(1) SCA DIGITAL SECRECY COMPROMISED. Creative Administration, “an unofficial blog about the governance and logistics of the ‘Business Side’ of the Society for Creative Anachronism”, has disclosed that many of the Society’s supposedly confidential email communications were exposed to the internet for an extended period of time: “The SCA Lists Archive Breach”. Full details at the post.
TL/DR: An SCA IT web configuration error exposed confidential email messages.
For three years, the SCA mistakenly published all email sent to Board of Directors’ feedback address, allowing anyone on the Internet to read messages that had been sent in confidence, including reports of harassment and sexual assault.
If you emailed [email protected] between March 6, 2020 and February 2, 2023, you should be aware that the message you sent is no longer secret and has likely been read by other people outside of the organization’s leadership.
Six mailing lists used by committees for internal communication were also affected….
(2) PLEASE REMOVE YOUR BLINDFOLDS. At Young People Read Old SFF, James Davis Nicoll unleashes the panel on The Crystal Spheres by David Brin.
This month’s Young People Read Old Hugo Finalists is David Brin’s Hugo-winning1 short story “The Crystal Spheres.” In his day, Brin was a major SF figure. This rocket Brin took home was merely one of an impressive number of awards on what I assume was an increasingly overcrowded mantle-piece throughout the 1980s, to a lesser extent the 1990s, and even lesser extent subsequent decades.
Brin’s stand-alone hard SF tale is a solution to the ever-vexing Fermi paradox. Put simply: “where is everyone?” Readers clearly enjoyed the tale. “The Crystal Spheres” beat2, in order, “The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, Everything” by George Alec Effinger, “Symphony for a Lost Traveler” by Lee Killough, “Salvador” by Lucius Shepard1, “Ridge Running” by Kim Stanley Robinson, “Rory” by Steven Gould.
Of course, Reagan-era reader tastes and modern tastes can diverge, often quite dramatically. Are the Young People as enthusiastic about Brin’s story as their parents or grandparents might have been? Let’s find out….
(3) ACTRESS WINS LAWSUIT INVOLVING SFF FILM. “Eva Green wins high court battle over collapse of sci-fi film” reports the Guardian.
Eva Green has hailed her victory over what she described as a group of men who tried to use her as a scapegoat, after winning a bruising legal battle over the collapse of a sci-fi film.
The actor had sued White Lantern Films and SMC Speciality Finance for a $1m (£802,000) fee that she said she was owed. However, she faced a counter-claim alleging she pulled out of the making of A Patriot, which collapsed in 2019, and breached her contract.
In a judgment on Friday, Mr Justice Michael Green ruled in her favour, saying she was entitled to the fee, and dismissed the counter-claim.
Her victory follows a case in which Green gave evidence, saying it was “humiliating” that private WhatsApp messages she had sent were revealed in court.
Those messages included her comments about being “obliged to take [the producer’s] shitty peasant crew members from Hampshire” after the location was switched from Ireland. They also included her description of the production as a “B-shitty-movie” and the executive producer, Jake Seal, as “pure vomit”, a “devious sociopath” and “evil”.
Reacting to the judgment, Green said she had been “forced to stand up to a small group of men, funded by deep financial resources, who tried to use me as a scapegoat to cover up their own mistakes”.
“I am proud that I stood up against their bullyboy tactics,” she added.
“A few people in the press were only too delighted to reprint these lies without proper reporting. There are few things the media enjoys more than tearing a woman to pieces. It felt like being set upon by hounds; I found myself misrepresented, quoted out of context, and my desire to make the best possible film was made to look like female hysteria. It was cruel and it was untrue.”
During her evidence, Green denied the allegations that she was not prepared to go ahead with the project, saying: “In the 20 years that I have been making films, I have never broken a contract or even missed one day of shooting.”
In the 71-page judgment, released by email, Mr Justice Green concluded: “In particular, I find that Ms Green did not renounce her obligations under the artist agreement; nor did she commit any repudiatory breaches of it.”…
(4) CANNED BY DISNEY. Animation World Network tallies up the departures as “Disney Layoffs Reach the Animation and Kids Divisions | Animation World Network”.
Disney’s series of 7,000 layoffs, which began in late March, has now reached its animation and kids divisions. Disney TV Animation’s SVP of Current Series, Khaki Jones, is leaving after 13 years with the studio. Jones supervised all series and short-form content produced for Disney’s linear channels and Disney+. Also on the chopping block are Claire McCabe and Meghan de Boer, VP and Executive Director of the Kids Unit, respectively. Both execs were promoted only a year prior to develop unscripted kids’ projects based on existing Disney IPs.
