[Notes from Kevin Standlee, Marguerite Smith, Jannie Shea, and Vincent Docherty, and James Bacon.]
SMOFCon 37¼ went well.
This year’s event SMOFcon 38 in Montreal moved to 2022 and with next year’s 2021 event, SMOFcon Europe in Lisboa. Both SMOFcon’s agreed to host a small one-day virtual event, with two panels and three question and answer sessions for future conventions and bids.
The event was well attended with 288 memberships were taken through Grenadine and 312 unique individuals logged into Zoom.
It is important to us, to learn and develop, so we have messaged members and asked them to do a survey.
They will remain online until August 2021. The known contacts and URLs for the various conventions and bids have been added into the programme descriptions for the individual Question Time Session.
Members joined Zoom from 21 countries, with some uncertainty because the Zoom report does not indicate VPN usage. The list of countries participating, ranked in order of the number of individual logins from that country, is as follows:
United States of America
United Kingdom
Canada
Israel
France
Poland
New Zealand
Ireland
Australia
Portugal
Germany
Hong Kong SAR
Sweden
Norway
Belgium
Finland
Japan
Croatia
Netherlands
Italy
China
For those of you who enjoy it, here are some Grenadine/Zoom stats
Zoom practice – 35 interested – 34 attended
Con Suite – 141 interested – 143 attended
Question Time for Future Worldcon bids – 147 interested – 139 attended
Question Time for Seated Discon III and Chicon 8 – 126 interested – 119 attended
Question Time for Seated Smofcons and Future Smofcon bids -98 interested – 91 attended
Pivot to Virtual Conventions and Best Practices – 120 interested – 113 attended
(“Interested” = those who added the item to their personal schedule in Grenadine. “Attended” = those who used the Zoom link in Grenadine.)
The Con Suite host, Terry Fong, estimates that at peak, there were 80+ members in various break out rooms. Enthusiastic discussions were had about virtual art shows, new Grenadine features, planning for Westercon 74, the Tel Aviv in 2027 bid, and much, much more.
Much thanks to all those who joined, paricpants and back room staff who helped make the event successful. We hope that you consider supporting future SMOFcons and hope to see you there.
/s/ Kevin Standlee, Marguerite Smith, Jannie Shea, Vincent Docherty, James Bacon
You write under Dave Wolverton for science fiction stories and David Farland for fantasy stories. How did you decide on using two names for your fiction? When would you advise writers to use pseudonyms?
“Wolverton” is a cool enough name for a writer, but so often my books ended up on the bottom shelf. I thought only garden gnomes walking through the store were likely to find them. In fact, research done by Campbell’s Soups showed that 92% of people won’t stoop over to get their favorite soup from the bottom shelf. So think about it. Does that mean that 92% of my readers were being lost?
Maybe I wasn’t losing quite that many, but I think it makes a difference.
So, why change your name?
Change it if it is too close to another famous author’s name. For example, if you’re named Steve King, change your name.
Change it if it’s unpronounceable or offensive. I used to have a good friend whose last name was Shnitz. I’d change it.
Change it if it’s too long to fit on a cover. My real name, at nine letters, was a tad too long.
Change it if you’re writing to vastly different audiences. I used to know a writer who wrote erotica under one name but wrote for Christian audiences under another. He actually used more than twenty pseudonyms since he wrote for a lot of different magazines.
Basically, I try to put pride in my work, not my name. My writer’s name is just a marketing tool, not my identity.
… Several generations later, my family prefers social media. Even members who hate technology have Twitter accounts and they share. Because traditional Indian arts rely on the supply and demand of in-person sales, our forms often include fresh subjects. Nephews send me links to Pacific Northwest superheroes and Star Wars, dubbed into Dine (Navajo). If Tuscarora or Onondaga did this, I’d be all over the effort. I’ve memorized an inappropriate percentage of Star Wars dialogue, and I spoke Tuscarora decently as a kid. The infrastructure is there in my head. I have a kid’s love for Star Wars, less embarrassed than a lot of middle-aged men. I’ve owned a beaded Batman belt-buckle for over half my life. The adult half.
Star Wars is a lens Indians have readily adopted. I love the weird visual pun of a white Rez Dog rocking an orange Stormtrooper pauldron. I also understand the brilliance of the Dine language dub. We recently lost our last Tuscarora continuous fluent speaker, in his nineties. Younger people long studied with him, but now that door is closed. We understand Princess Leia seeking Obi-Wan Kenobi. Her Only Hope was an elder’s endurance. Now that ours is gone, our language fragments float in space like Alderaan, destroyed by the Empire’s weapon, the oo-nih-SEH`rheh Gih-heh. Is it too late to reassemble and master those fragments? If someone started scrolling through my phone pics, could I tell them in Tuscarora that it’s not the droid they’re looking for? Could we laugh?
I love that Twitter doesn’t require an account. Lurking, I stumbled upon #NativeTwitter. Like many Rez gatherings, it has undercurrents of just deadly grousing and gossip, sick burns and sometimes out and out raw belligerence and trolling people who should know better. But as often, it’s an auger for indigenous sweet spots. I’ve regularly seen beginning beadwork artists ask for and receive help. It gives me hope, but not enough to create an account. I know my limitations, or some of them, anyway….
(3) THE MCKELLEN CONNECTION. We linked to David Steffen’s introductory “Universal Transitive Headcanon (UTH)” which explains the concept. Today he put up the first post applying the concept: “UTH #1: The Story of Gandalf and Magneto” at Diabolical Plots. Steffen says, “I could not be more delighted with how it turned out.”
