(1) THE LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS SPOTTED IN THE WILD. Harlan Ellison’s The Last Dangerous Visions exists! It has started arriving in customers’ mailboxes. Although the book’s official release date is October 1, Jon C. Manzo told the Harlan Ellison Facebook Fan Club his copy came on Friday.
Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out…
(2) COVID CONCERN. John Wiswell has canceled plans to attend World Fantasy Con next month over dissatisfaction with the convention’s Covid policy, an announcement that elicited responses in social media from several other writers who have made the same decision about WFC.
(3) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman tells listeners it’s time for two scoops of Sarah Pinsker on Episode 236 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.
I won’t almost call it historic — I will call it historic. Because it’s the only episode since this podcast began during which you’ll hear me chat with a creator while we eat a flavor of ice cream inspired by their latest book — in this case, Sarah Pinsker’s Haunt Sweet Home — created by the Baltimore ice cream experts at The Charmery.
… The flavor launched on Friday the 13th, and we met at The Charmery yesterday for a taste of that book-inspired ice cream, where we discussed the sculpture she saw at the American Visionary Art Museum which planted a seed for Haunt Sweet Home, the origin of the ice cream collaboration, how she knew her idea was meant to be a novella and not a novel, why she prefers writing books without a contract, how multiple ideas coalesced into one, the narrative purpose of telling a story via multiple formats, how to know a character who doesn’t know themselves, why you can’t tell from the end product whether a piece of fiction was plotted or pantsed, Kelly Robson’s theory about the Han Solo/Luke Skywalker dichotomy and what it means for creating interesting characters, why she’s a fan of making promises in the early paragraphs of her stories, whether our families understand what we’re writing about when we write about families, and much more.
(4) UNHAPPY IN WESTEROS. “Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin vs House of the Dragon: A timeline”. Elements of the news in Winter Is Coming’s story have been covered here, but this article makes a comprehensive chronology of the pieces.
The other week, author George R.R. Martin did something surprising: writing on his Not a Blog, he publicly criticized HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel show House of the Dragon, which is based on his book Fire & Blood. He dinged the show for changing things from the source material in a way that weakened the story, and warned that there were bigger, “more toxic” changes being contemplated for future seasons of the show.
Martin never did anything like this during the nine years that Game of Thrones (which is based on his book series A Song of Ice and Fire) was running on HBO, so the changes that House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal made from his book obviously upset him. We the fans had inklings that something was bothering Martin before he went public, but I certainly wasn’t expecting him to be so up front about it….
(5) JOURNEY PLANET CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS. Sarah Gulde and Chuck Serface are co-editing an upcoming issue of Journey Planet about friendships in science fiction and fantasy. You could approach this topic in several ways:
- Famous friendships from science-fiction and fantasy literature, comics, films, or television. Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamjee, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Spock and James T. Kirk, Captain Marvel and Spider-Woman (or She-Hulk), Dana Scully and Fox Mulder, and Katniss Everdeen and Rue come to mind.
- Friendships among writers, artists, and other professionals within the genre. The Inklings and other writing or artistic fellowships would fit here.
- Friendships between fans. Who are your favorite people to see at conventions? Dare I mention the Futurians or the Greater New York Science Fiction Club? What about your local clubs or associations?
Friendships take many forms, so we accept broad interpretations expressed in fiction, personal essays, art, reviews, whatever we can publish in a fanzine format. Please send your submissions to Sarah Gulde at sarahmiyoko@gmail.com or Chuck Serface at ceserface@gmail.com by November 15, 2024.
(6) BBC PLANS ‘THREADS’ REBROADCAST. “’The most horrific, sobering thing I’ve ever seen’: BBC nuclear apocalypse film Threads 40 years on” – the Guardian has an overview. “Ahead of a timely re-airing of Mick Jackson’s famously bleak, rarely seen docudrama, its director recalls why he unleashed a mushroom cloud on Sheffield in 1984, while our writer explores the film’s lasting legacy.”
