Going a bit light today so I can finish my tax returns!
(1) NIMONA SAVED. “Netflix Picks Up LGBTQ Animated Film ‘Nimona’ Dropped by Disney” reports The Wrap.
Netflix announced on Monday morning that it would be picking up “Nimona,” the LGBTQ animated project based on ND Stevenson’s graphic novel that was one of the projects scrapped following the Disney/Fox merger in 2019. The film is already in production and will be released in 2023.
“Nimona” will star Chloë Grace Moretz as the antihero Nimona, a shapeshifter bent on destroying a powerful organization known as the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics by any means necessary — even if it means killing people. To this end, she teams up with with Lord Ballister Blackheart (Riz Ahmed), who also seeks to bring down the Institution but will not break his own code of ethics to do so…
(2) TUNNELS IN THE SKY. James Davis Nicoll inspected the apple of the universe to find “Five SF Novels Featuring Different Kinds of Wormholes” at Tor.com. Second on the list is —
Starrigger by John DeChancie (1983)
The Skyway that connects the known worlds is unusually user-friendly. The sufficiently advanced aliens who created the Skyway planted their Kerr-Tipler objects on the surfaces of habitable worlds, allowing truckers like Jake to travel from world to world (provided only that their sufficiently robust vehicles follow a precise path past the rapidly spinning, hyperdense towers). At present, human knowledge of the Skyway is rudimentary. However, if someone were to come into possession of the fabled (and quite possibly mythical) Roadmap, a multitude of routes would be open: routes through space and even time. Which is why when whispers begin circulating that Jake has the Roadmap, his life gets very complicated indeed.
(3) SHALL WE DANCE? John Scalzi kicks off Reader Request Week with a thought experiment involving a point of view he ordinarily disdains. The reader asks: “For the sake of argument and fun, please defend your man-cred, and demonstrate your good standing in the white male dominated patriarchy.” The payoff is we get to hear about his high school dance class. “Reader Request Week 2022 #1: My ‘Man-Cred’”.
…Third, it really effectively short-circuited my concern about the judgment of other dudes. A lot of straight men, especially young men, don’t dance, because they think they will look foolish doing so, and when they’re concerned about looking foolish, the people they’re most concerned about looking foolish to are other men — who they often imagine will see them on the dance floor and cast judgment on them, not for their moves, but for being on the dance floor at all. Learning to dance got me over that, by actually teaching me how to dance and by teaching me to enjoy dancing for itself, and by giving my dancing proper focus — not on the other dudes, most not on the dance floor, who may or my not be judging me, but either on my dance partner, who legitimately deserved my attention, or on myself, enjoying the pleasure of the dance itself….
(4) TENSION, APPREHENSION, AND DISSENSION. Max Florschutz does a good job reminding everyone that dramatic conflict is not confined to physical conflict: “Being a Better Writer: Embracing Conflict in All its Forms” at Unusual Things.
…And again, there’s nothing wrong with writing fun fight scenes and life-threatening peril. I do it all the time.
But that’s not the only way we can have conflict in our story. Not all forms of conflict are violent, action-packed, or perilous.
Instead, they can be subtle, insidious, tense, or even comedic, all without resorting to direct, physical violence.
This concept is best, I feel, illustrated through examples, so let’s go over a few. Say you have a protagonist that is a chief diplomat for a fantasy kingdom. Their aim, as ordered by their ruler, is to keep the peace with another nation that they serve as a diplomat to. Unfortunately, things are tense. This other nation is undergoing a resource shortage, which has driven tensions to high levels, and while the kingdom our protagonist represents has a lot of that resource, they’re using it. They’d also likely win a war if it came to that, but not without the loss of potentially tens of thousands of lives, one of which is a close relative of the protagonist. Worse still, the ruler of the other kingdom is aggressively pushing for a conflict, since they feel it will cement their power, even if they lose.
Now, imagine writing out a scene or a chapter in which this diplomat has a meeting with a representative of this other ruler. Can you imagine how the tension might pile up as these two representatives, each with very different goals, do “battle” with one another using words and faint promises or assurances, each trying to secure their own “victory” over the other? The scene may not have blades, guns, and immediate peril like a collapsing building … but each and every word spoken by the pair could carry such weight that the sense of peril would still be very present. A single wrong word, stepping too far or not stepping far enough, could plunge the kingdom into a war that would kill tens of thousands….