… It is no wonder, then, that even after saving most of the then-known world from the evil power of Sauron yet again, that Gandalf would become embittered and, not only take on an entirely new persona of Eric Lensherr/Magneto (X-Men, X2: X-Men United, etc), but turn his back on his prior methods and many of the people he had fought to protect….
(4) READ MORE ABOUT PHYLLIS EISENSTEIN. Bill Higgins notes, “Phyllis and her husband Alex have been good friends to me for over forty years. I wrote a little over at Making Light. She had friends everywhere across the SF world, I believe, and she leaves behind a large empty space in Chicago fandom.”
(5) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.
December 14, 1984 — On his day in 1984, Dune premiered. It was directed by David Lynch and produced by Raffaella De Laurentiis, the screenplay was by David Lynch from the Hugo Award winning novel by Frank Herbert. It starred Francesca Annis, Linda Hunt, Sting, Kyle MacLachlan and a cast of thousands. It did spectacularly poorly at the box office and was treated rather badly by critics. Audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes however give a quite spectacular sixty six percent rating. It would place in fourth in Hugo voting at AussieCon Two (1985) with 2010: Odyssey Two winning that year.
(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]
Born December 14, 1869 – Elphinstone Dayrell. His Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria (1910; he was then District Commissioner) published forty tales, many fantastic; the text, with its introduction by Andrew Lang, is here; most reprinted 2019 with much else in African Myths & Tales. (Died 1917) [JH]
Born December 14, 1916 — Shirley Jackson. First gained public attention for her short story “The Lottery, or, The Adventures of James Harris” but it was her The Haunting of Hill House novel which has been made her legendary as a horror novelist as it’s truly a chilling ghost story which recently was made into a series. I see that’s she’s written quite a bit of genre short fiction — has anyone here read it? (Died 1965.) (CE)
Born December 14, 1920 — Rosemary Sutcliff. English novelist whose best known for children’s books particularly her historical fiction which involved retellings of myths and legends, Arthurian and otherwise. Digging into my memory, I remember reading The Chronicles of Robin Hood which was her first published novel and rather good; The Eagle of the Ninth is set in Roman Britain and was an equally fine read. (Died 1992.) (CE)
Born December 14, 1939 – John Baxter, age 83. Four novels, a dozen shorter stories; two Pacific Book of SF anthologies; film (including SF in the Cinema and biographies of e.g. Luis Buñuel, Federico Fellini), television; four volumes of memoirs; letters, essays in Australian SF Review, Relapse (which I wish had kept the title Prolapse, but what do I know?), Riverside Quarterly, SF Commentary, Trap Door, Xero. [JH]
Born December 14, 1946 – Jenny Sullivan, Ph.D., age 74. A score of books for us, a dozen others, with Welsh themes, some in both Welsh and English. Chilton Bursary. Two Tir na n-Og Awards. Returns to visit Wales from her current home in Brittany. Would you like to know about a Magic Apostrophe? Do you think a girl your age named Astarte Perkins might make a good friend? [JH]
Born December 14, 1959 — Debbie Lee Carrington. Actress who was an ardent advocate for performers with disabilities. She was the performer inside the Howard the Duck costume, a Martian rebel named Thumbelina in Total Recall, an Ewok in Return of the Jedi (and in the TV movies that followed, a Drone in Invaders from Mars, Little Bigfoot in Harry and the Hendersons, an Emperor Penguin in Batman Returns and a Chucky double in Curse of Chucky. (Died 2018.) (CE)
Born December 14, 1960 — Don Franklin, 60. He’s best known for his roles in seaQuest DSV as Commander Jonathan Ford, Seven Days as Captain Craig Donovan, and as one of The Young Riders as Noah Dixon). No, the last isn’t remotely genre but it was a great role. (CE)
Born December 14, 1964 — Rebecca Gibney, 56. She was of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot, and was also in King’s Nightmares and Dreamscapes mini-series. She also had one- offs in Time Trax, Farscape and The Lost World, all of which were produced either in Australia or New Zealand, convenient as she’s New Zealand born and resident. (CE)
Born December 14, 1966 — Sarah Zettel, 54. Her first novel, Reclamation, was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award in 1996, and in 1997 tied for the Locus Award for the Best First Novel. Writing under the alias of C. L. Anderson, her novel Bitter Angels won the 2010 Philip K. Dick award for best paperback original novel. If you’ve not read her, I’d recommend her YA American Fairy Trilogy as a good place to start. (CE)
Born December 14, 1967 – Ewa Bialolecka, age 53. (The software won’t show some characters in her name; it should have a kreska ukosna “stroke” through each l – so they’re like English w – and an ogonek “little tail” on the e – so it’s nasal; the w is like English v, the c is like English ts.) Two novels, a dozen shorter stories. Two Zajdel Awards. Also stuffed creatures, stained glass, drawings, jewelry; see her at DeviantArt. [JH]
Born December 14, 1979 – Samit Basu, age 41. A dozen novels, a few shorter stories; comics; film. Turbulence and sequel Resistance much applauded e.g. in Wired. Here is a 2017 interview. [JH]
Born December 13, 1980 – Ma Boyong, age 40. A dozen novels; also a columnist and blogger. The First Emperor’s Games is about the first Emperor of China: what if he could play video games like Risk (yes, based on the board game) or Angry Birds? It, The City of Silence, and The Mark Twain Robots are available in English. People’s Literature Prize (2010). [JH]
(7) COMICS SECTION.
