(1) ‘MURDERBOT’S’ MENSAH CAST. “Noma Dumezweni Joins Alexander Skarsgård In Apple’s ‘Murderbot’” – Deadline has details.
Noma Dumezwani (The Little Mermaid) is set as a lead opposite Alexander Skarsgård, in Apple TV+’s sci-fi drama series Murderbot, from Chris and Paul Weitz (About a Boy) and Paramount Television Studios.
Based on Martha Wells’ bestselling Hugo- and Nebula Award-winning book series The Murderbot Diaries, Murderbot centers on a self-hacking security android who is horrified by human emotion yet drawn to its vulnerable “clients.” Murderbot must hide its free will and complete a dangerous assignment when all it really wants is to be left alone to watch futuristic soap operas and figure out its place in the universe.
Dumezwani will play Mensah….
(2) MEDICAL UPDATE. Today Nancy Collins told her GoFundMe donors the latest development (“What Doesn’t Kill Me Leaves Me With Medical Bills”).
Today I had my first outpatient follow-up at Georgia Cancer Specialists.
The hematologist I saw informed me that since my blood clot was “unprovoked”–ie I didn’t fall down, never smoked cigarettes, or utilize estrogen replacement therapy–I will probably have to remain on blood thinners for the rest of my life. They then proceeded to take 12 vials of blood and had me sign a waiver for genetic tests to check for cancer or other hereditary blood disorders (not impossible, as my grandmother was anemic). I go back in 3 weeks to find out what the testing says. I will also find out if my insurance agreed to pay for the genetic testing when I go back, which is $2400.
(3) IMPRESS NEIL GAIMAN AND THE OTHER JUDGES. Neil Gaiman will be one of the judges for The Folio Book Illustration Award, which will be taking entries through April 3 of artwork based on one of his short stories. Full guidelines at the link.
The Folio Book Illustration Award offers the opportunity for aspiring and established illustrators to provide one piece of artwork in response to Neil Gaiman’s short story ‘The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains’.
The judges – Folio Art Directors, Sheri Gee and Raquel Leis Allion, Folio Publishing Director, Tom Walker, FBIA 2023 winner, Cristina Bencina, and Neil Gaiman – will be looking for strong characterisation and atmosphere in the entries, along with a demonstrated ability to read and reflect the text. The final piece should illustrate a character-based scene from the story, not solely a portrait of a character.
To make the competition accessible to as many artists as possible, there is no entry fee. An initial longlist selection of 20 entries will be announced in June, with the judging panel announcing the winning artist and five runners-up in July.
The winner will receive a prize of £2,000 cash, plus £500 worth of Folio vouchers, and their artwork will appear in the upcoming Folio collection of Neil Gaiman’s short stories. Each of the five runners-up will receive £500 worth of Folio vouchers. The winning artist and runners-up will also receive a portfolio review by the Folio art directors….
(4) CON REPORT. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] SF² Concatenation has an advance-post now up ahead of its next seasonal edition with a review of Britain’s 2023 Fantasycon by Ian Hunter… See the full review at the link: “The 2023 Fantasycon”.
And here we are again, back in Birmingham, the home of many of my favourite Fantasycons from way back, and I do mean waaaay back, and from just two years ago when the city hosted Fantasycon 2021. Then, I certainly felt uneasy coming down from Scotland where facemasks were still being worn, down to Broad Street with all its hotels and pubs and clubs and lots of young people milling about who weren’t wearing face masks. No such worries this time, even the 2021 convention hotel changing names from the Jurys Inn to the Leonardo Royal Hotel couldn’t phase me….
(5) VINTAGE FILK SESSION. Fanac.org has posted video of a segment from a 1989 convention filksing: “Tropicon 8 (1989)–Part 3 of 3 — Filk with Julia Ecklar, Orion’s Belt & Linda Melnick”.
