25 Pixels To The Left, Filers To The Right, I’m Stuck In The Middle With This Scroll

Posted on January 26, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(1) WHAT’S ‘BEST’ THIS YEAR. Siobhan Maria Carroll reviews the 2024 editon of Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy in “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and the End of Earnestness” at Los Angeles Review of Books.

NOW IN ITS 10TH year, the annual Best American Science Fiction and Fantasyanthology provides an excellent overview of short genre fiction published in the United States. Each year, series editor John Joseph Adams selects 80 short stories from SF magazines and literary journals for blind review by a guest editor, who chooses their favorites from among them. This process maintains a high level of quality and consistency, while also allowing the guest editor to make a distinctive mark on each collection.

Hugh Howey, the 2024 guest editor, rose to fame after his self-published dystopian story“Wool” (2011) became an online sensation, leading to his stories’ distribution by Simon & Schuster and their adaptation into the Apple TV+ series Silo (2023– ). As might be expected for an author with a good eye for the market, Howey’s choices for the 2024 collection steer more toward the crowd-pleasing than those of my favorite series entry—the 2019 volume edited by Carmen Maria Machado. The result, however, is an impressive array of stories that will likely appeal both to casual readers and would-be writers….

… The high-water mark of the new millennium’s Age of Earnestness (the supposed successor to the 1990s Age of Irony) was directly tied to the rise of Twitter, as well as to a reading culture where attempts at nuanced expression could swiftly fall victim to dogpiles and hot takes. At least 12 of the 20 stories included in this volume (several of them from writers outspoken on social justice issues) were published in online magazines in 2023 in the wake of Twitter’s post-Musk exodus. Writing this review in the aftermath of the American election, I cannot help but perceive these stories as anticipatory responses to a changed technological and social culture. They are less overt in their depiction of “good” politics than previous entries in the Best American series, more interested in the psychology of “bad” and morally ambiguous characters, and more interested in depicting characters whose ability to change oppressive systems is limited or nonexistent….

(2) JOHN BARROWMAN NOW CLAIMS VICTIMHOOD STATUS. “’It was crap’: John Barrowman still refuses to take accountability for his actions” according to The Mary Sue.

Another day, another man fails to see how his sexually inappropriate behavior is wrong. This time around the man is John Barrowman, who up until a few years ago was one of Doctor Who’s most beloved stars. He played Captain Jack Harkness, one of the first pansexual characters on British TV, and was one-half of the show’s very first same-sex kiss. Fans adored him for his charm and charisma. That’s no longer the case.

Barrowman’s downfall was the result of another sexual misconduct allegation. In 2021, Noel Clarke, who played Mickey Smith on the show, was accused of sexual harassment by multiple women. Any chance of his ever returning to Doctor Who went up in smoke, as did his career. During this media storm, journalists uncovered some old footage of Clarke at a 2015 convention discussing Barrowman’s dubious behavior. He spoke about how Barrowman was allegedly constantly “taking his d*** out” on set and once even rested it on co-star Camille Coduri’s shoulder when they were in a makeup truck (she confirmed that she remembered this incident in the video but offered no further context). Seemingly, this had been tolerated for a while—but it wasn’t about to be tolerated any longer.

It turned out that Barrowman had been called out for his behavior in the past, but had seemingly learned nothing. In 2008, he admitted to exposing himself during a BBC Radio 1 show and apologized for it, saying he “went too far.” This apology was seemingly at the forefront of his mind when he made another apology in the wake of the 2021 allegations.

“With the benefit of hindsight, I understand that upset may have been caused by my exuberant behavior and I have apologized for this previously,” he said in a statement. “Since my apology in November 2008, my understanding and behavior have also changed.”

But apparently, this actually resulted in Barrowman learning nothing. Instead of changing and growing, he’s simply bitter that he lost his Doctor Who gig and a large portion of his entertainment career. He said as much to Wales Online recently. “I think I’ve been badly treated, definitely,” he complained. “I’m disgusted at the way my Doctor Who and Torchwood family turned their backs on me—99% of the things that were said about me were bulls***.”

Barrowman claimed that “no one was offended, no one was upset,” by his actions—but clearly, this isn’t true if he was delivering apologies. “It was crap,” he went on. “I ended up being good clickbait and it has lasted for three years. It’s been devastating—to the point I was blackballed. I can’t get into a room for an audition or a meeting anymore.”…

(3) DROPPING GENRE NAMES. Shelf Awareness brings us “Reading with… Carter Wilson”:

Book you’re an evangelist for:

William Goldman’s The Princess Bride. This might have been the only book I had to read in high school English that I fell in love with. The sheer creativity of Goldman is astonishing.

Book you’ve bought for the cover:

Well, it’s much more common I don’t buy a book because of the cover. But I will say I was persuaded by the gorgeousness of Anne Rice’s complete Vampire Chronicles. Gorgeous wrought-iron detailing all over the cover of that one

Book that changed your life:

The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Not sure any book has truly changed my life, but The Road is a book that forces you to read every single word. I can’t think of any other author whose use of language is as compelling as McCarthy’s.

Favorite line from a book:

“Don’t Panic.” –Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy…

(4) WHERE CASTLE? If any Filefolk happen to be in the Paris area this summer: “Rare manuscript from middle ages that inspired Disney castle to go on display for first time in 40 years” in the Guardian. Despite the headline, the article never says what Disney castle they’re talking about. I guess you’re just supposed to know. However, the castle at the original Disneyland took its cues from Bavaria’s Neuschwanstein Castle.

… Pages from Les Très Riches Heures (The Very Rich Hours) – an elaborately decorated prayer book from the 15th century – will be exhibited at the Château de Chantilly, north of Paris, after a costly restoration. It has not been seen, even by historians and academics, since the 1980s….

…He said the exhibition would also feature books from the duke of Berry’s collection on display for the first time since the 15th century. Berry, known as John the Magnificent, whose motto was “Le Temps venra” (the time will come), was one of medieval France’s greatest patrons of the arts and collected illuminated manuscripts.

Deldicque said the restoration of Les Très Riches Heures would be completed after the exhibition closes and the manuscript returns to the museum’s archive.

“It is too fragile and at risk of damage from light to be on permanent display,” he said. “That’s why this exhibition will be unique. Everyone knows about this book – but nobody has seen it.”…

(5) ON THE HORROR TRAIL. [Item by Steven French.] For the travelling horror fan, Atlas Obscura has compiled a list of fourteen must-see places to visit: “14 Haunting Places in Literature”.

There’s nothing quite like a horror story. The supernatural and macabre have haunted our imaginations for centuries—and inspired writers for centuries to create works that can terrify us.

We’ve compiled a list of our favorite places across the world that have appeared in horror literature, from Bram Stoker’s Dracula to places that inspired Edgar Allan Poe before his death. Take a spine-tingling tour of these horror-inspiring locations—if you dare….

Here’s one of their bizarre destinations.

“The Raven that Inspired Dickens and Poe”

Perched on a log in the Rare Books department of the Free Library of Philadelphia stands a strange piece of history. Dead since 1841, but preserved with arsenic, and frozen inside a shadow box, this bird’s legacy is longer than most people’s. The raven’s name is Grip. Grip the Clever, Grip the Wicked, Grip the Knowing.

Once Charles Dickens’ pet raven, upon its death Dickens had it professionally taxidermied and mounted. Grip even makes an appearance in Barnaby Rudge, one of Dickens’ lesser-known stories.

The book was reviewed for Graham’s Magazine by its literary critic at the time, Edgar Allan Poe. Poe wrote that “[the raven’s] croaking might have been prophetically heard in the course of the drama.” It wasn’t long after this that Poe published his breakout work “The Raven.” The coincidence didn’t escape notice, and Poe was taunted with the refrain “Here comes Poe with his Raven, like Barnaby Rudge, / Three fifths of him genius, two fifths sheer fudge.”

Despite this, “The Raven” was a smashing success and Poe enjoyed performing readings at fancy salon parties. He would turn down all the lights and recite the poem with great drama. Everyone referred to him as “the Raven,” but it would only be four years after publishing “The Raven” and gaining worldwide fame that Poe would be found delirious on the streets of Baltimore, dying shortly thereafter….

(6) CHRISTOPHER BENJAMIN (1934-2025). Actor Christopher Benjamin died January 10 at the age of 90. The portion of his career of interest to sff fans is noted by the Guardian’s obituary:

With a portly but athletic physicality, a rich baritone voice, a bloodhound, drooping visage and a sarcastic sense of humour, Christopher Benjamin, who has died aged 90, was a backbone actor on television, but mostly stage, for many years.

He had a sort of internet afterlife when his role as Henry Gordon Jago in the BBC TV 1977 Doctor Who saga The Talons of Weng-Chiang was reprised in an audio supernatural mystery series from 2010 to 2021.

Benjamin was on TV and radio from 1965, appearing in Z Cars, The Avengers, The Saint, Jason King and, notably as the same character, Potter, in Danger Man and its more surreal, sci-fi spin-off, The Prisoner, both starring Patrick McGoohan. …

(7) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

January 26, 1994 — Babylon 5 series premieres

Thirty-one years ago on PTEN, the Prime Time Entertainment Network, a syndicated network organized by Warner Brothers, the Babylon 5 series premiered. It was created by writer and producer J. Michael Straczynski. It followed Babylon 5: The Gathering (1993), the pilot film which aired a year earlier. It would run for five twenty-two episode seasons as planned plus six related films.

It generated a spin-off series, Crusade, but that only lasted thirteen episodes. Two other series were planned, The Legend of the Rangers and The Lost Tales, but neither got past the pilot.

Its cast was marked by tragedy with a number of the principal actors dying young including Mira Furlan, Richard Biggs, Jeff Conaway, Jerry Doyle, Andreas Katsulas and Michael O’Hare.

It won two Hugo Awards for “The Coming of Shadows” at L.A. Con III and “Severed Dreams” at LoneStarCon II.

Babylon 5 in the revised print is streaming currently on Prime. I’m going to rewatch it this Winter as I’ve not seen it in at least a decade.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

January 26, 1918 — Philip José Farmer. (Died 2009.)

By Paul Weimer: Philip José Farmer first came to my attention as a name mentioned in the famous “Appendix N” of the original Advanced Dungeon Master’s Guide. Like the rest of the entries in that bibliography, it just listed his name, and a book title (“World of Tiers, et al”) and that was it.

Not long thereafter, though, I came across issue 37 of Dragon Magazine, which was an in-house organ for TSR that mostly focused on D&D and (early on) other TSR games as well. Anyway, in issue 37, Ed Greenwood wrote an article called “From the City of Brass to Dead Orc Pass in one small step. The theory and use of Gates.” As someone who was already clued into my love of multiverse stuff, this was a formative article for me.

In that article, Greenwood mentions The World of Tiers as “The magnum opus of gate systems”. He mentioned a number of other authors (particularly Moorcock and Cherryh) but I had remembered the mention of Farmer in the AD&D book and now really wanted to find The World of Tiers books, and now had the titles of each and every one.

And so I read them and was immediately absorbed into the story of Robert Wolff, who is not the suburban homeowner he really thinks he is, but someone far older, more powerful and more dangerous. I also saw that Kickaha, the trickster who sets off Wolff on his adventure, was in fact, an even more interesting character with a complicated story (and very possibly an author insert character).

From Tiers, I soon discovered the Riverworld novels, and got hooked on the idea of historical characters being pitted against each other after waking up on the titular planet, and much else besides. It’s one of the most interesting settings ever created in SFF. I remember back in the day, daydreaming what I would do if I woke up on the Riverworld. (The copy I had stressed and made it clear that everyone who ever lived “including you” was going to wake up on the planet.) I also weirdly associate the Billy Joel song “River of Dreams” with Riverworld as well.

I recall a shared world of novels that he created the setting for, the “Dungeon”. Farmer didn’t write any of the novels himself, but instead created the setting for a series of writers to play in. Like Tiers, it was a world involving Gates and strange planes, but as you might guess from the title, this was really a “prison plane” that the main character, Clive, is trying to penetrate to find his missing brother. What I particularly remember is that the novels with different authors took very big “Swings” back and forth, with authors in subsequent books retconning major events in previous books. I got the sense that the authors did not like the ideas of their counterparts all that much. It does make the series not satisfactory overall, and I can’t imagine ever trying to reread it, but it was memorable for its imagery and imagination.

Farmer is the second author, after Heinlein, that I read who tried to synthesize a lot of his characters and settings into as much of a single coherent whole as possible, particularly with his Wold Newton works.

My favorite Farmer besides all of the goodness of Tiers and Riverworld might be The Gate of Time, eventually renamed Two Hawks from Earth. It featured a Native American pilot flying over Romanian airfields during WWII who gets blasted into an alternate history where the migrations of the Native Americans into North America didn’t happen, and they instead rolled westward into Europe, drastically changing the development of Europe instead. I loved how our protagonist tries and figure out what he is dealing with, a culture very different than anything he remembers, and gets caught up in intrigue and adventure. And really, that is what Farmer’s works have always done for me — entertaining action adventures that keep the pages turning.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

Arctic Circle tells what sound effects really mean.
Carpe Diem shows the moment before caffeine.
Foxtrot gets carried away with a theme.
Free Range provides arrivals with greeters.
Ink Pen opts for the easy disguise.
Off the Mark sleeps in comfort.
Thatababy plays a shell game. How many do you know?

(10) WET WORK. “Monster Devastated To See Film Depicting Things He Told Guillermo Del Toro In Confidence” – read all about it in The Onion.

Saying he felt humiliated by such a public betrayal of his trust, a monstrous abomination known as the Bog Freak told reporters Friday that he was devastated to have seen a movie depicting things he told filmmaker Guillermo del Toro in confidence….

(11) RESEARCHERS STICK WITH IT. Futurism reports “Scientist Testing Spider-Man-Style Web Shooters He Accidentally Made in Lab”.

Tufts University biotech researcher Marco Lo Presti made an astonishing discovery while investigating how silk and dopamine allow mussels to stick to rocky surfaces.

“While using acetone to clean the glassware of this silk and dopamine substance,” he told Wired, “I noticed it was undergoing a transition into a solid format, into a web-looking material, into something that looked like a fiber.”

Lo Presti and his colleagues immediately got to work, investigating whether the sticky fibers could be turned into a “remote adhesive.”

The result is an astonishingly “Spider Man”-like silk that can be shot not unlike the superhero’s wrist-mounted web shooters, as detailed in a paper published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials last year.

While it won’t allow an adult person to swing from skyscraper to skyscraper any time soon, the results speak for themselves. Footage of the team’s experiments shows strands of the material being dripped onto a number of objects from several inches above, forming a solid connection in a matter of seconds and allowing the object to be carried away.

The researcher’s collaborator, Tufts engineering professor Fiorenzo Omenetto, recalled being caught off guard by the accidental discovery….

(12) LONG NUMBERS TAKE DEEP POCKETS. In “New Prime Number, 41 Million Digits Long, Breaks Math Records”, Scientific American tells how the search operates. Oh, and that this particular search cost maybe $2 million to do.

…Last fall a new entry came from Luke Durant, a researcher in San Jose, Calif. Durant’s discovery unseated the former record holder for the largest prime, which had gone uncontested for nearly six years, an unprecedentedly long reign in the modern search for such numbers. The gap makes sense: the bigger primes are, the further apart they end up, making each new find harder than the last.

The new prime contains a mind-boggling 41,024,320 digits. To put that in perspective, the estimated number of atoms in the observable universe has around 80 digits. Each additional digit increases a number by 10 times, so the size of the new prime lives far beyond human intelligibility. Primes play a major role in pure math, where they’re main characters in a field called number theory, and in practice, where, for example, they underlie widely used encryption algorithms. A prime with 41 million digits won’t immediately join the ranks of useful numbers, but for now it adds a feather in the cap of a community that longs to apprehend the colossal….

… When asked how much money his project cost in an interview with Numberphile on YouTube, Durant said, “I believe it’s under $2 million.” That’s a hefty investment compared with the prime-search project’s prize of $3,000, which he plans to donate to the high school he attended, the Alabama School of Mathematics and Science….

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, 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 Cat Eldridge.]

Pixel Scroll 1/4/25 Why Are All Pixels Tailless? It Makes It Easier To Walk Through Walls

Posted on January 4, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(0) STATUS REPORT. A few people who follow File 770 through the RSS feed have asked why it’s broken. That’s a side-effect of having Cloudflare set to “Under Attack”, a step made necessary last week when the site was overwhelmed by bot calls on the server. We’ve gone through this before and at some point it always abates. It hasn’t yet.

Meantime, John King Tarpinian has suggested the following as superior to the current test for whether a File 770 user is human.

(1) SCIENCE GUY GETS PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL. Bill Nye the Science Guy was among the people honored today with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Deadline has the story: “Joe Biden To Award Medal Of Freedom: Bono, Denzel Washington, Michael J. Fox And George Stevens Jr. Among Showbiz Recipients”. KIRO’s article focuses on Nye: “Bill Nye among 19 recipients of Presidential Medal of Freedom”.

…Nye gained prominence through his TV show and appearances on the sketch comedy show Almost Live! He holds a mechanical engineering degree from Cornell University and has contributed to scientific advancements, including work on the Mars Rover.

Beyond television, Nye has dedicated himself to science advocacy. He serves as CEO of the Planetary Society and champions space exploration, environmental stewardship, and science literacy. He has also authored several books to further inspire and educate audiences….

(2) CHRISTMAS U CHALLENGE FINALS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Last night was the last in the Christmas (alumni) University Challenge. The finals saw SF author Richard Morgan’s Queens’ College Cambridge team face Durham University. It was real tight: both teams had just one scientist and three artists – one artist had graduated in political science (an oxymoronic subject if ever there was). Morgan got off to a great start getting the first starter for 10 question answering with ‘Thomas Payne’. Durham led for the first quarter, then Queens’, but Durham slowly caught up to finally win 125 against Queens’ 120.

In this year’s Christmas University Challenge there was just one SF writer among all of the teams’ members and it was his team that made it through to the finals. Now, I am not saying that this relationship was causal, for if I were then I’d be in The Twilight Zone.

If you are not familiar with Richard Morgan’s work, we have a few reviews over at SF² Concatenation, including: Altered Carbon (which was adapted into a television mini-series), Black Man, Broken Angels Market Forces The Steel Remains and Woken Furies. You can see the Christmas University Challenge finals edition on Youtube: “University Challenge Christmas 2024 – E10 Final”.

