Your host will be on the road for a couple days attending Nic Farey’s wedding to Jennifer AlLee on February 29. I have prepared a couple of Scrolls in advance.
(1) A RINGING ENDORSEMENT. Tor.com has the story – “Star Trek’s Best Writer/Director EVER Has Joined the Crew of CBS’ New Star Trek TV Show”.
Star Trek fans of every shade just received the best news: writer/director Nicholas Meyer is joining CBS’ new Star Trek television show, which is set to debut in 2017 with Bryan Fuller producing.
Not sure who Nicholas Meyer is? He’s the guy who saved Star Trek from obscurity and made it smarter than you ever realized. Here’s why this is possibly the best geek-related news of the past 20 years.
(2) AUTUN PURSER. See Autun Purser Illustration, the online gallery, portfolio and shop for a gifted part-time illustrator and full-time deep sea ecologist.
I am a lifelong science fiction fan and I have enjoyed some success with my series of travel posters, advertising travel to destinations from unusual fiction — the ‘Fantastic Travel Destinations’. The majority of these are available for print purchase direct, or from various bookshops and conventions.
Click to see the artist’s fantastic travel posters – first up, Arrakis. Purser also did the cover and some of the interiors for the 24th issue of the Hugo-winning Journey Planet, plus artwork for Gollancz covers, and numerous other works.
(3) DELANY. Here’s a one-hour interview with Samuel R. Delany at the University of Pennsylvania on February 16.
(4) ELIZABETH EISENSTEIN OBIT. Elizabeth Eisenstein died January 31 at the age of 92 reports the New York Times.
A retired faculty member of the University of Michigan, Professor Eisenstein was renowned for “The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early Modern Europe,” first published in 1979. Spanning two volumes and nearly 800 pages, the work has been translated into many languages and remains in print…..
“It’s quite unusual for an academic book to achieve its 25th anniversary and still be vital to the discourse in the field,” Professor Baron, a historian at the University of Maryland, said. “Her book continues to be reviewed as if it just came out.”
In “The Printing Press as an Agent of Change,” Professor Eisenstein argued that the development of movable type by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th century helped inaugurate a set of sweeping social changes thanks to the authoritative, widely tangible dissemination of information it allowed.
“What printing did was to standardize texts,” Professor Baron explained. “So you would have numerous people all over Europe reading exactly the same thing. Information had a much greater reach, a much wider audience, a much greater impact.”
(5) TERRI WINDLING’S QUIET MORNING. Artist Terri Windling, in “A Quiet Morning in the Studio”, uses a compelling 1974 essay by Ursula K. Le Guin as the frame for some fine dragon and unicorn pencil drawings, and a couple of dog photographs.
(6) NEXT COMPANION. Screen Rant speculates about 12 actors whose selection as the next companion would be a Doctor Who dream cast. Number 6 —
Eleanor Tomlinson is known for a variety of roles, most recently that of Georgiana Darcy in the BBC Miniseries Death Comes to Pemberley and currently as Demelza Poldark in Poldark. Still relatively young and establishing her place in the British acting world, a companion role on Doctor Who would serve not only to bring awareness to her talent, but also help guide her in refining her skills.
Tomlinson’s sweet, young and endearing nature would allow audiences to relate to her and set her up to become a fan favorite. But much like Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), youth would give younger Whovians a reason to connect with her and be impressed by the talent she brings to the role. Tomlinson would play off Capaldi’s Doctor extremely well.
(7) NOT ENTIRELY ALTERNATE HISTORY. Destination Planet Negro by Kevin Wilmott (co-writer of Spike Lee’s Chiraq). Release date May 20, 2016.
“Three brave explorers in search of a better place… instead found Kansas City…”
I’m not making this up! But the trailer has a review quote from Ray Bradbury, so somebody’s making it up…
(8) MAYBE THERE’S STILL SOME LUCK IN IT. During Heritage Auction’s Rare Books Signature Auction on April 6 the public will have a chance to bid on assorted Harry Potter items – including the very chair used by J.K. Rowling as she wrote the first two books of the Harry potter series.