Not Pulp Covers hosts an artist’s conception of an accident between Santa and a UFO.
(8) INDIE GONE WILD. This is the kind of thing I’d expect to see at Mad Genius Club.
(9) MAKER. Here is a Swede who built his own Warhammer space marine 2.7 meters tall – see the video at SVT Nyheter (and read about him if you know Swedish.)
He previously built a panzerbear from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials – video and a full report in Swedish here.
Can rocky planets around small stars hold onto their atmospheres? Are super-Earths habitable?
Laura Kreidberg, exoplanet atmosphere specialist and director of the APEx Department at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, reviews the latest controversies and recent discoveries of exoplanet research.
Exoplanet detection may be old news—over 4,000 have been discovered to date—but the new frontier lies in unraveling the composition of exoplanet atmospheres, their number of moons, and whether they hold the potential for life. In this month’s Frontiers Lecture, investigate how researchers approach these questions and the scientific processes and evidence supporting their hypotheses.
Suppose for the sake of argument the Kepler data is correct when it suggests there are as many as three hundred million (300,000,000!) potentially life-bearing worlds orbiting sunlike stars in our Milky Way. Suppose we win the jackpot and they are all Earthlike enough for us to occupy. Suppose further some grand unified polity spans the whole of the Milky Way, in the manner of Asimov’s Galactic Empire. Among the many implications is the fact that the Ministry of Oh Crap What Now would have to deal with rare natural events relatively frequently. No doubt stressful for our overworked functionaries, but a godsend for SF authors with an appetite for thrilling peril….
Sabrina’s aunts are back! But…they’re not the aunts that this Sabrina is familiar with.
Netflix has just dropped a majorly tease-y clip from the upcoming final season of Chilling Adventures, in which Sabrina, unsure of just where she actually seems to be, finds herself meeting her “new” Aunts…except, well, they’re her old aunts.
Strangely enough, I found this one on Something Weird’s MONSTERS CRASH THE PAJAMA PARTY Spook Show Madness compilation DVD.
It’s about kids and their fears, and how to conquer them, a public service short produced by Encyclopedia Britannia Films that was probably shown to 4th graders back in the day….
[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, David Steffen, Hampus Eckerman, Mike Kennedy, JJ, John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, Michael Toman, John Hertz, Daniel Dern, Bill Higgins, and Martin Morse Wooster for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Anna Nimmhaus inspired by Bill with an assist from OGH.]
A Clockwork Orange, Shrek and The Dark Knight, inspired by sf, fantasy and comics, are on the list of 25 movies inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress this year. Also, A Cabin in the Sky, which includes some fantastic elements. Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced the selections today.
Films Selected for the 2020 National Film Registry (chronological order)
Suspense (1913)
Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914)
Bread (1918)
The Battle of the Century (1927)
With Car and Camera Around the World (1929)
Cabin in the Sky (1943)
Outrage (1950)
The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)
Lilies of the Field (1963)
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971)
Wattstax (1973)
Grease (1978)
The Blues Brothers (1980)
Losing Ground (1982)
Illusions (1982)
The Joy Luck Club (1993)
The Devil Never Sleeps (1994)
Buena Vista Social Club (1999)
The Ground (1993-2001)
Shrek (2001)
Mauna Kea: Temple Under Siege (2006)
The Hurt Locker (2008)
The Dark Knight (2008)
Freedom Riders (2010)
Selected because of their cultural, historic or aesthetic importance to the nation’s film heritage, the 2020 titles include blockbusters, musicals, silent films, documentaries and diverse stories transferred from books to screen. They bring the number of films selected for preservation in the registry to 800, a fraction of the 1.3 million films in the Library’s collections.
Under the terms of the National Film Preservation Act, each year the Librarian of Congress names to the National Film Registry 25 motion pictures that are “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant. One reason for tThe preservation program is research showing that 70 percent of the nation’s silent feature films have been lost forever and only 14 percent exist in their original 35 mm format. The films must be at least 10 years old. More information about the National Film Registry can be found at loc.gov/film.
The Librarian makes the annual registry selections after conferring with the distinguished members of the National Film Preservation Board (NFPB) and a cadre of Library specialists. Also considered were more than 5,500 titles nominated by the public. Nominations for next year will be accepted through the fall at here.
By James Bacon: Journey Planet announces the publication of their 53rd edition of their Hugo Award winning fanzine, JP53: The Future of Policing. Co-editor, author, and fan Errick Nunnally suggested the theme for this issue because he felt that it was a rich and timely subject that could be explored from a diverse set of perspectives. As he explains in his “enditorial”:
“The concept of law enforcement in speculative fiction is an old one… The entire world was just beginning to wake up to the plight of Blacks, trans-folk, Native Americans, and other minority populations with law enforcement officers and justice systems. Then the pandemic hit. And George Floyd’s name was added to the seemingly neverending list of Black people killed by the police. What has followed are the most significant and enduring protests since the Civil Rights era, altering the world’s perception of law enforcement systems. Enter fans. What you’re reading is the raw enthusiasm of fans for the theme of this issue.”
