(1) PRH PLANS EDITION OF A FAMOUS POTTER FANFIC. [Item by Anne Marble.] Penguin Random House (through Del Rey) is going to publish a revised version of “Manacled,” a very famous Harry Potter fanfic. This is a Hermione plus Draco (Dramione) fan fiction with a lot of trigger warnings. The author, SenLinYu, announcd this on Tumblr:
I’m excited to announce that I have signed a book deal with Del Rey at Penguin Random House in the US and Michael Joseph in the UK for my debut novel, Alchemised, a standalone dark fantasy set in a war-torn world of necromancy and alchemy, in which a healer with amnesia is taken as a prisoner of war and must fight to protect her lost memories and the secrets hidden among them. It will grapple with themes of trauma and survival, legacy, and the way that love can drive one to extreme darkness, and it is, as you may be able to tell, a reimagined version of Manacled.
I know I’ve been rather quiet about my publishing journey, and a lot of that has been because I didn’t want to spark any concerns or worry that I might be abruptly taking away a story that is such a deep part of myself and that I know has meant so much to so many people. This process has unfolded very slowly and quietly because I have tried to be mindful as I could be in every step of the way.
As most of you know, I have been a reader in fandom long before I ever began to write. Fanfiction is incredibly special to me, and I have tried to do my best not to undermine its legal protection or allow my works to do so either. During the last several years, there has been a growing issue with illegal sales of Manacled, putting both me and the incredible community that shares fanfiction freely in legal jeopardy.
After consulting with the OTW as well as other lawyers, it has grown clear that as a transformative writer I have limited options in protecting my stories from this kind of exploitation, but I wasn’t sure what to do; I didn’t want to just take the story down, in part because I worried that might only exacerbate the issue, but I didn’t know what other options I had. Then I suddenly had this idea of alchemy, which was peculiarly appropriate; an academic world filled with unique transmutational abilities, and a necromantic war against people who had discovered the secrets of immortality, and I could see a path to reimagining the story while still holding on to as much of the original spirit of Manacled as possible.
I began redrafting the concept privately around Christmas 2022, and then as if the universe had aligned, just as I was finishing, Caitlin Mahony and Rivka Bergman of WME reached out to me and were delightfully enthusiastic about concepts and ideas for my new alchemical world and the ways I had reimagined the story.
I’m thrilled to be working with Emily Archbold, my visionary editor at Del Rey, along with Rebecca Hilsdon at Michael Joseph in the UK, to polish this novel for publication in Fall 2025. I feel uniquely privileged that both my publishing teams are familiar with Manacled and understand how special it is to so many people, and how important it is that this reimagining captures the same spirit while also having its own wings.
Manacled is not going anywhere at present. It will remain online throughout 2024, at which point it will, if you’ll pardon the pun, alchemise for 2025 and be removed from AO3….
The revised version is described as “Alchemised, a standalone dark fantasy set in a war-torn world of necromancy and alchemy, in which a healer with amnesia is taken as a prisoner of war and must fight to protect her lost memories and the secrets hidden among them.” As far as I know, it will be published under the name SenLinYu — just like the original fan fic. A lot of people are happy for the author. They are happy she is finally going to get paid for her work. They also see it as Penguin Random House banking on the popularity of her fanfic.
senlinyu getting a publishing deal to make manacled a real book I’m so emotional rn she deserves this so much (and so do I for being victimized by her writing) pic.twitter.com/uKVAXIXGbk
One aspect that drove the author’s decision is that “Manacled” is so popular that some people have resold it online without the permission of the author. However, those sales are illegal, and they jeopardize both the original author and the fanfic community. The author mentioned that she consulted with the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) as well as lawyers about how to protect herself. So she decided to revise the fanfic and turn it into a new work. It will be sold in 2025. Until then, the original fanfic will still be available on A03. This news is not without its critics. First, a number of posts have accused the author of ripping off The Handmaid’s Tale alongside the Harry Potter elements. I haven’t read the fanfic, so I’m not sure how close it gets. From what I understand, there is a “concubine” element. (It seems a lot of dystopias have borrowed heavily from A Handmaid’s Tale in recent years.)
Manacled being published as official work feels so tacky to me considering it copied world building of two popular fictional works like harry potter and handmaid’s tale. If I was an author I would sue that shit so fast
One poster got truly angry about this upcoming publication, calling the author a “freak” and a “horrible person” for romanticizing abuse. I’m sure this won’t be the only complaint along these lines. I’m torn with that sort of take. Yes, maybe some readers might get the wrong idea from reading a very dark story. But maybe we’re not giving readers (even young ones) enough credit.
(2) DON’T LET KIDS GET SMARTER. “LeVar Burton’s Banned Book Rainbow” is a show-within-the-show on Jimmy Kimmel Live, beginning at the 11:05 mark:
(3) KGB. Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel present Isabel Yap and Randee Dawn in person at the KGB Bar on Wednesday, February 14 starting at 7:00 p.m. Eastern.
ISABEL YAP
Isabel Yap is the author of Never Have I Ever: Stories, which was published by Small Beer Press in 2021, and was named one of the 2021 Best Books for Adults by the New York Public Library. Her work has appeared in venues including Tor.com, Lithub, and Year’s Best Weird Fiction. Her collection won the British Fantasy Award, and was a finalist for the Ignyte, Locus, Crawford, and World Fantasy Awards. By day she works in the tech industry as a Product Manager. She likes visiting museums, playing the ukulele, and commiserating with others about how hard it is to write books.
RANDEE DAWN
Randee Dawn is the author of the bestselling novel Tune in Tomorrow, which was a finalist in the 2023 Next Generation Indie Awards. Her latest story, “The Fifth Horseman,” appears in the new anthology The Four ???? of the Apocalypse. Her stories have also appeared in Soul Scream, Horror for the Throne, and Even in the Grave, and she is the co-editor of Across the Universe: Tales of Alternative Beatles. An entertainment journalist who writes for the Los Angeles Times, Variety, and other publications, Randee lives in Brooklyn with her spouse and a fluffy, sleepy Westie.
Location: KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street, New York, NY 10003 (Just off 2nd Ave, upstairs)
(4) CHENGDU WORLDCON ROUNDUP. [Item by Ersatz Culture.]
Observations from Hugo winner Ling Shizhen regarding the trophies
As yet, I’ve not noticed any Chinese coverage of the core part of Chris M. Barkley’s interview with Dave McCarty on Weibo, perhaps because of the initial lack of transcripts making that less accessible to non-native speakers, plus I’m uncertain how accessible SoundCloud, Google Drive, etc are to Chinese users. (Google Drive I’m fairly sure is inaccessible in China without workarounds)
However, the notes at the end of Chris’ piece, regarding damage to the trophies that were shipped to the US, have garnered some discussion.
