(1) 1632 AT FANTASCI. The first 1632Con from 1632 & Beyond will be at FantaSci in Raleigh-Durham, NC from April 19-21. Kevin Ikenberry, author of the Assiti Shards book The Crossing, is one of the con’s Special Guests. Bjorn Hasseler, Bethanne Kim, and Chuck Thompson will all be there, as will other authors from the series.
Fred Chappell (born 28 May 1936/died 4 January 2024) and Robert Silverberg (born 15 January 1935) were teenaged fantastic-fiction fans in 1952, but were already showing some promise of the kind of writers (and editors) they would soon and continue to become…both had discovered the fiction magazines, among other reading, that would help shape a notable part of both their careers, and were involved in the (somewhat!) organized fantasy/sf/horror-fiction-fandom culture of the late ’40s and early ’50s…so much so that three issues of young New Yorker Silverberg’s fanzine (or amateur magazine meant for other fans and any other interested parties) Spaceship (first published by Silverberg in 1949) would each offer one of three vignettes from young Canton, North Carolina resident Fred Chappell, in Starship’s 4/52, 4/53 and 10/53 issues….
(3) IN MEMORIAM LIST. “In Memoriam: 2023”, Steven H Silver’s compilation of sff figures who died last year, has been posted at Amazing Stories.
(4) FOLLOW THE MONEY. Jason Sanford’s “Genre Grapevine for January 2024” at Patreon about the Hugo controversy and other news is a free read.
… And here’s a great reason why all this drama likely happened in the first place: MONEY!
According to China.org.cn, “Investment deals valued at approximately $1.09 billion were signed during the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) held in Chengdu, Sichuan province, last week at its inaugural industrial development summit, marking significant progress in the advancement of sci-fi development in China. The deals included 21 sci-fi industry projects involving companies that produce films, parks, and immersive sci-fi experiences. Others were related to the development of melodramas, games, and the metaverse. Additionally, various service platforms for sci-fi franchise incubation projects and sci-fi cultural and creative funds will be developed.”
As Charles Stross wrote, “That’s a metric fuckton of moolah in play, and it would totally account for the fan-run convention folks being discreetly elbowed out of the way and the entire event being stage-managed as a backdrop for a major industrial event to bootstrap creative industries (film, TV, and games) in Chengdu. And—looking for the most charitable interpretation here—the hapless western WSFS people being carried along for the ride to provide a veneer of worldcon-ness to what was basically Chinese venture capital hijacking the event and then sanitizing it politically.”…
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit from the Walt Disney Co. against Ron DeSantis that may decide the entertainment giant’s authority to control development around its sprawling theme park.
U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor, in an order issued on Wednesday, found Disney “lacks standing to sue the governor” and DeSantis’ handpicked board that now controls the district in which the company’s park operates. He concluded that the statute reshaping the leadership structure and granting the governor the authority to appoint every member of the tax district’s governing body is “facially constitutional” and cannot be challenged with a free speech claim….
U.S.-based visual effects artists who help bring James Cameron’sAvatar epics to life have voted to unionize in a National Labor Relations Board election.
Of an eligible 88 workers at Walt Disney Studios subsidiary TCF US Productions 27, Inc. who assist with productions for Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment, 57 voted to join the union and 19 voted against, while two ballots were void. These workers include creatures costume leads and environment artists as well as others in the stage, environments, render, post viz, sequence, turn over and kabuki departments…
A strike has been averted atThe Onionand several of its sister publications, at least for now.
Hours before their current labor agreement was set to expire, The Onion union — representing staffers at The Onion, Onion Labs, The A.V. Club, Deadspin and The Takeout — reached a tentative deal on a new contract with owners G/O Media. According to union, affiliated with the Writers Guild of America East, the new agreement “made important gains in wages and workplace protections.” No other details were immediately available.