(3) A.K.A. ELVIS. If you already happen to be a Robert Crais fan and a reader of his Elvis Cole and Joe Pike novels, like I am, you will enjoy this long memoir about the writer and his series at CrimeReads: “Robert Crais: A Crime Reader’s Guide to the Classics”. (The article doesn’t mention that he is a Clarion graduate, or that in every book he writes one paragraph in the style of Harlan Ellison. Sometimes I even spot it.)

… Then, in 1985, his father died. When Crais went back to Louisiana to help sort things out, he discovered that, after forty-five years of marriage, his mother “had never written a check, paid a bill, used a credit card.” Crais had to teach her how to do all that, “and I was mad, angry, confused. I thought I would write about it, so I could understand it.”

He started a book about a woman who comes to a private detective, desperate to find her missing husband, a man who had always taken care of every detail of her life, and now she was completely unable to cope. Crais modeled the detective a bit after himself, with his own worldview and sense of humor (and taste in shirts), and over the course of the book and its many revelations, the detective helps guide the woman, named Ellen Lang, into a true sense of herself, until, by the end of the book, she can look at the detective, Elvis Cole, and say, “I can do this. I can pull us together….I won’t back up. Not ever.” She’s even the one who shoots the main villain with Cole’s .38, holding the gun just the way Cole’s friend, Joe Pike, showed her.

He named the book The Monkey’s Raincoat, after a Japanese haiku, an agent sent it out, and…it was rejected by nine publishers, before Bantam bought it as a paperback original. It went on to win Anthony and Macavity awards, get nominated for an Edgar, and eventually end up on the list of the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century by the Independent Mystery Book Sellers Association….

(4) UNBEARABLE OVERSIGHT. The BBC reports “Paddington In Peru snubbed by Bafta for new family film award”.

The latest Paddington movie will not be nominated for a new Bafta award for children’s and family films after being left off the category’s longlist.

Paddington in Peru was the top-earning British film of 2024 at the UK box office and was expected to be a frontrunner for the new award, which is intended to “celebrate the very best films appealing to inter-generational audiences”.

However, it has been overlooked by Bafta jury members for best children’s and family film.

Paddington does have a chance of a nomination in another category, though, after being included on the longlist for best British film….

(5) PUBLIC DOMAIN 2025. What has been unbound this year from the shackles of copyright? The Public Domain celebrates the most notable items in its roundup “Happy Public Domain Day 2025!”

…Due to differing copyright laws around the world, there is no one single public domain, but there are three main types of copyright term for historical works which cover most cases. For these three systems, newly entering the public domain today are:

works by people who died in 1954, for countries with a copyright term of “life plus 70 years” (relevant in UK, most of the EU, and South America);
works by people who died in 1974, for countries with a term of “life plus 50 years” (relevant to most of Africa and Asia);
films and books (incl. artworks featured) published in 1929 (relevant solely to the United States).

(6) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

January 4, 1998 — Babylon 5: In the Beginning

By Paul Weimer:

Babylon 5: In the Beginning

Where it all began, chronologically, although it came out after the 4th season.

The story of Babylon 5: In the Beginning is one that had been told through the first four seasons–the Earth Minbari War and the revelation of who and what Commander Sinclair was…or will be. We’d seen scenes of this (and its framing story set in the future) here and there in the first four seasons, and would see more in the fifth season.

The plot? With a framing story set decades ahead of the actual main line of Babylon 5 during the reign of Londo, In the Beginning takes us from the tragic first contact between the Humans and Minbari (with Arthurian overtones to the whole affair), through the actual conduct of the war, all the way to the “Battle of the Line” and the siege of Earth. Here of course we have one of the pivotal moments in the entire fictional history of the Babylon 5 verse — the capture of pilot Commander Sinclair, and how it ended the war…and started a new era of peace. Or hoped for peace. (It did, of course, rock the very foundations of Minbari society). The story of In the Beginning is…how the Babylon Project came to be. Or, to be clear, In the Beginning tells the story of how we got the setup for the events of the entire series.

You can see the improvements in CGI between the first season and this movie, especially in the spacecraft. While all of that in general has not aged that well, there is a striking improvement over those several years.

In general, the movie has the strengths and weaknesses of the series, and especially the movies of the series, but shows a lot more polish than, say, In the Beginning. Great themes, some excellent dialogue, sometimes some rather stilted scenes. If you have seen Babylon 5 the series, you know what you are in for.

This movie does try and play “bingo” with plot points and revelations, which can make it feel a little soulless at times. And although the non framing bits takes place earlier than the rest of the series, it is not the place to start the series. (Heck, to be sure, I don’t even think The Gathering, the ostensible Pilot, is where you should start Babylon 5).

But back to In the Beginning, the other advantage to the movie is that if you have missed some of the clues in the course of the series, this is where we get the foundations of the Human-Minbari relationship. Which, if you think about it…is one of the major loglines of the entire series. (Or maybe even intended to have been the main logline).

(7) COMICS SECTION.

Bizarro illustrates the problem of owning a hammer.
Rhymes with Orange considers writers’ DNA.
The Non-Adventures of Wonderella has returned from cryogenic sleep.
Tom Gauld knows how to gift wrap a book.

How to gift wrap a book… my cartoon for this week’s @theguardian.com books.
— Tom Gauld (@tomgauld.bsky.social) 2024-12-21T11:13:17.562Z

Tom Gauld compares New Year’s resolutions.

Happy New Year! (my cartoon for @newscientist.bsky.social)
— Tom Gauld (@tomgauld.bsky.social) 2025-01-01T10:04:17.610Z

And if you haven’t made any resolutions, he’s here to help.

My new year’s resolution generator for @theguardian.com. Let me know what you get!
— Tom Gauld (@tomgauld.bsky.social) 2025-01-04T10:00:24.452Z

(8) DESIGNING WOMAN. Bruce Sterling admires Laura Kampf’s repurposing of tech and other debris in “Some Public Limits of Everyday Weirdness (2025)”.

…Laura Kampf scavenges, but she’s never simple or thrifty about it. Laura Kampf is a technically advanced European-Union woman who is sometimes sponsored by tool companies. She rescues her materials from a planetary avalanche of first-world industrial debris — there’s nothing much for her to be “thrifty” or “simple” about, because that native junk of late-capitalism arrives in landslides. Sometimes the objects she repurposes are already quite weird when they arrive at her doorstep. Leftover German electronic-espionage cabinets have been a particular Laura Kampf favorite — NATO spyware, transformed into her tool-chests.

Laura Kampf will treat this objet-trouvee junk material with a tender designer’s concern. She will clean it, round and bevel its corners, remove all its splinters, and likely repaint it. This debris will be re-imagined and rebuilt with many dainty, user-friendly touchpoints. Then it’s no longer mere junk, because it becomes laurakampfian. Often her creations look quite 1960s European design-modernist. They look rather Achille Castiglioni, back when the Milanese design maestro was repurposing old tractor seats….

(9) A MAN’S HOME IS HIS CASTLE. I suppose after you’ve been a TV star for 30 years you really should be rich enough for this: “The Simpsons May Actually Be Living in A ‘Palace,’ According to Viral Diagram of Their Home” at Cracked.com.

…Last week, Redditor RocketShipUFO1106 headed to The Simpsons subreddit with a comprehensive, illustrated floor plan of the iconic light-pink abode. Upon first glance, the interior of 742 Evergreen Terrace looks like, well, just that. Boasting several in-show staples — living-room fireplace, two-car garage, iconic orange couch — it’s decked out in all its late ‘80s glory, ready for whatever wacky hijinks Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa or Maggie bring into its four walls.

But as several fans noted, seeing its size and amenities all laid out in yet another form of 2D raised several questions about the iconic cartoon property — namely, how the hell could Homer and Marge afford such a high-end home on a nuclear plant operator’s salary?…

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

Pixel Scroll 5/12/24 With A Sprinkle Of Pixel Dust, You Can File Like A Bird

Posted on May 12, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) COMPLAINTS AS FANIMECON DROPS MASKING REQUIREMENT AT LAST MINUTE. [Item by Janice Gelb.] FanimeCon in San Jose made the following announcement on May 12, 12 days before the con starts, and is refusing to provide refunds to people who now don’t feel they can attend safely (not to mention travel arrangement costs and the hotel’s cancellation policy now requires them to pay for one night). “FanimeCon | Masking Policy Change”.

FanimeCon is changing our masking policy from ‘required’ to ‘strongly recommended’ due to feedback from our attendees, staff, and local health partners. Some events may require mandatory masking due space issues and bigger crowds.

The complete policy is here: “FanimeCon COVID-19 Vaccination Policy”.

(2) LIADEN UNIVERSE® IS MARCHING ON. Sharon Lee was happy with Joshua Tyler’s article “The Best Sci-Fi Read You’ve Missed Is Filled With Spies, Romance, And Massive Space Battles Stretched Over 27 Books” at GiantFreakinRobot except for one thing, which she blogged about today: “From the mail bag” at Sharon Lee, Writer.

Despite being largely positive, Mr. Tyler’s piece contains a sentence which has . . . horrified, concerned, and angered some Liaden readers and fans, and thus I find letters in my mailbox. This blog post is a blanket reply to those letters, and statements of concern.

Mr. Tyler states: “Sadly, Liaden co-author Steve Miller died suddenly on February 20, 2024. He was 73. It’s unclear if Sharon will continue writing the series without him. As a fan of the series, I hope not.” (bolding is mine)

Now, whether this is opinion or corrigendum, I can’t tell you. I am not the author of the piece. In general, it’s wise to assume that what the author wrote is what the author meant, and Mr. Tyler is, as we all are, entitled to his opinion.

What I can say is this: There are three Liaden Universe® novels now under contract with Baen Books. I am currently lead on one of those, the sequel to Ribbon Dance. In addition, before Steve’s death and the attendant dis- and re-organizations engendered by that cataclysm, I was making notes for the sequel to the sequel. Steve was lead on Trade Lanes, which had become increasingly difficult for him as his heart slowly failed him. I may or may not be able, eventually, to finish Trade Lanes. If not, another Liaden book will fill the third slot.

So, for the moment, Mr. Tyler must reside in disappointment. Sharon will be continuing the series, but, not, as he supposes, “without” Steve….

(3) TREK’S OWN STORAGE WAR. “Court is the final frontier for this lost ‘Star Trek’ model” reports the LA Times. Junot Diaz posted the text of the Times’ paywalled story on Facebook. It says in part:

In April, Heritage Auctions heralded the discovery of the original model of the U.S.S. Enterprise, the iconic starship that whooshed through the stars in the opening credits of the 1960s TV series “Star Trek” but had mysteriously disappeared around 45 years ago.

The auction house, known for its dazzling sales of movie and television props and memorabilia, announced that it was returning the 33-inch model to Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry Jr., son of series creator Gene Roddenberry. The model was kept at Heritage’s Beverly Hills office for “safekeeping,” the house proclaimed in a statement, shortly after an individual discovered it and brought it to Heritage for authentication.

“After a long journey, she’s home,” Roddenberry’s son posted on X, (formerly Twitter).

But the journey has been far from smooth. The starship model and its celebrated return is now the subject of a lawsuit alleging fraud, negligence and deceptive trade practice, highlighting the enduring value of memorabilia from the iconic sci-fi TV series.

The case was brought by Dustin Riach and Jason Rivas, longtime friends and self-described storage unit entrepreneurs who discovered the model among a stash of items they bought “sight unseen” from a lien sale at a storage locker in Van Nuys last October.

“It’s an unfortunate misunderstanding. We have a seller on one side and a buyer on the other side and Heritage is in the middle, and we are aligning the parties on both sides to get the transaction complete,” said Armen Vartian, an attorney representing the Dallas-based auction house, adding that the allegations against his client were “unfounded.”

The pair claimed that once the model was authenticated and given a value of $800,000, they agreed to consign it to an auction sale with Heritage planned for July 2024, according to the lawsuit. However, following their agreement, they allege the auction house falsely questioned their title to the model and then convinced them, instead of taking it to auction, to sell it for a low-ball $500,000 to Roddenberry Entertainment Inc. According to the suit, Eugene Roddenberry, the company’s CEO, had shown great interest in the model and could potentially provide a pipeline of memorabilia to the auction house in the future.

“They think we have a disagreement with Roddenberry,” said Dale Washington, Riach and Rivas’ attorney. “We don’t. We think they violated property law in the discharge of their fiduciary duties.”

The two men allege they have yet to receive the $500,000 payment.

For years, Riach and Rivas have made a living buying repossessed storage lockers and selling the contents online, at auction and at flea markets. In fact, Riach has appeared on the reality TV series “Storage Wars.”

“It’s a roll of dice in the dark,” Riach said of his profession bidding on storage lockers. “Sometimes you are buying a picture of a unit. When a unit goes to lien, what you see is what you get and the rest is a surprise. At a live auction you can shine a flashlight, smell and look inside to get a gauge. But online is a gamble, it’s only as good as the photo.”

Last fall, Riach said he saw a picture of a large locker in an online sale. It was 10 feet by 30 feet, and “I saw boxes hiding in the back, it was dirty, dusty, there were cobwebs and what looked like a bunch of broken furniture,” he said.

Something about it, he said, “looked interesting,” and he called Rivas and told him they should bid on it. Riach declined to say how much they paid.

There were tins of old photographs and negatives of nitrate film reels from the 1800s and 1900s. When Rivas unwrapped a trash bag that was sitting on top of furniture, he pulled out a model of a spaceship. The business card of its maker, Richard C. Datin, was affixed to the bottom of the base.

A Google search turned up that Datin had made “Star Trek” models, although the two men didn’t make the connection to the TV series.

“We buy lots of units and see models all of the time,” Riach said. He thought they would find a buyer and decided to list it on eBay with a starting price of $1,000….

(4) BALLARD’S MACHINED POETRY. The Conversation says “Novelist J.G. Ballard was experimenting with computer-generated poetry 50 years before ChatGPT was invented”.

…Listening recently to the audiobook version of Ballard’s autobiography Miracles of Life, one very short passage seemed to speak directly to these contemporary debates about generative artificial intelligence and the perceived power of so-called large language models that create content in response to prompts. Ballard, who was born in 1930 and died in 2009, reflected on how, during the very early 1970s, when he was prose editor at Ambit (a literary quarterly magazine that published from 1959 until April 2023) he became interested in computers that could write:

“I wanted more science in Ambit, since science was reshaping the world, and less poetry. After meeting Dr Christopher Evans, a psychologist who worked at the National Physical Laboratories, I asked him to contribute to Ambit. We published a remarkable series of computer generated poems which Martin said were as good as the real thing. I went further, they were the real thing.”

Ballard said nothing else about these poems in the book, nor does he reflect on how they were received at the time. Searching through Ambit back-issues issues from the 1970s I managed to locate four items that appeared to be in the series to which Ballard referred. They were all seemingly produced by computers and published between 1972 and 1977….

(5) BLEEPS WITHOUT END. Scott Lynch has a pretty clear idea about how Harlan would respond to Lincoln Michel’s question.

(6) IN A GALAXY OF SFF, ONE CONSTELLATION IS BLINKING OUT. The Verge argues that “Apple TV Plus is turning into the best place for streaming sci-fi”. The article discusses a large number of series. But one of them isn’t going to be around for long.

…More recently, the service has edged toward a darker tone. First there was the debut of Constellation earlier this year, which starred Noomi Rapace as an astronaut who returned to an Earth that’s very different than the one she left. And now we have Dark Matter based on the novel by Blake Crouch, which premieres on May 8th. It’s a multiversal story about a physicist played by Joel Edgerton who gets kidnapped by a parallel version of himself. So far, I’ve watched the first two episodes, and it manages to merge the tone of a tense thriller with the mind-bending nature of time travel, creating the kind of story that intentionally makes you feel unmoored. Also, there are some very large and impressive cubes…

Two days ago Deadline reported “’Constellation’ Canceled By Apple After One Season”.

Apple TV+ has opted not to continue with a second season of Constellation, its sci-fi psychological thriller series starring Noomi Rapace and Jonathan Banks. The news comes a month and a half after Constellation‘s eight-episode first season wrapped its quiet run on the streamer March 27.

Created and written by Peter Harness, Constellation stars Rapace as Jo – an astronaut who returns to Earth after a disaster in space – only to discover that key pieces of her life seem to be missing. The action-packed space adventure is an exploration of the dark edges of human psychology, and one woman’s desperate quest to expose the truth about the hidden history of space travel and recover all that she has lost.

… Sci-fi is a core genre for Apple TV+ whose roster of series also includes For All Mankind, recently renewed for a fifth season alongside a pickup for a spinoff series, Star City, as well as Foundation, Severance, Invasion and Silo — all slated to return with new seasons.

Apple’s latest entry in the genre, Dark Matter, premiered this week, with Neuromancer, starring Callum Turner, and Murderbot, headlined by Alexander Skarsgard, coming up. The streamer also had an surprise entrant into the space with the mystery drama Sugar, which took an unexpected sci-fi turn last week.

(7) LEIGH EDMONDS’ AUSTRALIAN FANHISTORY. From Bruce Richard Gillespie on Facebook I learned that Norstrilia Press has published Leigh Edmonds’ fanhistory Proud and Lonely: A History of Science Fiction Fandom in Australia. Part One: 1930 – 1961

Proud and Lonely is a new history of science fiction and its fans in Australia, telling the story of its arrival in Australia in the 1920s, and the start here of a sub-culture of fans of the genre.

Historian Dr Leigh Edmonds shows how science fiction was seen as a low form of literature and didn’t get public acceptance until at least the 1970s.

Because of the frequent ridicule, fans of the genre kept quiet about their interest in public. But in private they sought out other fans, locally and overseas. They corresponded, started clubs and published amateur magazines about the genre.

They created a fascinating sub-culture that was a microcosmos of Australian life from the 1930s to the 1960s.

Norstrilia Press in its first incarnation had its major focus on science fiction, and Leigh’s history makes a significant contribution to the study of the field. It will also be of value to people interested in cultural and literary studies.

Proud and Lonely is the first of a two-part history exploring how science fiction fandom developed in Australia, from its beginnings in the 1930s to the first World Science Fiction Convention held in Australia, in 1975.

Part one deals with the early period up to 1961, when government regulations prevented most science fiction from being imported into Australia, and the seeds were sown of a gathering energy that would raise Australia’s profile in the global science fiction community.

