Tag Archives: Apex Book Company

Pixel Scroll 8/21/24 Now I Have A Pixel Gun. Scroll-Scroll-Scroll

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(1) SFRA 2025 CONFERENCE AND CFP. The Science Fiction Research Association has announced the theme and Call for Papers for the SFRA 2025 Conference. The event will be held July 30-August 3, 2025 at the University of Rochester in New York state, hosted by the Susan B. Anthony Institute: The program for Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies.

The theme will be: “’Trans People are (in) the Future’: Queer and Trans Futurity in Science Fiction”. Submission deadline November 15, 2024.

The tagline for this year’s conference is adapted from an art exhibit by Alisha Wormsley in which her art pieces assert that “there are black people in the future,” as a way to insist that unrelenting antiblackness will not steal the future from black people. Given the perpetual violence trans people are subject to, Wormsley’s insistence on black futurity resonates powerfully in trans contexts as well. Science fiction/Speculative Fiction writers, from Rivers Solomon to Kai Ashanti Wilson to Charlie Jane Anders, are all producing work that imagines trans and queer futurity in powerfully capacious ways, rejecting figurative and literal attempts at erasing trans and queer lives. This year’s conference focuses on issues related to trans and queer themes, though we encourage papers and panel proposals in all areas relevant to science fiction studies.

Full information about the topic is at the link.

(2) OMEGA SCI-FI PROJECT OFFERS WORKSHOPS. The Omega Sci-Fi Project invites L.A. high schools and students to participate in this season’s short science fiction story writing program, both through creative writing workshops and student story submissions.

To schedule a free science fiction creative writing and editing workshop follow this Calendly link: Select a Date & Time

Submissions for their 2024-2025 awards — The Tomorrow Prize and The Green Feather Award — will open on September 4 and run through February 14. Learn about the updated guidelines or submit an entry through their website.

The program’s culminating event is traditionally held at Vroman’s bookstore and where celebrity actors and authors reading selected student works.

(3) AND THE WINNERS ARE… Daniel Roman has written a long, enthusiastic report about this year’s Hugo Awards ceremony for Winter Is Coming: “Hope for a brighter future permeates the 2024 Hugo Awards at Glasgow Worldcon”.

… Perhaps in no acceptance speech was that more clear than in Emily Tesh’s, who won the Hugo Award for Best Novel for her science fiction book Some Desperate Glory. Tesh’s speech closed out the night, and after some initial joking about pranking the audience with Bilbo’s birthday speech from The Fellowship of the Rings and vanishing, she buckled down and went straight for the heartstrings. I’ve transposed a good deal of what Tesh had to say about Some Desperate Glory below, so that perhaps you might be as moved reading her words as I was hearing them:

“Here is my hope for this book… I hope this book disappears. I hope it joins the honorable, very honorable ranks of past Hugo winners, which spoke to a particular community at a particular time and not to all of history. And I hope for that disappearance because no one sets out to write a science fiction dystopia wanting to be proved right. And Some Desperate Glory is a book which was inspired by some of the worst of what is happening in the world today”….

(40 HOGWASH, POPPYCOCK, AND BALONEY. “’Megalopolis’ Trailer Pulled Due to Fake Critic Quotes: ‘We Screwed Up’” the publicists tell Variety.

Lionsgate is recalling its latest trailer for Francis Ford Coppola‘s epic “Megalopolis,” which featured a littany of fabricated quotes from famous film critics.

“Lionsgate is immediately recalling our trailer for ‘Megalopolis,’” a Lionsgate spokesperson said in a statement provided to Variety. “We offer our sincere apologies to the critics involved and to Francis Ford Coppola and American Zoetrope for this inexcusable error in our vetting process.  We screwed up.  We are sorry.”…

An earlier Variety article reported “’Megalopolis’ Trailer Seemingly Fabricates Quotes From Movie Critics”, with examples:

…In quotes attributed to their reviews of “The Godfather,” the trailer cites The New Yorker’s Pauline Kael as calling it “diminished by its artsiness,” and Village Voice’s Andrew Sarris as criticizing the “sloppy self-indulgent movie.” Other quotes from critics such as Roger Ebert, John Simon, Stanley Kauffmann, Vincent Canby and Rex Reed similarly flash across the screen, offering harsh critiques of Coppola’s work on masterpieces such as “Apocalypse Now.” The idea being these movies stood the test of times — their initial reactions, not so much. “Megalopolis,” which premiered at Cannes, was dismissed by many critics as indulgent and muddled. The new trailer aims to position Coppola’s latest film, as a work of art that will age well, much like its predecessors from the famed director….