One of my Chinese SF friends made me aware that Best Fanzine co-winner Ling Shizhen had spoken on WeChat about the subject. I don’t personally have access to that app, nor did I have alternative contact details for Ling, so I reached out to RiverFlow to see if I could get more information which I might be able to share more widely.
Here is the the subsequent response from Ling via RiverFlow, firstly in the original Chinese, and then a machine translation via DeepL, with minor manual edits for phrasing.
On 22nd October 2023, I arrived in Chongqing from Chengdu [a journey of approximately 300km per Google]. During the journey, my bag was stuffed to the brim, so I basically held the trophy in my hand to prevent it getting damaged, and although it felt heavy, the trophy was fine.
When I returned to Shanghai from Chongqing [a distance of just under 1,700km per Google], I couriered back a large number of items I received at the 2023 Chengdu World Science Fiction Convention, so I thought it would be better to put the trophy in my backpack. After the trophy was properly placed, I was careful all the way, and it endured nothing worse than the inevitable bumps of walking and trains.
After arriving home, I found that there was a problem: the connection between the “stargate” and the base of the trophy had loosened up in a way that I had not been seen before, and the “stargate” was a bit shaky. It was only then that I realised that the “stargate” was not completely welded to the base of the trophy. So I think it would have been better to go all the way back to Shanghai from Chongqing carrying it by hand. At least my personal experience shows that this trophy is not very contact-friendly.
Many thanks to Ling Shizhen and RiverFlow for getting back to me so promptly, and for providing the information I requested.
Ling Shizhen and RiverFlow receiving the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Fanzine. Image from the 2023 Hugo Ceremony video streamClose up of the 2023 Hugo base, taken from the 2023 Worldcon Opening Ceremony video stream, previously published in the 2023-10-18 Pixel Scroll.
The story of a half fairy, half human woman has gripped UK book buyers this week, as a novel about the hybrid heroine shot to the top of the bestseller chart.
House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J Maas, the third book in the Crescent City series featuring Bryce Quinlan, has become the third fastest-selling science fiction and fantasy title since records began since its publication on 30 January.
Maas sold 44,761 copies of the new title in the week of its launch, coming in behind Terry Pratchett’s 2011 book Snuff with 54,687 launch week sales and Rebecca Yarros’s Iron Flame which saw a record-setting 57,055 sales last November, according to the Bookseller.
Maas and Yarros are driving a surge in popularity of the “romantasy” genre, which blends elements of romance and fantasy and has attracted huge numbers of readers through social media recommendations, particularly via TikTok. Videos with hashtags related to Maas have been viewed more than 14bn times, her publisher Bloomsbury said.”
(6) USED OR OVERUSED? At the Fantast Author’s Handbook, Philip Athans challenges the use of particular word: “Active Search: Because”.
…I want to talk about the word “because.” I think “because,” which like all words is perfectly fine and in no way “banned,” sometimes—actually, fairly often—sounds clunky….
(7) COLLINS FUNDRAISER. Horror author, comics creator, and File 770 news contributor Nancy Collins was hospitalized earlier this week with blood clots in one lung, and as she says in the title of her GoFundMe, “What Doesn’t Kill Me Leaves Me With Medical Bills”.
This past Saturday (February 3rd, 2024) I woke up to discomfort in my left chest every time I inhaled. As the day went on I experienced increasing pain that radiated into my armpit and through my left shoulder, accompanied by extreme exhaustion. That evening I drove myself to the E.R. at a hospital near my house here in Macon, GA. By that point I thought I was having some kind of cardiac episode, as my mother’s side of the family had a long history of heart issues.
Within 30 minutes of being taken into the exam area, I was screaming in agony and could no longer sit up. Being kept prone helped alleviate the intensity of the pain, but breathing was still an issue.
An EKG, a set of Xrays, and a MRI scan later, I was told I wasn’t having a heart attack. However, I did have a blood clot in my lower left lung–actually, several small ones, according to the doctor. He said that if I hadn’t come in when I did Saturday night, odds are I would not have woken up Sunday morning.
They admitted me into the hospital, where I was ordered bed rest, pumped full of blood thinners, and then underwent several ultrasounds. They kept me over the weekend, finally releasing me Monday evening with several prescriptions and an outpatient appointment with a hematologist. I suspect I will be on blood thinners for the rest of my life. (I know, ironic for someone best known for writing vampire stories. Even more ironic–the clots appear to be the result of me sitting too long in front of my laptop while writing. )
I’m setting up this campaign to help with the medical bills from this unexpected reminder that I am no longer a spring chicken. While I have medical insurance, it ain’t all that and a bag of chips. I’m still on the hook for 25% of my treatment–possibly more, if it turns out any of the physicians, technicians, or laboratories who handled my case happen to be out-of-network.
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born February 7, 1960 — James Spader, 64. How can I not do the Birthday of James Spader, the performer who played Dr. Daniel Jackson, Egyptologist in Stargate? Yes, I’m really fond of that film. And yes, I am equally fond of the Stargate SG-1 franchise.
His first SF film actually came as a starring role as Joey Callaghan in Starcrossed where an alien woman is running from a deadly enemy and tries to hide here. She meets a young mechanic (Joey), who helps her to go home and to be a freedom fighter there.
James Spader in 2014. Photo by Gage Skidmore.
A decade later, his next role is in Stargate one. I thought it was a great performance by him. And yes, the character as performed by Michael Shanks in Stargate SG-1 continuity is just as interesting, just completely different. His role I thought was more true to that of being an Egyptologist but the Stargate SG-1 continuity isn’t really concerned with the original premise, is it?
If you saw Avengers: Age of Ultron, and I will readily admit that I have not, he not only voiced Ultron but did the motion capture for it.
But his greatest role, and I readily admit that is not genre was in The Blacklist as Raymond “Red” Reddington, a former US Naval Intelligence officer turned fugitive who’s forced to become an FBI crime consultant. And I was surprised to learn that he was an executive producer for that series.
(10) TRACING THE ROOTS OF COMICS. At Colleen Doran’s Funny Business the artist takes her work on a Neil Gaiman book as the jumping-off point for a discussion of comic art history: “CHIVALRY: From Illuminated Manuscripts to Comics”.
One of the many reasons I wanted to adapt Neil Gaiman’s Chivalry into graphic novel form was to create a comic as a bridge and commentary re: comics and illuminated manuscripts.
