The 2023 Hugo Awards were presented October 21 during a ceremony at the Chengdu Worldcon. Today the committee released the voting statistics for the finalists, which show how the winners were determined. The report is available here: https://file770.com/wp-content/uploads/2023-Hugo-Awards-Stats.pdf.
Still due to be released are the voting figures from the nominating ballots. Hugo Administrator Dave McCarty wrote on Facebook, “We will definitely have them out before the deadline of 90 days post convention, but right now ‘No, I don’t have an expected release date.’’”
(1) LUKYANENKO NOT AT WORLDCON. There’s no sign of the Chengdu Worldcon’s Russian GoH Sergey Lukyanenko in social media coverage of the con. And the latest posts to his blog on his official website (devoted to anti-Israel remarks, and a report that his wife rescued a migrating woodcock in the backyard) suggest he’s at home. Although he made two other professional visits to the Far East earlier in 2023 he hasn’t mentioned Chengdu on his blog this year.
(2) 2023 HUGO BASE. This year’s Hugo base was debuted at the Chengdu Worldcon Opening Ceremonies by Hugo Administrator Dave McCarty. Here’s a screencap from the video. There are much better closeup photos of the base at his Facebook page.
(3) CHENGDU WORLDCON SOUVENIR BOOK. The “Member Guidebook” Member Guidebook for 2023 Chengdu World Science Fiction Convention has been released. It’s a publicly available download here (PDF).
The member guidebook for the 2023 Chengdu World Science Fiction Convention is available online. The guidebook consists of the welcome message from the co-chairs, an introduction to the main venue, notes for participants, an introduction to theme activities, a brief introduction of Chengdu, and an appendix.
(4) UYGHURS REMEMBERED. Andrew Gillsmith moderated a pre-Worldcon panel for the “World Uyghur Congress” which can be viewed on X.
(5) CHENGDU WORLDCON ROUNDUP. [Item by Ersatz Culture.]
Unofficial (?) Bilibili video of the opening ceremony
This seems to have been ripped from the stream, as it has a jump near the start where the video froze for me and others and audio glitches later on. It is mostly in Chinese.
I don’t think that opening ceremony video is complete; there was a section at the end where a bunch of the VIPs came up on stage to declare the con open. Most of that is in this 2-minute video, but it also has bits chopped out for some reason.
Donald Eastlake, Kevin Standlee, Chris M. Barkley and Nicholas Whyte are amongst several Western fandom figures pictured in this Xiaohongshu photo gallery.
Kevin Standlee and Don Eastlake III. Chris BarkleyNicholas Whyte
Longer fannish reports on Weibo
(Note: in the last couple of weeks or so, Weibo has added a “Translate content” link to posts, similar to what you get for foreign language tweets on Twitter. However, for long-form posts like these, it tends to time out, so you might instead want to use any translation tools built into browsers such as Chrome to read the following links.)
For those not keen on the more commercial or “mainstream” stuff in some of the prior links, Best Fan Writer and Fanzine finalist RiverFlow has a long Weibo post going over his activities today, which included meeting various fans and pros, and being on a panel about university SF societies.
From left to right: Hua Wen, Wei Ran, Bei Yu, RiverFlow (Best Fan Writer and Best Fanzine finalist), Tian Tian, San Ma, Dan Fan.(left) Best Fan Writer finalist Arthur Liu; (middle, in blue polo shirt) Ling Shizhen, who worked on the Best Fanzine finalist, Zero Gravity SF
SF Light Year aka Adaoli, who has commented here on File 770, has also posted some long reports on Weibo, such as this one.
English language promo video from Chengdu Museum
This 6-minute English language video is for the most part covers things that are more likely to appeal to general tourists, but is framed within a time-travel story featuring the Kormo mascot, and ends with the SF museum.
Xiaohongshu videos and photo galleries
As is to be expected with the con now underway, there are loads of these out there, and there’s a lot of repetition of material. These are a fairly arbitrary selection of the ones that showed up in search results:
Various panels, with a nice text summary of the poster’s impressions if you push it through browser translation tools
(6) LE GUIN VIDEOS. Available for viewing on Literary Hub, The Journey That Matters is a series of six short videos from Arwen Curry, the director and producer of Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin, a Hugo Award-nominated 2018 feature documentary about the iconic author. Here are the fifth and sixth installments.
In the fifth of the series, Theo Downes-Le Guin introduces “Where I Write,” an intimate peek into Ursula’s study and her writing process.
…Recently I viewed an online video titled “I Tried Ursula K. Le Guin’s Writing Schedule,” one of many such links. The production was snappy and well-intentioned, but the writer-presenter lost me when she described preparation of a “fancy breakfast.” The fried egg, tomato, and rocket sandwich bore no resemblance to mornings in my childhood home. Note to content creators: if you geek out on someone’s routine, do your research. Ursula wrote an entire essay about how to properly soft-boil an egg. That’s what she ate for breakfast. Not fancy.
In the final installment of the series, Julie Phillips reflects on “He’s My First Reader,” in which Ursula and her husband, Charles, discuss how their division of household labor helped Ursula thrive.
…When Ursula Kroeber met and fell in love with Charles Le Guin, their meeting, on a ship bound for France, seemed to her almost magically improbable. “Obviously this sort of thing doesn’t happen,” she wrote him six weeks after they met. “I mean, conceivably you might exist, but you would never sit at Table 30 at 2nd sitting for dinner in tourist class on the Queen Mary on Sept 23rd 1953; I ask you, now would you?”
