These awards will be presented during the Bram Stoker Awards Ceremony in Stamford, Connecticut in June.
SPECIALTY PRESS AWARD
The recipient of the Specialty Press Award is Mocha Memoirs Press.
The HWA Specialty Press Award is presented periodically to a specialty publisher whose work has substantially contributed to the horror genre, whose publications display general excellence, and whose dealings with authors have been fair and exemplary.
The award was instituted in 1997, largely due to the efforts of long-time HWA member and specialty press aficionado, Peter Crowther.
Nicole Givens Kurtz
Nicole Givens Kurtz (she/her) – Publisher and Owner. Educator. Author. Mom. Nicole loves reading, writing, and anime. She enjoys reading works that promote women of color and futuristic settings. She also loves a good mystery. She started Mocha Memoirs to provide more diversity in speculative fiction. She’s also a scribbler of tales. Learn more about her at Other World Pulp. She lives in Rock Hill with her family.
THE RICHARD LAYMON PRESIDENT’S AWARD
The recipient of the Richard Laymond President’s Award for Service is Maxwell I. Gold.
The Richard Laymon President’s Award for Service was instituted in 2001 and is named in honor of Richard Laymon, who died in 2001 while serving as HWA’s President. As its name implies, it is given by HWA’s sitting President.
The award is presented to a volunteer who has served the HWA in an especially exemplary manner and has shown extraordinary dedication to the organization.
Maxwell I. Gold
Maxwell I. Gold is a Jewish-American author and poet with an extensive body of work comprising over 350 poems since 2017. His writings have earned a place alongside many literary luminaries in the speculative fiction genre. His work has appeared in numerous literary journals, magazines, and anthologies. Maxwell’s work has been recognized with multiple nominations including the Eric Hoffer Award, Pushcart Prize, and Bram Stoker Awards. Find him and his work at www.thewellsoftheweird.com.
THE KAREN LANSDALE SILVER HAMMER AWARD
The recipient of the Karen Lansdale Silver Hammer Award is Jonathan Lees.
In 2022, the Horror Writers Association renamed the Silver Hammer Award to the Karen Lansdale Silver Hammer Award in honor of the tremendous amount of work Karen did starting the HWA.
The physical award has also been updated. Instead of a hammer, a new stylized sculpture has been designed and cast by the same company that mints the Bram Stoker Award statues.
The HWA periodically gives the Karen Lansdale Silver Hammer Award to an HWA volunteer who has done a truly massive amount of work for the organization, often unsung and behind the scenes. It was instituted in 1996 and is decided by a vote of HWA’s Board of Trustees.
The award is so named because it represents the careful, steady, continuous work of building HWA’s “house”—the many institutional systems that keep the organization functioning on a day-to-day basis.
Jonathan Lees
In addition to creating strategies and video series for media outlets, ranging from Complex Media to TIDAL, Jonathan Lees has spent decades championing independent cinema and filmmakers through his work with the New York Underground Film Festival, Troma, Tribeca Film, Anthology Film Archives, and now with the Final Frame Horror Short Film Competition at StokerCon. After twenty-five years working in NYC, he has apparated to the Hudson Valley to explore more personal rituals by inscribing arcane texts for grimoires such as Long Division [Bad Hand Books], Fear of Clowns [Kangas Kahn Publishing], Even In The Grave [eSpec Books], The Hideous Book of Hidden Horrors [Bad Hand Books], and Other Terrors [Harper Collins].
MENTOR OF THE YEAR AWARD
The recipient of the Mentor of the Year Award is Gretchen McNeil.
Gretchen McNeil
The HWA’s Mentor Program is available to all members of the organization. This popular program pairs newer writers with established professionals for an intensive four-month-long partnership. For new writers, the Program offers mentees a personal, one-on-one experience with a seasoned writer, tailor-made to help them grow in their writing and better market their work. For experienced writers, it is an opportunity to pay forward the assistance and encouragement other writers gave them when they were starting out. In addition, there is the added benefit of growing as a writer oneself through the act of teaching others. In short, the Program benefits all who participate, regardless of their roles.
Established in 2014, the Mentor of the Year Award recognizes one mentor in the Program who has done an outstanding job of helping new writers. The award is chosen by the current manager of the Program.
Gretchen McNeil is the author of thirteen young adult novels for Disney*, Hyperion, and HarperCollins including the horror/comedy #Murdertrending. The #1 YALSA Teens’ Top Ten pick for 2019 Ten, which was adapted as the film Ten: Murder Island for Lifetime, and the Get Even series which was adapted as the series Get Even and Rebel Cheer Squad: a Get Even series for the BBC and Netflix. Gretchen’s adult horror debut They Fear Not Men in the Woods hits shelves on September 9, 2025, from DAW Books.
You might have thought that the introduction of Marvel’s first family, the Fantastic Four, into the MCU would be enough heavy lifting for one movie. But while all eyes were on the potential ramifications of villain Galactus turning up for planetary snack time, the new trailer for The Fantastic Four: First Steps delivers a mind-bending revelation: Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) is pregnant.
This looks like big news. As they prepare to take on their colossal nemesis and his gleaming, emotionally unavailable emissary Silver Surfer (Julia Garner), Pedro Pascal’s Reed Richards, Joseph Quinn’s Johnny Storm and Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s the Thing will be doing so in the knowledge that they’re protecting more than just the future of this Apollo-era-inspired version of Earth. And if you’ve even lightly skimmed the back catalogue of Fantastic Four comics, you’ll know this is no ordinary pregnancy; and certainly no ordinary infant.
(2) FANZINE TALK INSPIRED BY LICHTMAN COLLECTION. The Friends of the Lehigh University Libraries will be hosting a talk on Zoom on Wednesday, April 23 at 5:00 p.m. Eastern titled Worlds We Build Together: Sci-Fi Fandom, Fanzines, and the Culture of Connection.
The talk will feature panelists Phoenix Alexander (Jay Kay and Doris Klein Librarian for Science Fiction and Fantasy at University of California, Riverside) and Pete Balestrieri (Curator of Popular Culture, University of Iowa Libraries), who will discuss the history of science fiction fandom and the production of fanzines that span nearly 100 years. Topics will include fanzines in the classroom and community and a celebration of the Lehigh Libraries acquisition of the Robert Lichtman Science Fiction Fanzine Collection in 2024.
Recently, the [Lehigh Libraries Special Collections] Libraries acquired the Robert Lichtman Science Fiction Fanzine Collection amounting to over 15,000 items. This extensive collection spans nearly a century, dating from the late 1930s through 2022, and features commentary, fan fiction, criticism, conference proceedings, and other genres. Along with the printed works, the archive includes correspondence, original art, and several fanzine titles personally published by Lichtman.
Fanzines, or ‘zines, as they are commonly referred to, may seem like an unusual choice for an institution whose traditional rare book collection is steeped in history. However, a previous gift of fanzines from alumnus Frank Lunney already revealed significant research interest across the curriculum.
Boaz Nadav Manes, Lehigh University Librarian says: “Adding this comprehensive fanzine collection to Lehigh Libraries’ holdings establishes our libraries as a primary national destination for research related to science fiction studies and affiliated interdisciplinary fields. With the addition of Lichtman’s correspondence and artwork, the collections’ appeal goes much beyond its thematic focus and will generate enthusiasm around deepening our understanding of areas such as fandom culture, network analysis, gender studies, and more. We are truly excited about this landmark addition to our collection.”
While it will take some time before the entire Lichtman fanzine collection is fully cataloged and prepared for use, we are pleased to exhibit highlighted selections from the collection showing its breadth and depth. The on-site display opens in Linderman Library in January, with additional material relating to international Worldcons (World Science Fiction Convention) opening later in Fairchild-Martindale Library. Both displays will be on view through the end of June 2025.
The Operations Director is one of the key management leaders for SFWA. The Operations Director is responsible for overseeing operations (including membership and systems management), accounting and office administration, and internal fundraising and development processes (auction, sponsorship processes, and fundraising systems). The Operations Director will report directly to the President of the Board of Directors and lead a fully remote team of employees, contractors, and volunteers.
(5) COMMUNICATION FROM NEW ASIMOV’S OWNER. Subscribers are receiving the following message from Must Read Magazines, new publishers of Asimov’s Science Fiction, that the May/June issue will arrive late.