We’re often told that the first comic was Action Comics #1 featuring Superman, a collection of Superman comic strips that morphed into comic books as an art form.
Sequential art predates Action Comics #1.
Action Comics popularized sequential art book storytelling that had already appeared in other forms in fits and starts throughout history. Comic books didn’t take off as a popular medium for several reasons, not least of which was the necessary printing process hadn’t been invented yet and it’s hard to popularize – and commercialize – something most people can never see.
You find sequential art in cave paintings and in Egyptian hieroglyphics. I’ve read that comics (manga) were invented by the Japanese in 12th century scrolls.
And sequential art appears over and over again in Western art going back well over 1000 years, and in book form at least 1100 years ago.
On an overcast day, the delicate pointed crown of the Brooklyn Tower is invisible in the clouds, as if a vengeful enemy has shrouded its superlative vantage in smoke. Nonetheless, over the low-rise flatlands that comprise most of the borough, the jagged edges rising along the dark shaft are present and unmistakable.
The Batman building, the Tower of Sauron — the nicknames write themselves. And why not? Better this than another squared-off tower that simply fiddles with the ratio of white solid to blue glass. Maybe I should hate it for its bigness, its blackness, its thrust — but I don’t. Skylines need punctuation. The designers of the Brooklyn Tower, SHoP Architects, threw everything at this to make it an exclamation point…
….“The idea was Gotham, it was Deco,” says Gregg Pasquarelli, founding partner of SHoP Architects. “Batman should live here.”…
Brooklyn Tower is the borough’s first supertall skyscraper. Photo: Max Touhey, courtesy of SHoP Architects
(12) OMG! The H Book Club blog on X.com made this gobsmacking observation:
If you'd asked me who would play Gene Wolfe on screen, I would never in a million years have guessed Chris Pratt.
A Go Fund Me drive has already raised more than $115,000 for Juan Carlos Osorio, the crewmember on Marvel’s WonderMan series who died Tuesday after falling from a catwalk at Radford Studios.
“On February 6th, 2024, our friend Spike lost his life on the set of Marvels WonderMan shoot at CBS Radford studios due to a potential structural failure,” reads the fundraise, started by Bill Martel. “We are hoping the Production Company, The Facility, MBS, Marvel Studios handles things properly, but expect a long road fraught with attorney fees and expenses. In the mean time, bills will be mounting and the widow, Boom Operator Joanne W. will be left to deal with everything. Help if you’re able, it’s greatly appreciated.”…
Disney is investing $1.5 billion in “Fortnite” developer Epic Games in what will be the Mouse House’s “biggest foray into the game space ever,” Disney CEO Bob Iger announced Wednesday.
…Per further information provided by Disney, “in addition to being a world-class games experience and interoperating with ‘Fortnite,’ the new persistent universe will offer a multitude of opportunities for consumers to play, watch, shop and engage with content, characters and stories from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, ‘Star Wars,’ ‘Avatar’ and more. Players, gamers and fans will be able to create their own stories and experiences, express their fandom in a distinctly Disney way, and share content with each other in ways that they love.”…
(15) RARE UNFINISHED DOCUMENTARY FEATURE FILM TRAILER FOOTAGE FROM “THE MAN WHO ‘SAVED’ THE MOVIES”. [Item by Steve Vertlieb.] Here’s the original theatrical trailer for the never completed feature length motion picture documentary, The Man Who “Saved” The Movies, concerning over half a century of published writings…associations with actors, composers, writers, and directors…and some seventy-six years devoted to a passion for both films and film makers, while lovingly chronicling the life and career of film, and film music historian Steve Vertlieb.
Featuring appearances by Veronica Carlson, Philippe Mora, Paul Clemens, Juliet Rozsa, Lee Holdridge, Mark McKenzie, Patrick Russ, and Gregg Nestor, the film remains a work in progress. While financial difficulties have sadly plagued its production, it is my hope that it may one day reach completion.
… and, yes, that is me with Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis, Kirk Douglas, William Shatner, Jack Klugman, old friend and iconic American film director, Frank Capra, Oscar winning film composer, John Williams, Oscar winning film composer, Miklos Rozsa, famed science fiction author, Ray Bradbury, iconic special effects titan, Ray Harryhausen, “Psycho” author Robert Bloch, together with “The Time Machine” producer/director, George Pal, Hammer Films’ star, Peter Cushing, and screen hero/gold medal Olympian, Buster Crabbe.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob6-t0MKXRY
(16) COLD WAR SURPLUS? “Remnants of a Nuclear Missile Are Found in a Garage” – in Bellevue, WA – reports the New York Times. “The police responded to a call from a U.S. Air Force museum that said a man had offered to donate a Cold War-era missile stored in his late neighbor’s garage.”
Members of the bomb squad in Bellevue, Wash., on Thursday were called to inspect parts of a military-grade missile in the garage of a resident.
Elements of the larger, intact missile, such as the warhead, were missing and the authorities deemed the piece to be inert and safe, the police said in a news release on Friday.
An Air Force museum in Dayton, Ohio, contacted the police in Bellevue on Jan. 31 to report that a resident had offered to donate the missile, which belonged to his late neighbor….
…The next day, the man was “surprised” to hear from the police because he had not called them but invited the bomb squad to inspect the missile remnant, Officer Tyler said.
Squad members identified the rocket as a Douglas AIR-2 Genie missile, designed to carry a 1.5-kiloton nuclear warhead….
…It was clear that the missile remnant did not pose a threat given that it was missing its warhead and did not contain rocket fuel, Officer Tyler said.
“It was essentially just a rusted piece of metal at that point,” he said. “An artifact, in other words.”…
The NYT news report reminds me that when I first got into fandom I heard tell about Russell Seitz, a fan who was famous for having acquired the components of an ICBM. The following is one version of that story:
In the late 70’s, when most of our nuclear arsenal was converted from liquid to solid fuel, the U.S. Government auctioned off a number of obsolete missile silos and their contents. Mostly the silos got bought by local farmers who converted them for grain storage. I only know what happened to one of the missiles. It was offered at sealed bid auction and a friend of mine, Russell Seitz, bought it. When you bid on something like this, you have to send in a check for 10% of your bid as a deposit. He looked at his bank account, and figured he could spare about $300 that month, so that’s what he sent. When he discovered that he’d won the bid, he had to scrounge up the rest. Now the buyer must pick up the goods himself, but he can request that his purchase be delivered, at government expense, to the nearest military base. Being an undergraduate at M.I.T. at the time, he had the missile shipped to Hanscom Airforce Base, about 12 miles away. He then arranged for a truck, and donated the missile to a local modern art museum (I forget which one). Tax laws were a little different in those days, and if you donated something to an art museum, you could deduct not the just the purchase price, but the original value of the object, which was considerable. Income averaging allowed him to spread the “loss” out over a number of years so that he didn’t have to pay taxes for a long time! He was legendary at M.I.T. for quite a while, and acquired the nickname “Missile” Seitz.
