(1) NEW SEATTLE WORLDCON BLOG. Seattle Worldcon 2025 has launched Yesterday, Today, & Tomorrow, a blog that will feature local Seattle food and sights, plus sff subjects in line with their theme. The first post, appropriately enough, is: “Announcing the Yesterday, Today, & Tomorrow Blog”.

Starting tomorrow and running on alternate Wednesdays, the Local Flavor column will introduce you to food traditions known to long-time residents of the Pacific Northwest, with a dose of nostalgia and the occasional recipe thrown in. On the opposite Wednesday, look for Around Seattle, written by Sophie Ding and Jason Sacks, a tourism-focused feature to educate you about opportunities for discovery and adventure during your visit to the Emerald City.

On Fridays, visit our Fantastic Fiction column for inspiration related to our theme, Building Yesterday’s Future—For Everyone. A distinguished cadre of fan writers will take you back to the 1961-1962 era of the first Seattle Worldcon and Century 21 Exposition, also known as the Seattle World’s Fair, events that cemented Seattle’s position as a global center for futurism and technological innovation. We hope immersion in the speculative fiction dreams and influences of the era will inspire you to make something—a story, costume, poem, argument, essay, panel idea, heart wish, or short film—to bring to our Worldcon. In the meantime, enjoy posts from writers including James Davis Nicoll, Rachel S. Cordasco, Cora Buhlert, and the fabulous Galactic Journey collective led by Gideon Marcus and Janice L. Newman.

(2) FANHISTORY REDISCOVERED. LASFS history features in the exhibit “Sci-fi, Magick, Queer L.A.: Sexual Science and the Imagi-Nation” which will run from August 22-November 23 at the USC Fisher Museum of Art. (Rob Hansen’s Bixelstrasse documents these beginnings as well.)

Sexual Science and the Imagi-Nation considers the importance of science fiction fandom and occult interests to U.S. LGBTQ history. Science fiction and occult communities helped pave the way for the LGBTQ movement by providing a place for individuals to meet and imagine spaces less restricted by societal norms. 

The exhibition focuses on Los Angeles from the late 1930s through 1960s and looks both forward and backward to follow the lives of writers, publishers, and early sci-fi enthusiasts, including progressive communities such as the LA Science Fantasy Society, the Ordo Templi Orientis at the Agape Lodge, and ONE Inc. 

Spanning fandom, aerospace research, queer history, and the occult, Sexual Science and the Imagi-Nation reveals how artists, scientists, and visionary thinkers like Jim Kepner, Lisa Ben, Margaret Brundage, Morris Scott Dollens, Marjorie Cameron, Renate Druks, Curtis Harrington, and Kenneth Anger worked together to envision and create a world of their own making through films, photographs, music, illustrations, costumes, and writing. 

Programming will include film screenings, panel discussions, and a Halloween cosplay event. This exhibition is made possible with support from Getty through its PST ART: Art & Science Collide initiative.

Sexual Science and the Imagi-Nation is among more than 50 exhibitions and programs presented as part of Pacific Standard Time. Southern California’s landmark arts event, Pacific Standard Time, returns in September 2024 with more than 50 exhibitions from museums and other institutions across the region, all exploring the intersections of art and science, both past and present. 

(3) CAT’S CREDO. On her blog today Cat Rambo declared:“I am Cat Rambo and This is What I Believe” Cat’s credo begins:

I believe every human being has dignity and worth. That one should treat others with respect, including their pronouns and the pronunciation of their name. That people should be free to live, worship, and connect with the universe as they please. That decency, ethics, and accountability are core values. That understanding and acknowledging one’s own privilege is part of that accountability.

I believe stories matter. That they shape how people think about and understand their lives and the world at large. That they gift us with hope and empathy.

I believe that all paths to publishing – traditional, indie, small press, crowdfunded – are valid for writers and that nowadays more and more people are able to create their own art and tell their own stories in a new way that has created a wealth of great new writing, including many stories that wouldn’t have been told through traditional publishing….

The complete statement is at the link.