Information about your May/June 2025 Issue
Dear Subscriber,
We are confirming the buzz: Must Read Magazines is the new publisher of Asimov’s Science Fiction.
The first issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction printed under our banner will be the May / June 2025 issue, which you should receive in the mail about May 12, 2025. Your future issues will be mailed to you every other month after that.
Asimov’s Science Fiction is an iconic publication with a storied history in the genre. We are delighted its excellent editorial team has stayed on and we will all continue the group’s traditions. We are developing many more ways to continue and build the magazine’s community and hope you will connect with us more online or in the mail during our forthcoming expansion.
Thank you for being a subscriber; we look forward to serving you with the Who’s Who of award-winning authors, stories, editorial insights and genre news for years to come.
Print subscribers who call or mail in a renewal before the end of June and mention the coupon code LIFTOFF will receive $4 off the purchase of an annual subscription to one of our other great magazines or $6 off gifting any one of our magazines to a new subscriber: Asimov’s, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and soon to come, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
(6) WILLY LEY’S ASHES DISCOVERED. “Willy Ley Was a Prophet of Space Travel. His Ashes Were Found in a Basement” reports the New York Times. Link bypasses paywall. Ley was one of the winners of the first Hugos in 1953 for “Excellence in Fact Articles”, and another in 1956 for “Feature Writer”. There are hopes of launching his ashes into space. He also won a Retro-Hugo (2004) and an International Fantasy Award (1951).
During his life, Willy Ley predicted the dawn of the Space Age with remarkable accuracy. How did his remains end up forgotten in a co-op on the Upper West Side?
The basement of the prewar co-op on the Upper West Side was so cluttered and dark in one area that the staff called it “the Dungeon,” and last year, the building’s new superintendent resolved to clear it out.
For weeks, he hauled the junk left behind by former tenants — old air-conditioners, cans of paint, ancient elevator parts and rolled-up carpets — through the winding hallway with its low ceilings to the dumpster out back.
About halfway through the job, he spied an old tin can on a shelf next to a leaf blower. He read the label:
“Remains of Willy Ley. Cremated June 26, 1969.”
This was not the sort of thing you toss in a dumpster.
The super brought his discovery to the co-op board president, Dawn Nadeau. She had plenty of co-op business to attend to — a lobby renovation, a roof replacement — but the disposition of someone’s ashes was new to her.
“We needed to handle the remains as respectfully as possible,” said Ms. Nadeau, a brand consultant. “So I set out trying to figure who this was and who it belonged to.”…
… The rise of the Nazi party disturbed Mr. Ley deeply, and in 1935, worried about the weaponization of rockets by the government, he fled Germany. Eventually, he ended up in Queens.
In New York, he made a living primarily as a science writer, churning out articles and books, including “Rockets: The Future of Travel Beyond the Stratosphere” in 1944. In it, Mr. Ley reiterated his belief in the possibility of space travel: “I wish to affirm with great seriousness that the rocket to the moon is possible,” he wrote. “Whether it has any practical value is another question and whether the experiment will be made is another story altogether.”…
…. Ms. Nadeau now has her own space mission, and it is not clear how or whether she will complete it. She found a company that said it would send the ashes into space, but the average cost listed on its website was a prohibitive $12,500.
For now, the can that holds what’s left of Mr. Ley’s earthly body is still in the co-op, tucked away in the workshop of the superintendent, Michael Hrdlovic, who first discovered it in the basement….
With the TARDIS unable to return to May 2025, the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) instead lands in 1953 Miami. There he and Belinda (Verada Sethu) discover a mysterious closed cinema, and a missing persons case that leads them inside. There they encounter one of the strangest foes the Doctor has ever faced: a cartoon character inexplicably come to life.
I suspect a lot of viewers will be delighted by “Lux”, an ambitious and bold stretch in storytelling that is quite unlike many things the series has done before. Indeed to find something as off-kilter as the Doctor and his companion confronting a cartoon character, being turned into cartoons themselves, and even contemplating their own fictional status, one has to go all the way back to 1968’s serial “The Mind Robber”. I positively adore that story, but I did not adore “Lux”, and I am struggling to pinpoint exactly why that is….
Several billion years ago, at the dawn of the solar system, a wet, salty world circled our sun. Then it collided, catastrophically, with another object and shattered into pieces.
One of these lumps became the asteroid Bennu whose minerals, recently returned to Earth by the US robot space probe OSIRIS-REx, have now been found to contain rich levels of complex chemicals that are critical for the existence of life.
“There were things in the Bennu samples that completely blew us away,” said Prof Sara Russell, cosmic mineralogist at the Natural History Museum in London, and a lead author of a major study in Nature of the Bennu minerals. “The diversity of the molecules and minerals preserved are unlike any extraterrestrial samples studied before.”
Results from this and other missions will form a central display at a Natural History Museum’s exhibition, Space: Could Life Exist Beyond Earth?, which opens on 16 May. It will be a key chance for the public to learn about recent developments in the hunt for life on other worlds, said Russell.
(9) NEW GERROLD NOVELLA. Starship Sloane has just published a new novella by David Gerrold, titled Here There Be Lawyers. It’s set on the colony world Praxis. Available in print and eBook. David is the cover artist/designer for this one.
Dar is a well-connected arbiter and Turtledome is comfortable enough. But the colony on Praxis requires his expertise in crafting a constitution—and he doesn’t really have a choice in the matter. Their objective is a bold one, and if they succeed, powerful interests and a highly lucrative, intergalactic economic system will be disrupted. Permanently. A world is at play, the stakes are high, and a corporate overlord will stop at nothing to protect its investment.
(10) MEMORY LANE.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
April 21, 1976 — Wonder Woman 1976 series episode 1
The mark of a good series is not how great the pilot is but the first episode after the pilot. Forty-six years ago this evening on ABC, the second episode of Wonder Woman aired, a curiosity titled affair called “Wonder Woman Meets Baroness Von Gunther”.
In it she got to take resurgent Nazis on in the form of a Nazi spy ring known as the Abwehr who are active again and who are targeting Steve Trevor for imprisoning the Baroness von Gunther, their leader.
The Baroness Paula von Gunther was created by William Moulton Marston as an adversary for his creation Wonder Woman in Sensation Comics #4, 1942, “School for Spies”. Though she disappeared during the Crisis on Infinite Earth years, Jim Byrne brought her back in 1988 and made once again the Nazi villainess she once was. No villain or villainess can ever truly cease to exist in the comics realm, can they?
This episode is based off “Wonder Woman Versus the Prison Spy Ring” in Wonder Woman #1 (July 1942). (The title comes from when it was reprinted later.) In the story, Colonel Darnell informs Trevor that an army transport ship was sunk by a German U-Boat. Believing the Nazis must have had a traitor inside the Army, Darnell orders Steve to interrogate the former head of the Gestapo system in America — The Baroness who is now serving time in a federal penitentiary thanks to Wonder Woman.
Her only other television appearance was in 2011 on the animated Batman: The Brave and the Bold series in the “Scorn of the Star Sapphire!” episode. If you’re a Batman fan, this series which is about as serious as the Sixties series was so is a lot of fun. It’s more contemporary is look and feel but the attitude is very similar.
Note that this episode made Trevor responsible for her being captured.
So how was it received? This episode ranked twelfth in the Nielsen ratings, shockingly beating out a Bob Hope special which ranked twentieth.
As part of Star Wars Celebration, Dark Horse Comics is announcing that they will publish The Art of Star Wars: A New Hope—The Manga. Two stunning volumes will each be available wherever books are sold, and will spotlight Hisao Tamaki’s original art from his acclaimed 1997 manga adaptation of Star Wars: A New Hope and include a new English translation. Ahead of retail launch in Summer 2026, Dark Horse Comics will also be offering special editions through the publisher’s first ever Kickstarter campaign.
This beautifully drawn manga will be available through Kickstarter in two distinct editions, each offering a unique way to experience this extraordinary adaptation. The Collector’s Edition features the same two-volume hardcovers that will be available at retail but with Kickstarter exclusive covers. The Masterpiece Edition will faithfully reproduce Tamaki’s art at its original size in two volumes and include an auxiliary volume. The Masterpiece Edition format will be exclusively available through Kickstarter. Fans can now follow the prelaunch page for the Kickstarter page.