With a wonderful cover by Afua Richardson, an exclusive preview panel from The Legend of Luther Arkwright, a work-in-progress by Bryan Talbot, and a fabulous rendition of a classic film poster by Mike Carroll, the imagery is presented alongside incredible essays about the future of policing. Also included in the zine is a micro focus on the TV programme Watchmen.
With over thirty contributors, we are pleased to offer these fabulous examples of thoughtfulness and sincerity that consider just what the hell is going on right now.
Essays include “The Tears Of A Policeman” by Brendan DuBois, “Suspension Of Disbelief And Policing In SF.” by Christopher Golden, “The Future Is Now,” by Nicole Givens Kurtz, Brenda Noiseux’s examination of hard-pressed, cibopath detective Tony Chu from Chew, and David Ferguson’s look at Doctor Who. “The Algorithms of Policing” by Anton Marks offers a Black SF writer’s perspective from London. We also have voices from Ireland, Pádraig Ó Méalóidm and Noelle Ameijenda; China, Regina Kanyu Wang; and Germany, Tobias Reckermann. All with their own very different perspectives.
We were especially pleased about our “Instant Fanzine” response from Jeannette Ng, who offers a realistic and determined view on the future of policing as well as fabulous insight into her thoughts on the Watchmen TV series as well as many other responses that truly capture this moment in time.
As co-editor Erin Underwood says, “We were looking for impressions from our community within fandom and that is exactly what we received. This edition of Journey Planet is powerful. I think that may unsettle some people. Some may even argue that it has an anti-police feel because of the unvarnished truths that this fanzine shares.”
This issue was edited by Erin Underwood, Errick Nunnally, Christopher J. Garcia and James Bacon. We all hope you find this zine thought-provoking.
(1) THE VALUE IN EXPERIMENTING. Nino Cipri offers some sff writing pointers. Thread starts here.
Included this slide in my final lecture for my creative writing class and am inordinately proud of it. pic.twitter.com/z5MDTSmXlm
— ????Nino Cipri isn't here right now (@ninocipri) December 9, 2020
So yeah. Carve out time for weird shit that might not work, half-baked ideas, and absolute garbage dug out from the gutters of your brain. Assert your right to write for pleasure or exploration or the sheer joy of not caring about the end product. Fuck around and find out.
— ????Nino Cipri isn't here right now (@ninocipri) December 9, 2020
During the second season of “The Mandalorian,” Grogu, long referred to by fans as Baby Yoda, has been shown eating everything from a froglike alien’s eggs to fancy blue cookies. The popular Disney+ series could easily spawn a spinoff called “The Best Thing Baby Yoda Ever Ate.”
As of the seventh episode of Season 2, titled “The Believer,” Baby Yoda remains a captive of Moff Gideon and his Imperial forces. Hopefully, the Empire remembers to feed its prisoners, because Grogu is one hungry baby, if previous episodes are anything to go by.
Until Mando and Baby Yoda are reunited (and hopefully throw a celebratory feast), here’s a look back at everything Baby Yoda has been seen eating during the show so far.
How did the novel evolve and change as you wrote and revised it? Are there any characters or scenes that were lost in the process that you wish had made it to the published version?
I had a first draft that sat on my computer for a couple of years. It wasn’t bad, but it needed a polish. And the ending was unsatisfying. I offered it to Betsy Wollheim at DAW. I really admire her. She understands the genre better than most because she grew up in it. Her dad, Donald A. Wollheim, was one of the most underrated movers and shakers in the field. She suggested that I rethink the ending and I came up with a much stronger resolution, one that was a much better payoff. So I have to give her the credit for making Hella a better book.
(4) PRO TIP. In Isaac Asimov’s autobiography In Memory Yet Green he discusses how he continued to write letters in the pages of science fiction magazines even after he became a professional.
I began to enjoy less the writing of letters. Yet I did write them, and often quarreled with writers who objected to something or other in one of my stories–until I received a letter from the writer Nelson S. Bond (whom I met briefly at the World Convention in 1939, and never again), saying that now that I was a professional, I should stop slugging it out in fan columns. I took that seriously and from the moment I received that letter, I stopped writing letters to the magazines, except for very occasional ones that did not involve fannish comments. I have always been grateful to Bond for this word in season.
(5) TWO FIFTHS. Thanks to Jim Henley for this fine example of a File 770 trope – double fifths!
While nostalgia has had a place in tabletop roleplaying games ever since the field was old enough to have second editions—remember when tabletop roleplaying game nostalgia was new?—the recent Twilight 2000 Kickstarter is remarkable for the speed at which the project hit its funding goals: just seven minutes, a bit longer than it would take missiles launched from the Soviet Union to reach Britain.
First published in 1984, Twilight 2000 took as its background a mid-1990s Soviet-Chinese conflict that spiraled into a global war when East and West Germany tried to use Soviet distraction to reunify. By 2000 all sides are too exhausted to continue. Most campaigns begin as the war stumbles to a chaotic, exhausted halt.
T:2000 might seem to be an odd game to be nostalgic about. Perhaps it is a reflection of the Jason Mendoza principle: “Anytime I had a problem and I threw a Molotov cocktail, boom! Right away, I had a different problem.” …
Organizers of Asia’s largest digital entertainment expo — where scantily clad models usually dress up as characters from comic books, movies and video games — say they will levy a fine of $800 on women who reveal “more than two centimeters of cleavage.”
Men are not exempt from the crackdown on exposed flesh.
