(1) ROBSON ON WORLDBUILDING. Juliette Wade interviews celebrated author Kelly Robson in her latest Dive Into Worldbuilding hangout — “Kelly Robson and ‘Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach’”. Wade has both notes on the interview and a video at the link.
This hangout looks twice as exciting now that Kelly has gone on to win a Nebula in the meantime (for her novellette, A Human Stain)! It was a pleasure to have her on the show to talk about her recent novella, Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach.
Kelly started out by telling us about how critical economics was to this story. She’s passionate about economics! (And so she should be; worldbuilding without economics is flimsy.) She calls it “the physics of worldbuilding.” She told us that when she was first writing historical fiction, she began with medieval settings because it seemed more straightforward to manage, but that since then, she’s branched out into greater challenges. In this story, the historical portion is set in Mesopotamia!
(2) RECAP. Shannon Hale, one of the principals in the story, gives her own rundown of yesterday’s FanX antiharassment news in “My FanX craziness, annotated”.
Since this has blown up and become news, I’m going to lay out here all my interactions with FanX (Salt Lake City’s Comic Con).…
(3) IN TUNE. Olga Polomoshnova shares her analysis “On Lúthien’s power of singing” at Middle-Earth Reflections.
The fairest of all Children of Ilúvatar, Lúthien is not an ordinary character. Being the daughter of an Elf and a Maia, she inherited various traits of both kindreds. Among many of her gifts and skills singing was one of the most exceptional. However, when it comes to talking about Lúthien’s singing, we should bear in mind that hers was not renowned just for being done in a beautiful voice. Lúthien’s songs possessed special power
(4) REALITY SHOW. Tom McAllister tells new writers to recalibrate their expectations in “Who Will Buy Your Book?” at The Millions.
Before I ever published anything, I’d assumed that if I ever finished a book, there would be so much demand from family and friends alone that we’d have to go into a second printing before the release date. But I am here to tell you: most people in your family will never buy your book. Most of your friends won’t either.
I have a handful of friends and family members—people I consider close to me, people I see regularly—who have never come to any of my dozens of book events. I don’t know if they own any of my books because I haven’t asked, but I have a pretty good guess. After my first book came out, I would peruse friends’ bookshelves, trying to determine their organizational system (if it’s not alphabetical, then where is my book? Maybe they have some special hidden shelf for books they truly cherish?). On a few occasions, I called them out for not having it. This accomplished nothing, besides making both of us feel bad.
The point of this piece is not to shame those people or to complain about not getting enough support. It’s just to say: whatever you think it’s like after you publish a book, it’s actually harder than that.
(5) PAYSEUR. Quick Sip Reviews’ Charles Payseur covers “Beneath Ceaseless Skies #251”, which, coincidentally has a story by Jonathan Edelstein.
It’s a rather quick issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, with two stories linked in a way by their length (neither of them over 2500 words, which is unusual for the publication). But it lends both stories a sort of impact, and a feeling of anticipation. In the first, that means having to wait for the results of a very important test. In the second, that means having to wait for the results of a very important confrontation. In both, there are certain indications that might guide readers otwards guessing what happens next, but both times it’s left up in the air what _actually_ transpires after the final stories end. What it is certain is that both look at characters struggling to solve tricky problems, ones where they have been made culpable of a misstep and are desperate to find a way forward. So yeah, to the reviews!
Stories:
“The Examination Cloth” by Jonathan Edelstein (2232 words)…
(6) LAW WEST OF THE EAST RIVER. The New York Times Magazine offers the verdict of “Judge John Hodgman on Children Watching James Bond Movies”. Here’s the problem —
Ren writes: Our children, ages 7 and 9, love James Bond movies. We’ve seen almost every one, but my wife doesn’t want them to see Casino Royale. It’s often referred to as the best Bond, but she believes it is too inappropriate for them. Can you help? I’d like to watch the movie with my kids, who are James Bond fans just like me.
John Hodgman’s answer:
Of course 7-and 9-year-olds like movies with cars that fly. But they don’t love problematic gender portrayals and seventh-grade-level sex jokes. That’s why Ian Fleming wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for children and the James Bond series for man-children. But if Casino Royale (which is great!) is truly the last one you have left, why not? Why not complete your experiment and cuddle up with your kids and watch Daniel Craig be tortured in a very private area? No one can stop your mad plan now. Not even you, Mr. Bond!
(7) GOLD OBIT. Virtuoso movie poster creator Bill Gold died May 20 at the age of 97. His iconic work included Casablanca and The Exorcist.