(17) EARLY RELEASE SUPER BOWL AD. Does having the Aquaman actor in it make this an item of genre interest? You decide! Zach Braff, Jason Momoa and Donald Faison appear in a Flashdance-themed Super Bowl commercial for T-Mobile.
(18) VIDEO OF THE DAY. The official trailer for Despicable Me 4 is out. The movie comes to theaters on July 3.
In the first Despicable Me movie in seven years, Gru, the world’s favorite supervillain-turned-Anti-Villain League-agent, returns for an exciting, bold new era of Minions mayhem in Illumination’s Despicable Me 4.
Following the 2022 summer blockbuster phenomenon of Illumination’s Minions: The Rise of Gru, which earned almost $1 billion worldwide, the biggest global animated franchise in history now begins a new chapter as Gru (Oscar® nominee Steve Carrell) and Lucy (Oscar® nominee Kristen Wiig) and their girls —Margo (Miranda Cosgrove), Edith (Dana Gaier) and Agnes (Madison Polan)—welcome a new member to the Gru family, Gru Jr., who is intent on tormenting his dad.
Gru faces a new nemesis in Maxime Le Mal (Emmy winner Will Ferrell) and his femme fatale girlfriend Valentina (Emmy nominee Sofia Vergara), and the family is forced to go on the run. The film features fresh new characters voiced by Joey King (Bullet Train), Emmy winner Stephen Colbert (The Late Show with Stephen Colbert) and Chloe Fineman (Saturday Night Live). Pierre Coffin returns as the iconic voice of the Minions and Oscar® nominee Steve Coogan returns as Silas Ramsbottom.
[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Anne Marble, Steve Vertlieb, Heath Row, Kathy Sullivan, 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 Thomas the Red.]
40 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 2/7/24 We’ll Pixel Them All With Laughter And Merriment, Except For The Ones We Scroll For Experiments”
First!
Right now, I’m sampling mysteries set on trains, so if anyone has ones that they’re fond of please tell me. The one I’m listening to is Graham Greene’s Stamboul Train set on the Orient Express not unsurprisingly.
It is highly probable the Pringles artists modeled their mascot after Gene Wolfe, from all I have heard – and absolutely impossible to have Pringles admit it, because then he would have had a claim to intellectual property rights with regard to the use of his likeness…
(1) I wonder how much had to be changed to transform a Harry Potter fanfic (with many elements from “The Handmaid’s Tale”) into something a publisher would touch.
Some writers and readers have been discussing this news. The overall impression is that Star Wars fanfics are easier to transform into something publishable. But Hogwarts and the rest of the HP world? Not so much. (If you so much as set your story in a magical academy, some fans accuse you of ripping off Harry Potter. Even if your story was published seven years earlier. 😉 )
Also, some predict that similar HP fanfics might find their way to the shelves of your local bookstore — with the serial numbers filed off, of course.
(7) Another GoFundMe. Sigh. I’m sick of a world where the health plan for so many creative people is called “Don’t Get Sick.”
10) Action comics #1 certainly was NOT the first comic book. There had been reprints of newspaper strips before this. Detective Comics came out a year before Action and was the first to feature all new material specifically for the comic book. Action had the first original super hero for comic books, with Batman making his debut in Detective Comics the following year.
(8) Happy birthday James!
Thank you for the title credit.
I believe the “Fifty Shades” Books originally started out as “Twilight” fanfics that were rewritten without the vampire element and made more a Dominat/Submissive relationship.
@Troyce
It also depends on how you define “comic book.” Last year (I think), the Overstreet price guide ran an article about precursors to comic books that were published in the 1800s (and sometimes earlier). (You can find some of them for “reasonable” prices.) If you define these prototypes as comic books, some now think the first comic book was “The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck,” which was published in 1837. But some now think it was “The Glasgow Looking Glass,” which came out in 1825! In 1897, a reprint publication called “The Yellow Kid in McFadden’s Flats” first used the term “comic book.”
You can find most of these early publications online and decide whether or not they qualify as “comic books.” 🙂 When I look at some of those prototypes, I can see how they influenced the later comic books, but it’s hard for me to see them as being comic books.
Wiki says that 1935 marks the first issue of “New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine,” which was the first comic book made completely of original material. It included several characters who would end up in DC comics (including my future husband, The Spectre). But this publication also had an unusual tabloid size — so it might not count as a “comic book” because of its format.
@ Thomas the Red
Yup. But I didn’t read the original version of “50 Shades” — so I don’t know if the author used the world from the original “Twilight” series, or if it was just alternate universe (AU) fanfic. (For example, “What if Edward was not a vampire but was instead a wealthy entrepreneur.”) The original version of the fanfic did call the main characters “Edward Cullen” and “Bella Swann.”
There was also the “After” series, originally published on Wattpad with a “hero” based on Harry Styles — except that he’s a troubled college student rather than a musician. As you might expect, the fact that real people fanfic was published commercially was controversial.
(8) Stargate was not Spader’s “next” genre role after Starcrossed; in between were Mannequin, in which Kim Cattrall plays an ancient Egyptian Princess brought back to life, and Wolf, a quite good werewolf movie in which Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Spader all get hairy during the full moon.
(4) This was not the best made Hugo ever. Jack McKnight’s shade is tapping his foot.
Ann Marble: Oldbuck? Wasn’t that a hobbit’s family?
(17) Faison was Booster Gold on DC Legends of Tomorrow, and, I see from IMDB, on a bunch is Star Wars tv episodes in Robot Chicken SW eps and other genre stuff
So bill, did you notice that all three of the Spader films I choose were SF? And remember these are my Birthday essays, so I get to define what I mean by genre here. So I wasn’t including including fantasy or horror, but just his SF films.
So it apparently wasn’t the fault of whoever packed the Hugos for shipping, if all the careful efforts by Ling were for naught. Merely shoddy construction.
Did Gene Wolfe look even more like the Pringles’ mascot when he still had a full head of hair? I only met him very late in his life.