(5) FANAC FAN HISTORY ZOOM WITH THE HALDEMANS. Joe Siclari announces: “We are doing another FANAC Fan History Zoom, This is an interview of Joe and Gay Haldeman titled ‘Science Fiction Fandom from Both Sides’.” It will be live on April 23, 2022 at 2:00 p.m. EDT (11:00 a.m. PDT, 7:00 p.m. London). To access the event please RSVP by sending a note to [email protected].
(6) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.
2001 — [Item by Cat Eldridge.]
Twenty-one years on this evening ago over at that network the no one remembers (UPN), Special Unit 2 started out its two-year life. It was about Chicago police unit known as Special Unit 2who dealt with the city’s population of mythological beings who were known as Links. Consider it an updated Night Stalker which also was set in Chicago.
It was created by Evan Katz who was also over at Fox being the Executive Producer of a slightly more successful series, to wit 24.
Though set in Chicago, it, like so many other genre series, was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia. I know I watched enough it that I should’ve noticed that it wasn’t filmed in Chicago but honestly all those blend together after awhile.
It had a small primary cast including Michael Landes who played Jimmy Olsen in the first season of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, and Alexandra Lee. She appeared as one of five corpses recounting the tales of their death on a most excellent CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode entitled “Toe Tags”. It’s well worth seeing.
It got cancelled after just nineteen episodes due to a change in UPN’s management as reported in all the trade papers.
Not that it was well-received at the time. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said of it that, “It’s true that ‘Special Unit 2’ is not bad compared to the rest of the shows on UPN. That is, if you take ‘not bad’ to mean dull and derivative. This low-budget cross between ‘The X-Files’ and ‘Men in Black’ wants to yuk it up one minute and incite fear the next. It fails on both counts.”
And Variety said in its review, “As ‘Star Trek: Voyager’ approaches its final episode, UPN is trying to keep its sci-fi audience happy with ‘Special Unit 2,’ a tepid hour-long series about a secretive Chicago police unit that hunts, of all things, half-man/half-beasts. Positioned at 8 p.m. Wednesday, skein reps good counterprogramming opposite sitcoms and the femme-skewing ‘Ed’ and ‘Dawson’s Creek,’ and the debut’s ratings were decent — in a fledgling-network kind of way. But this ‘Men in Black’ wannabe must come up with sharper storylines if it wants to stay strong; otherwise, it’ll be yet another short-lived project on a network in dire need of a hit.”
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
- Born April 11, 1867 — William Wallace Cook. Newspaper reporter and pulp writer who wrote four novels (The Fiction Factory, A Round Trip to the Year 2000, or A Flight Through Time, Cast Away at the Pole and Adrift in the Unknown, or Adventures in a Queer Realm) which were serialized in Argosy in the early part of the last century. Clute in his usual blunt manner said at EoSF he was “was a crude writer, but is of interest for his attempts to combine adventure plots and Satire.” (Died 1933.)
- Born April 11, 1892 — William M. Timlin. Author of The Ship that Sailed to Mars, a remarkable work that has 48 pages of text and 48 color plates. It has become a classic of fantasy literature. You can view the book here. (Died 1943.)
- Born April 11, 1920 — Peter O’Donnell. Best remembered as the creator of Modesty Blaise of whom EoSF says her “agility and supple strength are sufficiently exceptional for her to be understood as a Superhero.” O’Donnell also wrote the screenplay of The Vengeance of She based on H. Rider Haggard’s Ayesha: The Return of She novel. It rates eleven percent among audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes. And let’s just say the critics were less kind. (Died 2010.)
- Born April 11, 1941 — Gene Szafran. He did the cover art for genre books published by Bantam and Ballantine from the Sixties to the Eighties, including a series of Signet paperbacks of Robert A. Heinlein’s work including Farnham’s Freehold, The Green Hills of Earth, and Methusaleh’s Children. His art would garner him four Locus Awards. (Died 2011.)
- Born April 11, 1949 — Melanie Tem. She was the wife of genre author Steve Rasnic Tem. A prolific writer of both novels and short stories, she considered herself a dark fantasy writer, not a horror writer. Bryant, King and Simmonds all praised her writing. If I had to make recommendations, I’d say start with Blood Moon, Witch-Light (co-written with Nancy Holder) and Daughters done with her husband. ”The Man on the Ceiling” won her a World Fantasy Award and got her a Shirley Jackson Award nomination. She died of cancer which recurred after she’d been in remission. Damn cancer. (Died 2015.)
