25 I Heard It Through The Godstalk

Posted on May 12, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(1) ARTHUR C. CLARKE SHORTLIST. The Arthur C. Clarke Award 2025 Shortlist was announced today. File 770 lists the six finalists at the link.

(2) HAPPY 90TH! On Wednesday May 14 “Griffith Observatory celebrates 90th birthday” reports LAist. (The official website with more detail about the celebration is here: “Griffith Observatory – Southern California’s gateway to the cosmos!”)

A star was born in 1935, when Griffith Observatory became the first public observatory west of the Mississippi.

Now, “Griffith Observatory is the most visited public observatory on the planet,” says Ed Krupp, longtime director of the observatory.

In the 90 years since its founding, more than 7 million people have peered through the historic Zeiss telescope that adorns the peak of Mount Hollywood in Griffith Park.

“More than any other telescope on Earth,” Krupp adds.

Celebrations kick off with a special opening ceremony on the observatory’s front lawn at 11:30 a.m., before doors open at noon. Visitors will receive limited-edition 90th anniversary buttons while supplies last.

Throughout the day, the observatory will host special programming highlighting both astronomical phenomena and the building’s history as a center for public astronomy.

“People on site will get to see how the sky really works,” Krupp said. “It’s a reminder that the observatory itself is an instrument.”

In the evening, a program in the Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon Theater will honor California’s Indigenous astronomical traditions. And visitors will gather on the West Terrace to salute the sunset “as the sun salutes Griffith Observatory’s birthday,” Krupp said. “It’s a cosmic party.”

As night falls, the celebration will continue with a rare event: the Southern Major Standstill Moonrise, part of an 18.6-year lunar cycle. The event will also be live-streamed on Instagram.

(3) IT’S BOT TIME. NPR’s TV reviewer says this is what to watch for: “On TV this week: ‘Murderbot’ and a Joan Rivers tribute on NBC”.

Think back to a time about six years ago, before the explosion of streaming services that included Apple TV+, and it’s tough to imagine a TV show like Murderbot getting made.

Not just because its star, dreamboat actor Alexander Skarsgård, might be more focused on big films. But because the eye-popping special effects and high-quality production involved in developing a project from Martha Wells’ ambitious science fiction novel series The Murderbot Diaries might be a stretch even for a major motion picture – let alone a TV series on a platform that struggles to build big hits.

In fact, Murderbot is the latest example of a trend I’ve noticed on streaming TV – exquisitely produced science fiction and fantasy shows that may not be seen outside of a small-yet-passionate fanbase.

Apple TV+’s Murderbot, debuting Friday, has quite a few hallmarks of high-quality TV. Not only is Skarsgård magnificent in playing a cyborg who has secretly become an independent, free thinking artificial being – he’s in a series created and executive produced by Chris and Paul Weitz, brothers who worked on acclaimed films like About a Boy and American Pie….

…It’s an innovative, creative story told in 10 short episodes, satirizing everything from ruthless corporatism to blithely naive social justice stands. And it will be catnip for science fiction fans who love all the actors who pop up in it. But it’s also not likely to get wide viewing, because Apple TV+ has made a habit of spending loads of money on beautifully shot science fiction stories that have a tough time making a wide impact….

(4) PARTING SHOT. The release of the pre-publication version of the third part of the Copyright Office’s report “Copyright and Artificial Intelligence” came the day before — “Copyright Chief Fired Amid AI Debate”. Publishers Weekly reports on the suspicious move.

On Saturday, the Trump administration fired Shira Perlmutter, the register of copyrights and director of the U.S. Copyright Office, just two days after the dismissal of Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, under whose auspices the U.S. Copyright Office operates. Perlmutter was appointed by Hayden in 2020….

… The move, like Hayden’s dismissal before it, was immediately blasted by Democratic members of Congress. Rep. Joe Morelle (Dem., N.Y.), the top Democrat on the Committee on House Administration, called the move “a brazen, unprecedented power grab with no legal basis,” adding, “It is surely no coincidence he acted less than a day after she refused to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models.”

On Friday, Perlmutter’s office released the pre-publication version of the third part of the Copyright Office’s report “Copyright and Artificial Intelligence,” following a first segment released in July 2024 and a second released this January. This third part focuses on the impact of generative AI training across a wide range of topics, from the origins of the technology, to AI companies’ possible infringement in training their data sets, to those companies’ defense that the training counts as fair use, to what potential licensing scenarios might look like.

Morelle and others have speculated that Perlmutter’s dismissal was likely due to her release of the preliminary report. But sources close to the office, who spoke with PW on condition of anonymity, suggest that it is more likely that Perlmutter, having heard of her impending dismissal, ordered the report released beforehand to ensure it entered the public record in spite of its incomplete status. (The report, for instance, lacks some citations.)…

(5) POSTER BOY. “’I add the human touch’: the beautiful, bespoke work of Berlin’s last cinema poster artist” – a Guardian profile.

Götz Valien is Berlin’s last movie poster artist, for more than three decades earning a modest living producing giant hand-painted film adverts to hang at the city’s most beloved historic cinemas – a craft he says will probably die with him, at least in western Europe. The studios’ own promotional posters serve as a template, but Austrian-born Valien, 65, adds a distinctive pop art flourish to each image coupled with the beauty of imperfection – part of the reason he has managed to extend his career well into the 21st century.

“Advertising is about drawing attention and I add the human touch, which is why it works,” he said. Valien’s work plays up the image’s essence: the imposing bow of a ship, the haunting eyes of a screen siren, a mysterious smile. He jokingly calls himself a Kinosaurier – a play on the German words for cinema and dinosaur….

(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

May 13, 1937 — Roger Zelazny. (Died 1996).

I’ve mentioned many times that Roger Zelazny, in conjunction with Tolkien, got me into fantasy. And you’ve possibly read my reviews of the collected Roger Zelazny short stories here at File 770. Or one of my many other reviews in various places over the years.

So what else can I tell you about my relationship with Zelazny that you haven’t read already? Surely you know that I started with Zelazny’s work with Nine Princes in Amber, and so with Zelazny, I gained a permanent love of multiversal fiction that would lead me to Moorcock and many other authors in due course. Amber also was one of my entry points into RPGs and so along with D&D, and Traveller, and Call of Cthulhu, there was the tiny but influential Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game. So Zelazny has been always a part of my RPG life.

Imagery. Powerfully invoked scenes. Poetic prose (the collected Zelazny, with his poetry, was revelatory as to where all that came from). Sharp archetypal characters, that feel like they came out of a tarot deck (or a Trump deck?) As a stylist, in my personal constellation of reading, he has no equal.

As I have said in my reading of the collections, I inadvertently stumbled upon many Zelazny stories outside of his novels when I was young, and not knowing what they really were. There are several Zelaznys inside of himself, as he changed, evolved and always trying new things. The author of Amber is also the author of Damnation Alley and also the author of Lord of Light and also the author of “24 views of Mount Fuji, by Hokusai”. All of these are very different, and yet indubitably Zelazny.

Zelazny has been part of my reading since the beginning of my SFF reading, and will continue to do so for as long as I have strength. For as long as I have that strength, I will keep walking that Road to Amber, revisiting the sights and wonders Zelazny has left for us along the way.

I never got to meet him, alas. Requiescat in pace

(7) COMICS SECTION.

Bob the Angry Flower tries to free a prisoner.
Brewster Rockit shows how far the problem extends.
Dinosaur Comics knows some tales are scarier than others.
Dog Eat Doug’s cats prefer science.
Free Range remembers the thing no one ever went broke doing.
Non Sequitur can’t decide if this is about romance or politics.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal wants to pass on a trait.

(8) ON A MISSION. James Bacon’s article “The Leprechaun, and the Irish War on Comics” at downthetubes.net is a companion piece to his article here, “Greann — Ireland’s First Comic Book, from a veteran of the 1916 Rising”.

With its colourful front cover and striking red masthead The Leprechaun may have seemed very attractive to children in 1953, and this tabloid-sized Irish comic feels like it may have been influenced by and created to compete with the likes of the British comic Eagle – but in actual fact it was not, although its publisher, like the Eagle’s editor, the Reverend Marcus Morris, did have similar aims. The Leprechaun was also created to combat “the outcry against the harm being done by imported comics” and to provide for “the need for clean comics” for Irish readers.

As Mr. French of Bray Urban District Council noted about American Comics they “were nothing but sensual cesspools of iniquity” when he proposed a resolution calling on the Minister for Justice to ban the importation of all comics emanating from American publishers (reported in the Irish Independent on Wednesday, 11th June 1952).

The Horror Comics Campaign in Britain that the late Martin Barker so brilliantly wrote of in A Haunt of Fears encompassed a movement between 1949 and 1955 that brought about the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act of 1955. The fear was mirrored in Ireland, and comics continually featured in contemporary newspaper reports across the country.

On 8th November 1952, the Connacht Tribune reported about the “COMICS: DÁIL QUESTION” with the Minister for Justice responding to a question with, “I have no information that objectionable comics are printed in Ireland.”

Into this hot fray of emotion, intellectual anxiety and fear of God, the first issue of the fortnightly comic The Leprechaun was published in early July 1953…..

(9) IF LOVING YOU IS A CRIME, I’LL ALWAYS BE GUILTY. [Item by Steven French.] As with fantasy, so with games – GTA comes over all romantic: “GTA6 gets it on: can the notoriously cynical action series finally find time for romance?” asks the Guardian.

Something new is coming to the Grand Theft Auto universe next year. I don’t mean super-high-definition visuals, or previously unexplored areas of Rockstar’s take on the US. This time it’s something much more profound. If you’ve seen the newly released second trailer from GTA6 – somewhat cruelly released just days after we discovered the game won’t be out until next May – then you might know what I mean. The brand new thing is romance.

It’s now clear that the key protagonists of the latest gangland adventure are Lucia Caminos and Jason Duval, two twentysomething lovers from the wrong side of the tracks. He’s ex-army, now working for drug runners; she’s fresh out of jail, looking to make a better life for herself and her beloved mom. They fall for each other, hatch a plan to get out of Vice City, and then when their simple heist goes wrong, they find themselves at the sharp end of a state-wide conspiracy. You always knew that if Rockstar were going to tell a love story, it would involve a formidable cast of underworld kingpins, gang members, conspiracy nuts and corrupt politicians, and you were right….

(10) OLD IN NEW YORK. Deadline is there when “Nicolas Cage Makes Photo Debut As Aging Web Slinger in ‘Spider-Noir’”.

Nicolas Cage made his photo debut in Spider-Noir at Amazon’s annual upfronts presentation this afternoon and can be seen below. Spider-Noir will be available in both black and white and color when it premieres in 2026.

The live-action series from MGM+ and Prime Video, based on the Marvel comic Spider-Man Noir, tells the story of an aging and down-on-his-luck private investigator (Cage) in 1930s New York, who is forced to grapple with his past life as the city’s one and only superhero….

(11) ANIME MVP’S. “MLB Anime: Heroes of the Game (ft. Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, more!)”

MLB has teamed up with a crew of creators from the world of anime, tapping animators from One Piece and Full Metal Alchemist to release Heroes of the Game! The power, precision, and skill needed for MLB players to reach the top of their game is almost superhuman. Now, that intensity is being showcased through the world of anime—connecting fans from America, Japan, the UK, and beyond. The campaign features Shohei Ohtani as the Master of Both Sides of the Game, Paul Skenes as the pitcher with ferocious power to unleash, Aaron Judge as the Herculean hitter on a mission to become one of the all-time greats, and Juan Soto as the man who sees all and can change the game with just one swing.

(12) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Isaac Arthur’s latest video title made me think of J. G. Ballard’s book. However I am not sure I buy into the concept of complex crystal biology as Isaac does. (Though I loved Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain.) “Crystal Aliens: Life, But Not As We Know It”.

Crystals are not alive, yet they grow, form complex structures, and even conduct electricity. Could life emerge from crystals rather than carbon-based molecules? Explore the intriguing possibility of crystal-based lifeforms, the challenges they would face, and the conditions where they might thrive. We journey to five exotic worlds—Vulcan, Ribbon World, Longenacht, Telluride, and Tempest—each offering unique environments where crystalline life might take hold. Could such life develop naturally, or might humanity one day engineer it? Join us as we dive into the cutting-edge science and speculative possibilities of crystalline biology.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Paul Weimer, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 4/8/25 Our Scroll Is A Very, Very, Very Fine Scroll, With Two Credentials In The Meter, Life Used To Be In-Feet-ers, Now Everything Is Metric Because Of You

Posted on April 8, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(1) 2025 HWA LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS. The Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Awards honorees for 2025 are Del Howison, Sue Howison, Dame Susan Hill, and David Cronenberg. The full citations are at the link.

(2) 2025 COMPTON CROOK AWARD. The Baltimore Science Fiction Society (BSFS) announced today that The Wings Upon Her Back (Tachyon Publications) by Samantha Mills won the 2025 Compton Crook Award for best debut SF/Fantasy/horror novel, a prize worth $1,000. “Samantha Mills Wins 2025 Compton Crook Award” at File 770.

(3) WHO HAS READ THESE BOOKS? Nicholas Whyte’s post about the “Nebula and BSFA shortlists and the Goodreads and LibraryThing stats” at From the Heart of Europe are one way to test how widely known books were before they became award finalist.

It’s shortlist time again! Just to remind you, the GR and LT stats are a guide to how well a book has permeated the general market, but may not have much congruence with the respective voter bases of the two awards.

He’s done another for “2025 Hugo final ballot: Goodreads / LibraryThing stats”. One of his observations is:

A clear lead for The Ministry of Time in market penetration, though The Tainted Cup has the most enthusiastic readers.

(4) BLOCK THAT OUT! Who knew Minecraft would bring out filmgoers’ rowdy side? “Witney cinema issues Minecraft warning after online trend” reports BBC.

A cinema has told customers to behave during showings of A Minecraft Movie after rowdy behaviour at other screenings went viral on social media.

A sign displayed at Cineworld in Witney, Oxfordshire, has warned people any form of anti-social behaviour would see them removed without a refund.

The film, which received underwhelming reviews from critics, made an estimated $300m (£233m) globally at the box office on its opening weekend.

Its popularity has spread online, with videos of young audience members shouting responses and celebrating the appearance of different characters made famous by the video game – which is one of the world’s best selling.

The film tells the story of four misfits pulled through a mysterious portal into the Overworld – the place where all players start in Minecraft.

A number of lines from star Jack Black – in particular his introductory “I… am Steve” – have been met with cheering, shouting and applause.

One moment showing the arrival of the character Chicken Jockey – alongside Black’s accompanying dialogue – has also been the focal point for much of the furore….

(5) ROBOTS RETURN. Netflix has dropped a trailer for “LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS VOLUME 4”. And at the link you can see five first-look images.

The fearless anthology series Love, Death + Robots is returning for a fourth volume of mechanical madness. You can always expect this anthology series to serve up some wild stuff, and Volume 4 is definitely no exception.

“I try to get a mix of horror, sci-fi, and fantasy,” creator Tim Miller (Deadpool, Terminator: Dark Fate) tells Tudum about the new lineup of shorts. “And we work with some really fucking fantastic writers and artists.”

(6) WHO TRIES TO BAN BOOKS? “Majority of attempts to ban books in US come from organised groups, not parents” reports the Guardian.

A large majority of attempts to ban books in the US last year came from organised groups rather than parents.

72% of demands to censor books were initiated by pressure groups, government entities and elected officials, board members and administrators, reported the American Library Association (ALA). Just 16% of ban attempts were made by parents, while 5% were brought forward by individual library users.

“These demands to remove and restrict books and other library materials are not the result of any grassroots or popular sentiment,” read the ALA’s 2025 State of America’s Libraries report, published on Monday. “The majority of book censorship attempts are now originating from well-funded, organised groups and movements long dedicated to curbing access to information and ideas.”

(7) DIAMOND’S IN THE ROUGH. Publishers Weekly is there when “Fight Breaks Out for Ownership of Diamond Comic Distributors”.

Days before a court hearing was set to take place April 7 to move ahead with the sale of most of Diamond Comic Distributors assets to Alliance Entertainment (AENT), Diamond owners had a change of heart and are now favoring a new, smaller joint bid by Canadian comics distributor Universal Entertainment and pop culture manufacturer and licensor Ad Populum. Attorneys for Alliance immediately filed a lawsuit to block the change and a hearing was held yesterday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Maryland to try to sort things out.

The April 7 hearing was focused on the appropriateness of the Alliance bid and was adjourned before the hearing was completed. The parties were due back in court April 8 and a decision is due May 28. That timeline however, is now thrown into serious question following the filing of Alliance’s April 6 lawsuit challenging the legality of Diamond’s owners’ decision to back the offer from Universal and Ad Populum.

The suit accuses Diamond of acting in bad faith by conducting an auction “in a manner that was unfair to any party other than their preferred purchaser, and—despite having designated AENT as the Successful Bidder—acted with extreme bad faith in the period following the Auction.” According to the filing, AENT’s bid of $72.2 million was deemed the highest offer and that Universal/Ad Populum were the underbidders.