These deluxe Kickstarter-exclusive sets offer fans an opportunity to revisit the classic adventure through new eyes and in a fresh voice. A standard edition of The Art of Star Wars: A New Hope—The Manga will be released in comic shops and bookstores in 2026. Join Dark Horse and Lucasfilm to explore the creative journey of a novel view of a galaxy far, far away.
(13) KIDS THESE DAYS. [Item by Kathy Sullivan.] I’m sure this isn’t the only middle school doing this, but I’m proud of my local school. “Students weave stories at D&D Club” in the Winona Post.
…The Dungeons & Dragons Club at WMS has been taking place for about three years for seventh and eighth graders and meets once a week for part of the school year. Students who are homeschooled or who attend schools other than WMS have also been part of the club.
Seventh Grade Language Arts Teacher and Dungeons & Dragons Club Supervisor Greg Peterson’s own experiences playing the game since he was his students’ age inspired him to pass it on. When he would talk in class about playing, as a way to show his students he’s human, too, many would express interest in the game, so he started the group.
Dungeons & Dragons is all about creating enjoyable characters and telling their stories collaboratively with a group of people, Peterson said.
“… The collaborative storytelling experience is extremely unique. It’s different than just reading a book or watching a movie,” Peterson said. “You’re in the story. And being able to take on that mantle as a hero is empowering and is really just fun. There are times where at tables I’ve played at as a dungeon master or as a player where people have cried, people have laughed, people have been jaw-droppingly shocked at what we’ve done. We’ve gotten so deep into character we forgot we’re playing a game in some cases.”
To help students learn how to play the game, Peterson guided them through developing characters’ backstories, such as deciding why their characters have certain powers in imagined fantasy worlds….
This 40′ box car features bright, glowing LED lights on both sides of this car spaced behind the windows of the haunted Amityville House. Each LED glows at a constant intensity and is sure to catch the attention of all who see it on your own O Gauge model railroad. Completely assembled and ready-to-run. Just put it on the track and enjoy the action.
Prolific Lost showrunner Carlton Cuse is taking a journey into the Star Wars galaxy, with son Nick Cuse at his side. The duo is in early development on a Star Wars series for Lucasflim, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter….
The news comes on the eve of Andor season two’s debut and follows Star Wars Celebration in Tokyo, where Lucasfilm unveiled a first look at feature The Mandalorian & Grogu and revealed a title for Shawn Levy’s Ryan Gosling movie, Star Wars: Starfighter. The company also revealed new details of Ashoka season two, including the return of fan favorite Anakin Skywalker actor Hayden Christensen…
[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Moshe Feder, Linda Deneroff,Alex Japha, Andrew (not Werdna), Jim Meadows, 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 Daniel Dern, who assures us “No sea or lake serpents were harmed in the making of this Scroll Title. As for the wall, only time will tell.”]
Wallner claimed in a Tortoise Media interview that beginning in 2017 Gaiman pressured her to have sex with him in return for letting her live with her daughters at his property in upstate New York. Following negotiations between attorneys in 2021 Gaiman obtained a non-disclosure agreement from her in return for a $275,000 payment to help her cope with post-traumatic stress and depression following their sexual relationship. The terms of the NDA prevented her from suing Gaiman or telling anyone about her alleged experiences with him.
The NDA they signed requires that claims be dealt with through arbitration.
The Vulture article says Gaiman’s demand for arbitration accuses Wallner of breaking their NDA by sharing her story with the media, violating the confidentiality and non-disparagement provisions of their agreement. He wants full repayment of the $275,000 settlement amount, plus attorneys’ fees, and $50,000 for each interview she’s given to the media.
Vulture also reports Wallner filed a claim for arbitration against Gaiman last winter, alleging that his lawyer kept videos, photos, and text messages she’d sent Gaiman, although both parties to the NDA had agreed to destroy all such materials after signing it.
Gaiman has denied to New York Magazine that he abused Wallner, and told them it was she who had initiated their sexual encounters.
This is the second legal action Gaiman is now engaged in over sex assault allegations, after a former nanny, Scarlett Pavlovich, filed a U.S. federal lawsuit against Gaiman and his former partner, Amanda Palmer, on charges of rape and human trafficking, seeking at least $1 million in damages. Gaiman has moved for dismissal of the suit on jurisidictional grounds, arguing that the alleged abuse took place in New Zealand, not the United States.
Written on the Dark by Guy Gavriel Kay (Ace. To be released May 27, 2025.)
By Paul Weimer: Thierry Villar is a tavern poet, a writer of verse in dark inns and taverns, and is almost notorious within that sphere. So he is surprised when he is called to help gather information for the murder of a noble. What business is that of him? That’s not the circles he inhabits or frequents. And yet, the choice of Thierry and his immersion into worlds and with characters he might not have otherwise ever met hangs the fate of a King, a Queen, and a nation.
Such is the story of Guy Gavriel Kay’s Written on the Dark.
The novel is set in Ferrieres, in the “Two Moons” verse that many of his novels are set in, particularly lately (the duology based on Medieval China seems to be the only exceptions in recent years). Although he does not use a specific set of dating in his works, they do fall into a chronology that one can follow based on world events, and, also, the analogues and rhyming the events in the Two Moons verse has with our own world. With that in mind, Written on the Dark takes place roughly between A Brightness Long Ago and Children of Earth and Sky. The great city of Sarantium in the east has not yet fallen to the Osmali (although that does happen in the denouement of the book as we learn the final fate of characters). Batiara is still the Renaissance Italy analogue that we know from those two books–the scheming mercantile power of Seressa, the holy city of Rhodias, and many more.
But Written on the Dark switches the setting entirely. The novel is set in Ferrieres, which might be usefully compared to a 15th century French analogue. (A France that, importantly, has not yet absorbed its Burgundy-analogue.) Theirry lives in the city of Orane, roughly analogous to our Paris, with correspondences in geography and culture. There is even a huge holy sanctuary that is analogous to our own Notre Dame. But the genius of Kay’s writing is the rhyming and allusion and reflection on our history, rather than simple substitution. Thierry gets wrapped up in the murder of a noble, and soon goes from tavern poetry to being witness and participant in an incipient civil war, as an ambitious noble wants to take the throne for himself from a King who is certifiably mad.
And did I mention that a peasant girl in the countryside dresses in armor and claims to have visions and a mission from Jad (God)? Oh, and that Ferrieres is being invaded by its neighbor from across a sea channel.
So you can see the historical furniture of what Kay borrows in this novel and remakes to his own purposes. Since the sequence of novels that began with The Lions of Al-Rassan, this has been the template and model and methodology that Kay has employed. Use these building blocks, turn twists and variations on the historical theme, and set loose his main character and those they encounter within it. There is a real sense, as always of the historical perspective, both on the personal and on the societal level.
There is a fillip to Kay’s writing that he employs numerous times, enough that you start watching for it. It’s a brief pull back from the close third person into a no longer time bound omniscient third, as he relates what the effect of a seemingly small choice by the character will have on the years and decades of their life. We get that brief “zoom” of their fate, usually contained in less than a paragraph, spooling out a life in a brief moment, before returning to the main narrative. It helps show the warp and the weft of history in his novel, and it shows that history is the sum total of these smaller histories. And he does it at the macro level when we see things from the past coming back to life. It’s clear to me that Kay was and is moved by the mosaics of Ravenna, the analogue of that mosaicist and his creation is detailed in The Sarantine Mosaic novels. And yet, this is yet another novel set in this world where a character encounters them, and is moved by them.
But let’s go back to Thierry Villar. Kay’s model for him is the medieval French poet François Villon. Villon for the uninitiated was a raconteur of a poet. Villon had lots of criminal connections, was involved with the underworld of Paris, got involved in a couple of robberies, published poetry, and eventually disappeared. His ultimate fate is unknown. In the world of the Two Moons, Thierry is a tavern poet, a poet of the people, just like Vlllon in our own world. Like many other Kay novels, a very unlikely protagonist and main point of view, but that’s part of the genius of Kay’s work and writing.
