(0) LONG AFTERNOON OF THE SHORT SCROLL. Bot problems again. Even Cloudflare “Under Attack” making us all prove we are human (to the extent that can be done by clicking a box; don’t ask me) didn’t keep the site available. I’ve spent hours dealing with customer service instead of finishing the Scroll. If you’re reading this at all, great!
(1) MORE ON PROZINE OWNERSHIP CHANGE. Publishers Lunch ran this item today:
Must Read Magazines, a new division of Must Read Books Publishing, has acquired five genre magazines: Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. All editorial staff from the magazines will stay on.
The company writes that they plan “to bolster the magazines by expanding their distribution in trade bookstores, increasing their digital footprint, investing more in marketing the magazines to new readers and writers across channels, and using their platform to promote genre fiction authors in general.”
(2) WRITERS AND ARTISTS, GET READY. Dream Foundry is also looking ahead to their annual Writing and Art Contests which open to submissions from April 7 through June 2, 2025.
Prizes include $1500 USD for first place, in each contest (the art contest’s prize money as part of the Monu Bose Memorial Prize). Second place prize is $750 and third place prize is $400.
The 2025 writing contest judges are C. S. E. Cooney and Carlos Hernandez, with contest coordinator Julia Rios.
Naomi Franquiz, Bex Glendining, and Jasmine Walls are the art contest judges, with Ilinica Barbacuta as the contest coordinator.
(3) BRANCHING OUT. The latest episode of the Center for Science and Imagination’s CSI Skill Tree is “Chrono Trigger with Aidan Moher and Troy L. Wiggins”. The Skill Tree series examines how video games envision possible futures and build thought-provoking worlds.
In this episode, we discuss Chrono Trigger, a time-hopping roleplaying adventure that unfolds its story through an alchemical blend of science fiction and fantasy elements. It’s often cited as one of the best and most influential video games of all time.
Our guests are Troy L. Wiggins, a writer and editor and cofounder of FIYAH, the award-winning magazine of Black speculative fiction, and Aidan Moher, a writer of speculative fiction and nonfiction, founder of the Hugo Award–winning blog A Dribble of Ink, and author of the book Fight, Magic, Items: The History of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the Rise of Japanese RPGs in the West.
Also, here’s a YouTube playlist with all 17 of our Skill Tree episodes thus far.
(4) SPSFC STATUS. The Self-Published Science Fiction Competition, now in its fourth year, was started by Hugh Howey in 2021, and administered by Duncan Swan, however, it was publicly revealed earlier this month for the first time that neither has been involved with the contest for over two years. The leads of the volunteer judging teams and a few others have been keeping it going.
The reason for the public statement — “Let Me Speak to Your Manager” – was to keep Howey from becoming the focus of complaints about a controversy which he had no hand in creating. The day after SPSFC’s volunteer leaders posted their new “SPSFC Code of Conduct”, they got a lot of social media pushback.
One side contends an author’s book must be accepted in a contest even if his social media is filled with antisemtism, racism, misogyny, and/or transphobia.
The other side, the contest administrators, say they don’t have to potentially honor a book by such a person, or associate with them.
Reportedly a number of authors have withdrawn themselves from the competition – at least nine.
(5) MEMORY LANE.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Roger Zelazny’s Damnation Alley (1969 novel, 1977 film)
Roger Zelazny’s Damnation Alley is a novel that I’ll admit that I do like. As a novel it works rather well with protagonist, if that’s the right description for Tanner, a landscape that is truly horrendous and a story that is interesting. The film, well, I’ll deal with that eventually. There will be spoilers for that.
It was published first in 1969 by G.P. Putnam’s Sons. The cover art (which I think is utterly wrong for the novel) is by Jack Gaughan. It was by no means as bad as what Paul Lehr did for the Berkley Medallion cover that was the next edition. A recent edition is from a Greek publisher, Mnemos, and there it’s renamed Route 666, but I like its cover over any of the others done so far.
I did not know until now that a novella length version of this was first published in the October 1967 issue of Galaxy. Who here can tell me how significantly different the two versions are? That novella is in The Last Defender of Camelot collection which is available from the usual suspects.
The novella was nominated for a Hugo at Baycon, the year “Riders of the Purple Wage” by Philip José Farmer won. Lord of Light did win a Hugo that year. That was also the year all Best Dramatic Presentation nominees were Star Trek episodes.
SPOILERS AND A RANT ABOUT THE FILM SO IF YOU’RE THE ONLY FAN WHO HAS NOT SEEN THIS, TIME TO GO READ SOMETHING.