Charles felt the same, though he didn’t recognize true love quite as quickly as she. “I thought she was awfully snooty and shy the first meals; and she thought that I was British and very reserved. But after those first misapprehensions were displaced, we have scarcely been apart at all the last month,” he wrote his parents. “How do I tell you all this without it seeming silly or impossible? It is neither—not impossible because it has happened; not silly because it is too deep and too wonderful. Ursula and I are going to be married.”…
Lately I feel like everyone is talking about masculinity and what it means to be a good dude. The other day, I was on a panel at the Pride on the Page book festival with Jacob Tobia (Sissy) who was saying that we’ve spent decades expanding gender roles for women in mainstream society — women won the right to wear pants in the workplace (for now) — but meanwhile, most men remain trapped, unable to express healthy emotions or process all of their trauma.
As someone who was so successful at being a man that I actually graduated, I want to help!
So it’s a really good thing that science fiction and fantasy offer us so many excellent examples of guys who are secure in their masculinity and ready to do the right thing, even when it’s tough….
Take for example —
11) Henry Deacon (Eureka)
In a “town full of geniuses,” Henry Deacon might just be the smartest of them all — but when this underrated show begins, he’s working as a mechanic because he has ethical objections to the work that Global Dynamics is doing. Henry isn’t just the guy who steps in and fixes things when all the out-of-control science goes off the rails, he’s also the town’s moral center. (And eventually, he becomes its mayor.) Emmy-winning actor Joe Morton, who plays Henry, also plays a resourceful, kind alien refugee in the movie The Brother From Another Planet.
(8) LARA PARKER (1938-2023). Actress Lara Parker, age 28 when she was cast as Dark Shadows’ beautiful and evil witch Angelique Bouchard Collins, died October 12. She was 84. The Deadline tribute also mentions her writing career:
…In her later years, Parker turned to writing and teaching — her novels include Angelique’s Descent (1998), The Salem Branch (2006), Wolf Moon Rising (2013) and Heiress of Collinwood (2016). The books proved popular among Dark Shadows‘ still-devoted, conventions-attending fan base, as well as devotees of romance and horror genre novels.
(9) MEMORY LANE.
1992 — [Written by Cat Eldridge from a suggestion by Mike Glyer.]
So let’s talk about Connie Willis’ Doomsday Book which is where our Beginning is from this Scroll.
It’s a novel in her series about Oxford time-traveling historians, which consists of Fire Watch, Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog, or How We Found the Bishop’s Bird Stump and Blackout/All Clear.
It was published thirty-one years ago by Bantam Spectra with the cover art being by Tim Jacobus.
The series has an extraordinary history when it comes to awards. Fire Watch started off with a Best Novelette Hugo at ConStellation, along with winning a Nebula and being nominated for Balrog. Next up was a BSFA nomination for this novel followed by a Hugo win (a tie with with Vernor Vinge’s A Fire Upon the Deep) at ConFrancisco and a Nebula as well as picking up Clarke and Mythopoeic nominations.
To Say Nothing of the Dog, or How We Found the Bishop’s Bird Stump at Last won a Hugo at Aussiecon Three and also picked a Nebula nomination too.
Blackout/All Clear got a Hugo at Renovation and Nebula, plus a Campbell Memorial nomination.
So now that we’ve got those out of the way, let’s turned to the Beginning….
Mr. Dunworthy opened the door to the laboratory and his spectacles promptly steamed up.
“Am I too late?” he said, yanking them off and squinting at Mary.
“Shut the door,” she said. “I can’t hear you over the sound of those ghastly carols.”
Dunworthy closed the door, but it didn’t completely shut out the sound of “O Come, All Ye Faithful” wafting in from the quad. “Am I too late?” he said again.
Mary shook her head. “All you’ve missed is Gilchrist’s speech.” She leaned back in her chair to let Dunworthy squeeze past her into the narrow observation area. She had taken off her coat and wool hat and set them on the only other chair, along with a large shopping bag full of parcels. Her gray hair was in disarray, as if she had tried to fluff it up after taking her hat off. “A very long speech about Mediaeval’s maiden voyage in time,” she said, “and the college of Brasenose taking its rightful place as the jewel in history’s crown. Is it still raining?”
“Yes,” he said, wiping his spectacles on his muffler. He hooked the wire rims over his ears and went up to the thin-glass partition to look at the net. In the center of the laboratory was a smashed-up wagon surrounded by overturned trunks and wooden boxes. Above them hung the protective shields of the net, draped like a gauzy parachute.
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born October 18, 1917 — Reynold Brown. Artist responsible for many SF film posters. His first poster was Creature from the Black Lagoon with other notable ones being Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, I Was a Teenage Werewolf and Mothra vs. Godzilla. (Died 1991.)
Born October 18, 1925 — Walter Harris. He wrote a New Avengers novel, To Catch a Rat, and novelized Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Werewolf of London. ISFDB lists four more genre novels by him, The Mistress of Downing Street, The Day I Died, The Fifth Horseman and Salvia. (Died 2019.)
Born October 18, 1944 — Katherine Kurtz, 78. Known for the Deryni series which started with Deryni Rising in 1970, and the most recent, The King’s Deryni, the final volume of The Childe Morgan Trilogy, was published several years back. As medieval historical fantasy goes, they’re damn great.