Title: Tropicon 8 (1989)-Part 3 of 3 – Filk with Julia Ecklar, Orion’s Belt and Linda Melnick
Description: Julia Ecklar was the special filk guest at Tropicon 8, held in Dania, Florida, in 1989. This recording captures the third part of an open filk at the convention, and includes 8 songs (of which Julia sings four, with one incomplete) and one poem. The performers on this recording in order of appearance: Julia Ecklar, Chuck Phillips, Dina Pearlman, Francine Mullen, Doug Wu, and Linda Melnick. The video includes much of the conversation between songs, the laughter and the occasional disagreement of a 1980s convention filk session. This video includes several songs by Orion’s Belt, which consisted of Dina Pearlman, Francine Mullen and Doug Wu.Tropicon was a small convention, and you will see some of the author guests in the filk. That’s Tropicon 8 GoH Lynn Abbey sitting next to C.J. Cherryh for example, and Joe Green sitting back against the wall. Note that the last song is incomplete – the recording chops off in the middle. Many thanks to Eli Goldberg for sound editing on this recording and for the details in the song listing.
(6) GIVE A BONE A BAD NAME. “200 Years Of Naming Dinosaurs: Scientists Call for Better Rules” – Nature has the story. The people doing the study say about 3% of species names are colonialist, have other issues, or reflect that some paleontologists like to name their discoveries after themselves.
It’s been 200 years since researchers named the first dinosaur: Megalosaurus. In the centuries since, hundreds of other dinosaur species have been discovered and catalogued — their names inspired by everything from their physical characteristics to the scientists who first described them. Now, some researchers are calling for the introduction of a more robust system, which they say would ensure species names are more inclusive and representative of where and how fossils are discovered. Megalosaurus was named by William Buckland, a geologist who discovered the enormous reptile’s fossilized remains in a field in Stonesfield, UK, in 1824. Buckland chose the name Megalosaurus on account of the immense size of the bones he and others had excavated. “It was a sensation — the first gigantic extinct land reptile ever discovered,” says Paul Barrett, a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum in London. “Such an animal had never been conceived of before.” The word dinosaur — from the Greek meaning ‘fearfully great lizard’ — was introduced in 1841
Unlike in other scientific disciplines — such as chemistry, in which strict rules govern a molecule’s name — zoologists have relatively free rein over the naming of new species. Usually, the scientist or group that first publishes work about an organism gets to pick its name, with few restrictions. There is a set of guidelines for species naming overseen by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN). These include the requirements that the name is unique, that it is announced in a publication and that, for dinosaurs, it is linked to a single specimen….
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born March 1, 1950 — David Pringle, 73. Happy Birthday, David Pringle! He helped found the Interzone semiprozine, which he co-edited with a number of individuals through the beginning of this millennium.
Need I say that Interzone has been one of my favorite genre zines for a very long time and even though it’s now digital only remains so? I say that because some print subscribers have abandoned since it went all digital last year.
Intersection gave Pringle and Lee Montgomerie a Hugo for editing Interzone in 1995, and the SF Award Database credits him with an additional 19 Hugo nominations in connection with the magazine. And the 2005 Worldcon presented him with a Special Committee Award.
There’s six anthologies under the Interzone name out there as well. He’s also done a number of general anthologies, though the only one I remember reading is his Route 666 one which at this point in time I only remember because of the memorable title.
He is a noted scholar of J.G. Ballard having written books, monographs and newsletters on him.
Now we come to what I consider two of the most indispensable guides to genre fiction in existence — Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels and Modern Fantasy: The 100 Best Novels. Yes, you’ll argue with his choices, but that’s the fun of them, isn’t it?
They are definitely Meredith Moments at the usual suspects, a nice bonus I’d say.
(8) COMICS SECTION.
- Thatababy gets into the adventure early.
(9) PUNCHING THE CLOCK. Colleen Doran answers the question “How Long Does it Take to Draw a Comic Book Page?” at Colleen Doran’s Funny Business.
… Items marked in red indicate the complete time cost of a single page from start to finish. Time costs are for penciled AND inked pages entire, not for just a page of pencils. So, the time cost for Wonder Woman page 5 is 7 hours 48 minutes pencils and inks completed.
