Pixel Scroll 3/25/18 The Unscrollable Molly Pixel

(1) BOX OFFICE KING UNSEATED. Black Panther set records: “Box Office: ‘Black Panther’ Becomes Top-Grossing Superhero Film of All Time in U.S.”.

The Disney and Marvel release achieved the milestone on Saturday after passing fellow Marvel title The Avengers, which grossed $623.4 million in 2012. To boot, Black Panther is only one of seven films to ever earn $600 million or more domestically, finishing Sunday with $630.9 million to put it at No. 5 on the all-time list.

But it finally has been bumped from the top of the weekly pyramid: “Weekend Box Office: ‘Pacific Rim 2’ Beating ‘Black Panther’ With Muted $25M-Plus”

Legendary and Universal’s big-budget release Pacific Rim: Uprising may have the distinction of being the film to finally unseat blockbuster Black Panther atop the box office, but the big-budget tentpole may not open to much more than $26 million in its domestic debut, according to early Friday returns. The first Pacific Rim, released in summer 2013, opened to $37 million in Nrth America.

Stomping into 2,850 theaters, Pacific Rim 2 grossed $10.4 million on Friday, including $2.4 million in Thursday previews.

(2) GUARD THOSE FOOTPRINTS. The White House (the Office of Science and Technology Policy) has issued a document proposing standards for “Protecting & Preserving Apollo Program Lunar Landing Sites & Artifacts” – Popular Mechanics has the story: “The U.S. Doesn’t Want Anyone Messing With the Apollo Landing Sites”.

Nations, space companies, and even private citizens have big plans to colonize the Moon. But this reinvigorated focus on our nearest celestial neighbor have some worried that this mad dash could destroy historical lunar landmarks.

Yesterday, The White House issued a report calling for ways to protect Apollo-era landing sites, calling them “rich in scientific and historical significance.” Congress mandated the report in the NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2017. Damage from exhaust blasts of nearby spacecraft, biological contamination, and the obliteration of tracks in the regolith are all concerns.

“Three Apollo sites remain scientifically active and all the landing sites provide the opportunity to learn about the changes associated with long-term exposure of human-created systems in the harsh lunar environment,” the report says. “Currently, very little data exists that describe what effect temperature extremes, lunar dust, micrometeoroids, solar radiation, etc. have on such man-made material.”

(3) FOWLERS. LitHub presents “Shannon Leone Fowler on Traveling After Her Fiancé’s Death, In Conversation with her mother, Karen Joy Fowler”.

KJF: So you wrote Traveling with Ghosts while raising your kids. And you’re still interested in animals—the book has a lot of marine biology, and of course Sean’s death from a box jellyfish. This is a grief memoir, and you’ve gotten a lot of response to the grief part, but it’s also a travel memoir, and my impression is that there’s been less response to the travel part.

SLF: Yes, the vast majority of personal messages from readers as well as the media have been about Sean’s death, and I wasn’t entirely anticipating that. Because although the book is very much centered around Sean’s death, the bulk of the story is the journey after and the travel that I did following. I think the lessons I learned that were the most surprising and profound were the lessons I learned traveling. So I wasn’t entirely prepared for the focus on Sean’s death, although I guess I should have been because it’s so shocking. But it was difficult at the beginning because I was thinking I was going to have conversations about these amazing Israeli girls or the resilience of Bosnia, and instead I kept finding myself back on the beach in Thailand.

(4) 451. The Verge has the schedule: “HBO will air its film adaptation of Fahrenheit 451 on May 19th”.

HBO’s upcoming adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s classic dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 finally has a release date: May 19th, 2018, according to Variety. The network announced the project last year, which stars Black Panther’s Michael B. Jordan and The Shape of Water’s Michael Shannon. Ramin Bahrani (99 Houses) directed and co-wrote the film.

(5) NEW MEXICO TIME. Walter Jon Williams linked to video of him being interviewed by George R.R. Martin.

So here I am any the Jean Cocteau Theater in Santa Fe, being interviewed by George R.R. Martin.  Right at the start he says I’m an important guy, so I must be.

 

(6) SILVERBERG-INSPIRED OPERA. “To See The Invisible”, an opera based on a Robert Silverberg story, will be performed at the 2018 Aldeburgh Festival, UK, June 8-11.

The opening performance of To See The Invisible will be recorded for future broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s “Hear and Now”.