@Cat – obviously, they are your essays, and you can include whatever you want. I always enjoy reading them. And no, I didn’t know that you were limiting discussion to SF, especially since you referred to “genre” when mentioning Blacklist. I never know what you mean by genre, given that you include Robin Hood in that category (on what grounds, I’ve never understood. It has no elements of SF, fantasy, or horror, or other qualities which one typically finds under the umbrella of “genre”). And you’ve quite often said that you expect Filers to add to your notes, even encouraged it, but when it happens, you sometimes seem to resent it. I thought the movies I mentioned were on-topic for the discussion. So, I’ll ask point-blank: do you want comments, or not?
Bill: Robin Hood is a trickster hero in a characteristic green outfit whose legend has been added to by centuries of balladeers and fiction writers. He resembles a figure of fantasy. I’m not bothered by Cat’s placing him in sff. Or maybe he’s a mythic figure like Achilles. (Somebody will be here to splain the proper literary terms in 5. 4, 3, 2…)
I hate to be “that guy” (not true, I love being that guy), but Gene Wolfe did not invent Pringles.
“LP: Along those lines, is it true you invented the machine that makes Pringles¨ potato chips?
“GW: I developed it. I did not invent it. That was done by a German gentlemen whose name I’ve forgotten for years. I developed the machine that cooks them. He had invented the basic idea, how to make the potato dough… …I was in the engineering development division, and asked to develop mass production equipment to make these chips. And we divided the task into the dough making/dough rolling portion, which was done by Len Hooper, and the cooking portion, which was done by me, and then the pickoff and salting portion, which was done by someone else…”
In general…I prefer a broader definition of “genre” that allows the individual to still say “that expression of genre doesn’t work for me” as opposed to something more restrictive. Robin Hood has passed far enough into the “myth” category to qualify, IMO.
@Cat Eldridge
I enjoy the current iteration of the birthday entries. I also enjoyed the longer, multiple-entry version that used to appear. I hope I did not make any comments that persuaded you to discontinue the multiple-entry version.
It’s got to be a tough job to whittle tens (and perhaps low hundreds) of worthy birthdays down to a handful (and now one) knowing that some arsehat is going to chime in with “you forgot about so-and-so” or “they also did this movie which is much more relevant”.
However you continue the feature, I’m glad it will continue.
Regards,
Dann
When there is no such thing as truth, you can’t define reality. And when you can’t define reality, the only thing that matters is power. – Maajid Nawaz
@OGH
The Jetpack comment subscription software is acting weird today.
Usually, I click the button in the email to confirm the subscription. Today, it bounced with a “we can’t find detox665” message. I ended up manually adding this post to my subscription list.
Not sure if this is something you can fix or if this is their software going pear-shaped again. Thought you should know.
Regards,
Dann
When I am Weaker Than You, I ask you for Freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am Stronger than you, I take away your Freedom Because that is according to my principles. – Frank Herbert, Children of Dune.
Elvis is Everywhere is genre too arguably
So bill, here’s the deal. Each Birthday is unique unto itself. Some emphasise the film work of a performer, some don’t; some are solely interested in the mystery work of that individual; and some, that one, was only focused on, his SF work.
What annoys me about you is unlike others who add to to the Birthdays by noting what they like about a given individual who I’ve not included, all you do is take task with me for what I excluded.
You’re the reason that I often put the disclaimer of “this is not a complete comprehensive list but just what I like” or something to that end.
An average Birthday with research takes four hours to put together. I’ve got the time, I enjoy doing it and I like the company of y’all. Well most of you.
So don’t be a floccinaucinihilipilificatrix.
(0) Great title, and good to see Prof Lehrer back in the inspiration seat. His Copenhagen performance, which I’d only found/watched within the past few years, highlights what an amazing performer he is.
Robin Hood totally fits into SF and fantasy and not only thinly veiled versions of him show up in fantasy novels, he himself does as himself, in a Doctor Who episode and numerous novels of various kinds (e.g. Silverlock). We claim him for SFF.
Tom Lehrer’s works are now available to everyone at:
One of my favorites is “Bright College Days,” which goes:
“Bright college days,
Those carefree days that fly.
To thee we sing with our glasses raised on high,
Let’s drink a toast
As each of us recalls,
Ivy covered professors
In ivy covered halls!”
Lehrer is retired now, at 92. He was a mathmatician, as well as a teacher of musical theater.
1) Good for her. It doesn’t sound like my particular cup of tea but I’m always happy to see someone achieve a goal.
“It seems a lot of dystopias have borrowed heavily from A Handmaid’s Tale in recent years.” To be fair, it’s not like ‘Handmaid’ was a work of staggering originality itsownself.
4) Is there going to be a point at which people let Chengdu and all its assorted bullshit go? Or is it going to be like the Sad Puppies and still be living rent-free in people’s heads ten years from now?
8) Stargate was a banger, both movie and TV series. Blacklist I could never get into and I wish there was a non-Whedon version of Age of Ultron like there is for Justice League. I can only imagine that, like the non-Whedon version of Justice League, it would be an infinitely better film.
11) Love it. Now there’s a MAGA I can get behind: Make Architecture Gothic Again. Glass paneled rectangles are boring, I want some fuckin’ gargoyles.
This is the scroll that doesn’t end,
It just goes on and on, my fen.
Some pixels started scrolling it,
not knowing what it was…
@Ann Marble:
(1) I wonder how much had to be changed to transform a Harry Potter fanfic (with many elements from “The Handmaid’s Tale”) into something a publisher would touch.
Legally, probably relatively few. Copyright only protects an author’s original expression of their ideas, not the ideas themselves. Characters, settings, and so on are protectable, but how much protection they get depends on how original and detailed they are. And JKR is better as a storyteller than a worldbuilder – the Wizarding World’s background isn’t exactly Dune in terms of depth or detail. That will make it easier.
(That doesn’t mean it’s easy from a writing perspective, of course – filing off the serial numbers requires some craft.)
Some writers and readers have been discussing this news. The overall impression is that Star Wars fanfics are easier to transform into something publishable. But Hogwarts and the rest of the HP world? Not so much. (If you so much as set your story in a magical academy, some fans accuse you of ripping off Harry Potter. Even if your story was published seven years earlier. ???? )
And there’s the problem – there’s a perception that JKR was more original than she really was. Her work uses a lot of what are referred to as “scenes a faire” in copyright law – stock characters, basic tropes, and so on. And while she’s entitled to protect her very specific modifications of a trope or stock character, her protection doesn’t extend to the framework.
To put it another way, JKR borrowed from a lot of different sources when she built her world. And copyright doesn’t allow her to keep someone else from using the same set of sources to build something different – or even from borrowing her ideas, in turn. As long as the expression itself is sufficiently different, it’s legally fine.
(Sorry to go on at length; I’ve got a PhD in fanworks and copyright so I tend to geek out over this kind of thing.)