One of the critics cited had this to say:

…Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman was incorrectly cited as calling the 1992 film “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” “a beautiful mess” and highlighting its “absurdity” when he reviewed the film for Entertainment Weekly, where he worked at the time of its release.

“Even if you’re one of those people who don’t like critics, we hardly deserve to have words put in our mouths. Then again, the trivial scandal of all this is that the whole ‘Megalopolis’ trailer is built on a false narrative,” Gleiberman said of the trailer’s falsified quotes. “Critics loved ‘The Godfather.’ And though ‘Apocalypse Now’ was divisive, it received a lot of crucial critical support. As far as me calling ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula’ ‘a beautiful mess,’ I only wish I’d said that! Regarding that film, it now sounds kind.”…

(5) TEDDY HARVIA CARTOON.

(6) DUMMIES, MEANT ONLY IN THE NICEST POSSIBLE WAY, OF COURSE. “Marvel Comics for Dummies condenses 85 years of comic book lore into an accessible primer aimed at getting more people into the Marvel Universe” – GamesRadar+ tells all about it.

Do you want to read Marvel Comics, but don’t know where to start learning about the original comic versions of the characters and stories that have now become household names thanks to the MCU? The new book Marvel Comics for Dummies has you covered. And yes, that’s “Dummies” meant very affectionately, as is the signature of the Dummies series of books that have offered accessible primers for nearly every topic under the sun.

That now includes Marvel Comics, with the aforementioned Marvel Comics for Dummies book kicking off a series of Marvel related books in the Dummies line, with Captain America for Dummies soon to follow….

…The Marvel for Dummies line will include six titles, with future installments featuring explainers on the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, Spider-Man, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe (X-Men lore seems to have been too dense for even the experts to attempt to condense into one book).

(7) APEX NEWS. Apex Book Company today announced the acquisition of a new novella by Jason Sanford entitled “We Who Hunt Alexanders”.

In this fast-paced story, a neurodivergent monster named Amelia confronts both her mother’s expectations for her life and a gothic city where religious extremists threaten everyone who disagrees with them.

(8) WHILE ONE WAS BANNED, ANOTHER WAS CELEBRATED. Ersatz Culture made a wry comment on X.com:

(9) M. J. ENGH (1933-2024). Author M. J. Engh, a SFWA Author Emeritus, died July 11. The SFWA Blog paid tribute: “In Memoriam: M. J. Engh”.

M. J. Engh (26 January 1933 – 11 July 2024), also writing as Jane Beauclerk and Mary Jane Engh, was a librarian, scholar, teacher, editor and writer. She wrote short fiction, non-fiction, and speculative novels, including 1976’s Arslan, later released as A Wind from Bukhara. Engh was honored by SFWA in 2009 with the title of Author Emeritus.

Engh wrote four speculative fiction books, from 1976’s Arslan to 1993’s Rainbow Man. Arslan achieved its success as a primarily underground work, one that dealt directly with the methods of dictators and warlords, including the use of morality and charisma. Engh believed sci-fi writers had a responsibility not to make violence and destruction less horrific, and used the reactions to her novel to note the disconnect of those same readers when dealing with equivalent real-world harm. She also wrote to all-ages audiences, in particular with her work The House in the Snow, illustrated by Leslie W. Bowman. She believed in speaking plainly to children, who she found able to deal with reality and better able to process new ideas than adults….

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

August 21, 1967 – Carrie-Anne Moss, 57. Tonight we are looking at Carrie-Anne Moss who most of you will first of think as Trinity in the Matrix franchise, but she has had a much longer genre and genre-adjacent career. 

Let’s start with her first role with on Dark Justice, one of the series that made up Crime After Prime Time on CBS. Yes, that was how it was graphically presented in the promos which were brilliantly bright and noisy. The show was about a judge, well two judges in the end, that when a case against them became a vigilante at night. 

She was Tara McDonald, an assistant to the first Judge, Judge Nicholas Marshall. He was played by Ramy Zada, a Spaniard, as the series was shot in Spain before the Olympics forced it to be moved to Los Angeles for its two final years.