According to the lawsuit, despite the offer from AENT, Diamond secretly solicited other bids with an eye toward favoring Universal (who had placed a $39 million stalking horse offer at the time of the bankruptcy filing in January) and Ad Populum. After more negotiations between AENT and Diamond, the lawsuit says, Diamond “abruptly terminated” its agreement saying that it “would proceed with the backup bidder.” To facilitate the switch, Diamond filed a motion last week asking the court to approve the sale of the company’s assets to the joint back-up bidder.

In its filing, AENT argued that its offer, which had been raised to $85.37 million, was much higher that the $69.1 million combined bid from Universal Distribution and Ad Populum, which included $49.6 million from Universal for Diamond UK and Alliance Games Distributions, and $19.5 million from Ad Populum for Diamond Comic Distributors, Collectible Grading Authority, and Diamond Select Toys….

(8) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Science Fiction Theatre (1954)

Again tonight, I’m reaching back into early days of the genre in broadcast terms by talking about the television premiere of Science Fiction Theatre which seventy years ago started off in syndication. It would end rather quickly two years later on the sixth of April with a total of seventy-eight episodes over the course of just two seasons.

The first season was in color but to save money the second was not. I know this reverses the usual manner of going from black and white to color, but I confirmed that they actually did this.

It was the product of Hungarian born Iván Tors who had earlier done the Office of Scientific Investigation trilogy of SF films (The Magnetic Monster which recycled footage from a German horror film, Riders to the Stars and Gog which average twenty percent among audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes). He’s also responsible for Flipper and Flipper’s New Adventure which surely are genre adjacent, aren’t they?

Hosted by Truman Bradley, a radio and television announcer and a Forties film actor, its schtick, and I use that Yiddish word in its fullest sense, was that they were doing a quasi-documentary series that what Ifs of modern science. Now mind they were to a great extent re-using the stories that had been earlier on Dimension X, so they were recycling existing stories. Or so say several sources.

The program never aired over a network. All seventy-eight twenty-six minute episodes were syndicated across the country in package deals of thirty-nine episodes each, with Bradley doing custom commercials for each market.

If you watched it later on PBS, you got the entire episode, but when the Sci-fi channel broadcast them they were cut by five minutes to cram in more blipverts, errr, I mean advertisements. Sci-fi that does with everything.

It’s streaming on Roku offers on its Movie Classics channel.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

April 8, 1974 — Nnedi Okorafor, 51.

By Paul Weimer: Nnedi Okorafor has written some of (to my perspective, and a moment to explain that) genre-bending speculative fiction that I’ve read. Let me explicate. There is science fiction, and there is fantasy, and then there is the peanut butter and chocolate of books that take elements of both. Or, specifically, books that feel like they partake of both. Okorafor herself I think might disagree, but much of the work I’ve read of hers does do that in my own mind and limited perception.

Take Lagoon, the first of her works I read. Near future, Nigeria, First Contact. Straight-up science fiction, right? Sure, it’s a first contact novel, but several of the protagonists have what are really just straight up superpowers. Adaora can breathe underwater, after all. And then there are actual folklore and mythic beings just living their lives in Lagos, too. I mean having a trickster deity as a phone scammer is genius, I tell you. It makes perfect sense, and instead of being in an urban fantasy, the character exists in a first contact novel, just another character with everyone else dealing with the aliens.

Inspired, to be sure.

Lagoon is my favorite of her works, but I think the Binti trilogy is probably her best work. Three novellas/short novels about the titular mathematical genius’ trip to the stars and the aliens and beings she deals with out there. Binti just wants the best education she can get, and for her trouble winds up in the middle of a war, and a relationship with an alien species under threat thereby. Fearlessly inventive, grounded in her culture and ferociously futuristic and grounded at the same time. I’ve read other authors in her vein since, but Okorafor was my first real exposure to this entire stratum and voices of emerging science fiction from Africa.

I have not yet read her metafictional Death of the Author, but I clearly need to. I’ve met her several times, including a talk she gave at my local library (she had no idea who I was, alas, and perhaps still doesn’t).

Happy birthday, Nnedi!

(10) COMICS SECTION.

Jumpstart poses a word origin.
Reality Check sees fonts misbehaving.
Speckticles has a super complaint.

(11) TODAY’S THING TO WORRY ABOUT. Oh noes! Jon Del Arroz is trying to load up the Locus Awards with his pals! Camestros Felapton is ringing the tocsin in “New Right Wing Slate Shenanigans”.

… The Locus Award is open to anybody to vote in but subscribers to Locus Magazine have votes that count for double. This extra weighting for members has discouraged slate attempts in the past. Fandom Pules has already put out a Dragon Award nomination slate but as I’ve discussed before, it is not clear whether how many people nominate a work has much of a connection to the Dragon Award finalists. The Locus Awards, on the other hand, do count their votes. Additionally, JDA has been attempting to recruit people on the abuse/harassment website Kiwi Farms to vote in the Locus (although this has been met with some scepticism among the trollish inhabitants)….

(12) THEY’RE PEEVED. “Max Removing HBO Original Series From Streaming Has Fans Crying Foul” reports CBR.com.

Damon Lindelof’s hit drama series The Leftovers is slated to be removed from HBO’s Max streaming service.

Per ComicBook.com, The Leftovers is officially going to be removed from Max as of June 3. Originally, the series was supposed to make its exit from the streaming service on April 11, though that date was pushed back by almost two months. Even with the extra time to stream the series, fans of The Leftovers have let their displeasure be known online and through social media….

… Since the series ended in 2017, The Leftovers has maintained its status as a fan-favorite. As of the time of writing, The Leftovers holds a 91% “Fresh” rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, as averaged from 84 critics reviews. The series also boasts a 90% score via the site’s user-generated “Popcornmeter.”

(13) WE SIT, BOY, SIT CORRECTED. “No, the dire wolf has not been brought back from extinction” insists New Scientist, which says “they are actually grey wolves with genetic edits intended to make them resemble the lost species.”

A company called Colossal Biosciences says it has revived an extinct species – the dire wolf. “On October 1, 2024, for the first time in human history, Colossal successfully restored a once-eradicated species through the science of de-extinction. After a 10,000+ year absence, our team is proud to return the dire wolf to its rightful place in the ecosystem.” That’s the claim made on the website of the US-based company. Here’s what we know….

… Beth Shapiro of Colossal says her team has sequenced the complete genome of the dire wolf and will soon release it to the public. Shapiro could not tell New Scientist how many differences there are but said the two species share 99.5 per cent of their DNA. Since the grey wolf genome is around 2.4 billion base pairs long, that still leaves room for millions of base-pairs of differences.

And Colossal claims it has turned grey wolves into dire wolves by making just 20 gene edits?

That is the claim. In fact, five of those 20 changes are based on mutations known to produce light coats in grey wolves, Shapiro told New Scientist. Only 15 are based on the dire wolf genome directly and are intended to alter the animals’ size, musculature and ear shape. It will be a year or so before it’s clear if those changes have had the intended effects on the genetically modified animals, says Shapiro.

So these pups aren’t really dire wolves at all, then?

It all comes down to how you define species, says Shapiro. “Species concepts are human classification systems, and everybody can disagree and everyone can be right,” she says. “You can use the phylogenetic [evolutionary relationships] species concept to determine what you’re going to call a species, which is what you are implying… We are using the morphological species concept and saying, if they look like this animal, then they are the animal.”…

(14) COLD-BLOODED SMUGGLING. Chris Barkley sent the link because he grew up in the neighborhood: “Cincinnati’s unique lizards are ‘getting larger,’ Nat Geo says” in the Cincinnati

As the weather warms, you might find a few scaly friends running around Cincinnati.

For more than 70 years, thousands of common wall lizards, known as Lazarus lizards, have scurried across sidewalks and lurked in your garden. They’re all over Cincinnati, but the reptiles aren’t from here. They’re an invasive species and native to Europe.

So how did they end up in the Midwest? It’s all thanks to a 10-year-old boy from Walnut Hills and a sock full of lizards.

In 1951, George Rau Jr. and his stepfather, Fred Lazarus Jr. (who founded the retail chain Lazarus, which would later become Macy’s), smuggled 10 Italian lizards home from a family trip in Lake Garda and set them loose in his backyard.

Many pass off the origin story as local lore, but in 1989, when Rau Jr. was an adult, he wrote to the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History explaining his role in the eventual lizard population boom. That same year, he also told The Enquirer he smuggled the lizards through customs and brought them back to his East Side home.

Last month, the Queen City’s long and unique history with Lazarus lizards was highlighted by National Geographic. In the article, National Geographic stated Cincinnati has the “perfect lizard habitat,” adding the city’s hilly geography and weather as a contributing factor for the lizards becoming “permanent residents,” as declared by the Ohio Division of Wildlife.

(15) PREDATOR. On June 6, Predator: Killer of Killers arrives on Hulu.

(16) REMEMBERING A BREAKTHROUGH. “The Day Anime Changed” at Mother’s Basement.

Let’s talk about the most important, influential anime of all time, and why now’s best time to watch it!

[Thanks to Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Lis Carey, Teddy Harvia, N., Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Mark Roth-Whitworth for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel CSN&Y Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 3/28/25 I Just Scrolled In From Pixel-Land, And Boy Are My Fans Tired

Posted on March 28, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(1) CONGRATULATIONS ON EPISODE 250! Scott Edelman invites listeners to rip into roti with writer Tim Paggi in the impressive milestone Episode 250 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.

My guest for the 250th episode of Eating the Fantastic is playwright, poet, and fiction writer Tim Paggi, whom I met at December’s Charm City Spec event where he read an excerpt from his recently published novella How to Kill Friends and Eviscerate People. His poetry chapbook “Workforced” won the 2015 Plork “Play/Work” Award for Creative Writing and Publication Arts. His next book, The Other Side of the Hallway, will be released later this year. He holds an MFA from the University of Baltimore. Additionally, for the past 15 years, he’s been giving ghost tours around the neighborhoods of Fells Point and Mt. Vernon.

We discussed the story behind his X-Files-inspired juvenilia, the reason he demanded a refund from Barnes & Noble for a volume of Emily Dickinson’s poetry, why a writing teacher (wrongfully) accused him of plagiarism, how the beginning of the pandemic was also the beginning of his fiction writing career, whether his recent Cthulhu references were intentional or unavoidable, why the Severance TV show has him feeling anxious (it’s probably not the reason you think), the C-word he avoids using in his fiction, whether facing down audiences on stage helped him deal with rejections on the page, the many reasons he loves cosmic horror, the drunkest group he ever led through Baltimore on a ghost tour, and much more.

(2) OPT-IN OR OPT-OUT OF SCRAPING? The UK’s Society of Authors received over 1,000 responses to their survey of members and authors on the Government’s proposal to change copyright law as part of its consultation on Copyright and AI, and “96% of authors surveyed believe an opt-out system would negatively impact the creative industries”. “SoA report into authors’ views on the AI and Copyright consultation”.

The survey focused on authors’ views on the key topics covered by the Government’s consultation on Copyright and AI, including: (i) a proposal to introduce a text and data mining (TDM) exception into copyright law, which would allow tech companies to use copyright-protected works without permission, unless the author had explicitly opted out; (ii) transparency, labelling and enforcement measures, and (iii) AI in education.

The government proposed that, rather than having the right to opt in to allowing your work to be exploited by machine learning (the current situation), you would be presumed to have agreed unless you actively opted out. On this question, 96% of respondents believed this would have a negative impact on the creative industries with 91% reporting that they have no experience with opting out; and 82% saying that opting out each of their individual copyright-protected works would negatively impact their business.

In the comments provided by authors:

An overwhelming majority expressed their strong opposition to an opt-out system, calling instead for the current opt-in system to be upheld. Many made the point that our industry has been relying on a permission-based system successfully for decades and it would be hugely unfair to change that for the benefit of one sector.
Many respondents helpfully elaborated on the various ways in which opting out simply does not work. For example, robot.txt can be circumvented or ignored, there is no way for authors to know when they need to opt out, and it is technically impossible to remove scraped material from a system, even if the option to opt-out is exercised.
Respondents repeatedly raised the same concerns about the damaging impact the government’s policy proposal would have on creators’ livelihoods in the long term, on industry diversity and representation, and the devaluation of the creative work.

58% of respondents were concerned that preventing their website being ‘crawled’ or ‘scraped’ for machine learning by opting out could negatively affect their discoverability online. There was particular concern here from illustrators who use their website and social media to showcase their work but now feel that the risks outweigh the benefits.

(3) ANIME GOES UNDER THE HAMMER. “Studio Ghibli and Anime Icons Power Heritage’s Record-Setting $1.49 Million Art of Anime: Vol. VI” reports Heritage Auctions.

Kiki’s Delivery Service Senior Witch and Cat Production Cel (Studio Ghibli, 1989).

Leading the charge was an electrifying lineup of Studio Ghibli masterpieces, headlined by a rare production cel of the elusive “Senior Witch” from Kiki’s Delivery Service, which cast a spell at $48,000 — one of the highest totals ever realized for the 1989 film. Another Kiki standout, a charming Key Master setup of the title character peering into a brick oven, fired up at $16,000. Beloved Ghibli titles like Castle in the Sky, Princess Mononoke, Porco Rosso and Grave of the Fireflies excelled over the course of the event, and not surprisingly, a significant production cel featuring the beloved Catbus from the final moments of My Neighbor Totoro trundled away for $13,000….

…Beyond Ghibli, the auction was packed with legendary titles that flexed their muscle across the bidding floor. Berserk claimed the highest price in the sale with a staggering $85,000 for a harmony cel setup created by master art director Shichiro Kobayashi. The cel, an atmospheric piece originally created for a home video release, stands as one of the most important Berserk artworks ever sold at auction — a fitting tribute to the late Kentaro Miura’s dark fantasy epic.

Akira, the cyberpunk juggernaut that helped bring anime into global consciousness, made a bold showing with two rare production backgrounds of Neo-Tokyo’s dystopian skyline, which sold for $11,000 and $8,500. Macross fans powered fierce bidding on original concept art, including Shoji Kawamori’s VF-1J Valkyrie ($18,000) and Haruhiko Mikimoto’s character concept of protagonist Hikaru Ichijyo ($11,000)….

(4) HOW THEY COMPLETED THE MISSION. The Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, NY will host an exhibit on stunt work in “MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE—Story and Spectacle” beginning April 18.

Variety has more details: “’Mission: Impossible’ Exhibition Coming to Museum of Moving Image”.

Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI) will launch a major initiative celebrating the “Mission: Impossible” franchise on April 18. The exhibition will spotlight star and producer Tom Cruise’s commitment to practical stunt work (think clinging to the face of the Burj Khalifa, as well as to the sides of various planes, trains and automobiles), and explore how the series combines technical ingenuity in service of storytelling, character development and performance. It opens ahead of the Memorial Day Weekend release of the eighth film in the series, “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.”

Sections of the exhibition, entitled “Mission: Impossible — Story and Spectacle,” will be devoted to each film in the series, with a focus on that film’s key stunt or action sequence, along with unique behind-the-scenes content that offers insight on how the death-defying stunts were prepared for and filmed, complemented by related production artifacts. Paramount Pictures produces the films.

(5) WATERSTONE’S PRIZE. [Item by Steven French.] A book inspired by a game the author’s family played during lockdown has won this year’s Waterstones children’s book prize reports the Guardian. “The Cafe at the Edge of the Woods wins Waterstones children’s book prize”

The Cafe at the Edge of the Woods by Mikey Please was announced as the winner of the £5,000 award, voted on by Waterstones booksellers, at a ceremony on Thursday evening.

The book tells the story of Rene, who opens a cafe beside an enchanted wood and prepares to serve the finest cuisine with the help of a waiter, Glumfoot, only to discover that the locals have a very odd palette, favouring disgusting foods.

“The story grew from a game my wife, son and I would play during lockdown”, said Please. His wife, Jess, would pretend to be a “pompous chef”, his son, Axel, would play the “downtrodden waiter”, while Please himself would act the part of a demanding customer.

“The dynamic of these three characters was so rich, the setting so loaded with potential, and the opportunity to showcase my long-practised and long-underappreciated art of rearranging food to look funny, made the story impossible to resist”, said Please.

Please is a writer, animator and illustrator whose works include the 2011 stop motion animated film The Eagleman Stag, which won a Bafta for best short animation. His debut novel, The Expanded Earth, will be published 3 April.

(6) BECOMING MEDIA SAVVY. Gideon P. Smith tells SFWA Blog readers about “Successfully Talking to the Press About Your Art: Plot It, Don’t Pants It!”