Born October 18, 1951 — Jeff Schalles, 72. Minnesota area fan who’s making the Birthday Honors because he was the camera man for Cats Laughing’s A Long Time Gone: Reunion at Minicon 50concert DVD. Cats Laughing is a band deep in genre as you can read in the Green Man review here.
Born October 18, 1964 — Charles Stross, 59. I’ve read a lot of him down the years with I think his best being the rejiggered Merchant Princes series especially the recent Empire Games and Dark State novels. Other favored works include the early Laundry Files novels and both of the Halting State novels though the second makes me cringe.
Born October 18, 1965– Kristen Britain, 58. She is writing the Green Rider series of which Green Rider was nominated for the Crawford Award and Blackveil was nominated for the David Gemmell Legend Award. It’s now a dozen novels deep.
(11) COMICS SECTION.
The Far Side — This is mainly about Mrs. Frankenstein’s monster?
(12) THAT POPEYE FILM. Daniel Dern (as a longtime fan of the movie) encourages Filers to watch “Popeye – It’s Not THAT Bad – The Insane True Story Behind the Movie”. Interesting enough. One notable item early in: the initial leads casting offer went to Dustin Hoffman (for Popeye) and Gilda Radner (for Olive Oil).
The final selections were Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall, both delightfully great… but I would still love to have seen Radner’s take on Ms. Oil, particularly playing opposite Robin Williams.
(13) DOWNLOAD VECTOR’S “CHINESE SF” ISSUE. The British Science Fiction Association opens issues of Vector to the public after about two years. The 2021 issue on Chinese SF is now available to download here.
‘ Vector 293 is a collaboration with guest editors Yen Ooi and Regina Kanyu Wang. Yen Ooi introduces the issue as well as many of its recurring concepts, such as techno-orientalism. Regina Kanyu Wang takes us through the history of women writing SF in China. Artist and curator Angela Chan interviews Beatrice Glow about her work with colonial histories and the ability of science fiction to ‘tell truthful histories and envision just futures together’ through art. The conversation about history, futures, science fiction and art continues in Dan Byrne-Smith’s interview with Gordon Cheung. Chinese SF scholars Mia Chen Ma, Frederike Schneider-Vielsäcker and Mengtian Sun offer glimpses of their recent and ongoing research. Authors Maggie Shen King (An Excess Male) and Chen Qiufan (Waste Tide) interview each other about their recent novels. Feng Zhang introduces us to the SF fandom in China, while Regina Kanuy Wang brings us up to speed with accelerating Chinese SF industry. Dev Agarwal questions the maturity of the Chinese SF blockbuster as can be judged from Shanghai Fortress and The Wandering Earth (both available on Netflix). Virginia L. Conn explores Sinofuturism, while Emily Xueni Jin delves into the implications of translating a growing body of SF work from Chinese into English. We learn about the global perspectives on Chinese SF from an illustrious panel assembled at WorldCon 2019, and about transnational speculative folklore of the Uyghur people from Sandra Unerman. Niall Harrison completes the issue with an illuminating survey of Chinese short SF in the 21st Century.’
(15) TRAILER PARK. Beacon 23 – a series coming on MGM+. The series, based on a book by Hugh Howey, is set to premiere its first two episodes on MGM+ on Sunday, November 12 at 9:00 p.m. EST/PST.
Aster (Lena Headey) and Halan (Stephan James) are drawn to Beacon 23 and face an onslaught of threats. When an object called The Artifact appears, they begin to unravel its mysteries, and develop a deep bond just in time to face a deadly AI.
The recent “ring of fire” solar eclipse looked stunning across portions of North and South America and we now have a new view of the stellar event. The Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite created the image of the eclipse on Saturday October 14, depicting the mostly blue Earth against the darkness of space, with one large patch of the planet in the shadow of the moon.
Launched in 2015, DSCOVR is a joint NASA, NOAA, and U.S. Air Force satellite. It offers a unique perspective since it is close to 1 million miles away from Earth and sits in a gravitationally stable point between the Earth and the sun called Lagrange Point 1. DSCOVR’s primary job is to monitor the solar wind in an effort to improve space weather forecasts.
A special device aboard the satellite called the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) imager took this view of the eclipse from space. According to NASA, the sensor gives scientists frequent views of the Earth. The moon’s shadow, or umbra, is falling across the southeastern coast of Texas, near Corpus Christi….
[Thanks to Ersatz Culture, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Lise Andreasen, Daniel Dern, Steven French, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mike Kennedy, and Andrew Porter, for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Peer.]
(1) CHARTING THE DECLINE OF SFF MAGAZINES. Steve Davidson of Amazing Stories has shared a graph on Facebook showing decade-by-decade the number of sff magazine titles and issues since 1923. The numbers really drop off as they approach 2023, as you might guess. Now you can see it, too.
…Following the posthumous release of his final few novels, there could never again be a new Terry Pratchett book.
Until now.
A Stroke of the Pen: The Lost Stories, published this week, compiles short tales written by Pratchett for newspapers in the ’70s and early ’80s and not republished since. It’s not the first such collection – before he died, Pratchett himself approved several volumes of his early tales, originally published in the Bucks Free Press newspaper where he wrote children’s stories under the inherited nom-de-plume ‘Uncle Jim’. The Lost Stories are different, though – until last year, nobody knew they existed.