It is from this small acorn, to investigate what people that have seen of the murder of a Duke on the streets of Orane, that Thierry is swept up in intrigues and adventures. We learn much more about him and the current situation, the fact that his stepfather is in the church, that word of his poetry has reached noble courts, and the ears of those who apparently have supernatural powers (or do they?) As matters progress, we get a window into the true situation facing Ferrieres as a kingdom, and what role Thierry might play in it. Kay seems fascinated and loves to use these small moves, these small turns to divert mighty rivers of history. Kay’s history is not of how the great leader fought the great battle to do the Great thing, it is instead the small choice made by the leader three days before that, unbeknownst to anyone, turns the fate of the world. So, too, Thierry, caught up in the murder investigation, by chance, by a miracle of Jad¹, or the pen of the author, winds up influencing history, without realizing that is going to happen. But we, the reader, and Kay the author is very concerned about it and likes to show it.
I happened to read this book at the same time that I was listening to an audiobook of a Will Durant history, specifically as I was reading this the history of the era of Louis XIV, although not too long ago I had read earlier books that cover the historical analogues to Kay’s secondary world fantasy verse. I was struck time and again as I was listening to Stefan Rudnicki, the narrator, spill out Durant’s prose, that when Kay pulls from describing actual action and goes philosophical and reflective, as he did in the quoted section above, there is a resonance, a harmony between Kay’s reflection upon the history of his secondary world, and how it resonances back on our own world’s history. One might almost want to say that the Two Moons verse is the Sun, and our World and its history is the moon, but in the multiverse of Kay’s work, both our world and the world of the Two Moons, are but shadows of another.²
That tiny fragment of the book, though, just shows one of the other reasons to read Kay’s work. The histographic nature of the text, the warp and weft of characters, the immersive nature of the Two Moons verse are all there and already seen. But it is his presentation, production and his language that is the real secret sauce to his writing, and what elevates it from merely excellent secondary world fantasy with only the bare hints of magic (again, lots of magic is a province of Fionavar, not here) It’s his prose. (There are also some bits of poetry here, just like he did with the Under Heaven duology, but it is more European-style poetry). Kay’s prose is transportative, be it describing Thierry trying to get information, or a deadly confrontation in a tavern, or his philosophical musings, Guy Gavriel Kay’s word choice and style are some of the best of any writer I’ve read, in any genre. I know of readers who wish writers to aim for styless prose, just to convey the ideas of the work. This is not that. Kay’s word choice and full investment in his world, characters, philosophy and story shine with a distinct voice that I find immensely readable, thoughtful and engaging. I loved to follow the adventures of Thierry, got a crush on the noblewoman poet Marina, and although I understood his motivations to begin with, I developed an irrational hatred of the antagonist, especially when he decided to cross a moral line for me. Kay doesn’t write simple and uncomplicated people, people are a mess of contradictions, and none are all good or all bad, and that prose makes it clear. Even the antagonist is given his due.
And it would behoove you, to give Kay his due, and if these words have moved you so, to give Written on the Dark a try. To your library, bookstore, website, do not tarry, but fly!
¹ For those uninitiated, Kay’s Two Moons world has rough analogues to Christianity (Worship of Jad, the Sun), Islam (Worship of the Stars, the Asharites) and Judaism (Worship of the Moons. The Kindath). They get along as well as they did in our own world and history.
² For those unfamiliar with Kay’s work, the world of Fionavar is the One True World of which all others are but shadows. Although he hasn’t done it recently, in some of his earlier works, he has made references and allusions to Fionavar. It’s his Amber, but he’s told that story and, instead, is much more concerned with other worlds instead.
(1) WORLDCON TABLES AT EASTERCON 76.[Item by Cath Jackel.] I’m attending Reconnect this weekend — Eastercon 76 in Belfast. Here are some photos of the Worldcons and bids doing promotion at the event. Elayne Pelz and Joyce Lloyd are representing for LAcon V. Mary Ellen Moore is behind the table for the Montreal in 2027 bid. Alex McKenzie is at the Dublin in 2029 bid table. I don’t have a table, but do have a pile of flyers promoting the Edmonton in 2030 bid (my home town).
Elayne Pelz and Joyce Lloyd of LAcon VMary Ellen Moore for the Montreal in 2027 bidAlex McKenzie at the Dublin in 2029 bid tableEdmonton 2030 bid flyers
(2) SEE WHELAN AND GIANCOLA ART IN UTAH. The Compass Gallery in Provo, UT will host the “Fantastically Human 2025” art exhibit from June 6-July 12. It will feature art on loan from Brandon and Emily Sanderson’s Collection:
Cover for The Way of Kings – Michael Whelan
The Herald Taln – Donato Giancola
Tress – Howard Lyon
The Compass Gallery. 250 W Center St. Suite 101, Provo, UT 84601
Sporror (fungal horror), The Substance-style body horror and commodification of breast milk are among the more ghoulish themes booming across fiction as horror-influenced submissions continue to pile in, the trade has said.
A year on from the record-breaking high of horror books published, editors and agents are still reporting huge interest along with a shift towards more adventurous or alternative realities.
This year’s sales continue the upward trend for the horror category to just over £8m for the full year 2024, according to Nielsen BookScan. In the first quarter of 2025, it is up over a third (37%) in value against the same period in 2024 to £1.78m and volume is up 18% to nearly 161,000 copies. But the category remains small – no book has sold more than 10,000 in 2025 and just three – Grady Hendrix’s Witchcraft for Wayward Girls (Pan Macmillan), Lucy Rose’s debut The Lamb(W&N) and Stephen King’s Holly(Hodder) – have sold more than 5,000 copies, remaining mostly backlist-driven.
“I think there has been discussion about the evolving horror space for such a long time and the fact remains at the moment that very few ‘horror’ novels have broken out,” Curtis Brown agent Cathryn Summerhayes told The Bookseller. She represented Rose and said that The Lamb “has been a break out and I guess is both traditional – in that it is a cannibal novel set in a dark wood – and non traditional in that it deals with themes of queerness, infanticide and is both a modern and fable-esque setting at the same time.”
Summerhayes added: “What Lucy Rose has done brilliantly is tap into a younger, curious readership, targeting horror film and TV fans through her social media – and they seem willing to migrate back to books away from the screen. By publishing The Lamb as both horror and literary fiction […] we’ve hit two book buying markets instead of one.”
The strange political and social events of the last few years have paved the way towards different kinds of horror, according to Summerhayes. “I think horror hasn’t necessarily changed but our openness to reading stark horror about environmental meltdown, the isolation and devastation of people and places (thanks Trump) and the reality of monsters in our midst has grown hugely now we are away from the real life horror of the pandemic and lockdown. So reader openness plays a huge part – and BookTok is really making these authors and books pop.”…
(4) HE MADE A LITTLE MISTAKE. Brian Keene tells what happened.
I accidentally signed in @haileypiperfights.bsky.social’s spot, and she made her feelings on it known. ?????? Whichever one of you gets this sig sheet in their book will have a true one of a kind item.
After more than a decade, one of the lost Star Wars projects that will probably never be seen by anyone has received a surprising acknowledgment from Lucasfilm as they celebrated 20 years of Lucasfilm Animation. The project in question is the animated comedy series Star Wars: Detours , which was created by the team who brought the world Robot Chicken but was never released despite almost 40 episodes being completed and dozens of other scripts being written.
Detours’ surprising reappearance came thanks to a small reference in a poster released by Lucasfilm which incorporates characters from their many animated shows and movies, including those from The Clone Wars and Rebels, and, somehow, Detours. Fans of the world’s biggest franchises always love a good Easter egg or two making an appearance, and the poster offered up one of the most obscure of any Star Wars references you could name by including a very unorthodox-looking Stormtrooper with big googly eyes crumpled up in the bottom right of the poster, as seen in the locked away series.
Bella Ramsey self-recorded their audition tape for The Last of Us at their parents’ home in Leicestershire and sent it off more in hope than expectation. Ramsey, who was 17 at the time, had never played the post-apocalyptic zombie video game on which the new TV series was based, but knew it was a big deal: released in 2013, it had sold more than 20m copies. It would later emerge that Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, the show’s creators, looked seriously at more than 100 actors for the role of Ellie, the sassy and quirky but also complicated and vicious American protagonist of The Last of Us. “Yeah, I’ve been told,” says Ramsey with a wry smile.
When Ramsey got the first callback from Mazin and Druckmann, they joined the Zoom from their childhood bedroom. “I’ve gotten very used to sending in a self-tape and forgetting about it,” they say, when we meet at a photo studio in north London. “But the problem was when there was a self-tape that really meant something to me, like The Last of Us did. It feels quite scary. And when I got the phone call saying they wanted me to be Ellie it did feel surreal for a few days. I understood that if I said yes – which obviously I was going to – my life was going to change.”