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born January 31, 1934 — Gene DeWeese. (Died 2012.) This Scroll I’m looking at a writer this I’ve never heard of before, Gene DeWeese. He was a member of fandom, and his stories were published in fanzines such as The Chigger Patch of Fandom, Fan-Fare and Yandro. He was a member of the Eastern Indiana Science Fiction Association and the Midwest Nomads. Fancyclopedia notes, “He tried to attend Midwestcon 4 in 1953 with his friends Bev Clark and Buck Coulson, but left when she wasn’t permitted in due to Beatley’s Hotel’s racist Jim Crow policy.”
Gene DeWeese
His first professional novels appeared in the Sixties, a Man from U.N.C.L.E. book co-written with Robert “Buck” Coulson under the name Thomas Stratton, The Invisibility Affair. They would do one more book in this continuity, The Mind-Twisters Affair.
(I do wish that these, like so many works of that era, had become digital publications. They didn’t obviously.)
In the Seventies he and Coulson wrote under their own names two novels set in fandom, Now You See It/Him/Them… and Charles Fort Never Mentioned Wombats.
Most of us remember DeWeese for his Trek novels which is interesting as they were written later in his career. The four that are set in the original continuity were written the Eighties onward, all by him except one he wrote with Margaret Wander Bonanno and Diane Duane. He also wrote three set in the Next Generation continuity as well.
What else did he do? There’s Dinotopia novels, something I swear exists by the dozens even if they don’t. I think. And one in the Lost in Space continuity as well.
What’s more interesting is the series that I’ve never heard of. The Black Suits from Outer Space YA trilogy involves, well, Men (possibly) in Black, plucky teenagers, spaceships, aliens (some cute, some not) and nothing terrible challenging. Fun is the best word to describe them.
He wrote two novels in the Birthstone Gothic series which as near as I can tell is the standard cookie cutter gothic mansion pulpish series with no redeeming alue ehat-so-ever that a writer would do because, well, there’s money there. (The reviewers on Goodreads admit that they were really, really horrible. In an entertaining way.)
He wrote three novels in the Ravenloft continuity, a campaign setting for Dungeons & Dragons. I just got the giggles, errr, laughs reading the summary of that module, but then I never played fantasy RPGs, just SF ones like the Traveller RPG. What a fantastic RPG that was!
There’s still a lot of other novels that I’ve not mentioned and quite a bit of short stories (none collected).
(10) ENDLESS TROUBLES. Artist Colleen Doran tells how the sky fell on her after she agreed to adapt Good Omens: “Great Big Good Omens Graphic Novel Update”. You think Job had it bad?
Anyway, as a long time Good Omens novel fan, you may imagine how thrilled I was to get picked to adapt the graphic novel.
This is quite a task, I have to say, especially since I was originally going to just draw (and color) it, but I ended up writing the adaptation as well. Tricky to fit a 400 page novel into a 160-ish page graphic novel, especially when so much of the humor is dependent on the language, and not necessarily on the visuals.
Not complainin’, just sayin’.
Anyway, I started out the gate like a herd of turtles, because right away I got COVID which knocked me on my butt.
And COVID brain fog? That’s a thing. I already struggle with brain fog due to autoimmune disease, and COVID made it worse.
Not complainin’ just sayin’.
This set a few of the assignments on my plate back, which pushed starting Good Omens back.
But hey, big fat lead time! No worries!
Then my computer crawled toward the grave….
(11) COME LIVE THAT DAY ALL OVER AGAIN. [Item by Daniel Dern.] Groundhog Day cast members will reunite in Chicago on February 2 to celebrate the life and career of director Harold Ramis.
The reunion will feature an immersive experience inspired by the 1993 film, as well as iconic costumes, props and set pieces.
According to the release (per Harry Caray’s Tavern), nine Groundhog Day actors are expected to show up at Harry Caray’s Tavern, Navy Pier, on Friday, February 2. Unfortunately, the movie’s two leads, Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell, were not listed among those expected to appear. Given Murray’s love of Chicago Cubs baseball, though, he could pop in as a surprise guest, but that’s not been confirmed. However, Stephen Tobolowsky, the actor who played the unforgettable insurance salesman, Ned Ryerson, will be in attendance.