One Sunday night in September 1984, between championship darts and the news with Jan Leeming, the BBC broadcast one of its bravest, most devastating commissions. This was Threads, a two-hour documentary-style drama exploring a hypothetical event deeply feared at the time and also somehow unthinkable: what would happen if a nuclear bomb dropped on a British city….
…The BBC has shown Threads only three times to date: in 1984; in August of the following year, to mark the 40th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; and as part of a cold war special on BBC Four in 2003. Another – timely – showing is planned for October. When I watched the film at the end of the 20th century, Threads felt like a piece of history. Today, in a world of conflict in Russia, China and the Middle East, and expanding nuclear capabilities, it no longer does….
… For Jackson, the message of Threads comes down to something very simple: trusting people with the truth. “That’s what I wanted to get across,” he says. “That there’s no going back, that this happens. You can’t go back and press replay.”
But with a film you can. This month, Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov hinted at his country’s intention to change its stance on the use of nuclear weapons “connected with the escalation course of our western adversaries”. The UK and the US recently enhanced their nuclear cooperation pact. Threads airs on BBC Four next month. Be brave for two hours, and then continue the conversation.
(7) MEMORY LANE.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Anniversary: September 15, 1991: Eerie, Indiana
You remember Joe Dante, who has served us such treats as the Gremlin films, a segment of the Twilight Zone: The Movie (“It’s A Good Life”) and, errr, Looney Tunes: Back in Action? (I’ll forgive him for that because he’s a consultant on HBO Max prequel series Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai. Anyone seen the latter?)
Dante also was the creative consultant and director on a weird little horror SF series thirty-three years ago on NBC called Eerie, Indiana. Yes, delightfully weird. It was created by José Rivera and Karl Schaefer. For both it would be their first genre undertaking, though they would have a starry future, their work including Eureka, that a favorite of mine until the debacle of the last season, Goosebumps, The Jungle Book: Mowgli’s Story and Strange Luck to name but a few genre series that they’d work on in a major capacity.
SPOILER ALERT! REALLY I’M SERIOUS, GO AWAY
Hardly anyone there is normal. Or even possibly of this time and space. We have super intelligent canines bent on global domination, a man who might be the Ahab, and, in this reality, Elvis never died, and Bigfoot is fond of the forest around this small town.
There’s even an actor doomed to keep playing the same role over and over and over again, that of a mummy. They break the fourth wall and get him into a much happier film. Tony Jay played this actor.
Yes, they broke the fourth wall. That would happen again in a major way that I won’t detail here.
END SPOILER ALERT. YOU CAN COME BACK NOW.
It lasted but nineteen episodes as ratings were very poor.
Critics loved it. I’m quoting only one due to its length: “Scripted by Karl Schaefer and José Rivera with smart, sharp insights; slyly directed by feature film helmsman Joe Dante; and given edgy life by the show’s winning cast, Eerie, Indiana shapes up as one of the fall season’s standouts, a newcomer that has the fresh, bracing look of Edward Scissorhands and scores as a clever, wry presentation well worth watching.”
It won’t surprise you that at Rotten Tomatoes, that audience reviewers give it a rating of ninety-two percent. It is streaming on Amazon Prime, Disney+ and legally on YouTube. Yes, legally on the latter.
(8) COMICS SECTION.
- Alley-Oop demonstrates when not to ask about the worst thing that can happen.
- Brewster Rockit witnesses a powerful attraction at work.
- Frank and Ernie try to prove themselves.
- Carpe Diem has a customer special.
- Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal is truly grotesque.
(9) HOW DOES THIS SHOE FIT? THEM says “LGBTQ+ Fans Are Speaking Out About WNBA Star Breanna Stewart’s ‘Harry Potter’ Sneaker Collab”.
Shortly after winning her third Olympic gold medal at the Paris Games last month, out New York Liberty star Breanna Stewart (or “Stewie,” as she is affectionately known by WNBA fans) announced a new signature shoe. The Stewie 3, created in partnership with Puma, is inspired by the Harry Potter films and features design details, like the “Deathly Hallows” symbol, that reference the Potter-verse. Almost immediately, the comments sections of official social media posts promoting the shoe were filled with fans voicing their disappointment that Stewart, one of the league’s highest-profile players and an outspoken trans ally, would be tied to one of the world’s most vocal antagonists of trans people.