Life-changing is one way to describe it. Ramsey was hardly inexperienced when they were cast: their professional debut was aged 11 as the no-nonsense Lyanna Mormont in Game of Thrones; they had also been the star of the CBBC series The Worst Witch and appeared in the BBC/HBO adaptation of His Dark Materials. But The Last of Us was something else. About 40 million people watched the first episode in 2023 and the series, which is said to have cost $100m, became the most popular HBO show ever in Europe. Brutally violent at times, but also tender and poignant, the odd-couple chemistry between Ramsey’s Ellie and Pedro Pascal’s Joel has attracted an obsessive fanbase far beyond video-game nerds….
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Paul Weimer.]
April 20, 1939 — Peter S. Beagle, 86.
By Paul Weimer: It’s Rankin and Bass’ fault that I got into the work of Peter S. Beagle. As a voracious young reader, I saw The Last Unicorn in the library and somehow, even given my small “c” catholic tastes in SFF, saw that it was somehow not going to be for me. So I didn’t pick it up. I passed it by.
Fast forward to the mid-1980’s. NYC’s Channel 11, an independent TV station, aka “New York’s movie station”, introduced me to a gigantic swelter of movies.
One of them, by accident, was the 1982 animated version of The Last Unicorn. I remember not remembering at the time or realizing at the time that it was based on the Beagle novel, but after I was transported and transformed by the adaptation, I went and sought out the original novel. As fine and charming as the movie is, the novel truly gave me a sense of the power and lyric nature of Beagle’s work.
I was hooked.
I came across my favorite Beagle, The Innkeeper’s Song, in the mid 90’s. I was in a strong fantasy vein at the time and was interested in a variety of narrative forms. The Innkeeper’s Song, with its multiple first-person narration, was a revelation in escaping the usual multiple third-person points of view that were the norm at the time. Even today, Innkeeper’s Song feels fresh and unique in its approach to narrative, point of view, and literary interest. Even before Gene Wolfe, I think Beagle’s fantasy was my first real immersion into what one might call literary fantasy.
But even more than literary talent or line by line skill, what Beagle’s work does to me, from the Last Unicorn to today, is make me feel. I think his shorter fiction is where the distillation of his skill, craft, mood and the ability to evoke emotion is at its best in the short form. “Two Hearts”, a sequel to The Last Unicorn, is a particular favorite, because Griffins. His TNG written episode “Sarek” is one of the most moving pieces of Star Trek to this day. And yes, to this day, The Last Unicorn, the movie, brings tears to my eyes.
Peter S. Beagle
(9) COMICS SECTION.
Brewster Rockit shows how a xenomorph celebrates the holiday.
A pair of 19th Century unicorn sculptures at the top of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile have had their horns restored
The sandstone sculptures adorn the façade of the Scotch Whisky Experience, just in front of the Edinburgh Castle esplanade.
Their original horns, made from wood and lead, had long been missing, but as part of the building’s restoration the attraction’s facilities manager Ross Morris, a keen woodworker, crafted some new ones.
A competition has now been launched to name the unicorns, with some whisky-themed puns such as Amber, Isla and Pete among the suggestions….
…Winners of the “spirit of the unicorn” naming contest, which runs until 27 April, will receive a whisky tour and a special unicorn cocktail at the visitor attraction’s bar.
Entries can be submitted via the Scotch Whisky Experience website.
(11) NEEDS TO BE NEWER ON THE OUTSIDE. A Doctor Who replica owner seeks help in making repairs: “Burbank TARDIS” at LAist.
A blue police box in Burbank has hosted wedding proposals, family Christmas photo shoots and countless excited smiles over the past 15 years — but now, it needs your help.
It’s a replica of a TARDIS, which stands for “Time and Relative Dimension in Space.” It’s one of the most recognizable and iconic inventions from the long-running TV series Doctor Who.
This box may not be able to travel through time and is just as big on the inside as the outside, but it was engineered by the late Grant Imahara, a roboticist best known for his work on Mythbusters and White Rabbit Project.
The creation has been in the care of Donna Ricci, friend and owner of Geeky Teas and Games, who is now looking for handy Whovian volunteers who can give the Burbank TARDIS an overdue facelift….
… The TARDIS got banged up at Geeky Teas and Games’ last location, where it sat in the glaring SoCal sun for about five years.
The heat warped the doors and pulled pieces of wood away from itself. It’s been marred with graffiti and scratches, and someone even threw a full container of orange juice through one of the windows.
“She used to also light up and make the roaring noise when you open the door,” Ricci said. “She doesn’t do that anymore.”…
Willem Dafoe is a legend of the screen, the kind of actor you see pop up in anything and everything. He’s appeared in over one hundred films, each drastically different from the last — but even with so many projects under his belt, he’s still finding stories that surprise him.
The Legend of Ochi is one such surprise. Distributed by A24 and helmed by music video director Isaiah Saxon, the film is a Millennial update on the family-friendly creature films that dominated the ‘80s. Think E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial spliced with Planet of the Apes and rendered with visuals so dreamy, most assumed it’d been created with AI. In reality, Saxon spent years crafting the world of Ochi — and the eponymous, ape-like creatures in it — with a mixture of puppetry, CGI, and matte paintings. Even after its hands-on, “down and dirty” production in Romania, Dafoe still can’t believe a project of this caliber found him.
“I read it and I thought, ‘Whoa, they want me to do this?’” Dafoe tells Inverse. “It’s very different from anything I had done.”…
I’m curious what it was like on set. Were you interacting with puppets for the ochi?
I don’t have that many scenes [with the ochi], because I’m looking for the ochi — but when I finally find him, it’s a puppet. And that was interesting, because you’d think it would be difficult to perform with a puppet, but in fact, no. Because those six, seven people that are operating the puppet, all their energy is going into it, so the puppet has a kind of presence. And you’ve got the energy of all those people that you’re playing the scene with, so it’s much more engaging than you might think….
After a sojourn around the globe for a second volume of international animation, Star Wars: Visions is returning to Japan for another volume of anime-centric adventures. So it’s perhaps fitting then, that Lucasfilm just gave us our first look at the latest anthology right out of Star Wars Celebration Japan.
Today in Tokyo, Lucasfilm lifted the lid on the first teaser for Visions Volume 3 to gathered fans at Star Wars Celebration. The latest volume will feature tales created by nine Japanese animation studios, each reflecting their own unique perspective and vision for the galaxy far, far away–including some returning stories, building on episodes from the first volume. Although the trailer has yet to be fully released online, it was shared with fans via the official Star Wars Celebration livestream. Check it out below!
[Thanks to Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Cath Jackel, Carl, Paul Weimer, 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 Lou.]
Two future sites for the British National Science Fiction Convention, Eastercon, were chosen this weekend at Reconnect in Belfast.
2026 — Iridescence will be held at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole Hotel from April 3-6, 2026.
After the vote the Guests of Honour were announced by chair Phil Dyson. They are RJ Barker, Emma Newman, Karen Lord, and fan guests of honour, John Wilson and Serena Culfeather.
Membership rates are £80 for full attending, £50 for low income attending, £20 for child/teen, and £40 for supporting.
The hotel room rate has been confirmed as £142 per night for a double room, including breakfast.
2027 — Unconfined will be held at the Crowne Plaza in Glasgow from the March 26-29, 2027.
Alan Fleming and David Bamford are Co-Chairs.
The Guests of Honour are authors P. Djèlí Clark, L R Lam, Tamsyn Muir and Scottish fan Mark Meenan.
The British Science Fiction Association today announced the winners of the BSFA Awards for work published in 2024 in a ceremony at Eastercon, Reconnect, in Belfast.