Next up for her was Liz Teel in Matrix. No, not that Matrix. This one had Nick Mancuso as Steven Matrix, a hitman who is killed during a job and sent to a version of Purgatory called The City In-Between. She owned a gym with him, and she, no surprise, is interested in being lovers with him. Scriptwriters are so predictable.

Next up is, I think genre adjacent at least, which her role in the F/X: The Series based on the F/X film. She was Lucinda ”Luce” Scott, a struggling actress brought in by the crew to act as a body double or ringer whenever one was needed. The series came off as another version of Leverage.

We’ve now reached that Matrix where she played Trinity, a human freed by Morpheus, a crewmember of the Nebuchadnezzar, and later would be Neo’s lover. It would become a true franchise with four live films and an animated anthology with her in all of them. 

What else was she involved in? Well, a role that upset the fanboys to no end was her role on Jessica Jones as Jeri Hogarth as in the Marvel Universe, gasp, that is a male role. She also played the character in the Daredevil, Defenders and Iron Fist series. 

A series I didn’t know existed was Humans about AIs in human form. It was based on the Swedish Real Humans series. She was Athena Morrow, an AI researcher based in San Francisco who has been invited to reverse engineer the consciousness program. 

Finally, well at least for me, she was Master Indara on The Acolyte. I am most decidedly not going to discuss anything about her story here. The series — which was cancelled after a short first season — sounds fascinating. 

(11) COMICS SECTION.

(12) ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS. [Item by Steven French.] Not quite all the news as the Guardian reporter only watched the live streamed two-hour opener: “Pushing Buttons: Indiana Jones, Civilisation VII, that Dune MMO and all the other news from Gamescom”.

Today is the opening day of Gamescom, the Cologne expo that is now the biggest event in the video game calendar. This year, I am not among the 300,000-odd crowd descending on Germany, but I did watch the two-hour livestreamed opening-night broadcast yesterday – so you don’t have to. Here is all of the most interesting news, arranged by theme because I am deeply bored of writing straightforward lists of games and trailers.

News that will annoy Xbox fanboys the most
There was a new trailer for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Bethesda and MachineGames’s new first-person adventure, in which longtime video game actor Troy Baker seems charmingly thrilled to be playing Indiana Jones. It’ll be out on Xbox and PC on 9 December – but it was also announced that it will be coming to PlayStation 5 in spring 2025. Earlier this year, Xbox boss Phil Spencer went to great lengths to reassure Xbox fans that Indiana Jones would not be a multiplatform game, so I’m interested to see how this goes down….

(13) DOOM SCROLLING. Fandomwire stirred the masses to outrage with the claim: “’He would have been better than RDJ’: Upsetting Marvel Rumor Claims Marvel Went With Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom to Play it Safe Instead of Another MCU Star Who Was Born for the Role”.

…One actor amongst them is so iconic that he replaced Johnny Depp in the Fantastic Beasts franchise during the infamous defamation trial. We are talking about Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen.

Known for portraying the role of a young Hannibal Lecter in the TV show Hannibal and Gellert Grindelwald in the Fantastic Beasts franchise, Mikkelsen is truly a fascinating villainous actor. As per a report, the actor was in talks with Marvel Studios for the role of Doctor Doom.

However, Marvel Studios allegedly decided to play it safe and hired (or rather re-hired) Downey Jr. for “New mask. Same task”. Sure enough, people were happy to see Downey Jr. return….

(14) FOR THOSE OF YOU SCORING AT HOME. “For the first time ever, an MCU character seems to be crossing over directly to the Marvel Comics timeline” reports GamesRadar+.

Kahhori, the new Marvel hero who debuted in the MCU’s What If…? animated streaming series as one of the first MCU characters with no direct ties to comics, is now coming to the core Marvel Universe in her own comic as part of the Marvel’s Voices line. And it seems that, in what may be a first, the version of Kahhori who will make her debut in comics later this year is not an alternate version of Kahhori created specifically for comics or a Variant of some kind – it’s apparently the exact same character from the MCU.

At least, that’s how Marvel’s official press release for the Kahhori: Reshaper of Worlds one-shot makes it sound. Here’s Marvel’s official description, which by all indications seems to say that Kahhori will be making the jump straight from the MCU to comics, while leaving just enough ambiguity to make the passage slightly less than definitive:

“The Mohawk warrior Kahhori fell into Sky World and into our hearts from her first appearance fighting invaders to her home. She’s already helped save all of reality from a demented Doctor Strange and secured peace in her own world… So what NOW? Award-winning storyteller Ryan Little launches Kahhori into the 616! Chasing a threat out of Sky World, she lands in the fiery streets of Hell’s Kitchen! But culture shock’s gonna be the least of her problems as her strange adversary tears through NYC. Featuring exciting guest stars and the comics debuts of some extraordinary creators, Marvel’s Voices brings you an extra-special anthology celebrating Indigenous heritage and one of the most exciting characters to emerge from the MCU!”

