(0) Spent a great Saturday at my brother’s to celebrate my birthday, which is today. And Cat Eldridge celebrated yesterday, because his really is on the 15th. So it’s been a candle-powered 770 weekend.

(1) SFPA ELECTION. The Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) has voted in Brian U. Garrison as their next SFPA President. Brian’s term begins March 1.

The vote breakdown by percentage was:

Brian U. Garrison – 48%
Wendy Van Camp – 38%
Miguel Mitchell – 14%

(2) ONLY A SMOKING CRATER LEFT. Somebody on Bluesky got themselves blocked in a hurry.

(3) GREENE FOLLOW-UP. Naomi King has posted another video about her sexual assault allegations against fellow YouTuber Daniel Greene: “Daniel Greene Situation Part 2”. In relating their history King makes a number of what a lawyer would call “admissions against interest”, statements about their conduct that tend to make a speaker more credible because they make them more vulnerable to criticism.

(4) ALIEN ON HIS MIND. Camestros Felapton’s “Thinking about Xenomorphs” is inspired by Alien: Romulus but (as he says) is not a review. It’s a place for him to express opinions like this one:

….I think I dislike the whole bit that runs through the series of the xenomorphs being some kind of perfect organism. They are weird and nasty and I really like them as monsters, they really are terrifying. They are at their deadliest when people underestimate them or attempt to control them. That aspect of them symbolically punishing ignorance or hubris gives them a supernatural vibe without them ever actually being supernatural*….

(5) ROBOT TRUTH. [Item by Andrew (not Werdna).] The New Yorker looks at “Doing the Robot, for Your School”.

A huge event, with hundreds of participants, takeout pizza boxes stacked shoulder-high on carts, a jazz-rock band, a d.j., teams from about thirty high schools, robots by the dozen, and robot parts by the (probably) thousands spread out on tables in the cafeteria: it was the first day of the qualifiers for the all-city semifinals in the NYC first Robotics Competition, at Francis Lewis High School, in Queens. 

Zigman asked the team to wait a second while he took a group photo, as he had done with other winners. “I love this,” he said, as the kids dispersed. “Look at who was here today. All kinds of kids—African Americans, Indians, West Indians, Asians, Hispanics, Muslims, Jews. Our stem centers, which stay open every day until 10 p.m., are just thronged. We have kids working on robots in the halls. Kids are fascinated with this. They work together, help one another, pick up math skills almost unconsciously. Differences of race, religion, your truth, my truth—all of that vanishes. Here the truth is the robots.”…

(6) PRESERVING THE FIRST CAP. In “Saving Captain America” – the Guardians of Memory tell Library of Congress blog readers how they did it.

The original concept drawing of Captain America is in the Print and Photograph Division at the Library of Congress. It is one of the feature artifacts in the Stephen A. Geppi Collection of Comic and Graphic Arts that was donated to the Library in 2018.

Captain America was the creation of Joe Simon who sketched this drawing in 1940 while working for Timely Comics, now Marvel Comics. It was a turbulent time following the Depression with the threat of war in the news. So it is easy to understand the appeal of Captain America, an ordinary man who was given extraordinary powers, a figure who embodied our American ideals. Simon’s character, drawn in black ink, with a patriotic uniform colored with red and blue watercolor, joined the other popular comic superheroes of the day; Superman and Batman.

The drawing arrived at the Library in a gold oval frame that measured roughly 14 x 20 inches.

Shortly afterwards it was unframed by a specialist who discovered a pencil drawing on the back along with several condition problems that prompted her to bring it to the Conservation Division for treatment.

During my initial examination I found that the drawing was on a rectangular sheet that had been cut multiple times and folded up to make the drawing fit into the small frame. The fragile paper had split apart at some of the folds where sticky white tape had been applied to repair them. Patches of gummy adhesive with paper residues from the old window mat attachment were on the front of the drawing. The paper was also badly distorted from being confined in the frame preventing the paper, a hygroscopic material, from expanding during periods of higher humidity.

My goal was to unfold the paper without causing more damage and to remove all the white tape repairs, adhesive, and paper patches. The paper splits and cuts were to be mended and the drawing flattened and housed in conservation quality materials….

(7) RECROSSING THE ATLANTIC. “Lewis Carroll collection given to his Oxford college in surprise US donation” reports the Guardian.

Thousands of letters, photographs, illustrations and books from one of the world’s largest private Lewis Carroll collections have been donated to the UK out of the blue by an American philanthropist.

The extraordinary gift has been made to Christ Church, University of Oxford, where Carroll lectured and where he met Alice Liddell, the inspiration for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which celebrates its 160th anniversary this year.

The collection includes more than 200 autograph letters, some of which are unpublished. There are a number to his “child-friends” and their parents, often sending riddles and jokes and copies of books. Some shed light on Carroll’s interest in the theatre.