…Their questions will likely be very generic if they haven’t read your work, which results in uninteresting copy. There are two ways to combat this:

Create a playbook of answers to generic questions. These answers should be concise but add something unique about your work. You can predict generic questions by considering what anyone who hadn’t read something might ask. (e.g. “What is the book about?” “What was your inspiration?”) or by reviewing prior interviews.
However, the better way to help them create a strong story is to suggest questions. This may sound counterintuitive given they are the interviewer, but you are the expert—on yourself, your work, and your story. You know what makes your book unique, whether it’s an unusual magic system, scientific influence, or personal connection. Most journalists will appreciate your taking a proactive approach if you highlight what’s unique or provide interesting angles. It makes their job easier.

Your playbook should help readers quickly identify your book’s genre and subgenre, then draw them in with an intriguing hook. Make it personal—within your comfort zone—so readers connect with you and your work. Finally, ensure the interview ends with clear information on where to find you and your work (social media, website, book links)…

(7) MORE ON BBC RADIO 4. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] As it happened, got home and yesterday afternoon BBC Radio 4’s Feedback programme had an item on this. “Announcement of the end of an era on Radio 4.” Ex pat Brits were fairly pissed off, as were those in the Republic of Ireland who like to listen to the BBC. It looks like some final decisions have to be made.

Andrea Catherwood shares exclusive news of the end of a long-running Radio 4 programme. Frequent contributors and the programme’s commissioning editor give their thoughts on the well-known brand as it nears its final episode.

BBC Sounds is soon to become unavailable outside of the UK. Listeners from all over the world have been in touch to voice their disappointment about the changes, and we’ve heard in particular from people in the Republic of Ireland who tune into BBC Radio content from north of the border. Will the geo-blocking cause unintended political ramifications? Andrea discusses the issue with Shane Harrison, former BBC correspondent in Dublin.

(8) IT’S ALL ABOUT ME. McSweeney’s Internet Tendency teaches everyone how to be a staggering bore in “The Art of Asking a Question to a Literary Festival Panel”.

The key to asking a successful question at a literary festival panel is preparation. You’ll want to have every detail of the preface to your question prepared, such as your name, age, and entire medical history. Don’t worry about the actual question; you can make that up as you go along….

(9) TODAY’S DAY.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

March 28, 1912 — A. Bertram Chandler. (Died 1984.)

A. Bertram Chandler, my favorite Australian writer.

Did you ever hear of space opera? Of course you have. Well, the universe of Chandler’s character John Grimes is such. A very good place to start is the Baen Books omnibus of To The Galactic Rim which contains three novels and seven stories. If there’s a counterpart to him, it’d be I think Dominic Flandry who appeared in Anderson’s Technic History series. (My opinion, yours may differ.) Oh, and I’ve revisited both to see if the Suck Fairy had dropped by. She hadn’t. If fact she likes him a lot. Good girl.

Connected to the Grimes stories are the Rim World works of which The Deep Reaches of Space is the prime work. The main story is set in an earlier period of the same future timeline as Grimes, a period in which ships are the magnetic Gaussjammers, recalled with some nostalgia in Grimes’ time. They don’t say what happened to them.

But that’s hardly all that he wrote. I remember fondly The Alternate Martians, a novella that he did. A space expedition to Mars that find themselves in the worlds of H.G. Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Otis Adelbert Kline. Why he chose the latter I know not as I’d never heard of him. It’s a great story well told. And fun to boot. It was first published as an Ace Double, The Alternate Martians / Empress of Outer Space. Gateway has released it as a separate epub for a mere buck ninety nine at the usual suspects.

He wrote a reasonably large number of stand-alone-alones, so what did I like? For a bit of nicely done horror, you can’t beat The Star Beasts — yes, I know that there’s nothing terribly original there but it’s entertaining to read; Glory Planet has a watery Venus occupied by anti-machine theocracy opposed by a high-tech city-state fascinating; and finally I liked The Coils of Time in which a scientist has created a Time Machine but now needs a guinea pig, errr, a volunteer to go back through time and see what’s there — did it go as planned? Oh guess.

I see that he’s written but a handful of short stories, none of which I’ve read other than the ones in To The Galactic Rim. So who here has?

He’s won five Ditmars and The Giant Killer novel was nominated for a Retro Hugo.

All in all, I like him a lot.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

Carpe Diem tells what else the Martian Rover has learned.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal hears from a writer.

(12) A JARRING EXHIBIT. [Item by Steven French.] Well, I like science-fiction and I really like pickles, so maybe this is the art show for me! “Rafał Zajko: The Spin Off – fantastical sci-fi visions with a side order of pickles” in the Guardian.

There’s a lot of art about birth, death and rebirth, but not a lot of it uses pickles. Preserves, however, are all over Polish artist Rafał Zajko’s biggest solo show yet. Big jars of brine filled with salty cucumbers and little figurines in the shape of cryogenic preservation chambers. That combination of the fantastically sci-fi and the mundanely everyday is Zajko’s hallmark. The young London-based artist has spent the past few years showing ceramic and concrete sculptures filled with flights of cybernetic romanticism and nods to vaping, baking and pickling.

In The Spin Off, as this show at Focal Point Gallery in Southend is called, he has gone on a deep dive into a vast mess of ideas about longevity and rebirth. The centre of the space is dominated by an ovoid floor sculpture that gets moved and reshaped throughout the week. Laid across its surface, ceramic tiles are assembled to look like a map of planetary systems or control panels for alien spaceships, covered in incomprehensible knobs, buttons and displays. Circular sections of it can be lifted out and replaced with items from the cabinets on the wall: little concrete eggs, ceramic kaiser rolls, jars of pickles…

(13) LEAVIN’ ON A JET PLANE. Nature reports “75% of US scientists who answered Nature poll consider leaving”.

The massive changes in US research brought about by the new administration of President Donald Trump are causing many scientists in the country to rethink their lives and careers. More than 1,200 scientists who responded to a Nature poll — three-quarters of the total respondents — are considering leaving the United States following the disruptions prompted by Trump. Europe and Canada were among the top choices for relocation.

The trend was particularly pronounced among early-career researchers. Of the 690 postgraduate researchers who responded, 548 were considering leaving; 255 of 340 PhD students said the same.

Trump’s administration has slashed research funding and halted broad swathes of federally funded science, under a government-wide cost-cutting initiative led by billionaire Elon Musk. Tens of thousands of federal employees, including many scientists, have been fired and rehired following a court order, with threats of more mass firings to come. Immigration crackdowns and battles over academic freedom have left researchers reeling as uncertainty and disruption permeate all aspects of the US research enterprise.

Nature asked readers whether these changes were causing them to consider leaving the United States. Responses were solicited earlier this month on the journal’s website, on social media and in the Nature Briefing e-mail newsletter. Roughly 1,650 people completed the survey.

Many respondents were looking to move to countries where they already had collaborators, friends, family or familiarity with the language. “Anywhere that supports science,” wrote one respondent. Some who had moved to the United States for work planned to return to their country of origin…

(14) WILL SUCCESS SPOIL THEM? [Item by Steven French.] The Guardian’s Sarah Thwaites considers what success means for indie game developers: “These games were indie smash hits – but what happened next?”

It is now more or less impossible to put a precise figure on the number of video games released each year. According to data published by the digital store Steam, almost 19,000 titles were released in 2024 – and that’s just on one platform. Hundreds more arrived on consoles and smartphones. In some ways this is the positive sign of a vibrant industry, but how on earth does a new project get noticed? When Triple A titles with multimillion dollar marketing budgets are finding it hard to gain attention (disappointing sales have been reported for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, the Final Fantasy VII remakes and EA Sports FC), what chance is there for a small team to break out?

And yet it does happen. Last year’s surprise hit Balatro has shifted more than 5m copies. Complex medieval strategy title Manor Lords sold 1m copies during its launch weekend. But what awaits a small developer after they achieve success? And what does success even mean in a continuously evolving industry?

(15) ALTADENA FIRE CONSEQUENCES. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] This week’s Science journal cover story: “Toxic Legacy”:

The wildfire that swept through Altadena, California, in January burned houses and cars as well as vegetation, generating smoke that contained a complex mix of toxic chemicals. Weeks later, these chemicals still cling to the soil and remaining structures. Researchers are working intensively to understand the lingering hazards of such urban wildfires. See page 1343.

Also, “In The Ashes”:

Little is known about the long-term effects of wildfires that burn into urban areas, which are becoming more common. Wildfire torched more than 1000 structures near Boulder, Colorado, in 2021 and more than 2000 structures in the Hawaiian town of Lahaina in 2023, where 102 people died. In 2022, a committee formed by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found gaping holes in our understanding of what’s in the smoke and ash from wildland-urban fires, and what it could mean for people’s health.

(16) OPERATION SURPRISE PACKAGE. [Item by Steven French.] A new article in Astra Astronautica asks if there is a moral imperative to ‘seed’ the universe with life and answers in the negative: “One day we might seed the universe with life. But should we?” at Phys.org.

Suppose humanity was faced with an extinction-level event. Not just high odds, but certain-sure. A nearby supernova will explode and irradiate all life, a black hole will engulf the Earth, a Mars-sized interstellar asteroid with our name on it. A cataclysm that will end all life on Earth.

We could accept our fate and face our ultimate extinction together. We could gather the archives from libraries across the world and launch them into space in the hopes that another civilization will find them. Or we could build a fleet of arks containing life from Earth. Not people, but bacteria, fungi and other simple organisms. Seed the universe with our genetic heritage. Of all of these, the last option has the greatest chance of continuing our story. It’s an idea known as directed panspermia, and we will soon have the ability to undertake it. But should we?

The idea of directed panspermia has been discussed since at least the 1970s. Carl Sagan and others even entertained the possibility that life on Earth is the result of directed panspermia from another civilization. But a recent study in Acta Astronautica looks at the idea from an ethical and philosophical perspective, asking what the moral cost of such an endeavor is….

(17) MORE MARS MOLECULES. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] More news coverage on the Mars rover’s detection of long chain molecules in “Mars rover detects long-chain carbon molecules” in this week’s Science journal.

Meteorites carry cargoes of fatty acids that come not from life, but from chemical reactions in the early Solar System, and they could have easily doused the surface with fatty acids early in Martian history, says Eva Scheller, a planetary scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Or the acids could have evolved on Mars from the Kerogen-like particles that Curiosity detected—which might them-selves be abiotic in origin.

This is so, but here’s the deal, irrespective of whether or not these molecules have a biological origin the thing is that such putative biosignatures can survive for millions of years does suggest that the trace remains of any real life may still be detectable today….

(18) CHINA’S FUTURE SPACE MISSIONS. “As NASA faces cuts, China reveals ambitious plans for planetary exploration” – Ars Technica tells what they are.

China created a new entity called the “Deep Space Exploration Laboratory” three years ago to strengthen the country’s approach to exploring the Solar System. Located in eastern China, not far from Shanghai, the new laboratory represented a partnership between China’s national space agency and a local public college, the University of Science and Technology of China.

Not much is known outside of China about the laboratory, but it has recently revealed some very ambitious plans to explore the Solar System, including the outer planets. This week, as part of a presentation, Chinese officials shared some public dates about future missions.

Space journalist Andrew Jones, who tracks China’s space program, shared some images with a few details. Among the planned missions are:

2028: Tianwen-3 mission to collect samples of Martian soil and rocks and return them to Earth

2029: Tianwen-4 mission to explore Jupiter and its moon Callisto

2030: Development of a large, ground-based habitat to simulate long-duration human spaceflight

2033: Mission to Venus that will return samples of its atmosphere to Earth

2038: Establishment of an autonomous Mars research station to study in-situ resource utilization

2039: Mission to Triton, Neptune’s largest moon, with a subsurface explorer for its ocean…

(19) LETTING IT OUT OF THE BAG. “Black Bag Movie Review: Does This Sexy Spy Thriller Deliver?” asks Erin Underwood.

Black Bag pairs Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender in a sizzling, high-stakes spy thriller directed by Steven Soderbergh. This sleek, action-packed film explores trust, betrayal, and the price of loyalty. But does it deliver on the thrills? In this review, I break down the story, analyze standout performances, and reveal what makes Black Bag different from typical spy films.

[Thanks to Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Mark Roth-Whitworth for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Soon Lee.]

Pixel Scroll 8/20/24 Something Pixel This Way Scrolls

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(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.

Greg Bear in 1993. Photo by and (c) Andrew Porter.

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.

Jonathan at Barbrook One centre stone. Note: the hill on the skyline immediately to the left of Jonathan’s head is the site of Gardom’s Edge stone that Jonathan visited in 2022.

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.]

Pixel Scroll 3/5/24 But The Pixels We Climbed Were Just Shoggoths Out Of Time

Posted on March 5, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) COMING IN FOR A LANDING. Los Angeles Magazine tells why “George Lucas’ Billion Dollar Museum Is About Way More Than ‘Star Wars’”. A year ago this design looked unique. But today? I bet you can guess what building it reminds me of now.

We’re still maybe a year out from the grand opening of the new museum created by film director George Lucas and his wife, executive Melody Hobson. But anyone visiting the Coliseum, Natural History Museum, USC, or riding the Expo Line has seen the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art rising above Exposition Park. The absolutely massive structure by Beijing-based architect Ma Yansong encloses some 300,000 square feet over a building ranging from three and five floors set atop an underground parking garage (with 600 more spaces than the surface lot the building replaced) all nestled in a green garden….

Artist’s rendering of Lucas Museum of Narrative Art

(2) A SHORE THING. A trailer has dropped for The Wild Robot. Arrives in theaters on September 20.

The epic adventure follows the journey of a robot—ROZZUM unit 7134, “Roz” for short — that is shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and must learn to adapt to the harsh surroundings, gradually building relationships with the animals on the island and becoming the adoptive parent of an orphaned gosling.

(3) LEARNEDLEAGUE SFF QUESTION. [Item by David Goldfarb.] It’s the hundredth season of LearnedLeague. The first question of match day 15 asked us:

“What name is the last word uttered in the final installment of the Star Wars sequel trilogy from 2019, as well as the last word of the film’s title?”

Way to nerf the question with that last clause, eh? Although even with that, the question had a 67% get rate, with 12% giving the most common wrong answer of “Jedi”. (Presumably thinking of the second movie in the trilogy.)

My opponent quite rightly assigned me 0 points for this one, as did I for him.

(4) HANDS (OR LEGS) UP FOR “YES”? NO? [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Is the giant spider in Netflix’s Spaceman real or just a figment of the title character’s imagination? The main creatives each have an answer but it may not be your answer. Beware — spoilers ahead.

There’s an obvious question at the heart of Spaceman, Netflix’s science fiction movie where Adam Sandler’s forlorn astronaut character spends half the story ~~talking to a tennis ball~~ communing with a giant alien spider that he names Hanuš. But even without watching the movie, viewers may wonder: Is Hanuš actually real?

Normally, when a movie revolves around this kind of question, the director and stars hedge when asked for their opinions. For instance, No One Will Save You writer-director Brian Duffield has been clear that he wants viewers to interpret that film’s startling ending in whatever way they think fits best, without his input. Andrew Haigh has been careful about weighing in on the controversial ending of All of Us Strangers. And that’s entirely reasonable — often filmmakers want to keep viewers guessing, thinking, debating, and interpreting.

But not always. Polygon couldn’t resist asking Spaceman director Johan Renck and stars Adam Sandler and Paul Dano what they think about the movie’s central debate point — and we were surprised at how definitive their answers were. We’ll get into the details after a spoiler break….

(5) MPSE GOLDEN REEL AWARDS. The Motion Picture Sound Editors presented their Golden Reel Awards on March 3. Here are the winners of genre interest:

EFFECTS & FOLEY

Oppenheimer

DIALOGUE & ADR

Oppenheimer

ANIMATION

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

(6) IN THE YEAR 2024. “Plane commutes, world peace and 100-year-old predictions about 2024” at USA Today.

Well, we’re finally here. Is this the future that you envisioned?

Nearly 100 years ago, a group of visionaries dared to imagine what life would be like in 2024. Some of their prophecies fell woefully short while others proved to be strangely accurate.

Join us now as we gaze into that crystal ball from 1924….

A growing problem

Arthur Dean, whose parental advice column appeared in newspapers across the country, expressed concerns about American dietary habits.

“I sometimes wonder what our stomachs will look like and be like 100 years from now,” he wrote. “Will we have any teeth at all? Will there be any color on our face except paint? Will the men have any height to speak of or will they be all girth? Will people have mostly an east and west appearance – all latitude and lassitude and no longitude?”

(7) SFWA ESTATES LEGACY PROGRAM. The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association has informed members that Mishell Baker is stepping down from her lead position on the Estates Project but will remain available for consultation. Going forward, the remaining Estates Project volunteers will cover her duties as needed.

Mishell is a winner of the Kevin J. O’Donnell Service to SFWA Award, and she served as the primary contact for SFWA’s Estate Project since 2016. She liaised with publishers interested in reprinting works by science fiction and fantasy authors who are no longer with us and acted as an intermediary for individual heirs who wished to keep their contact information confidential. Mishell gained a well-deserved reputation for handling these communications with consistency and sensitivity, providing help in sometimes difficult and confusing situations.