Now the film. May I quote Doctor Seuss’ The Grinch? I thought it stink, stank stunk.
Two actors, George Peppard and Jan Michael Vincent are really extraneous. Neither is known for his acting skills. They are somewhere in a missile silo in the southwestern desert with a small army of extras fighting over Playboy magazines (no, I’m not kidding) in the aftermath of civilization destroying in World War III. Albany is the only city in the United States still functioning why Albany who knows. Maybe the dry deep snows every year protected it.
Those Playboy magazines? A fight will break out somehow leading to a fire that ignites missiles (don’t ask please), destroys the bunker, and kills everyone but the two leads. Naturally.
We will get bad special effects monsters including giant scorpions beyond belief. How the film how much cost who knows. It was supposed to cost around 6-1/2 million dollars that it was budgeted for but it went way over budget.
So that explains why I found it so distracted, so badly done because it really wasn’t a film. It was a collection of stock footage put together like a seamstress who didn’t know what she was doing working with bits and pieces of cloth creating the Frankenstein a patchwork of costumes for a kid going on Halloween where it didn’t matter that didn’t look good.
It didn’t help that the script was really a piece of shit. It certainly had very little to do with the original novel. I’m not sure they actually read the novel. I think somebody told them hey this is what it was and they went from there.
END OF SPOILERS. REALLY MY RANT IS OVER.
Surprisingly Rotten Tomatoes give it a 34% rating. Of course it’s become a cult classic God forbid us some films are bad enough that happens and this one certainly is bad enough.
(6) PAY ATTENTION. “Marvel fans are just realizing a neat detail in Captain America: The Winter Soldier is different wherever you watch it” says GamesRadar+.
Some Marvel fans have just realized that there’s an interesting detail in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The movie features a close-up of Steve Rogers’ notes about pop culture moments he missed, and one fan shared it on Reddit.
They wrote that their “headcanon” was that Rogers invested in Apple after he wrote it down on his list. However, then some viewers realized that the version of the list they’d seen in the movie was actually pretty different. “Interestingly, that list was different depending on where you watched the movie,” one user explained….
…A third pointed out that there is one thing that mostly stays the same on every list though. “All these lists just prove that Thai food rules everywhere,” they commented.
Some of the details on the US list include “Steve Jobs (Apple)”, “Nirvana (band)”, and “Disco” and in the UK, it features “The Beatles”, “World Cup Final (1966)”, and “Sean Connery”. Some other highlights from other countries include “Oldboy” in Korea, “Rafa Nadal” in Spain, and “Tim Tams” in Australia. You can see the variations of the list here….
(7) YOUR PLASTIC FUTURE. “Warner Bros DC & Mattel Ink Consumer Products Deal” – Deadline has the story.
Mattel, Inc. and Warner Bros. Discovery Global Consumer Products announced a global, multi-year licensing agreement utilizing DC’s entire library.
Through the partnership, Mattel is awarded the global licensing rights to develop and market a full range of DC-themed action figures, playsets, accessories, role play products, and adult collectibles starting in the second half of 2026. The agreement spans all DC stories and characters including Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Joker, Harley Quinn, and many more.
Nick Karamanos, SVP of Entertainment Partnerships at Mattel, said: “It is an incredibly proud milestone to welcome DC back to Mattel. We look forward to leveraging our Mattel Playbook approach to brand management, product design, and innovation to bring DC’s popular characters to life across all channels. This renewed partnership will reflect our shared passion for engaging and inspiring fans and collectors of all ages.”
[Thanks to Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Joey Eschrich, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
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Thanks for getting the scroll up, Mike.
(0) Ah. So the problems I’ve had aren’t just me. Best wishes Mike, with the problems.
I made it through the wilderness
I finally made it in after about 5 hours and multiple tries. Another site also made me prove my humanness, but that one immediately let me through, The Evil Ones especially love File770 for some reason.
I really appreciate the work you do here, Mike. Thank you.
Thanks, Mike!
(I figured the bots were back when Cloudflare reappeared.)
Thanks for all the work, Mike. I would love to know what scum is so insulted that they’re paying for this attack.
(1) Well, it sounds good. I’m biased, though – I signed a contract for two books in April, ’23, and by May of last year, my publisher had been sold twice. And the current publisher claims to be more “traditional”… print their own copies… and so charge $4, I think, more for hard copies, which are only available from them, and Amazon’s charging $4 more than it was before for my novel. Not happy.