(4) ONE AND DONE. The Acolyte? Fuhgeddaboudit! “’The Acolyte’ Canceled: Disney’s Star Wars Spinoff Done After One Season”.

The Acolyte will not return for season two, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed. Lucasfilm has opted not to continue the Disney+ Star Wars series, which aired its season one finale last month.

The Leslye Headland-created show earned respectable reviews from critics, but was panned by audiences, with only 18 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. The show was review-bombed from some quarters who perceived it as “woke,” with certain corners of the internet going after Headland, who is a member of the LGBTQ+ community, as well as the series’ diverse group of actors.

“Honestly, I feel sad that people would think that if something were gay, that that would be bad,” Headland told THR in June. “It makes me feel sad that a bunch of people on the internet would somehow dismantle what I consider to be the most important piece of art that I’ve ever made.”

Also in June, star Amandla Stenberg fired back at racist backlash with an original song on social media.

“It was an easy target,” said one source of the back-and-forth’s connection to the show’s cancellation. “And it hurt the public perception of the show.”…

The June article linked above is this post from The Hollywood Reporter: “’The Acolyte’ Star Releases Song Firing Back at Fan Backlash”.

…There has been some earnest debate among fans over things like canon consistency issues, but last week, the show’s backlash reached an intense level after the third episode introduced a coven of characters that have been described (wrongly, says Headland) as “lesbian space witches.” There was also uproar over Headland giving a playful answer to a junket question where a reporter asked whether The Acolyte was “the gayest Star Wars.” In addition, a 2018 quote from Stenberg regarding her film The Hate U Give has been taken inaccurately out of context. Stenberg told The Daily Show host Trevor Noah that “white people crying actually was the goal” of the film, but the quote has been mischaracterized in some conservative circles as if Stenberg was talking about The Acolyte….

(5) ANIME HELPING JAPAN’S “DIGITAL TRADE DEFICIT”. “Japan’s anime exports poised to match chips and steel” reports Nikkei Asia.

Japan’s exports of anime and other content are close to parity with steel and semiconductor devices, presenting an opportunity to develop a key sector that will prop up the economy.

U.S. sprinter Noah Lyles assumed the unofficial title of the world’s fastest anime fan when he won the 100-meter gold medal at the Paris Olympics on Aug. 4. Draped in the American flag, Lyles celebrated by assuming the open-palmed kamehameha pose made famous by the “Dragon Ball” anime franchise.

The moment demonstrated the potential for anime and other Japanese content to erase Japan’s digital trade deficit, which doubled over five years to 5.5 trillion yen ($37.4 billion) in 2023.

Driving the deficit were payments for cloud services and internet ads. But Japan’s content industry “will be the trump card in recovering from the digital deficit,” said a senior official at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

Under the economic principle of comparative advantage, countries become rich by making the most of their strengths. Japan’s digital trade deficit is not necessarily a problem, but it is also necessary to enhance the earning power of areas where there is potential for growth, such as the content industry, according to the 2024 edition of the government annual economic white paper.

The “Jujutsu Kaisen” anime series was the world’s most in-demand TV show in 2023, according to the “Global TV Demand Awards” report from U.S.-based Parrot Analytics. The “Attack on Titan” anime series was in 2021.

Other popular anime, such as “Oshi no Ko” and “Demon Slayer,” have been very successful outside Japan.

Globally, Japan trails South Korea in live-action films and TV dramas. China has the lead in mobile games.

(6) LEGAL FLIM-FLAM CANCELLED. “Disney stops trying to use Disney Plus excuse to settle a wrongful death lawsuit” – The Verge tells why.

Disney has now agreed that a wrongful death lawsuit should be decided in court following backlash for initially arguing the case belonged in arbitration because the grieving widower had once signed up for a Disney Plus trial.

“With such unique circumstances as the ones in this case, we believe this situation warrants a sensitive approach to expedite a resolution for the family who have experienced such a painful loss,” chairman of Disney experiences Josh D’Amaro said in a statement to The Verge. “As such, we’ve decided to waive our right to arbitration and have the matter proceed in court.”