“It always puzzled me why his inspiration for writing short stories dried up in the mid ’70s”, says Colin Smythe, Pratchett’s friend and publisher, who would become his literary agent when the Discworld novels found success in the ’80s. “It turns out it had not.”…
…The best stories have sparks of originality that, the reader wishes, could have been kindled into greater length. The Fossil Beach starts from the premise that putting a fossilised seashell to your ear enables you to hear a prehistoric ocean, spinning a neat and funny little time-travel comedy from that notion. The collection’s final story, The Quest for the Keys, is the best as well as the longest. It opens in “Morpork” – not exactly the Discworld’s Ankh-Morpork, but a more thinly rendered “evil, ancient, foggy city” – where a disreputable wizard, Grubble the Utterly Untrustworthy, sends the none-too-bright warrior Kron on the titular quest. It rattles along, and is liable to remind the Pratchett fan of The Colour of Magic. But it only confirms what the collection as a whole says: that this is a writer on his way somewhere more interesting….
… What’s vanity radio/TV? In the “writer beware” context, it’s radio or television air time that you, the program guest, have to pay for. Such schemes have been around forever in various forms, aimed at experts and creatives of all kinds, from services that explicitly sell pay-to-play interviews, to show hosts that charge interview fees to defray the fees that they themselves have to pay their platforms.
The main selling point is the promise that your interview will be heard by a large and eager audience, giving wide exposure to you and your book (see the pitches screenshotted below).
In reality, though, vanity radio primarily means local AM/FM stations (not national radio), often in obscure time slots; or internet radio broadcasts and podcasts delivered via platforms like Blog Talk Radio, Spreaker, and streaming services such as iHeart Radio. Internet radio listenership has steadily risen over the last decade and a half, but unless there are subscriber lists (as on YouTube, for instance), there’s usually no way to determine the audience for any given host or show–or to authenticate any listenership claims the show may make.
Ditto for vanity television: interviews may appear on local channels–again, often at times when viewership may be low–but are most often delivered via “sponsored content” internet stations such as The Spotlight Network, or proprietary online “channels” like Daily Spark TV, or “cable alternative” apps like TikiLIVE, which provide no reliable way of verifying audience.
Bottom line: lots of people may be tuning in…or no one at all. Which means that that the only benefit authors can be sure they’ll receive for their money is an audio or video clip they can post to their websites and social media accounts.
Whether that’s worth it when it costs $99 or $150 or $200 is debatable enough. But when the price tag is four figures?…
(5) CHENGDU WORLDCON ROUNDUP. [Item by Ersatz Culture.]
Crowdsourced spreadsheet of panel members
This Chinese-language online spreadsheet shows in red the members of panels/events, where those people or organizations have publicly posted about them. The Weibo post announcing it indicates that it is open to submissions for the missing information – if anyone has info, if you post a comment here, it will be seen and added to that spreadsheet. NB: the information may not be 100% correct due to late cancellations and the like.
CSFDB activities at the Worldcon
A weixin.qq.com post by the Chinese Science Fiction Database linked from the aforementioned Weibo post provides full details of their activities, including a panel whose members include Sanfeng (aka Feng Zhang) and Arthur Liu, both of whom have contributed posts or commented here at File 770. The post states (via Google Translate):
Note: Translation and video recording will be provided for this event, and we will produce a Chinese and English subtitled version after the event.
I asked Arthur Liu, and he said those recordings and subtitles are something that the CSFDB team are providing off their own back. It’s still unclear what exactly the con will be providing via official streams and the like.
34th Galaxy Awards shortlist
I’m not sure if this shortlist is new information, but it doesn’t look to have been previously covered on File 770. Hugo Best Short Story finalists “On the Razor’s Edge” and “The White Cliff” both make an appearance, as do the western works Love, Death and Robots (an anthology of the adapted stories, I think), Ken Liu’s Good Hunting (I think this is a collection including the titular story), Stanislaw Lem’s The Star Diaries and a Roger Luckhurst non-fiction book.
The award ceremony is on Thursday 19th at the Sheraton across the lake from the Worldcon site.
Successful lottery applicants have been notified
My searches for relevant Xiaohongshu posts today were dominated by successful applicants to the lottery for the three ceremonies. From this incredibly unscientific sample set, it seems like the Hugo ceremony was most popular, followed by the opening ceremony. I only found one post showing attendance for the closing ceremony.
Another view of the Hugo rocket decoration
This Xiaohongshu post has a few images of the interior of the museum, including a wider angle view on the Hugo rocket that was in yesterday’s Scroll. It doesn’t look that impressive at first glance, until you notice the tiny human figure under it…
Venue video
The Chengdu Worldcon committee has posted a video on Facebook with many interior views of the décor of the building where the con will be held.
(6) OVERSIGHT. Hugo Administrator Dave McCarty has arrived in Chengdu and on Facebook has shared photos of the view of the Chinese Science Fiction Museum from his hotel room window.
(7) WE HAVE LIFTOFF! And Chris Barkley took off for China this morning after sending us this photo message: “Well, it’s HAPPENING. Tell my fellow Filers that I will be safe and I’ll TRY to behave.”
(9) SIMULTANEOUS TIMES. Space Cowboy Books has launched Episode 68 of the Simultaneous Times podcast. Stories featured in this episode are:
“This is an Optimistic Science Fiction Story About the Future” by Marie Vibbert. Music by Fall Precauxions
“Space Radio” by Michael Butterworth. Music by Phog Masheeen
“Space Age Mermaid” by Tonya R. Moore. Music by Phog Masheeen.