Available from bookshops and online.

(8) FROM BROOKLYN TO ROHAN. [Item by Dann.] Mike Burke found himself in the theater department auditioning for a part in Newsies: the Musical. One of the songs from that production – “Brooklyn’s Here” — seemed to match the narrative of the riders of Rohan arriving at the Pelennor Fields. And a little filking ensued. “Rohan’s Here!” at Storytelling Skunkworks.

…We are Riders (of Rohan!)

The beacons are lit and Gondor is hurtin’

Facing total disaster for certain

That’s our cue lads, it’s time to come runnin’

Hey Minas Tirith, the calvalry’s comin’!…

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born May 12, 1950 — Bruce Boxleitner, 74. Let’s look at our Birthday celebrant, Bruce Boxleitner, first for the interesting work he did before that series.

One of my very favorite characters that he played was the top-level unnamed Agency operative Lee Stetson on the Scarecrow and Mrs. King which starred him and Kate Jackson as divorced housewife Amanda King and top-level Agency operative Lee Stetson as they began their unusual partnership and eventual romance after encountering one another in a train station. It ran for four seasons.

Remember Kenny Rogers’ song “The Gambler”? Well, it would afterwards become a series of Gambler movies. Boxleitner played Billy Montanain in three of five films being the sidekick to Roger’s Brady Hawkes character. He was the comic relief in those films apparently. I’ve not seen them.

Bruce Boxleitner at Phoenix Comicon in 2011. Photo by Gage Skidmore.

He’s been on Outer Limits in “Decompression” as Senator Wyndom Brody in a twisty time travel episode that’d make Heinlein proud. Enough said of that story. He had a recurring role as another politician on the first Supergirl series as President Phillip Baker, a vain, egotistical man. He even played the President of the Planetary Union President on The Orville.

Then there’s Tron where he has the dual roles of Alan Bradley, a programmer at ENCOM Boxleitner and Tron, a security program developed by Bradley to self-monitor communications between the MCP and the real world. It’s an amazing dual for him. He’d reprise, in voice, so I supposed in spirit as well, that role in the animated Tron: Uprising series, and then in I think finally in the animated Tron: Legacy film.

So that brings us to Babylon 5 commander, Captain John Sheridan. What an amazing role it was for. Lis Carey says of him, “John Sheridan was raised in a diplomat’s family, and enlisted in the military–leading to him becoming a war hero, the only officer to win a battle against the Minbari. When he became the second commander of Babylon 5, he was not well received by the Minbari. Relations obviously improved, while the Earth Alliance was being transformed into a military dictatorship, which Sheridan opposed. In the last season, after confronting the Earth Alliance decisively, he became President of the new Interstellar Alliance, and subsequently married the Minbari ambassador, Delenn.”

Ok, it was a great role and if you haven’t seen it, go see it that’s all I have to say so. I’m ending this now. Have a good night.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

Brewster Rockit predicts a common future lament.
Loose Parts hears a kaiju’s plea for civic improvements.
Candorville involves a dream.
Crabgrass depicts the favorite memory of many a reader.
Reality Check is a call out to rock fans.

(11) COUNT HIM IN. [Item by Steven French.] Guardian television reviewer Joel Golby becomes one of us: “Doctor Who: even the haters will find it impossible to resist Ncuti Gatwa”.

The injection of Disney cash has definitely helped – the new series looks utterly, hugely epic, but without sliding into the “CGI on top of another layer of CGI” thing that could ruin a still pleasingly British-feeling series like this – and the casting of the two new leads is inspired. If it first came out now, a show like Doctor Who – an infinite number of universes and possible monsters and possible problems and possible ancient villains – would be easy to mess up, push it so it’s too sci-fi, forget to ever come back down to Earth, have Gatwa trapped in a studio for a few months acting opposite a tennis ball. But you’ve got 60 years of lore and an army of fans guarding it and ready to email you if you mess with it too much, and I honestly think that probably helps keep Doctor Who honest. I’ll see you for the Christmas special this year. I think I’ve been converted.

(12) THE PRICE IS A HORROR, TOO. The dramatically-staged Montegrappa Universal Monsters Fountain Pen – Frankenstein edition can be yours for a mere $9,175.

Vintage Hollywood staging and mechanical mayhem are the base ingredients for an homage to a horror icon. Montegrappa’s own strain of mad science brings Frankenstein’s creation back to life, with props and special effects that revisit the magic of a 1931 cinema classic. Energy pulses through its XXL, all-brass body, with ingenious complications to re-animate the senses – bringing fun to high function.

(13) AGED IN THE CROCK, ER, CASK. Nothing to do with sff, except for all the fans who like to drink this sort of thing. And for you, we present Tasting Table’s interview, “Pappy Van Winkle’s Grandson Tells Us 10 Things You May Not Know About Old Rip Van Winkle”.

… Additionally, Van Winkle III noted the 15-year bourbon makes a great cocktail. Now, we know that for some of you, mixing any Old Rip Van Winkle whiskey into a cocktail may sound like blasphemy. But Van Winkle III believes you shouldn’t be worried about mixing high-quality alcohol into a drink. Either way, because the 15-year hits that sweet spot of flavor between younger and older whiskey expressions, Van Winkle III thinks it’s “a fun one to have.”…

I laughed because it reminds me that when LASFS’ Len Moffatt hosted a party he warned the guys that violence would ensue if he found any of us making mixed drinks with his Cutty Sark.

(14) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Ryan George invites us to step inside the Pitch Meeting that led to Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver.

[Thanks to Steven French, Teddy Harvia, Kathy Sullivan, John J. Arkansawyer, Daniel Dern, Gary Farber, Janice Gelb, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, and SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kevin Harkness.]

Pixel Scroll 4/4/24 This Is The Scroll That Doesn’t End, It Just Goes On And On, My Fen

Posted on April 4, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) MORE TAFF COVERAGE. The Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund results came out yesterday. For Sarah Gulde’s victory statement, the regional voting breakdown, a list of voters and other news, see the official newsletter Taffluorescence! #3.

(2) GODZILLA SHOULDN’T TAKE ON THIS BAMBI. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Another venison, um, version of a childhood tale lies ruined. Though, to be fair, this one was pretty bloody already.

Also, whatever marketing guru came up with the label “Poohniverse“ probably deserves a bonus. Either that, or to be sucked through a dark magical portal into that dimension theirself and be made a victim. “Bambi Goes on a Rampage in First Teaser for Poohniverse Movie ‘Bambi: The Reckoning’” in The Hollywood Reporter.

Oh dear. The Poohniverse is expanding. Umbrella Entertainment has released the first teaser for the next installment of their B-movie horror franchise centered on horrifying versions of beloved children’s characters.

In the teaser for Bambi: The Reckoning, two hunters are seen practicing shooting in the woods with a dead bird tied to a tree. “You ever shot a deer?” one hunter asks the other. “No. Have you?” the second hunter replies. “Yeah, once,” the first hunter says. The teaser seems to imply that this hunter is the same one who killed Bambi’s mother….

… The film series will also include Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare and Pinocchio Unstrung. The “Twisted Childhood Universe” concept comes from ITN Studios and Jagged Edge Productions with Umbrella Entertainment. Other characters expected to join the franchise include Sleeping Beauty, The Mad Hatter, and more characters from Winnie the Pooh.

(3) SCARING FOR DOLLARS. According to the Guardian, “Horror novel sales boomed during year of real-world anxieties”.

Horror fiction is having a moment, according to data showing 2023 was a record-breaking year for book sales in the genre.

Between 2022 and 2023, sales of horror and ghost stories rose by 54% in value to £7.7m – the biggest year for the genre since accurate records began, reported the Bookseller. In the first three months of 2024, sales were 34% higher in value than in the same period last year, according to book sales data company Nielsen BookScan.

Horror writers and publishers suggest that the boom is partly due to the political nature of the genre. “Horror is a genre that tends to ebb and flow with what’s going on in the world at large, holding up a dark funfair mirror to real world horrors,” said Jen Williams, whose novel The Hungry Dark is published next week. “Given we’re in a period of unsettling upheaval – wars, the pandemic, climate change – it’s interesting that horror is moving back into the spotlight and even reaching a larger audience.”….

(4) TOMORROW PRIZE READINGS. The Tomorrow Prize & The Green Feather Award: Celebrity Readings & Honors ceremony will take place on Saturday, May 11 from 4:00-6:00 p.m. at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena. To register for this event, please follow the link.

Celebrity Readings & Honors recognizes outstanding new works of science fiction written by Los Angeles County high school students. This amazing event will feature dramatic readings by celebrity guests (to be announced) from some of todays hottest sci-fi and fantasy shows and movies. Following the readings, students will be honored for their writing, as will the educators, librarians, and authors who make this project possible!

(5) LIBRARIANS TARGETED AGAIN. BookRiot reports that proposed “Louisiana HB 777 Would Criminalize Librarians and Libraries Who Join the American Library Association”.

Louisiana continues these efforts in an ongoing move by politicians in the state to damage public libraries with House Bill 777. HB 777 was introduced March 25 by Representative Kellee Dickerson, who helped fund the Louisiana Freedom Caucus. The bill would criminalize library workers and libraries for joining the American Library Association.

The American Library Association (ALA) is the largest and oldest professional organization for library workers in the nation. It was founded in 1876, and this Twitter thread is a fantastic resource on the history and purpose of the organization.

The HB 777 text reads:

“A. No public official or employee shall appropriate, allocate, reimburse, or otherwise or in any way expend public funds to or with the American Library Association or its successor.
“B. No public employee shall request or receive reimbursement or remuneration in any form for continuing education or for attending a conference if the continuing education or conference was sponsored or conducted, in whole or in part, by the American Library Association or its successor.
“C. Whoever violates this Section shall be fined not more than one thousand dollars or be imprisoned, with or without hard labor, for not more than two years, or both.”

(6) BUYERS FINALLY LOOKING AT B5. Inverse teased a long interview with J. Michael Straczynski in its post “30 Years Later, the Most Resilient Sci-Fi Show Could Return Once Again”, speculating about the future of Babylon 5. The full interview appears next week.

…The interview also touched on Babylon 5, and when asked if and when the live-action reboot would still happen, Straczynski said this:

“It’s just been a matter of time and obstacles. We were going to go with the CW originally, then Warner got it back. Then, we were going to take it out to the market, but then the Discovery purchase happened and that put us on ice for a while. Then, okay, that got all cleared up. And then the strike hits. After that, right as they were literally prepared to send it out the door, the rumor about a merger between Warner and Paramount happened. So, finally, it went out to buyers about two weeks ago. We’re waiting on word from those who have been sent the pilot script. One has said no, but the rest are all still in process. There’s interest from the rest of them. So, we will see where it goes.”

This means a Babylon 5 reboot could end up almost anywhere. Straczynski couldn’t mention who’d passed on the project, but it seems like the CW won’t be where it happens. But considering the long-running fandom of Babylon 5 — and Straczynski’s reputation as a writer of comic books and TV shows like Sense8 — hopes are high that the little space station that could, will return soon….

(7) WHAT IF IT WAS TRUE? Gershon Hepner blogs about Avram Davidson in “Unprofitable Belief in God and Politicians” at Times of Israel.

…Adolph Abram Davidson—who went by Avram from a young age—was born in Yonkers, New York, in 1923, but he didn’t stay there, flitting from New York to Israel to Mexico, Belize, San Francisco, and Washington State, among other places, during his topsy-turvy life.

Despite his penchant for rabbinic allusions and his bushy black beard, Davidson was no rabbi. In fact, he never received a degree of any sort, though he attended New York University for two years and later took a short story writing class at Yeshiva University (where he was classmates with Chaim Potok). Yet he knew the Talmud well enough and quite a bit about seemingly everything else. He was a scrupulously observant Orthodox Jew for much of his adult life, until he became just as zealous a practitioner of Tenrikyo, a Japanese religion that many of his former coreligionists would have considered idolatry. In short, Davidson’s life story was full of the kind of misdirection and obfuscation his stories routinely spring on their readers….

(8) MARYSE CONDÉ (1934-2024). Internationally respected author Maryse Condé, who in 2018 won the New Academy Prize in Literature (a Nobel alternative), died April 2. Her work includes a novel set during the Salem witch trials, I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem (1986). Literary Hub has a tribute here: “Maryse Condé, international literary giant, has died at 90.”

Maryse Condé, the Guadaloupean novelist, playwright, essayist, and “Grande Dame of World Letters” has died. A Booker Prize and New Academy Prize winning author, Condé was an international sensation, and the author of more than twenty books. She was known for her sly, spirited prose in which she explored food, love, feminism, diaspora, and “the ravages of colonisation.” Take 1986’s I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, for which she won the Littéraire de la Femme.

In that imagined life story of the famous Salem scapegoat, Condé re-conceived the Black Witch as a questing but traumatized self-chronicler, and victim of colonial fear. “What is a witch?” her Tituba asks. “I noticed that when he said the word, it was marked with disapproval. Why should that be? Why? Isn’t the ability to communicate with the invisible world, to keep constant links with the dead, to care for others and heal, a superior gift of nature that inspires respect, admiration, and gratitude?”…

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born April 4, 1959 – Phil Morris, 65. I hadn’t realized that Phil Morris appeared on Trek in his very first role. He was in “Miri” as an uncredited “Boy in a helmet” which was shot when he wasn’t quite seven years old. It’s an adorable piece of video for him with having obviously fake dirt on his face. Yes, I went back and watched it on Paramount +.

His next genre role was another Trek one, though much later, as Trainee Foster on The Search for Spock. (God it’s been a long time since I’ve seen that film.) He’d have three more visits to this multiverse, twice on Deep Space Nine in two roles, Thopok in “Looking for Par’Mach in All the Wrong Places” and Remata’Klan in “Rocks and Shoals”, and lastly on Voyager as Lieutenant John Kelly on “One Small Step”.

But my favorite role for him was in the two-season Australian produced reboot of Mission: Impossible shot during the writers strike that used scripts that had been deemed not worthy of being used the first time. He is Greg Collier here and quite excellent indeed. I don’t recall if I’ve written the series up but I like it a lot and think they did a great job of what I suspect was a limited budget.

So what else should I note? He had a one-off on Babylon 5 in “Severed Dreams” as Bill Trainor; Seven Days sees him being Air Force Colonel Beekman in “The Final Countdown”; he’s Myles Dyson for several episodes on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles; and he voiced the immortal Vandal Savage on the stellar Justice League series.

No, I’ve not forgotten that he played Silas Stone on the Doom Patrol. I watched the first two seasons and thought it was interesting enough that I need to see the rest of it someday.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

Get Fuzzy hears Zarathustra spraching.
Arlo and Janis start a discussion of the Moon needing another name: Arlo and Janis 1; Arlo and Janis 2
Nancy covers plot reveals.
Rhymes with Orange translates keyboards for cats.

(11) THAT TIME THERE WEREN’T ANY TAKERS. Scott Edelman knows why he’s not a millionaire. (Sale details here.)

(12) THE “CLAWS-OVER” OF THE CENTURY. An all-new animal-centric Infinity Comic, Infinity Paws, is launching on the Marvel Unlimited app on Friday, April 5. The 10-issue digital comic is written by Jason Loo with art by Nao Fuji.

Infinity Paws features fan-favorite animals from across the Marvel Universe including Jeff the Land Shark, Carol Danvers’ feline companion Chewie, Alligator Loki, and Lucky the Pizza Dog. In the story, Ronan the Accuser lays siege to New York City and the Avengers with the aid of the Space Gem! But can one land shark and a couple of cats defeat him and save the day?

On the series, writer Jason Loo told Collider.com, “I hope everyone is ready for this fun-filled, action-packed, loads of cuteness series that Nao Fuji and I deliver in this epic Marvel crossover. It’s got most of your favorite friends from the Marvel animal kingdom, as well as tons of surprise guests from across the 616… even Howard the Duck pops in! So, get cozy with your reading device every Friday. And if you live with a furry friend, have them cuddle beside you too!”

(Click below for larger images.)

(13) SUPER OR SUPERFLUOUS? [Item by Daniel Dern.] I believe I’ve identified a RW/IRL (Real World/In Real Life) instance of a supernatural being, of a class slightly below Neil Gaiman’s D-initialed family (Dream, Death, etc), possibly from Marvel’s B-listers (e.g. The Beyonder). This one’s responsible for Why We Don’t Get Stuff Done, and their name is…The Behinder! (How to appease them, I have yet to suss.)

(14) ANIMATION GUILD. “DreamWorks Workers Vote to Join the Animation and Editors Guilds” – The Hollywood Reporter has the latest.

DreamWorks Animation production workers are joining their artist and technician colleagues in being represented by the Animation Guild and their editor colleagues in being represented by the Motion Picture Editors Guild.

In an election with the National Labor Relations Board, 94 production workers who work on television and feature films at the brand voted to join the two IATSE Locals, while 41 voted against unionization. Of the 160 workers who are now unionized with IATSE as a result of the vote, about a dozen will join the Motion Picture Editors Guild (Local 700) because they work in postproduction, while other production staffers whose roles align more with artists, technical directors and writers will join the Animation Guild (Local 839). The tally of ballots took place on March 26….

… Organizers were motivated to unionize by their interest in preserving the workplace culture at DreamWorks Animation, according to Animation Guild organizer Allison Smartt. “Production workers know what’s best for their roles and lives and with the recent announcements of significant company policy changes like increased outsourcing and a disallowal of most remote work for production staff, they felt a sense of urgency,” Smartt wrote in an email….

(15) DARK STAR. “Dark Star at 50: How a micro-budget student film changed sci-fi forever” at BBC.com.

…Set in the year 2250, the film charts the exploits of the titular space vessel as it meanders round the galaxy blowing up “unstable” planets. The hirsute five-man crew has been stuck on the ship for 20 years and are bored out of their minds and fed up with each other. They spend their days bickering and fixing the ship, which is constantly failing them in some way, including with the loss of the ship’s supply of toilet roll. There’s not much in the way of plot. The film has an almost defiantly anti-dramatic quality at times, with its focus on the dreariness of the long space voyage. “O’Bannon believed space travel would be a tedious experience, filled with seemingly endless days of maintenance and reflection,” says Griffiths. [John] Carpenter famously referred to it as “Waiting for Godot in space”….