The lawsuit was filed in February by Jeffrey Piccolo, the husband of a 42-year-old woman who died last year due to an allergic reaction that occurred after eating at a restaurant in the Disney Springs shopping complex in Orlando. The case gained widespread media attention after Piccolo’s legal team challenged Disney’s motion to dismiss the case, arguing that a forced arbitration agreement Piccolo signed was effectively invisible.

As noted by Reuters, Disney initially made no mention of arbitration when it first addressed the case in April, instead arguing it wasn’t liable because it merely serves as the landlord for the Raglan Road Irish Pub and Restaurant and had no control over the restaurant’s operations. Disney then later argued in a filing in May that Piccolo had allegedly entered an agreement to arbitrate all disputes with the company by signing up for a Disney Plus trial in 2019, and using the Walt Disney Parks’ website to buy Epcot Center tickets.

(7) MAURICE BROADDUS LEADS PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR LIBRARY RESTORATION. “First Indianapolis library to serve Black community reopens at school” reports Chalkbeat Indiana.

Maurice Broaddus was a writer by trade and became a middle school librarian by accident.

The award-winning Afrofuturist and sci-fi author once filled in at The Oaks Academy middle school, where he was also a teacher, for the librarian going on maternity leave. The librarian never came back.

“Six, seven years later I’m still covering her maternity leave,” he joked.

But what started as mere chance has become an opportunity to mentor young writers, support artists of color, and restore a historic Indianapolis library that was the first in the city established specifically for Black residents.

“It’s been a lesson in collaboration, a lesson in building relationships, a lesson in dreaming alongside our neighbors,” said Broaddus, who is Black. “Ultimately, what does it look like to restore a space and then it be true to its purpose?”

Broaddus led the project to reopen the Paul Laurence Dunbar Library, established within the now-closed John Hope School No. 26 in 1922, to students at The Oaks Academy middle school, a private Christian school in the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood. The library originally existed to serve Black residents in a de facto segregated part of the city. Its restoration after nearly 30 years of disuse will give Oaks students their own library collection, Broaddus said, while memorializing its place in Indianapolis history.

“We are honoring the past, but we’re doing present work,” he said.

The restored library opened last week on the first day of school at The Oaks. Many shelves are still empty — Broaddus is waiting on a major 1,000-book order — but he’s started curating three special collections on the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, and Afrofuturism….

(8) ESSAYS ON WOMEN AND GENDER IN TOLKIEN. At Writing From Ithilien, Robin Anne Reid shares a “Call for Proposals: deadline March 15, 2025” for an anthology titled ‘Great Heart and Strength:’ New Essays on Women and Gender in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Full details at the link.

We invite submissions for an anthology focused on women and gender in Tolkien’s writings. In 2015, Janet Brennan Croft and Leslie A. Donovan published Perilous and Fair: Women in the Works and Life of J.R.R. Tolkien, the first volume dedicated to the subject of women in Tolkien’s works and life, which collected the major milestones of feminist scholarship in Tolkien studies alongside new essays. Since then, feminist scholarship and gender theory has flourished in and outside of Tolkien studies. This volume will honor Croft and Donovan’s work and build on the past decade of feminist scholarship in Tolkien studies by presenting a new collection of essays on women and gender in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.

(9) MARS CALLING? “In 1924, a radio receiver built for the battlefields of World War I tested the idea that humans were not alone in the solar system, heralding a century of searches for extraterrestrial life.” “Scientists Seeking Life on Mars Heard a Signal That Hinted at the Future” – an unlocked article that bypasses the New York Times paywall.

…During that weekend [in 1924], Earth and Mars were separated by just 34 million miles, closer than at any other point in a century. Although this orbital alignment, called an opposition, occurs every 26 months, this one was particularly captivating to audiences across continents and inspired some of the first large-scale efforts to detect alien life.

“In scores of observatories, watchers and photographers are centering their attention on that enigmatic red disk,” the journalist Silas Bent wrote on Aug. 17, 1924. He added that it might be the moment to “solve the disputed question of whether supermen rove his crust, and whether those lines, which many observers say they have seen, really are irrigation canals.”