SHORT FICTION
‘Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole’ by Isabel J. Kim (Clarkesworld)
SHORTER FICTION (NOVELETTE AND NOVELLA EQUIVALENT)
Saturation Point by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Solaris)
NOVEL
Three Eight One by Aliya Whiteley (Rebellion Publishing)
FICTION FOR YOUNGER READERS
Doctor Who: Caged by Una McCormack (Penguin)
COLLECTIONS
Punks4Palestine: An Anthology of Hopeful SciFi for an Uncertain Future ed Jasen Bacon (Hyphen Press)
AUDIO
The Personal Touch by Rick Danforth (Manawaker Studio’s Flash Fiction Podcast)
ART
Cover – Nova Scotia Vol 2 by Jenni Coutts (Luna Press Publishing)
SHORT NON-FICTION
‘Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art’ by Ted Chiang (New Yorker, August 31 2024)
LONG NON-FICTION
Track Changes by Abigail Nussbaum (Briardene Books)
BEST TRANSLATED SHORT WORK (Juried Award)*
‘Bone by Bone’ by Mónika Rusval, translated from Hungarian by Vivien Urban (Samovar)
*Our Jurors for this award are Cristina Jurado, Rachel Cordasco and Nadya Mercik.
The BSFA Awards have been presented annually since 1970. They are voted on by members of the British Science Fiction Association and members of the year’s Eastercon, the national science fiction convention, held since 1955.
Some Easter eggs are sly nods, others lazy studio cross-promotion, but The Lego Batman Movie (2017) dropped one so audacious it deserves its own Bat-signal. In a gloriously meta montage, Alfred dryly recalls his master’s “weird phases”, including 1966’s dance-happy caper and the infamous Bat-nipple debacle, effectively canonising every previous cinematic dark knight as just chaotic footnotes in this Lego loner’s emotional scrapbook. Keaton, Kilmer, Clooney – all downgraded to painful fashion faux pas in the life of one emotionally constipated minifig. Which means Batman & Robin wasn’t a cinematic travesty – it was Lego Batman’s rebellious club-kid phase, complete with rubber codpiece and lashes of neon regret. Ben Child
Ray Bradbury’s work is coming to life in a new way.
This year, publisher Simon & Schuster will release a series of new audiobooks of the acclaimed author’s fiction, with an array of celebrities set to narrate, PEOPLE can exclusively reveal.
Actor and podcaster Penn Badgley will narrate a new edition of Bradbury’s 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451, out on May 6. Bradbury’s seminal work is set in a dystopian society where books are illegal and ordered to be destroyed by firefighters….
… Actor, director, producer and podcaster LeVar Burton will narrate the new audiobook for The Martian Chronicles, set to be published on July 1. The 1950 novel charts the fictional journey of a group of humans who flee Earth for Mars, and celebrates its 75th anniversary in 2025….
… Academy Award nominee Paul Giamatti will narrate a new edition of the author’s 1962 dark fantasy novel Something Wicked This Way Comes, out on Sept. 30. The book, part of Bradbury’s Green Town trilogy, follows two boys who are lured into a mysterious traveling circus that arrives in their hometown….
(3) DREAM FOUNDRY CONTESTS. The Dream Foundry Writing and Art Contests opened for submissions on April 7 and will close June 2.
They have increased the prize money this year for each contest: 1st Place: $1500; 2nd Place: $750; 3rd Place: $400.
The 2025 Writing Contest judges are C. S. E. Cooney and Carlos Hernandez, with contest coordinator Julia Rios.
The 2025 Art Contest judges are Naomi Franquiz, Bex Glendining, and Jasmine Walls, with Ilinica Barbacuta as the contest coordinator.
More than five years after The Big Bang Theory ended, Leonard and Penny are still having game nights.
Kaley Cuoco and Johnny Galecki recently reunited following their CBS sitcom’s 2019 finale, appearing together in an ad for video game Royal Kingdom, which sees the pair throwing all their entertainment sources out the window for the virtual app.
…To start, you download the VenHub app and login…. Then, just scroll and choose the products you want. I’m told AI will suggest items as the system gets smarter about your purchase history.
The prices are very reasonable (at least for now).
Then, it’s a few taps to check out (they do support Apple Pay and Google Pay!). Finaly, the fun part, it’s time to watch the robots get to work.
They spring into action, retrieving your items and placing them in one of four collection areas.
Through the thick glass, it’s a well cheorgrahped dance. Dual robots retrieve items and even swap out their tools to go from gripper to suction cup, depending on the item. The refrigerated doors slide open automatically.
Once items are placed in a collection area, you get a notification your order is ready. Then, you scan a QR code and a door opens so you can retrieve your stuff. Bring your own bag since there weren’t any available.
A VenHub location starts at about $250,000.
“If you had financed the entire store and rented 4 parking spaces (the area it needs to operate), it still costs less than half an employee per month cost but [you’re] able to be open 24 hours a day,” said Ohanessian….
(6) DONT FU¢K WITH THE CULTURE. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] I’m sure many Filers, especially those of us in Brit Cit and even Cal Hab, miss Iain Banks. Doubly sad that he could not make the Loncon 3 Worldcon at which he’d have been a GoH… (worth checking out this old video that features Iain). But his memory and books live on. And so a hearty thanks to Moid over at Media Death Cultfor warning us not to fu¢k with the Culture…
(7) DAMIEN BRODERICK (1944-2025). Australian author, critic, and scholar Damien Broderick has died, reportedly on April 20 (Australian date). Russell Blackford told Facebook readers:
I don’t know a lot of details, but I’m told that Damien passed away pain free in his sleep after being unconscious for his final nights.
Damien had suffered vascular dementia for several years, and even as far back as 2017, which was when I last saw him (at the World Fantasy Convention in San Antonio, Texas), he didn’t seem his usual sharp, ultra-on-the-ball self. I’m sure that many people who knew Damien will have vivid memories of him and some wonderful anecdotes. He was one of Australia’s great SF writers and SF scholars, and one of the most remarkable characters in the Australian SF community … or any community!
The Science Fiction Encyclopedia has an extensive article about his accomplishments: “SFE: Broderick, Damien”.
His fiction won four Ditmar and four Aurealis Awards. He won IAFA Distinguished Scholarship award in 2005. He received the A. Bertram Chandler Memorial Award in 2010, given by the Australian SF Foundation for outstanding achievement in Australian SF.
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Lis Carey.]
April 19, 1985 — Arkady Martine, 40.
By Lis Carey: You may not know the name of AnnaLinden Weller, but you may well know her fiction, under her pen name of Arkady Martine. Both of her Teixcalaan novels, A Memory Called Empire, and A Desolation Called Peace,won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in their years. They’re complex and interesting novels, about a young ambassador from Lsel Station, a relative backwater that needs good relations with the empire. Mahit Dzmare is rushed into her new position without adequate preparation because the empire demanded a new ambassador “immediately.” Of course she finds problems aplenty when she arrives, and also finds that the Teixcalaan Empire is even more complex, intricate, and confusing in its rules and protocols than she had been taught. She makes friends, enemies, and alliances, and is caught up in, let’s say an internal political crisis in the empire.
In the second novel, having arrived safely home, she’s struggling with traps and challenges in Lsel Station when one of her allies from the empire arrives with a summons to go help solve an entirely different problem, the is a major danger, and not just to the expanding empire.
The intricacy, depth, and texture in these books is amazing, and very satisfying.
And there there’s Rose/House, a completely different kind of story. It’s a locked room murder mystery, except that the whole house is locked, and it’s run by an AI. A real AI, arrogant and opinionated, and with very impressive abilities. It’s the burial place of its architect, and no one is allowed inside except his former student, who is in Türkiye right now. Even she is only allowed in seven days a year. This is a problem, because the House has called the local police to report another dead body inside. No explanation, and it still won’t let anyone but the former student in. Once again, devious, complex, and excellent characters–but nothing like the two novels.
All of which makes Arkady Martine a fascinating writer.
What’s almost more fascinating is her academic career as AnnaLinden Weller. Bachelor of Arts in religious studies from University of Chicago. Master of Studies in classical Armenian studies from Oxford University. Ph.D. in medieval Byzantine, global, and comparative history from Rutgers University. Her dissertation was titled, “Imagining Pre-Modern Empire Byzantine Imperial Agents Outside the Metropole.”
She’s covered a lot of territory from what seems an unfamiliar angle, at multiple institutions, and don’t you want to know more about that dissertation? I do.
I think I see where the complexity and depth of her writing comes from–and I haven’t even touched on her short stories. I think I’d love to hear her give a talk. Or have a conversation with her.
I recommend her books, and would love to hear thoughts about her short fiction.
A new “Star Wars” animated series focusing on Darth Maul is coming to Disney+ in 2026, with Sam Witwer returning to voice the iconic villain.