They will face the same penalty if they wear low-hanging pants or expose their underwear. If models are caught dancing in cages or around a pole they will be fined a whopping $1,600, as will anyone caught striking vulgar poses.
It’s the latest example of what appears to be a government campaign for stricter morality in China.
Under China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, the Communist Party’s creeping interference on the smallest details of Chinese life is being felt more and more. Censors have blurred the bejeweled earlobes of young male pop stars on television and the internet so that, in their mind, the piercings and jewelry don’t set a bad example for boys. Women in costumes at a video game convention were told to raise their necklines.
(8) BATMAN ’66 AND OTHER VINTAGE TV OPINIONS. [Item by Todd Mason.] From 1966: “At Issue; 65; What’s Happening to Television?” This episode of the monthly series from National Educational Television makes its points, sometimes less tellingly than its creators think it does, but writer Morton Silverstein and some of those interviewed sure get their boots in on Batman, the ABC series, to a remarkable degree. Also, the blithe use of “drama” to refer only to anthology series that don’t have a slant toward one established program category or another beyond that concept. Interesting to those who are students of popular culture and news medium self-justification.
“What’s Happening to Television?” is the topic explored by no fewer than twenty-two top personalities allied to the television industry. This hour program in National Educational Television’s “At Issue” series presents timely and critical observations on daily programs, news, TV ratings, government regulations and the role of advertising. “What’s Happening to Television?” is analyzed by network executives, news commentators, advertising people, writers and critics. They comment on the growth of television, from its infant days to its present giant development, when more than 35 million Americans watch their sets for some 3 hours daily. “What’s Happening to Television?” looks back into TV history, analyzing some of the early successes, commenting on present programs, and giving the viewer a glimpse of next fall’s offerings. Some of the questions discussed include: Will television ever live up to its potential? What is the real purpose? Who determines which programs are dropped? What is the role of the program sponsors? Is the public interest being protected? Is educational television the answer to more worthy programs? What can the viewer do to control the quality of programs coming into the family living room?
(9) GALANTER OBIT. Star Trek author Dave Galanter (1969-2020) died of cancer on December 12. Galanter has authored (or coauthored with collaborator Greg Brodeur) such Star Trek projects as Voyager: Battle Lines, the Next Generation duology Maximum Warp, The Original Series novels Crisis of Consciousness and Troublesome Minds, and numerous works of short Star Trek fiction.
“John le Carre has passed at the age of 89. This terrible year has claimed a literary giant and a humanitarian spirit,” tweeted novelist Stephen King. Margaret Atwood said: “Very sorry to hear this. His Smiley novels are key to understanding the mid-20th century.”
…After university, which was interrupted by his father’s bankruptcy, he taught at the prestigious boarding school Eton before joining the foreign service.
Officially a diplomat, he was in fact a “lowly” operative with the domestic intelligence service MI5 —he’d started as a student at Oxford — and then its overseas counterpart MI6, serving in Germany, on the Cold War front line, under the cover of second secretary at the British Embassy.
His first three novels were written while he was a spy, and his employers required him to publish under a pseudonym. He remained “le Carre” for his entire career. He said he chose the name — square in French — simply because he liked the vaguely mysterious, European sound of it….
(11) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.
December 13, 2002 — On this date in 2002, Star Trek: Nemesis premiered. It directed by Stuart Baird and produced by Rick Berman from the screenplay by John Logan as developed from the story by John Logan, Rick Berman and Brent Spiner. It was the fourth and final film to feature the Next Generation cast. It received decidedly mixed reviews, was a full-blown box disaster but currently has a decent fifty percent rating among audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes.
(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]
Born December 13, 1909 – Alan Barclay. Five novels, two dozen shorter stories; essays “Interplanetary Navigation” in New Worlds SF, “The Bow” in SF Adventures. “The Scapegoat” is in New Worlds SF 105 which has this neato Sydney Jordan cover. (Died 1991) [JH]
Born December 13, 1923 – Faith Jaques. Six covers, eight interiors for us. Here is Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator and here is an interior. Here is “The Flirtation of Two Mice”. Outside our field I know her for this; and here are some Christmas Waits. (Died 1997) [JH]
Born December 13, 1929 — Christopher Plummer, 91. Let’s see… Does Rudyard Kipling in The Man Who Would Be King count? If not, The Return of the Pink Panther does. That was followed by Starcrash, a space opera I suspect hardly anyone saw which was also the case with Somewhere in Time. Now Dreamscape was fun and well received. Skipping now to General Chang in Star Trek:The Undiscovered Country. Opinions everyone? I know I’ve mixed feelings on Chang. I see he’s in Twelve Monkeys which I’m not a fan of and I’ve not seen The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus yet. (CE)
Born December 13, 1940 – Ken Mitchell, age 80. Co-founded the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild and the S Playwrights Center. A novel, a shorter story, two covers for us (here is The Tomorrow Connection); six other novels, a dozen plays. Retired from the Univ. Regina English Department, tours as a cowboy poet. Order of Canada. Saskatchewan Order of Merit. [JH]