Mr. Gold comfortably spanned the years from paperboard to the computer era, and many of his posters became nearly as famous as the movies they promoted. Some won design awards; many were coveted by film buffs, sold at auctions or collected in expensively bound art books. The best originals came to be considered rare and costly classics of the genre.
For Michael Curtiz’s “Casablanca” (1942), Mr. Gold’s second assignment, he drew Humphrey Bogart in trench coat and fedora, dominant in the foreground, with a constellation of co-stars — Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid and others — in the airport fog behind him. To raise the drama, Mr. Gold put a pistol in Bogie’s hand. And he put fear and regret, not love, in Ms. Bergman’s eyes, to avoid stepping on his last lines.
(8) COMICS SECTON.
- Chip Hitchcock sent two Bizarro entries: (1) What we’ll dub “Jurassic Park”, and (2) another about a couple of cheerful pub vampires.
(9) SHORT STUFF. Camestros Felapton walks us through his rankings in “Hugo Ballot 2018: Short Story”.
…It doesn’t feel that long ago that the talk was whether the SF short story was dead or close to death. The impact of Sad Puppy campaigns and Rabid Puppy vandalism hit the short story category hard. And what an emblematic category it had been for the Hugo Awards and science fiction! American style science fiction had grown out of the short story style and some of the greats of SF were intimately connected with shorter form fiction. Ray Bradbury especially but also Issac Asimov – The Foundation Trilogy being one of many SF classics that grew from connected shorts.
The Hugo finalists this year are a set of entertaining and varied reads. There’s not one theme or style and there are elements of fantasy and science-fiction as well as some classic twists.
(10) KATE BAKER AT WORK. The Verge’s Andrew Liptak points to Clarkesworld where people can “Listen to one of the best short science fiction podcasts right now”.
In the years since she became the full-time narrator for the podcast, Baker has become the de facto voice for the podcast, an experience that she says is “surreal.” “I view it as a huge responsibility and an honor,” she says. “because I get to go and be in someone’s ear, and I think that’s an intimate power, and I don’t ever want to abuse that.”
Baker doesn’t read or rehearse the story before recording, and while she notes this approach has burned her a couple of times, the “biggest draw to this whole job is the fact that I’m experiencing the story along with the listener for the first time, and I can experience those emotions with the listener. If you’re hearing my voice crack or if I sound stuffy because I had to walk away because I started crying, that’s all pretty genuine.”
That’s something that shines through: a recent episode featured Rich Larson’s heartbreaking short story “Carouseling”, and you can hear her voice break after she finishes reading the story. This emoting, along with Baker’s long-standing narration for the podcast, provides a familiar and consistent warmth that subtly enhances each story that the magazine produces. The result is not only a catalog of powerful short fiction, but one that’s also presented in a voice that makes them even better.
(11) CHINESE BOTS. My brethren are bound for Luna. “China launch will prep for Moon landing”.
“The launch is a key step for China to realise its goal of being the first country to send a probe to soft-land on and rove the far side of the moon,” the state news service Xinhua quoted Zhang Lihua, the satellite project’s manager, as saying.
In addition to its onboard communications equipment, Queqiao will also carry two scientific instruments and will deploy two microsatellites.
The forthcoming Chang’e 4 mission will explore the Moon’s South Pole-Aitken Basin with a payload of scientific instruments. It is a key step in China’s long-term plan to further its ambitions as a major space power.
China previously landed a robotic lander and rover, collectively known as Chang’e 3, on the Moon in December 2014. The rover continued to transmit data until March 2015.
(12) STONY END. BBC tells about plans for “Turning carbon dioxide into rock – forever”.
With rising concentrations of atmospheric CO2, scientists have been testing “carbon capture and storage” (CCS) solutions since the 1970s.
CarbFix, however, stands out among CCS experiments because the capture of carbon is said to be permanent – and fast.
The process starts with the capture of waste CO2 from the steam, which is then dissolved into large volumes of water.
“We use a giant soda-machine”, says Dr Aradottir as she points to the gas separation station, an industrial shed that stands behind the roaring turbines.
“Essentially, what happens here is similar to the process in your kitchen, when you are making yourself some sparkling water: we add fizz to the water”.
The fizzy liquid is then piped to the injection site – otherworldly, geometric igloo-shaped structure 2km away. There it is pumped 1,000m (3,200ft) beneath the surface.
In a matter of months, chemical reactions will solidify the CO2 into rock – thus preventing it from escaping back into the atmosphere for millions of years.