There are also significant early editions, including the Alice books, The Hunting of the Snark and mathematical works. A copy of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground is inscribed to Alice’s mother by Carroll: “To her, whose children’s smiles fed the narrator’s fancy and were his rich reward: from the author. Xmas 1886.”

Carroll is considered one of the best amateur photographers of his day and the donation includes more than 100 of his photographs. The subjects include his friends and noted figures such as the painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti….

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

February 16, 1954 — Iain M. Banks. (Died 2013).

By Paul Weimer: Some of you might think I am fortunate, for I still have plenty of Iain Banks yet to read. 

You might ask why I, such an indefatigable reader of science fiction, would be in such a position.  And, unfortunately, it is because of the first Banks novel I read, and one that I bounced hard off.
Inversions.

Inversions is the Culture novel that is not a real Culture novel. It’s set on a distant planet, at a medieval level of technology with only the vaguest hints that there is a wider world out there. It’s got alternating points of view, and there is a hint of technology and one bit of implication about one of the characters, it is otherwise a fantasy novel without a scrap of magic or wonder. It’s dry and mundane and I wondered if Banks was for me at all. So I didn’t read Banks for years thereafter. I decided that the Culture could flourish in splendor without me. The Culture didn’t need me as a reader. It had its champions and readers. 

And then Banks tempted me to try his work again. 

Because Banks wrote a multiverse novel, Transitions. Readers of my reviews and criticism know I am all about multiverse novels, long before the multiverse was a thing. And so when Banks announced he was writing one, I was mildly curious. (And then a friend told me it was fantastic and I needed to read it)

So, I decided to give Transitions a try.

To my delight, unlike Inversions, I found Transitions to be one of the most interesting and innovative novels in the subgenre. Stunningly and engagingly well written, and a fantastic “chase sequence” unlike nearly anything I’ve ever read in cross world books. Philosophical, thoughtful, engaging, and highly literate. It was an eye-opener, and I started to reassess my opinion of Banks’ work. Maybe, I thought, Inversions was an outlier.  But Mount TBR is huge and I didn’t read a Banks novel for some years afterwards. 

I finally started reading Culture novels with The Player of Games a couple of days ago. Yes, it was for a podcast, and having fondly remembered Transitions, I finally decided to give Banks and The Culture a chance. And I am so glad that I did. I finally got to see this mysterious Culture and its post-scarcity society, put in contact and dealing with a dangerous, avaricious empire. I finally saw what others have seen in the Culture novels in specific and Banks’ work in general.  The depth of worldbuilding, psychology, sense of wonder and the big philosophical questions. Big damn space opera but space opera of a metier quite unlike most in the field. 

I haven’t had a chance to dip back into The Culture since, however. But one day I will. I am not going to try and re-read Inversions, though. 

He passed away in 2013. Requiescat in pace.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

• The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee asks a rhetorical question.
• Cornered sells a secret.
• Free Range does statistics.
• Loose Parts’ calculations are not quite on the nose.
• Pardon My Planet picks a strange time to thank others.
• Bizarro scoffs at predictions.
• Speed Bump depicts a Middle Ages complaint.
• Wumo tries a questionable meetup.

(10) BEFORE THE IDES OF MARCH. Mashable proclaims, “A dramatic total lunar eclipse is coming. You don’t want to miss it.”

A blood moon is coming.

The entirety of the lower 48 states, the greater Americas, and some regions beyond will witness — weather permitting — a total lunar eclipse the night of March 13 and into the early morning of March 14. This special cosmic event occurs when the moon, Earth, and sun are aligned. Long, red wavelengths of light pass through Earth’s atmosphere and are projected onto the moon in majestic rusty or crimson colors.

(11) THROWING HANDS. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] The UK has a new entrant in the race to develop our robot overlords. And they have the balls cojones guts to name the company Humanoid. Yet, no one has yet been brave enough to name their bot Hymie. “UK firm unleashes new humanoid robot with hands faster than humans” at Interesting Engineering.

…Humanoid’s mission is to lead the society into a new future where humans and robots interact seamlessly in the same way that people use the smartphones today. This could help to address a whole host of issues, including workforce shortages in certain industries.

“At Humanoid, our team believes in a future where humans and machines work side by side, not in competition, but in harmony,” Sokolov explained in a press statement. “This societal shift will address social issues such as workforce shortages and aging population while giving people more freedom to focus on more creative and meaningful work.”

“The strongest argument in favor of humanoids is that the world is already designed for humans, so they can seamlessly integrate and quickly adapt to existing environments,” he continued. “With a world-class team, Humanoid has ambitious plans for the year ahead. In 2025, we plan to develop and test our alpha prototype for two platforms — wheeled and bipedal. We’re also in ongoing discussions with leading retail companies for potential pilot projects.”…

[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Michael J. Walsh, Andrew (not Werdna), Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Steve Davidson.]