The news of the series, titled “Maul — Shadow Lord,” was announced at this year’s Star Wars Celebration in Tokyo on Friday with Witwer on hand. He has previously voiced Maul several times, including in animated series “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” and “Star Wars Rebels” as well as in the 2018 film “Solo: A Star Wars Story.”…
AI trawling the internet’s vast repository of journal articles has reproduced an error that’s made its way into dozens of research papers—and now a team of researchers has found the source of the issue.
It’s the question on the tip of everyone’s tongues: What the hell is “vegetative electron microscopy”? As it turns out, the term is nonsensical.
It sounds technical—maybe even credible—but it’s complete nonsense. And yet, it’s turning up in scientific papers, AI responses, and even peer-reviewed journals. So… how did this phantom phrase become part of our collective knowledge?
As painstakingly reported by Retraction Watch in February, the term may have been pulled from parallel columns of text in a 1959 paper on bacterial cell walls. The AI seemed to have jumped the columns, reading two unrelated lines of text as one contiguous sentence, according to one investigator….
Do you say “Please” or “Thank you” to ChatGPT? If you’re polite to OpenAI‘s chatbot, you could be part of the user base costing the company “Tens of millions of dollars” on electricity bills.
User @tomiinlove wrote on X, “I wonder how much money OpenAI has lost in electricity costs from people saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to their models.”OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, responded, “Tens of millions of dollars well spent – you never know.” Thanks for lowering the world’s anxiety around an AI uprising, Sam. We’ll all be sure to waste even more energy by saying “Please” or “Thank You” from now on.
In February, Future PLC, the company that owns TechRadar, compiled a survey of more than 1,000 people on their AI etiquette. The survey found that around 70% of people are polite to AI when interacting with it, with 12% being polite in case of a robot uprising….
(13) MARS ROCKS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Now for something completely different (Monty Python). This week’s Science journal.
COVER This photograph of Gale crater, Mars, was taken by the Curiosity rover at the Ubajara drill site. The rover’s 40-cm-wide tracks are visible in the foreground. The rover drilled a rock sample at this location, which was found to contain substantial amounts of siderite, an iron carbonate mineral. The siderite likely played a role in an ancient carbon cycle that affected Mars’ surface climate. See pages 251 and 292.
Linguists discuss linguistics and sociolinguistics, with a focus on how they play out in the real world. How have the politics around language shaped art through time, and what are the current trends in the industry?
[Thanks to Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mark Roth-Whitworth, and Steven French for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
The winner of the 2025 Philip K. Dick Award, given for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States, was announced April 18 at Norwescon 47 in SeaTac, Washington.
Time’s Agent by Brenda Peynado (Tordotcom)
Special citation was given to:
Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Orbit)
The Philip K. Dick Award is presented annually with the support of the Philip K. Dick Trust for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. The award is sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society and the award ceremony is sponsored by Norwescon. The 2024 award was given to These Burning Stars by Bethany Jacobs (Orbit) with a special citation to The Museum Of Human History by Rebekah Bergman (Tin House).
Judges for the 2025 award were Maurice Broaddus, C. S. Friedman, Rajan Khanna, Carol McGuirk, and Carrie Vaughn (chair).
This year’s judges are Jim Aikin, Kim Antieau, J. D. Goff, Abbey Mei Otis, and Lisa Swanstrom.
The virtual award ceremony can be found online here,
(1) PEABODY AWARDS 2025 NOMINEES. This year’s nominees for the George Foster Peabody Awards program were released on April 17. The awards honor what are described as “the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in all of television, radio, and online media.”
Here are the nominees of genre interest.
Children/Youth
Spirit Rangers (Netflix)
Spirit Rangers is an animated series on Netflix that follows three Chumash and Cowlitz siblings who transform into animal heroes to protect their California national park, blending Native stories, environmental themes, and adventure. As the first U.S. kids’ show created and showrun by a Native American, with an all-Native writers’ room and deep tribal collaboration, it offers authentic, joyful, and empowering representation for Indigenous communities.(Laughing Wild / Netflix)
Interactive & Immersive
1000xRESIST
This genre-blending narrative adventure game uses time, memory, and shifting gameplay styles to explore themes of identity, resistance, and intergenerational trauma, rooted in the emotional aftermath of the 2019 Hong Kong protests. Created by a majority Asian-Canadian team, the game sets players in a haunting future shaped by a global pandemic and alien occupation, challenging them to reckon with historical memory. (sunset visitor 斜陽過客 and Fellow Traveller)
Tchia
In Tchia, players embark on a tropical open-world adventure to rescue the protagonist’s father from the tyrannical ruler Meavora, exploring a physics-driven sandbox across beautiful islands. Inspired by New Caledonia, the game features creative gameplay and immerses players in the culture and language of the island nation. (Awaceb)
Documentary
The Space Race (National Geographic Channel)
The Space Race tells the powerful, long-overdue story of Black NASA astronauts who overcame systemic racism to claim their place in the U.S. space program. The films centers on Ed Dwight, the nation’s first Black astronaut trainee who was denied flight but paved the way for future generations. Decades later, Dwight finally reached space at age 90, turning his personal victory into a historic moment of justice. (National Geographic Documentary Films, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, Algeria Films & Cortés Filmworks)
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story (HBO | Max)
After a devastating accident left him paralyzed, Christopher Reeve became a powerful symbol of resilience, using his platform to inspire hope and advocate for disability rights. Throughout it all, he remained a passionate actor, filmmaker, and devoted family man, with his wife Dana as his unwavering support. (DC Studios / HBO Documentary Films / CNN Films)
The home explosion in Northwest Austin that injured six people and damaged two dozen homes was caused by a substantial propane gas leak inside the home, according to Travis County Fire Marshal Gary Howell.
In a statement, Howell said there are no suspicious or criminal circumstances surrounding the incident.
“While this investigation is entering its final stages, it is important to remember that there is still a long road of recovery ahead for those who were affected by this tragic event,” he said. “There are still two people in critical condition at area hospitals.”
The house on Double Spur Loop near U.S. Highway 183 and Spicewood Springs exploded the morning of April 13. The blast was heard more than 15 miles away in Georgetown, according to the Austin Fire Department.
Samantha Leer, whose house was damaged by the explosion, started another fundraiser for her neighbors to help with the rebuilding process. She said many homes, especially those closest to the explosion, need thousands of dollars in repairs.
“As a neighborhood we’re all still wrapping our heads around what happened and where to start to begin putting our lives back together,” Leer said on the GoFundMe page. “We’re all in an insurance ‘hold’ while we wait for the investigation to be completed. Our houses are damaged, our lives are displaced, so I am hoping … we can start putting some of the pieces back together both physically and mentally.”
Frank Frazetta (1928–2010) was not just a horror magazine artist whose purpose was to create fantasies that scare the bejesus out of the average mortal. He was an artist first, and storyteller second. His art is reminiscent of late 19th-century European symbolism, notably that of the French Odilon Redon and the Austrian Alfred Kubin—but Frazetta’s paintings express an American essence similar to Norman Rockwell (had Rockwell decided to paint menace instead of tranquility).
Picture a Rockwell image of a typical country doctor examining a young lad … except instead of a calm, caring man in a white lab coat with a stethoscope, the same personage wears animal skin and a spiked helmet, brandishing a heavy steel sword with a sharp serrated blade, poised to carve the heart of his young, trusting patient. And rather than a benign, handsome white-clad nurse assisting the doctor, there’s a busty, muscular she-wolf bedecked with slithering serpents and a bloodied scythe. Frazetta and Rockwell share the same tools but see through different eyes. Each captured the affection of their respective loyal fans, but it’s doubtful there’s much crossover of those bases…
In November 1995, a proposal of having an annual day focused on celebrating books was put forward at the UNESCO conference in Paris.
The idea came from a long-established Spanish celebration ‘The Day of Books and Roses’.
The first World Book Day was on 23 April 1996.
Although some countries now celebrate World Book Day on different dates, it’s marked on 23 April in the majority of countries.
Pere Vicens is a book publisher from Barcelona in Spain and one of the creators of World Book Day. He tells Gill Kearsley the origins of this now annual event.
