(1) FRANK R. PAUL AWARDS TAKING ENTRIES. Administrator Frank Wu has announced the Frank R. Paul Awards are open for submissions until April 15. Full details are available here.
There are two categories: Best Magazine Cover Art, and Best Book Cover Art. Prizes include a trophy (with a 3D-printed recreation of FRP’s tiger-robot-monster from the Sept. 1935 Wonder Stories) plus $500 in each category.
Artwork for any publication (pro, semi-pro, fanzine or online) is eligible, as long as the art was first published anywhere in 2024.
Artists are encouraged to submit (to me, Frank Wu, at FWu@FrankWu.com) on their own behalf up to 5 items they had published last year, with a note that the art was NOT generated using an AI program.
Authors and publishers are also encouraged to submit on behalf of artists they’ve worked with, and anyone else can submit on behalf of any artwork that pleased them in the last year.
(2) BOOK CURATION AS FREE SPEECH. “ABA Goes Into Damage Control After Contentious WI2025 Community Forum” reports Publishers Weekly.
A week after Winter Institute 2025 wrapped up in Denver on February 26, the American Booksellers Association dedicated Thursday’s issue of its weekly Bookselling This Week newsletter to respond to criticisms raised at a contentious WI2025 community forum. During that forum, booksellers criticized the ABA leadership and board for their refusal for more than a year to take a clear stand in support of indie booksellers who have been attacked for selling books about Palestine, as well as authors who are Palestinian and/or have spoken out against the Israeli military campaign in Gaza. Other speakers raised concerns about double standards, some related to compensation, in the organization’s treatment of its members. Booksellers had raised similar concerns at the community forum at WI2024 in Cincinnati.
Perhaps John Evans, a past ABA board member who currently owns Camino Books in a San Diego suburb, summed it up best, when he said at the WI2025 community forum: “We aren’t asking you to come out with a stance on the Israeli war. We are asking you to support booksellers in a censorious environment by making this statement publicly that it is not antisemitic to provide books to people who want them. All of this falls within the framework of a bookselling organization. This is not a political statement. This is a consensual, understood, fundamental principle of what we all do, and it’s hurting us. You not supporting that. It’s offending us.”
In a letter signed by all 12 ABA board members that appeared in BTW, the board emphasized that it, “along with the staff of American Booksellers for Free Expression and ABA, condemns all attacks on bookstores, in particular the targeting of bookstores who have chosen to highlight Palestinian books and authors in their stores. Each bookstore’s curation is their own expression of their freedom of speech, and verbal attacks, demands to carry or not carry certain titles, and threats to stores are not acceptable.” The board also promised to support any booksellers “during times of persecution, harassment, curation challenges, and other attacks on booksellers and stores.”
The ABA wrote in a separate statement, which also appeared in BTW, that booksellers have been offered support, resources, education, crisis counseling, and provided with a hotline by ABA staff. “This is the work that ABA is empowered to do by our ends policies and allowed to do as a 501(c)(6) nonprofit trade association,” the ABA declared. “We cannot make a political statement on behalf of our members, but we can and do support our members in their right to express those views.” The organization added: “Book curation is a form of speech, and it must remain free. We condemn any harassment or threat to our members that aims to abridge this freedom.”…
(3) STATE DEPARTMENT’S LATEST CULTURAL DAMAGE. The University of Iowa’s International Writing Program shared some bad news with Facebook readers:
Dear Friends: We write today with a difficult update. On Wednesday, Feb. 26, the International Writing Program (IWP) learned that its grants with the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, were being terminated. This notification explained that the IWP’s awards “no longer effectuate agency priorities,” nor align “with agency priorities and national interest.” The immediate result was the cancellation of Between the Lines (the IWP’s summer youth program), and the dissolution of Lines and Spaces Exchanges, Distance Learning courses, and Emerging Voices programs. The overall Fall Residency cohort will be reduced by around half due to the loss of federally funded participants; the IWP’s other long-time funding partners, including a combination of donors, grants, foreign ministries of culture, and NGOs, will continue to support writers.
We are devastated by the abrupt end of this 58-year partnership and are working closely with University of Iowa General Counsel and Grant Accounting to review the terminations, understand their full impact, and respond in the best interest of the organization. Despite this disappointing turn of events, the IWP’s mission to promote mutual understanding through creative writing and literature remains unchanged; with the help of a limited number of other partners, we will still hold a 2025 Fall Residency even while pursuing new sources of funding. To support the IWP as we begin to rebuild, please visit this website: bit.ly/support-iwp
(4) TUTTLE ON FIVE NEW BOOKS. Lisa Tuttle’s “The best recent science fiction and fantasy – review roundup” for the Guardian covers The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica; Dissolution by Nicholas Binge; The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar; When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi; and The Foot on the Crown by Christopher Fowler.