(15) TIM CURRY IS BACK. Variety reports: “Tim Curry New Movie: ‘Stream’ Is Actor’s Return to the Big Screen”.

Almost 50 years after “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” debuted, Tim Curry is gearing up for another spooky role.

The veteran actor will return to the big screen as a character in the horror film “Stream,” which is opening Wednesday in select theaters. It will be his first feature film role since the 2010 comedy “Burke & Hare,” even though he has worked on many animated projects as a voice actor since then. He also appeared in the 2016 television film remake of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” on Fox.

Beyond his “Rocky Horror” role of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, Curry earned his genre bonafides with his performance as Pennywise in the TV miniseries “It,” as well as roles in films like “Legend,” “Clue” and “Scary Movie 2.”…

(16) ICONIC. Bloody Disgusting encourages fans to watch the 9-second Alien: Earth teaser trailer:  “Watch the Short Teaser for FX Series ‘Alien: Earth’ That Debuted in Theaters Over the Weekend”.

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

Apex Announces Novella Imprint Violet Lichen Books

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Apex Book Company has announced the launch of a new imprint, Violet Lichen Books, to be headed by Editor-in-Chief Marissa van Uden.

Violet Lichen Books will publish novella-length horror and dark fiction, focusing on New Weird, Weird, folk horror, eco-horror, and eco-science-fiction. It fully embraces the strange and uncanny, and its books aim to leave readers feeling a little changed and disquieted, as if they have just emerged from under a strange spell. Violet Lichen Books is especially interested in works by marginalized and under-represented authors.

Apex Book Company has distribution via Diamond Books Distributors. It has published award-winning titles such as Plague Birds by Jason Sanford (Nebula Award Finalist for Best Novel and Philip K Dick Award Winner), Danged Black Thing by Eugen Bacon (Philip K Dick Award finalist 2023), and other iconic titles such as Rosewater by Tade Thompson, theThe Apex Book of World SF series, and cult hit Greener Pastures by Michael Wehunt.

Violet Lichen Editor-in-Chief Marissa van Uden is a New Zealander and nature-lover who now lives in a cabin in the woods of Vermont. She is a professional manuscript editor with more than fifteen years experience, a staff interviewer at Apex Magazine, and an anthologist (Apex Magazine’s Strange Microfiction series and The Off-Season: An Anthology of Coastal New Weird – forthcoming). Her fiction has appeared in Vastarian, Dark Matter Magazine, Zero Dark Thirty, and Los Suelos.

She loves atmospheric and thought-provoking fiction that intertwines a fascination of the natural world with horror and dread, and that explores how individuals interconnect with their communities, other species, and whole ecosystems. Her goal is to work with authors who have a strong attachment to the themes, people, or places they’re writing about, and who sling their dark tales straight from the heart.

[Based on a press release.]

Pixel Scroll 2/26/24 I’ve Been Yeeted, Been Mistreated, When Will I Be Faunched

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(1) UNCLE HUGO’S WILL CELEBRATE 50TH ANNIVERSARY. Don Blyly’s How’s Business newsletter invites everyone to mark your calendar — Uncle Hugo’s turns 50 this weekend.

Don Blyly readies the new Uncle Hugo’s for business. Photo (c) by Paul Weimer.

Uncle Hugo’s opened for business on March 2, 1974, which makes this coming Saturday our 50th anniversary.  Uncle Hugo’s 50th Anniversary Sale is Friday, March 1, 2024 through Sunday, March 10, 2024, with an extra 10% off everything at Uncle Hugo’s/Uncle Edgar’s. If you have an Uncle Hugo’s discount card, you get 20% off everything. With a $200.00 purchase, we’ll throw in a free 50th anniversary mug (while supply lasts). The sale only applies to in-store purchases, not to mail orders.