(16) AGED TO PERFECTION. Well Told offers a line of “Literature Rocks Glass” with an antique-typefaced title on one side, and usually a quote from the book on the back. Here are some examples using genre works. (Click for larger images.)

(17) MEDICAL ADVANCE. “Recipient of world’s first pig kidney transplant discharged from Boston hospital” reports CBS News.

The recipient of the world’s first pig kidney transplant is heading home from Massachusetts General Hospital Wednesday, nearly two weeks after the surgery.

The hospital said Rick Slayman, 62, will continue his recovery at home in Weymouth….

…At the time of the transplant on March 21, Slayman was living with end-stage kidney disease, along with Type 2 diabetes and hypertension. He received a human kidney transplant back in 2018 but it started failing five years later.

Mass General said the transplant was the first time a pig kidney was transplanted into a living human patient. The hospital said the kidney was donated by eGenesis in Cambridge and was genetically edited to remove harmful pig genes. Certain human genes were then added to improve its compatibility….

(18) AI RESURRECTION. The Guardian tells how some “Chinese mourners turn to AI to remember and ‘revive’ loved ones”.

As millions of people across China travel to the graves of their ancestors to pay their respects for the annual tomb-sweeping festival – a traditional day to honour and maintain the graves of the dead – a new way of remembering, and reviving, their beloved relatives is being born.

For as little as 20 yuan (£2.20), Chinese netizens can create a moving digital avatar of their loved one, according to some services advertised online. So this year, to mark tomb-sweeping festival on Thursday, innovative mourners are turning to artificial intelligence to commune with the departed.

At the more sophisticated end of the spectrum, the Taiwanese singer Bao Xiaobai used AI to “resurrect” his 22-year-old daughter, who died in 2022. Despite having only an audio recording of her speaking three sentences of English, Bao reportedly spent more than a year experimenting with AI technology before managing to create a video of his daughter singing happy birthday to her mother, which he published in January.

“People around me think I’ve lost my mind,” Bao said in an interview with Chinese media. But, added: “I want to hear her voice again.”

The interest in digital clones of the departed comes as China’s AI industry continues to expand into human-like avatars. According to one estimate, the market size for “digital humans” was worth 12bn yuan in 2022, and is expected to quadruple by 2025. Part of the reason that China’s tech companies are adept at creating digital humans is because the country’s huge army of livestreamers – who generated an estimated 5tn yuan in sales last year – are increasingly turning to AI to create clones of themselves to push products 24/7….

(19) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Princess Weekes looks at Dune and asks “Why Sci-fi Can’t Fix Its White Savior Problem”.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Sandra Bond, Daniel Dern, N., Scott Edelman, 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 Jayn.]

Pixel Scroll 1/27/24 Qual Piuma Pixel?

Posted on January 27, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) CREEPING. [Item by Anne Marble.] Author J.D. Barker has been called out for sending e-mails to young women book reviewers asking them to make and send risqué videos he could use in promoting his book. He also offered to pay for the videos once he’d “approved” them. There are reaction videos on TikTok and Xitter. Here is one:

this is so creepy ?? pic.twitter.com/mq5dHTPT2N
— g ???????????? (@ALlTTLELlFE) January 25, 2024

You can see screencaps of the message he sent here:

Here’s the full email with rates and video ideas that got sent out to influencers – seems like a pretty significant number of people, mostly booktokers, received it pic.twitter.com/T5quDzfbwD
— kelsey weekman (@kelsaywhat) January 26, 2024

In addition, he didn’t verify anyone’s age before sending out these e-mails which might cause him legal trouble.

Barker’s upcoming book is Behind a Closed Door, an erotic thriller novel, but he is known in sff circles for having co-authored the Dracula prequel Dracul with Dacre Stoker (Bram Stoker’s great-grandnephew).

He posted an apology — but it made eyes roll. The apology blames his publicity firm, but people have pointed out that he co-founded the publicity firm.

https://twitter.com/jdbarker/status/1750958811236491700

He has been dropped by his agent says Publishers Weekly, and it has been reported that he also stepped down from his position on the board of International Thriller Writers. His book is being distributed by Simon & Schuster — but it’s through Hampton Creek Press, which Barker founded. NBC News has more coverage: “Bestselling author faces fallout after BookTok creators call out ‘racy’ promotion request”.

He’s no relation to Clive Barker or R. J. Barker, by the way.

(2) ICONIC SFF ART ACQUIRED BY UC RIVERSIDE. The Dillons’ cover art for The Left Hand of Darkness has been sold to the Eaton Collection: “UC Riverside buys Le Guin sci-fi novel cover art” – Bay Area Reporter has the story.

A renowned science fiction collection at UC Riverside has purchased the original cover art for Ursula Le Guin’s award-winning 1969 novel “The Left Hand of Darkness.” The artwork is joining the state university’s Eaton Collection of Science Fiction & Fantasy and should be on display in the college library’s special collections reading room by the summer…

…”I am absolutely over the moon,” Phoenix Alexander, the Jay Kay and Doris Klein Science Fiction Librarian at UC Riverside, told the Bay Area Reporter about being able to buy the 17 1/4 by 13 inch acrylic painting used for the cover of the debut edition of Le Guin’s novel, which was released in paperback by Ace Books.

As the B.A.R. first reported in December, publisher Ace Books hired award-winning artists and biracial couple Leo and Diane Dillon to create the cover art. Highlighting the novel’s plot centered on a gender-nonconforming and ambisexual race of humanoids, the Dillons featured profiles of the book’s nonbinary protagonists in the left bottom corner looking off into the distance. Surrounding the pair is a blue and white celestial-like scene with what appears to be a brown planet and a spaceship hovering above.

(Leo Dillon, of Trinidadian descent, died in 2012. He was the first African American to win the prestigious Randolph Caldecott Medal for illustrators of children’s books, while the Dillons were the only consecutive winners of the award, having received the honor in 1976 and 1977.)

“Their artwork draws on African folk art, Japanese block printing, and medieval illumination,” noted Alexander, who has been in his position at UC Riverside since August 2022….

(3) SWATTER BUSTED. On Facebook Patrick Tomlinson cheered WIRED’s report: “Police Arrest Teen Said to Be Linked to Hundreds of Swatting Attacks”.

For more than a year, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation has been hunting the person whom experts say is one of the most prolific swatters in American history. Law enforcement now believes they have finally arrested the person responsible.

A 17-year-old from California is allegedly the swatter known as Torswats, according to sources familiar with the investigation. The teenager is currently in custody and awaiting extradition from California to Seminole County, Florida. The Florida State Attorney’s Office tells WIRED that he faces four felony counts.

Seminole County, located in central Florida, had two high-profile swatting incidents within the last 12 months, including one targeting a mosque and another targeting a courthouse. Todd Brown, a spokesperson for Florida’s Office of the State Attorney in the 18th Circuit, confirmed the charges against the teen and his extradition. Brown says he will be prosecuted as an adult under Florida law. WIRED is withholding the 17-year-old’s name because he is a minor….

…According to the Florida State Attorney’s Office, the charges against the California teenager include making false reports concerning the planting of a bomb or the use of firearms, causing a law enforcement response. All charges are described as related to acts of terrorism and showing prejudice based on race, color, ancestry, ethnicity, or religion.

In private Telegram chats witnessed by WIRED over the past year, a person operating the Torswats handle claimed responsibility for hundreds of false reports of bomb threats and active shootings called into schools, politicians’ homes, courthouses, and religious institutions around the US….

…Other messages [private investigator] Dennis shared with WIRED suggest that the FBI has known the identity of Torswats, whose swatting activities were first revealed by Motherboard last April, since at least July 2023, when the agency executed a search warrant and seized Torswats’ devices. The FBI’s Seattle field office, which oversaw the investigation into Torswats, declined WIRED’s request to comment…

…It is unclear whether a single person operated under the Torswats name. On January 20, two days after Dennis, the private investigator, said that Torswats had been arrested, a person using the Torswats’ Telegram handle who had knowledge of previous conversations with WIRED reached out.

“I am pretty sure I’ll never be arrested,” the individual wrote in a direct message on Telegram. “Seems ridiculous that a few bucks a month can allow someone to do crazy shit and never go to jail.”

(4) LETTERS FROM THE PAST. Pulp Librarian reminds readers about a product that wildly expanded choices for desktop publishers. I remember it well. Thread starts here.

Today in pulp I look back at the simple idea that launched a thousand fanzines: Letraset!

Launched in 1959 by Dai Davies and Fred Mackenzie it heralded a graphic design revolution that brought funky fonts to the masses.

Let's take a look… pic.twitter.com/lHeIjZ2O0R
— Pulp Librarian (@PulpLibrarian) January 27, 2024

(5) HOW IT WORKS. Chris Rose invites users of his Glasgow 2024 Hugo nominating software behind the scenes in a post on Mastodon’s The Wandering Shop. I really do like its name: “Nomnom”.

(6) ANNIVERSARY OF BABYLON 5 LAUNCH. In “30 Years Ago, the Most Pivotal Sci-Fi Show of all Time was Almost Killed by a Rival Franchise” Inverse refreshes our memories about the way Babylon 5 and Deep Space 9 were developed.

In the beginning, Babylon 5 was almost murdered by Star Trek. Back in 1987, the same year Star Trek: The Next Generation brought space-based sci-fi back to mainstream TV, writer J. Michael Straczynski took his pitch for a sci-fi “novel for television” to studios and networks.

Today, Straczynski is best known for co-writing the first Thor movie in 2011 and co-creating Sense8 with the Wachowskis. But in 1987, his big credits were writing for Masters of the Universe and being a story editor on The Real Ghostbusters. His pitch for Babylon 5 was a unique and radical departure.

… In the late ’80s and early ’90s, serialized TV didn’t really exist outside of soap operas. But on January 26, 1994, the first episode of Babylon 5 debuted and insisted on a new kind of viewing habit: fans had to catch nearly every episode to understand the story, which was set to last for five years….

… Ultimately, the two shows became very different, but the specter of Star Trek loomed over B5. There is also evidence that Paramount and Warner Bros were considering launching a joint network, which wouldn’t have had room for two space station sci-fi shows….

(7) GHOSTS AND DOLLS. The list of 2024 Family Film & TV Awards winners includes these genre works:

Outstanding Actors in a Feature Film: Margot Robbie (Barbie)
Best Iconic Family Film: Ghostbusters
Best Ensemble Feature Film: Barbie
Best Animated Family Film: Leo

(8) CHENGDU WORLDCON ROUNDUP. [Item by Ersatz Culture.]

Many Hugo and Worldcon posts across multiple Chinese internet platforms are being removed

This is a developing item.

Whilst Chinese coverage of events following the release of the Hugo statistics report has been much spottier than in the west — I’m not aware of any coverage from mainstream media — there have been posts on public platforms such as Weibo, WeChat/Weixin and Zhihu (comparable to Quora/Stack Overflow).

Within the past day, several posts across these various platforms, and posted by various users have disappeared. In some cases, the post is visible to the post’s author, but no other users.

For example, as of 01:15 UTC on Sunday 28th, if you went to the Baidu search engine and entered 雨果奖把别塔 (Hugo Awards / Babel) you would see as the first result a post on Zhihu with an English language cover of R. F. Kuang’s novel. If you clicked on the link however, Zhihu would serve you an error page. However, shortly afterwards, the Baidu result disappeared; this in itself isn’t suspicious, it’s probably due to the search engine realizing the page is no longer any good.

Search results on Baidu for 雨果奖把别塔 (Hugo Awards / Babel)”

Google Search for 雨果奖把别塔 zhihu was still finding the deleted page in the results the last time I checked, but I imagine it will disappear from the results sooner or later.

Search results on Google for 雨果奖把别塔 zhihu (Hugo Awards / Babel zhihu)

Luckily, I’d previously seen this particular post on Friday 26th, and thanks to some self-made browser extensions, I have a copy of the raw text/HTML. Due to that webpage relying on JavaScript, it needed a bit of jiggery pokery to bring that saved content back into a semi-usable form, but you can see the original Chinese text, and the Google Translate rendition of part of it here.

Part of the text put through Google Translate

As I expected, it was a summary of the controversies following the release of the Hugo nominations report. I haven’t read it closely, but I’m pretty certain it’s just a recycling of information that had already been posted by other users on other platforms previously. There’s nothing new to File 770 readers, but it’s the sort of thing that would serve as a useful explainer to people who had not been following the story.

(9) FOR THOSE KEEPING SCORE AT HOME, OR TRYING TO. Charles Stross’ “Worldcon in the news” at Antipope offers an extensive and well-informed discussion of how Worldcons and Hugos work which will be helpful to help those trying to catch up.

…The world science fiction convention coevolved with fan-run volunteer conventions in societies where there’s a general expectation of the rule of law and most people abide by social norms irrespective of enforcement. The WSFS constitution isn’t enforceable except insofar as normally fans see no reason not to abide by the rules. So it works okay in the USA, the UK, Canada, the Netherlands, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and all the other western-style democracies it’s been held in … but broke badly when a group of enthusiasts living in an authoritarian state won the bid then realized too late that by doing so they’d come to the attention of Very Important People who didn’t care about their society’s rulebook.

Immediate consequences:

For the first fifty or so worldcons, worldcon was exclusively a North American phenomenon except for occasional sorties to the UK. Then it began to open up as cheap air travel became a thing. In the 21st century about 50% of worldcons are held outside North America, and until 2016 there was an expectation that it would become truly international.

But the Chengdu fubar has created shockwaves. There’s no immediate way to fix this, any more than you’ll be able to fix Donald Trump declaring himself dictator-for-life on the Ides of March in 2025 if he gets back into the White House with a majority in the House and Senate. It needs a WSFS constitutional amendment at least (so pay attention to the motions and voting in Glasgow, and then next year, in Seattle) just to stop it happening again. And nobody has ever tried to retroactively invalidate the Hugo awards. While there’s a mechanism for running Hugo voting and handing out awards for a year in which there was no worldcon (the Retrospective Hugo awards—for example, the 1945 Hugo Awards were voted on in 2020—nobody considered the need to re-run the Hugos for a year in which the vote was rigged. So there’s no mechanism….

(10) HOW TO SAVE A FEW BUCKS IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE. SYFY Wire tells “The Weird Story of the Twilight Zone Episode That Won an Oscar”.

…So, how does an award-winning French short film make its way to American television as part of a beloved sci-fi program? Well, according to producer William Froug, it came down to budget concerns. At the time, CBS was pushing the show to save money as it worked to complete its Season 5 order, and that meant that producing a whole new episode to complete the order was going to make money extremely tight. In an effort to appease the network while still meeting the tone of the show, Froug suggested they license “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” which he’d already seen, and simply make it part of The Twilight Zone.

“It was almost entirely silent,” Froug said in The Twilight Zone Companion. “There were maybe a half-dozen lines in it, and there was one brief ballad –– in English, of all things. CBS was very reluctant –– ‘A French film on television? Who ever heard of such a thing?’ –– but I convinced them, because we bought all the TV rights for $10,000. With that one airing, we immediately took care of the whole year’s overage. It brought us out at the end of the year under budget.”…

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born January 27, 1957 — Frank Miller, 67. So this Scroll we have artist and writer Frank Miller, a fascinating writer indeed.

Although some Miller fan sites want to credit him with writing two stories for the Twilight Zone comic, there is no actual proof he did, so his first credited artistic endeavor was he as the artist on Wyatt Gwyon’s “Deliver Me From D-Day” which ran in Weird War Tales #64 in June 1978. Fascinating comic it was.

He was that rare versatile artist who did everything so his first job for Marvel was penciling John Carter, Warlord of Mars, Part 3’s “The Master Assassin of Mars”.

Shortly afterwards, he was the artist for Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man where was Daredevil also present. This is important as Miller would eventually become the writer on Daredevil after successfully pursuing the job: “My secret is to do crime comics with a superhero in them. And so I lobbied for the title and got it.” I consider his work the highlight of this comic.

He’d return to the Daredevil story later and, like so many writers, either brilliantly do something new, or mangle it beyond recognition.

Now we have a brief but noteworthy stay at DC. That produced Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One. The first, like oh many of the animated films that came out of it, was far better than any of live film which saw a screen. Needless to say both series were stellar in their own right.

Elektra Lives Again is one seriously weird story. Saying anything more is a Major Spoiler. And whatever you do, if you’ve not read it, don’t go anywhere near the Wikipedia article. I’m serious. Just don’t.

I’m not even going to talk about Sin City as it’s either brilliant or — let me use German to describe it, die Scheiße.

Not at all going to talk about The Dark Knight III: The Master Race, as I’ve not read it. Opinions?

His film work includes writing the less sterling RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3 scripts, sharing directing duties with Robert Rodriguez on Sin City and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, producing 300 which is by far not my cup of anything, and directing The Spirit which got a 25% rating among audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes, though having seen it I think that’s being kind.

(12) COMICS SECTION.

Candorville still has a complaint about a series finale.
Thatababy has a returning visitor.

(13) PIONEERING WOMAN SFF WRITER. “Winona McClintic – ‘Who?’” at A Deep Look by Dave Hook.

…In Atlantic November 1956, her non-genre story “A Heart of Furious Fancies” was published. The editors noted,

WINONA MCCLINTIC was a radioman second class in the United States Navy during World War II and the Korean War. She graduated from Mills College, contributed poems to the Atlantic, and was at work on her Ph.D. (under the G.I. Bill) when matrimony intervened. She married an engineer and while he, she says, “fiddles with things on airplanes,” she finds time to raise guinea pigs and write….

(14) GHOSTESS WITH THE MOSTESS. The New York Times is there when “Ghostwriters Emerge From the Shadows”.

So it was unusual for a group of around 140 ghostwriters to gather, as they did in Manhattan on Monday, to schmooze and celebrate their work with awards, panel discussions and keynote speeches. The one-day conference, called the Gathering of the Ghosts, took place at a moment when ghostwriting is in high demand and gaining recognition as an art form of its own, after years of operating largely in the shadows.

“There’s great value in building this community because of the nature of what we do,” said Daniel Paisner, who hosts a podcast about ghostwriting called “As Told To” and has collaborated on 17 New York Times best-sellers. “We do it in a vacuum, sitting alone in our underwear in our offices. We don’t get out much. So I think it’s helpful to be able to compare notes.”

Held at the New York Academy of Medicine, in a room lined with old, leather-bound medical books overlooking a snowy Central Park, the event included panels about finding the right publisher for a project, whether A.I. might render ghostwriters irrelevant and conversations about how much a ghostwriter can charge (the consensus: more). The profession has a history of being undervalued, and one panelist advised everyone in the audience to double their rates and add 20 percent.

