blurbs and other info into chatbots, they are essentially bait: affirmation and flattery designed to induce the author to reply, so they can be subjected to aggressive sales pitches for whatever the “reviewer” is selling.

Here are a couple of examples, both sent out by scammers on this list. They’re not just book reviews–they’re PROFESSIONAL book reviews! So much better than just the regular kind….

(4) CHERRYH ANNOUNCEMENT. CJ Cherryh told Facebook followers yesterday she and Jane Fancher won’t be at the Seattle Worldcon – but it’s not the result of any controversy.

Jane and I will not be attending WorldCon despite it being in our state (which some people might want to know)—no controversy, just the expense and the physical buffeting of crowds. While Jane’s got more go-juice than I do, the crowd pressure and distances involved would be pretty exhausting, leaving us sadly low-energy. We’ll still go to friendly ‘little’ cons in driving range, note well, if we know about them!!! and be our brilliant selves, but we’re not up to a full-on WorldCon.

(5) ABOUT THE FEMALE MAN. Farah Mendlesohn’s book Considering The Female Man by Joanna Russ, or, As the Bear Swore is available for preorder from Luna Press Publishing. It will be released in Summer 2026.

Joanna Russ’s writing career was relatively short, running from 1968 to 1987, with a number of essay collections published in the years after that. Her fiction career consists of just six novels and four collections, but each of the novels she published challenged engrained conventions of the genre.

The Female Man was received with shock, horror and vituperation when it was published in 1975. Its fractured narrative, and its direct attack on patriarchy and the straight-jacket of performative femininity, were described as shrill and man-hating. Over the years it emerged as a classic of feminist science fiction, a novel that continues to excite and resonate, and a touchstone for proudly militant feminists.

This exploration of The Female Man offers a close reading of the text, focussing on how the book works, its structures, arguments, humour, and brilliant anger

(6) COMPENSATING FACTORS. “My School Visit was Cancelled. I Fought Back and Won” writers Erica S. Perl in School Library Journal.

As a children’s book author, I love a good mystery. Which is why, last month, after a Virginia elementary school principal abruptly cancelled my visit by email, with no explanation or interest in rescheduling or paying me, I decided to investigate.

It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out what had happened: a parent had complained because of a social media video I had made celebrating Pride month. In it, I mention that Snail, a character in my Whale, Quail, Snail early reader series (illustrated by Sam Ailey), is nonbinary. Most snails are. “It’s a fiction series,” I add, “but that’s a fact.”…

… I wish I could tell you that my story ended amicably with the return of my visit to the school’s calendar. That’s not what happened.

Instead, after I asked for my fee, the principal turned the matter over to the district’s lawyers. The principal then informed the school librarian, who booked my visit, that she might have to pay me out of her own pocket. I told her I would not take her money, no matter what happened. I was extra-outraged that the principal was threatening to make her pay for the “crime” of setting up an author visit.

But my story doesn’t end there. I’m not just a children’s book author. I’m also a former trial lawyer. So instead of walking away muttering about injustice, I spent some quality time with my contract.

That’s right, my author contract. Whenever I am invited to visit a school, my booking agent draws up a contract—and this visit was no exception. According to one clause, if an appearance is cancelled with less than 30 days notice, the school is required to pay my entire fee plus any non-refundable travel expenses. The principal had cancelled on me 28 days before my visit.

And finally, my contract specifies that the contract is governed by the law of the state where I live, not the law of the state where the school is located. So if I wanted to sue for breach of contract, I could simply file papers in my local courthouse (no legal expertise or degree required!).

So, I did. Which is how I got to a different kind of happy ending: the school paid me my fee.

It’s not the win I wanted, because that would have had me standing in front of a gymnasium full of elementary school students. But it is a victory, as I see it, for all authors, especially in this current climate….

(7) KILLER ROBOTS NO LONGER SCIENCE FICTION. [Item by Francis Hamit.] “Unmanned Systems Are Not Revolutionary (But Could Be)” says a post on War Room, hosted by the U.S. Army War College.