On some of those pages you might be thinking, “Wow! Only 5 hours 9 minutes to draw an entire comic book page!”
However, keep in mind that this is self reporting. While my computer tracks whatever I do while I’m using a program, I have to enter all my offline work manually. I tend to under report. These are the hours I recorded. And that was a farily simple page.
If it had been a page of the Amazons going to war, you can double or triple that time cost.
Time cost would also not include writing the script, researching the material, or doing the thumbnails for each page….
(10) STEVE VERTLIEB INTERVIEWED ABOUT HIS LIFE AND CAREER BY “INTERFLEET BROADCASTING”. [Item by Steve Vertlieb.] Yesterday’s “Steve Vertlieb Interview” starts 45 minutes into the video.
“Join us for an interview with actor writer and Film Journalist Steve Vertlieb. He has spent most of his life around film makers!. John 1 hosts with the Tipsy Toaster since NY Pete is exploring and trying to find his way. Tiny Bean is also on Deck that is if those pesky internet people fix the lines after an Arcta class storm.”
I was both honored and humbled last evening to do a ninety minute interview with the folks at Interfleet Broadcasting that I hope you’ll find interesting. We discuss Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror Films and Literature, as well as Ray Harryhausen, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, and the history of Music for the Movies, and such composers as Bernard Herrmann, Miklos Rozsa, and John Williams.
I’d like to thank the hosts of the program for their most gracious kindness toward me. You’ll find the interview some forty five minutes into the broadcast.
(11) FLYING IN FORMATION? [Item by Daniel Dern.] “’Shocked and delighted’: Astronomers find six planets orbiting in resonance” reports Astronomy. (As opposed to, say, a Klemperer Rosette (Puppetteer’s ‘Fleet of Worlds), or LaGrange points (in numerous space operas, can’t think of one specifically) The discovery was published in Nature.
A newly discovered system of six planets circling a nearby Sun-like star may be the key to unlocking how planetary systems form. All between the size of Earth and Neptune, the worlds are orbiting in a so-called resonant chain — a configuration that it’s relatively rare to observe in nature, making the system a valuable find that offers a window into a uniquely “gentle” history….
(12) HE WAS WHACKED. Nature is where you’ll find out “The Life and Death of a Bog Man Revealed After 5,000 Years”. “Vittrup Man, who died in his thirties, was a Scandinavian wanderer who settled down between 3300 and 3100 BC.”
Before he was bludgeoned to death and left in a Danish bog, an ancient individual now known as Vittrup Man was an emblem of past and future ways of living.
He was born more than 5,000 years ago into a community of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers who probably lived in northern Scandinavia as their ancestors had for millennia. But Vittrup Man spent his adult life across the sea in Denmark among farming communities, whose ancestors came from the Middle East.
It’s impossible to know the lives that Vittrup Man touched during his lifetime, but it was his death that caught people’s imagination thousands of years later. His remains — ankle and shin bones, a jawbone and a skull fractured by at least eight heavy blows — were discovered in the early twentieth century in a peat bog near a town called Vittrup in northern Denmark, alongside a wooden club that was probably the murder weapon.
His “unusually violent” death distinguished Vittrup Man from other similarly aged remains found in bogs, says Karl-Göran Sjögren, an archaeologist at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, who co-led a team that charted Vittrup Man’s life in a study published last week.
(13) REACHES MOON ON ITS LAST LEGS. “U.S. spacecraft on the moon finally sends home the money shot” at Mashable. See the photo at the link.
A new snapshot from the first private moon landing shows the moment the spacecraft touched down in what looks like a foggy mist — with a broken leg.
The image depicts Intuitive Machines’ lander Odysseus with its engines still firing. On the left side, pictured above, landing gear pieces are visibly broken off from one of the robotic craft’s six struts, said the company’s CEO Steve Altemus….
(14) TIME TO CHECK OUT. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Dr Becky Smethurst of Oxford University this week’s looks at the latest pics from James Webb and contemplates a time when our sun dies… “JWST discovers exoplanets orbiting DEAD STARS”.