“Is it good to be a ghostwriter?” Madeleine Morel, an agent who specializes in matchmaking book projects with ghostwriters, said at the event. “I’ll paraphrase Dickens: It’s the best of times and the worst of times. It’s the best of times because there’s never been so much work out there. It’s the worst of times because it’s become so competitive.”…

(15) ROBERTO THE BUILDER. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Is an animated film about building stuff that doesn’t fly between the stars or shoot lasers genre? Who knows. But we can hope that Jenny from the block will make it so. “Jennifer Lopez Producing Bob the Builder Movie Reboot Starring Anthony Ramos” at Comicbook.com.

Bob the Builder is getting a brand-new movie produced by Jennifer Lopez. Transformers series star Anthony Ramos will play the titular handyman. Mattel Films teamed with the international music superstar to build this project from the ground up. Bob the Builder‘s new movie will be animated with Ramos providing the voice for the character. As per a description for the project, Bob the Builder sees Roberto travel to Puerto Rico for a major construction job. As issues affect the island, Bob will have to dig deep to bring the project to life. Felipe Vargas has been attached as a writer. Ramos sounds absolutely elated about playing the popular character in the press release put out today.

(16) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “Ingenuity has officially ended its mission after an incredible 72 flights on Mars” after being damaged on its last flight. The National Air and Space Museum pays tribute.

This week, NASA announced that Mars helicopter Ingenuity‘s 72nd flight was the final flight of its mission. The helicopter sustained damage to one or more of its rotor blades during landing on January 18 and is no longer capable of flight.

Ingenuity landed on the Red Planet with Mars rover Perseverance in February 2021 and achieved the first powered flight on another planet in April 2021.

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Anne Marble, Rich Lynch, Ersatz Culture, 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 Petra.]

Pixel Scroll 8/11/23 The Secret Diary Of Pixel Scroll, Aged Four And Five Fifths

Posted on August 11, 2023 by Mike Glyer

(1) PUBLISHER STRUGGLES TO GET AMAZON TO LIST “JEWISH FUTURES” ANTHOLOGY. [Item by Michael A. Burstein.] Fantastic Books and I are having trouble getting Amazon to list the Jewish Futures: Science Fiction from the World’s Oldest Diaspora edited by Michael A. Burstein ebook on Amazon.

Fantastic Books publisher Ian Randal Strock told Facebook readers:

Amazon.com has decided to “block [the ebook version of Jewish Futures] from being sold on Amazon.” Apparently, the fact that Fantastic Books published the print version means that Fantastic Books submitting the ebook version to publish through them violates… something. I have no idea. So, if you use a Kindle ebook reader, and you’d like to read an electronic version of Jewish Futures, we recommend you buy it directly from Fantastic Books. Doing so will get you both the epub and the mobi versions of the book.

Amazon provides a number of ways to load your eBooks on to your Kindle. For instance, you can email it to your Kindle address. Click the link in the first comment for their email instructions, however the “Other Ways to Send” column on the right side of the Amazon page also shows you the other options available to you.

Also, they seem to have finally realized that the trade paperback version of the book is available.

Lezli Robyn amplified:

Amazon has decided to block the ebook edition of Jewish Futures from being published after multiple emails where the publisher, Ian Randal Strock, tried to find out why and how he can get the ebook listed on their website (the paper and hardback editions are up there!), and they said they will “uphold” their decision to block it from publication.

Ian will try to find out tomorrow why they made this decision and attempt get it reversed, but if there is ever a time to buy a book directly off of the publisher’s website to support them and their authors, this is it. So much blood, sweat, and tears go into publishing a new title and everyone in the book world knows how important sales numbers are in the first week!

I’ve even emailed Amazon’s CEO but haven’t heard anything. We’ve had to remind people they can buy the ebook from the publisher directly or from Barnes & Noble.

We’ve also heard that Amazon has delayed getting the print books shipped out, even though the week before it was #1 in a few pre-order categories.

Here is the anthology’s Table of Contents:

Introduction by Jack Dann
Shema by Samantha Katz
Mission Divergence by E.M. Ben Shaul
Rachel Nussbaum Saves the World by Esther Friesner
One Must Imagine by Harry Turtledove
Into Thin Heirs by Susan Shwartz
Proof of Alina by Riv Begun
Baby Golem by Barbara Krasnoff
Frummer House by Leah Cypess
Moon Melody by SM Rosenberg
Initial Engagement by Steven H Silver
Matzah Ball Soup for the Vershluggin Soul by Randee Dawn
The Ascent by S.I. Rosenbaum and Abraham Josephine Reisman
The Aliens of Chelm by Valerie Estelle Frankel
The Kuiper Gemara by Shane Tourtellotte
Legend Born by Robert Greenberger
The Last Chosen by Jordan King-Lacroix

If anyone is in Boston on August 23, we are having a book event at Brookline Booksmith with the editor, publisher, cover artist Eli Portman and three writers, E.M. Ben Shaul, S.I. Rosenbaum, Abraham Josephine Riesman.

(2) SHERIDAN AND DELENN. “Warner Bros. Releases New ‘Babylon 5: The Road Home’ Clip” – Animation World Network has the story.

…In anticipation of the all-new original animated movie, a never-before-seen clip from the film, “Standing In The Shadows” has just been released! In the clip, John Sheridan (voiced by Bruce Boxleitner) expresses his second thoughts about leaving Babylon 5 to his wife, Delenn (voiced by Rebecca Reidy)….

(3) PROPOSAL SUBMITTED TO COURT IN SUIT AGAINST INTERNET ARCHIVE. “Copyright: Publishers, Internet Archive File Court Proposal” at Publishing Perspectives. “A proposed judgment bars Internet Archive from of offering ‘unauthorized copies’ of book publishers’ copyrighted content inside and outside the United States.” There’s also an unspecified payment involved.

This afternoon (August 11), the Association of American Publishers is confirming to Publishing Perspectives that the publisher-plaintiffs in the June 2020 lawsuit of the Internet Archive have submitted to the US District Court in the Southern District of New York a joint, negotiated proposal for Judge Koeltl’s consideration.

As our readers will remember, the plaintiffs—Hachette Book Group; HarperCollins Publishers; John Wiley & Sons; and Penguin Random House—received on March 24 an adamant ruling against the Internet Archive for its “Open Library” lending activities. In that ruling, the court deemed Internet Archive as liable for copyright infringement.

Today’s proposed consent judgment provides for a “stipulated permanent injunction,” according to the AAP’s media messaging, “preventing Internet Archive from offering unauthorized copies of the plaintiffs’ books to the global public under the manufactured theory of ‘controlled digital lending,’ and indicates that the parties have reached a confidential agreement on a monetary payment, all subject to Internet Archive’s right to appeal the case.”…

(4) ZOOM CHANGES ITS MIND. According to Gizmodo, “Zoom Backtracks on Training Its AI on Your Calls”.

After massive backlash over its wishy-washy communication regarding training artificial intelligence with customer data, Zoom wants to set the record straight. Today, Zoom issued an update to its previous announcement on its plans for AI to formally claim that the company will not use audio, video, chat, or similar data to train its AI models.

Zoom issued the update today to its original blog post, published earlier this week by Chief Product Officer Smita Hashim. Zoom’s terms of service stated that the company could use Customer Content—which is what Zoom calls audio, video, chat, attachments, screen-sharing, etc.—to train its own in-house or third-party AI models. On Monday, however, the blog post from Hashim promised that Zoom wouldn’t use Customer Content to train AI (except in some cases). Today, the company has updated Section 10 of its terms of service to no longer retain the legal right to use Customer Content to train any AI models. Zoom did not immediately return Gizmodo’s request for comment on what data sources these AI features will, in fact, be trained with…..

Here’s the opening paragraph of the Zoom Blog’s post “How Zoom’s terms of service and practices apply to AI features”.

It’s important to us at Zoom to empower our customers with innovative and secure communication solutions. We’ve updated our terms of service (in section 10) to further confirm that Zoom does not use any of your audio, video, chat, screen-sharing, attachments, or other communications like customer content (such as poll results, whiteboard, and reactions) to train Zoom’s or third-party artificial intelligence models. In addition, we have updated our in-product notices to reflect this.*

Zoom is still offering users access to a pair of AI features:

…two powerful generative AI features — Zoom IQ Meeting Summary and Zoom IQ Team Chat Compose — on a free trial basis to enhance your Zoom experience. These features offer automated meeting summaries and AI-powered chat composition. Zoom account owners and administrators control whether to enable these AI features for their accounts.

… We inform you and your meeting participants when Zoom’s generative AI services are in use….

(5) I AM I SAID. Writer Beware’s Victoria Strauss looks into a service capitalizing on a topical concern in “Dear Author, Are You Human? Certifying Authenticity”.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that where there is an issue of concern for writers, someone will find a way to monetize it….

In this fraught environment, it was probably inevitable that someone would come up with the idea of a service to certify or authenticate human authorship, and invite creators buy into it. This post takes a look at two such services.

The Authenticity Initiative

The originator of The Authenticity Initiative is Eliza Rae, who also offers social media, brand management, and PR services for authors. The Authenticity Initiative provides a seal to authors who pledge not to use AI-generated content in their work, along with a number of additional perks, including a newsletter and promotional opportunities. The cost: $50 per year.

Of course, as illustrated by the Bob the Wizard kerfluffle (in which a cover artist who swore their art was not AI-assisted turned out to be fibbing) as well as a general knowledge of human nature, the question is the degree to which a voluntary promise is actually equivalent to certification. I reached out to Eliza for comment, and you can see her response to that question in the Q&A below.

WRITER BEWARE: The Authenticity Initiative seems to rely on authors to self-certify that their work contains no AI-generated content. Do you have any concern that some authors may not be honest?

ELIZA RAE: Yes, that’s exactly correct. While technology and laws that govern AI are limited, we decided that a trust based platform for authors and readers to come together was the best way to service this aspect of the community until more legislation and/or publishing platforms have caught up to technology issues and the pitfalls of what is and is not considered legal to scrape or use to train generative AI software….

(6) MEDICAL UPDATE. StarShipSofa’s Tony C. Smith made an announcement to the District of Wonders email list.

…Some of you might know, some maybe not but I thought it only best to let you all know.

I have cancer (that feels so horrid to write). Bladder cancer.

As you can imagine this came as one f–king huge shock. Then it was discovered there might have been something on my lung… thank god… that was not the case… so just bladder cancer.

I go into hospital on the 15th August to have my bladder removed and from then on I’m on a bag. Total lifestyle chance but hopefully one I can put behind me and move on when it’s done.

One neat SF thing, the operation will be done by robot – the future is here!

(7) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to feast on Fettuccine Alfredo with Howard Bender on Episode 204 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.

Eating the Fantastic moves on to Pittsburgh for the first of three episodes harvested due to this year’s StokerCon taking place in that city. My conversation this time around didn’t take place because of that main event, though, but only because I remembered my guest happens to live in Pittsburgh, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to reminisce with him about the old days.

I met Howard Bender 49 years ago, the year we both began working in the Marvel Comics Bullpen. He worked as a letterer and artist in the Marvel Comics production department from 1974–1980, and then moved on to DC Comics in the same role, where he worked from 1981–1985. He’s drawn Superman stories in Action Comics, Dial H for Hero stories published in The New Adventures of Superboy, Ghostbusters for First Comics, and a variety of series for Archie Comics. He also collaborated with Jack C. Harris on a Sherlock Holmes comic strip in the ‘90s. These days, he can be found at markets and fairs all across Pittsburgh working as a caricature artist.

We discussed how desperate Marvel Comics must have been to have hired young kids like us, his role in founding the Pittsburgh Comics Club (and the way he paid homage to that club down the road in Dial H for Hero), the day he showed Stan Lee his art portfolio over dessert, how he started his career at Marvel using Jack Kirby’s taboret, the fact neither of us would have become who we turned out to be without Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, how terrified we both were of production manager John Verpoorten, our first meetings with the late, great Johnny Romita, the important life lesson he learned from inker Mike Esposito, what he was glad he remembered you shouldn’t talk about with Steve Ditko, how Marie Severin inspired him in his current career as a caricaturist, and so much more.

(8) NYT SFF CRITIC. Amal El-Mohtar reviews “Witches, Robots and Martial Artists, Ready for Battle” — new books by Juno Dawson, Emma Mieko Candon and Alexander Darwin — in the New York Times.

(9) BSFS BEAUTIFUL. Congratulations to the Baltimore Science Fiction Society on their revived clubhouse space. (By gosh, there’s a Dalek on the balcony!) See the photos at Facebook.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Born August 11, 1902 — Jack Binder. Thrilling Wonder Stories in their October 1938 issue published his article, “If Science Reached the Earth’s Core”, where the first known use of the phrase “zero gravity” is known to happen. In the early Forties, he was an artist for Fawcett, Lev Gleason, and Timely Comics. During these years, he created the Golden Age character Daredevil which is not the Marvel Daredevil though he did work with Stan Lee where they co-created The Destroyer at Timely Comics. (Died 1986.)
Born August 11, 1923 — Ben P. Indick. A member of First Fandom and prolific fanzine publisher. He wrote a handful of short genre fiction and two serious non-fiction works, The Drama of Ray Bradbury and George Alec Effinger: From Entropy to Budayeen. (Died 2009.)
Born August 11, 1928 — Alan E. Nourse, 1928 – 1992. His connections to other SF writers are fascinating. Heinlein dedicated Farnham’s Freehold to Nourse, and in part dedicated Friday to Nourse’s wife Ann. His novel The Bladerunner lent its name to the movie but nothing else from it was used in that story. However Blade Runner (a movie) written by, and I kid you not, William S. Burroughs, is based on his novel. Here the term “blade runner” refers to a smuggler of medical supplies, e.g. scalpels. (Died 1992.)
Born August 11, 1932 — Chester Anderson. His The Butterfly Kid is the first part of what is called the Greenwich Village Trilogy, with Michael Kurland writing the middle book, The Unicorn Girl, and the third volume, The Probability Pad, written by T.A. Waters. I can practically taste the acid from here… The Butterfly Kid, like all of these novels. is available from all the usual suspects. (Died 1991.)
Born August 11, 1949 — Nate Bucklin, 74. Musician who has co-written songs with Stephen Brust and others. He wrote two Liavek anthology stories, “Dry Well” and “Strings Attached” He’s a founding member of the Scribblies, the Minneapolis writer’s group, and is also one of the founding members of the Minnesota Science Fiction Society, better known as Minn-stf. He spent four years as a member of the National Fantasy Fan Federation or N3F, and his correspondents included Greg Shaw, Walter Breen, and Piers Anthony. He’s been a filk guest of honor at five cons.
Born August 11, 1959 — Alan Rodgers. Author of Bone Music, a truly great take off the Robert Johnson myth. His “The Boy Who Came Back From the Dead” novelette won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Long Fiction, and he was editor of Night Cry in the mid-Eighties. (Died 2014.)
Born August 11, 1961 — Susan M. Garrett. She was a well-known and much liked writer, editor and publisher in many fandoms, but especially the Forever Knight community. (She also was active in Doctor Who and The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne fandoms. And no, I had no idea that the latter had a fandom.) She is perhaps best known for being invited to write a Forever Knight tie-in novel, Intimations of Mortality. (Died 2010.)
Born August 11, 1962 — Brian Azzarello, 61. Comic book writer. First known crime series 100 Bullets, published by Vertigo. Writer of DC’s relaunched Wonder Woman series several years back. One of the writers in the Before Watchmen limited series. Co-writer with Frank Miller of the sequel to The Dark Knight Returns, The Dark Knight III: The Master Race.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

Non Sequitur knows what gets books banned.

(12) GENERALIZATION ALERT. BookRiot’s Alice Nuttall asks, “Science Fiction Is Inherently Rebellious — So Why Don’t Some of Its Fans Think So?”

My husband and I are currently watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, me for the first time, him for about the billionth. After watching one episode where religious fundamentalists insist that the space station’s school teach their holy stories instead of scientific fact, and bomb the school when the teacher doesn’t agree, my husband leaned over to me and commented “But you know, Star Trek was never political.”

“[Sci fi story] was never political” is a running joke of ours, usually said with an eye roll and a bitter laugh at the complaint du jour about sci-fi stories that dare to centre anyone who isn’t a white, cishet man. Sci-fi has been decried as “political” for telling stories about people of colour or women (and predictably, some of the worst backlashes have come when a central character happens to be a woman of colour). Stories have been panned or banned for including LGBTQ+ people and relationships.

Writers who share the marginalisations of their characters are at the greatest risk of being harassed and attacked for daring to publish in a space that reactionary gatekeepers see as “theirs”. The ‘Sad Puppies’ campaign was a coordinated attempt by right-wing, “anti-diversity” pundits to influence the results of the Hugo Awards and push works by authors of colour, women, and LGBTQ+ people to the sidelines. Fortunately, it was unsuccessful — and not only because it was a clumsy, transparent attempt at attacking diversity. The fact is that sci-fi has never been a white, cishet, male, or conservative domain. It has always been a space for subversion, radical thinking, and rebelliousness — and marginalised people have been there from the beginning….

(13) PUMP BROTHERS, PUMP WITH CARE. This idea sucks, but does that mean it’s actually no good? “U.S. to Fund a $1.2 Billion Effort to Vacuum Greenhouse Gases From the Sky” reports the New York Times.

The Biden administration will spend $1.2 billion to help build the nation’s first two commercial-scale plants to vacuum carbon dioxide pollution from the atmosphere, a nascent technology that some scientists say could be a breakthrough in the fight against global warming, but that others fear is an extravagant boondoggle.

Jennifer Granholm, the energy secretary, announced Friday that her agency would fund two pilot projects that would deploy the disputed technology, known as direct air capture.

Occidental Petroleum will build one of the plants in Kleberg County, Texas, and Battelle, a nonprofit research organization, will build the other in Calcasieu Parish on the Louisiana coast. The federal government and the companies will equally split the cost of building the facilities.

“These projects are going to help us prove out the potential of these next-generation technologies so that we can add them to our climate crisis fighting arsenal, and one of those technologies includes direct air capture, which is essentially giant vacuums that can suck decades of old carbon pollution straight out of the sky,” Ms. Granholm said on a telephone call with reporters on Thursday.