Scientists plotted for years to make the most of the Martian “close-up.” To aid the experiments, the U.S. Navy cleared the airwaves, imposing a nationwide period of radio silence for five minutes at the top of each hour from Aug. 21 to 24 so that messages from Martians could be heard. A military cryptographer was on hand to “translate any peculiar messages that might come by radio from Mars.”

Then, lo and behold, an astonishing radio signal arrived with the opposition.

A series of dots and dashes, captured by an airborne antenna, produced a photographic record of “a crudely drawn face,” according to news reports. The tantalizing results and subsequent media frenzy inflamed the public’s imagination. It seemed as if Mars was speaking, but what was it trying to say?

“The film shows a repetition, at intervals of about a half hour, of what appears to be a man’s face,” one of the experiment’s leaders said days later.

“It’s a freak which we can’t explain,” he added….

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

August 20, 1951 – Greg Bear. (Died 2022.)

By Paul Weimer.

I first encountered the work of Greg Bear through, predictably, Blood Music, in its original shorter publication in Analog, and then its longer novel format. I then bounced around various of his works (Eon enchanted me, being a multiverse novel, particularly) and I followed his work until his period of technothrillers, which frankly left me cold.  Darwin’s Radio, interestingly enough, was in 1999, one of the very first ARCs I ever received, as I started to get into the whole idea of fan writing and reviewing. Hull Zero Three was a good mystery set on a generation ship.  While I had issues with a different author’s Foundation novel, I liked Foundation and Chaos pretty well. 

There are still some Greg Bear works I have not touched that I want to (besides those technothrillers). I am still not sure what to make of or what the Mongoliad even is, even back when it was apparently a thing. But what I want to go with here, is that Bear clearly liked to invent, reinvent and try stuff that didn’t always work, but was at least interesting. The Infinity Mage and The Serpent Concerto are a fascinating pair of portal fantasy novels that I adored. The City at the End of Time is dreamlike, surreal and long but deeply moving.  Even his last work, The Unfinished Land, which I kind of bounced off, I later learned from a colleague that Bear was tapping into a strain of 17th and 18th century novels, a key to the text I completely and utterly missed. 

And I think that’s true of a bunch of Bear, for everyone. There is going to be stuff in his oeuvre that is Not for You and that’s okay. The strong writing and ideas may be across his oeuvre, but the diversity of his work may mean that there are Bear novels you will eat like candy (again, hello Eon) and stuff that you might stay well away from.  Dinosaur Summer might be one to hand to teenage readers getting into SFF, because, well, dinosaurs in a YA-like novel. People who like disaster novels might try Forge of God (goodbye Planet Earth!).  Moving Mars is an audacious novel about, well, it’s right in the title. And he’s done tie-in novels for Star Wars and Star Trek. It’s impossible to encapsulate all of the stuff he has done. Go forth and read one. 

(11) YESTERDAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Lis Carey.]

Born August 19, 1950  — Mary Doria Russell, 74.

By Lis Carey: Mary Doria Russell was born in Elmhurst, Illinois, and has a degree in biological anthropology from the University of Michigan, and taught anatomy at the Case Western Reserve University School of Dentistry. I mention this so explicitly because Wikipedia seems to believe she only graduated high school. Wikipedia is very useful, but it’s a starting point, not a source.

It’s also interesting to note that she was raised Catholic, left the Church at fifteen, and in adulthood, became interested in Judaism and ultimately converted. She’s seen religion from several angles, and that, too, contributes to her fiction.

Ms. Russell has written two books that are clearly science fiction, The Sparrow, and its sequel, Children of Grace. In The Sparrow, in 2019, the radio telescope at Arecibo receives a signal that proves there is intelligent life on a planet that humans will be able to reach. While the UN is arguing about what to do, the Jesuits organize and launch their own 8-person scientific expedition. It’s led by Father Emilio Sandoz, a linguist, and he’s in for what will be first a delightful experience, and then a harrowing one, physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. It was a very successful book when published in 1996, and won several awards, including the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the JamesTiptree Jr. Award (now the Otherwise Award), and the British Science Fiction Association Award. I loved the book myself, and it’s got 4.14 rating on Goodreads, but from looking at the reviews there, it’s perfectly clear, and no surprise, really, that such a high-profile book found some readers who were really looking for a different book, and would have preferred not to find this one.