Rather than revolutionizing warfare, unmanned systems have emerged as evolutions within the larger information revolution; advancements to be sure, but failing to render conventional militaries obsolete or dramatically reshaping force structures….

(8) PLONK YOUR MAGIC TWANGER. The one answer Smithsonian Magazine knows for sure is the price: “Who Created This Peculiar Painting of a Drooling Dragon? Nobody Knows—but a Museum Just Bought It for $20 Million”. Steven French adds, “Actually the ‘drooling dragon’ looks more like our Patterdale Terrier after he’s spotted the postman!”

Emma Capron, a curator at the museum who was responsible for the acquisition, describes the altarpiece as “wildly inventive” and “full of iconographical oddities,” per the Art Newspaper.

Start with the dragon and its bizarre dog-like face, exaggerated fangs and dripping drool. According to tradition, Satan, disguised as a dragon, swallowed St. Margaret whole. His stomach rejected her and there she appears in the painting, kneeling in prayer, totally unfazed by the event.Next to Margaret, one of the two angels holds a book of song, once thought to be a hymn by the English composer Walter Frye but now identified as musical gibberish. The other angel plucks her mouth harp, “a sound hardly associated with celestial harmony,” as the National Gallery says in the statement….

(9) PEACEMAKER IS BACK. “Peacemaker Season 2 Trailer: John Cena’s DC Superhero Returns” – Variety sets the frame.

… John Cena‘s very R-rated DC superhero has returned in the first trailer for “Peacemaker” Season 2, created by DC Studios co-chief James Gunn. The sophomore season takes place in the rebooted DC Universe, which officially kicked off with Gunn’s animated series “Creature Commando” and continues with his summer tentpole “Superman.” Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner and Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl cameo in the trailer and will appear in “Superman.”…

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

May 10, 1969 — John Scalzi, 56.

By Paul Weimer: I’d read John Scalzi’s blog for years before his fiction. 

I got onto the Scalzi train with his entry in Metatropolis. His story involving a high tech pig farmer had all of the bones of a Scalzi story, from its “I think I know everything” protagonist, to its often snarky sense of humor. While I didn’t fall deeply in love with his work, then or since, I kept reading his work. Redshirts, of course, which still may be my favorite of his novels and stories, helped expand in my mind the metafictional opportunities in science fiction. Lock In is a solid piece of science fictional speculation on how a society might come together and respond to the consequences of a pandemic.  Given that it was written long before Covid…I wonder if Scalzi or, aged fifty six yearswould have reconsidered the novel after the worldwide reaction to the aftermath of the Covid Pandemic. 

Of course the Old Man’s War series is the one that he gets grief for, because it should appeal to the Sad and Rabid Puppies…but it is, in the parlance of today, “too woke”. It’s possible that the existence of such books helped motivate Torgersen and Beale, an irritant to their ideology and worldview (and a counterexample to the idea that Mil-SF must be conservative). Again, I do wonder how Scalzi would write it today, given all that has happened. 

So this is a long way of saying that although it is on my Kindle, I have not yet read When The Moon Hits Your Eye, which seems to have as triggering an idea (the moon turns into cheese. Seriously?) as one can possibly make in the field. But it shows that in the end, Scalzi likes to have fun when writing. He never takes it too seriously, even if he keeps it as rigorous and locked down as the story needs. He’s just telling stories and doing his thing and having the time of his life, and haters can go hang. 

The first time I actually met him in person, he didn’t remember it. He was extremely jet lagged, sitting in a hotel lobby and apparently remembered little from the entire weekend. Due to circumstance (although Scalzi is an excellent DJ, I am told, I am not a dance party goer), I only finally, finally actually got to talk to him at the Glasgow Worldcon. Being part of the photography team did  let me meet and photograph everyone who would hold still.   But did he know who I was? I’m still convinced that he didn’t, and that’s all right. 