Tickets from £5.00 to £25.00

…Condemned for a ‘crime of coldness’ by an authoritarian regime, The Invisible is cast adrift from society. All human interaction is outlawed. This life of isolation leads to strange, vicarious thrills and painful inner torment. Yet, as the lonely exile draws to a close, it is not coldness but perilous empathy with a fellow Invisible that risks the cycle of exclusion beginning all over again…

Emily Howard’s new opera, based on a short story by renowned American sci-fi writer Robert Silverberg, is a claustrophobic study of isolation; a dark satire on social conventions; and a stark reminder of our cruelty to outsiders. Howard’s music embraces extremes – the eerie beauty of The Invisible’s secluded psychological spaces set against the perpetual motion of the World of Warmth.

 

(7) FAITH AND FICTION. In “Publishers rejected her, Christians attacked her: The deep faith of ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ author Madeleine L’Engle”, the Washington Post’s Sarah Pulliam Bailey interviews Madeleine L’Engle’s granddaughter, Charlotte Jones Voiklis, L’Engle biographer Sarah Arthur and King’s College English professor Alissa Wilkinson about how Madeleine L’Engle’s deep Episcopalian faith was reflected in her fiction.

It took 26 publisher rejections before Madeleine L’Engle could get “A Wrinkle in Time” into print in 1962. The book was an instant hit, winning the Newbery Medal the following year, but despite its wild success, L’Engle still had fierce critics — including a good number of them who disliked her book for faith reasons.

(8) DIETRICH OBIT. Erwin C. Dietrich (1930-2018): Swiss film producer, aged 87. Specialised in sexploitation cinema, but genre releases include Jesus Franco’s Jack the Ripper (1976) and the horror-comedy Killer Condom (1996).

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY TREKKER

  • Born March 25, 1939 – D.C. Fontana

(10) COMICS SECTION.

  • Mike Kennedy says either the world is doomed, or ready for a feast: Non Sequitur.

(11) AKIRA AND AKITA. The Washington Post’s Michael O’Sullivan interviews Wes Anderson, who says Isle of Dogs is a homage to Akira Kurosawa and that here are also references to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II: “Why ‘Isle of Dogs’ may be Wes Anderson’s most timely film yet”

But if this is Anderson’s most timely film, why use animated dogs, not actors, to make his point?

Anderson says there was something hard to explain about the germ of the idea — a society of outcast and abandoned dogs living on a trash-strewn island — that fired up his imagination. “When Roman and Jason and I were first discussing this story, they said, ‘What do you see here? What is it that you are so interested in?’ I don’t know why, but I just had this idea that there’s a movie in that world and about this group of dogs. What are they going through? Why are they there? And the next thing you ask is, ‘What happens?’ The story just came out of our subconsciousness as much as anything else.”

(12) I CAN’T IMAGINE. What novels would you expect to find in JDA’s “man-bundle”? Maybe Monty Python’s Short History of Men Named Bruce?

(13) HOPKINSON TO WRITE COMICS. ComicsBeat boosted the signal: “WonderCon 2018: DC Announced New Justice League Titles”

Last month, Vertigo shocked readers when they announced the return to the Dreaming in a Neil Gaiman-curated THE SANDMAN UNIVERSE imprint this August. Today, Vertigo and DC Black Label Executive Editor Mark Doyle, along with guest Nalo Hopkinson who will pen the HOUSE OF WHISPERS title, gave fans a first look at Bilquis Evely’s interiors for THE SANDMAN UNIVERSE #1. Hopkinson shared her excitement for the transition from novelist to comic book writer, and shared some first insights into the mysterious new house and its proprietor. THE SANDMAN UNIVERSE #1 is available August 8, 2018.

(14) TO THINE OWN SELF. Neither an ape nor an alien be…: “Origin of ‘six-inch mummy’ confirmed”.

In addition to its exceptionally small height, the skeleton had several unusual physical features, such as fewer than expected ribs and a cone-shaped head.

The remains were initially discovered in a pouch in the abandoned nitrate mining town of La Noria. From there, they found their way into a private collection in Spain.

Some wondered whether the remains, dubbed Ata after the Atacama region where they were discovered, could in fact be the remains of a non-human primate. A documentary, called Sirius, even suggested it could be evidence of alien visitations.

Genetic investigation

The new research puts those ideas to rest.