Joining Tobolowsky is another prominent cast member, Bill Murray’s brother, Brian Doyle-Murray (the mayor who almost chokes to death). Marita Geraghty (Nancy Taylor — the woman who makes noises like a chipmunk when she gets “real excited”), Robin Duke (Doris the waitress), Ken Hudson Campbell (the hotel guest who says “ciao”), David Pasquesi (the psychiatrist who asks if Murray’s character can come back tomorrow), Peggy Roeder (Phil Connors’ piano teacher), Richard Henzel (DJ) and Don Rio McNichols (drummer) are all scheduled to show up at Harry Caray’s Tavern. And fans can check out one of Phil Connors (Murray) and Ned Ryerson’s memorable scenes (below) to whet their appetities:
Chef Art Smith’s Reunion, located right next door to Harry Caray’s Tavern, will be playing Groundhog Day on their monitors and treating guests to a complimentary taste of their signature Punxsutawney Punch which will be available for purchase all day. Additional offerings include a GREAT Instagrammable moment where guests can take their pic being a groundhog. Make sure you say the line “I had groundhog for lunch, tastes like chicken” to get dessert comped on the house! Click below to make a reservation.
“Webb’s new images are extraordinary,” said Janice Lee, a project scientist for strategic initiatives at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. “They’re mind-blowing even for researchers who have studied these same galaxies for decades. Bubbles and filaments are resolved down to the smallest scales ever observed, and tell a story about the star formation cycle.”
… Something else that amazed astronomers? Webb’s images show large, spherical shells in the gas and dust. “These holes may have been created by one or more stars that exploded, carving out giant holes in the interstellar material,” explained Adam Leroy, a professor of astronomy at the Ohio State University in Columbus.
Now, trace the spiral arms to find extended regions of gas that appear red and orange. “These structures tend to follow the same pattern in certain parts of the galaxies,” Rosolowsky added. “We think of these like waves, and their spacing tells us a lot about how a galaxy distributes its gas and dust.” Study of these structures will provide key insights about how galaxies build, maintain, and shut off star formation….
(13) DOUBLE DIP. Two new trailers for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, coming to movie theaters March 22. This is the US trailer:
This is the international trailer, which reportedly includes some different footage.
[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Steven H Silver, Kathy Sullivan, Todd Mason, Daniel Dern, Dariensync, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jayn.]
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31 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 1/31/24 It’s A Beautiful Day In The Pixel Scroll, A Beautiful Day For Some Pixels, Would You Be Mine?”
I found the most tasty chocolate treat at Trader Joe’s this week — coconut wrapped in dark chocolate. I treated myself to some after I got home from my brain MRI with anaesthesia. After that, I promptly took a three hour nap. (I was warned that I’d probably need to nap.)
No comments checkbox.
Tired anyway.
(1) I love this idea, but I haven’t read enough of the books. 🙁 I loved the first 1632 book. I read it when it first came out — and then reread it and decided I liked it more.
I really should try to get back into that world. (But right now, I’m having a cozy mystery phase.)
(3) That list is way too long. 🙁
(4) That was a terrific post.
(8) I remember seeing Gene DeWeese on a lot of book covers. I might have one of those Gothics. BTW the Birthstone Gothics do have several covers by George Ziel, so that’s a huge positive. (Look for the 1976 editions rather than the 1975 editions.)
Uh-oh, the check box is gone again… Et tu, Jetpack?
(7) You don’t think I’m going to sing For the Onion makes us strong?
(10) Artist Colleen Duran -> Doran.
I’m a fan of Doran’s work & it seems like I’ve been a fan for as long as I can remember.
In 4) Jason Sanford referred to “reports of a recent angry meeting of the World Science Fiction Society’s (WSFS) Mark Protection Committee.” What reports? Where were they reported?
Soon Lee: Right, Doran. (My eyes read it, then my fingers want to type Duran Duran.)
(8) “Charles Fort” is roughly based on the first Aussie Worldcon, including someone asking the stewardess for a mimeograph. (Don’t ask Frisbie about the wombat.)