(5) BOOKLESS IN BLIGHTY. But the Guardian immediately leaves you wondering who in Britain might take advantage of Tuttle’s recommendations: “New poll finds 40% of Britons have not read a book in the past year”.
According to new a polling by YouGov 40% of Britons have not read or listened to a book in the past year.
The median British adult has read or listened to three books in the past year, the survey found.
Women seem to be bigger readers than men, with 66% of women reading at least one book in the last year, compared with 53% of men.
There was a political split: while 72% of remain voters said they’d picked up a book in the past 12 months, 54% of leave voters reported doing so. Labour voters were most likely to have read in the last year (70%) when compared with Lib Dem (64%), Conservative (63%) and Reform (51%) voters.
A class divide also emerged, with 66% of respondents in middle-class households reporting having recently read a book compared with 52% of those in working-class households.
(6) EYE ON GUY. Andrew Porter has shared the photo he took of Brother Guy Consolmagno at Boskone.
(7) JEOPARDY! Then, Andrew Porter relayed the results of genre interest from tonight’s episode of Jeopardy!
Final Jeopardy: Category: Science Fiction
Answer: Name shared by a groundbreaking magazine launched in April 1926 & a TV anthology series that premiered in September 1985
Wrong questions: What is Popular Science (crossed out; no actual question).
What is Outer Limits?
What is Unsolved Mysteries?
Correct question (obviously) is Amazing Stories.
(8) GENE HACKMAN FOLLOW-UP. Authorities in Santa Fe, NM held a press conference today where they revealed — “Gene Hackman Died From Alzheimer’s & Heart Disease; Wife Died Days Before” – Deadline has the story.
A February 27 autopsy of Gene Hackman reveals the 95-year-old Oscar winner died of a combination of “advanced Alzheimer’s disease” and severe heart disease, the New Mexico Chief Medical Examiner announced today.
“It is reasonable to conclude that Mr. Hackman died on February 18,” Dr. Heather Jarrell said in a press conference with Santa Fe Sheriff Adan Mendoza and other county officials. “He was in very poor health,” Dr. Jarrell also noted of Hackman, adding that there was evidence that he hadn’t eaten for a number of days. Ms. Arakawa is assumed to have died on or around February 11, officials estimated….
(9) MEMORY LANE.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Weyr Search (1967) and Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series
Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series has a fascinating Hugo history.
She won a Hugo the first time she was nominated, for the novella “Weyr Search”, in 1968 at Baycon (tied with Philip José Farmer’s “Riders of the Purple Wage”.) It was published in Analog Science Fiction / Science Fact, October 1967.
It’s in A Dragon-Lover’s Treasury of the Fantastic anthology which was edited by Margaret Weis, available from the usual suspects at a very reasonable price.
It would be the only win for the Dragonriders of Pern series but by far is not the only nomination for the series.
Next up would be the “Dragonrider” novella which was nominated a year later at St. Louiscon. Three years later, her Dragonquest novel would get a nod at the first L.A. Con showing that con had impeccable taste. Are you surprised they did? I’m certainly not.
At Seacon ‘79, The White Dragon was nominated. (I really love that novel.)
The next L.A. Con (1984) would see another novel be nominated, Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern. The final nomination, also for a novel, was at MagiCon (1992), for All the Weyrs of Pern.
The series did win a number of other awards including a Nebula for Dragonrider, a Ditmar and Gandalf for The White Dragon, a Balrog for Dragondrums and The Science Fiction Book Club’s Book of the Year Award for The Renegades of Pern. It is, after all, an expansive series. Really expansive.
Personal note: I really wanted to enjoy this series all the way through as I came to it later. They were great, they really were, but something happened in the stories early on for me that I can say but I won’t as it’s a MAJOR SPOILER.
I read the first trilogy of Dragonquest, Dragonflight and The White Dragon plus Harper Hall trilogy of Dragonsong, Dragonsinger and Dragondrums, and I did read on through maybe, let me check ISFDB, through All the Weyrs of Pern, That’s when that MAJOR SPOILER occurs which makes me say why McCaffrey, oh why?
(10) COMICS SECTION.
- Bizarro compares favorite tunes.
- Carpe Diem makes a hygiene suggestion.
- Dog Eat Doug argues over Pan’s Labyrinth.
- Tom the Dancing Bug provides a fun pack.