When stars like the Sun die do their planets survive? In 5 billion years the Sun will swell into a red giant star, swallowing up the Earth, and maybe even Mars. But what about Jupiter and the rest of the gas giant planets? This month new research has been published, claiming to have found two exoplanets in orbit around two dead white dwarf stars with JWST. These planets are similar in mass to Jupiter, and orbit their stars at a distance similar to Saturn and Neptune in the Solar System.
(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] I’m not sure why he decided we needed a Pitch Meeting for a 2016 film, but here it is. “Gods of Egypt Pitch Meeting”.
[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Kathy Sullivan, Daniel Dern, Rich Lynch, Steve Vertlieb, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Brian Z.]
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I agree with everyone that androgynous and ungendered is exactly how Murderbot would want for itself to be portrayed. However, I don’t think that aligns with the thematic point that Murderbot’s entire existence has been about being treated in ways it doesn’t want. The lack of agency and conflict between how it wants to engage with the universe vs how the universes literally sees it is the entire thematic underpinning of the series.
It’s like Peter Parker/Spider-Man. He wants his life to go smoothly where his superhero life doesn’t interfere with his personal life. But him not getting what he wants is the entire story-telling engine of the character.
Also, the “Ace” vs “ACE” misunderstanding is hilarious.
@Ryan H
Murderbot’s lack of gender isn’t connected to how it’s been mistreated.
Ok, I’ve got two comments on murderbot: first… please, please… I learned a long, long time ago that for bodybuilding, there are two styles: one for smooth muscle, the kind that you get from actually doing heavy labor (think Steve Reeves, or Johnny Weismuller), and one for bulk (Arnie). I see absolutely no reason for a Murderbot to be looking like bulk
Therefore, my perfect casting would be, with the help of CGI to make him about 6″ taller… David Bowie. In full Ziggy Stardust mode….
@P J Evans, no lack of gender isn’t connected to how it’s been mistreated. But the people who mistreated it are unlikely to have taken any of its preferences into account. They would have been shocked at the idea that it could have preferences.
And, on a meta level, giving Murderbot an appearance that is entirely based on functional decisions, and which don’t even consider that Muderbot could have preferences, is an easy production decision to emphasize the disconnect between its personhood and how it was treated.
A. P. Howell: Gwendoline Christie if she’d been cast
Thank you! I’ve been feeling dissatisfied with the casting of Skarsgård, but I’ve been wracking my brain (what’s left of it) for the casting that would make me feel satisfied, and you’ve put your finger on it. Christie would have been a brilliant choice.
But I was dubious about Paramount’s casting of Anson Mount and he’s turned out to be the perfect choice. So I’m going to try to be cautiously optimistic about this one.
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@Lis Carey & @Tammy Coxen, thanks for the corrections on Worldcon and Le Guin; honestly, I was just quickly scrabbling in my head for examples of CamelCase and that’s what the mental slot machine spat out, but I should have actually taken two minutes and found a couple of better examples.
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Gwendoline Christie is indeed the first name that popped into my head when I thought about casting Murderbot.
@mark: the possible reason for Murderbot being “bulk” is that part of a SecUnit’s job is to look intimidating! As a cyborg, Murderbot’s strength almost certainly has little to do with organic muscle. But, much like a bouncer at a nightclub, looking stereotypically strong is going to be important.
If your primary goal is violence, you purchase a Combat Unit, rather than a SecUnit.
@Cassy B.: SecUnit, as Wells spells it, is a good example of CamelCase. 🙂
My issue with casting Murderbot as a cis white man is that the SecUnits are supposed to have a Default Human look; large built but otherwise generic, to the point the facial features are randomized from human variation.
In our world, Cis White Male has been the longtime Default human in a way that has been deeply detrimental to other humans who are not Default. So I kind of wanted someone like Frankie Adams.
” Murderbot is officially and by strong personal choice they/them/it. It has no genitalia at all. If you were casting purely on the basis of trying to match the character to the closest equivalent human sexuality you would need to find the most Ace person imaginable, regardless of their physical presentation.”