10) Collen Doran’s adaptation of “Chivalry”: I own a copy of this and I find the amount of love and labor that went into it quite staggering. It’s easily the best comic I read all last year. Right now the hardcover is on sale at various outlets for 40% off, which is a steal.
Paul Weimer says Robin Hood totally fits into SF and fantasy and not only thinly veiled versions of him show up in fantasy novels, he himself does as himself, in a Doctor Who episode and numerous novels of various kinds (e.g. Silverlock). We claim him for SFF.
He’s been SFF for a very long time now.
And Silverlock, oh my. Wildside Press has an ongoing Meredith Moment for it at just $2.99 which is very nice indeed of them.
I’m partial to Captain Cully myself. May we ne’er be scabbit in our greep.
So don’t be a floccinaucinihilipilificatrix.
Genius! The hilarity of this comment should not go unrecognized.
@Mike Dunford
Thank you for going on at length. That was informative. 🙂
The lawyers in these cases must have whiteboards with arrows that look like something out of an episode of “Criminal Minds” or “Profiler.”
One case where someone followed a book way too closely was a book called “Defiant Angel” by Stephanie Stevens. From what I’ve read, it was found to be a scene-by-scene revamp of “Whitney, My Love” by Judith McNaught — and thus, it was pulled after publication for copyright infringement.
But there’s a difference between writing your own scene-by-scene version of a book you liked (apparently that’s what happened in that case) and writing a book with a magical academy, warring factions, and so forth. (Or a book about beautiful fae mating with Mary Sues, etc.)
rcade says
So don’t be a floccinaucinihilipilificatrix.
Genius! The hilarity of this comment should not go unrecognized.
Takes deep bow.
It’s even a real word. When I first read The Number of the Beast, I thought Heinlein had made it up. No, it’s in the Oxford Dictionary. Though like Sharpie, I was not at all sure what the meaning of the word was.
Tying two topics from this scroll together, Lehrer has placed all the songs and performances he held the copyright on in the public domain.
I’m not sure if that’s all his work: PBS or Children’s Television Workshop may own a few songs that Lehrer wrote for the Electric Company.
@Quatermain
It hasn’t even been a month since the faked nomination results were released. Right now we’re discussing ways to keep the Hugo theft from happening again. Would you prefer if it people shrugged and said, “Well, that happened, nothing to do about it, let’s talk about Clarke?”
4)
As yet, I’ve not noticed any Chinese coverage of the core part of Chris M. Barkley’s interview with Dave McCarty on Weibo, perhaps because of the initial lack of transcripts making that less accessible to non-native speakers, plus I’m uncertain how accessible SoundCloud, Google Drive, etc are to Chinese users. (Google Drive I’m fairly sure is inaccessible in China without workarounds)
You see, I am surprised that I am in the USA now. I am trying to clear out the interview. If Mr. Barkley is willing to authorize, I will try my best to translate it into Chinese.
Zimozi Natsuco wrote:
“You see, I am surprised that I am in the USA now. I am trying to clear out the interview. If Mr. Barkley is willing to authorize, I will try my best to translate it into Chinese.”
I appreciate the offer. On behalf of myself and sff fans in China (and elsewhere) I fully endorse any effort you may undertake to translate and transcribe my interview with Dave McCarty.
Good Luck and be sure to check back here with the results and reactions…
Chris M. Barkley
(1) It should probably be noted that she won’t be the first, either in a fanfic author making the leap because of the popularity of their fanfic or fanfic being published after the serial numbers were polished off.
Cassandra Clare, author of the Mortal Instruments series, parlayed being a popular HP fanfic author into a publishing contract. (She was originally famous for the Very Secret Diaries, which seemed to be all over the internet when the LOTR movies were released.)
50 Shades of Gray was initially Master of the Universe, a Twilight fanfic, until the author filed off the serial numbers and got it published.
My understanding is that this becoming more and more prevalent, particularly at the low-level Kindle Unlimited romance level. It’s kind of understandable–there’s a lot of fanfic that’s loosely based on the characters but jettisons the setting (e.g., slash fanfic AU where they’re all modern high school students). Ironically, this means that the kind of fanfic that’s derided as being OOC and “X in name only” kind of works are the easiest to strip of explicitly infringing material and make money off of.
@Madame Hardy
Are we though? While I do not claim to have my finger on every pulse, so far I’m seeing at best, a 10/1 bloviating/solution ratio.
‘Theft’ maybe overeggs the pudding a touch.
If you are asking for my personal preferences, than yes, I would prefer that as, after all, there are only so many ways to say ‘I told you so’ and eventually, even that joy must pall and the need to move on to fresh horrors loom.
First!
Right now, I’m sampling mysteries set on trains, so if anyone has ones that they’re fond of please tell me. The one I’m listening to is Graham Greene’s Stamboul Train set on the Orient Express not unsurprisingly.
It is highly probable the Pringles artists modeled their mascot after Gene Wolfe, from all I have heard – and absolutely impossible to have Pringles admit it, because then he would have had a claim to intellectual property rights with regard to the use of his likeness…
(1) I wonder how much had to be changed to transform a Harry Potter fanfic (with many elements from “The Handmaid’s Tale”) into something a publisher would touch.
Some writers and readers have been discussing this news. The overall impression is that Star Wars fanfics are easier to transform into something publishable. But Hogwarts and the rest of the HP world? Not so much. (If you so much as set your story in a magical academy, some fans accuse you of ripping off Harry Potter. Even if your story was published seven years earlier. 😉 )
Also, some predict that similar HP fanfics might find their way to the shelves of your local bookstore — with the serial numbers filed off, of course.
(7) Another GoFundMe. Sigh. I’m sick of a world where the health plan for so many creative people is called “Don’t Get Sick.”
10) Action comics #1 certainly was NOT the first comic book. There had been reprints of newspaper strips before this. Detective Comics came out a year before Action and was the first to feature all new material specifically for the comic book. Action had the first original super hero for comic books, with Batman making his debut in Detective Comics the following year.
(8) Happy birthday James!
Thank you for the title credit.
I believe the “Fifty Shades” Books originally started out as “Twilight” fanfics that were rewritten without the vampire element and made more a Dominat/Submissive relationship.
@Troyce
It also depends on how you define “comic book.” Last year (I think), the Overstreet price guide ran an article about precursors to comic books that were published in the 1800s (and sometimes earlier). (You can find some of them for “reasonable” prices.) If you define these prototypes as comic books, some now think the first comic book was “The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck,” which was published in 1837. But some now think it was “The Glasgow Looking Glass,” which came out in 1825! In 1897, a reprint publication called “The Yellow Kid in McFadden’s Flats” first used the term “comic book.”