And theme music by Dain Luscombe
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born October 15, 1911 — James H. Schmitz. Writer of short fiction in a space opera setting, sold primarily to Galaxy Science Fiction and Astounding Science-Fiction. His “Lion Loose” was nominated for a Short Fiction Hugo at Chicon III, and The Witches of Karres was nominated for Best Novel at NyCon 3. Sources laud him for his intelligent female characters. His collections and novels are available at the usual suspects. (Died 1981.)
Born October 15, 1919 — E.C. Tubb. A writer of at least one hundred forty novels and two hundred twenty short stories and novellas, he’s best remembered I think for the Dumarest Saga. His other long-running series was the Cap Kennedy stories. And his short story “Little Girl Lost” which was originally published in New Worlds magazine became a story on Night Gallery. He novelized a number of the Space: 1999 episodes. Somewhat surprisingly he’s never been nominated for or won any awards. (Died 2010.)
Born October 15, 1923 — Italo Calvino. Writer and Journalist who was born in Cuba, but grew up in Italy. His works range widely across the literary spectrum, across realism, surrealism, and absurdism. As a genre writer he is best known for his “cosmicomics”, linked stories which explore fantastical speculations about subjects such as mathematics, evolution, and human perception. At the time of his death in 1985, he was the most-translated Italian author, and he was recognized with a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement. (Died 1985.)
Born October 15, 1926 — Ed McBain. Huh, I never knew he ventured beyond his mystery novels where he was best known for his 87th Precinct novels but he published approximately twenty-four genre stories and six SF novels between 1951 and 1971 under the names S. A. Lombino, Evan Hunter, Richard Marsten, D. A. Addams, and Ted Taine. ISFDB has a list and I can’t say I know any of them. Any of y’all read them? Some are distinctly pulpier in nature such as Find The Feathered Serpent. (Died 2005.)
Born October 15, 1935 — Ray “Duggie” Fisher. Editor, Conrunner and Fan, who chaired the 1969 Worldcon in St. Louis, was on the committee for several other conventions, and was a founding member of the Poplar Bluff Science Fiction Club and the Ozark Science Fiction Association. His fanzine ODD was a finalist for a Best Fanzine Hugo. His contributions to fandom were, sadly, cut short by his death at age 52 due to complications of diabetes. (Died 1988) (JJ)
Born October 15, 1942 — Lon Atkins. Editor, Conrunner, and Fan who chaired a DeepSouthCon and was editor of numerous fanzines and apazines, including eight years as co-editor of Rally! He was Fan Guest of Honor at a Westercon, and a recipient of Southern Fandom’s Rebel lifetime achievement award. He was also a ferocious Hearts player. (Died 2016.) (JJ)
Born October 15, 1954 — Linnea Sinclair, 69. Merging romance, SF and paranormal into, well, damned if I know. She’s here solely because I’m really tickled by the use of her SJW credentials as Games of Command and the short story “Of Cats, Uh, Furzels and Kings” feature telepathic feline creatures called ‘Furzels’. Sinclair has stated that these are inspired by her two cats.
Born October 15, 1968 — Jack du Brul, 55. A writer of somewhat SF novels that EoSF says of “the Philip Mercer sequence featuring a geologist who – not entirely unlike Steven Spielberg’s similarly scholarly Indiana Jones – has physical gifts extending beyond the probable.” He also co-wrote, and continued after Clive Cusler passed on, The Oregon Files.
(12) LEARNEDLEAGUE: SFF ONE-DAY SPECIAL. [Item by David Goldfarb] The LearnedLeague is in its off-season, which as usual means single-topic one-day quizzes. There was one recently about the cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender. You can read its questions here.
Beyond Fest and the American Cinematheque saluted producer Roger Corman on [September 30] with a four-film marathon followed by a conversation with some of the directors who began their careers working for the now-legendary genre icon….
…“The vast majority of people can’t tell good from bad,” said [Amy Holden] Jones. “You get notes on cuts that don’t particularly make sense, to get reshoots that aren’t fixing what’s actually the problem. But mainly the executives can’t tell good from bad. And Roger knew it immediately.”
“I’ll never be working for anybody again who knows as much about movies as Roger did when I was starting out,” said Dante, who went on to make the “Gremlins” movies. “Unfortunately, the problem is that the more movies you make, and the more executives you meet, the more you realize that there are almost none who know as much about movies as you do. And so they are no help.
“In fact, they’re a hindrance and you spend a lot of time trying to please people who don’t know what they want,” added [Joe] Dante. “And if they did, they wouldn’t know how to express it anyway. So I think all of us feel that the best years of our creative lives were spent working for somebody who knew more than we did. And that was Roger.”
[Allan] Arkush pointed to Corman when he said, “The profound thing is, this is the only person to run a studio who knows how to make a movie.”…
(14) PARTY LIKE IT’S 1998. “Lost In Space Forever” – a skit with Jonathan Harris and Bill Mumy.
The end of this 1998 documentary features a short skit with Will, Dr. Smith and the Robot on the Jupiter 2.