But there continue to be a few bumps on the road to that celebration. Blyly says this happened to him recently:

A customer that I had never done business with before ordered a $30.00 book through AbeBooks, and I sent it off to him.  About a week later he sent me an e-mail saying that the book had a small ding on the top edge of the page block that was not mentioned in the description, and he enclosed a photo of the ding.  He wanted me to refund part of the price for the ding or else he would return the book for a refund.  I checked on what other people were charging for the same book and saw that even with the ding he was getting a good price, but I agreed to refund him $5.00 for the ding.    He wrote back that I would have to refund at least $15 or he would return the book.  I told him to return the book.  The next day he started the AbeBooks process for returning the book.  But the day after that he told AbeBooks that he had never received the book and that they should refund his full purchase price without having to return the book he had never received–the book that he had already sent me a photo of to try to get me to cut the price in half.

The original Uncle Hugo’s and Uncle Edgar’s
The new location – 2022.

(2) SPIRIT AWARDS. Two items of genre interest were winners of 2024 Independent Spirit Awards. (The complete list is at the link.)

BEST BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE IN A NEW SCRIPTED SERIES

  • Keivonn Montreal Woodard, The Last of Us

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE IN A NEW SCRIPTED SERIES

  • Nick Offerman, The Last of Us

Deadline reported quotes from the actor’s acceptance remarks — “Nick Offerman Slams ‘Homophobic Hate’ Aimed At His Episode Of ‘The Last Of Us’ In Indie Spirit Awards Speech”.

At Sunday’s Independent Spirit Awards, actor Nick Offerman addressed “homophobic hate” aimed over the past year at “Long, Long Time,” the stand-alone episode of HBO‘s post-apocalyptic drama The Last of Us that he starred in with Murray Bartlett and that earned Offerman a win today for Best Supporting Performance in a New Scripted Series.

“Thank you so much, Film Independent. I’m astonished to be in this category, which is bananas,” Offerman began while onstage to accept the prize. “Thanks to HBO for having the guts to participate in this storytelling tradition that is truly independent. Stories with guts that when homophobic hate comes my way and says, ‘Why did you have to make it a gay story?’ We say, ‘Because you ask questions like that.’”

Added an impassioned Offerman: “It’s not a gay story, it’s a love story, you a**hole.”…

(3) BEST CANADIAN. R. Graeme Cameron reviews Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction, Volume One at Amazing Stories. After discussing a great many of the works individually, he gives this overall endorsement:

… I must say editor Stephen Kotowych has excellent taste and judgement. What I reviewed is a real powerhouse of quality fiction sparkling with originality, brilliant perception and sophisticated subtlety; the kind of reading session which leaves me feeling inspired and excited.

I frankly assume the rest of the works in this anthology are just as good….

…In my opinion this volume of The Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science fiction belongs on every Canadian reader’s bookshelf. The second volume is underway. I’d like to see it become an annual tradition. As many readers of my reviews are aware, there is a lot of excellent genre fiction being written in Canada. May this series become the definitive annual sample. If all are good as this one, I can see them becoming textbooks for high schools and universities. Makes sense to me. You owe it to yourself to purchase it for your bookshelf.

(4) DIGITAL LOSS COMPENSATION. The Verge opines that “Funimation’s solution for wiping out digital libraries could be good, if it works”.

The president of Crunchyroll, Rahul Purini, announced that the company is working to compensate customers who will lose their digital libraries in the upcoming Funimation / Crunchyroll merger on April 2nd. 

“[We] are working really hard directly with each [customer] to ensure that they have an appropriate value for what they got in the digital copy initially,” Purini tells Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel during this week’s Decoder podcast. “As people reach out to us through customer service, we are responding and handling each of those requests as they prefer.”

When asked what “appropriate value” meant, Purini said, “So it could be that they get access to a digital copy on any of the existing other services where they might be able to access it. It could be a discount access to our subscription service so they can get access to the same shows through our subscription service.”

These options haven’t been formally announced or detailed, and Purini went on to say that it was something Crunchyroll customers are currently taking advantage of. My attempts to secure the “appropriate value” for some digital copies have, so far, been unsuccessful….

(5) YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK. Deadline reports “’Star Wars’ Pic ‘The Mandalorian & Grogu’ Lands California’s Largest Tax Credit Ever”.

The Star Wars franchise is coming to shoot a film entirely in California for the first time with The Mandalorian & Grogu movie, and the Golden State is paying out its weight in tax incentive gold to have the bounty hunter saga made within state lines.