A scientific team analysed the individual’s genome – the genetic blueprint for a human, contained in the nucleus of cells.

They had already used this to confirm that the individual was human. Now, the team has presented evidence that Ata was a female newborn with multiple mutations in genes associated with dwarfism, scoliosis and abnormalities in the muscles and skeleton.

(15) BETTER MOUSETRAP. Predator introduced by colonists eliminated from World Heritage sites: “Global implications for NZ ‘Million Dollar Mouse’ success”.

Million Dollar Mouse, part-funded by a public crowd-funding campaign, aimed to continue the work of other eradication projects around New Zealand, and involved a team setting up camp on the islands, air drops of pesticides from three helicopters, culminating in a month-long search involving trained dogs for any remaining pests, Radio NZ says.

According to a Stuff.nz feature on the islands, the mice likely arrived on ships belonging to sealers, and drove at least two local species to extinction. If the project hadn’t tackled the rodents they “would have spelled doom for many of the species there,” the feature said.

“The project was done to benefit the whole ecosystem there,” Mr Horn told Stuff, “These islands are high value, they’re World Heritage sites”. Animal life on the Antipodes Islands include bird species not found anywhere else.

(16) BOUNCEHENGE REDUX. Nickpheas says:

If you’re going to discover the inflatable Stonehenge then you really need the response song by musical comedian and sometime science fiction writer Mitch Benn (Terra, Terra’s World).

When Mitch does a live show he asks the audience for typical suggestions and tries to write a song during the interval. Generally they’re forgotten. This one, which I was there to hear it’s first performance had more legs.

 

[Thanks to Steve Green, JJ, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge,  John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, Nickpheas, and Carl Slaughter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Steve Davidson.]

100 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 3/25/18 The Unscrollable Molly Pixel

  1. How about a bundle with stories where the gender of the protagonist is never mentioned. I guess would be hard to find a novel, but novellas and short stories should work.
    Suggestions?

  2. Peer, I’d start with “Lock In” by Scalzi.

    There’s also some written-in-the-first-person mysteries with a protagonist named Hilary, but I cannot for the life of me remember title or author. Hilary’s gender is never given (I assumed female but apparently it’s also a male name in England). I read them years ago.

  3. Sarah Caudwell is the name of the mystery author. Thus was Adonis Murdered is the first. Hilary is the Oxford Don who advises a group of young solicitors who get mixed up in mysteries. Fun books. Very British.

  4. @Peer – they might be easier to find in first-person narratives, since that sidesteps the need for pronouns.

  5. Peer on March 26, 2018 at 1:59 pm said:
    How about a bundle with stories where the gender of the protagonist is never mentioned. I guess would be hard to find a novel, but novellas and short stories should work.
    Suggestions?

    Don’t know about a bundle, but John Scalzi did that in “Lock In” — the protagonist, Chris, was never gendered. Scalzi was very careful in his use of pronouns and the way everyone interacted with Chris. Since Chris spent most of the novel running around in the surrogate suit, there weren’t any physical cues.

    ETA: ninja’ed by Cassy B.

  6. Funny Women (that I haven’t seen mentioned yet): Jesse Petersen has a humorous series that I definitely enjoy. Starts with Married with Zombies. It’s basically “how the zombie apocalypse saved our marriage”, and it’s quite twisted and darkly funny.

    Seanan McGuire’s InCryptid series started out very much tongue-in-cheek, though it’s gotten more serious as the series has progressed.

    If husband-and-wife teams count, the classic SF pairing of C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner (aka Lewis Padgett) wrote quite a bit of humor–and nobody has ever been able to guess who contributed what to their many collaborations.

    And then, there’s the whole Paranormal Roman…tic Comedy genre.

  7. How about a bundle with stories where the gender of the protagonist is never mentioned. I guess would be hard to find a novel, but novellas and short stories should work.
    Suggestions?

    About a month ago, I featured Magic’s Betrayal a.k.a. Robin and Jamie, an indie epic fantasy at the Speculative Fiction Showcase, where the two leads have gender ambiguous names and their gender is never mentioned. The spotlight post is here.

    This is a rerelease with a new cover, title and blurb. Originally, the author actually mentioned the gender ambiguous nature of the book in the blurb.

  8. @The Leading Hispanic

    Oh hi, Jon! Are you going to apologize for lying about what Paul Weimer said?