In 2002, she decorated one of the chairs from her welfare days—taking care to paint “I wrote Harry Potter while sitting in this chair” on the seat’s apron—and donated it to a private charity auction for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Her philanthropy inspired her fans as well who used their own communities to bring awareness to social causes, including the non-profit organization The Harry Potter Alliance.
(9) CTHULHU BREW. Narragansett has introduced I Am Providence Imperial Red Ale.
Taste & Enjoy: I Am Providence pours a mysterious dark red with a complex amalgam of flavors. The blend of malts lead to flavors of biscuits and sweet caramel, and the Warrior and Citra hops bring aromas of pine and citrus that meld on the palate to create an intriguing balance.
The History: The latest chapter in the Lovecraft Series pays tribute to Lovecraft’s adoration for his hometown by heralding his famous words – “I Am Providence.” Later inscribed on his gravestone in 1977, this resonant phrase lives on as a tribute to Lovecraft and anyone who has ever called Providence home.
(10) ANOTHER TOLKIEN. Simon Tolkien, grandson of J. R. R. Tolkien, and the eldest child of Christopher Tolkien, is keeping up a family tradition. From Publisher’s Lunch:
Simon Tolkien’s NO MAN’S LAND, the story of a boy who grows up between the turbulent years of 1909 to 1919, starting life as an impoverished child in London who moves to a hard-living coal mining community and is subsequently adopted by the wealthy owner of an Edwardian country house, where he and the owner’s younger son become fierce rivals for the same girl, a rivalry that leads them to develop a murderous hatred for one another which affects all the characters around them, in a novel of faith, class, and war including the horrors of the Battle of the Somme which has profound effects on them all, [sold] to Nan Talese at Nan A. Talese, in a pre-empt, by [agent] Marly Rusoff at Marly Rusoff & Associates (NA).
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, Will R., and JJ for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Will R.]
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@Steve Davidson
I have a list of things to discuss/not discuss next time we meet. When I’m healthy most of my conventioning is in MA as it’s an excuse to visit family and get a break from them.
Me too.
It may also depend on the bar, who may make that decision depend upon the time of day.
Here in Colorado, I know of at least one bar/restaurant that is all-ages entry until about 10 PM, at which point they start carding at the door. I know of microbrew tap houses that are all-ages entry all the time and only card at the bar; one of them refuses to serve non-alcolohic drinks other than outrageously expensive bottled water, as a sort of passive-agressive way to discourage non-drinkers; another serves food and non-alch drink BUT will card at the door during a big event just to simplify matters. The place our league holds our afterparties lets 18-20-yr-olds in (we have skaters in that age range, so this is something we require of our afterparty venues) but they card at the door in order to put a stamp legal drinkers’ hands.
The restrictions on the bars probably varies by state, but then the bars get to make their own decisions. Wisest to call ahead and find out how the particular venue handles that.
Another art problem: I love Xiao Ran/Dawn Pu’s game backgrounds but I just can’t find which games he worked on in 2015.
@Tasha Turner
My wife (who, like DIsneyland, was founded in 1955 🙂 ) had laparoscopic gallbladder surgery at the beginning of February. Other than some mild pain the day after the surgery, she’s been doing great. I know, you are a different person, past performance is no indicator of future results, YMMV and all that, but I wanted to offer some anonymous encouragement to you.
This will not affect your ability to raise the awareness of those poor misguided people who, no doubt unintentionally, lack your understanding of the situation 🙂
@Doctor Science: Jon Foster did two pro artist works in 2015.
http://www.rocketstackrank.com/2016/01/2015-pro-artists.html#JonFoster
I am nominating Jian Guo in considerable part due to the cover for the Yilin Books edition of The Mists of Avalon (August 2015). It’s a pity that spectacular image is for a book I dislike! He’s also done an amazing one for The Library at Mount Char but that’ll be published in 2016.
@ Standback
Thanks for the info and your efforts!
@The other Nigel This will not affect your ability to raise the awareness of those poor misguided people who, no doubt unintentionally, lack your understanding of the situation 🙂
During the hours I’m unconscious for the various surgeries I’ll have to let the poor misguided people go on being wrong, wrong, wrong.
I frequently have strange reactions to surgery/anesthesia and it’s possible while they are removing my gallbladder they will find other things wrong which didn’t show up in the ultrasound. It would be a rare surgery for them not to in my case. Each surgery I’ve had usually finds a few other abnormalities.