To be specific, that is a total tonnage of $21,755,000 in conditional tax credits for the Jon Favreau directed film. With a new Fantastic Four, Gladiator 2 and a new season of The Last of Us on his dance card, it is unclear right now if SAG Award winner Pedro Pascal will be resuming his role of Din Djarin and teaming back up with the charming Baby Yoda for the Mandalorian movie.

What is known is that $21,755,000 in tax credits is one of the biggest allocations in the California Film Commission run program’s history.

Put another way, Mandalorian & Grogu won’t be getting the $22.4 million that Transformers spinoff Bumblebee scored back in 2017, but it tops the more than $20.8 million that Captain Marvel was awarded seven years ago, and the $20.2 million that Quentin Tarantino’s supposed last film #10 received last September.

Estimated to be hiring 500 crew members, 54 cast members, and 3500 background players for 92 filming days in California this year, The Mandalorian & Grogu is expected to generate a record-breaking $166,438,000 in qualified expenditures and below-the-line wages….

(6) A FAIRY TALE TAKEOFF. Atlas Obscura Experiences’ “Transforming Fairy Tales With Anca Szilágyi” is a four-session course that starts March 4. Details at the link.

This class invites beginners and experienced writers alike to use concepts from fairy tales as a launch pad for new writing. Drawing from Max Lüthi’s The Fairy Tale as Art Form and Portrait of Man, we’ll play with archetypes and motifs (and explore how motifs play with us), consider how far a fairy tale can be stretched into something new while still retaining some glimmer of recognition, and contemplate how the trope of the tiny flaw can serve as a source of tension in a story. We’ll look at work by authors such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Cunningham, Sofia Satmar [sic, Samatar], and more. In our final class, students will exchange drafts for peer and instructor feedback in a supportive environment.

While this class is designed for folks of all experience levels who are interested in fairy tale writing, it can also serve as an appropriate complementary course for students who have previously taken courses with Anca.

(7) APEX ANNOUNCES LH MOORE COLLECTION. Apex Book Company has acquired first North America English rights to LH Moore’s short story collection Breath of Life.

Breath of Life is a collection of the works of author and poet LH Moore, whose history- and Afrofuturism-inspired speculative short fiction, poetry, and essays move between and blur the genres from horror to science fiction to fantasy. With themes of family and identity, rooted solidly in history and imagining the unknown—both here on Earth and beyond—Breath of Life is an exploration of the unexpected.

Writer, poet and historian LH Moore’s Afrofuturism- and history-inspired speculative fiction and poetry have been in numerous publications and anthologies, such as all three groundbreaking Dark Dreams anthologies of Black horror writers; Bram Stoker Award Finalist anthology Sycorax’s Daughters; Black Magic Women; Chiral Mad 4 and 5, SLAY, Conjuring Worlds, StokerCon 2019, Humans Are the Problem anthologies; and Fireside, Apex, and FIYAH magazines.

(8) HANDHELD WILL CLOSE. Fantasy Hive announces the coming demise of “Handheld Press (2017-2024)”.

Handheld Press will be publishing their last books in July 2024, and cease trading in June 2025. Handheld Press was founded by Kate Macdonald in 2017, specifically with the aim of bringing brilliant but overlooked works by women writers back into print. With their striking cover art and gorgeous design, Handheld Press titles were immediately recognizable on sight. And the reader could rest assured that the contents would match the packaging – Handheld had a knack for choosing exciting and surprising novels and collections and matching them with introductory essays by experts and comprehensive notes on the text….

…One only had to look at the sections of descriptors on Handheld’s website to get a firm idea of their priorities – Women’s Lives, LGBT+ and Disability rub shoulders with Fantasy and Science Fiction, Crime/Thriller and Biography. Macdonald’s mission, which she has pursued with vigour and enthusiasm over the past eight years, has been to recover lost voices from the past, perspectives that are in danger of being forgotten by the largely white, straight and male traditional writers of literary history…. 

(9) BRITISH BOARD OF FILM CLASSIFICATION RULES ON DISNEY CLASSIC. “’Mary Poppins’ Age Rating Raised In UK Over ‘Discriminatory Language’” – Deadline has the story.

Mary Poppins has been deemed potentially unsuitable for children.

That’s the verdict of the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), which last week increased the age rating on the Julie Andrews classic because it contains “discriminatory language.”…

…It did not specify the language in question, but the Daily Mail newspaper reported that the warning refers to the movie’s use of the word Hottentots.