The 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law included $3.5 billion to fund the construction of four commercial-scale direct air capture plants. Friday’s announcement covered the first two.

Oil and gas companies lobbied for the direct air capture money to be included in the law, arguing that the world could continue to burn fossil fuels if it had a way to clean up their planet-warming pollution….

(14) CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE CLUCKY KIND. What does that mean? You’ll understand after you see the video of this unidentified flying coop on Tumblr.

(15) MAN OF A THOUSAND FLAVORS. Here’s another exotic collectible, the Chaney Entertainment Hot Sauce 5-Pack from Jade City Foods.

Here’s a close-up of one of the labels.

(16) DUNE WHAT COMES NATURALLY. “’Futurama’ meets ‘Dune’ in action-packed, exclusive clip” at Mashable.

The beloved sci-fi comedy Futurama is no stranger to Frank Herbert’s Dune, featuring nods to stillsuits and space worms. But with its newly launched 11th season, Futurama takes its Dune tributes to a whole new level.

In an exclusive clip from the upcoming episode “Parasites Regained” (a spiritual sequel to Season 3’s “Parasites Lost,” perhaps?), we see Fry, Leela, Zoidberg, and Bender struggling to brave a mysterious desert landscape. There, they encounter a fearsome sandworm that looks like an oranger, fuzzier version of the show-stealing sandworms of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune. We also get Futurama‘s version of the powerful spice melange, a psychedelic drug that turns Leela’s eyes orange instead of Dune‘s classic blue-within-blue….

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

Pixel Scroll 7/18/23 I Only Came To Say I Must Be Scrolling

Posted on July 18, 2023 by Mike Glyer

(1) LAST DAY TO NOMINATE FOR DRAGON AWARDS. Nominations are being taken for the 2023 Dragon Awards until July 19.

Need more information about what to put on your ballot? Red Panda Fraction has assembled a Dragon Awards 2023 Eligible Works spreadsheet in the format of Renay’s Hugo Awards Spreadsheet.

Bear in mind that voters are allowed to make only one nomination per category. However, that is somewhat offset by the Dragon Awards having six book categories. (But there are no short fiction categories). [Via Camestros Felapton.]

(2) SLOW BOAT. Aimee Ogden’s name is on the cover of F&SF but for the benefit of other writers she is calling them out about her story submission experience. Thread starts here. Here are some excerpts.

But.

"A Half-Remembered World" was actually my second acceptance there, in June of 2022. In March 2022, I also had a short story accepted.

By April of 2023, more than a year later, I hadn't received a contract for either story yet.
— Aimee Ogden (Updates Only) (@Aimee_Ogden) July 18, 2023

I ended up pulling the short story out of the acceptance queue at the end of April. Because I didn't know how long it would be until the story came out and how good a sample of my writing it would be by then; and because 13 months is too long to go without a contract, imo.
— Aimee Ogden (Updates Only) (@Aimee_Ogden) July 18, 2023

and also:
-I don't know how likely I am to submit to F&SF again soon.
-Newer writers who don't have the ins to hear about these things in backchannels also deserve to know about the contract delays/edit turnarounds/etc.
— Aimee Ogden (Updates Only) (@Aimee_Ogden) July 18, 2023

(3) PUBLISHING FACES MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES. The Guardian hears from all sectors that “’There’s an industry-wide mental health crisis’: authors and publishers on why the books sector needs to change”.

Author and publisher welfare has been a hot topic in the books industry of late. Publishing houses, trade unions and industry bodies have scrambled for solutions following a survey by the Bookseller in which debut authors reported overwhelmingly negative publication experiences: more than half of respondents said the process adversely affected their mental health. Now, a series of measures are being rolled out across the industry in response to these concerns.

This month, Anna Frame, communications director at the independent publisher Canongate, has confirmed the launch of two initiatives: an authors’ handbook in partnership with the Society of Authors (SoA) and a resource pack for publishers, in conjunction with English Pen. Canongate has also announced that it will publish fewer books so that it can dedicate more time to authors.

These measures follow news that the Orion publishing group will establish an academy for debut novelists with the aim of “demystifying the process and ensuring expectations are clear”. Meanwhile, the Publishers Publicity Circle (PPC) is launching free media training and crisis communications sessions for publishers….

(4) MAYBE WE DIDN’T MISS MUCH. What if Winnipeg was running the 2023 Worldcon instead of Chengdu? Well, they’re running the NASFiC this week and here’s the email Robert J. Sawyer’s wrote to Pemmi-Con’s head of programming which he posted on Facebook today.

The NASFiC in Winnipeg begins tomorrow. Still no schedule on the website, no informationa about any signings, readings, or kaffeeklatsches, and no updated emails from programming about the time-zone screw-up on the personal panel lists they sent out.

Having to ferret out on my own what times they’ve actually got me scheduled, I’ve just sent this email to programming. Note for future cons: sending out all your programming emails from an email address that says “no-reply@grenadine.co” does NOT make communication easy…

And Sawyer continues from there, trying to get his schedule sorted.

The schedule’s not easy to find – you can’t go directly to it from the Pemmi-Con home page menu – but it looks like there is a schedule online: Schedule | Pemmi-Con.

(5) OP-ED. [Uncredited Item by Guest Author.] It is true that there are many sides to a story, and it is also true that western countries had been and some still do, have oppressive policies toward indigenous and other minority groups, and perhaps it is a stretch to call the camps in Xinjiang as concentration camps where the images of death camps and gas chambers immediately came to mind. However, it is indisputable that such camps exist, and simply calling them re-education camps lessens their intended purposes.

The fact is that the Chinese government is systematically erasing minority views and even languages. We don’t even have to look at Tibet or Xinjiang, but even in Han populated provinces such as Guangdong and the Hong Kong city, teaching and using the Cantonese language is being discouraged, and this is a Han Chinese dialect.

Political oppression is also real. Just a month ago, the Hong Kong government charged 8 democratic leaders for seditious activities:

They promise they will bring these people to “justice” regardless where they live and to the end of time.

At DisCon 3, during the last session before the Site Selection vote, the Chinese committee said “You can say whatever you want at the convention (without being prosecuted)”. How far will that truly go? What if a fan wears a “Democracy for Hong Kong” T-shirt? Note that I carefully said “Democracy” and not “Independence”. Will they be escorted to the airport immediately, or worse outcome, if they are a Chinese citizen?

(6) B5 ON BLU-RAY. J. Michael Straczynski told Facebook readers today that to celebrate B5’s 30th Anniversary, Babylon 5: The Complete Series will be released on Blu-Ray December 5, 2023. Pre-orders can be placed starting today.

…To address some of the obvious questions: I wasn’t directly involved with the release, so I don’t know much more than you do or what’s in the release/at the retail sites but I can add what little I do know: the release includes The Gathering (but not the movies or Crusade) because TG was our pilot (technically the first) episode, so it’s a legit part of the series which fits the title mandate; the other movies were separate, and Crusade is a completely different series, so it doesn’t belong in this box set.

This is essentially the same as the very nice 4:3 remaster done for HBO-Max, which matches the original broadcast, but putting it onto Blu-Ray increases the bitrate so it should look even better than it did there. WB wanted to include the commentaries but with everything else involved with this, it apparently wasn’t feasible (that’s the extent of what I was told, so I’ve no idea what that entails)….

…What matters most in all this is that after years of asking for a Blu-Ray release, which will make this show look more beautiful than it ever has before. Fans can now own the full series in pristine form on physical media without being held hostage by the whims of streamers. I’m very excited by this release, as it further assures the legacy of Babylon 5. Onward!

(7) AI-SPECIFIC CONTRACT LANGUAGE. Publishers Weekly reports “Illustration Agencies Introduce New AI-Specific Contract Clause”.

All ITSme Society illustration agencies will include a new clause in their client contracts protecting the rights of illustrators to their original illustrations from reproduction or other use for purposes of training and artificial intelligence models. The initiative was led by Kate Kendrick, global manager of Astound US Inc. Other participating agencies include Advocate Art, Artistique Int, Illo, and the Yeon Agency.

“We want to get ahead of the curve before there is a halt within the world of publishing—we support our actors and writers on strike, and we’d like to get ahead and not have it come to that for illustrators,” the agencies said in a statement. The clause, they continued, “states that the illustrator must give prior consent to permit the client/publisher to use technologies that are capable of generating works in the same style or genre as their work. Our aim is to get ahead of these advancing technologies and to protect the artists and their artwork against the use of AI/ML models.”

(8) TINGLE TALKS TO LITHUB. “Chuck Tingle on How Writing is Like Driving, Being an Autistic Artist, and More” at Literary Hub.

LH: Which non-literary piece of culture—film, tv show, painting, song—could you not imagine your life without?

CT: i would say my number one most important piece of art that i always return to, and thing that is probably most influential on my writing and my existence as a buckaroo, is probably STOP MAKING SENSE the talking heads live film, and also album that comes with it. that is probably chucks number one artistic touchstone even over any book.

first as an autistic buckaroo, that movie and the subtext around it is what made me proud to be autistic like david byrne. being on the spectrum was never a bad diagnosis for me it was ALWAYS just about the coolest thing someone could be because talking heads were the coolest band in the dang world. so watching that was a real big moment for me to think “wow, what a special tradition of artist i am walking in the steps of”

but even outside of that, i think the way the show is setup is just beautiful, and the songs they picked and the way those songs are presented. to me what is says is “there is so much more to art than the medium itself, there is all the other things around it.” art does not exist in a vacuum, so it is always funny to me when buds try to seperate it from the context of the time and place. bud the context is ALSO part of the artwork, and i think you can really see that in the way those songs are presented….

(9) BOX OFFICE IMPROBABLE. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Despite a much better reception from the critics, the latest Mission Impossible movie has opened with figures extremely similar to the latest Indiana Jones flick. Both somewhat <looks over glasses> disappointing. Perhaps audience reception will echo the critics and MI7 will have more legs than IJ5. “’Mission Impossible 7’ Falls Short of Box Office Expectations” in Variety.

“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” topped domestic box office charts while falling short of initial expectations. Tom Cruise’s latest blockbuster collected $56.2 million between Friday and Sunday, a lackluster start for a movie that cost nearly $300 million before marketing.

Heading into the weekend, Paramount and Skydance’s action-adventure was hoping to establish a new franchise record with $60 million or more. Instead, ticket sales landed behind 2018’s “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” ($61 million) and 2000’s “Mission: Impossible II” ($57.8 million), which remain as the top openings in the 27-year-old series.

(10) MEMORY LANE.

2017 – [Written by Cat Eldridge from a choice by Mike Glyer.]

Fran Wilde has written five novels with latest being The Ship of Stolen Words. Updraft, her first novel, won an Andre Norton Award, most excellent to do, also the Compton Crook Award, the Baltimore SF Society’s Best First Novel Award. Riverland also won the Andre Norton Award.

Did I also mention that she’s simply amazing at penning shorter works? I will do so now. She’s written around fifty stories, four poems and a considerable number of essays such as “A Recipe for Summoning Aliette de Bodard”. So our Beginning comes from one of these works, “Clearly Lettered in a Mostly Steady Hand” which appeared first in Uncanny.

It would be nominated for a Hugo at Worldcon 76 as well as a Nebula and a World Fantasy Award. It would win the Eugie Foster Memorial Award for Short Fiction.

And now a short but fascinating Beginning….

Entrance

There’s a ticket booth on my tongue.

Don’t look in my eyes, don’t plead curiosity, you won’t get anywhere with that. Try it and you’ll see your reflection in my sea-green gaze: your shadow sprinting through the heavy glass doors. You’ll smell a whiff of brine, perhaps something more volatile. You’ll be caught and held, while your likeness departs. You don’t want that.

No one wants to be pinned between an entrance and an exit, unless you’re part of the show.

Here’s what you do instead: drop your dime on the rose carpet, just there. Don’t pick it up. The carpet’s sticky. Don’t ask why. Stare at my lips, my hands clasped over my velvet skirts, what rests below that, and wait.

If you’re worthy, I’ll say the word. Your dime gets you a look and a souvenir. Your hands are beautiful, did you know that?

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Born July 18, 1913 — Red Skelton. Comedian of the first order. The Red Skelton Hour ran for three hundred and thirty-eight episodes. I remember Freddie the Freeloader. He’s here because ISFDB says he wrote A Red Skelton in Your Closet which is also called Red Skelton’s Favorite Ghost Stories. He also has cameos in Around the World in Eighty Days and Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines, both of which I consider at least genre adjacent. (Died 1997.)
Born July 18, 1943 — Charles Waugh, 80. Anthologist and author, whose anthology work up to 2013 numbered over two hundred titles (!), mostly done with Martin H. Greenberg but a handful done with other co-editors as Greenberg died in 2011. Name a subject and there’s likely an anthology on that subject that he had a hand in.
Born July 18, 1956 — Deborah Christian, 67. She’s an author and game designer who has designed and edited role-playing game materials for Dungeons & Dragons such as Tales of the Outer Planes, Bestiary of Dragons and Giants, Dragon Dawn, and Kara-Tur: The Eastern Realms. She also writes fiction under the name Deborah Teramis Christian with genre novel such as The Truthsayer’s Apprentice and her latest, Splintegrate.
Born July 18, 1967 — Paul Cornell, 56. Author of the Shadow Police series which is quite excellent as well as writing a lot of television scripts for Doctor Who including the stellar Tenth Doctor two part story “Human Nature“ and “The Family of Blood” with one of the best endings ever, Primieval and Robin Hood. He was part of the regular panel of the SF Squeecast podcast which won multiple Hugo Awards for best fancast.
Born July 18, 1967 — Vin Diesel, 56. His first genre role was as the delightful voice of The Iron Giant. He next shows playing Riddick in Pitch Black, the first in The Chronicles of Riddick franchise. He’s Hugo Cornelius Toorop in Babylon A.D. and he’s the fascinating if enigmatic voice of Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy and other MCU films.
Born July 18, 1980 — Kristen Bell, 43. Veronica Mars. Genre, well not really, but a lot of y’all watched it. She also voiced Jade Wilson in Teen Titans Go! To the Movies which I highly recommend as it’s highly meta. Really it is.
Born July 18, 1982 — Priyanka Chopra, 41. Alex Parrish in Quantico, she became the first South Asian to headline an American network drama series. Is it genre? Maybe, maybe not, though it could fit very nicely into a Strossian Dark State. Some of her work in her native India such as The Legend of Drona and Love Story 2050 is genre as is Krrish 3, an Indian SF film she was in. She’s got a key role in the Matrix Resurrections film. No, I’m not saying what it is as some of you possibly haven’t seen it.

(12) COMICS SECTION.

JumpStart misses a call.

(13) DANGEROUS MEDIA. The New York Times reviews Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s novel Silver Nitrate: “The Dark Magic Wrought by a Nazi Occultist and a Doomed Horror Film”.

… Montserrat is a reclusive sound editor who’s caring for her sister, who has cancer. She has three loves: horror movies, her white Volkswagen and her childhood friend Tristán Abascal, a tall, handsome, washed-up actor. Montserrat is abrasive and nerdy; Tristán, “more Cantinflas than James Bond,” is smooth, but also a goof. When he reaches out to reconnect, it means he’s between relationships; this time he also needs to borrow her car.

The plot is set into motion only after a long conversation between the two friends and Abel Urueta, Tristán’s neighbor and a once-famous Mexican horror film director. Over whiskey, he talks about a production he never completed, “Beyond the Yellow Door,” which was co-written by Wilhelm Ewers, a Nazi occultist who believed that silver nitrate film was “a perfect medium for sealing spells.” But when Ewers died before “Beyond the Yellow Door” wrapped, his magic went haywire, destroying the highly flammable nitrate prints of the film, and inflicting a curse on the cast and crew.

Urueta, who has one last canister stashed in his freezer, has an idea: If Montserrat and Tristán help him finish the project, perhaps the curse could be lifted….

(14) THE THREE LAWS. Behind a paywall in the Boston Globe, Jay Houlihan’s letter to the editor reminds readers “Author Isaac Asimov saw AI’s risks. Now we’re rapidly facing them down.”

Re “Dan Hendrycks wants to save us from an AI catastrophe. He’s not sure he’ll succeed.” (Ideas, July 9): The potential for catastrophic results from advanced technology is not a new idea. The science fiction writer Isaac Asimov identified and addressed the risk in a 1942 short story, through his Three Laws of Robotics: 1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2) A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. Though it may have taken us 80 years to reach the point where this risk is on the near-term horizon, Asimov was nothing if not prescient. Much like climate change, we may be rapidly approaching a point with artificial intelligence where reverse is no longer an option.

(15) MORE ON ASIMOV. Wailin Wong just hosted an episode of The Indicator podcast on NPR about how Asimov’s Foundation series inspired fans to pursue careers in economics. “How Isaac Asimov’s ‘Foundation’ helped set two economists on their career path” on The Indicator from Planet Money at NPR.

When we talk about classic economic texts, you might think of something like Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations.” But how about the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov?

One of the big ideas at the heart of this science fiction saga is that math can predict and shape the future. We hear from two economists who tell us how the ideas in Foundation helped set them on their career path.

(16) WHEN THE WORLD DISCOVERED TOLKIEN WROTE OTHER THINGS. “Talking Tolkien: On The Tolkien Reader” by Rich Horton at Black Gate.

The Tolkien Reader was first published in 1966 by Ballantine Books in the US; in response to the greatly expanding popularity of The Lord of the Rings, driven by the paperback editions from Ballantine (and the pirated edition from Ace.) This was an attempt to bring a varied sampling of his work to readers hungry for more. I read it myself in the early ’70s, after I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. As an introduction it reprints a piece Peter Beagle did for Holiday (perhaps at the instigation of Alfred Bester?) called “Tolkien’s Magic Ring”, which primarily discusses the Middle-Earth books.

It’s a good and varied collection throughout, and really does the job of showing a different side to Tolkien (though not THAT different!) from that seen in The Lord of the Rings. I’ll be looking at each of the sections separately, and slightly out of order, in that I think the best part by far is Tree and Leaf, which comes second in the book….

(17) SHELVES OF THE AGES. “Halls of Ancient Wisdom: 7 Remarkable Ancient Libraries” at Ancient Origins.

2. The Library of Ashurbanipal – A King’s Passion Project

Much older than the library of Alexandria, Ashurbanipal was founded in Nineveh, Assyria in the 7th century BC. It was one of the earliest, and most remarkable libraries, in the ancient world and was named after its founder, King Ashurbanipal.

