(1) TERRAN AWARD. George R.R. Martin, in “Aliens In Taos”, announces he has created a scholarship to bring an sf writer from a non-English speaking country to Taos Toolbox.
When astronauts look down on Earth from orbit, they don’t see borders, national boundaries, or linguistic groups; they see one world, a gorgeous blue globe spinning in space, streaked with clouds. I don’t know if humanity will ever reach the stars (though I hope we will), but if we do, it won’t be Americans who get there. It won’t be the Chinese or the Russians or the British or the French or the Brazilians or the Kiwis or the South Africans or the Indians or the folk of any other nation state either. It will be humanity; in the language of the SF of my youth, it will be Terrans or Earthlings or Earthmen. The future belongs to all the peoples of the world.
With that in mind, I want to announce that I am sponsoring a new scholarship, to bring an aspiring SF writer from a non-English-speaking country to the Taos Toolbox, the graduate level writing workshop that Walter Jon Williams and Nancy Kress run every summer in the mountains of northern New Mexico. The TERRAN AWARD, as I am calling it, will be given annually, and will cover all tuition and fees to the Toolbox (travel and meals not covered, alas). Applicants will need to speak and write in English, but must be from from a country where English is not the primary language. Walter Jon and Nancy and the Toolbox staff will select the winner. For more information on applying for the workshop, and the scholarship, contact WJW at [email protected]
(2) MARKET REPORT. David Steffen has compiled the “SFWA Market Report for January” for the SFWA Blog,
(3) VISIT QO’NOS. The first Klingon tourist center has opened in Sweden.
” Humans! tlhlngan maH [we are Klingons]
The Klingon Institute of Cultural Exchange demand your presence at our Terra-Friendly© presentation of Klingon culture and customs at Turteatern on Terra, Alpha Quadrant.
You will get the possibility to try cuisine, listen to opera, and a chance to acquire useful lifesaving tips in your everyday interaction with Klingons and Klingon customs, so that you may plan your holiday to our great empire and the First City on the planet Qo’noS without risking any discomfort and/or premature death.
This live-act presentation is brought to you by Visit Qo’noS, the tourist department of the Klingon high council.”
(4) OPINION RECONSIDERED. Teresa Jusino goes in an unexpected direction at The Mary Sue with “Internalized Sexism and Star Wars: My Long-Overdue Apology to Luke Skywalker”.
It would be tempting to “blame” all this on the prequels adding in new information after the fact, but as the video essay goes to great lengths to point out, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda teach Luke the same lessons about burying his feelings in the original trilogy. The difference between Anakin and Luke?
Luke consistently bucks his Jedi training in favor of giving in to his emotions and saving people.
Luke cares about others, even if they’ve “fallen to the Dark Side,” and so whether it’s to save his sister and his friends or to try to redeem Darth Vader, he follows his emotions in spite of the warnings he gets from his mentors, and he’s heroic because of it. This is why, to me, the Luke we meet in The Last Jedi is Peak Luke. He’s at his most emotional, his most vulnerable … and ultimately, at his most heroic
(5) WHEATON. Think Tank tells about supernovas in “When Stars Go Boom.”
Why do some stars end their lives in a supernova explosion? And how does that lead to forming planets and life like us? A science expert (Jerrika Hinton) explains by hooking her hapless assistant (Wil Wheaton) up to a Thought Visualizer, a machine that allows anyone to see his thoughts. With Ed Wasser.
(6) MORE VIDEO ARCHEOLOGY. Fanac.org has posted the restored video of the “Weird and Horror Genre Luncheon Panel” from MidAmeriCon, the 1976 Worldcon.
MidAmeriCon, the 34th World Science Fiction Convention, was held in Kansas City in 1976. This excerpt from the discussion held at the Weird and Horror Genre Luncheon features (L-R) Poul Anderson, Charles Grant, Ted White, Kirby McCauley (mod), Tom Reamy and Stuart Schiff talking about ghost stories, fairy tales, and why they are attracted to the genre. There are some spots where the film is damaged. Video and video restoration provided by David Dyer-Bennet and the Video Archeology Project.
(7) FLAME ON. HBO dropped a teaser trailer for Fahrenheit 451.