Now regarded as racially insensitive, the word was used by Europeans to refer to the Khoekhoe, a group of nomadic herders in South Africa.

Reginald Owen’s Admiral Boom utters the slur twice in Mary Poppins, including using it to describe chimney sweeps, whose faces are blackened with soot.

The BBFC has been contacted for comment. It told the Mail that a lack of condemnation for the admiral’s language was considered to be a reason for raising the age limit.

The organization said: “We understand from our racism and discrimination research… that a key concern for… parents is the potential to expose children to discriminatory language or behaviour which they may find distressing or repeat without realising the potential offence.”

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born February 26, 1918 — Theodore Sturgeon. (Died 1985.) This is not a comprehensive look at Theodore Sturgeon. This is my look at what I truly like.

It is an understatement to say he was a prolific writer. There would be eleven novels, more than one hundred and twenty short stories, and those scripts for Star Trek. And he wrote some four hundred reviews. Keep in mind that he that he only lived to be sixty-seven years old.

Theodore Sturgeon. Photo by Carol DePriest.

I think I’ll start with his Trek scripts as even before I knew that he was the scriptwriter for them, I liked those episodes, “Amok Time” and “Shore Leave”, the latter which is easily in my top ten episodes of this series. I’m not sure how much of his script survived the rewriting first by Coon and then obsessively by Roddenberry. Is his original script published anywhere?

Theresa Peschel notes that he wrote that the screenplay for Studio One’s 1952 adaptation of They Came to Baghdad, a novel that Agatha Christie had written the previous year. She notes “Yet it’s not listed anywhere, including on the semi-comprehensive website devoted to him whose name I can’t remember.”

Now let’s consider his Ellery Queen mystery which was The Player on The Other Side. I’ve read it and it’s quite excellent. It was written from a forty-two page outline by Frederic Dannay, half along with Manfred Bennington of the original Ellery Queen writing alias. I didn’t know if this was the standard practice for these ghostwritten novels but it certainly would make sense if it was so. 

It is said that his “Yesterday Was Monday” story was the inspiration for the rebooted Twilight Zone’s “A Matter of Minutes” episode but given that Harlan Ellison and Rockne O’Bannon wrote the script I doubt much of his original story made it to the screen.  My opinion of course only. 

A second, “A Saucer of Loneliness”, was broadcast in 1986 and was dedicated to his memory. This was directly off a story by him, which first appeared in Galaxy Science Fiction in the February 1953 issue.

The Dreaming Jewels which was nominated for a Retro Hugo at The Millennium Philcon for best novella is uneven but worth reading novel none-the-less. I think More Than Human is a much better with more interesting character and a story that actually makes sense all that way through. And other novels I like, well that it’s. I have read others but those are the only ones I liked. 

I’ve read more than enough of his short fiction to say that he’s a wonderful writer at it. Noel Sturgeon and Paul Williams have published The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, all thirteen volumes.

So tell what you like from his fiction.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

(12) NEW HINTS ABOUT DISNEYLAND EXPANSION. “DisneylandForward – New Details on $2.5 Billion Disneyland Expansion Master Plan” at Mickey Visit.

…Disneyland hopes to make land changes:

  • Establish a new parking structure off the East Side Harbor Blvd entrance to the theme parks
  • Build a new entertainment/shopping facility on the current site of the Toy Story Parking Lot across the street from the Anaheim Convention Center a block down Harbor Blvd – the plans also list this as the potential for theme park use
  • Expand Downtown Disney, Disneyland, and Disney California Adventure into the current grounds of the Paradise Pier Hotel, Disneyland Hotel, and surrounding parking lots – this is the area that would be the most newsworthy and change the offerings of the resort!

On January 23, 2024 Disney announced a new set of details around the proposed investment that would be aligned with the DisneylandForward zoning approvals. While discussing the proposed investment Disney again teased the recently opened World of Frozen and Zootopia lands as potential inspirations for expansion at Disneyland. They also mentioned potential expansions based on Marvel’s Black Panther, Coco, Tangled, Peter Pan, Toy Story, and Tron according to the OC Register.

As part of the new investment proposal, Disney will invest a minimum of $1.9 billion in the resort over the next ten years. The amount could reach $2.5 billion and beyond. If the investment does not reach $2.5 billion within 10 years Disney pays an additional $5 million in street and transportation improvements. 