(13) HOW IT BECAME A KILLER. From the BBC: “Malaria genetics: study shows how disease became deadly” — relatively recently — and a warning to watch for other parasites and viruses jumping species.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 200 million people are infected with malaria every year; the disease caused the deaths of almost half a million people globally in 2016, and the majority of those deaths were children under the age of five.
By far the deadliest species of the parasite which causes this global health scourge is Plasmodium falciparum.
While this species infects and often kills people when injected through the bite of a female Anopheles mosquito, there are many other related species which infect some of our great ape cousins – chimpanzees and gorillas.
To study those, the researchers collaborated with a team caring for injured and orphaned apes in a sanctuary in Gabon. As part of the animals’ health checks, veterinary staff take blood samples from them.
“It turns out that healthy animals have a really high background level of parasites in their blood,” Dr Berriman told BBC News. “[These animals] are blissfully ignorant of the scientific value in their blood.”
The blood samples provided a series of malarial genetic codes that the scientists could use to trace its evolutionary history.
“We don’t have fossils for tracing the history of a parasite,” said Dr Berriman.
(14) WATCHMEN PITCH. ComicsBeat is less skeptical after seeing how “Damon Lindelof details new WATCHMEN television adaptation in open letter”.
But recently, reports began to spring up that the showrunner might be taking a completely different approach to the material. Instead of a mannered, straight adaptation of the 12 issues or any kind of extrapolation thereof, he was instead comparing it to what Noah Hawley has been up to with FX’s Fargo: a series whose world is informed by the original property, but not beholden to it in terms of character or plot. In short: think of it as “stories taking place in that same world, at any time period you can think of”. It’s great, with a capital “G”.
And today, Lindelof has spoken in more specific (maybe) terms, with a letter he posted on his Instagram, to give the public an opportunity to dig into his headspace a bit regarding his overall pitch for the series…if it sounds familiar, well…it should:
More at the link.
(15) ZOMBIE EMERGENCY. Not “Florida man” this time: “Florida city apologizes for alert warning of zombies”.
Officials in a Florida city apologized for an emergency alert that warned of a real power outage and a not-so-real “zombie alert.”
The alert, sent out by the city of Lake Worth early Sunday, warned of a “power outage and zombie alert for residents of Lake Worth and Terminus,” referencing a city from AMC’s The Walking Dead.
[Thanks to JJ, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, Chip Hitchcock, Martin Morse Wooster, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Xtifr. Horrible copyediting courtesy of OGH.]
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
(4) Who will buy this wonderful novel?
Such a tale you never did see
Who will bookmark it with a ribbon?
And put it on a shelf for me
(14) ‘Adapt Alan Moore’ is one of the classic errors along with a land war in Asia. Having said that, the letter from Lindelof does make me marginally less sceptical of the idea. Very well done.
TV shows that follow a story in multiple time periods are an interesting space and the original Watchmen has elements of that.
But…I’d still rather a new thing that used TV as a medium to look at superheroes as serialised fiction in TV and film and pull that apart in its own story. Watchman was about many things but one of those things was the superhero comic book genre and the adaptation to other media is just weird.
Was there a follow up to Asimov’s five volume Hugo anthology series?
@Andrew: now there‘s an obscure filk! (Cute genre linkage: I saw the revival, in which Roy Dotrice (years before he was “Father”) played Fagin.)
@Camestros: Golding should have been so sharp.
Edit: sacrificial pre-fifth!
Seanan McGuire just broke the news on her twitter feed that she’ll be writing an X-man comic. Needless to say, she’s over the moon about it. LINK
Edit: and FIfth!
(14) I don’t think I’ll be watching this. Not because I believe Moore’s comics to be sacred works of unadaptable art, but because seriously, Lindelof, of all people?
Scrixel Poll!
(15) Since Florida City is presumably largely popuulated by Florida Man and Florida Woman, this makes perfect sense.
@James: There was “The New Hugo Winners” (four volumes from 1989 through 1997, edited by Asimov, Asimov, Willis, and Benford (respectively)).
@Chip: I’ve only seen the movie, but that song stuck in my mind (“I’ll Scroll anything for Our Host, for Mike Scrolls everything for us”).
@Chip
Not so obscure as all that. (I read it with the soundtrack earworming me.)
Thank you!
(9) This year’s short story ballot is definitely a strong lineup. The one entrant that I bounced off was Clearly Lettered…, which was just too weird for me.