Frequently nothing needs doing but comes with useful advice like don’t get in a car accident* or ever have damage to your right kidney as we have no clue if the left is working. Or you have some fascinating looking ovaries never seen that shape or location before, we decided to leave them because, well who knows what might happen if we removed them as your body is so weird.
The easy eardrum replacement surgery turned into 8 hours wow you had little left of your ear bones so I had to reconstruct them with titanium, almost ran out. We are redoing the eardrum and fixing at least one of the bones as well as breaking my ear canal again to make it even bigger in hopes I’ll stop keeping so much crap in the ear covering the eardrum preventing it from doing its job.
All of which led to longer stays in the hospital than expected. No such thing as day surgery as far as I’m concerned.
I approach every surgery as an adventure. What else is interesting about my insides? My list of fun facts for my doctors is a page long. I’m ready for a robot body to move my brain into. 😀
*failed that when I was hit by a truck. Thankfully I didn’t damage the right kidney.
The only contact info for Dawn Pu I have found is a Weibo account; I am going to get my Chinese housemate to write and ask him about eligibility. If there’s an answer, I’ll let you know.
Tasha, you can’t say you are boringly ordinary!
From SF Site News:
MidAmeriCon II Management Restructure
MidAmeriCon II, this year’s Worldcon, has announced that their upper management team has been restructured. Ruth Lichtwardt will remain as the convention’s sole chair with Diane Lacey acting has her vice chair. The third member of Team LOL, as their management team was called, Jeff Orth, is currently handling a variety of tasks until they determine where his skills will best benefit the convention.
However, the “For more information” link just leads to the MAC II site, and I can’t find the news announcement there.
Vasha:
I’ve put Guo Jian up for consideration both as a Pro Artist and as a Fan Artist. Double threat!
And all of a sudden I’ve got ‘Water at the Bar’ by Tiller’s Folly going through my head. Which isn’t fair as the song was fine with other non-alcoholic beverages, just not water.
Eric:
He’s done more than that: ISFDB shows 5 book covers, and he did a bunch of interior pictures that aren’t on that list.
Just let them get really zealous with the eardrum surgeries….
My standard “bar drink” is club soda with grenadine. Non-alcoholic, tasty, and guaranteed to get at least one person asking me, “What IS that?”, because it’s a truly electrifying shade of pink!
@lee I am going to have to remember that, since I don’t drink a lot of alcohol as a general rule.
JJ said:
It was announced on a private forum. I had the impression it wasn’t supposed to go public until they worked out what Jeff Orth’s new job title would be.
A traditional Shirley Temple is ginger ale and grenadine. You also get a maraschino cherry. (I’ve also seen it served with a little paper umbrella, but that seems like overkill.)
If you wish to express your cowboy ruggedness, you can replace the ginger ale with a cola and it becomes a Roy Rogers.
Paul Weimer and Lee,
My standard bar drink as well – also known as a “Shirley Temple” or, where I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, a “kiddie cocktail”.
Kathryn —
As noted by Jack Lint, a Shirley Temple is ginger ale, not club soda.
I don’t drink sweetened sodas; lost my taste for them years ago. So maybe what Lee’s describing would suit me; usually I just have club soda with lime.
But what would a Shirley Temple for grownups be called? A Shirley Temple Black?
@Vasha
Yeah I’m rarely accused of being ordinarily boring.
@JJ
I don’t remember if Jeff Orth showed up as co-head of design resources previously or not. I’ve been spending too much time on http://midamericon2.org/contact-us/committee-list/ .
I was looking at Kristina Hiners updated profile on the Valley Forge bid yesterday which expanded her previous MidAmericon ll title while updating it to past tense. This had me checking out the MidAmericon ll concom to see if she showed up under a new title – No.
@Doctor Science: I see. I guess you’ll have to contact Jon Foster for the missing info.
Next year I might download the ISFDB database and run some queries to auto-generate my pro artist page. This year was hack, done with a spreadsheet and Word mail merge to produce the HTML/lightbox data. With the ISFDB database and links to Amazon.com book/magazine covers, I should be able lightbox way more than the 138 artists/202 covers I did this year.