“Ace” is short for “asexual,” as in “does not experience sexual attraction.” Murderbot is certainly canonically asexual, as it finds the whole concept of sexual intimacy distasteful and embarrassing.
However, that has nothing to do with its gender. Men, women, non-binary people, genderfluid people, etc. can be asexual.
Murderbot has no gender because it has no genitals, no secondary sex characteristics (it has to remember to grow its head hair out a little to “pass” as augmented human, and I believe it comments on its lack of body hair as well. It definitely does not have breasts), and refers to itself as “it.” One might describe it as non-binary as it doesn’t fit into the male/female gender binary, but a better word might be “agender,” or “does not experience/relate to gender.”
I realize that everyone is not as Constantly Thinking About Sex and Gender as some of us who are certified sex and gender nerds are, but it would help a lot of people feel more welcomed in the world if everyone could take the time to get clear on the difference between sexual orientation (who, if anyone, you want to have sex with) and gender (what, if any, label/s you use to describe your relationship to categories like male, female, etc.)
I’m not thrilled with casting AS as Murderbot, because he’s a cisgender man, he might sometimes have a softer gender presentation in terms of his clothing and hair but his secondary sex characteristics are entirely male-aligned, and his genitals are his business but some of his photo shoots have left little to the imagination. An agender actor would be more aligned with Murderbot in the book; a nonbinary person without strongly gendered secondary sex characteristics would also be better in my opinion.
It’s been a while since I read the early books but I recently re/read the last 4. I don’t recall Murderbot talking about what physical characteristics are selected for in SecUnits, but it is clear that Combat Units are much more physically powerful. I’m not sure where folks get the idea that SecUnits are meant to be “intimidating.” They’re equipment sent along with planetary exploration, mining, terraforming, etc. teams. They’re mostly there to keep humans from doing dumb stuff – “don’t go out in that radiation storm with your protective gear half open,” “don’t go investigate those strange noises beyond the security fence,” “stop encouraging people to play mumbletypeg with a plasma knife,” that sort of thing. Their weapons are more likely to be used on Giant Space Rabbits or whatever than on some intelligent hostile individual, and they don’t need to be intimidating to kick someone’s kneecap sideways to stop them from picking a fight with another member of the team over who has to do KP duty this week.
However much sympathy one may have with the idea that asexual characters should be played by asexual actors, Hollywood doesn’t work that way. The decision to cast Skarsgård may have been (and probably was) based on factors much more important to the producers, including the actor’s (to use a term I haven’t heard for several years) “Q-rating”, the desires of the director, favors owed to Skarsgård, the ability of Skarsgård to convey other themes and characteristics besides asexuality, and the (real or perceived) lack of availability of asexual actors whose stardom and/or acting ability is sufficient to carry a movie of this magnitude.
I recall Scarlett Johansson in “Ghost in the Shell” — she was not Asian, as was the character she portrayed, but her participation was key to getting the movie made at all.
@bill
Hollywood certainly does have a very long trend of whitewashing roles, because Hollywood also has a very long history of racism. Just like Hollywood has a very long history of discrimination against LGBTQ or GNC (gender non-conforming) people. We could definitely point to a lot of instances where this trend holds true, like casting cis actors in trans roles or your Scarlett Johansson example where Motoko Kusanagi was cast as a white woman for some reason or another, even though there are plenty of Asian actresses in Hollywood (live action GitS was a few years after Pacific Rim, Rinko Kikuchi was right there doing movies).
Once again a role that seems to be perfect for a GNC/agender individual is instead given to a cis actor, and that’s disappointing for a lot of people. It doesn’t need to be pointed out that this is something that happens all the time – most of the people in this conversation are well aware of that. I’m also disappointed because it plays into the trend of Hollywood needing ‘acceptable’ bodies for screen (see also the trend of scar/disfigurement diminishment onscreen, like TV Tyrion Lannister, Hester Shaw from the Mortal Engines movie, the Netflix Witcher depiction of Yennefer’s disability/”ugliness”, or Zuko in the new live-action Avatar) and being very unwilling to show anyone onscreen that doesn’t fit an extremely narrow Hollywood standard of looks (cis, more often than not white, gender-conforming, and fitting into societal beauty standards).