John Scalzi’s fiction, too…that’s all right. 

(11) COMICS SECTION.

(12) AMAZING STORIES COLLECTION. Amazing Stories: Best of 2024,a collection of  science fiction short stories published by the magazine over the past year, is now available.

Edited by Lloyd Penney, this collection continues Amazing’s nearly century-long tradition of exploring the strange, the speculative, and the sublime.

From lunar labor revolutions to delicate alien diplomacy, these stories represent the vanguard of speculative fiction. Readers will encounter futures both dystopian and dazzling, technologies that reshape identity and time, and characters grappling with the emotional and ethical consequences of scientific progress. Highlights include:

  • “A Short-Lived History of the Stockpiling of Time, in Post-Mono-Heliocentric Space-Times” by K.V.K. Kvas, a mind-bending tale of interstellar economics, identity, and revolt.
  • “Return from Venus” by C.B. Droege, a quiet and touching story about cross-species friendship and the longing for home.
  • “Best Case Scenario” by Susan Oke, a suspenseful diplomatic mission where what you offer—and what you misunderstand—could mean the difference between peace and peril.

With cover art by Hugo Award-winning artist Bob Eggleton and a lineup of diverse voices offering everything from hard science speculation to lyrical philosophical fiction, Amazing Stories: Best of 2024 is a must-have for any SF fan’s collection.

 “Amazing Stories has always been a home for bold, boundary-pushing science fiction,” says Editor-in-Chief Lloyd Penney. “This year’s stories continue that proud legacy—with some of the most challenging, beautiful, and entertaining tales we’ve ever published.”

It is available online at amazingstories.com and in paperback and eBook editions at indie and major retailers worldwide or at this link.

(13) MONSTROUSLY COOL. That’s what your drinks become with an assist from the “Godzilla Ice Mold”.

(14) DAISY RIDLEY’S ZOMBIE ENCOUNTER. JustWatch quotes Daisy Ridley in its Why to Watch feature about her role in the zombie thriller “We Bury the Dead streaming: where to watch online?”

We Bury the Dead is a gripping, emotional thriller set in a world transformed by the undead. In a unique take on the zombie genre, the film follows Ava—a woman tormented by loss—who volunteers with a corpse retrieval unit to search for her missing husband. Set against a surreal yet intimate apocalypse, the story explores love, grief, and the fragile boundaries of what makes us human.

Daisy Ridley says:

The script is beautiful. It’s about grief and watching someone desperately trying to find an answer, even though she doesn’t know what that answer is going to be. The backdrop of the zombies represents this moment for [my character] Ava because she’s neither here nor there emotionally. Ava’s sole purpose is to find her husband. As a means to get to him, she joins the body retrieval unit which volunteers to find people and notify families. The zombies look like our friends and family, so it’s close enough to reality but in a way that doesn’t feel too close. It feels horribly human.

(15) HONEY, I’M HOME! “Soviet-era spacecraft Kosmos 482 plunges to Earth after 53 years stuck in orbit” reports AP News.

A Soviet-era spacecraft plunged to Earth on Saturday, more than a half-century after its failed launch to Venus.

Its uncontrolled entry was confirmed by both the Russian Space Agency and European Union Space Surveillance and Tracking. The Russians indicated it came down over the Indian Ocean, but some experts were not so sure of the precise location. The European Space Agency’s space debris office also tracked the spacecraft’s doom after it failed to appear over a German radar station.

It was not immediately known how much, if any, of the half-ton spacecraft survived the fiery descent from orbit. Experts said ahead of time that some if not all of it might come crashing down, given it was built to withstand a landing on Venus, the solar system’s hottest planet.

The chances of anyone getting clobbered by spacecraft debris were exceedingly low, scientists said….

…Any surviving wreckage will belong to Russia under a United Nations treaty….

…After so much anticipation, some observers were disappointed by the lingering uncertainty over the exact whereabouts of the spacecraft’s grave….