Born December 13, 1945 – Drew Mendelson, age 75. Two novels, half a dozen shorter stories. Maybe Cora Buhlert can explain why “Once I Built a Railroad” was translated as »Einst baute ich eine Eisenbahn« which means Once I built a railroad but Pilgrimage was translated as Die vergessenen Zonen der Stadt which isn’t a bad title for it but doesn’t mean Pilgrimage. [JH]
Born December 13, 1949 — R.A. MacAvoy, 71. Winner of the Astounding Award for Best New Writer. I’m very, very fond of her Black Dragon series, Tea with the Black Dragon and Twisting the Rope. The only other thing I’ve read of hers is The Book of Kells so, do tell me about her other works. (CE)
Born December 13, 1954 — Tamora Pierce, 66. Her first book series, The Song of the Lioness, took her character Alanna through the trials of training as a knight; it sold very well and was well received by readers. She would win in 2005 the Edward E. Smith Memorial Award for Imaginative Fiction, a rare honor indeed. (CE)
Born December 13, 1954 — Emma Bull, 66. Writer of three of the best genre novels ever, Bone Dance: A Fantasy for Technophiles, Finder: A Novel of The Borderlands and War for The Oaks. Will Shetterly, her husband and author of a lot of really cool genre works, decided to make a trailer which you can download if you want. Just ask me. She’s also been in in a number of neat bands, one that has genre significance that being Cat Laughing which has Stephen Brust, Adam Stemple, son of Jane Yolen, and John M. Ford either as musicians or lyricists. They came back together after a long hiatus at MiniCon 50. Again just ask me and I’ll make this music available along with that of Flash Girls which she was also in. (CE)
Born December 13, 1960 – José Eduardo Agalusa Alves da Cunha, age 60. (Agalusa the maternal, Alves da Cunha the paternal surname, Portuguese style.) Two novels for us: The Society of Reluctant Dreamers just appeared in English, 2019; The Book of Chameleons won the Independent Foreign Fiction prize); a dozen others, shorter stories, plays, poetry, journalism, radio. Int’l Dublin Literary Award. [JH]
Born December 13, 1969 — Tony Curran, 51. Vincent van Gogh in two Eleventh Doctor stories, “Vincent and the Doctor” and “The Pandorica Opens”, the latter as a cameo. He’s had vampire roles in Blade II as Priest and Underworld: Evolution as Markus, and was Lt. Delcourt in The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn to name but a few of his myriad genre roles. (CE)
Born December 13, 1978 – Lee Isserow, age 42. A score of novels, a dozen shorter stories for us; screenwriting; and the terrifying ABAM project, which means – yes – A Book A Month. Has read not only Breakfast of Champions but The Master and Margarita. [JH]
Born December 13, 1984 — Amal El-Mohtar, 36. Canadian editor and writer. Winner of Hugo Awards for Best Short Story for “Seasons of Glass and Iron” at WorldCon 75 and Best Novella for “This Is How You Lose the Time War” at CoNZealand (with Max Gladstone). (The latter got a BSFA and a Nebula as well.) She’s also garnered a Nebula Award for “Madeleine“, a World Fantasy Award for “Pockets” and a World Fantasy Award for “Seasons of Glass and Iron”. Impressive. She has edited the fantastic poetry quarterly Goblin Fruit magazine for the past four years. (CE)
(13) COMICS SECTION.
In The Far Side, it looks like the coroner’s office has already picked up this extra sized decedent.
And in another entry of The Far Side, they also walk dogs.
(14) IMAGINARY GIFT SHOP. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] The Washington Post had a short feature where they asked writers to “dream up the presents that they’d love to parcel out this year but don’t exist.” Ken Liu says he wants a phone-sized device he can point at tweeters to see whether they are arguing in good faith or just being a troll. Ted Chiang says he wished the Web had evolved into a subscription-based servie where people paid for sites they visited with money instead of personal data. “A guide to gifts that don’t exist but should”.
It’s that time of the year when the nights grow long, the air grows cold, the festive lights go up and the year’s best books lists are sprouting like mushrooms after the rain. But will any of them help you find that perfect book-gift for your friends who love science fiction, fantasy and horror? If not, we’re here to help….
The issue that had been bugging me was the inconsistent way of travelling between planets. In the films but also in The Mandalorian (less so in cartoons), characters fly in space ships between planets in two ways:
… Chesterton’s applied his penchant for logic in this article on “Santa Claus.” Along with providing a short history of the figure of Santa Claus in popular culture (particularly his origins, as the gift-wielding St. Nicholas of Bari in Medieval iconography), Chesterton offered a simple proposition: that a child’s ultimately ceasing to believe in Santa Claus, justified by the fact that Santa Claus is not real, is a precursor to that child’s ceasing to believe in God. And this, Chesterton explained, was a terrible phenomenon.
And then he admitted a surprising detail: “I startled some honest Protestants lately by telling them that, though I am (unfortunately) no longer a child, I do most definitely believe in Santa Claus.”
Elaborating on this decidedly ‘hot take,’ Chesterton stressed that he felt it was critical for children to believe in Santa Claus even after Santa Claus has been debunked as a real, flesh-and-blood man, because the Santa Claus that children know is ultimately a caricature of an actual saint; just because, Chesterton argued, he is not real to their eyes does not mean that he is not a genuine, spiritual entity….
What happens when you’re kidnapped from your family, tortured, and conditioned into being an assassin? You get River Tam. And also Alan, apparently. Therapist Jonathan Decker and filmmaker Alan Seawright discuss what we can learn about coping with trauma from Summer Glau’s character River in Serenity and Firefly. They break down some of the symptoms of PTSD she exhibits, and some of the things that help her work through them and start healing. Even though most of us don’t live in a sci-fi future with space ships, space zombies, and space cowboys (along with psychics and lots of other fun), we can still learn a thing or two about how to heal from and deal with the trauma we do face in real life.