I would argue that “the only way to get this movie made is to cast a big-name white actress, no Asian actress could possibly attract that kind of audience” (which is, no doubt, part of the casting decisions) is the kind of decision that reinforces Hollywood’s racism and limiting of roles for POC and LGBTQ people.
“and that’s disappointing for a lot of people.”
I’m very aware of that, and am not trying to discount the feelings of anyone who is disappointed.
But movie producers don’t see the population of people who feel that way as a group with enough market share to be responsive to them. Gender-blind (and I realize that this term isn’t exactly appropriate for what’s being discussed here; I just don’t know a better one off the top of my head) casting will happen when the audiences pull it, not when studios push it.
Changes do happen, though, if at a glacial pace. 80 years ago, Lena Horne was a star, but in “race” movies only. Now Denzel Washington can open and carry a mass-market movie on his own.
@bill – “It’s just not feasible right now, wait until the times change” has been said to marginalized people since the film industry began. The time is now. There are nonbinary and agender actors in the industry. There has never been more support for casting people the right people in the right roles (see: Desire in the Sandman TV series). Saying “change takes time” is literally the least helpful response here.
@Elusis: (see: Desire in the Sandman TV series)
Played by Mason Alexander Park, who is great in the recent seasons of Quantum Leap.
@Elusis
I don’t disagree with what you are saying. The changes you advocate are in the interest of nonbinary and agender actors.
But Hollywood does not act in the interest of those people. It does not care. If casting nonbinary/agender actors does not sell more tickets, it won’t happen. And right now, it doesn’t do so.
@Elusis and @bill: I sort of agree with both of you but would add that diverse representation in films and television (beyond the straight white male hero type) is important not only to the actors but to all the fans/viewers/audience members who are not that type and that the work by activist organizations and academics identifying and challenging the systems of racism, sexism, and heteronormativity in “Hollywood” has been going on for decades, and goes well beyond who is being cast (one of the major issues is who the creators behind the camera are in ALL the related professions). The idea that “Hollywood” is somehow taken over by the “woke” is a staple of the far-right extremists, but evidence shows that despite the rhetoric, it’s part of the kyriarchal capitalist system.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1kc6jvm
https://gitnux.org/sexism-in-hollywood-statistics/#:~:text=Most%20Important%20Statistics-,94%25%20of%20women%20in%20Hollywood%20have%20experienced%20sexual%20harrassment%20or,than%20men%20with%20similar%20experience.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/from-servants-to-outlaws-100-years-of-black-representation-in-hollywood-films-1.5953758
https://glaad.org/sri/2023/
Sorry Mike for dumping all the links in one post!
@robinreid
“diverse representation in films and television (beyond the straight white male hero type) is important . . . to all the fans/viewers/audience members who are not that type”
I’m straight, white, male, conservative — “not that type”. And I fail to see why the presence of, say, Laverne Cox in “Orange is the New Black” instead of a non-trans actor is important to me. .
bill: It’s important because we have the entire history of cinema showing the strong cis white guy as the hero (AND the villain, and the complicated character, and the sidekick and and and…), and the white woman as his romantic support, helpmeet, noir mystery, and/or mother. Which leads to narrow thinking about who can do these things in the real world. And EVERYONE could stand to have their defaults expanded upon, and see other people in these complicated roles.
I liked seeing a variety of people in the futures I read about and watch. Feels realistic.
Theatre used to have all roles played by men (Lady MacBeth, Portia, Juliet, Miranda, Cordelia – all parts originated by men on stage) and while I’m sure that the performances were excellent in many cases, there’s a certain amount of nuance that can get lost; that was remedied when women were allowed on stage.
A trans or asexual actor might correct an misrepresentation of their experience that slipped past the writer and director, making the production better than it otherwise would be for the whole audience, even guys like me who don’t share those characteristics (Zero Mostel famously insisted that Tevye should kiss the mezuzahs when entering his door).