A Russian press release says it fell in the Indian Ocean west of Jakarta.

(16) YOUR ALIEN NATION. The BBC explains, “More than half your body is not human”.

More than half of your body is not human, say scientists.

Human cells make up only 43% of the body’s total cell count. The rest are microscopic colonists.

Understanding this hidden half of ourselves – our microbiome – is rapidly transforming understanding of diseases from allergy to Parkinson’s.

The field is even asking questions of what it means to be “human” and is leading to new innovative treatments as a result.

“They are essential to your health,” says Prof Ruth Ley, the director of the department of microbiome science at the Max Planck Institute, “your body isn’t just you”….

… But genetically we’re even more outgunned.

The human genome – the full set of genetic instructions for a human being – is made up of 20,000 instructions called genes.

But add all the genes in our microbiome together and the figure comes out between two and 20 million microbial genes.

Prof Sarkis Mazmanian, a microbiologist from Caltech, argues: “We don’t have just one genome, the genes of our microbiome present essentially a second genome which augment the activity of our own…

(17) SCIENCE PAPERS WITH UNDISCLOSED AI USE. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) is controversial to some, in no small part due to large language models (LLMs) and other A.I. (such as image-generating A.I.) using people’s intellectual property (their written or art works) for A.I. and LLM training without permission or recompense.  This is exemplified by the recent debate over the Seattle’s Worldcon use of A.I. (for example, see (1) in the Scroll here).

Similarly, the use of A.I. has controversies in science.  Indeed, a number of leading science journals, such as Nature, frown on the use of A.I. and/or at least ask science authors to declare any use of A.I. in their submissions. The latest news here comes from a news item in this week’s Nature that hundreds of papers have used A.I without disclosure!

Generative A.I. tools such as ChatGPT have quickly transformed academic publishing. Scientists are increasingly using them to prepare and review manuscripts, and publishers have scrambled to create guidelines for their ethical us. Although policies vary, many publishers require authors to disclose their use of A.I….

But science sleuths have identified hundreds of cases in which A.I. tools seem to have been used without disclosure…

…Publishers need to act quickly to resolve issues of dishonest A.I. use.

[Thanks to Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Rich Lynch, Paul Weimer, Francis Hamit, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Steven French, and Kathy Sullivan for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Xtifr.]

Sinners: Review by Jonathan Cowie

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SPOILER WARNING: Review discusses some details of story

Review by Jonathan Cowie: Sinners (2025) is the latest offering from director Ryan (Black Panther & Wakanda Forever) Coogler.  It is at the end of the day a vampire film but, like the recent Russian film Putin hates, Empire V, it actually uses the trope of vampires as an allegory for person control and identity.  Indeed, nearly all the first half of the film does not feature vampires (though there is a fleeting segment a few minutes long) with their first principal entrance coming 55 minutes in. Instead, we get to see what life is like for early 20th century African Americans in the south.

But, before we get ahead of ourselves, some backdrop.  The film is set in the Mississippi Delta which, for many outside of the US, should not be confused with the geographical delta of the Mississippi river but note that the Mississippi Delta is a region in the north of the USA state of Mississippi that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers a couple of hundred miles or so north of the geographical delta proper.

Sinners’ 1932 setting brings it to the heart of the time when many in the region refused to accept the South had lost the American Civil War that should have seen former enslaved ethnic minorities treated as equals (as per the US constitution) but saw continued abuse, harassment, degradation and control over these minorities, not least with a flourishing Klu Klux Klan in the region. This then is at the heart of the film.

Part of this abuse is the appropriation of blues music by the privileged white folk who on one hand enjoy it, and culturally appropriate it, but on the other hypocritically call it sinful and the devil’s music due to its ethnic origins. As a pianist, Delta Slim, in the film says, “White folks like the blues just fine; just not the people who make it.” Here, it should be noted that African-Americans were not the only ethnic minority to be abused: those from China were too and there are a number of references to this.