Give it to writer/director Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station, Black Panther) for coming at Sinners, his first horror feature, with the intentionality of a PhD student with something to prove. There’s no shortage of existing lazy or derivative vampire movies that he could have easily bested with modest effort. Instead, Coogler cracked the history books, collected his A-list family of collaborators, including composer Ludwig Göransson, production designer Hannah Beachler, director of photography Autumn Durald Arkapaw, costume designer Ruth E. Carter and ever-trusted leading man Michael B. Jordan, to cinematically (with a capital C) transport the audience to a 1930’s Jim Crow Mississippi ripe for all kinds of delicious trouble.
Coogler’s Sinners screenplay is original but it most certainly carries the baton for what Misha Green explored in her mashup of horror, the supernatural and Black oppression in her HBO series, Lovecraft Country (2020). Although that series was ultimately too broad with its ambitions, Coogler wisely stays hyper-focused on just two monsters – the vampire and bigoted Whites who wear hoods. Coogler weaves vampiric metaphors into the societal oppression of the Old South and asks the audience to consider, which is worse?
Sinners is told through the world-weary eyes of twin brothers, Smoke and Stack (a finely-tuned dual performance by Jordan), who return home to Mississippi after first surviving WWI, and then the organized crime gangs of Chicago….
(6) CORRECTION. Correcting yesterday’s Scroll, Andrew Porter now says, “Judy-Lynn del Rey piece ONLY available on broadcast versions of this, NOT at link!!!”
Very minor spoilers here if you’ve not been watching the recent series. You’ve been warned.
Of the modern Doctor Whos, the one performed by David Tennant is my favorite by far. (It won’t surprise you that Tom Baker is my classic Doctor.) I liked him from the very first time that he appeared, in “The Christmas Invasion”. (Spoiler alert from here out.) The fact that he won’t finish his transition until he inhales the fumes from a dropped flask of tea. Oh, what a truly British thing to have him do!
Christopher Eccleston was good but I thought that he didn’t have long enough to fully settle into the role so I felt his character was more of a sketch than a fully developed character. His certainly would have been a better Doctor if he’d decided to stay around, but he didn’t.
Tennant, on the other hand had three series plus some specials, he’d also be the Doctor in a two-part story in Doctor Who spin-off, Sarah Jane Adventures, “The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith”.
He got the proper time to settle into his character. And what a character it was — intelligent, full of humor, sympathetic and just alien enough in his quirkiness to believable that he wasn’t human.
Oh, and the stories. So, so great. Those along with his companions made for ever so great watching. My favorite companion? Not picking one as each had their own unique effect on the series and him — Rose Tyler, Donna Noble and Martha Jones, all made fine companions in very different ways.
If I could pick just one story from his run, it’d be “The Unicorn and The Wasp” with Agatha Christie as a character and Donna Noble as the companion. And it was a country manor house mystery!
Yes, I know he came back as the Fourteenth Doctor.
It’s certainly not his only genre role, and yes he played several Doctor Who roles before being the Tenth Doctor. He had a role in the BBC’s animated Scream of the Shalka and appeared in several Big Finish Productions. I think I read he played a Time Lord in one of them.
Now let’s see about his other genre roles… One of my favorite series, Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased), had him as Gordon Stylus in the “Drop Dead” episode. The Quatermass Experiment film had him as Dr. Gordon Briscoe.
He was in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as Barty Crouch Jr., a fine performance he gave there. I like the films, found what I read of the first novel dreadfully boring.
In How to Train Your Dragon and How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, which I think has awesomely cute animation, he voices Spitelout Jorgenson, a warrior of the Hairy Hooligan Tribe. Need I say more? I think not. DreamWorks Dragons was another series in which he voiced this character.
In Star Wars: The Clone Wars, he had a short run there as Huyang. Huh. He even voiced a character in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, one called Fugitoid, a sort of android figure.
He’s the voice of Dangerous Beans in The Amazing Mauriceoff Terry Pratchett’s The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents.
The last role I’ll mention is his Jessica Jones one and one that honestly made me not watch the series. No, I’ll not say why as that’d be a major spoiler. He was called Kevin Thompson / Kilgrave.
(9) FIONA MOORE’S BOOKSHELF. Shelfies, edited by Lavie Tidhar and Jared Shurin, “Takes a unique peek each week into one of our contributors’ weird and wonderful bookshelves.” A recent entry was “Shelfies #32: Fiona Moore”. Photo at the link.
…On the top shelf, there’s a BFI Guide to Metropolis, and on the lower one, McGilligan’s exhaustive biography of its director, Fritz Lang. Metropolis is my favourite movie, in part because no two versions are ever the same. The original was lost, meaning that only a cut-down 90-minute version made for the US market survived, but over the years people added in found footage, or reordered things to make more sense. And since it’s silent, you don’t have to just use the original soundtrack; Moroder famously did a techno version, and I’ve seen the movie with accompaniments by a free jazz band and by an Irish harp. It’s fitting because the movie itself is one with resonances all over the political spectrum. These days, I think one could read it as a warning of what happens when billionaires form alliances with vindictive tech-bros and try to “disrupt the workplace”, and how the intellectuals and the workers need to come together to fix the damage….
Actor and musician Jack Black has made UK chart history, with the shortest ever song to reach the Top 40: his novelty track Steve’s Lava Chicken is just 34 seconds long.
The spectacularly silly song reaches No 21 this week, and is taken from A Minecraft Movie, the video game spin-off film, which has earned $570m (£430m) so far at the global box office – and caused cinemas to be overrun by the game’s young and high-energy fanbase.
Black performs the song in the film as the character Steve, as he shows the other protagonists around the alternate universe, the Overworld, and hymns the virtues of chicken cooked in lava (“Crispy and juicy, now you’re havin’ a snack / Ooh, super spicy, it’s a lava attack”).
News broke on April 11 confirming rumors that the White House Office of Management and Budget is working on a proposal that would cut the NASA science budget in half. If enacted, this budget would force the premature termination of dozens of active, productive spacecraft, and would halt the development of nearly every future science project at NASA.
In response to these proposed cuts, The Planetary Society has launched a campaign for citizens to write to their representatives and voice their concerns. We urge Americans who support space exploration to share their support of NASA science.
Imagine, if you will, that you are a quantum system. Specifically, you are an unstable quantum system – one that would, if left to its own devices, rapidly decay from one state (let’s call it “awake”) into another (“asleep”). But whenever you start to drift into the “asleep” state, something gets in the way. Maybe it’s a message pinging on your phone. Maybe it’s a curious child peppering you with questions. Whatever it is, it jolts you out of your awake–asleep superposition and projects you back into wakefulness. And because it keeps happening faster than you can fall asleep, you remain awake, diverted from slumber by a stream of interruptions – or, in quantum terms, measurements.
This phenomenon of repeated measurements “freezing” an unstable quantum system into a particular state is known as the quantum Zeno effect (figure 1). Named after a paradox from ancient Greek philosophy, it was hinted at in the 1950s by the scientific polymaths Alan Turing and John von Neumann but only fully articulated in 1977 by the physicists Baidyanath Misra and George Sudarshan (J. Math. Phys.18 756). Since then, researchers have observed it in dozens of quantum systems, including trapped ions, superconducting flux qubits and atoms in optical cavities. But the apparent ubiquitousness of the quantum Zeno effect cannot hide the strangeness at its heart. How does the simple act of measuring a quantum system have such a profound effect on its behaviour?
Out of all the episodes in the excellent seventh season of Black Mirror, it’s Plaything that sticks out to me and I suspect to anyone else who played video games in the 1990s. It’s the story of socially awkward freelance games journalist, Cameron Walker, who steals the code to a new virtual pet sim named Thronglets from the developer he’s meant to be interviewing. When he gets the game home, he realises the cute, intelligent little critters he’s caring for on the screen have a darker ambition than simply to perform for his amusement – cue nightmarish exploration of AI and our complicity in its rise.
The episode is interesting to me because … well, I was a socially awkward games journalist in the mid-1990s. But more importantly, so was Charlie Brooker. He began his writing career penning satirical features and blistering reviews for PC Zone magazine, one of the two permanently warring PC mags of the era (I shared an office with the other, PC Gamer). In Plaything, it’s PC Zone that Cameron Walker writes for, and there are several scenes taking place in its office, which in the programme is depicted as a reasonably grownup office space with tidy computer workstations and huge windows. I do not think the production design team got this vision from Brooker….
[Thanks to Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Mark Roth-Whitworth for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