  9. @The Leading Hispanic

    Also, now that I look back on both comments…you did notice that I said until recently and much of, right? Both phrases do carry the connotation of not being NOW and not being ALL.

    Honestly. For someone who claims to be a writer, you’re coming up short in your understanding of words.

  10. @Alexvdl I’m not afraid of entering any space in science fiction, though with recent calls to violence like Gareth Skarka just did on twitter, I should always check with convention security to make sure they will be protecting me before showing — as I did with Worldcon, who curiously didn’t respond other than to ban me for trying to come up with peaceful ways to defend myself should someone attack me.

    You don’t see my posts much because Mike has them auto-trashed. He’s let me go recently on a couple of posts here.

    @Bonnie McDaniel: I’ve never lied about anything Paul Weimer said. 1990s is not recent. I think you’d have to go back to the 1970s to see any disparity there –and likely just in this genre, as publishing was still mostly a female writer’s game, and this is a very niche genre. No one actively writing now was impacted by some discrimination against females. Everyone writing now is impacted by publishing discrimination against men.

  11. Complaints of the SF field now being ‘biased’ against white men are sort of like a baseball team winning the World Series 70 out of the last 72 years, losing the last two World Series, and then subsequently complaining that the other team is “cheating” and oh how so horrible this is and Something Needs to Be Done and Baseball is now ruined forever unless we Make Baseball Great Again.

  12. Dear Leading Hispanic,

    What do you think about PZ Myers’ analysis of your analysis?

  13. @The Leading Hispanic

    Oh, for frak’s sake. Your screenshot from here and tweet to StoryBundle was an out-and-out lie. You made it seem like Paul was agreeing with your ridiculous statement, and he did no such thing.

    A comment from the post of Pharyngula mentioned by Mark-kitteh above seems very apropos. The writer is Nathaniel Lee, who was at one time the Assistant Editor at Escape Pod.

    Isn’t it likely enough that the (supposedly) massively lopsided submissions to acceptance ratios show that women are far more likely than men to have a realistic and accurate view of their writing ability?

    Ding ding ding! Speaking from about ten years of reading most of the stories that came through two full podcasts’ submissions queues, I can tell you that my observation is that this is one hundred percent the case. Male authors start submitting the most mind-bogglingly stupid crap the minute they’ve finished their first story, and they tended to keep submitting despite rejection after rejection until they’d clearly emptied out their entire “MY RITING!!!!!” folder on their computer. The good male authors were still good, of course, but the proportion of good to crap was very close to Sturgeon’s Law, if not worse. Female or nonbinary authors, in contrast, tended to submit more rarely and to send a few stories, with the result that a much higher percentage of their stories were in the range of “pretty good, might be a possibility” and could go into the pile for consideration on other grounds, like whether we’d just done a story about robot pirates recently or whether we had a reader in mind who could do a great job with the voices etc. My personal read on it is that the male authors tended to assume that they were awesome by default, whereas female/nonbinary authors who submitted were more likely to already have some reason to believe they were skilled at writing, i.e. prior publication credits/encouragement from respected authors running workshops/etc. There were still clunkers, of course – one of my favorite stories to pull out of the pile and read aloud to terrify new slushers was by a woman, in fact – but the ratio of chaff was vastly lower.

    And as PZ and his commenters pointed out, your understanding of statistics is….lacking, to say the least.

  14. Bonnie McDaniel: Female or nonbinary authors, in contrast, tended to submit more rarely and to send a few stories, with the result that a much higher percentage of their stories were in the range of “pretty good, might be a possibility”

    I have a question. In other contexts, F770 has reported on studies that point to this disparity as evidence of discrimination, or even a symptom of institutional racism — arguing these other groups are deterred or discouraged from submitting. Were all the barriers removed, how likely is it that everyone would begin emptying out their “MY RITING” folders?

  15. “with recent calls to violence like Gareth Skarka just did on twitter,”

    Hey, JDA. I said that I was 100% positive that if somebody just kicked the asses of smug harassers like you & Vox, it would have a consequential effect — similar to the utter collapse of well-known Nazi Richard Spenser’s platform in the wave of his being punched.

    I *also* said that I absolutely would not advise that anyone do so… and you know that. But that doesn’t make for sexy copy in your performative schtick, so you don’t mention it.

    If you feel the need to discuss further, go ahead and email me at [email protected], and we can keep this bullshit off Mike’s page.

  16. @The Leading Hispanic.