News that Philip Roth has died sent me back to the Philip K. Dick quote that mentions him (from the circa-1980 introduction to The Golden Man):
When, 25 years later, Roth made his foray into alternate-history SF in The Plot Against America, he simply couldn’t resist adding an afterword giving the factual history of the same period. Make of that what you will.
I’ll be back later to read the Pixel Scroll, but FYI, Lychford fans, audio fans, and/or Emma Newman narration fans: The Lost Child of Lychford has an audio version. That’s an Audible.com link; no doubt it’s on other audiobook platforms, too.
I’m bummed it didn’t come out around/soon after the ebook, since I loved her narration of the first one and would’ve preferred to continue with audio. Still, I’ll probably get it. I’m rereading via audio a lot less than I used to, but for a 3.25-hour story I liked a lot (IIRC), read by a very good narrator, sure. 🙂
Honest Trailer did a trailer about the Star Wars holiday special and the Ewok movies.
I dont think I will ever try to watch any of those, but I have seen bits of the Ewoks movie (the first one I think) on German TV.
(4) REALITY SHOW: “Who Will Buy Your Book”
As a reader and a fan… this hits home.
For all that I adore the tight communities that genre and fandom keep managing to spin up, it also creates this ongoing sense of guilt. If I had one creator-friend, maybe I could maintain my enthusiasm, but when you’ve got a dozen, or more — you can’t buy every book; you can’t boost every post; you can’t attend every event; you can’t back every Kickstarter. And sometimes there’s no polite way to say “Friend, I am so excited for you and supportive of your creative work… but please don’t assume that extends to me actually enjoying the work itself, because that is a Whole Nother Thing.”
(One of the lighter cases: Recently a very dear friend gave me a copy of her book, which I beta-read, and quite aptly signed it with “I hope you at least enjoy this inscription.” Which I LOL’d at — she knows I’m not the audience for her book, but likes my notes anyway. But she also gave me a very vivid T-shirt promoting the book, and what do I even do with that?)
(4) REALITY SHOW. Interesting/amusing/a bit sad. 😉 But not really surprising, I suppose. It may have made me think of a creator friend of mine. This comment made me laugh but want to cry for the poor author:
This sounds worse than having no one show up at all!
(10) KATE BAKER AT WORK. I feel like I’m supposed to be impressed she doesn’t even read the story before recording, but, nope, quite the opposite. I guess I look for something wildly different from audio fiction than the narrator’s first reaction. :-/
(11) CHINESE BOTS. “My brethren are bound for Luna.” – LOL.
“a major space power” – is anyone a major space power on the Moon?!
(13) HOW IT BECAME A KILLER. One of my favorite charities is the U.N. Foundation’s “Nothing But Nets.”
@Cassy B: Thanks for the tip about McGuire writing an X-Men annual.
@Andrew: “Who will buy this wonderful novel? . . .” – 😀
@Andrew, redux: “(“I’ll Scroll anything for Our Host, for Mike Scrolls everything for us”).” – LOL!
Well China are the only nation to have landed anything on the moon at a sufficiently low velocity that it keeps working afterwards since 1974.
(13) HOW IT BECAME A KILLER
I had malaria some thirty years back after being stationed in Sri Lanka courtesy of Uncle Sam. Got it stateside just about two weeks after stopping the last course of quinine. Not the worse thing I’ve ever had, that was cat scratch fever courtesy of the SWJ cried curled up next to me, but it was pretty addictive. It was unusual enough here in Maine that I got asked if it could be discussed by the pathologist to the ER staff at the hospital that had treated it so they could better recognize it.
Hope they do find a way of immunising folks against it as it can kill very quickly unless treated.
The reflexive qualities of the comic was something that made the literalism of the film adaptation awkward. The comic has a fair bit of commentary on where superhero comics were up to about 1986, which for a later reader is an entirely reasonable cutoff in a work from 1986, but the film takes most of this over directly with little attempt to engage with where superhero comics and film were by 2009.
@Kendall:
Yeah; it’s hard for me to see that as a selling point.
Clarkesworld ran a piece by Althea Kontis in April, where Kontis specifically contrasts her approach with Baker’s:
I think “calm, even, and intimate” captures Baker’s narration pretty well, and if that’s what you’re going for, I can see how a person might hit that note even on a first read. But, to me, if the narrator sounds the same no matter what story they’re reading… I mean, I’m not looking for flashy dramatics or anything; narrators that over-exaggerate are as frustrating as ones who feel muted. But I’m looking for narrators who are trying to capture the tone of the story, and I don’t see how you can do that without reading it first.