Children of God is the sequel. Emilio Sandoz finds his return to Earth almost as harrowing in some respects. He leaves the priesthood, planning to marry. He agrees to teach the language of the planet Rakhat to Jesuits planning a return expedition to help the oppressed servant species on the planet, but refuses to return himself. Things don’t go as he intends, and he learns that the impact of the first Jesuit expedition was as harrowing for everyone he left behind as for himself and the members of the expedition who did not survive. It’s another fascinating and rather harrowing story.

In both cases, the story benefits from Ms. Russell’s anthropological studies, helping to ground the stories and give the alien cultures some depth.

These are Mary Doria Russell’s only science fiction books, but that same anthropological background is at play in her historical fiction. I think that her two books about Doc Holliday and the Earp brothers, Doc and Epitaph, might particularly interest some sf fans.They’re different and deeper stories than Hollywood ever led us to expect.

(12) COMICS SECTION.

• Crabgrass celebrates a reluctant reader
• Red Rover’s song sounds a little familiar, don’t you think?
• Thatababy recommends an island vacation spot.
• Carpe Diem carries a warning.
• Brewster Rockit takes up book reading.
• Land of NOJ is a comic – and a game!

My original published series, Land of NOJ, has come to an end (for now).

Thanks to @phoenixcomicuk for allowing me to go mad with my layouts! Here's what I consider the best page of the run, which took me months to plan & iterate on. All you need is a 6 sided die.

Enjoy! pic.twitter.com/b3zPVm4VLB

— nellucnhoj.bsky.social (@nellucnhoj) August 20, 2024

(13) IF YOU CHECK THESE BOOKS OUT, YOU MAY CHECK OUT. “Evidence stacks up for poisonous books containing toxic dyes” says Phys.Org.

… If you come across brightly colored, cloth-bound books from the Victorian era, you might want to handle them gently, or even steer clear altogether. Some of their attractive hues come from dyes that could pose a health risk to readers, collectors or librarians.

The latest research on these poisonous books used three techniques—including one that hasn’t previously been applied to books—to assess dangerous dyes in a university collection and found some volumes may be unsafe to handle….

… “These old books with toxic dyes may be in universities, public libraries and private collections,” says Abigail Hoermann, an undergraduate studying chemistry at Lipscomb University. Users can be put at risk if pigments from the cloth covers rub onto their hands or become airborne and are inhaled.

“So, we want to find a way to make it easy for everyone to be able to find what their exposure is to these books, and how to safely store them.” Hoermann, recent graduate Jafer Aljorani, and undergraduate Leila Ais have been conducting the study with Joseph Weinstein-Webb, an assistant chemistry professor at Lipscomb.

The study began after Lipscomb librarians Jan Cohu and Michaela Rutledge approached the university’s chemistry department to test brilliantly colored 19th- and early-20th-century fabric-covered books from the school’s Beaman Library. Weinstein-Webb was intrigued to hear about how the Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library had previously examined its own 19th-century books for the presence of an arsenic compound known as copper acetoarsenite….

(14) NEWS FROM THE CIRCULAR FILE. Variety is watching things roll out at gamescom. “Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’ to Launch on Xbox, PS5”.

…“Indiana Jones and the Great Circle” has received a release date for Xbox with plans to launch on PlayStation 5 next year.

Xbox announced out of video game convention gamescom on Tuesday that the Bethesda Game Studios-produced game will drop Dec. 9 for Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC and Steam and arrive on Sony’s PlayStation 5, main rival console to Bethesda parent company Microsoft’s Xbox, in Spring 2025.

The release of the game on PS5 is a significant step in Xbox’s strategy to rollout some of its exclusive games across competitor devices, and a break from Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer’s comments back in February that “Indiana Jones and the Great Circle” would not be among those titles.