(19) ZOOMING THROUGH FANHISTORY. Fanac.org is planning a series of Zoom Interactive Fan History Sessions.
For our first session, Rob Hansen is going to give us an historic tour of fannish Holborn, London. Rob is probably the most accomplished fan historian writing these days. As most of you know, he has written the history of British fandom, Then and has put together a number of books covering various aspects of British fandom. Find many of them here. Reserve the date: Saturday, December 19, 2020 at 11AM EDT.
Despite the pandemic, Rob has done video recordings around London, and with historic photos and live description will give us a tour that covers some household fannish names and places. He has worked with Edie [Stern] over the past several months to provide an interesting and fairly detailed coverage of London’s fan heritage. This one-hour session is based on tours which Rob has given to individual fans and also developed as a group tour after the last London Worldcon. Even if you have been on one of these tours, you will find some fresh sights and insights. Of course, Rob will be live on Zoom with additional material and to answer questions. Please send your RSVP to fanac@fanac.org as our Zoom service is limited to 100 participants.
(20) BEYOND INFINITY. Disney+ dropped a trailer for What if….? an alternate-universe animated series.
(21) MARTIANS AT THE NEW YORK TIMES. [Item by David Goldfarb.] The New York Times puzzle page has a game called “Letter Boxed”, in which you make words out of letters arranged around a square. The idea is to use all the letters with as few words as possible: there is always a two-word solution. The two-word solution for Saturday 12/12 was “Visualizing – Grok”.
(22) EDUCATE YOURSELF. Ursula Vernon ladles out more life experience. Thread starts here.
So here is a lengthy tale of the single most spectacular loss of consciousness I have personally witnessed, in my misspent youth, lo these many years past. https://t.co/4ruxYOs1Ua
It’s one small step for insects, eight steps for spider-kind.
“Arachnauts” flown to the ISS have revealed their secret backup plan when they can’t use gravity to figure out where they are when spinning their webs. Earth’s gravity is what normally helps them make a web optimal for catching dinner—and position themselves in it. Lamps accidentally placed above the spider experiment showed that when the arachnids lose their orientation in microgravity, they use light to find their way again….
(24) VIDEO OF THE DAY. In “Hulk (2003) Pitch Meeting” on Screen Rant, Ryan George says that people who watched the 2003 Hulk expecting that Hulk would smash things will be disappointed by the first 45 minutes, which consist of nothing but brooding and that few people will be excited by the scenes where Hulk beats up a Hulkified French poodle.
[Thanks to Jim Henley, David Goldfarb, Martin Morse Wooster, John Hertz, John King Tarpinian, Contrarius, JJ, Cat Eldridge, Michael Toman, Mike Kennedy, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Bill.]
The Staunch Book Prize — the award for thrillers without violence against women — has announced its 2020 shortlist and winner for novels and short stories in one fell swoop:
WINNER
Heaven, My Home by Attica Locke (Serpent’s Tail)
OTHER FINALISTS
The Chemical Reaction by Fiona Erskine (Point Blank)
The Coldest Warrior by Paul Vidich (No Exit Press)
Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh (Vintage)
Glorious Boy by Aimee Liu (Red Hen Press)
The Burning Island by Jock Serong (Text Publishing)
SHORT STORY SHORTLIST – STAUNCH BOOK PRIZE
WINNER
“Mrs Hawkins and The Orchard” by Laura Stanley
OTHER FINALISTS
“Flyer” by Hayley Magrill
“A House So Beautiful” by Malia Márquez
“I’ve Got The Sauce, If You’ve Got The Pasta” by Susan Morritt
“Manik” by Gabrielle Rupert
“The Lion” by Judy Upton
Bridget Lawless established the prize in 2018 in reaction to the number of films that used rape as a plot device in the 2017 BAFTA award nominees, and was inspired by the Time’s Up and Me Too movements, to encourage alternatives to violence-against-women tropes.
The award website says the award is for “a novel in the thriller genre in which no woman is beaten, stalked, sexually exploited, raped or murdered.” The Staunch Book Prize is open to traditionally published, self-published and not-yet-published works[2] and awards £2,000 (funded by Lawless).
The winning manuscript was selected from more than two hundred entrants by a panel of Soho Press editors and the famed mystery novelist Peter Lovesey. The winner will be published in Spring 2022 by Soho Crime.
The contest, held to commemorate Lovesey’s 50th anniversary as a mystery writer, was announced at the 2019 Bouchercon World Mystery Convention in Dallas. Mr. Lovesey and the judges also recognized two honorable mentions: Catherine Hendricks’s “Hardways” and Dan Wever’s “The Prince of Thieves.”
The Merc with a Mouth is turning 30, but Marvel doesn’t celebrate with candles, they celebrate with comics and variant covers – more money in that, you know!
Three decades ago, Deadpool first appeared in New Mutants #98 by Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza. In the coming year, Marvel start the party with Deadpool Nerdy 30 #1, a giant-sized special issue of classic Deadpool creators exploring the past, present, and future of Wade Wilson. And Rob Liefeld who will return to his creation in a series of 30 extraordinary variant covers depicting Wade teaming up with heroes from all corners of the Marvel Universe.
See Deadpool reunite with Cable on the cover of X-Force #15, get bloody with Wolverine on the cover of X-Men Legends #4, go web-slinging with Miles Morales on Miles Morales Spider-Man #25, and more.