The Estates-Legacy Project wishes to thank Mishell for her many years of exceptional service on behalf of writers, their heirs, and the readers now enjoying the work of past masters as a result of her efforts.

(8) RICHARD BOWES (1944-2023). In “Richard Bowes—A Remembrance” at Uncanny Magazine, Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas, Christopher Barzak, Matthew Cheney, Sam J. Miller, and Matthew Kressel share their memories and feelings about Bowes, who died December 24. Here is an excerpt fro Kressel’s segment:

I’m fairly certain I met Rick Bowes at a Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading on November 15, 2006. That night, Lucius Shepard and Catherynne Valente were reading. This may seem awfully specific, but I have proof. Ellen Datlow captured this moment in a photo that resides on her Flickr stream. For a Halloween party I’d bleached my hair and dressed up as Roy Batty from Blade Runner. In the photo, Rick leans in, hands pressed like a sage, telling me something with authority, while I, with my Billy-Idol-blonde hair, listen rapt. (In the background, Rajan Khanna, whom in this moment I have yet to befriend, stares at the camera.) And this is how I will remember Rick. Telling stories. His depth of knowledge always astounded me. Right away, I knew I was in the presence of a sharp mind….

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born March 5, 1951 — Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden, 73. Let’s talk about Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden who writes under the pen names of Megan Lindholm and Robin Hobb. Thirty-six years ago at the age of thirty, as Megan Lindholm, her second novel, a fantasy set in Seattle was published. That was the extraordinarily excellent Wizard of the Pigeons, a novel that bring a smile to the face of even the Suck Fairy.

In a sense, it is a direct evolution from her fiction as children’s writer which published in magazines as Jack and Jill, Highlights for Children and Humpty Dumpty as she notes. Her Robin Hobb persona, she claims is a little more gentle than her Meghan Lindholm persona which, as she told a Bookseller interviewer, is “a little more snarky, a little more sarcastic, a little less optimistic, less emotional”.

So let’s stay with her writing under the Lindholm name. Her first writing as that persona was short fiction was in 1979, “Bones for Dulath”, followed in 1980 by “The Small One” and in 1981 by “Faunsdown Cottage”. She’s written (and coauthored) twenty-six stories exclusively as Lindholm. That includes five works in Emma Bull and Will Shetterly’s Laivek franchise, some co-written with Stephen Brust or Gregory Frost.

Lindholm’s first novel, Harpy’s Flight, was published forty-one years as ago, and was the first in her Windsingers series about the characters Ki and Vandien, and, yes, I like these novels a lot.

Now remember these Birthdays are, if I choose, are what I’ve read by a given writer and this is what I’m doing here as I’ve read enough her to be reasonably knowledgeable about her.

The final novel by her that I’ve read is the one she did with Stephen Brust, The Gypsy. It’s based on Romany folklore, and it’s more or less a mystery. It got its own soundtrack courtesy of Boiled in Lead, vocals by Adam Stemple, son of Jane Yolen. Superbly crafted work.

So now her other persona, Robin Hobb, and may I now say that I like both of the creators that she choose to be? Really I do.

Her first work as Hobb was the Farseer trilogy, narrated in first person, my favorite way to experience this sort of fiction, involves FitzChivalry Farseer, illegitimate son of a prince. Great character, ever better series. The first volume of the trilogy, Assassin’s Apprentice, sets up them well.

Ok, I’ll admit I’ve read much of the Realm of the Elderlings franchise, though by no means all, that talking about it coherently isn’t possible. What I will say is nothing by her is anything by really, really good. I will say, despite Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden saying Hobb is the gentler of the two, that trigger warnings for brutality and even rape are necessary here. Really they are.

Both personas in the end aren’t, despite her claims, really that different. The only novel that is decidedly different I can say as a reader is The Gypsy but that was co-written with Brust as were the four Laivek works. Co-written works are such that one never knows how much that the one has influenced it and how much the other has.

(10) A NEW MEANING FOR WC. “What Is WcDonald’s, McDonald’s Anime Counterpart?” at Food Network. One of these comics was on my bag today!

… This month, McDonald’s is embracing what has become a common … homage, shall we say, to its golden arches in anime films and series: WcDonald’s.Swapping in a “W” — or, rather, an upside-down “M” — has become a cheeky way for animators and illustrators to let their characters dine at or otherwise interact with what the audience can immediately identify as a McDonald’s without licensing the actual name of (or getting sued by) McDonald’s itself. Starting next week, however, McDonald’s is embracing its cartoon counterpart at its real-life restaurants in the U.S. and beyond…. A New McNugget Sauce: To pair with “WcNuggets,” a new, limited-edition Savory Chili WcDonald’s Sauce is coming to the menu, described as a “unique combination of ginger, garlic and soy with a slight heat from chili flakes.” Manga-Inspired Packaging: Japanese illustrator Acky Bright designed original artwork of WcDonald’s crew members for the McDonald’s/WcDonald’s items. Packaging will also feature a QR code with access to digital WcDonald’s manga content weekly featuring Bright’s cast of WcDonald’s characters (yes, one is a mecha).

The promotional website WcDonald’s has a lot of content. Here are some of the newest characters.

(11) LAST DARKNESS FALL — PERMANENTLY. “Solar eclipse glasses: Why you need them, and why you should buy them right now” – advice from Slate. “The eclipse is happening on April 8—and last time, the glasses sold out many places.”

Few natural phenomena bring sci-fi-esque buzz like a solar eclipse. Some people talk about this astronomical event as if it comes straight out of a Ray Bradbury story. And those people are right! Solar eclipses are, without hyperbole, awesome. And just in case you haven’t heard, there’s one happening on April 8.

Of course, a cardinal rule of day-to-day life still applies to eclipses: You must absolutely not look at the sun directly—even if it’s partially obscured by the moon. It can cause permanent retinal damage.

Photoreceptors in the eyes register and convert light to electrical signals detected in your brain. The powerfully incandescent sun overwhelms those photoreceptors, bombarding them with far more light than they can convert. Any light your photoreceptors don’t absorb filters through to the back of your eye, producing heat. Although the moon partially blots out the sun, that doesn’t make the rays that are visible any less potent. Look at a partial eclipse long enough and you can burn the sun into your retinas, which can result in a permanent hole in your vision called a scotoma. Since your retinas lack pain receptors, you won’t know that the damage has been done until it’s too late. Looking through conventional binoculars or telescopes doesn’t mitigate this risk….

(12) ROLL THE CREDITS. “Superman movie to film in Ohio, hire more than 3,000 locals” at NBC4i. The state will reward this decision with a big tax credit.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman! A new movie on the comic book hero is filming in Ohio this year and has been awarded about $11 million in tax credits, with plans to hire more than 3,000 locals.

The DC Studios movie titled simply “Superman” is filming in Cincinnati and Cleveland this spring and summer and will receive $11,091,686 in tax credits, according to an Ohio Motion Picture Tax Credit application filed under the project’s code name, “Genesis.” The film is expected to hire 3,254 Ohio residents to take part in the production.

DC’s Ohio-related expenses are projected to exceed $36 million, which makes up about 10% of the movie’s total budget of more than $363 million….

(13) TECH BROS. “’Musk needs to be adored … Zuckerberg is out of his depth’: Kara Swisher on the toxic giants of Big Tech” in the Guardian.

…In the book, Swisher says Zuckerberg is “the most damaging man in tech”. Elon Musk, by contrast, is maligned as the “most disappointing”, which reflects Swisher’s long period of thinking of the founder of Tesla and SpaceX as one of the tech industry’s most promising sons. In 2016, she contacted him ahead of the big meeting with Trump, warning that the president-elect would “screw” him; two years later, Musk told her she had been right. All told, she seemed to believe that he operated on a higher level than most of his peers.

“Here’s someone who actually was doing serious things,” she says. “There’s a lot of people in Silicon Valley who are always doing a dry cleaning app. He was thinking of everything from cars to space to solar. Even the silly stuff like [his imagined high-speed transport system] Hyperloop: what a great idea. What an interesting idea.” She also mentions Neuralink, the venture working on computer interfaces that can be implanted in people’s brains. “How could we upgrade our intelligence? That’s a big, fascinating problem.”…

(14) SFWA INSTAGRAM PROGRAM. The SFWA Instagram Program gives users a peek at members’ daily creative lives, pets, and works. In the past year and a half, SFWA has processed nearly 200 requests and created over 600 graphics that have been shared through its Instagram account. Here’s an example:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by SFWA, Inc. (@sfwa_inc)

(15) A FINE IDEA. This month (only) “A Massachusetts Library System Will Let You Pay Fines With Cat Pictures” according to Mental Floss.

It’s not often that cat photos are accepted as currency. But for the month of March, public libraries in Worcester, Massachusetts, will wipe certain fines from your account if you submit any picture of a cat.

Branches in the Worcester Public Library (WPL) system don’t charge fees for overdue books, but they do charge for lost or damaged ones. The call for cat pictures is a way to keep those bills from preventing patrons from using the library. “We at the Worcester Public Library are always looking for ways to reduce barriers,” Worcester Public Library executive library director Jason Homer told WBUR. “We know that a lot of people, unfortunately, through being displaced in housing, or life getting in the way in the global pandemic, lost a lot of materials.”

“Felines for Fee Forgiveness” is part of March Meowness, a month of cat-centric programming that includes a screening of the 2019 movie Cats, a cat-eye makeup tutorial, a “de-stressing” hour of playing with shelter cats, DIY crafts, and more events.

Before you show up to a WPL branch with a cat image at the ready, there are a few rules to know. For one, a book needs to have been lost for at least two months in order for its fee to be waived….

(16) PROTOPLANETARY SYSTEM. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Last week’s issue of Science looks at the formation of other planetary systems.

This JWST infrared image shows the Orion Bar, which separates parts of the Orion Nebula containing cool molecular gas (lower left) from those containing hot plasma (upper right). The latter are ionized by ultraviolet radiation from massive stars (located beyond the image). The strong ultraviolet radiation field heats protoplanetary disks around young stars in this region, dispersing the gas needed for planet formation<

Primary research paper’s abstract here.

(17) VIDEO OF THE DAY. GamesRadar+ reports “Star Wars fans rocked by resurfaced beer adverts stitched directly into the original trilogy – including a bizarre replacement for Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber”. One video is embedded below, there are more at the link.

We all remember that iconic Star Wars moment where Obi-Wan Kenobi goes to give Luke Skywalker his father’s old, ice cold beer, right?

Well, if you watched a specific version of the movie shown in Chile, you might remember things that way. The old ads are going viral once again thanks to the fact that the beer marketing is spliced directly into some of the original trilogy’s most famous moments – unintentionally creating the most hilarious advertising campaign ever. While these videos might seem like fakes, they are very much real: according to The Guardian, the campaign even won an award for its ingenuity….

[Thanks to Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, N., Jeffrey Smith, JJ, David Goldfarb, 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 Jeff Jones.]

Pixel Scroll 2/28/24 Two Scrolls Diverged In A File, And I — I Took The One Less Pixeled By

Posted on February 28, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) WONKA EVENT SCAM, WITH AI ‘HELP’. [Item by Tom Becker.] A Willy Wonka-themed event closed immediately upon opening due to complaints from disappointed customers. UK correspondent Mark Plummer says there is a long-standing tradition of disappointing special experiences. A Christmas show turns out to be a muddy field with a donkey with reindeer horns tied to its head.

The Glasgow Willy Wonka fiasco is interesting because of its use of AI. The AI-generated images used to sell the show include total gibberish. Who would not want to experience a “Twilight Tunnel™” with features like “TWDRDING”, “DODJECTION”, “ENIGEMIC SOUNDS”, “SVIIDE”, and “UKXEPCTED TWITS”? Or “ENCHERINING ENTERTAINMENT” with “exarserdray lollipops, a pasadise of sweet treats”? “Cops called after parents get tricked by AI-generated images of Wonka-like event” at Ars Technica.

Actors were given AI generated scripts that were pathetically bad. They showed the guests responding “with a mix of excitement and trepidation” to the trite lines and meager offerings of candy. “The AI-Generated Script From the Fake Willy Wonka Experience Is Beyond Wild” says The Mary Sue.

And then there was the AI generated character of the Unknown, “an evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls.” At this point the children started crying and ran away. “Willy Wonka Experience Actor Says Event Had AI-Generated Script, Unknown Character, and No Chocolate” reports IGN.

The promoter behind the House of Illuminati also sells AI-generated books on Amazon. “’Willy Wonka’ Huckster Sells AI-Written Vaccine Conspiracy Books” at Rolling Stone.

Scams have always been with us, but now they are glitzier and weirder than ever. Who could possibly have predicted this? (Besides Cory Doctorow and thousands of others.)

(2) VERTLIEB NOMINATED FOR RONDO “BEST ARTICLE OF THE YEAR”. Congratulations to Steve Vertlieb whose File 770 article “Subversion of Innocence: Reflections on ‘The Black Cat’” is a finalist for the 2024 Rondo Hatton Awards. Steve’s article is an analysis of the sumptuous, Grand Guignol, pre-code Gothic decadence of Universal Pictures’ horrific Boris Karloff/Bela Lugosi classic of 1934.

Public voting has begun for the 22nd Annual Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards. You’re invited to vote for your favorites in any or all 28 categories. Click the link for instructions and the complete ballot. The deadline to participate is midnight April 16. Mail Votes (and your name) to David Colton c/o taraco@aol.com.

(3) WORMSIGN. Io9 interviews the filmmaker: “Denis Villeneuve Talks Making Dune: Part Two an Epic Theatrical Experience” at Gizmodo.

io9: Got it. I love that both movies have this weird little moment before the studio logo of some kind of Dune language statement. Is that something you have to okay with the studio? Because ultimately it’s their movie and you’re putting your mark before their logo. Was there any pushback and what was your thinking in doing that?

Villeneuve: The first time in Part One, the truth is that as we were doing sound design and developing ideas for sound, we came up with this language that was developed by Hans Zimmer that I absolutely adored. And there was this idea of putting a statement right before the logo to own the space. And maybe it was a reaction at that time, an arrogant reaction by me, but I didn’t get any pushback. Everybody loved the idea. And I love it when you watch a movie and it’s not a slow-down descent, it’s an abrupt start. You put away the parking lot and your concern about dinner. [Slap noise] Right away, it’s like, “Okay, guys, listen.” A bit like in theater when you have the boom at the beginning to say to the audience, “Okay, quiet down, we start right now.” I love that.

(4) CONLANG IN CINEMA. And The New Yorker devotes a whole article to “’Dune’ and the Delicate Art of Making Fictional Languages”.

A trailer for Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part Two” features the boy prophet Paul Atreides, played by Timothée Chalamet, yelling something foreign and uninterpretable to a horde of desert people. We see Chalamet as the embodiment of charismatic fury: every facial muscle clenched in tension, his voice strained and throaty and commanding. A line at the bottom of the screen translates: “Long live the fighters!”

The scene fills barely a few seconds in a three-minute trailer, yet it establishes the emotional tone of the film and captures the messianic fervor that drives its plot. It also signals the depth of Villeneuve’s world-building. Part of what made his first excursion into the “Dune” universe such an experiential feast was its vivid, immersive quality, combining monumental architectural design with atmospheric soundscapes and ethereal costuming. We could see a few remnants of our world (remember the bit with the bagpipes?), but the over-all effect was transportive, as if the camera were not a piece of equipment but a cyborgian eye live-streaming from a far-flung alien civilization. Chalamet’s strange tongue is part of the franchise’s meticulous set dressing. It’s not gibberish, but part of an intricate linguistic system that was devised for Villeneuve’s adaptations.

Engineered languages such as the one Chalamet speaks represent a new benchmark in imaginative fiction. Twenty years ago, viewers would have struggled to name franchises other than “Star Trek” or “The Lord of the Rings” that bothered to invent new languages. Today, with the budgets of the biggest films and series rivalling the G.D.P.s of small island nations, constructed languages, or conlangs, are becoming a norm, if not an implicit requirement. Breeze through entertainment from the past decade or so, and you’ll find lingos designed for Paleolithic peoples (“Alpha”), spell-casting witches (“Penny Dreadful”), post-apocalyptic survivors (“Into the Badlands”), Superman’s home planet of Krypton (“Man of Steel”), a cross-species alien alliance (“Halo”), time-travelling preteens (“Paper Girls”), the Munja’kin tribe of Oz (“Emerald City”), and Santa Claus and his elves (“The Christmas Chronicles” and its sequel).

A well-executed conlang can bolster a film’s appearance of authenticity. It can deepen the scenic absorption that has long been an obsession for creators and fans of speculative genres such as science fiction and fantasy….