You can find most of these early publications online and decide whether or not they qualify as “comic books.” 🙂 When I look at some of those prototypes, I can see how they influenced the later comic books, but it’s hard for me to see them as being comic books.
Wiki says that 1935 marks the first issue of “New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine,” which was the first comic book made completely of original material. It included several characters who would end up in DC comics (including my future husband, The Spectre). But this publication also had an unusual tabloid size — so it might not count as a “comic book” because of its format.
@ Thomas the Red
Yup. But I didn’t read the original version of “50 Shades” — so I don’t know if the author used the world from the original “Twilight” series, or if it was just alternate universe (AU) fanfic. (For example, “What if Edward was not a vampire but was instead a wealthy entrepreneur.”) The original version of the fanfic did call the main characters “Edward Cullen” and “Bella Swann.”
There was also the “After” series, originally published on Wattpad with a “hero” based on Harry Styles — except that he’s a troubled college student rather than a musician. As you might expect, the fact that real people fanfic was published commercially was controversial.
(8) Stargate was not Spader’s “next” genre role after Starcrossed; in between were Mannequin, in which Kim Cattrall plays an ancient Egyptian Princess brought back to life, and Wolf, a quite good werewolf movie in which Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Spader all get hairy during the full moon.
(4) This was not the best made Hugo ever. Jack McKnight’s shade is tapping his foot.
Ann Marble: Oldbuck? Wasn’t that a hobbit’s family?
(17) Faison was Booster Gold on DC Legends of Tomorrow, and, I see from IMDB, on a bunch is Star Wars tv episodes in Robot Chicken SW eps and other genre stuff
So bill, did you notice that all three of the Spader films I choose were SF? And remember these are my Birthday essays, so I get to define what I mean by genre here. So I wasn’t including including fantasy or horror, but just his SF films.
So it apparently wasn’t the fault of whoever packed the Hugos for shipping, if all the careful efforts by Ling were for naught. Merely shoddy construction.
Did Gene Wolfe look even more like the Pringles’ mascot when he still had a full head of hair? I only met him very late in his life.
@Cat – obviously, they are your essays, and you can include whatever you want. I always enjoy reading them. And no, I didn’t know that you were limiting discussion to SF, especially since you referred to “genre” when mentioning Blacklist. I never know what you mean by genre, given that you include Robin Hood in that category (on what grounds, I’ve never understood. It has no elements of SF, fantasy, or horror, or other qualities which one typically finds under the umbrella of “genre”). And you’ve quite often said that you expect Filers to add to your notes, even encouraged it, but when it happens, you sometimes seem to resent it. I thought the movies I mentioned were on-topic for the discussion. So, I’ll ask point-blank: do you want comments, or not?
Bill: Robin Hood is a trickster hero in a characteristic green outfit whose legend has been added to by centuries of balladeers and fiction writers. He resembles a figure of fantasy. I’m not bothered by Cat’s placing him in sff. Or maybe he’s a mythic figure like Achilles. (Somebody will be here to splain the proper literary terms in 5. 4, 3, 2…)
I hate to be “that guy” (not true, I love being that guy), but Gene Wolfe did not invent Pringles.
“LP: Along those lines, is it true you invented the machine that makes Pringles¨ potato chips?
“GW: I developed it. I did not invent it. That was done by a German gentlemen whose name I’ve forgotten for years. I developed the machine that cooks them. He had invented the basic idea, how to make the potato dough… …I was in the engineering development division, and asked to develop mass production equipment to make these chips. And we divided the task into the dough making/dough rolling portion, which was done by Len Hooper, and the cooking portion, which was done by me, and then the pickoff and salting portion, which was done by someone else…”
here,
Jesse Rodriguez: Just the opposite, we always need that guy! Thanks a lot!
Mojo Nixon died yesterday : https://www.npr.org/2024/02/08/1229964967/one-of-the-wild-men-of-rock-n-roll-has-died-mojo-nixon-was-66 (genre connection with “UFOs Big Rigs & BBQ” if nothing else).
In general…I prefer a broader definition of “genre” that allows the individual to still say “that expression of genre doesn’t work for me” as opposed to something more restrictive. Robin Hood has passed far enough into the “myth” category to qualify, IMO.
@Cat Eldridge
I enjoy the current iteration of the birthday entries. I also enjoyed the longer, multiple-entry version that used to appear. I hope I did not make any comments that persuaded you to discontinue the multiple-entry version.
It’s got to be a tough job to whittle tens (and perhaps low hundreds) of worthy birthdays down to a handful (and now one) knowing that some arsehat is going to chime in with “you forgot about so-and-so” or “they also did this movie which is much more relevant”.
However you continue the feature, I’m glad it will continue.
Regards,
Dann
When there is no such thing as truth, you can’t define reality. And when you can’t define reality, the only thing that matters is power. – Maajid Nawaz
@OGH
The Jetpack comment subscription software is acting weird today.
Usually, I click the button in the email to confirm the subscription. Today, it bounced with a “we can’t find detox665” message. I ended up manually adding this post to my subscription list.
Not sure if this is something you can fix or if this is their software going pear-shaped again. Thought you should know.
Regards,
Dann
When I am Weaker Than You, I ask you for Freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am Stronger than you, I take away your Freedom Because that is according to my principles. – Frank Herbert, Children of Dune.
Elvis is Everywhere is genre too arguably
So bill, here’s the deal. Each Birthday is unique unto itself. Some emphasise the film work of a performer, some don’t; some are solely interested in the mystery work of that individual; and some, that one, was only focused on, his SF work.
What annoys me about you is unlike others who add to to the Birthdays by noting what they like about a given individual who I’ve not included, all you do is take task with me for what I excluded.
You’re the reason that I often put the disclaimer of “this is not a complete comprehensive list but just what I like” or something to that end.
An average Birthday with research takes four hours to put together. I’ve got the time, I enjoy doing it and I like the company of y’all. Well most of you.
So don’t be a floccinaucinihilipilificatrix.
(0) Great title, and good to see Prof Lehrer back in the inspiration seat. His Copenhagen performance, which I’d only found/watched within the past few years, highlights what an amazing performer he is.
Robin Hood totally fits into SF and fantasy and not only thinly veiled versions of him show up in fantasy novels, he himself does as himself, in a Doctor Who episode and numerous novels of various kinds (e.g. Silverlock). We claim him for SFF.
Tom Lehrer’s works are now available to everyone at:
https://tomlehrersongs.com/
One of my favorites is “Bright College Days,” which goes:
“Bright college days,
Those carefree days that fly.