The multi-phase layoff plan was originally ordered by Disney CEO Bob Iger in February to reduce costs by $5.5 billion. In the process, Marvel Entertainment was absorbed into the company last month, and Disney chairman Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter was axed after decades of service, despite being instrumental to the success of the MCU.
In the face of looming layoffs in animation, Iger revealed in early February that the company is moving ahead with sequels for the Frozen, Toy Story, and Zootopia franchises. While the news of upcoming sequels is exciting, the decision is most likely in the name of boosting a sagging stock price….
(5) IN PRAISE OF A FAMOUS COMPOSER. “New York Philharmonic and Steven Spielberg Celebrate the Music of John Williams” at RogerEbert.com.
What does the imminent horror spread by a shark on approach sound like? Or the globe-trotting escapades of a heroically adventurous archeologist? How do you express the grandiosity of the rebels and empires of a galaxy far, far away?
Considering such ideas, feelings, and concepts he transposed into world-famous and instantly recognizable musical notes over an illustrious career spanning nearly seven decades, it wouldn’t be a stretch to call the 91-year-old John Williams the most legendary film composer living today, with 53 Academy Awards and 73 Grammy nominations under his belt (which he won 5 and 25 of them respectively).
But what makes Williams one of the ultimate legends of this cinematic art form is not his endless and well-earned awards and accolades—it’s his ability to connect with the audiences as a musical storyteller and activate their universal emotions without language barriers. And that unique gift of his was cause for celebration on Tuesday night in New York at New York Philharmonic’s Spring Gala organized in his honor….
(6) ANOTHER GOH DISINVITED. IndyFurCon, due to take place in August, tweeted that they have canceled Cassidy Civet as this year’s Guest of Honor.
No explicit reason was given (a lesson cons have learned from the JDA lawsuit). There are merely hints from third parties in comments on IFC’s tweet and Cassidy Civet’s own Twitter response.
(7) MEMORY LANE.
1988 – [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
So let’s talk about Bruce Sterling’s Islands in the Net. Published by Arbor House in 1988, which is, to borrow to a phrase from Max Headroom, set twenty minutes in the future. As a result the setting and the characters are completely believable as is the fascinating story.
I’m not going to say more other than I’ve read this novel a number of times.
Now our Beginning…
The sea lay in simmering quiet, a slate-green gumbo seasoned with warm mud. Shrimp boats trawled the horizon.
Pilings rose in clusters, like blackened fingers, yards out in the gentle surf. Once, Galveston beach homes had crouched on those tarstained stilts. Now barnacles clustered there, gulls wheeled and screeched. It was a great breeder of hurricanes, this quiet Gulf of Mexico.
Laura read her time and distance with a quick downward glance. Green I indicators blinked on the toes of her shoes, flickering with each stride, counting mileage. Laura picked up the pace. Morning shadows strobed across her as she ran.
She passed the last of the pilings and spotted her home, far down the beach. She grinned as fatigue evaporated in a flare of energy.
Everything seemed worth it. When the second wind took her, she felt that she could run forever, a promise of indestructible confidence bubbling up from the marrow. She ran in pure animal ease, like an antelope.
She passed the last of the pilings and spotted her home, far down the beach. She grinned as fatigue evaporated in a flare of energy.
Everything seemed worth it. When the second wind took her, she felt that she could run forever, a promise of indestructible confidence bubbling up from the marrow. She ran in pure animal ease, like an antelope.
The beach leapt up and slammed against her. Laura lay stunned for a moment. She lifted her head, then caught her breath and groaned. Her cheek was caked with sand, both elbows numbed with the impact of the fall. Her arms trembled as she pushed herself up onto her knees. She looked behind her.
Something had snagged her foot. It was a black, peeling length of electrical cable. Junked flotsam from the hurricane, buried in the sand. The wire had whiplashed around her left ankle and brought her down as neatly as a lariat.
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
- Born April 28, 1840 — Palmer Cox, 1840- 1924. He was known for The Brownies, his series of humorous books and comic strips about the troublesome but generally well-meaning sprites. The cartoons were published in several books, such as The Brownies, Their Book for some forty years starting in the 1870s. Due to the immense popularity of his Brownies, one of the first popular handheld cameras was named after them, the Eastman Kodak Brownie camera. (Died 1924.)