(5) MORE TBR. NPR’s “Here and Now” program recommends “Black genre fiction to pick up this History Month”. There are lists for romance, horror, thriller/mystery and —

Speculative fiction/science fiction/fantasy

“Parable of the Sower” by Octavia Butler
“Underground Railroad” by Colson Whitehead
“PET” by Akwaeke Emezi
“We Cast a Shadow” by Maurice Carlos Ruffin
“Conjure Women” by Afia Atakora
“Black Leopard, Red Wolf” by Marlon James
“An Unkindness of Ghosts” by Rivers Solomon
“The Fifth Season” by N. K. Jemisin
“Binti” by Nnedi Okorafor
“Brown Girl in the Ring” by Nalo Hopkinson
“Riot Baby” by Tochi Onyebuchi
“Rosewater by Tade Thompson
“Dhalgren” by Samuel R. Delany
“Chain-Gang All-Stars” by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

(6) EXPERT EYE. In Gabino Iglesias’ column “4 New Horror Novels That Are as Fresh as They Are Terrifying” for the New York Times, the Stoker-winning author reviews new books by Emily Ruth Verona, Jenny Kiefer, Christopher Golden and Tlotlo Tsamaase.

(7) ANIME ART GOING UNDER THE HAMMER. Heritage Auctions will run “The Art of Anime, Dragon Ball, and More Animation Art Showcase Auction” on March 23-24.

Heritage Auctions celebrates the world of anime with its largest showcase sale, “The Art of Anime, Dragon Ball, and More,” on March 23-24. This event features over 700 lots, including an extensive collection from the iconic Dragon Ball series, celebrating its decades-long journey from its inception in Weekly Shonen Jump. The auction spans a wide range of anime titles, offering production art, promotional materials, model kits, and action figures. Highlights include rare items from Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, Pokémon, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and more, alongside unique finds like Akira T-shirt prototypes. This showcase aims to reconnect fans with the unforgettable moments of their favorite anime series.

Here’s an example of what’s up for bid: “Dragon Ball Z Goku, Gohan, Master Roshi, Piccolo, and Cel Ice | Lot #85069”.

Some of Dragon Ball Z‘s most famous characters take a break from training and put on their ice skates in this incredibly rare hand-painted production cel featuring our beloved protagonist Goku, accompanied by his son Gohan, Piccolo, Master Roshi, and even the heinous Cell in his imperfect form! Possibly created for a TV commercial, this four-layer 12-field production cel offers sensational full-figure images of the characters with Gohan and Cell stopping as skillfully as they fight.

(8) “HOMAGE” TO WARD SHELLEY’S HISTORY OF SCIENCE FICTION ON DISPLAY IN THE CHENGDU SF MUSEUM. [Item by Ersatz Culture.] The SF Museum in Chengdu has been re-opened to the public for almost exactly a month now, and whilst I’ve been trawling the likes of Bilibili and Xiaohongshu for any coverage, there hasn’t been much I thought that I thought was worth writing up and submitting to File 770.

However, tonight I encountered the image below in a small XHS gallery. I’d not noticed it before; whether that’s because it has been newly added to the museum, or simply that previous posters didn’t consider it worth taking pictures of, I don’t know. I’ve not tried to read any of the Chinese text, but the English subtitle reads:

Together, let’s write imaginative explorations of the future science fiction world

which I assume relates to the Post-It notes shown on the left of the image.

Readers may well find this image vaguely familiar. For those who don’t, it bears a startling resemblance to Ward Shelley’s “The History of Science Fiction”.

That earlier image was included in a talk that was part of “[the] First Industrial Development Summit of [the] World Science Fiction Convention”, which also had Ben Yalow as a speaker. Whether that earlier presentation was the genesis for this new display, who knows?

Ben Yalow at Industrial Development Summit.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born February 28, 1909 — Olan Soule. (Died 1994.) Olan Soule, an actor who had at least two hundred and fifty performances in his career. So let’s look at this career that I find so interesting.

First genre role? That’d be Mr. Krull, a boarding house resident in The Day The Earth Stood Still.

Remember Captain Midnight? From the third year on the radio serial, Soule had the role of L. William Kelly, SS-11, the second-in-command of the Secret Squadron. When it became a television series where it was rebranded Jet Jackson, Flying Commando, he was scientist Aristotle “Tut” Jones for the entire series. He was the only actor who performed on both the radio and television shows.

Olan Soule on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

He was in two Twilight Zone episodes, the first as IRS agent in “The Man in Bottle” and then as Mr. Smiles in “Caesar and Me”. The letter was the one with that evil ventriloquist dummy. Brrrr. The former which involves a couple and a genie I just don’t remember.

He was on My Favorite Martian as Daniel Farrow in one of my favorite episodes, “Martin’s Favorite Martian”.

He would appear as a newscaster on Batman in “The Pharaoh’s in a Rut”.

He voiced Mister Taj in the English language version of Fantastic Planet. One seriously effing weird film.

And now for a roll call of his other genre appearances: One Step Beyond, Bewitched, The Addams Family, The Munsters, Mission: Impossible, The Six Million Dollar Man, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and Fantasy Island.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

F Minus – could this be Pluto’s revenge?

(11) REALLY EDUCATIONAL COMICS. “A Boom in Comics Drawn From Fact” – the New York Times says “One in four books sold in France is a graphic novel. Increasingly, those include nonfiction works by journalists and historians.”

Soon after the journalist and historian Valérie Igounet heard about the killing of Samuel Paty, the schoolteacher whose 2020 murder by an Islamist extremist shocked France, she knew she wanted to write a book about him.

Paty, who had shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad to students during a class on freedom of expression, was murdered near the middle school where he taught in a Paris suburb. “I absolutely wanted Samuel Paty’s students to be able to read this book,” Igounet said, “and it was obvious that a 300-page book with footnotes would be reserved for a different kind of readership.”

Instead, Igounet decided to produce a comic book: “Black Pencil: Samuel Paty, the Story of a Teacher,” based on two years of reporting and made with the illustrator Guy Le Besnerais, was published in October. It meticulously reconstructs the events leading up to the murder while also showing Paty’s daily life in the classroom. Le Besnerais’s illustrations are accompanied by Paty’s handwritten notes, newspaper clippings and messages exchanged by his students in the weeks before he was killed.

One in four books sold in France is a comic book, according to the market research company GfK, and a growing number of those are nonfiction works by journalists and historians. In the past year, they have included titles such as “M.B.S.: Saudi Arabia’s Enfant Terrible,” a biography of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman by Antoine Vitkine and Christophe Girard; “What Are the Russians Thinking?” based on the cartoonist Nicolas Wild’s conversations about the war in Ukraine during a 2022 trip to Russia; and “Who Profits From Exile?,” by Taina Tervonen and Jeff Pourquié, which looks at the economics of European immigration….

(12) FANAC FAN HISTORY ZOOM IN MARCH. “The Women Fen Don’t See” is the last FANAC Fan History Zoom for this season. The March 16 event promises to be an exceptionally interesting program on a topic that is often overlooked in fannish annals.

The Women Fen Don’t See

With: Claire Brialey, Kate Heffner, and Leah Zeldes Smith

Saturday, March 16, 2024. Time: 3PM EDT, 2PM CDT, Noon PDT, 7PM London (GMT), and Mar 17 at 6AM AEDT in Melbourne. To attend, send a note to fanac@fanac.org

[Click for larger image.]

(13) NEUROMANCER TO TV. “Apple Orders ‘Neuromancer’ Series Based on William Gibson Novel” reports Variety.

Apple TV+ has ordered a series adaptation of the William Gibson novel “Neuromancer,” Variety has learned.

The 10-episode series hails from co-creators Graham Roland and JD Dillard. Roland will also serve as showrunner, while Dillard will direct the pilot. Skydance Television will co-produce with Anonymous Content.

Per the official logline, the series “will follow a damaged, top-rung super-hacker named Case who is thrust into a web of digital espionage and high stakes crime with his partner Molly, a razor-girl assassin with mirrored eyes, aiming to pull a heist on a corporate dynasty with untold secrets.”…

(14) VIDEO OF THE DAY. From The Simpsons several years ago, “What about Ray Bradbury?”

Martin is running for class president, and this is his platform.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Ersatz Culture, Tom Becker, Kathy Sullivan, Joe Siclari, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]

Pixel Scroll 11/26/23 Three Little Muah’Dib’s From Dune Are We

Posted on November 26, 2023 by Mike Glyer

(1) CITY TECH SF SYMPOSIUM. The Program and Registration for the 8th Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium on Science Fiction, Gender, and Sexuality will be held on Thursday, November 30, 2023 from 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m Eastern (GMT/UTC -5 hours) online via Zoom Webinar.

To participate in this free event, attendees will need to do these two things: (1) Signup for a free Zoom account here (if you don’t already have one), and (2) Register here to receive access instructions to the Zoom Webinar. Participants may register any time before or during the event!

For those who would like to watch the event without registering, you can join the YouTube Livestream here (click on the top-most video labeled “Live”).

One of the sessions will include these papers:

2:15-3:05pm:
Paper Session 4
Moderator -Leigh Gold
Omotoyosi Odukomaiya – Identity, Otherness and Alterity in Nnedi Okorafor’s Lagoon and Tade Thompson’s Rosewater
Nikki Paige Gallant – Romantic Disability Studies: The Female Cyborg in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Christabel”
Jacob Adler – Speculative Fiction and the “Illusory Woman”
Jo Ann Oravec – You May Now Kiss the Robot: Human-Robot Marriages in Science Fiction Literature and Movies

(2) TREASURED CHESTS. Adam Roberts begins by reminding readers how Robert E. Howard wrought the original Conan before dryly passing judgment on Robert Jordan’s continuation of the series and its infinite breast references. When Roberts says the “writing throughout is of the calibre one would expect from the author of The Wheel of Time” it is not meant as flattery. “Robert Jordan, ‘The Conan Chronicles: 2’ [‘Conan the Magnificent’ (1984); ‘Conan the Triumphant’ (1983); ‘Conan the Victorious’ (1984)”.

…Conan often swears by ‘Crom’, his god; but Crom is a much more Lovecraftian deity than (say) Thor or Ares:

“Conan’s gods were simple and understandable; Crom was their chief, and he lived on a great mountain, whence he sent forth dooms and death. It was useless to call on Crom, because he was a gloomy, savage god, and he hated weaklings. But he gave a man courage at birth, and the will and might to kill his enemies, which, in the Cimmerian’s mind, was all any god should be expected to do.” [Howard, ‘The Tower of the Elephant’ (1933)]

It is splendid, and it lifts the adventuring out of the banality wish-fulfilment. Going through the stories I was struck by how powerful and memorable they are.

+++

From, as they say, the sublime to the ridiculous. Having read Howard I was curious as to how his various continuers compared. They did not, constant reader, compare well….

(3) FACES SHOULD BE RED, NOT JUST THE PLANET. Ars Technica reviewer Chris Lee hears a discouraging word about colonizing Mars: “A City on Mars: Reality kills space settlement dreams”.

Let me start with the TLDR for A City on Mars. It is, essentially, 400 pages of “well, actually…,” but without the condescension, quite a bit of humor, and many, oh so many, details. Kelly and Zach Weinersmith started from the position of being space settlement enthusiasts. They thought they were going to write a light cheerleading book about how everything was going to be just awesome on Mars or the Moon or on a space station. Unfortunately for the Weinersmiths, they actually asked questions like “how would that work, exactly?” Apart from rocketry (e.g., the getting to space part), the answers were mostly optimistic handwaving combined with a kind of neo-manifest destiny ideology that might have given Andrew Jackson pause.

The Weinersmiths start with human biology and psychology, pass through technology, the law, and population viability and end with a kind of call to action. Under each of these sections, the Weinersmiths pose questions like: Can we thrive in space? reproduce in space? create habitats in space? The tour through all the things that aren’t actually known is shocking. No one has been conceived in low gravity, no fetuses have developed in low gravity, so we simply don’t know if there is a problem. Astronauts experience bone and muscle loss and no one knows how that plays out long term. Most importantly, do we really want to find this out by sending a few thousand people to Mars and hope it all just works out?

Then there are the problems of building a habitation and doing all the recycling. I was shocked to learn that no one really knows how to construct a long-term habitable settlement for either the Moon or Mars. Yes, there are lots of hand-wavy ideas about lava tubes and regolith shielding. But the details are just… not there. It reminds me of Europe’s dark days of depositing colonies on other people’s land. The stories of how unprepared the settlers were are sad, hilarious, and repetitive. And, now we learn that we are planning for at least one more sequel….

(4) NEGATORY GOOD BUDDY. Far Out Magazine found the tablets listing “Ayn Rand’s 13 commandments for making capitalist movies”. Every one starts with the word “Don’t”.

…An often-revered, equally maligned philosopher and unashamed champion of capitalism, Ayn Rand managed to weave her steadfast and forthcoming ideology into her works as an artistic writer. As a capitalist, Rand’s novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged mirrored her belief in individualism and the pursuit of material gain….

…When it came to creating pro-capitalist movies, Rand felt that there were specific criteria that directors and writers ought to stick to and in 1947, she wrote the ‘Screen Guide for Americans’, a pamphlet that was meant to heighten awareness in Hollywood studio producers of a growing pro-communist sentiment.

“The purpose of the Communists in Hollywood,” she wrote, “Is not the production of political movies openly advocating Communism. Their purpose is to corrupt our moral premises by corrupting non-political movies — by introducing small, casual bits of propaganda into innocent stories — thus making people absorb the basic premises of Collectivism by indirection and implication.”…

The 13 commandments are at the link.

(5) WHO REMEMBERS. “’I made the Daily Mail incredibly angry’: stars share their Doctor Who moments – part five” in the Guardian.

Juno Dawson (writer of the Doctor Who: Redacted audio series, 2022 onwards)

When Tegan Jovanka leaves the Doctor, she tells him she can no longer witness the bodies piling up around them. “It’s stopped being fun, Doctor!”, she wails. I often apply that rule to my life, too. If it stops being fun, get out. Some 20 years later, Martha Jones chooses herself over a life of pining after the Doctor. She explains about her university friend’s unrequited love for their flatmate. Martha won’t repeat her pattern, and she gets out. It’s one of the most explicitly feminist moments in the show.”

(6) D.G. COMPTON (1930-2023). Sff writer D.G. Compton, winner of the 2021 Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award, died November 10 reports the Arrowhead SF Foundation.

We received sad news today that David Guy Compton, who wrote as D. G. Compton, passed away this morning at the age of 93 where he had lived in Maine for many years. David was born in London, England in 1930 and moved to the US some years later.

We had the great pleasure of having David visit us in Milford for the Black Bear Film Festival the year DEATH WATCH, the 1979 Bertrand Tavernier film based on his book, THE CONTINIOUS KATHERINE MORTENHOE was featured on the main stage. It was a delightful and memorable weekend.

D. G. Compton was always writing, with his most recent novel, SO HERE’S OUR LEO, being published by Wildside Press in April of 2022. Besides THE CONTINIOUS KATHERINE MORTENHOE – an “author’s cut” of which was published by NYRB Classics in 2016 — his many wonderful titles include THE STEEL CROCODILE, FAREWELL EARTH’S BLISS, and SYNTHAJOY, as well as numerous crime novels written as Guy Compton and gothic romances as Frances Lynch. David was also an authority on stammering, writing a nonfiction book on the subject, STAMMERING: ITS NATURE, HISTORY, CAUSES AND CURES.

David was awarded the 2021 Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award and was also honored as the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association’s Author Emeritus in 2007. He is survived by his step son, Toby Savage and many friends. We will greatly miss him.

The best way you can honor David Compton is to go read one of his books.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born November 26, 1919 — Frederik Pohl. (Died 2013.) He’s one of those writers that I’ve always found I can depend upon for an excellent reading experience. So let’s take a look at him. Now keep in mind this is only about him as a writer, not as an editor.

Eighty-six years ago when he was just eighteen, “Elegy to a Dead Satellite: Luna”, a poem, was his published work in Amazing Stories in the October 1937 issue as Elton Andrews. His first piece of prose fiction was the first part of “Head Over Heels in Time” published in the Spaceways fanzine, February 1939.

Now let’s get to his novels. Looking him on ISFDB was interesting to say the least. I’ve reading him for around a half century now so naturally I didn’t remember everything that I’d read by him.

I’ll confess that sometimes all I remember of a novels is the cover art but that then triggers enough to tell me if I liked it. And so it with Cuckoo series. Not bad at all they were. Speaking of their cover art, I’m particularly fond of the pulpish artwork for Wall Around A Star.

However the novels that defined him as a writer are those of the Heechee series. Yes, I’ve read the first three novels several times and enjoyed them immensely. Can we not talk about The Annals of the Heechee which I did read? Just once which was enough.

And I’ve not read The Boy Who Would Live Forever, so opinions on it are hereby solicited.

Gateway won a much deserved Hugo at IguanaCon II, as well as John W. Campbell Memorial Award and a Nebula.

Ahhh, Man Plus which was a nominated first a Hugo at SunCon, and won a Nebula. What an amazing novel it is. ISFDB lists a sequel, Mars Plus, which I had no idea existed until now. Who’s read it?

The Space Merchants written with Cyril M. Kornbluth that first was published in Galaxy Science Fiction magazine as the serial Gravy Planet is truly great in a silly sort of way. It has a sequel, The Merchants’ War, I’ve managed to overlook all this time. There really is too much fiction out there.