HBO Films presents Fahrenheit 451. In a terrifying care-free future, a young man, Guy Montag, whose job as a fireman is to burn all books, questions his actions after meeting a young girl…and begins to rebel against society. Starring Michael B. Jordan, and Michael Shannon.
(8) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to share flash-fried cauliflower with Sheila Williams in episode 57 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.
Sheila Williams
Sheila has worked for Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine since 1982, became its editor in 2004, and went on to win the Hugo Award for Best Short Form Editor in 2011 and 2012. She also co-edited A Woman’s Liberation: A Choice of Futures by and About Women with Connie Willis, as well as numerous other anthologies.
We chatted about her first day on the job more than a third of a century ago, meeting Isaac Asimov at an early Star Trek convention when she was only 16, which writer intimidated her the most when she first got into the business, what she learned from working with previous Asimov’s editors Shawna McCarthy and Gardner Dozois, the most common problems she sees in the more than 7,000 stories that cross her desk each year, the identities of the only writers she’s never rejected, what goes through her mind in that moment she reads a manuscript and arrives at “yes,” and much more.
(9) TODAY IN HISTORY
- January 12, 1933: Dr. Moreau adaptation Island of Lost Souls opens in New York City.
- January 12, 1940: Universal’s Invisible Man returns in The Invisible Man Returns! The Department of Redundancy Department approves.
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY EYEBALL
- Born January 12, 1992 or 1997 – HAL 9000. In the film 2001, HAL became operational on this date in 1992. The Wikipedia says the activation year was 1991 in earlier screenplays and changed to 1997 in Clarke’s novel.
(11) COMICS SECTION.
- Kathodus found some erudite humor about the migration of word meanings in Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal by Zach Weinersmith.
(12) MASSIVE EFFORT. Pornokitsch reviews all ten Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off 2017 finalists in a single glorious post – “SPFBO2017: The Finalists Reviewed (All of ’em!)”.
But, for now, here are this year’s ten finalists, in no particular order, with my – somewhat arbitrary – scores. Thanks again for all the writers, readers, judges and administrator (singular!) for participating, and please check out the other judges for other perspectives!
(13) CON OR BUST. Kate Nepveu’s Con or Bust newsletter lists many opportunities for fans of color/nonwhite fans to get memberships and other assistance to attend upcoming sf events. For example —
The following cons have recently donated assistance or memberships to Con or Bust:
- JoCo Cruise 2018, February 18-25, 2018, departing from San Diego, CA, USA. JoCo Cruise has donated at least five cabins, which accommodate two to four people, and which come with lodging, meals and drinks (except not alcohol or soft drinks), and access to all programming. Please see the blog post for important details.
- The 2018 SFWA Nebula Conference, May 17-20, 2018, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. The SFWA Givers Fund has awarded $4,000 to Con or Bust to enable people of color/non-white people attend SFWA Nebula Conference; funds can be requested during February 1-10, 2018.
- Beach City Con, October 12 – 14, 2018, Virginia Beach, VA, USA (@beachcitycon). Beach City Con is a Steven Universe fan convention; it donated four weekend passes, which can be requested during February 1-10, 2018.
- Scintillation, October 5-7, 2018, Montréal, Quebec, Canada. Scintillation is a small literary focused SF convention with program by Jo Walton; details at its Kickstarter page. It donated three memberships and $100, which can be requested during February 1-10, 2018
(14) LAST JEDI ANALYZED. Under some circumstances, Foz Meadows might like to take a red pen to “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”. BEWARE SPOILERS, if you still need to.
Based on this, it seems clear that The Last Jedi is intended to parallel The Empire Strikes Back, both structurally and thematically. All the same elements are in play, albeit recontextualised by their place in a new story; but where Empire is a tight, sleek film, The Last Jedi is middle-heavy. The major difference between the two is Poe’s tension-and-mutiny arc, which doesn’t map to anything in Empire.