Built as part of the royal palace, this ancient library held an extensive collection of clay tablets written in the cuneiform script, the most widespread form of writing in the ancient Middle East. After the library’s destruction, it’s estimated around 30,000 of these tablets were salvaged, giving us an idea of just how significant this repository of knowledge was.

King Ashurbanipal built the library to highlight his empire’s vast intellectual prowess. He was a leader who valued intellectualism and was renowned for his patronage of learning. The collection held texts from all the civilizations the Assyrians had interacted with, making it a melting pot of knowledge from ancient Mesopotamia, Sumer, Babylon, and beyond. Not just a storehouse of ancient knowledge, the library was a center for early scholarship and attracted scribes, scholars, and translators who studied and translated texts from different languages.

Sadly, the library’s heyday was short-lived. It’s believed the library fell alongside Nineveh itself in 612 BC when it was raided by the Medes, Babylonians, and Scythians. The library’s ruins were discovered by Austen Henry Layard in 1849. Thankfully, the fires that were meant to destroy the tablets actually preserved them and now the majority of the library’s knowledge resides in the British Museum.

(18) SCORN AND DEFIANCE; SLIGHT REGARD, CONTEMPT. Matt Berry and Peter Capaldi really let it rip in this episode of Letters Live.

Possibly one of our favourite letter exchanges ever, and at London’s Freemasons’ Hall back in 2016 Matt Berry and Peter Capaldi joined us to give an incredible, hilarious reading. In 1675, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire instructed his army to attack a fortress belonging to the Zaporozhian Cossacks. They were quickly and heavily defeated. Rather than surrender, the Sultan then wrote to the Cossacks and demanded that they submit to him. This fiery exchange was the result.

(19) ISAAC ARTHUR. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Isaac Arthur has had his ‘Sci-fi Sunday’ which this time looks at “Robots & Warfare”. Given the recent developments in AI this is timely. Isaac not only has a degree in physics, he also served with the US Army…

Robots play an ever greater role in every aspect of our lives, including the battlefield, but what will their role be in the wars of the future?

(20) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Ryan George’s video “90s Time Traveler Discovers Meta’s THREADS App” is a riot. (“I know a still from Blade Runner when I see one…”)

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mike Kennedy, Daniel Dern, Michael A. Burstein, Alec Nevala-Lee, Kathy Sullivan, 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 Daniel Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 7/6/23 The Felix Felis Flattus Sat On The Mat

Posted on July 6, 2023 by Mike Glyer

(1) DRAGON PRESERVATION SOCIETY? A Twitter user with 90K followers who goes by the handle Aristophanes claims to be incensed that works like John Scalzi’s Kaiju Preservation Society become Dragon Award finalists. As a remedy he is calling for people to band together and nominate all the works on his ticket. Can the Dragon Awards be saved? How would we know if they aren’t? Thread starts here.

All you need to give them in return is an email address. I am not asking a lot of you here. If you have personal favorites you would like to substitute with mine, then that is your prerogative. But don't forget that the date range is strictly enforced.
— ???? Aristophanes ???? (@Aristos_Revenge) July 6, 2023

The Dragon Award’s policy is to encourage people to campaign for fan support. Always has been. So this appeal violates no rule, written or otherwise. My only question about his list is — can it really be a Dragon Awards slate without a book by Declan Finn on it? This will be the first one without him I’ve ever seen!!

(2) FOUNDATION. Apple TV+ has released a second trailer for “Foundation — Season 2”.

More than a century after the Season 1 finale, tension mounts throughout the galaxy. As the Cleons unravel, a vengeful queen plots to destroy Empire from within. Hari, Gaal, and Salvor discover a colony of Mentalics with special abilities that threaten to alter psychohistory itself. Meanwhile, the Foundation and Empire are on a collision course for war with the fate of humanity in the balance.

(3) HOW MANY NAMES? Best Semiprozine finalist Strange Horizons tells how this year’s Hugo Administrator clawed back the progress SH had made in getting their full team listed. (They weren’t the only ones affected by the policy change, of course.) Thread starts here.

As many of you are aware, until three years ago, there was an informal limit of 6-7 names featuring as official "finalists" on the Hugo ballot.

This was unfair, in particular, to zines, which are collective projects, made possible by the labour of many individuals.
— Strange Horizons (@strangehorizons) July 6, 2023

This practice continued last year as well, without any problems. The ballot listed all our staff members, as did the screen at the awards ceremony. For practical reasons, during the reading out of the nominees, of course, we went simply by "the SH editorial collective."
— Strange Horizons (@strangehorizons) July 6, 2023

When we pointed out to the liaison about past practice, the reason given was that because this year, names had to be printed in both English and Chinese, there wasn't enough space on the "physical ballot", and that the online ballot had to be the same as the physical ballot.
— Strange Horizons (@strangehorizons) July 6, 2023

With that said, we proposed to the Committee that if it was simply impossible to have all staff members' names on the ballot, they could at least consider having all the names on the Hugo Awards website, which is not the formal "ballot".
— Strange Horizons (@strangehorizons) July 6, 2023

The Awards Committee's conduct – top-down, uncommunicative, and un-empathetic – has been in stark contrast with the spirit in which previous committees have approached this issue, and has been disappointing.
— Strange Horizons (@strangehorizons) July 6, 2023

We're also aware that other finalists in the semiprozine and fanzine categories have had the same experience. We can only hope that this is a blip, and that normal service will be resumed from next year.
— Strange Horizons (@strangehorizons) July 6, 2023

With that said, a very warm congratulations to all the finalists, and especially to our sibling zines. It is, as always, a privilege and an honour to share a ballot with you.
— Strange Horizons (@strangehorizons) July 6, 2023

(4) JMS AT SDCC. “Babylon 5 Cast Set for San Diego Comic-Con 2023” reports the SDCC Unofficial Blog.

…While writer and series creator J. Michael Straczynski has been teasing for months that he will be at the convention with lots to talk about the new animated film, Babylon 5: The Road Home, we’ve got our first look at just what that appearance will likely entail.

The upcoming animated film continues the story of the 1990’s space opera series, as John Sheridan unexpectedly finds himself transported through multiple timelines and alternate realities in a quest to find his way back home. Most of the cast is returning for the film, including Bruce Boxleitner as John Sheridan, Claudia Christian as Susan Ivanova, Peter Jurasik as Londo Mollari, Bill Mumy as Lennier, Tracy Scoggins as Elizabeth Lochley and Patricia Tallman as Lyta Alexander.

Patricia Tallman revealed on Instagram that she will indeed be at the convention — and so will most of her castmates.

Bruce Boxleitner, Claudia Christian, Tracy Scoggins, and Patricia Tallman will be signing in the Sails Pavilion on Saturday, July 22 from 11am-12pm, which certainly ups the odds of a panel with cast in appearance.

Patricia Tallman will also be signing on her own from 2:30pm-7pm on both Thursday, July 20 and Friday, July 21, and fans can pre-order her Pleasure Thresholds, a Babylon 5 Memoir, for $30 (or $40 if you purchase at the con). Copies can be autographed and personalized….

(5) IO9 COLLIDES WITH THE UNPLEASANT FUTURE. “‘F*cking Dogsh*t’: G/O Media Editor Tears Into Management Over ‘Embarrassing’ AI-Generated Article ‘Riddled With Basic Errors’” at Mediate.

James Whitbrook, the deputy editor of G/O Media’s Gizmodo and its subsection io9, tore into management on Wednesday after the company published a “shoddily written” AI-generated article “riddled with basic errors.”

After it was revealed last week that G/O Media would begin rolling out articles generated by artificial intelligence, GMG Union — which represents many of the news outlets under G/O Media’s banner, including Gizmodo — protested the introduction of “computer-generated garbage” which “erodes trust in us as journalists, damages our brands, and threatens our jobs.”

Despite the protests of the union, however, G/O Media moved forward with its controversial decision this week.

“A Chronological List of Star Wars Movies & TV Shows” by “Gizmodo Bot” appeared on G/O Media’s tech and science news website on Wednesday, only to be swiftly ridiculed by social media users for messing up the chronological order of the franchise.

In a Twitter post, the deputy editor of the site revealed he had only been “informed approximately 10 minutes” before the article went live and that “no one at io9 played a part in its editing or publication.” In his own “personal comment,” Whitbrook added, “It’s fucking dogshit.”

Whitbrook also published the letter he sent to the management of G/O Media, which read:

“For 15 years, io9 has grown an audience that demands quality coverage of genre entertainment, from critical analysis, to insightful explainers, to accurate news and industry-shaping investigative reporting. These readers have grown io9 into one of the best performing desks at Gizmodo, G/O Media’s flagship site in terms of traffic, and they have done so by rigorously holding this team and the colleagues that came before us to a standard of expertise and accuracy that we have been proud to achieve. The article published on io9 today rejects the very standards this team holds itself to on a daily basis as critics and as reporters. It is shoddily written, it is riddled with basic errors; in closing the comments section off, it denies our readers, the lifeblood of this network, the chance to publicly hold us accountable, and to call this work exactly what it is: embarrassing, unpublishable, disrespectful of both the audience and the people who work here, and a blow to our authority and integrity. It is shameful that this work has been put to our audience and to our peers in the industry as a window to G/O’s future, and it is shameful that we as a team have had to spend an egregious amount of time away from our actual work to make it clear to you the unacceptable errors made in publishing this piece.”

(6) BURP! The Guardian, meanwhile, is there when “Authors file a lawsuit against OpenAI for unlawfully ‘ingesting’ their books”. One of them is Paul Tremblay.

Two authors have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, the company behind the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT, claiming that the organisation breached copyright law by “training” its model on novels without the permission of authors.

Mona Awad, whose books include Bunny and 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, and Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World, filed the class action complaint to a San Francisco federal court last week.

ChatGPT allows users to ask questions and type commands into a chatbot and responds with text that resembles human language patterns. The model underlying ChatGPT is trained with data that is publicly available on the internet.

Yet, Awad and Tremblay believe their books, which are copyrighted, were unlawfully “ingested” and “used to train” ChatGPT because the chatbot generated “very accurate summaries” of the novels, according to the complaint. Sample summaries are included in the lawsuit as exhibits….

(7) MEMORY LANE.

2010 – [Written by Cat Eldridge from a choice by Mike Glyer.]

Catherynne M. Valente’s an amazing individual. I’m proud to say that I’ve had coffee with her as she lives here in this city. And her writing is just as stellar as she is.

No Hugos so far but she has won Otherwise and Mythopoeic Awards for The Orphan’s Tales: In the Night Garden (both Awards) and The Orphan’s Tales: In the Cities of Coin and Spice (Mythopoeic). She also has won an Andre Norton Award.

Her other great series is the Fairyland series centered around twelve year-old September. And that’s all I’m saying about this delightful affair. Our Beginning is from the debut novel, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making.

It was first published online on her site but she’s taken that down. The first print edition was by Feiwel and Friends thirteen years ago. It was an independent publisher that has since been acquired by Macmillan.

So here’s our Beginning…

EXEUNT ON A LEOPARD In Which a Girl Named September Is Spirited Off by Means of a Leopard, Learns the Rules of Fairyland, and Solves a Puzzle

Once upon a time, a girl named September grew very tired indeed of her parents’ house, where she washed the same pink-and-yellow teacups and matching gravy boats every day, slept on the same embroidered pillow, and played with the same small and amiable dog. Because she had been born in May, and because she had a mole on her left cheek, and because her feet were very large and ungainly, the Green Wind took pity on her and flew to her window one evening just after her twelfth birthday. He was dressed in a green smoking jacket, and a green carriage-driver’s cloak, and green jodhpurs, and green snowshoes. It is very cold above the clouds in the shantytowns where the Six Winds live.

“You seem an ill-tempered and irascible enough child,” said the Green Wind.

“How would you like to come away with me and ride upon the Leopard of Little Breezes and be delivered to the great sea, which borders Fairyland? I am afraid I cannot go in, as Harsh Airs are not allowed, but I should be happy to deposit you upon the Perverse and Perilous Sea.

“Oh, yes!” breathed September, who disapproved deeply of pink-and-yellow teacups and also of small and amiable dogs.

“Well, then, come and sit by me, and do not pull too harshly on my Leopard’s fur, as she bites.”

September climbed out of her kitchen window, leaving a sink full of soapy pink-and-yellow teacups with leaves still clinging to their bottoms in portentous shapes. One of them looked a bit like her father in his long coffee-colored trench coat, gone away over the sea with a rifle and gleaming things on his hat. One of them looked a bit like her mother, bending over a stubborn airplane engine in her work overalls, her arm muscles bulging. One of them looked a bit like a squashed cabbage. The Green Wind held out his hand, snug in a green glove, and September took both his hands and a very deep breath. One of her shoes came loose as she hoisted herself over the sill, and this will be important later, so let us take a moment to bid farewell to her prim little mary jane with its brass buckle as it clatters onto the parquet floor. Good-bye, shoe! September will miss you soon.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Born July 6, 1945 — Burt Ward, 78. Robin in that Batman series. He would reprise the role in voicing the character in The New Adventures of Batman and Legends of the Superheroes, and two recent animated films, Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders and Batman vs. Two-Face. (Has anyone seen these?) The latter are the last work done by Adam West before his death.
Born July 6, 1946 — Sylvester Stallone, 77. Although I think Stallone made a far less than perfect Dredd, I think the look and feel of the first film was spot on for the film which was something the second film, which had a perfect Dredd in Karl Urban, utterly lacked. And Demolition Man and him as Sergeant John Spartan were just perfect.
Born July 6, 1950 — John Byrne, 73. A stellar comic book artist and writer. He’s done far too much to detail here so I’ll just single out that he scripted the first four issues of Hellboy: Seed of Destruction, was the writer and artist on the excellent Blood of the Demon from 1-17 and responsible for Spider-Man: Chapter One which took a great deal of flak.
Born July 6, 1951 — Rick Sternbach, 72. Best-known for his work in the Trek verse starting with ST: TMP where he designed control panel layouts and signage for the Enterprise. He’s next hired for Next Gen where communicator badge, phasers, PADDs and tricorders are all based on his designs. These designs will also be used on DS9 and Voyager. He also pretty much designed every starship during that time from the Cardassian and Klingon to the Voyager itself. He would win the Best Professional Artist Hugo at SunCon and IguanaCon II.
Born July 6, 1951 — Geoffrey Rush, 72. First genre role is like the Mystery Men series which I’ll bet everyone has forgotten, followed by House on Haunted Hill, Finding Nemo and some other genre work as well with his major genre role being as Barbossa in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. And I’ll include his role in Shakespeare in Love as Philip Henslowe even if strictly speaking it’s not genre related as I really, really love that film.
Born July 6, 1952 — Hilary Mantel. Though best remembered as the author of the Wolf Hall franchise, she’s actually written some genre fiction. The Mysterious Stranger involves supernatural occurrences in a small British town in the Fifties; and Beyond Black is about a psychic who sees more than she wants to. She also indulged in alternative history in the short story, “The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher – August 6th 1983”. (Died 2022.)
Born July 6, 1980 — Eva Green, 43. First crosses our paths in Casino Royale as Vesper Lynd followed by Serafina Pekkala in The Golden Compass, and then Angelique Bouchard Collins in Dark Shadows. Ava Lord in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (weird films those definitely are) with a decided move sideways into being Miss Alma Peregrine for Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. And she was Colette Marchant in Dumbo. She’s got two series roles to her credit, Morgan Pendragon in Camelot and Vanessa Ives in Penny Dreadful.

(9) TITAN COMICS GOODIES AT SDCC. The Titan Booth #5537 at San Diego Comic-Con 2023 will be the place to get some limited availability merchandise. Some of it looks pretty cute, like these pins.

Doctor Who: Thirteen Piece TARDIS Enamel Pin Collection

Titan Booth #5537 at SDCC 2023 is the only opportunity for US Doctor Who fans to buy this EXCLUSIVE Thirteen Piece TARDIS Enamel Pin Collection. Please note: this beautiful, one-of-a-kind TARDIS collection will be available from Titan Booth #5537 from Preview Night (Wednesday July 19^th). Numbers are EXTREMELY LIMITED. First come, first served.

And there will be some collectible figures available, too.

Doctor Who: Fourteenth Doctor 3″ Kawaii TITAN Vinyl Figure
Doctor Who: Fourteenth Doctor 3″ Classic TITAN Vinyl Figure

David Tennant’s upcoming Fourteenth Doctor arrives in San Diego as a pair of separately-packaged, separately-available EXCLUSIVE 3” TITANS Vinyl Figures. Both releases (3” Kawaii Fourteenth Doctor and 3” Classic Fourteenth Doctor) are available from Titan Booth #5537.

My Hero Academia: Dabi 3″ Glow-In-The-Dark Kawaii TITAN Vinyl Figure
My Hero Academia: Shigaraki 3″ Glow-In-The-Dark Kawaii TITAN Vinyl Figure

My Hero Academia TITANS Viny Figures return to Titan Booth #5537 as a pair of separately-packaged, separately-available San Diego EXCLUSIVE 3” Kawaii TITANS Vinyl Figures. Both releases (Dabi and Shigaraki) feature Glow-In-The-Dark effects and are available from Titan Booth #5537.

(10) CARVING UP THE STREAMING MARKET. JustWatch has shared their graphs about the market shares of streaming services for the second quarter in 2023.

SVOD market shares in Q2 2023
Prime Video continues to hold down the streaming crown in the US with a 1% lead over global giant, Netflix. Major players: Max and Disney+ also face similar challenges with a 2% gap separating the two.

Market share development in 2023
Newly rebranded streaming giant: Max (formerly HBO Max) displays positive development, gaining +1%; Paramount+ also won with a +1% increase in shares. On the other hand, Disney+ and Hulu drop in shares, suffering -1% losses each.

(11) SURF’S UP. Nature reports “Monster gravitational waves spotted for first time”. “Using beacon stars called pulsars, a decades-long effort has found space-time ripples that are light years wide.”

Gravitational waves are back, and they’re bigger than ever.

After the historic first detection of the space-time rattles in 2015 using ground-based detectors, researchers could have now rediscovered Albert Einstein’s waves with an entirely different technique. The approach tracks changes in the distances between Earth and beacon stars in its Galactic neighbourhood called pulsars, which reveal how the space in between is stretched and squeezed by the passage of gravitational waves.