    This is not the first, or the tenth time you’ve used my words to misleadingly suggest I support your work. And if you think, per your tweet stream today about how such a bad person I am, that one :sigh: at the idea of a “Man-bundle” justifies in your mind tweeting falsely about my supposed support for you, and my six character reponse constituted an “Attack”, I have to say, that’s some rather Beale-like Logic at work.

    And guess what? Tweeting at someone who has begged, pleaded, apologized multiple times, and did everything except walk on my knees to a shrine to get you to stop bothering me before blocking you, and you STILL do it after I did so–that’s harassment.

  17. Oh, this is very entertaining.

    Over on Twitter, JDA also has very entertaining theories about my motives in commenting on a Scroll item here, rather than rushing over to Twitter, where I rarely see his comments because I don’t follow him, to discuss it with him there.

  18. @Mike

    Well, if I understood what Nathaniel Lee was saying, his read on it was that the stories he saw submitted by women had already been pre-screened to some extent, either by writing teachers or writing groups, while many of the male writers just dumped whatever they had, without getting anyone else’s opinion on it before sending it in. (This may have something to do with the sentiment that many women, myself included, have, which is that to succeed in many things in our society, a woman must be twice as good.) That’s my feeling. I don’t know if the comment I quoted can really answer your question.

  19. Ha! “The Leading Hispanic Voice” claims he doesn’t lie when his very nick is a blatant lie! 🙂

  20. The Leading Hispanic Voice in Sockpuppet Accounts: You don’t see my posts much because Mike has them auto-trashed. He’s let me go recently on a couple of posts here.

    You’re on your what, 3rd sockpuppet account here? Do you understand what an incredibly dick move it is to bypass a blog ban with sockpuppet accounts?

    Also, you’ve repeatedly lied about things that I, Mike, Paul, Cat Rambo, Elizabeth Bear, and numerous other people have said. Would you like me to post an itemized list of your lies here, and then retweet every post of yours on Twitter and point to that list, so that people will continually be reminded of what a shameless, bald-faced liar you are? 🙂

  21. I’ve heard similar comments to Nathaniel Lee’s from many editors, both for genre and mainstread venues. Male writers tend to submit more stories and they tend to submit indiscriminately with little regard to quality or whether they fit the market. Female and nonbinary writers tend to submit fewer stories and be more selective with regards to what and where they submit. As a result, the overall quality of the submissions and the acceptance ratio is higher.

    @Self-styled Leading Hispanic Voice
    Okay, so Storybundle won’t give you the time of day. So why don’t you organise your own “man-bundle”, though you might really want to rethink the title? And don’t call it Storybundle, because I’m pretty sure that’s trademarked. You could contact some of your superversive SF and pulp revolution pals to organise a boxset of “science fiction by manly men”. Put it on Amazon and other retailers or use DriveThruFiction’s handy bundle function. Maybe release it around father’s day or another male themed holiday. Limit the availability of the boxset to a few days or weeks and advertise the shit out of it. You know, just like Storybundle does, only as a DIY solution.

    But you don’t really want to do the work, do you? You only want to complain how the poor widdle men are being discriminated against.

  22. @Techgrrl1972 – Scalzi’s done that trick with a whole bunch of his works, in fact; I know for sure I’ve seen it in “The God Engines” and “The Android’s Dream” and at least one of the “Old Man’s War” books.

  23. @Sylvia:

    It was you, was it not, who recced Coyote Wind, the first Gabriel Du Pre mystery? We just finished it and were most impressed. I can’t find your comment, but IIRC you said we could skip to … some more recent volume … and take it from there. Which one was it? There are rather a lot of them … Although we might just read them all (or all the ones in our library system), they’re pretty good candy.

    And HOPEFULLY the person who decided to CORRECT THE GRAMMAR (of the narrator’s very distinctive, vocal style) in PEN (!!!!) will have given up. To be fair(ish), they only did it a few times in the first book, but that’s enough for them to be on my Eternal Shit-List.

  24. @Doctor Science, arrgh! They should be banished from the library.

  25. JJ: You’re on your what, 3rd sockpuppet account here?

    Probably, but I need to make clear I have the current account on moderation, too.

  26. How about a bundle with stories where the gender of the protagonist is never mentioned. I guess would be hard to find a novel, but novellas and short stories should work.