… Per Microsoft’s description for the game, “From MachineGames, in collaboration with Lucasfilm Games, set between the events of ‘Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark’ and ‘Indiana Jones and the The Last Crusade,’ ‘Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’ immerses players in an all-new single-player, narrative driven adventure. Blending cinematic set-pieces, puzzle-solving, and hand-to-hand combat, players will embark on an authentic Indiana Jones™ experience around the world to try and defeat the sinister forces working against them.”…

(15) HERE’S THE BEEF. Another Variety report from gamescom is about Amazon Games’ launch of King of Meat, “which allows players to fight weird and wonderful creatures, and build treacherous dungeons.”

Amazon’s description for the King of Meat game says:

Set in the mystical world of Loregok, King of Meat takes players to a place of dragons, trolls, skeletons, and, of course, corporate commercialism – where high fantasy meets the glitz, glamor, and media-infatuation of modern-day celebrity. The focus of this obsession is the wildest survival game show imaginable, “King of Meat”.

In the Komstruct Koliseum, YOU are the entertainment; a contender desperately seeking glory, gold and fame. Race through chaotic, unhinged dungeons battling all manner of monsters, all while trying to impress the bloodthirsty crowd with your combat skills and showmanship. But that’s not all! Dare to imagine lava filled rooms, spinning blades, flaming balls of fire, rotating spikes… and that’s still not all! There’s giant horse hooves, inter-dimensional black holes, exploding ducks and sausage-meat gym jocks. Nothing is off the table in King of Meat, and whether you’re crowned victorious or you perish anonymously, you’ll need to play with style to satisfy your audience.

Think that’s all, now? Think again! Further glory awaits those who create their own devious dungeons. What traps, tricks and trials are hidden in that dastardly brain of yours? Use all your cunning and creativity to build the most fun and outrageous dungeons for other King of Meat contenders to face, and the best will be famed and celebrated across all of Loregok.

(16) STONE CIRCLES. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Having reported Nature’s paper on Stonehenge’s Altar Stone coming from Scotland (see Pixel Scroll 8/15/24 item 16) that revealed Neolithic Britain was far more connected than thought, I forgot to say that I recently (this month) had a break, visiting old friends of SF² Concatenation, in Britain’s Peak District National Park. There we visited three Neolithic and Bronze Age stone circles and a barrow. I have an interest in current human ecology and also one in palaeoclimatology [three university textbooks under my belt that include these disciplines] and so have a casual fascination [I have no expertise here] in the way folk lived thousands of years ago.

Two of the stone circles I visited were at Barbrook (see picture). Which is a real tiddler compared to Stonehenge but fairly typical of Neolithic Britain.

But my favourite stone circle visited this month was Arbor Low (see picture) even though its stones have all fallen over. (Von Daniken types might blame the exhaust from an ancient UFO taking off too quickly… Ahem… I digress into loveable Bob Shaw/Von Donegan territory.)

The thing is, that Arbor Low, Gardom’s Edge and Barbrook, though distant, are all visible from one to each other. The Neolithic humans in the Peak District landscape were more connected than it might seem. Similarly, the Nature’s paper on Stonehenge’s alter stone coming from Scotland suggests that Neolithic Britain as a whole was more connected.

(Even when I take a break, it seems I am shadowing current science…)

Finally, let’s put this all in a present-day context. It was arguably from the Stone Age that we began our technological march over thousands of years through to today. I keep telling folk today that the machines are taking over, but nobody ever listens…

Of course, the other thing to say about having a casual interest in the Neolithic as well as SF is that I have never really forgiven the dinosaurs for what they did to Raquel Welch. But that’s another story for another time…

(17) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Lise Andreasen.] Math history! Computer science history! Science fiction history! Stand Up Maths leads us on “The search for the biggest shape in the universe”. Features a visit to a highly historic computer.

[Thanks to Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Paul Weimer, Linda Deneroff, Lise Andreasen, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Steven French for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jon Meltzer.]