(1) Curious if any of the 1632 threads will continue. I’d love to read a conclusion to the Eddie Cantrell Arc.
8) Side note: Traveller is a going concern, with several new titles being published per year [1]. I’m currently playing in two different games…
[1] GDW’s Stakhanovite cadence of one publication every 22 days on average sustained for 22 years will probably never even be approached, alas.
(12) Also, they can all be found in the Mandelbrot set.
(11) If only Cher would show up to sing “I’ve Got You, Babe”
(no click box)
5) of course the judge ruled against Disney. He’s a Republican appointed by Trump. The US court system is no longer fair, and corrupt all the way up to the Supreme Court.
1) The 1632 novels that are written by Flint, or by him and Weber have, historically, (har) been bangers. The ones where they were messing around with the Pope are decent, as are the ones he wrote with Charles Gannon but the rest, hoo, it can drop off real quick, you pays your dollar and you takes your chances.
7) Oh good, I’m glad we were able to avoid a strike that no doubt would have brought this country to it’s knees.
11) I could have sworn you posted this yesterday…
Speaking of Colleen Doran, I picked up her adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s story “Chivalry” last year and it is an absolutely stunning piece of work.
(I backed the Good Omens Kickstarter: as far as I am concerned, she should take whatever time she needs to do that one right while also preserving her health and sanity — and if that means the book is later than the originally promised deadline, I have no problem with that.)
Gene DeWeese and Buck Coulson wanted to dedicate their “Thomas Stratton” book “To my wives and child” but weren’t allowed to. Gene was a relentless collector of sf magazines, so particular about preservation that his bookcases were shrouded in custom-made zippered covers. Although exceptionally silent and stone-faced at conventions, I did once witness him chuckle at snagging a rare item in the huckster room. Nice to see Gene getting coverage here.
Thanks for the title credit!
You never realize how important a click box is to you until it goes away.
The US trailer for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire seems to lean more heavily on the nostalgia factor, whereas the international one doesn’t. I wonder what the marketing reason for that is. Perhaps the studio feels as if the US fans are more looking forward to a movie that evokes their memories of the earlier films, while trying to pitch something newer to the rest of the world.
Clickity
4) I’m wondering: did the entry of great piles of money cause the incompetence in some way? Like, by distracting everyone from the ostensible purpose of Worldcon & the Hugos? Or by pulling in a bunch of people to run it who … weren’t really interested in running it?
On some naive level I don’t see how having more money associated with an event would make it go so much worse. I feel as though I’m missing a step that’s maybe obvious to others …
@8 The Gene DeWeese / Margaret Wander Bonnano collaboration is Probe, which was published under her name. She wrote a draft that Pocket/Paramount did not like, and turned it over to Gene for an uncredited rewrite. 93% of the novel was his work; see https://fanlore.org/wiki/This_is_the_tale_of_PROBE:_The_Novel_I_Didn%27t_Write. The original was later released as Music of the Spheres.
He never cowrote anything Star Trek with Diane Duane; I have no idea what that is referring to.
Steve Mollmann: Margaret Wander Bonnano… wrote a draft that Pocket/Paramount did not like…The original was later released as Music of the Spheres.
Years ago I wrote to MWB, and she sent me an e-copy of Music of the Spheres (which I still have). In our e-mail exchange, she was a lovely person.
Quartermain: I disagree. Eric co-wrote with a number of authors, and he had oversight on the final product.
Iphinome: don’t know. I’ve been waiting for Walter Hunt to finish writing the one he’d started with Eric on what was going on in France, partly because once he has, my short that will be in 1632 and Beyond will get bought (folks have asked me about my character, a French downtimer).
Steve Mollman: Looks like Cat misinterpreted an ISFDB entry for an omnibus edition of four Star Trek novels as being one novel with multiple collaborators.
I think Charlie Stross has sussed it out. Well, the man does know about recondite bureaucracies and evil conspiracies.
The US v. international Ghostbusters trailers almost look like they’re for different movies!