    I’d love to see that. I had a phase in my playwriting where I was writing short plays where none of the characters has specific gender identification. It was a fascinating challenge, and it was fascinating when putting those plays into production to see the innate biases of directors and producers when they were casting. One was set on a spaceship with four characters: Smith, Jones, Miller and Baker. At first the producers were going to cast four men until I asked them why they made that choice.

  27. @Marshall, that doesn’t surprise me. Did they change it after you asked?

  28. @ULTRAGOTHA: Yes! Chanur!

    And wasn’t it one of Holly Lisle’s early books (Fire in the Mist or Bones of the Past) where a wizard had given a cat wings and opposable thumbs, and discovered that cats are, by nature, pyromaniacs?

  29. @Doctor Science, they start getting really good with Thunder Horse, but my favorites start with Long Son and continue on from there. And they keep being good, mostly because his family takes up more and more pages. Enjoy!

  30. Nothing says “man bundle” like a guy arguing with screenshots he took.

    I wish I hadn’t had coffee in my mouth when I read that.

    Meanwhile, I see that one of my favorite authors has been mentioned here! The late great Sarah Caudwell who, alas, only wrote 4 novels before she passed away in (IIRC) 2000 at age 60. I attended Malice Domestic once many years ago, where she was among the attendees (and speakers). She was so funny and charming, I wanted to read her work, so I went out and bought her first book, Thus Was Adonis Murdered. It, too, was so funny and charming that I immediately bought her other two books, The Shortest Way To Hades and The Sirens Sang of Murder. She got interested in other things after that (a mutual friend told me she was working on a play), so it was a long wait for her next book, which finally came out (The Sibyll In Her Grave)–but, sadly, she died a few months before its release.

    A British narrator named Eva Haddon did excellent audiobook narrations of all four books. Unfortunately, US rights have expired on some of the audio and ebook rights, so Sarah’s work is a little harder to find over here these days.

  31. (2) GUARD THOSE FOOTPRINTS. Unfortunate things happen to some of this stuff in Curtis C. Chen’s Kangaroo Too. 😉

    (12) I CAN’T IMAGINE. ::eyeroll::

    (13) HOPKINSON TO WRITE COMICS. I’m cautiously intrigued by the idea of a “Sandman Universe” imprint. Imprint? it sounds like a comic, not an imprint. Is “House of Whispers” the imprint (“the HOUSE OF WHISPERS title”)? I’m confused.

    @Kip W: “Tick-a tick-a tick-a tick me: . . . ” – Luvs it!

    @jayn: “”You know how to pixel . . .” – Also luvs it!

  32. Sandman Universe is the imprint, HOUSE OF WHISPERS is one of the series the imprint will publish.

    If I remember correctly, the others are LUCIFER, THE DREAMING and BOOKS OF MAGIC.

  33. @Kendall: what did you think of Chen’s sequel? Did it grow, or succumb to sequelitis?

  34. @Lenore — Once I brought it up, the director pretty much kicked herself for not seeing that in the first place. But, yes, when performed the cast was two men and two women.

  35. @Marshall Ryan Maresca, unconscious biases are HARD to overcome, because we don’t notice that we have them. (And yes, I’m sure I must have some, because I’m human, but I don’t know what they are….)

  36. A local playwright did the same thing with a play about two people (any gender combo) planning their marriage.

  37. @Kurt Busiek: Thanks, I was tired and lazy and should’ve looked it up myself. (blush) Now that I have (spurred on by your reply), I see “The Sandman Universe” is having an issue (or two); from the writer line-up and summary, it looks like it kicks off the other titles/the imprint. Anyway, I look forward to checking them out; I’m cautiously optimistic.

    @Chip Hitchcock: I can’t find my past comments on it (Googling for my name and “Kangaroo Too” finds almost nothing here), but basically, I liked Kangaroo Too a lot! I nominated it for a Hugo, BTW. I admit, I liked the first a little better, but the sequel was very good. Lots of action, humor, Kangaroo wackiness, some good twists and turns, etc. 😀 I again listened to the audiobook, which I was so glad I waited for (it came out just as I was about to give up hope). It was again narrated by the excellent P.J. Ochlan, who gets Kangaroo’s voice just perfect.

  38. I’m a little surprised nobody has mentioned Diane Duane’s “Cat Wizards” books, set in the same world as her “Young Wizards” series: The Book of Night With Moon, To Visit the Queen, and The Big Meow.

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