And this is the part where things get prickly. As stated, I really love Rose Tico, not only because she’s a brilliant, engaging character superbly acted by Kelly Marie Tran, but because she represents another crucial foray into diverse representation, both in Star Wars and on the big screen generally. There’s a lot to recommend Vice-Admiral Holdo, too, especially her touching final scene with Leia: I still want to know more about their relationship. I am not for a moment saying that either character – that either woman – doesn’t belong in the film, or in Star Wars, or that their roles were miscast or badly acted or anything like that. But there is, I suspect, a truly maddening reason why they were paired onscreen with Finn and Poe, and that this logic in turn adversely affected both the deeper plot implications and the film’s overall structure.
(15) NO EMISSION CONTROL. NPR says “Researchers Spot Massive Black Hole In Double ‘Burp'”.
A giant black hole located at the center of a galaxy 800 million light-years from Earth has been caught on camera letting out not one, but two massive “burps” of highly charged particles.
It is the first time astronomers have viewed the phenomenon twice in the same black hole.
Images released Thursday and credited to the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory were presented at the American Astronomical Society’s winter meeting in National Harbor, Md., outside Washington, D.C.
“Black holes are voracious eaters, but it also turns out they don’t have very good table manners,” Julie Comerford, an astronomer at the University of Colorado Boulder, said during a news conference Thursday, according to Space.com. “We know a lot of examples of black holes with single burps emanating out, but we discovered a galaxy with a supermassive black hole that has not one, but two burps.”
(16) PADDINGTON 2 VERDICT. NPR’s Andrew Lapin sees “‘Paddington 2’: A Story That Bears Repeating”.
If only all of us could see the world the way Paddington sees London. The furry little bear in a raincoat looks around his adopted home and finds, in the smiling faces of his neighbors, nothing but joyful spirits and good intentions. There are no “no-go zones”; even a prison full of roughnecks can be a chance to help people in need. Forget the fact that he’s a talking bear from Darkest Peru. It’s Paddington’s impenetrable spirit, his striving to do right by the world, to “always see the good in people,” even those who wish him harm, that is the biggest wish-fulfillment of 2018.
(17) SHE GETS MAIL. Ursula Vernon cannot comfort the youth of America —
Small child, your more-in-sorrow-than-anger letter telling me that you are gravely concerned that it has been two years and there are no new Dragonbreath books is hilariously guilt-trippy, but I can't help you.
— Kingfisher & Wombat (@UrsulaV) January 12, 2018
I would love to, but the publisher didn’t buy it!
— Kingfisher & Wombat (@UrsulaV) January 13, 2018
(18) MORE EYES IN THE SKY. BBC reports on a UK satellite, launched by India, to make movies from space, (first of a planned cluster, like ICEYE satellites sent yesterday).
A British satellite has gone into orbit on an Indian rocket to acquire full-colour, high-definition video of the surface of the Earth.
The demonstrator is expected to pave the way for a series of at least 15 such spacecraft, which will be operated by the Guildford-based company Earth-i.
The small, low-cost UK mission was one of 31 payloads riding on the Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.
It lifted off from the Satish Dhawan spaceport in Andhra Pradesh.
(19) BLACK WIDOW APPROACHING. According to Variety, “Marvel’s Standalone ‘Black Widow’ Movie Gains Momentum With Jac Schaeffer Writing”.
Marvel is finally pushing ahead with the highly anticipated “Black Widow” standalone movie starring Scarlett Johansson, with Jac Schaeffer penning the script.
Sources say this is still very early development, as the film has no greenlight, but naming a writer is the closest the studio has come to moving forward on a standalone pic. Marvel President Kevin Feige met with several candidates before tapping Schaeffer, and Marvel execs met with Johansson to discuss what they wanted from a “Black Widow” writer.
In case you need a reminder, watch this scene from Iron Man 2 of Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow in action.
(20) BLUE MAN CULTIST. Here’s the official trailer for Cold Skin.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, Cat Eldridge, Chip Hitchcock, Hampus Eckerman, Andrew Porter, Kathodus, and Carl Slaughter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Steve Davidson.]
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Firstalk
The God who stalked through walls
(4) Interesting article, and a good read of the Star Wars movies. (Though my main gripe against the prequels remains in that they are crappy movies.)