The timing of the shoe drop has particularly upset Stewie’s queer and trans fans, considering it comes on the heels of Rowling being named in a cyberbullying lawsuit filed by Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, who alleges that the Harry Potter author, Elon Musk, and other public figures took part in a “massive” harassment campaign that labeled her a “biological male.”
While fan backlashes to Harry Potter products are almost de rigueur at this point, this particular Potter collab hits harder because of who Stewart is and what the league means to its many LGBTQ+ enthusiasts. The WNBA itself is considered one of the safest and most affirming leagues for queer and trans crowds. Over 25% of the players in the league, including Stewart, are out as LGBTQ+ and the WNBA was the first professional league in the U.S. to officially recognize Pride….
…One of the questions fans like McKenzie want answers to is how a product celebrating Harry Potter and benefiting J.K. Rowling makes sense as a collaboration between an out pro-trans athlete and a company that has demonstrated support for LGBTQ+ people. (Neither Puma nor representatives for Stewart responded to multiple requests for comment.)…
(10) THEY’VE GOT THE GOODS. If you’re interested in Star Wars figure collecting, there’s a large photo gallery of the offerings unveiled here: “Hasbro Pulse Con 2024 – Star Wars Panel Recap” at The Toyark.
The Star Wars panel just wrapped up over on Hasbro Pulse Con 2024. New figures were shown for The Vintage Collection and Black Series from multiple eras. A couple that stood out to me was a refresh of Black Series A New Hope Luke and Leia, which have all new sculpts and no soft goods. Read on to check out details and pics from the stream. Pre-Orders for most go live at 5 PM for the general public!
(11) STAR TREK, 1-YEAR BARGAIN MISSION. [Item by Daniel Dern.] ParamountPlus.com (lotsa Star Trek, if nothing else)(also Daily Show and Stephen Colbert, of course) is offering a year for half price (so $29.99 for with-ads, or $59.99 with “No ads except live TV & a few shows, and SHOWTIME originals & movies”).
Coupon name/ID (in case you need it): Coupon: fall50 (for “50% off”)
You can’t do this as a “renew” — at least not thru the web site, possibly via their phone people.
Our similarly-priced sale year just ended yesterday, so (having deliberately cancelled a few days ago so it didn’t autorenew at full price), I just signed up (for the cheapskate-with-ads, dunno if it’s too late to call and splurge the upgrade).
(Note: If you already have a ParamountPlus account, you don’t have to create a new account; your existing account persists if/when your subscription ends.)
(12) POLARIS DAWN RETURNS. “SpaceX capsule splashes down after history-making Polaris Dawn mission” reports NBC News.
A SpaceX capsule carrying four private citizens splashed down off Florida at 3:36 a.m. ET Sunday, ending a historic mission that included the world’s first all-civilian spacewalk.
Billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Scott “Kidd” Poteet and SpaceX engineers Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon returned to Earth in a Crew Dragon capsule, splashing down off Dry Tortugas, Florida, in the Gulf of Mexico….
…It was also the company’s [SpaceX’s] most ambitious expedition, as the crew members and their spacecraft executed several risky maneuvers.
Chief among them was the all-civilian spacewalk Thursday. Isaacman and Gillis exited the Dragon capsule on a tether, each spending around 10 minutes out in the vacuum of space. The duo spent the spacewalk conducting mobility tests in their newly designed spacesuits.
The outing was a risky undertaking, because the Dragon capsule does not have a pressurized airlock. That meant that all four members of the Polaris Dawn mission wore spacesuits during the spacewalk and that the entire capsule was depressurized to vacuum conditions….
(13) FROM NEIGHBORHOOD OF MAKE-BELIEVE TO GOTHAM CITY. Collider tells how “Michael Keaton Got His Start Working on One of Your Favorite Kids’ Shows”.