Let’s finish off with The Cool War which I think is one of his best novels — fascinating characters, near setting, great story.

No, I didn’t cover his short stories as there’s really no way to break them out and do them justice. If you like his short works, some of which have won Hugos, there’s been some thirty collections published so far.

Bradbury and Pohl with the Red Planet. Photo by Terry Pace.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

Thatababy has a very unsafe imaginary friend.
Dog Eat Doug for November 26 is an Alien reference, too.

(9) DISK JOCKEY. Far Out Magazine’s list of “The 10 best-selling DVDs of all time” is composed entirely of sf and fantasy films – though that’s not the common denominator that caught the writer’s eye.

…Understandably, the entire list is made up of children’s flicks, or, at the least, movies targeted at younger audiences, with Disney being behind half of the films on the list, including the three Pixar movies The Incredibles, Cars and Finding Nemo, which sold a grand total of 77,500,000 DVD copies. In addition, Disney was also behind the first two movies in the live-action Pirates of the Caribbean series, with the Johnny Depp-led films selling over 32 million copies.

Elsewhere, there are two superhero movies on the list, one from Marvel and the other from DC. The 2008 Christopher Nolan film The Dark Knight sold 19,200,000 copies, just 300,000 under how many Sam Raimi and his team managed to shift for the Tobey Maguire-led Spider-Man film from 2002….

(10) ANIME EXPLORATIONS. Episode 14 of the Anime Explorations Podcast is up, and includes a Kumoricon 2023 Con Report. The podcast can be found here: “Anime Explorations Podcast: Episode 14: Tsukhime (2003)”.

(11) GONE WITH THE WIND. “‘We are heartbroken’: Coober Pedy loses its famous drive-in – but the opal town has plans for take two” reports the Guardian.

The closure of a drive-in rarely makes the news but Coober Pedy’s is no ordinary drive-in. Since it was built by volunteers in 1965 it has served as a meeting point for the remote opal mining community, itself immortalised on film in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. For decades miners turned up in their utes, still filled with mining equipment and gelignite. As beer was sold at the drive-in, the operators had to ban patrons from bringing along explosives.

But curtains have now closed on South Australia’s last drive-in after furious winds reaching almost 120km/h ripped through the town on 15 November, leaving the screen in tatters. More than half the panels and the underlying structure were ripped away by the wind.

“We are heartbroken as a community,” states the drive-in’s website….

(12) NOT TUNED IN. “Christopher Nolan names the genre he doesn’t ‘really get’” in Far Out Magazine. (Whew, I was worried for a second he might say sff, which would have really been disturbing after five Nebula Award nominations and a win for Inception.)

Yet, while Nolan is a considerable fan of all types of cinema, there is one genre he has admitted that he doesn’t “really get”, confessing that he has little love for the humble movie musical.

“I don’t really get musicals,” he told Scott Holleran, “I always used to say that I would do anything except musicals. Having said which, now that I have kids, I’m re-appraising that. There are a lot of films that [I saw] as a kid that I didn’t really remember as musicals. Like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I completely forgot that it was a musical. I watched it again a few weeks ago and I saw it in a different way. I think as a kid you just accept the groundwork of the film you’re seeing, you’re not judging it as a genre, and you’re much more open”…

(13) FIFTY YEARS OF ZINES. Gothamist reports on a new exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum called Copy Machine Manifestos: Artists Who Make Zines in “Zines are back: Brooklyn Museum exhibit looks at decades of artistry”.

…It includes more than 800 images from the world of zines from the 1970s to today, organized into categories like “The Punk Explosion” and “Critical Promiscuity.”…

…Zines actually began in the 1930s, in mimeograph form. They were the same: cheap, quick, ephemeral and usually self-made publications, but they were related to fan culture.

They started around science fiction fandom, then moved into comic book fandom, then ultimately, in the early ’70s, moved into rock fandom.

There are fan communities that are interested in certain comics or certain types of music.

Part of the ethos of these fanzines is that they’re very open to reader feedback and participation. They welcome correspondence, they welcome contributions, they welcome mentioning other types of zines….

(14) LOSCON FANZINE TABLE. Richard Man took these photos of the fanzine table at this weekend’s Loscon.

(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “Carrie Fisher Roasts George Lucas at AFI Life Achievement Award” in 2005. Four minutes in the fire and he’s well-done.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Kathy Sullivan, Steven French, Alexander Case, Richard Man, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 8/2/23 One Scroll To Rule Them All

Posted on August 2, 2023 by Mike Glyer

(1) VICFA TAKING PROPOSALS. The Virtual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts (November 5-11) is now accepting proposal submissions.

Organized by new Virtual Conference Coordinator and Afropantheologist Oghenechovwe Ekpeki and featuring genre-defining Guests of Honor Martha Wells, Steven Barnes, and Annalee Newitz, the week-long Virtual Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts includes the investigative insights of Guest Scholars Alec Nevala-Lee, Wole Talabi, and Jennifer Rhee.

Whether you are interested in the academic track or the creative track, they welcome your contribution.

The deadline for proposal submissions is September 15th, and acceptance notifications will be sent out on September 30th. For more detailed information, please see the attached CFP or visit the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts website.

The Virtual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts (November 5th-11th) is currently accepting proposal submissions! This year, we are excited to convene about the theme: AAAA! – AI, Algorithms, Automata and Art. The International Association for Fantastic in the Arts will be hosting several phenomenal Guests of Honor, including Steven Barnes, Annalee Newitz, and Martha Wells. Additionally, our Guest Scholars are Alec Nevala-Lee, Jennifer Rhee, and Wole Talabi!

To submit your proposals, please see the links below. Please note that there are two links, one for academic track and one for creative track.

Academic Proposal Portal

Creative Proposal Portal

(2) SEND A CARD. Bjo Trimble is turning 90 on August 15! Her daughter Lora reminds anyone who wants to send a card that her address is:

Bjo Trimble
California Veterans Home
700 East Naples Court
Chula Vista CA 91911

(3) KGB. Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel present C.S.E. Cooney and Steve Berman on Wednesday, August 9. Starts 7:00 p.m. EDT at the KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street, New York, NY 10003. (Just off 2nd Ave, upstairs)

C.S.E. COONEY

C. S. E. Cooney is the World Fantasy Award-winning author of Bone Swans: Stories. Other books include The Twice-Drowned Saint, Saint Death’s Daughter, Dark Breakers, and Desdemona and the Deep. Forthcoming from Outland Entertainment is Negocios Infernales, a TTRPG she co-designed with her husband Carlos Hernandez.

STEVE BERMAN

Steve Berman is the Lambda Literary Award-winning editor of over forty anthologies including His Seed and Burly Tales. He is also author of the Andre Norton Award finalist, Vintage, and four short story collections, the most recent being Fit for Consumption. Most of his work is queer speculative fiction and horror. He resides in Western Massachusetts.

(4) WARNER BROS. NOPOLOGY FOR BARBENHEIMER. Entertainment Weekly headlines its story “Warner Bros. apologizes for Barbenheimer posts amid backlash in Japan” but Google Translate says the release is worded, “We apologize to those who were offended by this series of inconsiderate reactions.”

Warner Bros. is apologizing after its Japanese branch criticized the company’s decision to publicly support the Barbenheimer craze on social media.

“Warner Brothers regrets its recent insensitive social media engagement,” the company said in a statement to EW. “The studio offers a sincere apology.”

Its remarks come one day after the Barbie Japan Twitter account posted a statement denouncing the online movement that links Greta Gerwig‘s fun and fashionable Barbie with Christopher Nolan‘s Oppenheimer — which chronicles the creation of the atomic bomb that killed at least 225,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki — amid growing backlash in Japan that the trend trivializes the mass destruction caused by atomic bombs. The hashtag #NoBarbenheimer has recently been trending in Japan as a result….

[Previously] the Barbie U.S. Twitter account positively interacted with several Barbenheimer-inspired posts, including a fan-created poster that featured Barbie star Margot Robbie sitting on Oppenheimer actor Cillian Murphy‘s shoulder in front of a plume of orange smoke. The Barbie account commented on the fan-made image, writing, “It’s going to be a summer to remember.”

(5) THOUGHTS ABOUT PEMMI-CON. Ralston Stahler’s Pemmi-Con report is a public Facebook post here. Following discussion of many areas of the con, noting the problems and the successes, Stahler concludes:

…All in all it wasn’t the best con, and it wasn’t the worst. I think out of all the NASFiC’s it is the second lowest attended. Maybe covid or being a pretty distant location had something to do with it.

(6) MAKE THOSE RINGS SING. If File 770 readers happen to be in Berkshire, the Guardian has a recommendation: “The Lord of the Rings: A Musical Tale review – the greatest show on Middle-earth”.

…First seen in the UK in 2007 at London’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane – a 1996-seat theatre – the show is revived at the 220-capacity Watermill. This means that Simon Kenny’s design and Anjali Mehra’s choreography are a theatrical equivalent of stunts designed to find how many people can fit in a Mini.

The creative team ought to be listed in a Guinness book of theatrical records. During the long sections inside the tiny theatre, they cram in battles, orc attacks, treks across land, over mountains or through caves and lavish production numbers involving 20 actors or musicians (several performers also play instruments)….

(7) CRISTINA JURADO DEAL. Apex Book Company has acquired first North America English rights to the novella Chlorophilia by Spanish author Cristina Jurado. The deal was brokered by agent Hannah Bowman of Liza Dawson Associates.

Kirmen is different from everyone else in the Cloister. Due to the doctor’s endless experiments on Kirmen, his skin, his eyes, even his organs are changing. Kirmen wonders if he even belongs with the other inhabitants of the dome that protects the last remnants of humanity from the forever storm raging against the glass. Kirmen’s dreams of love, of acceptance, slip away with every treatment. What will happen when the doctor’s transformations are complete? What will Kirmen be then?

Cristina Jurado is a bilingual author, editor and translator of speculative fiction. In 2019 she became the first female writer to win the Best Novel Ignotus Award (Spain’s top sff Award) for Bionautas. Since 2015 she runs the Spanish multi-awarded magazine SuperSonic. In 2020 she was recognized with the ESFS’s Best SF Promoter Award and started to work as a contributor of the bilingual quarterly Constelación magazine.

(8) CON OR BUST. Applications are being taken for Con or Bust’s Goldman Fund initiative to assist Palestinian creators and fans of speculative fiction in attending the 2024 World Science Fiction Convention.

We’ll be assisting self-identified citizens of Palestine and members of the Palestinian diaspora to pay for travel and membership expenses to five Worldcons beginning in 2024. If you qualify for the Goldman Fund and would like assistance attending 2024’s Worldcon, apply here. The preferred application window runs from 31 July through 5 November, 2023. Applications received after the window closes will be considered for any remaining funds.

(9) WHERE THE THREE RIVERS MEET. Pulpfest’s Mike Chomko appeared on local CBS affiliate’s TALK Pittsburgh show to provide “An introduction to the 50th anniversary of PulpFest”. The con starts tomorrow. Video at the link.

Mike Chomko, the marketing and programming director of PulpFest, joined the show to talk about the festival’s dedication to a special form of fiction magazines.

(10) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

1995 — Our Beginning is taken from Jane Yolen’s The Wild Hunt. It was released as a hardcover edition twenty-eight years ago by Harcourt Brace with copious illustrations and cover art by Francisco Mora, a pupil of Diego Rivera, who was deep into the Mexican political scene making posters for trade unions and government literacy campaigns.

It’s not — if one takes into account the illustrations — a novel really. I’ve got my personally signed copy on hand (yes, she is on the chocolate gifting list. She prefers no more than seventy percent chocolate.) and I’d say it’d be a novella if judged by length alone.

It is that rare wonderful work where the text and the illustrations (see the cover illustration below of The Wild Hunt as a turning clock) are truly intrinsic to each other. I cannot imagine it as just text, though I can imagine it as a spoken work as Yolen’s language here is brilliant.

So let’s have just the introduction to it as our Beginning…

A wild winter storm rages around a large house that is isolated from the rest of the world. Traditionally, the Wild Hunt appeared around the time of Epiphany— January 6 in the Church Calendar—when winter was at its most severe in Northern Europe. No country is specified, but this is, after all, a fantasy world. The house is both a comfortable dwelling with a large library in keeping with Jerold’s quiet personality, and a parallel setting that matches Gerund’s much more active one. A hundred yards from the house is a granite outcrop where the Hunt gathers: “This rock might have been a thousand miles away. Or a thousand years.”

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Born August 2, 1917 — Wah Chang. Co-founder in the late 1950s, with Gene Warren and Tim Baar, of the special effects company Project Unlimited Inc. They provided the effects for numerous George Pal productions, including *The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm*, *Jack the Giant Killer*, and *The Time Machine* (for which they won an Academy Award, although Chang’s name was erroneously omitted). Wang and his fellow Projects coworkers did essentially all of the effects for the original *Outer Limits* television series. Perhaps most famously, Chang created some of the best-known effects for the original *Star Trek*, including the communicator, the tricorder, the Romulan Bird of Prey, the Tribbles, and numerous aliens, although he did not receive screen credit for any of this work. A talented artist, later in life he gained renown as a wildlife sculptor. (Died 2003.) [PhilRM]

Born August 2, 1920 — Theodore Marcuse. He was Korob in “Catspaw”, a second season Trek episode written by Robert Bloch that aired just before Halloween aptly enough. He had appearances in The Twilight Zone (“The Trade-Ins” and “To Serve Man”), Time Tunnel, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Wild Wild West and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in the episodes “The Re-collectors Affair”, “The Minus-X Affair”, and “The Pieces of Fate Affair”. (Died 1967.)
Born August 2, 1932 — Peter O’Toole. I’m tempted to say his first genre role was playing King Henry in A Lion in Winter as it is alternate history. It really is despite some of you saying it isn’t. Actually before that he’s got an uncredited role in Casino Royale as a Scottish piper. Really he does. His first genre role without dispute is as Zaltar in Supergirl followed by being Dr. Harry Wolverine in Creator. He’s Peter Plunkett in the superb High Spirits, he’s in FairyTale: A True Story as a very credible Arthur Conan Doyle, and Stardust as King of Stormhold. Not surprisingly, he played in a version of Midsummer Night’s Dream as Lysander. (Died 2013.)
Born August 2, 1948 — Robert Holdstock. Another one who died far too young. His Ryhope Wood series is simply amazing with Lavondyss being my favorite volume. And let’s not overlook his Merlin Codex series which is one of the more original takes on that character I’ve read. The Ragthorn, co-written with Garry Kilworth, is interesting as well. (Died 2009.)
Born August 2, 1954 — Ken MacLeod, 69. Sometimes I don’t realize until I do a Birthday note just how much I’ve read of a certain author. And so it was of this author. I’ve read the entire Fall Revolution series, not quite all of the Engines of Light Trilogy, just the first two of the Corporation Wars but I’ve got it in my to-be-finished queue, and every one of his one-off novels save Descent. His Restoration Game is quite chilling. I should go find his Giant Lizards from Another Star collection as I’ve not read his short fiction. Damn it’s not available from the usual suspects! Hugo Award wise, he didn’t win any but had some nominations. The Sky Road was nominated at the Millennium Philcon, Cosmonaut Keep at ConJosé and Learning the World at L.A. Con IV.
Born August 2, 1955 — Caleb Carr, 68. Ok, I’ll admit that this is another author that ISFDB lists as genre that I don’t think of as being as genre. ISFDB list all four of his novels as being genre including The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness which are not even genre adjacent by my reading. So is there something in those novels that I missed?
Born August 2, 1970 — Kevin Smith, 53. Well-loved comics writer who’s worked for DC, Marvel and other venues. He was involved with both Daredevil and Green Arrow. He directed the pilot for the CW supernatural comedy series Reaper, produced and appeared in a reality television series, Comic Book Men, and appeared as a character in the animated Superman: Doomsday. He’s also the showrunner for Masters of the Universe: Revelation animated series and the sequel Masters of the Universe: Revolution which will stream early next year.
Born August 2, 1976 — Emma Newman, 47. Author of quite a few SF novels and a collection of short fiction. Her Planetfall series was nominated for the Best Series Hugo Award 2020. Also of interest to us is that she co-created along with her husband Peter, of the Hugo Award winning podcast Tea and Jeopardy which centers around her hosting another creator for a nice cup of tea and cake, while her scheming butler Latimer (played by Peter) attempts to send them to their deaths at the end of the episode.

(12) COMICS SECTION.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal drops a PKD reference.

(13) WILL HER LOVE OF ANIME AND MANGA PROVE CONTAGIOUS? Ada Palmer launches a new column in Strange Horizons with “A Mitfreude of Anime and Manga’s Relationship with Anglophone Science Fiction (Or, This Essay WILL NOT Try to Get You into Anime and Manga!)”