Memory Lane: interesting. I’ve known about Damnation Alley, but didn’t really remember it. Never saw the movie. But… Last Defeneder of Camelot – I still can’t remember it, but I remember, all these years ago, thinking it was Good.
Back in the day I understand that Roger called the film “Darnation Alley”.
7) Mattel had the DC toy license in the 2010s, then it went to MacFarlane Toys and now it appears to be back at Mattel.
MacFarlane’s DC superhero action figures have been nice to look at, but the character selection is limited (unless you want umpteen versions of Batman), acessories are odd (I won a McFarlane Batman figure who has a electrical guitar because of reasons), the figures are stiff and the articulation isn’t great. We don’t know what Mattel will do, but the Masters of Universe Origins and Masterverse lines as well as their Wrestling lines will give you some idea.
Mattel also owns Fisher Price, so we’ll possibly get Little People DC superhero sets. Doll versions of DC superheroines are also likely
I’m glad the SPSFC has been able to get back to books. Babysitting “free speech means I get to say what I want anywhere I want” fuggheads turns out to be an unsatisfying hobby.
5) Cat might not like Jack Gaughan’s cover for the 1st edition of the DAMNATION ALLEY novel, but I remember liking Gaughan’s b&w illustrations for the original novella in GALAXY.
(I’ve always tended to prefer Gaughan’s b&w work over his color work. Remembering some of the illustrations he did for Jack Vance stories in particular.)
Also strongly prefer that original novella to the novel; I thought a lot of the added material was unnecessary, and weakened the relentless intensity of the original version. But I’ve always thought Zelazny’s best work was at novella length.
Glad the scroll made it through.
I’m on mobile and use a few browsers on android; some browsers can get through the cloud flare check and some don’t.
Glad I can read the new pixel scroll today.
(0) Had to click a box. My understanding is it’s not the click as such that “proves you’re human” but the timing and mouse movements, or some equivalent on a touch screen. So your best chance must be to be sloppy about it.
(0) Thanks for the work
Its been a long day at the scroll factory last night
0) I like the clickbox! It verifies I’m human a lot faster than I can do it myself.
I think it’s a pity that Roger Zelazny didn’t write a book based on ancient Caledonian mythology titled “Laird o’ Licht”.
Looks like I dodged a bullet by having the SPSFC reviewers scorn my Broken Angel book as being a “ranch romance” and completely missing the mind control programming elements as well as the biobots (That whooshing sound is them completely missing the point of the book–but what’s to be expected given they only committed to reading 10% of the book. Which in my opinion is a stupid way to do it).
Heh.
I’ve been on SPSFC teams where all judges are asked to read the first 15-20% of their initial 30-35 book allocation. Even over a five-month period, it’s hard to bring fresh eyes to that many books so the playing field stays level. Often if a judge really liked a book they kept reading to the end.
My team for SPSFC 4 switched to the two scouts method, where at least two judges read every book in full and decided whether to recommend it for others to read. As books got a Yes or Strong Yes vote other judges read it too. It seems to work better.
I read your book Inheritance during the break between contests. I enjoyed the twisted family dynamic and really wanted to see the main villain get what’s coming to them. You did a good job of building tension ahead of major events. Sometimes I was so fired up about what was coming that I wanted things to be bigger when the shit hit the fan.
@rcade…thank you.
(5) My understanding (which is not guaranteed to be accurate) is that the vehicle from the Damnation Alley movie is what really has a cult following, and that the movie itself is just along for the ride (as it were).
Bruce, I found one of those illustrations in this essay. Yes, it definitely captures the tone of the story.
@Xtifr I HATE that vehicle with the fire of a thousand suns. From the outside, I suspect it’s a jeep pulling a trailer with fabric stretched over it to make a fake body.
You can really see the effect when it goes around a curve.
There really was such a vehicle. For several years commuters heading into the Cahuenga Pass– like me– could see the top of it over the fence of the lot where it was stored.
Whether there were also other effects created in the way you think I don’t know.
You remind me, though, that the shots of the ocean-going submarine in The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming used a false front built onto a big motorboat.
There’s an interesting look at the history and the construction of it here.
Great link, Cat.
In Google Maps if you look up Gene Winfield’s Rod and Custom Shop on Sierra Highway, there are a huge number of photos from a public event in 2019 that include the Landmaster. It was in good shape then.
There’s also a giant prop that looks like a spacecraft and has “Ahab” written on the nose. I can’t figure out its origin but in the 2019 movie Ad Astra there was reportedly a scene where “Ahab” was written on a rocket.