…In an interview, David Newell, who played deliveryman Mr. McFeely on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, went into more detail about what Michael Keaton did on the show. According to Newell, Keaton worked on the floor crew. Because of this job, Keaton ran the trolley that went through Mr. Rogers’ living room. If you’re watching any mid to late ’70s episodes, and you see the trolley come through the hole in the wall, that’s the man who would become Beetlejuice flipping the switch to make the trolley move. Keaton also helped build the sets and take them down before and after shooting an episode….
(14) REALLY OLD SCHOOL. “’Entire ecosystem’ of fossils 8.7m years old found under Los Angeles high school” – Yahoo! has the story.
Marine fossils dating back to as early as 8.7m years ago have been uncovered beneath a south Los Angeles high school.
On Friday, the Los Angeles Times reported that researchers had discovered two sites on the campus of San Pedro high school under which fossils including those of a saber-toothed salmon and a megalodon, the gigantic prehistoric shark, were buried.
According to the outlet, the two sites where the fossils were found include an 8.7m-year-old bone bed from the Miocene era and a 120,000-year-old shell bed from the Pleistocene era.
The discoveries were made between June 2022 and July 2024, LAist reports….
(15) WOLVES OF YELLOWSTONE. [Item by Jeffrey Smith.] Balanced Ecology — not particularly sfnal, but certainly adjacent. What happened to Yellowstone National Park when (a) wolves were removed and (b) when they were returned. Very instructive as to what one change can make to an ecosystem. A fascinating read. “Friday Night Soother – Digby’s Hullabaloo” at Digby’s Blog.
…In 1995, something really exciting happened in the nation’s first national park, Yellowstone. 41 wild wolves are reintroduced here by scientists. After 100 years of being hunted, wolves could once again call this place home.
The wolves thrived, but something else very surprising happened. Their return had a spectacular effect on the landscape, an effect that spread wider than anyone thought possible. So how did this all happen?…
(16) AUTUMN CONCATENATION NOW ONLINE. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] The SF² Concatenation has just posted its northern hemisphere academic autumnal issue. The contents are:
v34(5) 2024.4.15 — New Columns & Articles for the Summer 2024
- Newscast for the Autumn 2024. This includes within it many key sections. See also the master newscast link index that connects to all its SF/F genre and science news sub-sections.
- How common are exo-Earths with water? – Jonathan Cowie
Is the lack of watery, inner rocky planets an early Fermi filter? New science sheds possible light.
- Contabile 34: Triple Time – Peter Tyers
Britain’s 34th Annual UK Filk Music Convention reviewed.
- Levitation – The 2024 British Eastercon – Arthur Chappell
Britain’s national convention reviewed.
- Glasgow – The 2024 SF Worldcon – Tim Atkinson
What’s it like to attend a Worldcon for the first time?
- From engineer and SF fan to astronomy – Mark Paice
Taking up astronomy as a hobby.
- Ten years ago exactly. One from the archives:
My 25 years of Eurocons & ESFS – Roberto Quaglia
After a decade as the European SF Society’s Vice-Chair, Roberto reflects on a quarter of a century of Eurocons.
- Twenty years ago exactly. One from the archives:
Robert Sheckley interviewed
The SFWA Author Emeritus reveals his influences, format preferences, idea sources and comments on working collaboratively.
- Thirty years ago exactly. One from the archives:
More than Human: Colin Greenland, Charles Stross, Norman Spinrad & Tony Chester (moderator)
A panel discussion from the British Mexicon 5 convention in 1994.
And scrolling further down there are loads of fiction as well as a few non-fiction SF and pop science book reviews. Accessible at www.concatenation.org.
Splundig.
[Thanks to Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Jeffrey Smith, Chuck Serface, Daniel Dern, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, and SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
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Oh, I see a First!
I’m immensely enjoying V.E.Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic series which I’m listening to know. So my new neurologist who turns out to be a fantasy fan recommended Lev Grossman’s The Magicians series for me to listen to as we were discussing that I can’t read anymore and she enjoyed it as an audiobook.
(7) A search on Disney+ for “Eerie, Indiana” produced no results just now.
(2) I understand his concern. We went to Windycon last year (as I’ve done for a bunch of years), and hardly anyone was masked, so we didn’t. Got COVID the next week, and that’s the only time we’ve gotten it. We’re aggressively masking – if you were at Worldcon, and saw us, it was with masks. We have no intention of getting it again.