(14) I read Foz Meadows’s analysis day before yesterday, and was impressed by it. In a way, Poe goes in the opposite direction to Luke in the original trilogy: he has become more immature in his second film as compared to the his first.
(19) I believe it when I see it. Announcements of superhero films are cheap. Also, Wonder Woman has really upped the ante in how superheroines are to be depicted in film, and given how Black Widow has been depicted so far by the MCU, I’m afraid a movie based on her would feel like a step back instead of a step forward.
15: thank goodness they’re “burping”…
Fifth?
Where is everyone this morning?
19) I have to say the Black Widow combat scenes in Iron Man 2 were a little too dancing and male-gazy for my taste. I like the combat in Winter Soldier more. And…let’s not talk about her role in Age of Ultron. What I think really raised the bar were movies like Atomic Blonde and Agents of Shield. I would like to see her do a fight scene like the apartment fight in AB, except more over the top. Or something to match the spectacularly nasty fights Daisy and May got into in AoS.
/Godstalk
Pixels On The Scrolls Of Her Shoes
19) AS is wont with these things, I will believe a BW when I see it. I sadly expect it will turn into vaporware. I do think that Rose has a point about the Iron Man 2 scene being very Male Gaze-y. Her role in Winter Soldier is much better in my opinion.
Stars in My Pockets Like Diamonds on the Scrolls of Her Shoes
The Man Who Scrolled Christopher Columbus Ashore.
Sing a Song of SixScrolls, Pixel full of Wry Comments
Still here. Not awake, though.
Hello pixel, my old file, I’ve come to scroll with you a while.
Like a file over scrolling pixels, I will lay me down.
Are you going to Worldcon this year? Pixel, scroll, rosemary and file.
Our dystopian future:
No books. No ebooks. No text sites on the web. Just podcasts and videos that start playing as soon as you click in or roll over them.
[blam, thud]
Anyway, it’s a winter wonderland here, and something something pixels.
The pixels in the file scroll up and down,
Up and down, up and down.
7) Really though, it’s hard to make “care-free future” sound dystopian these days.
(1) Nice.
(19) I hope they will do one. Black Widow was a bit over the map (Very good in Winter soldier and Avengers, hit & miss in Iron man, Forgettable in Ultron), but a focus on her could be quite good. But please, no prequel!
Kip W.
After all these years, no one has sufficiently explained why the people on the bus go up and down.
It seems strange to me that people, who we’ll have to take to be ordinary, everyday citizens as there is no evidence to the contrary, ONLY go “up and down”.
I’ve spent a lot of time observing people on buses and, contrary to the song, I see them go “side to side”, I’ve seen them go “leaning over”, I’ve seen them walk back and forth, stumble and fall, but never “up and down” (with the exception of the Hoverlloyd traveling over a particularly choppy channel, but that’s a hover craft, not a bus).
Every time someone mentions that song I am afflicted with this question.
IF, owing to some weird inversion of place and time, the song is actually referring to the hoverlloyd incident, it’s obvious that they have removed the second chorus, which I suppose used to be something like:
“the people on the lloyd throw up their lunch, up their lunch, up their lunch, oh, the people on the lloyd throw up their lunch, all across the channel.”
perhaps followed by something like:
“the people on the lloyd chum the english channel, chum the english channel, chum the english channel, oh the people on the lloyd chum the english channel, all the way to france”
I want a Black Widow movie SO VERY MUCH.
I would love the origin story she hints at when she talks to Loki in Avengers.
And I agree with everyone who loved her the most in Winter Soldier.
There’s so much great stuff from the comics too.
WANT WANT WANT
steve davidson
They go up and down to get on and off the bus. I daresay you’ve done the same.
Kip W
But the song implies they are doing it while the bus is going all around the town. There’s no mention of stops!
Buses stop every couple of blocks, whether the song mentions it or not. Perhaps they thought it unnecessary to point it out.
Double decker bus I guess?
Bus going over a bridge?
So for clarity’s sake we could sing that those people “go on and off, on and off”?
P J Evans: Yes. And when it goes over the train tracks, too. Or when it runs over someone, or leaps over a row of motorcycles.
Andrew: Yes. Yes, you could. Absolutely.
@Steve Davidson they are going over speed bumps! Or perhaps railway crossings.