- Born April 28, 1910 — Sam Merwin Jr. He was most influential in the Forties and Fifties as the editor of Startling Stories, Fantastic Story Quarterly, Wonder Stories Annual, Thrilling Wonder Stories and Fantastic Universe. He wrote a few stories for DC’s Strange Adventures and Mystery in Space but otherwise wasn’t known as a genre writer. (Died 1996.)
- Born April 28, 1914 — Philip E. High. Made his name first in the Fifties by being published in Authentic Science Fiction, New Worlds Science Fiction and Nebula Science Fiction, and was voted “top discovery” in the Nebula readers’ poll for 1956. A collection of his short stories, The Best of Philip E. High, was published in 2002. He wrote fourteen novels but I can’t remember that I’ve read any of them, so can y’all say how he was as a novelist? (Died 2006.)
- Born April 28, 1929 — Charles Bailey. Co-writer writer with Fletcher Knebel of Seven Days In May, a story of an attempted coup against the President. Rod Serling wrote the screenplay for the film. ISFDB says it got one review in the trade, in Analog Science Fact & Science Fiction, February 1963 by P. Schuyler Miller. (Died 2012.)
- Born April 28, 1948 — Terry Pratchett. Did you know that Steeleye Span did a superb job of turning his Wintersmith novel into a recording? You can read the Green Man review here titled also Wintersmith by Kage’s sister Kathleen. My favorite Pratchett? Well pretty much any of the Watch novels will do for a read for a night when I want something English and really fantastic. (Died 2015.)
- Born April 28, 1953 — Will Murray, 70. Obviously MMPs still live as he’s writing them currently in the Doc Savage Universe to the tune of eighteen under the house name of Kenneth Robeson since 1993. He’s also written in the King Kong, Julie de Grandin, Mars Attacks, Reanimator Universe, Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.,Tarzan, Destroyer and The Spider media franchises. So how many do you recognize?
- Born April 28, 1957 — Sharon Shinn, 66. I’m very fond of her Safe-Keepers series which is YA and really fine reading. The Shape-Changers Wife won her the William L. Crawford Award which is awarded by the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts for best first fantasy novel. And she was twice nominated for the Astounding Award.
(9) WE’RE NEEDED. In the Guardian, “BBC releases first images of Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson in Doctor Who”. The photos at the link remind me of Steed and Peel.
In pictures published on Thursday, the pair are seen wearing 1960s-style outfits, with Gatwa, 30, sporting a double-breasted blue-and-white pinstripe suit with a white shirt, tie and sideburns.
Gibson, who will feature as the Time Lord’s sidekick, Ruby Sunday, wears a “swinging 60s” look, with white knee-high boots and a black-and-cream dress.
The BBC announced this month that the US drag artist Jinkx Monsoon would play a “major role” in the new series as the Doctor’s “most powerful enemy yet”.
Monsoon – who won two seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race, including an All Stars season – was pictured in the Doctor Who images wearing a black-and-white outfit featuring piano keys….
(10) SHAKEN TO HIS CORE. “How ‘Suzume’ Reflects the Japanese Culture of Self-Sacrifice and Conformity” at Animation World Network.
12 years ago–after producing five short films, three features, and receiving critical acclaim for his work–animator, filmmaker, author, and manga artist Makoto Shinkai faced a crisis of purpose after the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011. It was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan, and the fourth most powerful earthquake in the world. More than a hundred evacuation sites were washed away and the snowfall, which accompanied the tsunami and the freezing temperature, hindered rescue. The official figures released in 2021 reported 19,759 deaths, 6,242 injured, and 2,553 people missing.
“What I felt when that big earthquake happened was, of course, concern about whether all the people of the Tohoku region were okay, but also relief at the fact that we weren’t directly harmed by it,” says Shinkai, a resident of Tokyo at the time. “All those feelings came together to leave me with an intense feeling of guilt. Even when Japan was going through so much, was it really right for me to just carry on producing animation for entertainment purposes?”
He continues, “I wanted to take on some sort of role. And the work I’m good at is creating animated films… I think, in modern Japan, it’s impossible to separate yourself from disasters. Disasters are happening right below our feet all the time. We Japanese people live on land that could start to shake at any moment. That’s why I wanted to write a story that could only be told here, and I spent these past 10 years writing in the form of an animated film for entertainment.”