14) “saber-toothed salmon”?
Dan’l says A search on Disney+ for “Eerie, Indiana” produced no results just now.
I used one of those sites that aggregates streaming services for who’s got what series. It’s likely that there’s some lag in their data, or knowing Disney + even accesing them can be difficult.
I thought it must be a joke, but not, the saber-toothed salmon was a thing. Ugly too.
Michael J. “Orange Mike” Lowrey asks “saber-toothed salmon”?
From Flylords which is a journal of really avid fly fishermen.
Meet the Prehistoric Saber-Toothed Salmon
By Chase Bohning – July 30, 2020
Paul Vecsei’s Imagination of Oncorhynchus rastrosus
Oncorhynchus rastrosus?
Have you ever heard of the late Miocene and early Pliocene epochs’ salmon that raged in the North American Pacific? This prehistoric salmonid was the most formidable that has ever existed. In an era of time roughly 5-12 million years ago, O. Rastrosus would have shared the ocean with other toothy giants such as the Megaledon shark and the Livyatan, a predatory whale. While it’s nearly impossible to define what it’s physical appearance entailed, one thing that paleontologists know without question is that O. Rastrosus was of immense size in comparison to the salmon species that grace the waters of present day. The only remnants of the salmon that have ever been found are partial skulls, unfortunately. From these fragments scientists have determined that this fish was a massive 2.5-3 metres in length and a mind bending 200-400 pounds.
(16) Robert Sheckley wasn’t a Grandmaster.
He should have been.
But he wasn’t.
Wiki on that fish: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oncorhynchus_rastrosus
Apparently they weren’t really sabers, more like fangs that stuck out sideways.
Looks like most salmon, in the reconstructions.
That name is attention-getting, though!
7) Eerie was a wonderful show.
Time to dig out the DVDs and watch it again.
(Eerie, Indiana: The Other Dimension was also pretty good.)
CRL: Point taken. He was a SFWA Author Emeritus.
WFC’s policy is in line with most recent cons. I’ll note that Readercon, which had a strict masking policy except for one event, had a higher percentage COVID rate than Worldcon, though Glasgow had a policy much like WFC’s. People don’t get COVID at the con; they get it in the restaurants and bars. Readercon had a karaoke party that was a super-spreader event. The UK folk love their pubs. Don’t want COVID? Mask during the convention, certainly, but also, eat alone.
(1) If you spot LDV in the wild, be cautious in approaching.
(6) The British have become too upbeat – rerelease Threads!
(7) A wonderful program with the great John Astin (still living today) as a recurring character.
Had a little trouble fighting my way in this morning, but I made it.
I was masked most of the time during Worldcon (except when eating and when speaking before the Business Meeting, and in he latter case that meant I was 1-2 m away from other people). I’ve also been vaccinated six times against it, although the most recent was several months ago. Despite sitting near multiple people who later reported coming down with COVID and being fairly lax during the three weeks post-con I spent traveling around Wales, I seem to be COVID-free. But right now, I’m one fo the tiny percentage of people still masking in my town of 20K people.
2) DragonCon had basically no policy this year (and when I suggested a PSA-type suggestion to mask, given the covid spike we’re in, I was roundly shouted down on the social media platform I was using). Just based on reddit postings, a ton of people got covid. (I double masked the whole con, and didn’t get it.)
I was at a small comics/graphic art con over the weekend that did have a mask requirement, and…lots of people didn’t mask. It was rather annoying. (I double masked (as I do on the subway). I guess this is just going to be a thing now.)
7) Eerie Indiana, Eerie Indiana, Eerie Indiana, let me say it once again. . . .
2.) Quite frankly, due to being older and high risk and married to someone who is high risk, I’m only doing virtual events because I simply can’t trust other people to be cautious (and except for one possible illness post-RadCon in 2020, no, I’ve not had Covid). And the lack of trust has come about due to exposures (but no illnesses due to masking on our part) from people who have been exposed, in some cases with positive tests, not saying anything about testing positive or being exposed but still coming around us.