To thee we sing with our glasses raised on high,
Let’s drink a toast
As each of us recalls,
Ivy covered professors
In ivy covered halls!”
Lehrer is retired now, at 92. He was a mathmatician, as well as a teacher of musical theater.
1) Good for her. It doesn’t sound like my particular cup of tea but I’m always happy to see someone achieve a goal.
“It seems a lot of dystopias have borrowed heavily from A Handmaid’s Tale in recent years.” To be fair, it’s not like ‘Handmaid’ was a work of staggering originality itsownself.
4) Is there going to be a point at which people let Chengdu and all its assorted bullshit go? Or is it going to be like the Sad Puppies and still be living rent-free in people’s heads ten years from now?
8) Stargate was a banger, both movie and TV series. Blacklist I could never get into and I wish there was a non-Whedon version of Age of Ultron like there is for Justice League. I can only imagine that, like the non-Whedon version of Justice League, it would be an infinitely better film.
11) Love it. Now there’s a MAGA I can get behind: Make Architecture Gothic Again. Glass paneled rectangles are boring, I want some fuckin’ gargoyles.
This is the scroll that doesn’t end,
It just goes on and on, my fen.
Some pixels started scrolling it,
not knowing what it was…
@Ann Marble:
Legally, probably relatively few. Copyright only protects an author’s original expression of their ideas, not the ideas themselves. Characters, settings, and so on are protectable, but how much protection they get depends on how original and detailed they are. And JKR is better as a storyteller than a worldbuilder – the Wizarding World’s background isn’t exactly Dune in terms of depth or detail. That will make it easier.
(That doesn’t mean it’s easy from a writing perspective, of course – filing off the serial numbers requires some craft.)
And there’s the problem – there’s a perception that JKR was more original than she really was. Her work uses a lot of what are referred to as “scenes a faire” in copyright law – stock characters, basic tropes, and so on. And while she’s entitled to protect her very specific modifications of a trope or stock character, her protection doesn’t extend to the framework.
To put it another way, JKR borrowed from a lot of different sources when she built her world. And copyright doesn’t allow her to keep someone else from using the same set of sources to build something different – or even from borrowing her ideas, in turn. As long as the expression itself is sufficiently different, it’s legally fine.
(Sorry to go on at length; I’ve got a PhD in fanworks and copyright so I tend to geek out over this kind of thing.)
10) Collen Doran’s adaptation of “Chivalry”: I own a copy of this and I find the amount of love and labor that went into it quite staggering. It’s easily the best comic I read all last year. Right now the hardcover is on sale at various outlets for 40% off, which is a steal.
Paul Weimer says Robin Hood totally fits into SF and fantasy and not only thinly veiled versions of him show up in fantasy novels, he himself does as himself, in a Doctor Who episode and numerous novels of various kinds (e.g. Silverlock). We claim him for SFF.
He’s been SFF for a very long time now.
And Silverlock, oh my. Wildside Press has an ongoing Meredith Moment for it at just $2.99 which is very nice indeed of them.
I’m partial to Captain Cully myself. May we ne’er be scabbit in our greep.
Genius! The hilarity of this comment should not go unrecognized.
@Mike Dunford
Thank you for going on at length. That was informative. 🙂
The lawyers in these cases must have whiteboards with arrows that look like something out of an episode of “Criminal Minds” or “Profiler.”
One case where someone followed a book way too closely was a book called “Defiant Angel” by Stephanie Stevens. From what I’ve read, it was found to be a scene-by-scene revamp of “Whitney, My Love” by Judith McNaught — and thus, it was pulled after publication for copyright infringement.
But there’s a difference between writing your own scene-by-scene version of a book you liked (apparently that’s what happened in that case) and writing a book with a magical academy, warring factions, and so forth. (Or a book about beautiful fae mating with Mary Sues, etc.)
rcade says
So don’t be a floccinaucinihilipilificatrix.
Genius! The hilarity of this comment should not go unrecognized.
Takes deep bow.
It’s even a real word. When I first read The Number of the Beast, I thought Heinlein had made it up. No, it’s in the Oxford Dictionary. Though like Sharpie, I was not at all sure what the meaning of the word was.
Tying two topics from this scroll together, Lehrer has placed all the songs and performances he held the copyright on in the public domain.
I’m not sure if that’s all his work: PBS or Children’s Television Workshop may own a few songs that Lehrer wrote for the Electric Company.
@Quatermain
It hasn’t even been a month since the faked nomination results were released. Right now we’re discussing ways to keep the Hugo theft from happening again. Would you prefer if it people shrugged and said, “Well, that happened, nothing to do about it, let’s talk about Clarke?”
4)
You see, I am surprised that I am in the USA now. I am trying to clear out the interview. If Mr. Barkley is willing to authorize, I will try my best to translate it into Chinese.
Zimozi Natsuco wrote:
“You see, I am surprised that I am in the USA now. I am trying to clear out the interview. If Mr. Barkley is willing to authorize, I will try my best to translate it into Chinese.”
I appreciate the offer. On behalf of myself and sff fans in China (and elsewhere) I fully endorse any effort you may undertake to translate and transcribe my interview with Dave McCarty.
Good Luck and be sure to check back here with the results and reactions…
Chris M. Barkley
(1) It should probably be noted that she won’t be the first, either in a fanfic author making the leap because of the popularity of their fanfic or fanfic being published after the serial numbers were polished off.
Cassandra Clare, author of the Mortal Instruments series, parlayed being a popular HP fanfic author into a publishing contract. (She was originally famous for the Very Secret Diaries, which seemed to be all over the internet when the LOTR movies were released.)
50 Shades of Gray was initially Master of the Universe, a Twilight fanfic, until the author filed off the serial numbers and got it published.
My understanding is that this becoming more and more prevalent, particularly at the low-level Kindle Unlimited romance level. It’s kind of understandable–there’s a lot of fanfic that’s loosely based on the characters but jettisons the setting (e.g., slash fanfic AU where they’re all modern high school students). Ironically, this means that the kind of fanfic that’s derided as being OOC and “X in name only” kind of works are the easiest to strip of explicitly infringing material and make money off of.
@Madame Hardy
Are we though? While I do not claim to have my finger on every pulse, so far I’m seeing at best, a 10/1 bloviating/solution ratio.
‘Theft’ maybe overeggs the pudding a touch.
If you are asking for my personal preferences, than yes, I would prefer that as, after all, there are only so many ways to say ‘I told you so’ and eventually, even that joy must pall and the need to move on to fresh horrors loom.