As for fan art, it might be feasible to customize an off-the-shelf crawler to crawl the DeviantArt site, index the works uploaded to the site by artist and year, and auto-generate the HTML/lightbox data for the fan artist page. Maybe when I run out of other programming projects for RSR. 🙂
Maybe a John Agar after Shirley Temple’s first husband. He was in some schlocky SF movies.
ETA: Hmmm. Didn’t know about Agar’s drinking problem. That either makes it inappropriate or very appropriate depending on your point of view.
When my wife had her own laproscopic gallbladder surgery (back in the 80’s), the surgeon was so pleased with his work he took Polaroids and brought them out to the waiting room to show me. “Look at the size of the gallstone in that thing!” Gee, Doc, thanks a — b-l-e-c-c-c-h-h-h-h — lot.
The Shirley Temples I’ve gotten are usually Seven-up and grenadine and cherries. Might be the area. I remember one in a west coast bar had orange juice (which I’m allergic to). I’ve never had one with ginger ale (I must just be lucky).
While I will occasionally order a ginger ale at a bar, I prefer not to because I am a ginger ale snob and they never have any of the GOOD stuff. Good stuff means “I can actually taste the ginger in it.” Canada Dry and Schweppes are basically club soda with a little yellow food coloring.
@Bruce Arthurs
Gotta love doctors. I meet the surgeon on March 10th. 2 days after my 49th birthday.
I get the best birthday presents. 19th my dad died. 30th I got asked for an unexpected divorce. 2012 I got hit by a truck. This year gallbladder surgery. I can’t wait to see what the universe throws at me for my 80th. 😀
Tasha Turner: I was looking at Kristina Hiners updated profile on the Valley Forge bid yesterday which expanded her previous MidAmericon ll title while updating it to past tense. This had me checking out the MidAmericon ll concom to see if she showed up under a new title – No.
When I see people like Kevin Standlee and Jesi Pershing and Helen Montgomery and Steven Silver and Dave McCarty (to name just a very few) working really hard to make conventions a great experience for people like me, it makes me wish that I were in a position to contribute in the same way (I can’t right now, but maybe in a few years).
And then I see people who seem to be in it for the status and the perks, but who can’t manage to deal with the tough parts of the job, and instead of there being some accountability and some sort of demotion and retraining in the face of major performance failures, a bunch of conrunners circle the wagons and say basically “Eff off, screw you, we’re not going to change anything” — then I think, no, I don’t really want to be a part of that sort of culture.
It makes me sad.
@Lee: (the GOOD ginger ale)
Careful, or I might find myself extolling the virtues of owning your own carbonation device and mixing your own sodas. (I had two SodaStreams in the house until last weekend, when I gave the spare to the people at whose home I play RPGs. I also have a book on homemade soda recipes just out of arm’s reach…)
Books for a change of topic. Just read Bitter Bite by Jennifer Estep. One of my fun UF reads. It was a good next in series. Growth of characters. A bit more Finn than usual. The fighting is getting a bit bland IMHO. It was a great read with everything else going on today.
Reed’s Extra-Sharp Ginger Brew is my poison of choice. It pairs very nicely with Indian food.
@Tasha:
Thank/curse you for reminding me that Bitter Bite is out and I have to add it to Mount TBR! 😀
So, Short Story candidates: I’m considering THE GREAT SILENCE by Allora & Calzadilla & Ted Chiang. I see Locus lists it in its recommended list but it’s not reviewed in RocketStackRank at all or talked about much elsewhere. I wonder if it’s because it’s not published by one of the regular ‘zines (Old School or New). Thoughts?
But then, Short Story is a very competitive category (at least as far as I can see), so maybe that’s the reason.
@Rev. Bob
My parents came from Amsterdam. We went for a visit when I was seven years old. My major memories from that trip were 1) they had chocolate sprinkles on buttered bread for breakfast 2) chocolate oranges (this was decades before they showed up in the states, and I was not entirely positive that they didn’t come from chocolate orange trees.) 3) they made their own soda pop right there in the house anytime they wanted.
The Netherlands was obviously the very height of civilization.