- Born April 11, 1952 — James Patrick Kelly, 71. One of his best stories, “Solstice” is in Sterling’s Mirrorshades anthology. The Mariska Volochkova series is the one I would definitely recommend if you’ve not read it yet. Hugo nominations? Why yes, he does starting at Conspiracy ‘87 for his “Rat” story, proceeding from there to his “Think Like a Dinosaur“ novelette win at L.A. Con III, with another at BucConeer for his “Itsy Bitsy Spider” short story nomination to his “1016 to 1? novelette win at Chicon 2000. Then he had another novelette nominated at ConJose for “Undone” and “Bernardo’s House” picked him up another at Noreascon 4. At Interaction, “The Best Christmas Ever” was a short story finalist, as his “Burn” novella was a L.A. Con IV, His last Hugo nomination was for the novelette “Plus of Minus” at Renovation.
- Born April 11, 1955 — Julie E. Czerneda, 67. Canadian author whose In the Company of Others which won an Aurora Award is stellar as A Turn of Light and A Play of Shadow which also deservedly won that Award. Need I say she won yet more of those Awards? Impressive writer indeed as she also won two Golden Ducks as well. Her latest novel Spectrum, just last year. She is extremely well stocked at the usual suspects, bless them.
- Born April 11, 1963 — Gregory Keyes, 59. Best known for The Age of Unreason tetralogy, a steampunk and magical affair featuring Benjamin Franklin and Isaac Newton. Best known for The Age of Unreason tetralogy, a steampunk and magical affair featuring Benjamin Franklin and Isaac Newton. He has done a lot, and I do mean a lot, of other media tie-in fiction including Babylon 5 where he did a Psi Corps trilogy of novels, Pacific Rim, Godzilla, Star Wars, Planet of The Apes, Independence Day and Pacific Rim.
(8) STAR CHAMBERS. SFF Book Reviews’ Dina says, “A Want All The Alien Hugs: Becky Chambers – The Galaxy And the Ground Within”.
… Strangers forced into proximity is a great trope but Becky Chambers makes something truly special out of it. Most of her characters are respectful of each other, some even become friends easily, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t an underlying tension between others. Again, there are no big battles of fisticuffs but opinions clash on occasion and, honestly, that was enough tension for me.
At first, it’s just fun getting to know these characters, finding out their backstories, where they were headed when they got stuck on Gora, and what their lives are like. Then it became lovely to watch them grow into a sort of force-upon-each-other found family, at least for alittle while….
(9) THESE CREDENTIALS WILL BE NOTHING TO SNEEZE AT. “Hypoallergenic Cats Could Be Possible With CRISPR Gene Editing” promises Gizmodo.
…Researchers at the Virginia-based biotech company InBio (previously called Indoor Biotechnologies) have been working on their own approach. They’re hoping to use CRISPR, the Nobel Prize-winning gene editing tech, to produce cats that simply make little to no Fel d 1 [a suspected allergy-causing protein]. In their latest research, published Monday in The CRISPR Journal, they say they’ve collected evidence that this can be done effectively and safely….
(10) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] This video of Tom Scott meeting his robot double dropped today: “My robot double sells out (so I don’t have to)”.
I haven’t been able to do VPN advertising for a long time. Well, this one time, I don’t have to: because the robot double’s going to do it for me. With many thanks to all the team at Engineered Arts who worked on this. To be clear, this is not sponsored by them, I paid money (technically, NordVPN’s money) for the Mesmer robot — or at least, for the silicone mask and 3D printed skull that were put together for just one day!
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, N., Daniel Dern, Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jon Meltzer.]
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First!
I’ve been re-reading John Ford’s The Last Hot Time and it’s just as fantastic as it was when I read it the first time. He was a truly amazing writer. I still curse the Universe for taking him so soon.
(7) The Keyes entry inadvertently lists the Psi Corps trilogy twice. I read the first one of that series which confirms that Bester is named for the real Bester, in-universe.
(9) I’m wondering what kind of unexpected (or unwanted) side effects would turn up.
Cat – Ford’s writing was brilliant, and if I ever get to argue with someone who has an attitude of SF&F ain’t real litrachur, I’d point them at him, and then see what they had to say.
Also – how can you mention Julie Czerdena without mentioning the brilliant Trade Pact series?
mark: “I also think Julie Czerdena’s Trade Pact series is brilliant.” There, fixed that for ya.
Mark says Also – how can you mention Julie Czerdena without mentioning the brilliant Trade Pact series?
If I’ve not read something, I can’t really comment on it, can I? And I’ve not read the Trade Pact series which I obviously should.
6) The entire run of Special Unit 2 is available on YouTube for any who are interested.
Julie Czerneda’s Species Imperative books have some of my favorite characters.