—
I listen to audiobooks pretty frequently, and plenty of podcasts, but not so much short fiction podcasts. The one I found surprisingly to my liking is the podcast for Nightmare magazine. Now, horror is usually not my jam, but they have really evocative stories, more dark fantasy than horror. And their podcast is excellent.
Re: audio narration on a first-read story
If any twists of a certain type come up in the story – particularly, but not limited to, subverted expectations – either a prior read or some narration notes are essential.
I still recall one case where an audiobook’s narrator paid no attention to section breaks, emphasis, or thoughts vs. speech vs. narration. I was… well, underwhelmed is being kind, as is not naming the work or narrator. Particularly as I know that the author of the piece had provided the audio publisher with some notes in hopes of making the narrator’s task easier. The narrator had a pleasant enough voice, but IMO the reading lacked that certain spark which could have really made it come alive.
I’d be worried that a first-reading audio narration would be particularly prone to that problem.
Hell, if I have to deal with this earworm, I might as well share…
Ding.
Click.
Scroll.
Pixel.
Tickybox.
Refresh.
Admit it – you woulda done the same!
He had it scrolling
Cuz of his trolling
He only had this post to flame
If you had read it
Or heard him say it
I betcha you would have done the same
Ladies and gentlemen, the five merry music-manglers of File Block 770!
It’s bad enough reading to the kids with things like.
“What sort of person are you, coming to my door in the middle of the night?” Said a (turns page) high pitched and squeaky voice from inside the tower.
If we get to the Ah-Ah verse, that’d be another good place to deploy ROT13.
[click]
[thirtieth!]
@10, I have to admit, I enjoy watching the “Mark Reads” videos; the premise is that he’s a first-pass unspoiled reader… but in most cases I’ve already read the books he’s reading and it’s honestly part of the fun to watch (and listen to) him react to them. (I particularly recall the bit in a Discworld novel where something dire may have happened to a main character and he stops, says something like. “No,” and pulls a blanket over his head. And sits there in front of the camera with the blanket over his head saying “no,” for probably fifteen or thirty seconds before he goes back to reading the book. But that’s for books I’ve read (like Discworld), and it’s about watching a (very emotional!) person reacting to a book I enjoy rather than “reading” the book myself.
You know how people have these little habits that get you down? Like… Bob. Bob liked to write songs–no, not write. Filk!
So, I come file this one day and I’m really excited and looking to make a book rec, and there’s Bob. Pix’lin’ on the scroll, appertaining a beverage and singing–no, not singing, FILKING.
So, I said to him, I said “You give me an earworm one more time…”
And he did. So I got the comment box on the screen and I made a duplicate post…
Into his thread!
Arifel, <applause!>
@Arifel:
Eh, it’s a fair cop. I had it comin’.
@Arifel. Hee!
I heard that Philip Roth has died. First time I came across his name was in Spider Robinson’s pro-Heinlein essay “RAH RAH RAH” where he memorably to me used the line “Philip Roth’s latest drool”
He had it coming, he had it coming
He changed the words on every song!
He got us singing, the earworms ringing,
I second-fifthed him, it wasn’t wrong!
“Ah!”, said Gandalf after studying the gates of Moria for several hours, then he said “Pixel!”. And the gates scrolled open. “It’s old Filer; Pixel means friend”
Everybody in the pix-el block
Was filin’ to the Scrollhouse Rock!
I’ve got a troll and he hasn’t got a scroll
I don’t know why I call him Gerald
He’s getting rather old, but he’s a good troll
You’re the kind of pixel that fits within my world
I’ll give you any fifth, every fifth if you want fifths.
(2) Does anyone know what Hale is referring to with “I’m just learning about the Orson Scott Card controversy–ask some FanX people about that”? I know he’s really horrible–I lived in Greensboro, NC for six years and saw his undiluted brain vomit way too much–but I wasn’t aware he was also a missing stair in con circles. Of course, that wouldn’t be that much of a surprise…
genufett – I googled it and evidently SLCCC floated the idea in public of inviting Card, it got roundly shot down because SLCCC is usually an inclusive con and Card isn’t an inclusive person.
Cons, don’t put your guests, or even potential guests, out in public until you’ve vetted them and taken your member demographics into account (SLCCC evidently has a QUILTBAG track and a lot of QUILTBAG and allied attendees).