(13) IT COULD HAVE BEEN SMOOTH. [Item by Steven French.] One for the hovertrain enthusiasts: “Forgotten Grumman TLRV – Pueblo, Colorado” at Atlas Obscura.

IN DOWNTOWN PUEBLO, COLORADO, TWO futuristic hovertrains sit idly next the road, looking absurdly out of place next to any cars that happen to drive by, like a forgotten piece of rail travel’s ambitious past.

One is a Grumman Tracked Levitation Research Vehicle (TLRV), an air-cushion transportation prototype that was built to reach speeds of up to 300 miles per hour. The hovertrain was intended to glide along the track without wheels on what was essentially a cushion of compressed air, which was squeezed through tubes along the train’s body then pushed downward. It was meant to be a revolutionary form of rail travel….

(14) KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER? “A college is removing its vending machines after a student discovered they were using facial-recognition technology” says Business Insider. The article includes statements from the companies that own and service these machines denying that they collect the information, or that the information violates GDPR regulations. Take your pick.

A university in Canada is expected to remove a series of vending machines from campus after a student discovered an indication they used facial-recognition technology.

The smart vending machines at the University of Waterloo first gained attention this month when the Reddit user SquidKid47 shared a photo. The photo purportedly showed an M&M-brand vending machine with an error code reading, “Invenda.Vending. FacialRecognition.App.exe — Application error.”

The post drew speculation from some users and caught the attention of a University of Waterloo student whom the tech-news website Ars Technica identified as River Stanley, a writer for the local student publication MathNews. Stanley investigated the smart vending machines, discovering that they’re provided by Adaria Vending Services and manufactured by Invenda Group. The Canadian publication CTV News reported that Mars, the owner of M&M’s, owned the vending machines.

(15) I’LL BE DAMMED. Nothing to do with sff, still, quite interesting: “I Knew Something Big Was Happening: A Guest Post from Leila Philip” at B&N Reads.

…I discovered beavers by accident. I was heading back from a walk through the woods with my dog, Coda, when I heard a loud bang. I literally jumped, thinking a gun had gone off, then I looked out and saw that the dry marshy area I was walking by was now brimming silver – curiously it was filled with water!  Then came another bang and I saw a small brown head moving fast. A beaver had built a dam there and was swimming back and forth, slamming her tail to try to scare us away.  I was transfixed. Over the next few weeks, I watched the shallow woodland valley become a pond. Soon I was seeing and hearing the rustling and movements of so many birds and animals. Mornings, the whole area rang with a complexity of bird song I’d never heard before. I knew something big was happening I just didn’t know yet what it was. Thinking back now I would describe my encounter with the beaver that day as a moment of awe, an experience when I was shifted out of my self and connected to something much larger that I hadn’t been in touch with just moments before. That was the book’s start….

(16) GOOD NEWS FROM THE MOON. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] The chances were slim and none. Slim was the winning bet! Is this the real SLIM Shady?

The Japanese Moon lander that fell over on touchdown last month (as opposed to the American Moon lander that fell over on touchdown this month) is back online. JAXA was very pessimistic about SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) surviving the super cold Lunar night. However, it did, and the solar cells have provided enough juice to charge the battery and reestablish communication.

Which is not to say SLIM is 100% OK. In fact, the heat of the sun has so far made it inadvisable to restart any of the scientific instruments. Things are expected to cool off in a few days as the sun angle lowers, hopefully allowing more observations to be made before night once again falls. “Japan Moon lander survives lunar night” at the BBC.

Japan’s Moon lander has survived the harsh lunar night, the sunless and freezing equivalent to two Earth weeks.

“Last night, a command was sent to #SLIM and a response received,” national space agency Jaxa said on X.

The craft was put into sleep mode after an awkward landing in January left its solar panels facing the wrong way and unable to generate power.

A change in sunlight direction later allowed it to send pictures back but it shut down again as lunar night fell.

Jaxa said at the time that Slim (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) was not designed for the harsh lunar nights.

(17) POTTERO SOUTHERNALIUS FIO. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] You might have to be Southern to get some of the references, or at least to know why they’re so funny. “If Harry Potter Was Southern” with Matt Mitchell.

(18) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Ryan George takes us inside the “Madame Web Pitch Meeting” Beware spoilers.

[Thanks to Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Don Blyly, Kathy Sullivan, 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 Andrew (not Werdna).]

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

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(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. 

(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.

(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.]