So The Powers That Be claim that Hawaii wasn’t just nuked out of existence, but you know how those politicians lie.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/01/13/577871075/this-is-not-a-drill-a-false-ballistic-missile-alert-shakes-hawaii
I honestly wonder if we’re getting serious Black Widow movie buzz because Red Sparrow looks like a Black Widow movie with all the Marvel IP sanded off of it.
I’m just saying, if she gets “pulled out” at the end with the help of an American marksman, we’ll really know what’s up.
Well, seems like my attempts to resist the break-out of another Trigger Snowflake short are slowly in vain, as it seems about the first third-to-half escaoed through my keyboard earlier today.
Ingvar: Resistance is futile! (We hope.)
If you’re a fan of Black Widow, The comiXology app has a lot of her graphic novels in its unlimited reading subscription which is around ten bucks a month. On the iPad, they look truly great.
Back story: having suffered a major head trauma in the past summer, I can no longer read novels as I forget what I was reading after a half hour or so. I can read short stories, I can listen to novels just fine and video fiction still works fine. GNs are my substitute for novels.
Cat, sorry to hear about a major head trauma. I’m glad you still have graphic novels.
You might like half-hour radio shows from archive.org, which include science fiction, westerns (I mean Gunsmoke, which gets my A-1 rating), detective (Johnny Dollar, Phillip Marlowe) and other good stuff.
If public domain comic books are of use, Comic Book Plus has a veritable galaxy of them. DUNC AN’ LOO is a John Stanley screwball classic. I like to search on creator names and see where it gets me.
@ Mike Glyer: Once it’s started breaking free, there’s basically no stopping it, there’s just “slow it down” and, well…
Kip W says Cat, sorry to hear about a major head trauma. I’m glad you still have graphic novels.
First thanks for the lovely suggestions that followed these words. Audiobook right now is the latest Longmire novel from Craig Johnson which will be followed by the latest Expanse novel. Miss reading novels but, as a member of my medical care team put it this past week, it ‘beats the alternative’ as they were told by the hospital I was not expected to live as I kept dying in ICU for the first week.
Well, I will boldly assert that I’m sure glad it wasn’t worse for you. Good heavens! This puts my dental work in perspective. It’s good to have you with us.
Mrs. Scrollinson, you’re trying to pixel me.
(4) OPINION RECONSIDERED. Interesting take on it, though at one point she gives Lucas a bit too much credit. It seems more likely Lucas believes the B.S. about suppressing emotions himself. But really this is all about worshiping the stereotypical monk, methinks; Jedis are (especially outside the original trilogy) clearly a monk analog.
(14) LAST JEDI ANALYZED. Also interesting, but Foz seems to assign a lot of conspiracy-theory-ish reasons as to why Rian Johnson did certain things. Her “no homo” theory seems especially silly to me.
@Marshall Ryan Maresca: I hadn’t heard of Red Sparrow, but yeah, it does look like a quasi-Black Window (even the name!). I’m not a huge Black Widow fan (like her fine; have some of the older comics), but the Red Sparrow trailer didn’t even hold my interest.
And as someone up-thread said, I so hope they don’t do an origin story for Black Widow, if they do a movie! Gah, no, please. Back story is fine (and we already got some of that), but if we get an origin story, I might not even bother seeing it.
@Mike Glyer: I initially misread that as “Resistance is furtive.” 😉
@Cat Eldridge: That’s horrible (I’ve seen you refer to this, but didn’t quite “get” the extent)! I’m glad you can still listen and watch, and read graphic novels and short stories.
Just found this via Twitter (well, my wife found it): For anyone who’s been curious about Thomas Disch’s ’80s text adventure game Amnesia, but never got a copy or (like me) simply couldn’t manage to get past the first few scenes without dying, someone will be live-streaming what sounds like a play-through of the whole thing. https://mobile.twitter.com/dgrigar/status/952305737283223553
@Kip W: Another Johnny Dollar fan!