Lurkertype: I think Charlie Stross has sussed it out. Well, the man does know about recondite bureaucracies and evil conspiracies.
Yeah, but I cringed all the way through reading his post and the comments, because there must be at least 50 inaccuracies or blatant untruths listed there*.
* this might be a slight hyperbole, but not as much as it should be
@JJ: I didn’t read the post, and certainly not the comments.
But the paragraph reported here seems to be exactly what happened, and Jason is always good.
Lurkertype: Jason is always good.
We’ll agree to disagree on that. His pieces frequently have errors and inaccuracies.
@Mike: Ah, I should have looked at ISFDB. I see the entry now.
@JJ: Yeah, I have a .doc copy of the novel; I can’t remember if I got it direct from MWB or someone who got it from her, but we used to both post on the same Star Trek books discussion forum back in the early 2000s. I later converted it to a Kindle file and read it. Several editorial regimes after Probe, she finally got back into the Star Trek books game, and her very last Star Trek book actually has a very small reference to one of mine.
@Lurkertype re. item #4
Jason is always good.
No, he is sloppy. There are a number of edits from the original version of his post, after I subtweeted my displeasure about not being namechecked for all the stuff I’ve posted here about Chengdu over the past few months. In some cases he credited other people with things that I had reported earlier here and/or on social media. Futhermore, for someone who considers himself a journalist, he seems curiously unfamiliar with the idea that individual scroll items might have bylines crediting individual contributors, which Mike has always been scrupulous about in my experience. I can only assume that Sanford assumes that Mike did all the Chengdu write-ups himself, or that they magically appeared out of nowhere and landed in Mike’s lap.
(And that latest Sanford post isn’t the first time he’s inaccurately reported stuff that I worked on, and which was posted here.)
After I saw that post, I quickly threw up rage-posts about it on Mastodon and Blue Sky; there’s a similar one on Twitter, which he did respond to, but it’s currently unreadable as I’ve briefly made my account private for reasons.
All the stuff about the big biz involvement had been previously reported by me here in the daily Scrolls between mid September and mid November, with a few intermittent posts coming out in dribs and drabs later on, basically as I recovered from the burnout of the near-daily updates that involved researching, extracting text for machine translation, tidying up those translations, selecting and where necessary editing photos, then writing it up with hyperlinks and everything else for Mike to publish. (If memory serves, I don’t think I actually included that specific English language report that Sanford links to, but I’d certainly included items covering very similar ground, see the November 11th Scroll, for example.) And from a cursory skim of his earlier posts, there is minimal reference to all the hassle inflicted upon Chinese fans by t the con organizers e.g. ceremony lottery; closing of membership sales; failure to properly transfer bid supporter details through; etc. It’s almost as if the hardships suffered by hundreds – thousands? – of people on the other side of the world aren’t anywhere near as important as a handful of relatively privileged people in North America who missed out on the chance to get a silver rocket…
It’s funny how people only bother to look into these things after the long-rumbling Hugo omnishambles finally erupted. Perhaps if people had been paying attention to all the other Chengdu shenanigans – which Chinese fans had been commenting about here long, long, before I got involved, generally getting crickets in response – then maybe some of it could have been nipped in the bud, and the current catastrophe averted?
I found the most tasty chocolate treat at Trader Joe’s this week — coconut wrapped in dark chocolate. I treated myself to some after I got home from my brain MRI with anaesthesia. After that, I promptly took a three hour nap. (I was warned that I’d probably need to nap.)
No comments checkbox.
Tired anyway.
(1) I love this idea, but I haven’t read enough of the books. 🙁 I loved the first 1632 book. I read it when it first came out — and then reread it and decided I liked it more.
I really should try to get back into that world. (But right now, I’m having a cozy mystery phase.)
(3) That list is way too long. 🙁
(4) That was a terrific post.
(8) I remember seeing Gene DeWeese on a lot of book covers. I might have one of those Gothics. BTW the Birthstone Gothics do have several covers by George Ziel, so that’s a huge positive. (Look for the 1976 editions rather than the 1975 editions.)