Suzume, now showing in U.S. theaters, is produced by CoMix Wave Films, and distributed by Toho. It’s Shinkai’s seventh feature, following his award-winning triumphs Your Name and Weathering With You, and follows a 16-year-old girl named Suzume who meets a traveler named Souta. The young man bears the responsibility of being a “Closer,” and journeys around Japan closing doors in abandoned locations before the doors can release a natural disaster, such as an earthquake….
(11) MORE ARE WATCHING EAST ASIAN SFF. How has East Asian content has changed over 4 years? JustWatch took a closer look at the quality, quantity and the most popular movies and TV shows and says this is what they found:
The worldwide success of the Oscar winning Korean movie “Parasite” began a new wave in entertainment. After the release of the phenomenon “Squid Game”, there was an explosion in Asian movies and shows – more than double than before.
Additionally, the quality has increased as well, with movies and shows in 2023 averaging 0.55 higher rating on IMDb than in 2019. It is expected that this trend will continue into 2023, with hit shows like “Physical 100” coming out regularly.
(12) HE WAS GONE IN A FLASH. DC’sThe Flash opens in theaters June 16.
Worlds collide in “The Flash” when Barry uses his superpowers to travel back in time in order to change the events of the past. But when his attempt to save his family inadvertently alters the future, Barry becomes trapped in a reality in which General Zod has returned, threatening annihilation, and there are no Super Heroes to turn to. That is, unless Barry can coax a very different Batman out of retirement and rescue an imprisoned Kryptonian… albeit not the one he’s looking for. Ultimately, to save the world that he is in and return to the future that he knows, Barry’s only hope is to race for his life. But will making the ultimate sacrifice be enough to reset the universe?
(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by N.] YouTuber Ryan Hollinger’s video on this year’s M3GAN, where he counters its middling reception and contends it may fit better in the sci-fi thriller genre than the horror it’s been sold as. “Why M3GAN is Better Than You Think”.
[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Andrew Trembley, N., Steve Vertlieb, Steven French, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, and Michael Toman for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Johnstick.]
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Jetpack did not send out a subscriber notification. Another Top Secret Scroll!!!
But I still get a silver!
I am glad Green has won her lawsuit. I hear she does well in the new Musketeers movie as Milady
(9) Interesting. The Third Doctor had an “Avengers” look – can’t wait to see how it works for 15.
Happy to be among those privileged to find the Secret Scroll.
The dead jetpak scrolls found in caves in cyberspace…
Islands in the Net is really good. I mean, I’d put it behind Schismatrix but that would be a really high bar to clear.
I’ve read some books by Sharon Shinn. The Shape Changer’s Wife is definitely deserving of an award. The first four Twelve Houses books are something of a guilty pleasure – very much in the Romance line. The four are a complete story, which is why I haven’t felt compelled to get the fifth (and, to date, last).
@Paul — I cannot wait for that French Musketeers film to get to something I can watch it on.
(In the meantime, I’ve been contenting myself with a Korean 12-episode TV adaptation of The Three Musketeers called, well, The Three Musketeers, that translates the story to the Joseon court.)
Paul King says Islands in the Net is really good. I mean, I’d put it behind Schismatrix but that would be a really high bar to clear.
I like it better because because it’s that rare near-future novel, and it is thirty years after publication, that still feels fresh and undated. Most novels, as I termed set twenty minutes in the future, almost immediately feel outdated by reality passing them by. Islands in the Net doesn’t.
Speaking of twenty minutes into the future genre fiction thst I feel hasn’t at all dated, there’s two Dagmar Shaw novels by Walter Jon Williams.
( I confess that I’ve not read the third as he shifted the point of view character away from her and after reading the first several chapters, I cared not at all for that character.)
I listened to them again last year and they held up remarkably well. Everything about them was still amazingly great.
Now I admit they they’re only a decade old, so the Suck Fairy hasn’t had sufficient time to trod upon them hard.
(7) Nothing like a good faceplant to start the day (but many, many better ways).
(6) I poked around on twitter looking for why, and my takeaway is there was no one thing that caused it but it’s just that she seems to be a very unpleasant person and people got tired of her act. Is that fair or not, I don’t know, should the con have acted the way they did, I don’t know either, am I done writing this post, oh you betcha.
Jim Janney says Nothing like a good faceplant to start the day (but many, many better ways).
Indeed.