Check out the first batch following the jump. For more information, visit Marvel.com.
Doctor Who returns in Issue #2 with the comic debut of iconic Seventies TV villain.
After narrowly escaping the Weeping Angels and the Autons in 1960s London, the Tenth and Thirteenth Doctor must team-up once again to save present-day Earth from being overrun by the classic aquatic villain, the Sea Devils!
Who else can they turn to for help but Rose Tyler: leader of the human resistance!
Nebula and Hugo nominated author Phyllis Eisenstein died December 7 at the age of 74 after a year-long struggle with serious neurological problems. The family obituary, which will appear in the Chicago Tribune, is here.
Eisenstein was born in Chicago in 1946, grew up there, and for awhile attended the University of Chicago. She met her future husband Alex at the weekly gathering of Chicago science fiction fandom. They married in 1966.
Her first published sf story was “The Trouble with the Past”, written in collaboration with Alex, in New Dimensions 1 (1971) edited by Robert Silverberg. An acclaimed writer with six published novels and 50 short stories, she was twice nominated for the Hugo Award, for her novella “In the Western Tradition” (1982, also a Nebula nominee), and the novelette “Nightlife.” Two additional works were Nebula nominees, the short story “Attachment” (1976) and novelette “The Island in the Lake” (2000). Her short story “Subworld” was a Seiun Award nominee (1997). Eisenstein’s novels Born to Exile won a Balrog Award (1980) and Sorcerer’s Son was a British Fantasy Awards finalist (1980).
Her 1978 short story “Lost and Found” was adapted for television by George R.R. Martin and aired in 1986 on The New Twilight Zone.
She also wrote a nonfiction book, Overcoming the Pain of Inflammatory Arthritis, which she said “is about the use of pantothenic acid (vitamin B5) for arthritis, a disease I’ve had all of my adult life.”
After establishing herself as a professional writer, she returned to college and finished her education, earning a 1981 B.A. in anthropology from the University of Illinois.
For fifteen years she was the Managing Copy-editor at Leo Burnett Agency, and worked at the Publicis Agency for several years prior to joining Burnett.
Eisenstein was also a gifted teacher, beginning by assisting Roger Zelazny at the Indiana University Writers Conference in 1977, then teaching sff writing at the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop, Oakton Community College, and the Writers Digest School. Ultimately she taught fiction writing for nearly twenty years at Columbia College Chicago where she received the Excellence in Teaching award.
One recommendation she made to improve a writer’s work even showed up as a Jeopardy! game show answer in 2016 —
In A Storm of Swords, he acknowledged “Phyllis, who made me put the dragons in it.”
The correct question was “Who is George R.R. Martin?”
Martin dedicated the third book in his A Song of Ice and Fire series to her for reasons he explained on a panel at Chicon 7 in 2012:
“The dragons were one aspect that I did consider not including. Very early in the process, I was debating, should I do this just as like historical fiction about fake history, and have no actually overt magic or magical elements, but — my friend Phyllis Eisenstein, a wonderful fantasy writer who lives here in Chicago, I happened to be talking to her at very early stage in the process. Phyllis has written some great fantasies herself. She said, “Nah, you have to have dragons. It’s a fantasy, you know!” And I dedicated A Storm of Swords to Phyllis, who made me put the dragons in, and I think that was the right thing to do.”
She was an icon of Chicago sf fandom. At the Chicon 2000 Worldcon, the Fan Lounge was laid out as the reconstructed living room of a Chicago fan of the ‘80s. The space was furnished with an ill-assorted bunch of old couches, lamps and end tables. One couch was occupied by two crash-test dummies, the first dressed as Neil Rest in sandals, jeans and a Windycon 7 t-shirt, and the other as Phyllis Eisenstein, attired completely in black, a “goth” ahead of her time.
Roger Sims and Dave Kyle in Chicon 2000 Fan Lounge. Photo by Laurie Mann, from Fanac.org.
Also at Chicon 2000, and other conventions over the years, Alex and Phyllis Eisenstein shared their astonishing collection of sff artworks. There were over 200 covers from prozines and paperbacks and interior illustrations by Ed Emshwiller, Frank Kelly Freas, Edd Cartier, John Schoenherr, Ed Valigursky, Richard M. Powers, Mel Hunter, Wallace Wood, H. R. van Dongen, and others of note. The display included one of my all-time favorites, Kelly Freas’ 1954 Astounding cover for That Sweet Little Old Lady. Alex and Phyllis labored for 17 hours to put up the exhibit and 5 hours to take it down. The show was covered under a special $1 million insurance policy obtained by Chicon.
In recent years, Eisenstein’s writing career, which began so successfully, endured some unfortunate setbacks. The last volume of her “Book of Elementals” fantasy trilogy was left unpublished when Meisha Merlin Publishing suddenly ceased operations in 2007 and it remains unpublished.
Then, although she completed the first novel in a new science-fantasy series called “The Masks of Power,” she held it back purposely, working to complete the entire trilogy before its publication. At the time of her death, the “Masks of Power” series remained unfinished.
She is survived by her husband Alex. The family obituary closes with these thoughts:
Phyllis was a talented, resourceful, very creative person, with a kind and generous spirit, who will be deeply missed by her family and her friends…and especially by her thousands of devoted readers, who have enjoyed her literate, intelligent, believable stories, which ever have explored a wide range of speculative, futuristic, and fabulous worlds.