Uh-oh, the check box is gone again… Et tu, Jetpack?
(7) You don’t think I’m going to sing For the Onion makes us strong?
(10) Artist Colleen Duran -> Doran.
I’m a fan of Doran’s work & it seems like I’ve been a fan for as long as I can remember.
“A Distant Soil was published in fanzines as early as 1979…” Doran would have been fifteen. Whoa…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colleen_Doran
In 4) Jason Sanford referred to “reports of a recent angry meeting of the World Science Fiction Society’s (WSFS) Mark Protection Committee.” What reports? Where were they reported?
Soon Lee: Right, Doran. (My eyes read it, then my fingers want to type Duran Duran.)
(8) “Charles Fort” is roughly based on the first Aussie Worldcon, including someone asking the stewardess for a mimeograph. (Don’t ask Frisbie about the wombat.)
(1) Curious if any of the 1632 threads will continue. I’d love to read a conclusion to the Eddie Cantrell Arc.
8) Side note: Traveller is a going concern, with several new titles being published per year [1]. I’m currently playing in two different games…
[1] GDW’s Stakhanovite cadence of one publication every 22 days on average sustained for 22 years will probably never even be approached, alas.
(12) Also, they can all be found in the Mandelbrot set.
(11) If only Cher would show up to sing “I’ve Got You, Babe”
(no click box)
5) of course the judge ruled against Disney. He’s a Republican appointed by Trump. The US court system is no longer fair, and corrupt all the way up to the Supreme Court.
1) The 1632 novels that are written by Flint, or by him and Weber have, historically, (har) been bangers. The ones where they were messing around with the Pope are decent, as are the ones he wrote with Charles Gannon but the rest, hoo, it can drop off real quick, you pays your dollar and you takes your chances.
7) Oh good, I’m glad we were able to avoid a strike that no doubt would have brought this country to it’s knees.
11) I could have sworn you posted this yesterday…
Speaking of Colleen Doran, I picked up her adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s story “Chivalry” last year and it is an absolutely stunning piece of work.
(I backed the Good Omens Kickstarter: as far as I am concerned, she should take whatever time she needs to do that one right while also preserving her health and sanity — and if that means the book is later than the originally promised deadline, I have no problem with that.)
Gene DeWeese and Buck Coulson wanted to dedicate their “Thomas Stratton” book “To my wives and child” but weren’t allowed to. Gene was a relentless collector of sf magazines, so particular about preservation that his bookcases were shrouded in custom-made zippered covers. Although exceptionally silent and stone-faced at conventions, I did once witness him chuckle at snagging a rare item in the huckster room. Nice to see Gene getting coverage here.
Thanks for the title credit!
You never realize how important a click box is to you until it goes away.
The US trailer for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire seems to lean more heavily on the nostalgia factor, whereas the international one doesn’t. I wonder what the marketing reason for that is. Perhaps the studio feels as if the US fans are more looking forward to a movie that evokes their memories of the earlier films, while trying to pitch something newer to the rest of the world.
Clickity
4) I’m wondering: did the entry of great piles of money cause the incompetence in some way? Like, by distracting everyone from the ostensible purpose of Worldcon & the Hugos? Or by pulling in a bunch of people to run it who … weren’t really interested in running it?
On some naive level I don’t see how having more money associated with an event would make it go so much worse. I feel as though I’m missing a step that’s maybe obvious to others …
@8 The Gene DeWeese / Margaret Wander Bonnano collaboration is Probe, which was published under her name. She wrote a draft that Pocket/Paramount did not like, and turned it over to Gene for an uncredited rewrite. 93% of the novel was his work; see https://fanlore.org/wiki/This_is_the_tale_of_PROBE:_The_Novel_I_Didn%27t_Write. The original was later released as Music of the Spheres.
He never cowrote anything Star Trek with Diane Duane; I have no idea what that is referring to.
Steve Mollmann: Margaret Wander Bonnano… wrote a draft that Pocket/Paramount did not like…The original was later released as Music of the Spheres.