He’s near the top of the radio detectives I’ve had a chance to listen to. I enjoyed the Nero Wolfe series, though none of the regular ones I listened to measured up to the first one I listened to (which had been written by Alfred Bester, as it turns out), which came fairly close to the level of a regular Wolfe short story. The Marlowe ones are entertaining in their way, cum grano salis, provided I don’t think about Raymond Chandler much when I’m listening to them. And there are still plenty of episodes left.
Same with Johnny Dollar: Lots of episodes left. I’ve only gotten partway through the first season because I keep forgetting that I have them. If I’d started listening to them when I lived in West Springfield, they would have been practically local to me (a 40-minute drive to Hartford, CT).
@ Andrew and Kip W.
I’m another fan of “the man with the action-packed expense account!”
He’s “America’s fabulous freelance insurance investigator!”
“Item Fifth: One Pixel, $7.70”
Kendall says to me That’s horrible (I’ve seen you refer to this, but didn’t quite “get” the extent)! I’m glad you can still listen and watch, and read graphic novels and short stories
Head injuries are weird in their effects, ie I cannot really learn names of folks I’m meeting post-injury as I (mostly) forget all names I hear after just about several minutes (I think I’m learned less than a half dozen in almost half a year) and dates suffer from a near total collapse of past / present / future tenses so I’m mostly never really sure what day it is.
And I’ve got a left shoulder that was broken for the second time, not a great thing to do. Needless to say I’ve got a Medical Care Team watching both shoulder and head very closely.
@ Cat Eldridge
That’s really tough. If you didn’t know, the Internet Archive has a lot of old-time radio. For example, they have a very nice collection of episodes from X Minus Zero (1955- 1958), which usually did adaptations of stories from SF magazines.
Here is the link:
https://archive.org/details/OTRR_X_Minus_One_Singles
Rob Thornton notes That’s really tough. If you didn’t know, the Internet Archive has a lot of old-time radio. For example, they have a very nice collection of episodes from X Minus Zero (1955- 1958), which usually did adaptations of stories from SF magazines.
Thanks. It’ll be interesting to see how long the Internet Archive gets away with hosting a lot of this material as I’ve seen a number of lawsuits filed against them by copyright holders,
Interestingly one of the benefits, if there are such things, of the head trauma is that I’m able to follow sports on radio better now, a lot better. Must be the nature of sports commentary.
@Cat, that (the sports thing) is fascinating. So short comments and continuous action work?
I hope it’s not terrible of me to be interested as well as sorry about your misfortune. My mother-in-law sustained a skull fracture after fainting (probably) at the top of her stairs, and had brain damage from it. Being analytical about the effects was one of the ways I coped with the whole thing.
Lenore asks
@Cat, that (the sports thing) is fascinating. So short comments and continuous action work?
I hope it’s not terrible of me to be interested as well as sorry about your misfortune. My mother-in-law sustained a skull fracture after fainting (probably) at the top of her stairs, and had brain damage from it. Being analytical about the effects was one of the ways I coped with the whole thing.
It’s not nosy at all. Yes both work. The only complication as regards understanding conversations is that the left ear has hearing much of the time for the first trauma so voices, multiple, are somewhat difficult to sort out.
Lenore Jones / asks @Cat, that (the sports thing) is fascinating. So short comments and continuous action work?
Yeah short comments and continuous action work fine e. The short. Term memory just doesn’t retain anything as long as it did. I’ve got a dementia consult in late April which is turns out is the catch-all for any serious head trauma at my age.
I hope it’s not terrible of me to be interested as well as sorry about your misfortune. My mother-in-law sustained a skull fracture after fainting (probably) at the top of her stairs, and had brain damage from it. Being analytical about the effects was one of the ways I coped with the whole thing.
It’s quite fine as processing the injury does help. What doesn’t help is hearing far too many times the trite phrase ‘Youknow it’ll get better with time’. I’ll be happy if it doesn’t get much worse.
Cat, is it that written words don’t write well to longterm memory but spoken words do? Or do I misunderstand? I guess what I’m trying to ask is, can you retain the plot of an audiobook novel well enough to follow it, even if written novels are difficult for you?
I hope so, because (and I’m sure you know this) audiobooks are so very much more available now than they used to be.
Whether or not that’s an option, I’m glad you can still read and enjoy short fiction.