Despite all the claims I hear about this and that convention doing masking, I don’t see a lot of masking in convention pictures. I hear a lot of justification for loosely enforced policies and excuses for not having stronger mandates (seeing some of that here in the comments). I hear people talking about getting sick post-convention, but calling it anything BUT Covid.
I realize that my stance significantly penalizes my hopes of getting my writing recognized further, but…I have a LOT more respect for my health than to take Covid casually. Because of certain health factors, I’m a likely risk for long Covid. This is an unpopular stance, though, and I’ve been criticized for it. Otherwise, people seem to want to keep on partying like it’s 2019.
(2) @Joyce Reynolds-Ward: “I hear people talking about getting sick post-convention, but calling it anything BUT Covid.”
Possibly because it isn’t. I started attending conventions in 1977, and ‘post-con flu’ (more accurately, ‘colds’) was something people simply got used to. Wearing a facemask is a personal choice, as is attending an event where you know most other people won’t be. Some fans are unfortunately at a higher risk, but most are not.
(14) So how old were the schoolbooks the dinosaurs were carrying?
(16) @CRL: “Robert Sheckley wasn’t a Grandmaster.”
But I hear he was a fine Toastmaster.
Russell Letson says Eerie Indiana, Eerie Indiana, Eerie Indiana, let me say it once again.
You can say that but it does have a comma. I checked. The official website says that — it ain’t commaless.
From that website as kept as the usual place
Eerie, Indiana is an American television series created by José Rivera and Karl Schaefer, with Joe Dante serving as creative consultant. It originally aired on NBC from September 15, 1991 to April 12, 1992.
15) “The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the pieces.” -Aldo Leopold
All of this, of course, is the background for Malka Older’s The Mimicking of Known Successes.
@Joyce Reynolds-Ward: Yep, pretty much virtual-only for me, too, for much the same reasons. My local con did a membership survey recently that included a built-in FU to anyone who wanted a virtual option– got dumped out of the survey after the first question, with a message that they didn’t want any further opinions from people like me, thanks. Fortunately, virtual means the definition of “local” has changed drastically.
@Zelda Yeah, that was pretty much the same for me and local conventions. Not so overt a FU, but basically “nope, we’re not doing a virtual component.” Sigh. And I see one of that ilk in the comments already. “It’s a choice.” Talk about ableism and privilege.
Just because concrud has been a fact of life in the past doesn’t mean we need to encourage its continuation.
Cat Eldridge: He’s riffing on The Music Man’s song “Gary, Indiana”. Fits awfully well.
I mean, yes, people absolutely get COVID at restaurants and bars (and anyone who’s in the habit of going out to eat is probably not just doing that at a convention). But programming rooms aren’t magically safe. People still breathe there.
@A.P. Howell, exactly. Especially crowded programming rooms with poor ventilation.
If you’d like to have a logical explanation
How I happened on this elegant syncopation,
I will say without a moment of hesitation
There is just one place
That can light my face.
(The sheet music has the commas after the city name, but it looked strange lined out as prose, so I left them out.)
Just wondering, is “the Ahab” the captain of the Pequod or a particularly nasty king in the Bible?
Or the owner of the camel named Clyde?
Judging from Google it’s a fellow pursuing a tornado the way the Pequod captain pursued a whale
I got COVID after going to Buffalo. I did not mask. I could have gotten it anywhere since I don’t mask at home anymore. Therefore, I had immunity when I went to Glasgow but I did mask at the business meeting out of respect for their request. I hate masks. I cannot recognize people. Photo taking is worthless unless you are not taking a photo of their head.
As for Threads, I saw it on TV in the US over 25 years ago. I don’t remember who showed it. Oh dear, will be skipping a rewatch.
Robert Person:
Except because it’s Winthrop who sings it, it’s really:
If you’d like to have a logical explanathion
How I happened on thith elegant thyncopathion,
I will thay without a moment of hethitathion
There ith jutht one plathe
That can light my fathe….
“He taught me a song with hardly any esses in it” indeed. (I was in The Music Man in a high school musical, so most of the songs and dialogue are by heart.)