Years ago I wrote to MWB, and she sent me an e-copy of Music of the Spheres (which I still have). In our e-mail exchange, she was a lovely person.
Quartermain: I disagree. Eric co-wrote with a number of authors, and he had oversight on the final product.
Iphinome: don’t know. I’ve been waiting for Walter Hunt to finish writing the one he’d started with Eric on what was going on in France, partly because once he has, my short that will be in 1632 and Beyond will get bought (folks have asked me about my character, a French downtimer).
Steve Mollman: Looks like Cat misinterpreted an ISFDB entry for an omnibus edition of four Star Trek novels as being one novel with multiple collaborators.
I think Charlie Stross has sussed it out. Well, the man does know about recondite bureaucracies and evil conspiracies.
The US v. international Ghostbusters trailers almost look like they’re for different movies!
Lurkertype: I think Charlie Stross has sussed it out. Well, the man does know about recondite bureaucracies and evil conspiracies.
Yeah, but I cringed all the way through reading his post and the comments, because there must be at least 50 inaccuracies or blatant untruths listed there*.
* this might be a slight hyperbole, but not as much as it should be
@JJ: I didn’t read the post, and certainly not the comments.
But the paragraph reported here seems to be exactly what happened, and Jason is always good.
Lurkertype: Jason is always good.
We’ll agree to disagree on that. His pieces frequently have errors and inaccuracies.
@Mike: Ah, I should have looked at ISFDB. I see the entry now.
@JJ: Yeah, I have a .doc copy of the novel; I can’t remember if I got it direct from MWB or someone who got it from her, but we used to both post on the same Star Trek books discussion forum back in the early 2000s. I later converted it to a Kindle file and read it. Several editorial regimes after Probe, she finally got back into the Star Trek books game, and her very last Star Trek book actually has a very small reference to one of mine.
@Lurkertype re. item #4
No, he is sloppy. There are a number of edits from the original version of his post, after I subtweeted my displeasure about not being namechecked for all the stuff I’ve posted here about Chengdu over the past few months. In some cases he credited other people with things that I had reported earlier here and/or on social media. Futhermore, for someone who considers himself a journalist, he seems curiously unfamiliar with the idea that individual scroll items might have bylines crediting individual contributors, which Mike has always been scrupulous about in my experience. I can only assume that Sanford assumes that Mike did all the Chengdu write-ups himself, or that they magically appeared out of nowhere and landed in Mike’s lap.
(And that latest Sanford post isn’t the first time he’s inaccurately reported stuff that I worked on, and which was posted here.)
After I saw that post, I quickly threw up rage-posts about it on Mastodon and Blue Sky; there’s a similar one on Twitter, which he did respond to, but it’s currently unreadable as I’ve briefly made my account private for reasons.
All the stuff about the big biz involvement had been previously reported by me here in the daily Scrolls between mid September and mid November, with a few intermittent posts coming out in dribs and drabs later on, basically as I recovered from the burnout of the near-daily updates that involved researching, extracting text for machine translation, tidying up those translations, selecting and where necessary editing photos, then writing it up with hyperlinks and everything else for Mike to publish. (If memory serves, I don’t think I actually included that specific English language report that Sanford links to, but I’d certainly included items covering very similar ground, see the November 11th Scroll, for example.) And from a cursory skim of his earlier posts, there is minimal reference to all the hassle inflicted upon Chinese fans by t the con organizers e.g. ceremony lottery; closing of membership sales; failure to properly transfer bid supporter details through; etc. It’s almost as if the hardships suffered by hundreds – thousands? – of people on the other side of the world aren’t anywhere near as important as a handful of relatively privileged people in North America who missed out on the chance to get a silver rocket…
It’s funny how people only bother to look into these things after the long-rumbling Hugo omnishambles finally erupted. Perhaps if people had been paying attention to all the other Chengdu shenanigans – which Chinese fans had been commenting about here long, long, before I got involved, generally getting crickets in response – then maybe some of it could have been nipped in the bud, and the current catastrophe averted?