As said, the film’s first 55 minutes sets all this up together with the protagonists’ own backstory.

In fact, the film’s first five minutes or so takes place the day after the events of the rest of the film. So the first thing we see, and get to know, is that there is a survivor in the form of cousin Sammie (played by Miles Caton the R&B singer-songwriter) who is an aspiring blues guitarist who goes to his pastor father’s (Jedidiah Moore – played by Saul Williams) church. Sammie, in a state of disarray and distress, bursts in on his father giving a service to his congregation. His pastor father pleads with Sammie to renounce the evil blues and seek salvation… We then get a flashback to the previous day.

Twins – both played by Michael B. (Black Panther) Jordan with some nifty photography including them side-by-side with one hand-rolling a cigarette and passing it to the other – return to the area they grew up in having spent a spell working for Chicago gangsters and before then being World War I veterans: they are battle hardened through both crime and war.

With their gangster cash they decide to go legit and set up a juke joint outside Clarkesdale. They purchase their ramshackle premises from a wealthy landowner who clearly is bigoted given the use of some of his (no offence intended) language.

While the twins are preparing their juke house, and recruiting staff from former friends in Clarksdale to help run it, we get a brief interlude in which a very dusty (smoking even) Irishman stumbles from the plain into a young couple’s homestead: we get to see, from a brief display of robes, that the couple are local Klansmen. The Irishman asks to be let in seeking sanctuary from some American Indians who are after him. Shortly, a group of Choctaws turn up asking the wife if anyone has arrived and warning that they are in danger. However, the Sun is about to set and so the Choctaw leave but not before warning the wife not to invite any strangers in… However, the wife goes back into their homestead to find that the Irishman has killed her husband, having drunk his blood…

Meanwhile, the Sun has set and the juke house’s opening night is going well with Sammie, their blue’s guitarist, on top form. The blues is such a powerful music that it can open the doors to the past as well as the future and other spiritual plains. We get to see primitives dancing as well as modern DJ’s with their turntables and modern musicians with electric guitars, while the juke house is seemingly on fire.

This music, opening other planes and dimensions, attracts the Irish vampire who turns up with the Klansmen couple asking to be invited in…

With the best part of an hour to go, the film sees the inevitable stand-off with the vampires as one by one the revelers are turned. There then follows two codas: one a conclusion to the Klansmen issue and the other an in-post-film credits afterword set in the present day…. As for how this hour plays out you will have to see the film.

Plot aside, you may want to know what sort of vampires it is with which we are dealing? We learn that these vampires, having drunk the blood and turned their victims, learn all that their victims knew and their victims demonstrably get to know what their vampire master knows as at one point this leads to a co-ordinated dance.

Fortunately, at least as far as I am concerned, that, unlike the recent Wolf Man film I reviewed which eschewed traditional werewolf tropes, Sinners vampires: do not like garlic, have to be invited in, do lethally suffer from extreme sunburn, and are killed with a stake through the heart. In this respect, Sinners is a solid, traditional vampire film.

This is also a film to see in the cinema for both the photography and music. The scenery of the Delta plains lends itself to the widescreen and the 1930s Clarkesdale is portrayed well. The music was composed by Ludwig Goransson and benefits from cinematic sound. Apparently, much of the music was recorded on set with musicians alongside cast members.

With regards to the film’s feel, it does at times – especially to my mind the Choctaw scene – reminiscent of the director John Carpenter, whom Coogler has reportedly cited as an influence. Indeed, I wanted to know more of the Choctaw backstory.

Here, there may be some good news. Apparently, Warners went into an unusual arrangement with director-producer Coogler in that he has control over future licensing, royalties, and sequels. Could it be that we will get to know more of the Choctaw backstory?

2025 World Video Game Hall of Fame Inductees

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It’s official! Defender, GoldenEye 007, Quake, and Tamagotchi, have joined the World Video Game Hall of Fame at The Strong National Museum of Play.