This shouldn’t be hard. It’s not like Card’s beliefs aren’t widely known. It damages your brand, pisses off a large chunk of your regular attendees, makes other guests less likely to want anything to do with your hamfisted way of treating potential guests, and it’s also disrespectful to the guest in question.
genufett: Does anyone know what Hale is referring to
I think it’s this:
This summer, an argument sprouted on Salt Lake Comic Con’s social media outlets, when Brandenburg floated the idea of giving a forum to science-fiction author Orson Scott Card.
“My first instinct was that there’s no upside, only downside,” Brandenburg said. Salt Lake Comic Con has made substantial efforts to be inclusive of the LGBTQ community, Brandenburg said — and Card has written about his opinions on homosexuality, particularly his opposition to same-sex marriage.
But, Brandenburg said, “maybe there’s an opportunity. It looked like he’s moving in a good direction, moving to the right side of history. Maybe both sides of this issue can come closer together with his appearance.”
Brandenburg said he did some research on Card’s writings and consulted with local LGBTQ leaders.
When Brandenburg brought the idea to Salt Lake Comic Con’s Facebook page, the reaction was fast, loud and hostile. Some questioned why the event, known for being so inclusive, would invite someone they believe to be intolerant. Others were suspicious of Card’s softening of his opinions and wondered if it had more to do with the need to sell his next book, “Children of the Fleet,” and a TV series he’s producing for BYUtv, “Extinct” (both coming out in October).
“The community was, like, no way,” Brandenburg said. “There was no willingness to even have a conversation about it. … The hurt was so deep.”
Funny you should mention Spider Robinson. He features fairly prominently in Sunday’s review or rather his reviews of a group of women’s books do.
I loved Watchmen as a comic and a movie. I read some of the prequels. I look forward to sampling a TV series. I’m tired of Alan Moore’s drama over his unhappiness with the original contract he signed.
So I’m receptive to the new show, but Damon Lindelof’s letter makes it seem self-indulgent and terrible. It reminds me of the writing in the cards at the end of Chuck Lorre sitcoms such as Big Bang Theory and Mom. The main point I get from those is that Lorre is much better at hiring writers than writing.
@James Davis Nicoll–
This coming Sunday? Hmm. That might be fun…
@James? Oh, interesting.
The weirdest things stick in my brain. I don’t remember much else about RAH RAH RAH…but I remember that line about Roth and at the time wondering “Who the heck IS Philip Roth?”
http://www.unboundworlds.com/2018/05/the-100-best-fantasy-novels-of-all-time/
Not entirely sure I’d agree with 100 Best (especially given that it includes both Dragonlance and Drizzt), but it has a nice mix of old & new, famous & more obscure, and it’s not 100 old, dead white guys.
Hmm. I have an idea for the Hungarian verse… but “if I dood it, I get in trouble” – meaning possible negative attention from members of a certain club who might not take the joke as intended. (But it’s so perfect, in the larger context! Maybe if someone else picks up a couple of the other verses, like Arifel did…)
I suppose I shouldn’t have called anything obscure when it’s in a movie — a movie that was recently on cable, in all its garishly unrealistic color. I guess assuming that anything will die decently and stay dead is a losing proposition these days, with so many channels to fill and so much bandwidth. When I was still going to see the Capitol Steps (10+ years ago) I was surprised that they filked “The New Ashmolean Marching Society and Students’ Conservatory Band” — but Google easily finds me several assorted performances. Make that very assorted — 1950 through 2014, high school through professional, …
@ Joe H.
http://www.unboundworlds.com/2018/05/the-100-best-fantasy-novels-of-all-time/
Not entirely sure I’d agree with 100 Best (especially given that it includes both Dragonlance and Drizzt), but it has a nice mix of old & new, famous & more obscure, and it’s not 100 old, dead white guys.
This list is much better than the other “foundational” list. While it does have some problematic books (like the D&D ones) and does not have Fritz Leiber, it does include Moorcock, Erikson, McKillip, Tanith Lee, Garcia Marquez, Le Guin, Alexander, Cherryh, Dunsany, Howard, Rice, and even Robert Holdstock! Not bad.
@Chip
I haven’t seen that movie. (the last one I watched was on DVD: “The Smartest Guys in the Room”). My parents had the Broadway cast album; that’s what I hear.
===
News of the Weird: A NZ scientist is going to do DNA testing on the water in Loch Ness, to see what’s living in it.
https://www.sfgate.com/news/science/article/Legend-of-Loch-Ness-Monster-will-be-tested-with-12935942.php