Whereas the original discovery spotted waves originating from the collision and merger of two star-sized black holes, the most likely source of the latest finding is the combined signal from many pairs of much larger black holes — millions or even billions of times the mass of the Sun — slowly orbiting each other in the hearts of distant galaxies. These waves are thousands of times stronger and longer than those found in 2015, with wavelengths of up to tens of light years. By contrast, the ripples detected since 2015 using a technique called interferometry are just tens or hundreds of kilometres long.

(12) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Ryan George shows the many advantages that would come our way “If We Stopped Using Numbers”

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, 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 Jim Janney.]

Pixel Scroll 7/5/23 “I’m Scrolling As Fast As I Can,” Said Tom Swiftly

Posted on July 5, 2023 by Mike Glyer

(1) SHEILA GILBERT RETIRES. DAW editor Sheila Gilbert retired on June 30. Author Julie Czerneda paid tribute on Facebook.

After 53 years in publishing, my long-time fiction editor, Sheila Gilbert, retires today. We are family and always will be. As an author, what I’ve been able to put forth in story owes everything to Sheila. For her support, her “sure, write that” enthusiam no matter what I came up with, and above all, her many many insightful, invaluable comments and catches to make everything better.

As a friend, I look forward visits and adventures–and to hearing what she has to say about the next book. As a fan. Who could ask for more? Please join me in congratulating someone who has filled our shelves and hearts–and can finally ignore deadlines!!!

Sheila Gilbert and Betsy Wollheim at the 1995 World SF Convention. Photo by and (c) Andrew Porter.

(2) SO MAYBE KEEPING EPH WAS A GOOD IDEA. Ersatz Culture has been studying the withdrawn list of 2023 Hugo finalists and comparing it with the recommendations Science Fiction World posted in Chinese social media in April.

…by my reckoning 14 of the "recommendations" on that list also made it on the "leak" list. Not all of the "recommendations" were on the "leaked" finalist list, and not all categories had recommendations, but in a few categories, all the recs got through

2/?
— ErsatzCulture (@ErsatzCulture) July 5, 2023

The list can be found at this Chinese language webpage: https://t.co/y2aWzP8L85

There's a copy at https://t.co/KuQUlQbynE just in case the original disappears:https://t.co/m6TnL7GRID

The images are missing on the archive copy, but you don't really need them

4/?
— ErsatzCulture (@ErsatzCulture) July 5, 2023

Yao Haijun and Yan Huan (editor long form)
Wang Xu (short form)
Zhao Enzhe (pro artist)
Terry Pratchett: A Life in Footnotes and Art of Ghost of Tsushima (best related)
Cyberpunk 2077 and Dune GN (graphic/comic)
Chinese SF Academic Express (fanzine)

6/?
— ErsatzCulture (@ErsatzCulture) July 5, 2023

As I said, I only came across this earlier today, and was hoping to have a few more days to properly research it, but as the official announcement is tomorrow, I thought it might be better to post this now.

8/?
— ErsatzCulture (@ErsatzCulture) July 5, 2023

(3) SAVOYARDLY. [Item by Daniel Dern.] I saw Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny last night (first time in a movie theater since the beginning of Covid) with a friend, and, when Sallah began singing from G&S/Pinafore’s “He Is An Englishman” I quietly noted to him “Gilbert and Sullivan, Pinafore” (just in case he wasn’t familiar enough to spot it). He said “There’s a G&S song bit in every Indiana Jones movie.”

Ten or twenty minutes of web search later, I’m not yet convinced.

I’m finding cites for three G&S songs in only two Indiana Jones flicks — Raiders, and Dial — all from HMS Pinafore, all, I think, sung by Sallah. (No, I’m not prepared to rewatch the other three, just for this.)

Here’s what I found (including the usual lagniappe).

Songs that search hits confirm:

“He Is An Englishman”
“I Am The Monarch of The Sea”
“A British Tar”

(One search hit mistakenly ID’s the lyric from “Englishman” as part of “British Tar”)

Here’s some links (not finding one for Dial/Destiny):

Includes Sallah singing from “I Am The Monarch of The Sea”, and from “A British Tar”: “When Captain Picard and Indiana Jones met Gilbert and Sullivan” at Flickchart.

Here’s lyrics to “For He Is an Englishman” which may help show why it’s (subtly?) funny.

And here’s performances/fragments, including “Englishman” from not just Star Trek but also (in the same link) The Simpsons, and West Wing along with Batman (Adam West – from the 1960’s TV series) singing “I’m Called Little Buttercup”; Animaniacs; Family Guy; Car 54; some Alan Sherman parodies: “H.M.S. Pinafore – The Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company”.

(It feels like the above compilation link’s been in an item before… if nothing else, I recommend the Simpsons, West Wing, and Car 54 ones there.)

(4) MEDICAL UPDATE. Ursula Vernon tells her news like nobody else.

*after several minutes where we wade through her desire to be professional and my desire to be me*

ME: So it’s some kinda random lump?
DR: Yes. But there’s a LOT of things that can be a lump on your thyroid. Just…so many things.
ME: Well, my thyroid always has been wonky…
— Kingfisher & Wombat (@UrsulaV) July 3, 2023

(I mean, hell, I’m already gonna get chemo, what’s another one more or less?)

ME: How worried should I be?
DR: I wouldn’t worry til after the ultrasound.
ME: Wasn’t worried about Cancer-Bob until after the ultrasound either…
DR: Pardon?
ME: Nothing.
— Kingfisher & Wombat (@UrsulaV) July 3, 2023

DR: But only for the first day or two after treatment.
ME: *Keanu Voice* Whoa.
DR: I know how you feel, I was worried that it wouldn’t be safe for me to kiss my kids.
ME: (thinking) You are so much more wholesome a person than I am.
— Kingfisher & Wombat (@UrsulaV) July 3, 2023

ME: Okay, so if he doesn’t wear a condom, what’s going to happen to his—
DR: THESE ARE REALLY QUESTIONS FOR THE CHEMO EDUCATION COURSE
ME: Right.
*brief pause*
DR: I bought one of your hamster books to read with my daughter.
ME: …I hope she likes it.
— Kingfisher & Wombat (@UrsulaV) July 3, 2023

(5) FLYNN UPDATE. Meantime, Michael Flynn’s daughter told Facebook readers that Flynn “is on a step-down unit, meaning on a regular medical floor and out of ICU.”

(6) TAFF NEWS. The latest Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund newsletter has 2023 delegate Sandra Bond’s travel plans and other information: TAFFest 3. Says Bond:

…Since being announced as the delegate-elect in April, I have been privileged to receive invitations and offers of hospitality from all over North America. It very soon became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to accept anything like all of them; well, perhaps if I spent a year over there, but I’m not sure who would object more violently to that, the TAFF administrators or the immigration officials.

I know, I know – we should all have this problem.

In considering my route, I’ve worked on the basis that TAFF is in part a reward and in part an ambassadorship; in other words, that I may feel at liberty to do a certain amount of sightseeing, but that I also have a duty to make myself available at the conventions I’ll be attending, and at any other fannish events at which I may find myself. Don’t feel bad for me – this will be a pleasure as much as a duty….

(7) THIRD EYE. “Felicia Day Launches Sci-Fi Audible Series Starring Neil Gaiman, Sean Astin and More” – CBR.com has the story.

Felicia Day is launching a new science-fiction comedy audio series titled Third Eye, featuring renowned author Neil Gaiman as The Narrator.

Created in partnership with Audible Inc., Third Eye promises an abundance of iconic geek and gaming culture, with Easter eggs cleverly woven throughout the series. Written by Day, the story follows Laurel, a wizard who once failed in her battle against Tybus The Terrible (Christopher Judge) and is still grappling with the repercussions a decade later, despite being a “Chosen One.” Along the way, Laurel uncovers shocking secrets while encountering old adversaries.

Day stars as Laurel, a heroine forced to overcome her tattered reputation and self-loathing to save her friends.

Despite its dark premise, Third Eye will take listeners on an entertaining comedic journey with a host of unique characters like Kate Chen (Lily Pichu), a quirky teenager determined to learn about the supernatural world. Frank Fletcher (Sean Astin) is a cranky, stubborn vampire. Robigus (Wil Wheaton) is the local San Francisco enforcer for Tybus and a constant thorn in the side for Laurel. Sybil (London Hughes) is an exiled Faerie princess in her 20s who is best described as a hot mess. Neil Gaiman headlines the all-star cast as The Narrator….

(8) THE STARS WILL COME OUT FOR BRADBURY. The Library of America is hosting a free online panel, “The Enduring Genius of Ray Bradbury”, on Wednesday, July 19 at 6:00 p.m. Eastern. Register at the link.

In The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Fahrenheit 451, and other visionary works melding science fiction, horror, fantasy, and high literature, Ray Bradbury electrified readers and inspired generations of genre-bending younger writers. Acclaimed authors Connie Willis and Kelly Link join LOA Bradbury editor Jonathan R. Eller and SF expert Gary K. Wolfe for a conversation about this American original’s towering legacy.

There will be a brief Q&A at the end of the program; you will be able to type a question and submit it to the event moderator.

(9) MEMORY LANE.

2010 – [Written by Cat Eldridge from a choice by Mike Glyer.]

Cherie Priest is one of those writers that everyone really should read at lest once. When she was living in Chattanooga, she created her Eden Moore series which is set there and strongly recommend. The final of the three novels, Not Flesh Nor Feathers, was nominated for an Endeavour Award.

The other series that I really like of her is Clockwork Century Universe. Steampunk at its very, very best. Mike decided the third book of the seven that were done, Dreadnought, would be our Beginning.

It was published by Tor thirteen years ago, and it would win the Endeavour Award which given to a genre book written by a Pacific Northwest author or authors. The cover art is by Jon Foster.

And now for the Beginning…

Down in the laundry room with the bloody-wet floors and the ceiling-high stacks of sheets, wraps, and blankets, Vinita Lynch was elbows-deep in a vat full of dirty pillowcases because she’d promised—she’d sworn on her mother’s life—that she’d find a certain windup pocket watch belonging to Private Hugh Morton before the device was plunged into a tub of simmering soapy water and surely destroyed for good.

Why the private had stashed it in a pillowcase wasn’t much of a mystery: even in an upstanding place like the Robertson Hospital, small and shiny valuables went missing from personal stashes with unsettling regularity. And him forgetting about it was no great leap either: the shot he took in the forehead had been a lucky one because he’d survived it, but it left him addled at times—and this morning at breakfast had been one of those times. At the first bell announcing morning food, against the strict orders of Captain Sally he’d sat up and bolted into the mess hall, which existed only in that bullet-buffeted brain of his. In the time it took for him to be captured and redirected to his cot, where the meal would come to him, thank you very kindly, if only he’d be patient enough to receive it, the junior nursing staff had come through and stripped the bedding of all and sundry.

None of them had noticed the watch, but it would’ve been easy to miss.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Born July 5, 1941 — Garry Kilworth, 82. The Ragthorn, a novella co-authored with Robert Holdstock, won the World Fantasy Award. It’s an excellent read and it makes me wish I’d read other fiction by him. Anyone familiar with his work?
Born July 5, 1946 — Joyce Ballou Gregorian Hampshire. A fascinating woman who was way too short-lived due to a long illness with cancer. She was an SF writer, an expert on Oriental rugs, and a horse breeder. She wrote the Tredana trilogy, an alternative world fantasy. She collaborated with her father, Arthur T. Gregorian, and her nephew, Douglas Christian, on a book on Armenian oriental rugs. (Died 1991.)
Born July 5, 1948 — Nancy Springer, 75. May I recommend her Tales of Rowan Hood series of which her Rowan Hood: Outlaw Girl of Sherwood Forest is a most splendid revisionist telling of that legend? And her Enola Holmes Mysteries are a nice riffing off of the Holmsiean mythos. She won an Otherwise Award for her Larque on the Wing novel, and her latest, The Oddling Prince, came out several years ago on Tachyon.
Born July 5, 1957 — Jody Lynn Nye, 66. She’s best known for collaborating with Robert Asprin on the ever so excellent MythAdventures series. Since his death, she has continued that series and she is now also writing sequels to his Griffen McCandle series as well. She’s got a space opera series, The Imperium, out which sounds intriguing. Her latest two novels are both written with Travis Taylor, Moon Beam and Moon Tracks
Born July 5, 1962 — Marc Gascoigne, 61. Winner of the World Fantasy Special Award—Professional for his Angry Robot press, and later he won the British Fantasy Award in the category Best Independent Press, again for Angry Robot. If you’re a gamer, you’ll be impressed by knowing that he co-wrote Games Workshop’s original Judge Dredd RPG, and wrote the original Shadowrun source book.
Born July 5, 1963 — Alma Alexander, 60. Author of three SF series including the Changer of Days which is rather good. I’m including her here for her AbductiCon novel which is is set in a Con and involves both what goes on at that Con and the aliens that are involved.
Born July 5, 1964 — Ronald D. Moore, 59. Screenwriter and producer who’s best remembered for his work on Star Trek: The Next Generation where he fleshed out the Klingon race and culture, on the rebooted Battlestar Galactica, and Outlander. He’s the creator and writer of For All Mankind. He was one of the folks who won a Hugo at Intersection for the Next Generation’s “All Good Things…” and among the group nominated for one at LoneStarCon 2 for First Contact. His latest Hugo was won at Interaction for Battlestar Galactica’s “33”.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

Bizarro has some fun with a twisted book title.

(12) ANIMATION WILL SCREEN AT COMIC-CON. “Venture Bros, Babylon 5 & More Set to Screen at SDCC 2023” reports Bleeding Cool.

Even though Hall H might be found a bit lacking, this year’s San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) still has a lot to offer inside and outside the San Diego Convention Center. And when we’re talking about animation, we’re learning that Warner Bros. Discovery’s Warner Bros. Entertainment is looking to make an impact in some very big ways. So what can folks look forward to? How do screenings, Q&A sessions, and more sound? We thought you’d approve. As for what you should be keeping an eye out for, there are going to be four panels focusing on the following animated films: Adult Swim’s The Venture Bros.: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart, Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar, DC’s Justice League: Warworld, and Babylon 5: The Road Home….

(13) EYES ON STREAMING. Here are JustWatch’s top 10 movie and TV streaming lists for June 2023.

(14) U CAN HAZ FLYING CAR. [Item by Mike Kennedy.]USA Today reports “The first flying car, ‘Model A,’ approved by the FAA and it’s 100% electric”.

All electric
VTOL
FAA preliminary approval, but not yet road approved by NHTSA
When it is road approved, it’ll be a “Low Speed Vehicle” limited to 25 mph
$300,000
See linked article for video (all of which may be digitally rendered)
Linked article also has a bunch of pics (again, likely digitally rendered)

Under experimental status, the first flying car has officially been cleared for take off.

This week, Alef Aeronautics revealed its flying car “Model A” was granted legal permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to test run the vehicle on the road and in the sky − a move needed before it can be released to the public.

Alef is the first company to receive a Special Airworthiness Certification from the FAA, the company said in a news release. The certification limits the locations and purpose for which the vehicle is allowed to fly.

The vehicle will also need to meet National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration safety standards before taking flight….

… The company, founded in 2015 by Dukhovny, Konstantin Kisly, Pavel Markin, Oleg Petrov in Palo Alto, California, has been test driving and flying the car’s prototype since 2019.

The version customers could receive has a driving range of 200 miles and a flight range of 110 miles.

(15) A WUNNERFUL, A WUNNERFUL. “South Korea asks ‘Can robots replace conductors?’, as a mechanical maestro makes its podium debut…” at Classic fM

A robot has become the first of its kind to conduct an orchestra in South Korea, in a high-profile concert hall debut last week.

Standing at 1.8 metres tall, the EveR 6 robot led the National Orchestra of Korea in a sold-out performance at the National Theatre of Korea in Seoul on Friday 30 June.

The legless automaton was developed by the Korean Institute of Industrial Technology over a year ago, to test whether ‘robots could replace conductors’. Equipped with two arms housing ‘wrist’ and ‘elbow’ joints, the machine is able to delicately replicate the baton movements of the human maestro.

In a video advertisement for last Friday’s performance, a senior researcher at the Korean Institute of Industrial Technology, Dong-wook Lee, explained: “We got involved in this project to see how far robots can go in more creative fields like the arts, and what the challenges are.”…

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

Babylon 5: The Road Home Trailer

Posted on June 15, 2023 by Mike Glyer

Warner Bros. has dropped the trailer for Babylon 5: The Road Home, an animated movie which will be available on Digital, 4K UHD and Blu-ray on August 15, 2023.

It’s written by Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski and features many cast members from the original series: Bruce Boxleitner as John Sheridan, Claudia Christian as Susan Ivanova, Peter Jurasik as Londo Mollari, Bill Mumy as Lennier, Tracy Scoggins as Elizabeth Lochley, and Patricia Tallman as Lyta Alexander.

The Road Home is intended to be a treat for original Babylon 5 fans who see things only hinted at in the original series while introducing new viewers to the characters, history, and structure of the B5 universe. Our story will travel across the galaxy, as John Sheridan is whipsawed through multiple timelines and alternate realities in a quest to find his way back home. Along the way he reunites with some familiar faces, while discovering cosmic new revelations about the history, purpose, and meaning of the Universe.

[Based on a press release.]

File 770

Mike Glyer's news of science fiction fandom

Tag Archives: Babylon 5

Pixel Scroll 1/26/25 Pixels To The Left, Filers To The Right, I’m Stuck In The Middle With This Scroll

Pixel Scroll 1/4/25 Why Are All Pixels Tailless? It Makes It Easier To Walk Through Walls

Pixel Scroll 5/12/24 With A Sprinkle Of Pixel Dust, You Can File Like A Bird

Pixel Scroll 4/4/24 This Is The Scroll That Doesn’t End, It Just Goes On And On, My Fen

Pixel Scroll 1/27/24 Qual Piuma Pixel?

Pixel Scroll 8/11/23 The Secret Diary Of Pixel Scroll, Aged Four And Five Fifths

Pixel Scroll 7/18/23 I Only Came To Say I Must Be Scrolling

Pixel Scroll 7/6/23 The Felix Felis Flattus Sat On The Mat

Pixel Scroll 7/5/23 “I’m Scrolling As Fast As I Can,” Said Tom Swiftly

Babylon 5: The Road Home Trailer