@Cat: (homemade soda)
I keep a variety of flavors on hand, because the syrups are so compact. Plus, where can I find a good lime soda in the middle of the night? (Not lemon-lime, LIME. Sadly, they don’t have a peach mix, and I haven’t figured out the trick for making the peach flavoring I have come out right. It works as an accent, but not as a base, and I’m not sure what base to pair it with.)
Also in the house: grape, orange, strawberry, lemon-lime, ginger ale, diet pink grapefruit (a Fresca clone), and a raspberry/cranberry mix that I sometimes add to a batch of lemon-lime or ginger ale.
Fever Tree, all the way!
In other news. apparently Adam Baldwin is back on Twitter, which he was done with forever because something something censorship something. 2/10 on the flounce, needs improvement.
@Rev. Bob: My local upscale market does a line of organic sodas. (I really like their pomegranate flavor.) One of their flavors is “Peach Bellini” which is grape with peach overtones. It’s not bad. Have you tried pairing your peach with grape?
@David:
I have not. Interesting idea, and I wonder how it would compare to the grape/pineapple ice cream my mother swears by…
I was, however, looking for more of a Peach Soda result. SodaStream doesn’t market a “neutral” base, which I suspect is what I really need.
I was a ginger ale snob once, until I fell in love with ginger beer. Bundaberg is a good one, but recently I learned there is a brand (Bruce Cost) that does a passion fruit ginger beer. I must investigate this.
What do you do with the final ballot?
I was impressed though, by how Larry Correia has now corrected his previous post that gave the impression that Twitter had deleted Adam Baldwin’s posts.
Ha! April fool!
Oh, wait, its March.
Darn.
Rev. Bob: I do have a friend who brews homemade ginger ale, and it’s Good Stuff.
Joe. H.: Reed’s is good, both the regular and the Extra Sharp. But my all-time favorite (hard to get in Texas, alas) is Blenheim. Strongest ginger flavor ever, with just enough sugar to mellow it out a bit. When I offer it to someone who hasn’t had it before, I always warn them to sip carefully, because it’s very strong. They usually don’t believe me, with Interesting results.
Blenheim, huh? I’ll definitely keep my eye out.
I’m not huge into mixed drinks, but I’ve had success using the Reed’s Extra Sharp to make a Big Ginger (Reed’s + 2 Gingers Whiskey) or a Dark & Stormy (Reed’s, Kraken Black Spiced Rum and Horror-Infused Fiendishly Tropical Bitters).
Re: “The Great Silence” . It may be heresy to say this about anything that has Ted Chiang’s name on it, but I was unimpressed. That talking parrot is… oh, what’s the word for it? So humbly freighted with significance…. Placing a heartstring-tugging lecture in the mouth of an animal is hazardous, especially when there’s not a drop of irony in it. And I’m not one to insist that a story must have a conventional narrative, but still, does a lecture become a story just because it’s spoken by a parrot?
The redhead and I are planning on being at Worldcon this year, and we would be happy to meet up with any filers.
@Rev Bob
I’m sure you’ll add more to my TBR soon. It’s a never ending cycle here. Read one book, check file770, add 2-5 more to TBR.
Ginger ale can be tough to get in bars. If they don’t have it, DO NOT LET THEM try to concoct it with any sort of soda (usually in the 7-Up area) and bitters. That way madness lies.
I don’t drink much, either, but my go-to is cranberry juice. It’s pretty, it’s tasty, you can ask them to mix it with 7-Up or something if you want it to be fizzy, and with the advent of the Cosmo, everybody has cranberry juice behind the bar. Of course, nobody can tell whether you’re just drinking plain Coke/Diet Coke or Jack and Coke/Rum and Coke, so it’s fine to just get any basic cola beverage. For that matter, plain 7-Up on the rocks in an old fashioned glass could be a 7-and-7, so… If you’re trying to pass, it shouldn’t be a problem.
Alto here (in 2 choirs).
The NJ Primary is not til June, so I haven’t really focused that much. The US election season is way too long, and I deal with it by ignoring the first several months.
Anybody who’s still looking for BDP short form nominees for the 1941 Retro Hugos, how about nominating some classic cartoon shorts? Warner Bros, Disney and MGM produced a lot of delightful cartoons in 1940 (including the screen debuts of Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry) and the George Pal Puppetoon featuring Duke Ellington that was posted her a few weeks ago is also from 1940.