[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mike Kennedy, Gareth Jelley, Jennifer Hawthorne, David Goldfarb, Steven French, Andrew Porter, Ersatz Culture, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]
2023 Chengdu Worldcon mascot awaits you to name it
The mascot of the 2023 Chengdu Worldcon is an imaginative and futuristic giant panda. This video presents the first projection of the giant panda in three-dimensional space. With a streamlined style and delicate metallic texture, the “Voyager” mecha on the giant panda pays tribute to the spaceship from the classic sci-fi film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The designs of the “Stellar Energy” and “Sunbeam Neurotransmitter” are derived from the venue of the Chengdu Worldcon and the sun bird totem at Jinsha ruins, respectively. The “Sliver Leaf Vascular Technology Knob” on its head, inspired by the ginkgo leaf, is the core controller of the mecha. The “Staff of Creation” held by the giant panda KORMO is inspired by the golden staff artifact and bamboo from the Sanxingdui Museum. The “Stellar Messenger” on the top of the staff is derived from the bronze bird from Sanxingdui.
It is reported that the tentative name of the giant panda is KORMO. At the 2023 Chengdu Worldcon, a series of KORMO derivatives will be launched, including toys, dolls, bags, stationery, etc. Next, the Committee will collect ideas from sci-fi fans through the official social media to decide on the final name for the mascot.
Experience the Three-Body World at the 2023 Chengdu Worldcon
The Three-Body Problem trilogy is a flagship work of Chinese science fiction literature. In 2015, the first installment of The Three-Body Problem (English version) won the Hugo Award for the Best Novel, representing the global recognition for Chinese science fiction literature. In 2018, the Three-Body Universe (Shanghai) Cultural Development Co., LTD was established, officially starting the systematic development and operation of the Three-Body IP.
With the promotion of the Three-Body Universe, the Three-Body is coming into our life in various fresh forms, such as derivative TV series, animations, variety shows, radio dramas, PC games, VR, and immersive exhibitions. The content products developed by the Three-Body Universe cover film, television, music, pan-culture, interactive entertainment, location-based entertainment, etc. The Three-Body Problem has gone from a novel to an inter-generational cultural symbol with global influence.
The 2023 Chengdu Worldcon has specially invited the Three-Body Universe, the exclusive global copyright holder of the content development and commercial derivative of the Three-Body Problem trilogy, as the “2023 Chengdu World Science Fiction Special IP Partner”.
With the support of the 2023 Chengdu Worldcon, the Three-Body Universe plans to hold content-rich theme programs and present a large “Waterdrop” themed art installation at the convention site. The design of the installation blends the concepts of Waterdrop, the Dark Forest Theory, and the Museum of Earth Civilization, combining the amazing imagination and profound philosophy of the Three-Body Problem. An exciting Three-Body World is waiting to be explored by sci-fi fans.
Hear from the sci-fi “heavy hitters” on the talk show “Discover X Interview”
To visit the spiritual homes of sci-fi heavy hitters from China and abroad experience and inherit more than 80 years’ heritage of the World Science Fiction Convention culture, the talk show “Discover X Interview” has been launched on the official website and social media platforms of the 2023 Chengdu Worldcon, and the Bilibili website.
In the first episode, Chengdu Worldcon staff Tina Wong hosts a talkshow with Ben Yalow, co-chair of the 2023 Chengdu Worldcon, Dave McCarty, administrator of the Hugo Awards, and Helen Montgomery, chair of the 2022 Chicon 8, who are invited to talk about the Hugo Awards and World Science Fiction Convention from the experts’ point of view.
Next, the “Discover X Interview” will invite honorary guests of the convention, newly nominated Hugo Award finalists, renowned sci-fi film and TV directors, and sci-fi game producers. In the program, you will see “Sci-Fi Veterans” such as Tan Kai, Dong Renwei, He Xi, and Yin Guang, and new sci-fi stars chatting about science fiction. More guests will participate in the program, stay tuned.
The Chengdu Worldcon’s Chinese-language website today published five posts about the just-concluded “2023 Chengdu World Science Fiction Convention Global Brand Conference” that are not yet available on its English-language counterpart. Three Chengdu Worldcon committee members from the U.S., Ben Yalow, Dave McCarty, and Helen Montgomery, were among those attending the event.
Excerpts of the five posts follow the jump, produced using computer translations from Chinese to English, and therefore imprecise.
(1) ON THE GROUND IN CHENGDU. The Chengdu Worldcon has posted a gallery of photos on Facebook showing Ben Yalow, Helen Montgomery, Dave McCarty and other team members going “over the preparations work for the convention, covering transportation, accommodation, catering and other security work, and looked into the main site of the conference. They expressed satisfaction with the preparation work in Chengdu and expressed their eagerness to participate in this grand event and enjoy happy times right here with fans from around the world.”
Facing camera: Helen Montgomery, Ben Yalow, and Dave McCarty
(2) ONE TO BEAM DOWN. “Chamber Spock moves to ‘logical’ new home”. The Greater Birmingham (UK) Chamber of Commerce is moving this bear to Millennium Point, which is also the current venue for in-person meetings of the Birmingham SF Group.
Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce’s beloved Spock the bear has reached his final frontier.
The Star Trek-inspired sculpture – created in 2017 for public art trail The Big Sleuth – will ‘live long and prosper’ at Birmingham conference and event venue Millennium Point after being donated by the Chamber.
Spock was one of 100 bears on display at museums, parks, libraries and shopping centres across the city throughout The Big Sleuth.
The trail attracted thousands of visitors, before the bears were auctioned off to raise money for Birmingham Children’s Hospital Charity.