- Wallace the Brave almost reveals someone’s powers.
(11) HAPPY DEMENTED BIRTHDAY. Dr. Demento (Barry Hansen) turns 84 on April 2 and will celebrate his birthday at the LA Breakfast Club. Dr. Demento will take the audience through his 55 year career as America’s most unusual disc jockey and play some of his favorite songs. Tickets available here: “Celebrate The Doctor’s Career & 84th Birthday!”
ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Dr. Demento has been celebrating “mad music and crazy comedy” on the airwaves playing everything from Spike Jones to Frank Zappa for over five decades. He is responsible for introducing the world to the Dr. Demento Show’s #1 most requested song of all time, “Fish Heads”, and launching the career of “Weird Al” Yankovic. Throughout the years, the world-famous Doctor’s influence on pop culture has earned him induction into the National Radio Hall of Fame, an hour long Anniversary special on Comedy Central, featured guest appearances on Late Night with David Letterman, Larry King Live, and countless others including The Simpsons.
(12) A BIGGER SLICE OF THE CHEESE, PLEASE. “Disney Animation Production Management Workers Ratify First Union Contract” reports Animation Magazine.
After two years of determined effort, the production management workers at Walt Disney Animation Studios (WDAS) have officially ratified their first union contract with the studio, The Animation Guild announced today. This landmark agreement comes after an intense organizing effort that saw a supermajority of production workers vote to unionize in February 2023, a move that was initially met with resistance from studio leadership.
The organizing effort proceeded to a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) hearing, culminating in a decisive ruling on September 27, 2023. The ruling affirmed the eligibility of full-time production coordinators, production supervisors and production managers to unionize with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) and The Animation Guild, IATSE Local 839 (TAG).
“It’s been an uphill journey, but at long last, we’ve reached the mountaintop. We are standing in our breakthrough — stronger, bolder, and united,” says production coordinator Tamara Lee….
(13) DOOM WITHOUT END, AMEN. The Guardian’s Stuart Jeffries adds to our amusement in “A Brief History of the End of the F*cking World by Tom Phillips review – apocalypse not”.
…The serious purpose of Phillips’s jolly doomscroll through the apocalyptic sex cults, pandemics, nuclear armageddons, rapture-fetishising fruitloops, numerologically obsessed nincompoops, swivel-eyed preppers waiting out zombie apocalypses in their Utah silos, not to mention the Bible’s (spoiler alert!) troubling last act, is to work out quite why, after so many failed prophesies, doom-mongery still thrives….
(14) SPACEX “STARSHIP” #GOBOOMFALLDOWN…AGAIN. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] “SpaceX’s Starship explodes in space, which Musk calls a ‘minor setback’” – Reuters has details.
SpaceX’s massive Starship spacecraft exploded in space on Thursday minutes after lifting off from Texas, prompting the FAA to halt air traffic in parts of Florida, in the second straight failure this year for Elon Musk’s Mars rocket program.
Several videos on social media showed fiery debris streaking through the dusk skies near south Florida and the Bahamas after Starship broke up in space shortly after it began to spin uncontrollably with its engines cut off, a SpaceX live stream of the mission showed.
The failure of the eighth Starship test comes just over a month after the seventh also ended in an explosive failure. The back-to-back mishaps occurred in early mission phases that SpaceX has easily surpassed previously, a setback for a program Musk had sought to speed up this year….
… The Federal Aviation Administration briefly issued ground stops at the Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach and Orlando airports because of “space launch debris.” It said it had opened a mishap investigation into the incident…
(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Ryan George smuggles us inside “The Gorge Pitch Meeting”.
[Thanks to Mark Roth-Whitworth, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, and SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Dan’l.]
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First!
(11) Happy Birthday to Doctor Demento, who enlivened my time in college.
I remember reading “Weyr Search” in that issue of Analog. And I remember the wonderful John Schoenherr cover and interiors. Just wonderful.
@Michael J Walsh
Also, and I’d been reading the magazine for some years, though still in high school.
Me three. I think I still have that issue somewhere. By the cover date, I was in college, but since my university’s school year started late and magazines were dated early, I probably still was at my parents’ when the issue arrived. (Or, of course, I may be misremembering and perhaps my Analog subscription had not started yet. In which case I might or might not have bought the issue off the newsstand. At least sometimes, I wish memory was more reliable.) McCaffrey several times, both in writing and at cons, recounted how she got John Campbell to rationalize the dragons for her as sf rather than fantasy.
I loved the first few Pern books.
@Patrick McGuire
They sometimes showed up five weeks before the cover date.