… Once upon a time an atomic-powered robot boy dodged censorship to talk about racism, and fifty years later Japan issued the first legal birth certificate granting citizenship to an AI. Once upon a time in a small Japanese town flourished Earth’s glitteriest, rose-petal-y-est, most gender-bending form of theater, and ninety years later a comics shop owner in Cambridge, Massachusetts, exclaimed to me, “Girls are coming into the store now! There were none before!” And once upon a time kids gathered in the streets of Tokyo to hear a storyteller with hand-drawn illustration cards narrate a battle between a crime boss in a robot suit and a thousand-year-old superhero from Atlantis, and fifty-five years later a Japanese-built surgical robot took life-saving samples of my intestines.

Enjoying anime and manga has a high learning curve: you need to invest time learning their visual vocabulary, and many of the best works depend on knowing earlier tropes and patterns. But anyone can enjoy the history of anime and manga, how these media have shaped science, medicine, genre fiction, gender, and how—as twentieth century English was rising to dominance through music and TV around the globe—anime and manga managed to become the biggest body of modern media that gets translated into English instead of the other way around….

(14) THIS WOULD MAKE ME START WRITING LETTERS AGAIN. “Mr. Spock On A Stamp: Adam Schiff Urges U.S. Postal Service To Honor Leonard Nimoy” reports Deadline.

…In a statement, Schiff called Nimoy, who died in 2015, “an extraordinary activist, actor and friend.”

“Nimoy’s legacy includes his lengthy acting career — including his beloved and iconic role as ‘Spock’ in the Star Trek universe — and his many generous contributions to the arts and sciences, and his beautiful family.”

On Monday, Schiff sent a letter to the Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee, asking them to recommend Nimoy to the Postmaster General. The committee selects individuals who have made “extraordinary and enduring contributions to American society, history, culture or environment.” Living people are not currently eligible, and those who are deceased are considered at least three years after his or hear death. Stamps also are planned two- to three- years in advance….

(15) OVERVIEW OF JOHN WILLIAMS’ COMPOSITIONS FOR CINEMA. Forbes talks to Mike Matessino, one of the foremost experts in the music of John Williams, who has produced numerous Williams soundtrack albums over the years, in “Re-Listening To John Williams, The Maestro Of The Movies”.

What are your thoughts on “How to Steal a Million” — often cited as a highlight of Williams’ ‘60s work?

Mike: If one looks at the earliest feature films John Williams scored, you see some fairly prominent director names that today are mostly known only among cinephiles — Frank Tashlin, Andrew McLaglen — and then Frank Sinatra, for whom John scored the only movie the actor/singer directed, “None But the Brave.”

But then comes “How to Steal a Million” and three-time Oscar winner William Wyler. So this is the first project for a truly A-list director, and it remains, I think, the most sophisticated of the comedies that John Williams scored during that important period where he was based at 20th Century-Fox Studios.

I once asked Ian Fraser, who worked with Williams on “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” a couple years later, if had any sense on that project of just how great a composer Williams would become, and he said, “I knew it when I went to the sessions for ‘How to Steal a Million,’” as Fraser was at 20th at that time working on ‘Doctor Dolittle.’ The “Million” score is a mixture of comedic elements and some terrific half-tongue-in-cheek suspense writing that showed just how versatile John Williams could be. It’s also significant in that it is the first time he was given the opportunity to completely re-record music from the film for his own soundtrack album, so it really was a significant career milestone.

(16) HYVILMA. Gideon Marcus’ new release Hyvilma is celebrated at Queer Sci Fi. Includes an excerpt from the book.

QSFer Gideon Marcus has a new queer YA sci-fi book out (bisexual): Hyvilma.

A damaged ship, a dying shipmate–can she save both?

Under attack! The flight back to Hyvilma should have been the easy part for the crew of the Majera–until a deadly ambush by pirates sends them reeling through hyperspace. Now getting to the planet in time is the only way Captain Kitra Yilmaz can save her dying friend.

But landing at Hyvilma may be impossible: war has broken out on the Frontier.
With illustrations by Hugo Finalist Lorelei Esther.

(17) AI EFFECTIVE IN BREAST CANCER SCREENING. [Item by Steven French.] Good to have some positive news about AI! The Guardian reports “AI use in breast cancer screening as good as two radiologists, study finds”.

…But the latest study, which followed women from Sweden with an average age of 54, compared AI-supported screening directly with standard care.

Half of the scans were assessed by two radiologists, while the other half were assessed by AI-supported screening followed by interpretation by one or two radiologists.

In total, 244 women (28%) recalled from AI-supported screening were found to have cancer compared with 203 women (25%) recalled from standard screening. This resulted in 41 more cancers being detected with the support of AI, of which 19 were invasive and 22 were in situ cancers.

The use of AI did not generate more false positives, where a scan is incorrectly diagnosed as abnormal. The false-positive rate was 1.5% in both groups.

(18) WHAT WERE PEOPLE STREAMING IN JULY? JustWatch offers their monthly Top 10 streaming lists for July 2023.

(19) STORY FEEDBACK IN REALTIME. Apex Magazine presents Snap Judgment Episode 7, their “rapid-fire, live-streaming critique series.”

Every quarter, industry professionals Jason Sizemore, Lesley Conner, and a special guest offer live feedback on the first page (up to 250 words) of genre short stories or novels. These first pages are read aloud by our talented host and narrator, Aly Grauer.

We are pleased to announce that our special guest editor for this event is author and editor Nick Mamatas!

HOW IT WORKS. Our host reads the title, genre, and text of the submission aloud without identifying the author. If at any point our panelists feel they would stop reading and reject the piece from their slush pile, they raise their hand. If all three hands are raised, our narrator stops reading.

Each panelist then gives their feedback on the opening: what works for them, what doesn’t, and what could be done to improve it. Don’t expect our panelists to be a mean group, but do expect them to be honest when it comes to assessing the work.

NICK MAMATAS. Special guest editor for this event is author and editor Nick Mamatas! Nick Mamatas is the author of several novels, including I Am Providence and The Second Shooter. His short fiction has appeared or will soon appear in Best American Mystery Stories, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Tor.com, McSweeney’s, and many other venues. Much of it was recently collected in The People’s Republic of Everything. Nick is also an anthologist; his latest book is Wonder and Glory Forever: Awe-Inspiring Lovecraftian Fiction.

(20) VIDEO OF THE DAY (OR POSSIBLY TWO MONTHS AGO). Did we run this before? Well, it’s always news to someone. Karen Gillan shares “A week in the life of playing Nebula in Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 3”.

Come spend a week with me filming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mike Kennedy, Kathy Sullivan, Steven French, PhilRM, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, and Michael Toman for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day JeffWarner.]

Pixel Scroll 6/25/23 “A Pixel Less Scrolled Is A Scroll Saved” As The Old Saying Doesn’t Go

Posted on June 25, 2023 by Mike Glyer

(1) FROM FANFIC TO THE TOP. [Item by Steven French.] One to watch out for: after debuting with Boy Parts, ‘a mischievous satire’, and following that up with Penance, based on horrific true events, Eliza Clark is planning a third novel of speculative fiction and a collection of science fiction and horror short stories: “Eliza Clark: ‘I’m more primary school teacher than enfant terrible’” in the Guardian.

…She reckons that being a word-of-mouth success let her fly under the radar of critics ready to dismiss Granta’s selection as a list of commercially unsuccessful unknowns. “But you don’t want to be the arsehole who’s like: ‘Actually, if you were to check TikTok and ask 20-year-old girls on humanities courses at university, you’d find that one of these books is actually very popular,’” she says, with a winningly wicked laugh.

Being underestimated is something of a theme with Clark. In her early teens she read keenly, led by her parents to Tolkien, George RR Martin and Stephen King while finding Nabokov and Murakami on her own (“Ryū, not Haruki,” she adds quickly, as if to make certain I know that extreme horror is her jam, not pervy magic realism). The kind of pupil who once wowed English teachers by writing “pages and pages and pages”, she was blocked by her school from applying to study English at Oxbridge because she got C grades in GCSE maths and French. She then fell into boozing with pals (“it was very easy to underage drink in Newcastle”) and out of love with reading – or at least with books. “My brain had been so boiled by the internet by that point. I shouldn’t have been allowed to have my own laptop! Shock images were so clickable and findable. But I used to write loads of fan fiction and I wouldn’t have had all those years of writing practice.”…

(2) MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE. Cora Buhlert brings us her “Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre Pride Month Special: ‘Ambush in the Mystic Mountains’”.

…Last year, I posted a Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre Pride Month Special called “Fisto’s Significant Other”, in which Fisto and Ram-Man announce that they are a couple. This is only my head canon BTW, but the various cartoons hint quite strongly that Fisto as well as various other heroic warriors are not straight. And besides, they do make a cute couple.

Therefore, I decided to do another Pride Month Special featuring fan favourite Malcolm a.k.a. Fisto and his significant other Ram-Man a.k.a. Krass. Especially since I had just picked up the new Masterverse Deluxe Ram-Man figure.

So enjoy…

Ambush in the Mystic Mountains…

Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre Pride Month Special: “Ambush in the Mystic Mountains” https://t.co/8UfMftUExe via @CoraBuhlert
— Cora Buhlert (@CoraBuhlert) June 25, 2023

(3) INCREASING REPRESENTATION. Arturo Serrano interviews two game designers, Miguel Colón (designer of Boricubos) and Adrián Mejía (designer of Koboa) in “More Latin American content for your TTRPG sessions” at Nerds of a Feather.

…AS: How did you ensure a respectful representation of elements from real-world cultures?

MC (Boricubos): There is a careful balance here. As someone who is very entrenched in the culture, I had to make sure I represented what I loved about some of the stories I was told, some of the research I did, and some of the things that I came up with individually. This all blended together quite nicely, I believe. Ultimately, it is not my role to speak for every Puerto Rican, other Latin Americans, or anyone, really. I am trying to represent something deeply personal to me, share with others something that would make them interested in doing their own research, and present a new point of view for people. It’s very hard because, in order for the setting to work, there have to be things that are inspired by the actual culture, but also things that are completely independent. I think the best thing for people to take away is that Boricubos represents some stories and legends, but is not a one-for-one recreation.

AM (Koboa): It is an ongoing process. We have built up a team of South American designers, writers, and artists with extremely diverse backgrounds and experiences. Additionally, all our content (writing, art briefs, illustrations, etc.) goes through two or more cultural and sensitivity consultants, to ensure we don’t inadvertently represent elements of culture in ways that are harmful or offensive….

(4) HWA PRIDE. The Horror Writers Association blog continues this month’s theme with “A Point of Pride: Interview with Mae Murray”.

What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it?

I didn’t have an idyllic childhood. I was exposed to a lot of pain, loss, and trauma from an early age, which made me feel alienated from my peers. I enjoyed the horror genre because it allowed me to deal with those themes in an imaginative, transformative way. It was safe to talk about certain traumas in the context of a horror story, because for a child/teen/young adult, the truths were almost too brutal to articulate any other way. But it’s more than just that… I found horror sexy, exciting. I hated being afraid, and I loved being afraid. It was the push and pull of daring yourself to be brave. It’s a challenging genre that begs to break formulae time and again. It can be romantic, erotic, terrifying, cathartic, disgusting, beautiful. It truly is a genre that has it all and can do it all.

(5) TIDAL FLOW. Really, I’m not convinced by this first paragraph. Is adding “-punk” to a noun anything more than a tactic to market a short list of books? “Diving into the Sub-Genre of Oceanpunk” at Book Riot.

From steampunk to dieselpunk to clockpunk and more, there is a proliferation of sub-genres and mashups that fall under the punk literature umbrella. Defined by their embrace of retro, yet futuristic technologies and specific elements and settings, these books transport readers to an imaginative world in which characters move through an altered landscape from our own. Punk sub-genre books often play with timelines and settings in ways that both echo our own world and change it up. For example, steampunk writers craft fictional worlds that are both futuristic and have echoes of Victorian fashion and steam powered-technology, while cyberpunk authors focus on what happens when a high-technology society meets humanity. Oceanpunk writers take us under or onto the high seas, to explore what it would be like to live in a water-dominated world….

(6) IT’S POSSIBLE AFTER ALL. “‘I’m not that geeky guy any more’: Simon Pegg on comedy, action heroes and staying at home” in the Guardian.

… Pegg’s ascent remains one of the great, recent Hollywood creation stories. In one of the most entertaining parts of it, he and Wright were asked in an interview, after Shaun of the Dead, whether they planned to leave the UK behind and make action films in the US. Pegg responded, “It’s not like we’re going to go away and do, I don’t know” – scanning his brain for an imaginary, and unimaginable, blockbuster – “Mission: Impossible III.”

The reply was honest. Pegg had not long before done an audition for a small part in the Mission: Impossible franchise, something involving a helicopter, and heard nothing. But then, the original director, Joe Carnahan, left the project and Cruise brought in Alias creator JJ Abrams, who was a huge fan of… Shaun of the Dead! Ricky Gervais was set to play Cruise’s sidekick Benji Dunn, but dropped out and Pegg was given the nod. “So it was a huge irony that I’d said, ‘I’m not going to go off and do this,’” says Pegg. “But then, at that time, there was this attitude that anyone who went off to Hollywood was betraying their roots in some sense or selling out. It’s not like you cross some misty bridge at night and never come home again. So many people assume that I live over there. But, you know, I live in Hertfordshire.”…

(7) MONTY PYTHON’S DYING CIRCUS. ICv2 carried news of CMON’s game expansion “Monty Python’s Flying Circus – Zombicide 2E”. There’s a gallery of images of the components at the link.

CMON announced Monty Python’s Flying Circus – Zombicide 2E, a new board game expansion, which will arrive in April 2024.

Zombicide 2E just got a whole lot more wacky with the introduction of this expansion featuring the elements of the classic TV show by the legendary English comedy troupe. The set revisits some of the show’s funniest sketches by adding Monty Python-themed survivors , enemies, and equipment. There is also a new mission and if the expansion is preordered off CMON’s website, it includes an exclusive pack of Gumbys.

This set comes with 21 miniatures, 8 tokens, 47 cards, and a rules leaflet. The expansion requires a base set to play and it will retail for $50.00….

(8) MEMORY LANE.

1994 – [Written by Cat Eldridge from a choice by Mike Glyer.]

Now here’s an author that I really like — Mike Resnick. There’s really nothing by him that I’ve not enjoyed immensely.

First and foremost are the four novels in the John Justin Mallory series, followed by his Future History series and the ever so silly Galactic Midway affair with one with the best novel titles ever, The Best Rootin’ Tootin’ Shootin’ Gunslinger in the Whole Damned Galaxy.

Let’s not forget the Weird West Tale series which I consider one of the best steampunk Western series ever done.

And then there’s the “Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge” novella, the source of our Beginning this Scroll, which was first published in 1994 by Axolotl Press, part of Pulphouse Publishing. Part of his Birthright Universe series, it would win a Hugo at Intersection. A Nebula would be also would be won as well as a HOMer. There was also a Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award nomination

And here’s our Beginning…

The creatures came again last night.

The moon had just slipped behind the clouds when we heard the first rustlings in the grass. Then there was a moment of utter silence, as if they knew we were listening for them, and finally there were the familiar hoots and shrieks as they raced to within fifty meters of us and, still screeching, struck postures of aggression.

They fascinate me, for they never show themselves in the daylight, and yet they manifest none of the features of the true nocturnal animal. Their eyes are not oversized, their ears cannot move independently, they tread very heavily on their feet. They frighten most of the other members of my party, and while I am curious about them, I have yet to absorb one of them and study it.

To tell the truth, I think my use of absorption terrifies my companions more than the creatures do, though there is no reason why it should. Although I am relatively young by my race’s standards, I am nevertheless many millennia older than any other member of my party. You would think, given their backgrounds, that they would know that any trait someone of my age possesses must by definition be a survival trait.

Still, it bothers them. Indeed, it mystifies them, much as my memory does. Of course, theirs seem very inefficient to me. Imagine having to learn everything one knows in a single lifetime, to be totally ignorant at the moment of birth! Far better to split off from your parent with his knowledge intact in your brain, just as my parent’s knowledge came to him, and ultimately to me.