While local artists, celebrities and businesses contributed their own bear interpretations, the Chamber decided to ‘boldly go where no-one has gone before’ with a creation inspired by Star Trek character Spock, due to then president Paul Kehoe’s love of the classic science fiction TV series.
Spock’s relocation is ‘highly logical’ for both parties, with the GBCC moving to new premises later this year and Millennium Point championing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) education….
…My partner and I have been looking for Chinese stories to adapt for TV. Our first project was The Three-Body Problem, an amazing sci-fi trilogy which is one of Barack Obama’s favourite books. We partnered with Netflix and David Benioff and DB Weiss, who did Game of Thrones. In their hands, it’s very exciting. That will be coming out within a year….
…AWN:What assets were you actually given? You always generate a lot of your own concepts and previs and stuff just because that’s how you determine what’s actually needed to get given sequences done. What did you guys get to work from?
GW: They shared everything they had, so we got a full art package, including whatever previs had been done at that point. The main assets that they wanted to turn over early were for the Arête, because we all knew that that wasn’t a model that you’d be done with over the course of a couple of months. Two or three other models had conflicting details, so we had to rectify all that over time.
Even though Groot was established, we received Groot pretty early on from Framestore. We had a bunch of variations that we had to create, because Groot’s a very dynamic character in that he’s often doing things he hasn’t done before. Because of that, we had to build it in such a way that it can change over the course of a shot. It wasn’t just a matter of modeling something, it’s modeling it so that effects can work with it.
They gave us all the digi-doubles because we knew that we were going to need good high-resolution assets for those. James Gunn has a great production designer, Beth Mickle, he typically works with. She always builds up a fantastic art department. Plus, you have Marvel’s art department. So, we were not ever suffering from lack of good artwork to start with.
AWN:How much time and hassle does it save you when you’re handed such an extensive amount of good artwork, so that you don’t have to figure it all out yourself?
GW: You’re asking an interesting question because it’s not so much about how much does the artwork save you from having to work, it’s how willing is the creative team, whether it’s the director or the producers, to stick to the art that you’re given. What’s painful as hell is to get an amazing art package and start working on it, and then have people come in three months, four months later and say, “Love what you’re doing, but we never really liked those pictures, so can we make it blue and round?” That hurts.
James definitely isn’t that guy. He knows what he wants and he’s willing to commit to it. He’s talented enough that he doesn’t need to second guess himself. What he and his art team come up with is compelling as hell, and you don’t need to throw it all away and start over because it’s going to work….
(6) QUIZ TIME. [Item by Orange Mike Lowrey.] The answer: 42!
The question: how many years ago today did a bunch of fans walk from X-Con 5 [L. Sprague and Catherine De Camp, GoHs] in Brookfield, WI, to a nearby city park, to witness the marriage of “Orange Mike” Lowrey and Cicatrice du Veritas?
She wore a cream satin dress [with hennin] she’d kitbashed herself; he wore a rust-colored tux; the bridesmaids and groomsmen wore matching tuxes courtesy of a lucky draw at a bridal fair. The ceremony was performed by the very fannish Rev. Ted Wagner, ULC Bishop of Madison and allegedly an ex-roommate of Harlan Ellison.
(7) NICK WOOD OBIT. Zambian-born sff author Nick Wood died this month. The cause of death was not given. He was an actor, There’s a great deal of information about his life in the interview he gave Geoff Ryman for Strange Horizons in 2017.
Nick is a clinical psychologist who came to England with his wife and daughters toward the end of 1995, to do a PhD in the cognitive development of deaf children. He had been doing work in townships and deafness was the most common form of disability among children.
He was raised in South Africa. During the 1980’s he worked extensively in South African “black townships” during the transition to democracy “with the liberation struggle from apartheid, and was also on the move at times to avoid Military Police who had turned up at my parents’ home, keen to see me deployed in another no doubt more destructive role in the townships.”
Wood and Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki organized DisCon III’s program stream devoted to speculative fiction by Africans.
Wood’s first novel Azanian Bridges was a 2017 finalist for the BSFA Award, John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and Sidewise Award. His second novel, Water Must Fall, was a BSFA Award finalist in 2021.
Wood’s last medical update on his blog in 2022 said “I have been disabled (and am now partly deaf) from the ongoing march of right sided Meniere’s Disease.”
(8) ED ZDROJEWSKI (1954-2023). Midwest sf fan and journalist Ed Zdrojewski (“Ed Zed”) died May 4 Leah Zeldes announced on Facebook. She says:
He was most active in fandom during the 1970s and ’80s and became pretty gafiated after he moved to Champaign-Urbana and married. I knew him best when he lived in Michigan, first going to school at MSU and then working as a reporter for the St. Joseph Herald-Palladium, during which time he did a fanzine called the Benton Harbor Rat-Weasel. He was in MiSHAP, too.
He formerly edited the Grain Journal and there’s a professional obituary on Grainnet.
(9) MEMORY LANE.
1974 – [Written by Cat Eldridge from a choice by Mike Glyer.]
I think I’ve read more fiction by Ursula K. Le Guin than any other writer. As you know she won a number of Hugos including for The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition which is a stellar work that features illustrations by Charles Vess.
Our Beginning is from Orsinian Tales published forty-nine years ago by Harper & Row with the cover illustration by Muriel Nasser.