I’d get home from school and have time to scan the reviews and the letters before my father would get home. I always slid the wrapper back on – and then he’d say something about eyetracks on the pages.
These days cover dates are when the magazine is pulled from the newstand, the cover stripped, and returned for credit.
The day my late wife and I met at the Austin NASFiC in ’85, that evening, she ran a panel on Pern fanfic.
And the lack of books being read… excerpt:
On average, 79% of U.S. adults nationwide are literate in 2024.
21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2024.
54% of adults have a literacy below a 6th-grade level (20% are below 5th-grade level).
Now are you horrified?
https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/post/literacy-statistics-2024-2025-where-we-are-now
Mark, the National Literacy Trust says 18% of adults aged 16 to 65 in England have very poor literacy skills. , and 15% of adults in Northern Ireland have very poor literacy skills.
Canadian Union of Public Employees which represents teachers notes 16% are reading at level 1 or below, the lowest literacy level.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Adult Skills Survey 2023 found that 21% of adults in Ireland aged 16 to 65 are at or below level 1 as well.
So let’s ask the question why it’s common in English speaking countries for this group to be as we are not an outlier.
(0) Scroll, scroll, scroll said the pixel
(14) SpaxeX blowing up, Twitter blown up, Tesla blowing up, the government blowing up.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
The Pern books meant a lot to me when I first read them, although the Suck Fairy seems to have moved in since.
I more or less by chance picked up White Dragon at a book store and loved it It startes in the middle of the series, but was still quite understandable because thw world building is good and captivating. I followed up with the immediate successors and only read the original triology later, which was wird, because of course the outcome was known (and I think some retcon was obvious).
It was my favorite series for a long time, McCaffrey knew how to write. I only read the first book from her son and I really did not like. Whether it was because I was older or because he didnt have his mothers gift of writing or because the story was extremly grim, I cant say.
(9) 1st Pern i think i remember reading was Moreta Dragonlady of Pern, bought new on a vacation trip after end of school year(same trip I bought Robots and Empire by Asimov, also new. I imprinted more strongly on Robots and Empire, especially Daneel, and Giskard/Gladia/Baley descendant) OK I don’t remember if I bought the White Dragon and Dragonquest before that trip(added: i now think i must have at least read White Dragon, since i would otherwise have no compelling reason to buy Moreta then).
Also the Dragonharper trilogy(actually bought by my 1 year younger brother, so maybe later). Then Nerilka’s story(a sub story set during/after Moreta’s story.
Edit ignore this: I didnt connect Moreta to the original Dragonrider’s of Pern trilogy for a while so maybe I only read Moreta, but Menolly, Piemur, Jaxom, and Moreta were constant rereads. I didn’t read Dragonflight until later and never connected much to Lessa or F’lar.
Master harper of Pern absolutely was heartbreaking. I read all the way till Dragon’s Code by Gigi McCaffrey(from library). Todd McCaffrey’s books(solo and collaborating together with Anne) were fuel for the brain but I got confused by the timeline skipping around(and the characters’ relative to each other). Not least maybe because the later books I only borrowed from the library(and didn’t reread), maybe not many reread of early Todd’s Pern books. Titles and character list, year of each book active further confusing and I haven’t reread since 2018, probably.
There is a draft version of After the Fall, relating Lessa and F’lar story after The Skies of Pern, but I’m ok if Todd/Gigi McCaffrey never expand/edit/publish(or only do so much later on), since basically Todd stopped his Pern(so far at this time) after Anne McCaffrey’s passing. The memories of my reading Menolly, Robinton(and Kasia) and Piemur and Jaxom(mostly from the White Dragon). Great series, though hopefully the Suck Fairy hasn’t touched it(I think not at least in 2018).
@Peer
Fandom.com states according to unconfirmed information that Red Star Rising(Dragonseye in US) was a stealth Todd writing Pern effort(solo or collab with his mom). I can see it as maybe since other than Dragonsdawn and MasterHarper of Pern, it’s set before even Moreta and Todd only wrote in period before Lessa/Moreta.
(11) I met Barry Hansen, aka Dr. Demento, at a con in Michigan many years ago. He was a good panelist and easy to talk to. Over the years, he’s given boosts to numerous filk musicians.
(5) I recently read a piece by Le Guin, where she asks: Should 100% of people read books? Has this ever happened?
6) I didn’t get to see Brother Guy this time, but I attended his kaffeeklatsch at a previous Boskone, and he was a really cool person to talk to.
My older daughter owns two Schonherr illos from “Weyr Search” and “Dragonrider.” I think we bought them directly from Jack. Yes, those were good stories.