These four games—which have significantly influenced popular culture and the video game industry—emerged from a field of finalists that also included Age of Empires, Angry Birds, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Frogger, Golden Tee, Harvest Moon, Mattel Football, and NBA 2K.

The games were announced at a special ceremony that included members of the Defender development team, with team lead Eugene Jarvis; John Romero, co-creator of Quake; and Tara Badie, the head of Tamagotchi for Bandai Namco. The games are now enshrined in the museum’s World Video Game Hall of Fame rotunda, part of the ESL Digital Worlds exhibit.

About Defender: Released by Williams Electronics in 1981, Defender proved that players would embrace more complex and challenging games in the arcade. Defender married intense gameplay and a complicated control scheme with a horizontally scrolling spacer shooter. It sold more than 55,000 units—making it a bestseller—and helped create a new market for more difficult games.

Says Jeremy Saucier, assistant vice president for interpretation and electronic games, “Defender’s punishing gameplay raised the level of competition in arcades, and it was among the first games to truly separate dedicated players from more casual ones. By challenging conventional wisdom about game mastery and the idea that players would reject more complex arcade video games, Defender paved the way for richer video game possibilities for developers and players alike.”

About GoldenEye 007: In 1997, Rare and Nintendo partnered to release GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64 console, a first-person shooter based on author Ian Fleming’s iconic British superspy James Bond. Lauded for its in-depth story and immersive gameplay, GoldenEye 007 is especially known for its highly popular four-person multiplayer mode, which influenced many multiplayer games that followed. It was the third best-selling game for the Nintendo 64, only trailing Super Mario 64 and Mario Kart 64.

Says Andrew Borman, director of digital preservation, “Critics lauded GoldenEye 007 as the premier example of a first-person shooter to succeed on a console rather than a PC, and it is still considered one of the best multiplayer experiences ever produced on a Nintendo system. Its impact can be felt in nearly all console FPS games that followed, including Microsoft’s epic Halo franchise that launched in 2001.”

About Tamagotchi: Launched in 1996, Tamagotchi bridged toys and video games. The handheld, electronic game created a digital pet for its owner to nurture and raise by the press of a button—allowing owners to provide affection and attention from birth to adulthood. Tamagotchi spurred the popularity of the pet simulation genre of video games, yielding popular games such as Neopets, Nintendogs, and many other social media and app-based games.

Says Kristy Hisert, collections manager, “Beyond cultivating nostalgia, Tamagotchi offered a distinct form of play that differed from popular video game electronics of the time. It provided players with feelings of connection, caring, and customization, a respite from competition and fighting games. The legacy of Tamagotchi can be seen in the popular pet simulation games that followed on traditional gaming platforms, the Internet, and personal devices throughout the subsequent years.”

About Quake: Id Software’s Quake shook up the gaming world when it debuted in 1996. The first-person shooter’s 3-D engine became the new standard for the industry, and its multiplayer mode helped to spawn the world of esports. The revolutionary Quake game code has been linked to dozens of other games and continues to be used in some modern games nearly 30 years after its release.

Says Lindsey Kurano, electronic games curator, “Quake’s legacy lives on in its atmospheric single player campaign, its influence in how online games are played, its active modding community, and its creation and shaping of esports. Not only this, but Quake’s code is a literal legacy. Of few games can it be said that its DNA—its code—continues to be present in modern games, decades after release.”

About the World Video Game Hall of Fame: The World Video Game Hall of Fame at The Strong was established in 2015 to recognize individual electronic games of all types—arcade, console, computer, handheld, and mobile—that have enjoyed popularity over a sustained period and have exerted influence on the video game industry or on popular culture and society in general.  Inductees were announced at The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, on May 8, 2025, and are on permanent view on the museum’s second floor in ESL Digital Worlds: High Score. Anyone may nominate a game to the World Video Game Hall of Fame. Final selections are made on the advice of journalists, scholars, and other individuals familiar with the history of video games and their role in society.

[Based on a press release.]