(8) I Want, not “A Want”. (I had to parse that for a while and then see the URL.)
Item 6 – Lois and Clark was filmed in Burbank at the WarnerBros. studio, not in Vancouver.
Yep, that’s what IMDB says. Sigh.
But not the page I used to put together that note which was a long list of series filmed in Vancouver. Oh well. Accuracy on the internet is not a given, is it? Another source to be deleted which I’ve now done.
P J Evans–(9) We know the answer to that question! Siberians–a breed not mentioned in that somewhat lazy article–are famously low in the relevant protein. 25% of them have enough of it to produce significant allergic reaction in most cat-allergic people, while 75% of them don’t, which is the reverse of most of the cat population. Siberian breeders who want to serve the cat-allergic cat lovers market test for the genes in making breeding decisions. They choose breeding pairs accordingly–to get the allergen rate as low as possible, without killing the fertility rate of their breeding cats below viability level.
That Russian Blues have the same flipped ratio of allergen rates has been noticed for a while. I hadn’t previously noticed that the Balinese is similar in this.
Note: Not dead yet! Not dying or even contagious! It’s “just” a significant asthma attack, with enough depression that I didn’t take sensible steps early. Let that be a lesson to all, whatever your specific medical concerns are.
And now, back to sleep.
Thinking of how to organise filers meetups at Chicon 8 where everyone feels comfortable covid wise. I guess we should have them outside if possible? Won’t be entirely masked if people are gonna eat and drink.
One idea I had was if we should organise a tea and cookies meetup in one of the nearby parks. People could bring cookies from where they are from (are you allowed to bring them into US?) and then we have a few thermoses with hot water, tea bags, paper cups and some instant coffee. Having some tarpaulins for those who can’t stand too long.
Then is should be easier to allow people to set their own distance for their comfort zone and let people walk away a bit if they want to talk maskless. Possible to manage ones own risk level.
I’m glad to hear about Nimona! The book was delightful!
Hey michaele, you’ve got .con on your website address instead of .com so your link is dead.
@ Hampus Eckerman: The Chicago Riverwalk is across the street from the hotel. There are several cafés, a beer garden, and a playground. Four blocks from the hotel is Millennium Park, which is a fun place to hang out.
Tea and cookies is a great idea. Baked goods are generally approved for bringing into the US.
Cat Eldridge: I’ve changed it to .com now — hopefully it works.
Julie Czerneda is a lot of fun. I’ve liked everything I’ve read by her. She writes good stories with good science and interesting characters–what more can you ask for? 🙂
Cat Eldridge: IMDB is not a particularly reliable source either. I would not give up on a source just because they don’t match what IMDB says.
Xtifr says IMDB is not a particularly reliable source either. I would not give up on a source just because they don’t match what IMDB says.
There are no reliable sources on the net as they all contradict each other. I just get to pick and choose which ones I thinks are closer to truth.
Fair enough and perfectly reasonable, but Wikipedia does not generally consider IMDB a reliable source, and they do consider (perhaps foolishly) a lot of other sources to be at least reliable enough for their purposes. Make of that what you will, of course. 🙂
Xtifr says Fair enough and perfectly reasonable, but Wikipedia does not generally consider IMDB a reliable source, and they do consider (perhaps foolishly) a lot of other sources to be at least reliable enough for their purposes. Make of that what you will, of course. ?
I find it deeply humorous when Wikipedia doesn’t consider something reliable given how how unreliable it is.
I spent sometime with the blessing of an author who is a friend trying to update his wiki page as he’d identified several falsehoods there and he was writing a novel that went on to win a World Fantasy Award so was too busy to deal with it.
I was registered as a editor not that helped as an administrator overrode my changes every time and put it back to the way that he thought he knew it should be.
Five years later the changes did stick when that person left Wikipedia.
Wikipedia does not consider Wikipedia a reliable source…but we’re drifting farther off topic here. 🙂
Tom Becker:
Yes, I think a Filers dinner will be great by the riverwalk.
What I’d kind if like is organising maybe three meetups, as people tend to have different schedules. One at the start of the con so everyone will learn who’s there and recognize each other. It is nice to have some known faces. Then one real dinner together where I will try to make sure as few people as possible are occupied before hand by looking through the program schedule.
And lastly just the tea and cookies hangout because we haven’t had one before, but have talked about it several times. Millennium Park seems great for that.
Wow! Talk about a major ‘Oopsie’ moment. (Perhaps a Freudian slip!) Thank you for alerting me, Cat.