(2) Presumably the same applies to pro-Israel writers and bookstores. It would have deflected accusations of partisanship if they’d mentioned both.
(9) I have that issue! It was a lucky find at PulpFest. Now, I have two out of the three issues that serialized the first Pern stories.
I first noticed Anne McCaffrey because she was one of the first authors I saw who spelled her first name the same way I do. But for some reason, it took me a few years before I read the Pern books. I read “Restoree” before anything else.
Some aspects of the book are dated — although sometimes that … depends. For exammple, people don’t like the portrayal of Kylara because it seems she’s being portrayed critically for her promiscuity — much like a promiscuous teen victim in a slasher movie. But is she being criticized for promiscuity or for shirking her duties? (Just as many teen victims in slashers are killed not because of sex but because they were terrible babysitters or bad camp counsellors who didn’t care about their duties.)
The Ship Who Sang has also received criticism because of its views on disability. But that has been debated as well.
https://sfrareview.org/2021/07/20/the-reclamation-of-mccaffreys-the-ship-who-sang-irony-as-resistance-to-utopian-ableist-narratives/
I also liked the Crystal Singer trilogy. It is one of the only ones that never got the “sequel by other writers” treatment. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
CatE: but the US is far behind in literacy than any of the other countries you mentioned… and, btw, Ireland has a language of its own, not English.
LiseA: I came across those stats while looking something else up… and that is the literacy rate in Cuba is > 99%.
Mark. The Holy Wikipedia says 98% of people in Ireland speak English and only 40% also “claim to speak some Gaelic”.
Mark, the statistics tell a different story. All ethos countries have the same literary rates. The USA is not far behind no how much you claim it is.
As regards, Cuba’s stellar literacy rate, Castro didn’t just take office. He toppled the government in power. As for the literacy effort, in Castro’s own words, the goal wasn’t simply to teach, but to instill political beliefs. That’s important context to capture the why for of the literacy campaign.
There’s a list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate#List_of_UN_member_and_observer_states_by_adult_literacy_rate
The US isn’t great, but it isn’t bad.
P.J., I agree we aren’t. Sometimes the relentless criticism without putting us in perspective to other comparable countries is really annoying.
I started reading adult science fiction when I was 9 (I had already been reading children’s SF/F – the Mushroom Planet books, Miss Pickerel, Freddie the pig etc.). My family was living in a rented house in Pomona CA, where the only air conditioning was a window unit in my parents’ bedroom.
On hot afternoons we all crowded in there, kids sprawled all over the floor, playing board games or reading. I found some of my father’s SF magazines in a bookcase and read them, mostly Ifs and Galaxies I think. This would have been the summer of 1962. Early in 1963 we moved to San Dimas; if I recall correctly the children’s section of the public library there had some Heinlein and maybe some Norton juveniles.
When “Weyr Search” was published, I was 14 and we were in Clinton, IA. My father and mother obviously had dibs on the magazines coming in, but my big sister and I could often get reading time in while my mother was fixing supper and before my father got home from work. We didn’t squabble over them too badly; we were all fast readers so the waits were never too long.
CatE: enough. Let’s remember, which everyone seems to have forgotten, that Batista was a vile nasty dictator, and Havana was literally owned by the Mafia, and had been since Prohibition. I’ve seen excepts of mobsters grabbing large piles of cash and running when Castro and his revolutionaries were on the outskirts of Havana.
Oh, and Cuba does not have the death penalty. And Cuba has sent a huge number of doctors around the world.
Meanwhile, we live in a country where Space Lasers Green and literal trailer trash Boebert are in Congress.
(14) And Musk is now the de facto head of the FAA and is firing everyone and bringing in SpaceX engineers to replace the existing communications equipment with Starlink terminals. Another reason, besides the climate impact, to avoid flying whenever possible.
Mm re the sadly late Anne McC: like then a no of other overseas-born SF writers (and due to then its very lax tax laws on the creative arts), Ireland proved to be a beneficial place to live (eg the late and very sadly missed Harry Harrison also had tax residence there). And many of these authors simply attended the annual Irish NatSFCon (Octocon) in Dublin, usually the 1st weekend in October -and that also proved a useful draw for overseas fen to attend. Anyway a few years ago, a well known London based fan knew of my regular attendance at every Octocon (I’m Irish but reside in London) and he asked me to have Anne sign one of her 1st editions for him. As I walked into the Friday evening get-to-gether with said tome under my arm, the very vigilant Anne, in the distance, noticed it and immediately took out her pen to sign it!! Fond memories… Best wishes…