But then, that is why we are here: not to compare similarities, but to study differences. And never was there a race so different from all his fellows as Man. He was extinct barely seventeen millennia after he strode boldly out into the galaxy from this, the planet of his birth—but during that brief interval he wrote a chapter in galactic history that will last forever. He claimed the stars for his own, colonized a million worlds, ruled his empire with an iron will. He gave no quarter during his primacy, and he asked for none during his decline and fall. Even now, some forty-eight centuries after his extinction, his accomplishments and his failures still excite the imagination.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Born June 25, 1894 – Hermann Oberth. Physicist, engineer, pioneer of rocketry. Read Jules Verne as a child, built his first model rocket at age 14. Doctoral dissertation Rockets into Space. Consulted on Fritz Lang’s film Woman in the Moon (1929). Worked on early rockets, came to work for NASA. Autobiography in Clarke’s anthology The Coming of the Space Age (1967). Werner von Braun said “Oberth was the first.” (Died 1989) [John Hertz]
Born June 25, 1903 — George Orwell, born Eric Blair in 1903. Animal Farm is fantasy of a political sort, but 1984 is clearly genre, and it may hold the record for the most neologisms added to English by a single SF book. Orwell was mostly known as a journalist and essayist, including his spats with H.G. Wells, most notably in “Wells, Hitler and the World State”. (Died 1950.) [Alan Baumler]
Born June 25, 1925 — June Lockhart, 98. Maureen Robinson on Lost in Space which amazingly only ran for three seasons. She has a number of genre one-offs including Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Greatest American Hero and Babylon 5. She appeared in the Lost in Space film as Principal Cartwright.
Born June 25, 1935 — Charles Sheffield. He was the President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and of the American Astronautical Society. He won both the Nebula and Hugo Awards for his novelette “Georgia on My Mind” and a John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best SF Novel for Brother to Dragons which is an amazing read. Much of his fiction is in his Heritage Universe series; the linked short stories of space traveler Arthur Morton McAndrew are a sheer comic delight. Besides his Hugo Award at ConAdian (1994) for “Georgia on My Mind”, he had several nominations as well. Chicon V (1991) picked two, “A Braver Thing” novelette and the “Godspeed” short story. Oh, and he was toastmaster at BucConeer. (Died 2002.)
Born June 25, 1947 — John Maddox Roberts, 76. Here for being prolific with his Conan pastiches, seven to date so far. I’ll also single out his The SPQR series beginning with SPQR which are police-procedural mystery novels set in Ancient Rome. Someone at the Libertarian Futurist Society really, really likes the Island Worlds as it has been nominated three times for the Prometheus Hall of Fame.
Born June 25, 1956 — Anthony Bourdain. That’s a death that hit me hard. Partly because he’s round my age, partly because, damn, he seemed so interested in everything that I couldn’t conceive him committing suicide. And yes, he was one of us with three works to his credit: Get Jiro!, (with Joe Rose and Langdon Foss), Get Jiro: Blood and Sushi (with Joe Rose and Ale Garza) and Hungry Ghosts (with Joel Rose, Alberto Ponticelli, Irene Koh, Paul Pope). The first two are on DC, the latter‘s on Berger Books. (Died 2018.)
Born June 25, 1981 — Sheridan Smith, 42. She makes the Birthday list for being Lucie Miller, a companion to the Eighth Doctor in his Big Finish audio adventures starting in 2006 and running through at least this year. Her only video genre work was being in The Huntsman: Winter’s War as Mrs Bromwyn.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

Bizarro introduces us to King Kong’s mom.

(11) TO THE THIRD POWER. Paul Weimer praises a trilogy with a satisfying ending: “Review: The Ivory Tomb by Melissa Caruso” at Nerds of a Feather. “Melissa Caruso finishes the Rooks and Ruin trilogy, as Ryx and her friends must deal with the return of all the demons of legend and myth to the world.”

It’s not been a good time for Ryx. After the revelations of the second book in the series (the main one I will discuss anon), The Quicksilver Court, and the disastrous events, she and the rest of the magical-problem solving Rookery are on the backfoot. All the demons are on the loose, both the Vaskandrans and Serene Empire seem to be ready to pummel each other. But the Rookery is still in the fight, hoping to get new and old friends together to oppose the world-spanning threat.

This is the story of The Ivory Tomb, the third and final volume in Caruso’s Rooks and Ruin series, her second series set in her world of Vaskandar and the Serene Empire….

(12) KEEPING AN EAR ON ANIME. This month Anime Explorations’ Summer of JoJo continues with the second season of the series, and the first half of the Stardust Crusaders arc of the story, with their first pair of JoJos, and introducing the concept of Stands into the series. “Anime Explorations Podcast: Episode 9: JoJo Part 2 – Stardust Crusaders (Road to Egypt Arc)”.

(13) FLAME ON. The Hunger Games star finds hunger isn’t always a bad alternative: “Jennifer Lawrence Sobs in Pain While Eating Spicy Wings” on Hot Ones, where they taste progressively spicier sauces.

(14) LIKE YOU NEED TEENY-TINY BRANDING IRONS FOR ANTS. “How To Visit This Secret Trader Joe’s in California” at Apartment Therapy.

Taking a trip to your local Trader Joe’s is probably a highlight of your week, so if you got the chance to check out the most secretive Trader Joe’s in the country, that might just make your entire year. There’s a hidden (and exclusive!) Trader Joe’s in Irvine, California, that’s making waves on social media. You need a ticket to get in and … it’s completely pint-sized.

This top-secret Trader Joe’s is located inside Pretend City Children’s Museum, and the entire store has been shrunken down to give children the experience of grocery shopping. Natasha, the creator behind the Trader Joe’s List Instagram account, visited the spot that comes with child-sized shopping carts, make-believe food, faux flower bouquets, and pretend cash registers….

(15) MARKS THE SPOT. Whatever happened to the “on the internet no one knows you’re a dog” meme? Ryan George’s new video shows what it would be like “If Dogs Had Podcasts”.

(16) VIDEO OF THE DAY. And HISHE says this is “How The Super Mario Bros Movie Should Have Ended”.

[Thanks to Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Alexander Case, John Hertz, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Peer.]

Pixel Scroll 2/26/23 If You’re Scrolling To Fan FifthFrisco, Be Sure To Wear Some Pixels In Your Hair

Posted on February 26, 2023 by Mike Glyer

(1) TYPE FROM THE FEDERATION JOB BOX. [Item by Olav Rokne.] The typography of Star Trek has a more interesting history than I realized.

I've been compiling some notes on #StarTrek fonts with an eye to maybe putting together a definitive list on a webpage or something. IDK.

Then I thought, in the meantime why not make it into a thread? So that's the fascinating backstory to this thread! ???? [001/???] pic.twitter.com/hdmlRwCDAE
— Starfleet Design ???????? (@StarfleetDesign) February 25, 2023

(2) SHAKEN, NOT STIRRED. On the heels of the Roald Dahl controversy, Variety reports the “James Bond Novels Edited to Remove Racist Content”. The linked article includes examples.

…A report in U.K. newspaper The Telegraph reveals that ahead of the reissue of the Bond novels in April to mark 70 years of “Casino Royale,” the first book in the series, rights holders Ian Fleming Publications Ltd commissioned a review by sensitivity readers.

Each book will carry the disclaimer, “This book was written at a time when terms and attitudes which might be considered offensive by modern readers were commonplace. A number of updates have been made in this edition, while keeping as close as possible to the original text and the period in which it is set,” The Telegraph said….

(3) AHEAD OF ITS TIME. The New Yorker reveals “What a Sixty-Five-Year-Old Book Teaches Us About A.I.” You’ve probably even read this book. I know I did. I just don’t remember anything about it.

…On the other, what’s the point of asking anyone to write anything anymore?

Luckily for us, thoughtful people long ago anticipated the rise of artificial intelligence and wrestled with some of the thornier issues. I’m thinking in particular of Jay Williams and Raymond Abrashkin, two farseeing writers, both now deceased, who, in 1958, published an early examination of this topic. Their book-the third in what was eventually a fifteen-part series-is “Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine.” I first read it in third or fourth grade, very possibly as a homework assignment….

(4) A QUICK VISIT TO 1963. Sff writers were among those who responded to these questions posed by a student in 1963: “Document: The Symbolism Survey” an article from The Paris Review (2011).

In 1963, a sixteen-year-old San Diego high school student named Bruce McAllister sent a four-question mimeographed survey to 150 well-known authors of literary, commercial, and science fiction. Did they consciously plant symbols in their work? he asked. Who noticed symbols appearing from their subconscious, and who saw them arrive in their text, unbidden, created in the minds of their readers? When this happened, did the authors mind?…

…The answers to the questionnaire were as varied as the writers themselves. Did Isaac Asimov plant symbolism in his work? “Consciously? Heavens, no! Unconsciously? How can one avoid it?” Iris Murdoch sagely advises that “there is much more symbolism in ordinary life than some critics seem to realize.” Ayn Rand wins the prize for concision; addressing McAllister’s example of symbolism in The Scarlet Letter, she wrote, “This is not a definition, it is not true—and, therefore, your questions do not make sense.” Kerouac is a close second; he writes, “Symbolism is alright in ‘Fiction’ but I tell true life stories simply about what happened to people I knew.” The apologies Bruce received from secretaries—including those of John Steinbeck, Muriel Spark, and Ian Fleming—explaining that they were traveling and unable to respond were longer than that.

Science-fiction writers—most notably Fritz Leiber, Lloyd Biggle Jr., Judith Merril, and A. J. Budrys—were the most expansive. Biggle sent a lengthy letter and then, nearly a year later, sent further thoughts. In the second letter, he advised McAllister to read an essay by Mary McCarthy, “Settling the Colonel’s Hash,” saying, “You will not want to do any kind of article on symbolism until you have read [this] … You will find much good material there, as well as an emphatic reinforcement for your viewpoint.” (McCarthy sent the same advice herself.) Judith Merril’s response is heavily mired in linguistics; she offers McAllister a chart to illustrate her semantic overview….

(5) MEMORY LANE.

1968 – [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

The Beginning for the Scroll this time is from Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonflight which was published by Ballantine Books in 1968. It won no Awards but “Weyr Search” which is the short story that started off this series won a Hugo at BayCon.

It led me to try to remember decades on just how far I got in that series. I know I got as far as the Harper Hall sub-series which means I got through the first six novels but I don’t remember going any further. For those of you who read deeper, what followed those novels?

I thought those novels were splendid with interesting characters, both human and dragon, and a wonderfully realized setting, though I admit I’ve not revisited it so I don’t know how the Suck Fairy and her steel shod boots would treat them if I was to do so now given I was in my twenties when I last read them, thus over forty years ago.

So now here’s that Beginning…

WHEN is a legend legend? Why is a myth a myth? How old and disused must a fact be for it to be relegated to the category “Fairy-tale”? And why do certain facts remain incontrovertible while others lose their validity to assume a shabby, unstable character?

Rukbat, in the Sagittarian sector, was a golden G-type star. It had five planets, and one stray it had attracted and held in recent millennia. Its third planet was enveloped by air man could breathe, boasted water he could drink, and possessed a gravity that permitted man to walk confidently erect. Men discovered it and promptly colonized it. They did that to every habitable planet, and then—whether callously or through collapse of empire, the colonists never discovered and eventually forgot to ask—left the colonies to fend for themselves.

When men first settled on Rukbat’s third world and named it Pern, they had taken little notice of the stranger-planet, swinging around its adopted primary in a wildly erratic elliptical orbit. Within a few generations they had forgotten its existence. The desperate path the wanderer pursued brought it close to its stepsister every two hundred (Terran) years at perihelion.

When the aspects were harmonious and the conjunction with its sister planet close enough, as it often was, the indigenous life of the wanderer sought to bridge the space gap to the more temperate and hospitable planet.

It was during the frantic struggle to combat this menace dropping through Pern’s skies like silver threads that Pern’s tenuous contact with the mother planet was broken. Recollections of Earth receded further from Pernese history with each successive generation until memory of their origins degenerated past legend or myth, into oblivion.

(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Born February 26, 1908 — Tex Avery. An animator, cartoonist, director and voice actor beyond compare. Without him, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd and Porky Pig would not have existed. Avery’s influence can be seen in Animaniacs and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. (Died 1980.)
Born February 26, 1918 — Theodore Sturgeon. Damn, I hadn’t realized that he’d only written six novels! More Than Human is brilliant and I assumed that he’d written a lot more long for fiction but it was short form where excelled with more than two hundred stories. I did read over the years a number of his reviews — he was quite good at those. (Died 1985.)
Born February 26, 1921 — Bill Evans. First Fandom member who wrote a number of important works. With Bob Pavlat, Evans edited/published the Evans-Pavlat Fanzine Index during the Fifties, which he followed up with Index of Science Fiction Magazines 1926 – 1948 that Bob Petersen co-wrote. With Francis T. Laney, Evans published Howard Philips Lovecraft (1890-1937): A Tentative Bibliography. His final work was with Ron Ellik, The Universes of E. E. Smith. (Died 1985.)
Born February 26, 1945 — Marta Kristen, 78. Kristen is best known for her role as Judy Robinson, one of Professor John and Maureen Robinson’s daughters, in the original Lost in Space. And yes, I watched the entire series. Good stuff it was. She has a cameo in the Lost in Space film as Reporter Number One. None of her other genre credits are really that interesting, just the standard stuff you’d expect such as an appearance on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
Born February 26, 1948 — Sharyn McCrumb, 75. ISFDB lists all of her Ballad novels as genre but that’s a wee bit deceptive as how genre strong they are depends upon the novel. Oh, Nora Bonesteel, she who sees Death, is in every novel but only some novels such as the Ghost Riders explicitly contain fantasy elements. If you like mysteries, highly recommended. Now the Jay Omega novels, Bimbos of the Death Sun and Zombies of the Gene Pool are genre, are great fun and well worth reading. They are in print which is interesting as I know she took them out of print for awhile.
Born February 26, 1958 — Karen Berger, 65. She created the Vertigo imprint at DC, and served as the line’s Executive Editor for a decade. Some of my favorite works there are Fables, Hellblazer, Preacher, 100 Bullets and V for Vendetta. She currently runs Berger Books, an imprint of Dark Horse Comics.
Born February 26, 1963 — Chase Masterson, 60. Fans are fond of saying that she spent five years portraying the Bajoran Dabo entertainer Leeta on Deep Space Nine which means she was in the background of Quark’s bar a lot. Her post-DS9 genre career is pretty much non-existent save one-off appearances on Sliders, the current incarnation of The Flash and Star Trek: Of Gods and Men, a very unofficial Tim Russ project. She has done some voice work for Big Finish Productions as of late.
Born February 26, 1965 — Liz Williams, 58. For my money, her best writing by far is her Detective Inspector Chen series about the futuristic Chinese city Singapore Three, its favorite paranormal police officer Chen and his squabbles with Heaven and Hell. I’ve read most of them and recommend them highly. I’m curious to see what else y’all have read of her and suggest that I read.

(7) COMICS SECTION.

Get Fuzzy has a cat’s attempt to improve on Rodgers & Hammerstein. Doesn’t yours do this?

(8) LISTEN IN. Episode 5 of the Anime Explorations Podcast is “Today’s Menu for the Emiya Family”.

This month, Tora, David, and Alexander kick off the inaugural installment of Fate-uary with a discussion of our background with the franchise, and a look at Today’s Menu for the Emiya Family.

Today’s Menu for the Emiya Family is available for streaming on Crunchyroll: https://www.crunchyroll.com/series/GRP8KG9VR/todays-menu-for-the-emiya-family
The manga is available through RightStuf (Affiliate Link): https://www.shareasale.com/m-pr.cfm?merchantID=65886&userID=1469344&productID=1211531609

(9) KID$ LIT. I’ve owned a lot of these books — not these pricey editions, of course: “The world’s most valuable children’s books” from AbeBooks.

Are the books from your childhood packed in boxes in the basement? Old children’s books can be valuable if they are the right edition in the right condition. And condition is so important when considering children’s literature. Youngsters can love a book too much, reading it again and again, which results in extreme wear and tear. Crayon or pen markings, and torn or lost dust jackets all reduce the value of a book….

The biggest price tag is attached to —

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

Top of the pile is The Hobbit – the book that launched the fantasy genre – and we’re talking about the 1,500 first edition copies published in the UK on 21 September 1937 by Allen & Unwin. These copies are hard to find. If you discover one then it’s the equivalent of Bilbo Baggins finding Gollum’s ring in the depths of the goblin mountain. Peter Jackson’s movies and the Amazon Prime series have helped to maintain interest in Tolkien’s work.

Most expensive copy to sell on AbeBooks – a 1937 first edition sold for $65,000 in 2003.

Affordable alternative – The Harry Abrams 1977 deluxe illustrated edition, with artwork from Arthur Rankin Jr and Jules Bass, is gorgeous, and prices range from $90 to $350.

(10) VIDEO GAME MOVIE TRAILER OF THE DAY. “First trailer for Tetris movie could not be more ’80s if it tried” says MSN.com.

Apple has released the first trailer for its movie Tetris, which tells the extraordinary true story of the struggle between Western publishers, Nintendo, and the Soviet Union itself for the rights to Alexey Pajitnov’s classic puzzle game.

Taron Egerton plays Henk Rogers, the gaming entrepreneur who was instrumental in discovering Tetris and securing the console gaming rights, thus enabling its release on Nintendo’s then-revolutionary Game Boy handheld. To do so, he had to negotiate directly with the Soviet regime, since Communist law dictated that the game belonged to the people of the Soviet Union (read: the government) rather than Pajitnov himself. All sorts of Cold War skullduggery ensued….

[Thanks to Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Olav Rokne, Daniel Dern, Jennifer Hawthorne, Alexander Case, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]

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Tag Archives: anime

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Pixel Scroll 2/26/23 If You’re Scrolling To Fan FifthFrisco, Be Sure To Wear Some Pixels In Your Hair