There are eleven stories here, six original to this collection, most of them set in the imaginary country of Orsinia. The first story is “The Fountains” and here’s the Beginning of it…
THE FOUNTAINS
THEY KNEW, having given him cause, that Dr Kereth might attempt to seek political asylum in Paris. Therefore, on the plane flying Edwest, in the hotel, on the streets, at the meetings, even while he read his paper to the Cytology section, he was distantly accompanied at all times by obscure figures who might be explained as graduate students or Croatian microbiologists, but who had no names, or faces. Since his presence lent not only distinction to his country’s delegation but also a certain luster to his government—See, we let even him come—they had wanted him there; but they kept him in sight. He was used to being in sight. In his small country a man could get out of sight only by not moving at all, by keeping voice, body, brain all quiet. He had always been a restless, visible man. Thus when all at once on the sixth day in the middle of a guided tour in broad daylight he found himself gone, he was confused for a time. Only by walking down a path could one achieve one’s absence?
It was in a very strange place that he did so. A great, desolate, terrible house stood behind him yellow in the yellow sunlight of afternoon. Thousands of many-colored dwarfs milled on terraces, beyond which a pale blue canal ran straight away into the unreal distance of September. The lawns ended in groves of chestnut trees a hundred feet high, noble, somber, shot through with gold. Under the trees they had walked in shadow on the riding-paths of dead kings, but the guide led them out again to sunlight on lawns and marble pavements. And ahead, straight ahead, towering and shining up into the air, fountains ran.
They sprang and sang high above their marble basins in the light. The petty, pretty rooms of the palace as big as a city where no one lived, the indifference of the noble trees that were the only fit inhabitants of a garden too large for men, the dominance of autumn and the past, all this was brought into proportion by the running of water. The phonograph voices of the guides fell silent, the camera eyes of the guided saw. The fountains leapt up, crashed down exulting, and washed death away.
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born June 12, 1940 — Mary Turzillo, 83. She won the Nebula Award for Best Novelette for her “Mars is No Place for Children” story, published in Science Fiction Age. Her first novel, An Old Fashioned Martian Girl was serialized in Analog, and a revised version, Mars Girls was released. Her first collection to polish her SWJ creds is named Your cat & other space aliens. Mars Girls which I highly recommend is available from the usual digital suspects. There’s an Analog interview with her here.
Born June 12, 1953 — Tess Gerritsen, 70. ISFDB lists her as genre so I’ll include her even though I’m ambivalent on her being so. They’ve got one novel from the Jane Rizzoli series, The Mephisto Club, and three stand-alone novels (Gravity, Playing with Fire and The Bone Garden). All save Gravity could be considered conventional thrillers devoid of genre elements.
Born June 12, 1954 — Melanie Rawn, 69. Author of the Dragon Prince series – Dragon Prince, Dragon Prince: Star Scroll and Sunrunner’s Fire, and the sequel, the Dragonstar series, Dragonstar: Stronghold,The Dragon Token and Skybowl. She was planning an Exlies series but only wrote one novel in it.
Born June 12, 1955 — Stephen Pagel, 68. Editor with Nicola Griffith of the genre anthologies, Bending the Landscape: Science Fiction, Bending the Landscape: Fantasy, and Bending the Landscape: Horror.
Born June 12, 1964 — Dave Stone, 59. Writer of media tie-ins including quite a few in the Doctor Who universe which contains the Professor Bernice Summerfield stories, and Judge Dredd as well. He has only the Pandora Delbane series ongoing, plus the Golgotha Run novel, and a handful of short fiction.
Born June 12, 1970 — Claudia Gray, 53. She’s best known for her Evernight series, but has several more series as well, including the Spellcaster series and the Constellation Trilogy. In addition, she’s written a number of Star Wars novels — Star Wars: Lost Stars, Star Wars: Bloodline, Leia, Princess of Alderaan and Star Wars: Master and Aprentice.
Another character that’s difficult to rate is Tom Bombadil. He fought off the Barrow-wights with his singing, and he put Old Man Willow in his place. Gandalf even suggested that the One Ring wouldn’t have an effect on him. But it’s hard to know how powerful Bombadil really was because no one knows exactly what he was — he never fought someone of note. Ironically, that wasn’t always the case because The Lord of the Rings author, J. R. R. Tolkien, almost had Tom Bombadil take on the Nazgul….
… A fight between Tom Bombadil and the Nazgul would never really happen because Bombadil didn’t pay any mind to worldly events. Gandalf actually said that if Bombadil was given the One Ring, he might misplace and forget about it. But hypothetically speaking, a fight between him and the Nazgûl would probably be petty complicated. For starters, the Nazgûl live in the spirit world and can’t see very well in the mortal realm. Depending on what Bombadil actually was, he might have been difficult for them to see, which could give him an advantage as he tried to sing the wraiths away….
(13) BOOK REVIEW$. The National Book Critics Circle has a spreadsheet of publications that pay for books coverage: “List of Publications”.
This spreadsheet, developed over the years as a resource for NBCC members and now maintained in partnership with Adam Morgan, lists 80+ publications that publish book coverage (reviews, interviews, essays, etc.), with editor contact information, pay rates, and more.
(14) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Higher dimensional aliens… Isaac Arthur’s Futures had this month’s “Sci-fi Sunday” take a look at higher dimensional aliens. Rod Serling says “Hi” from the Twilight Zone…
Could there be universes with more than 3 Dimensions? And if so, could life exist there?
[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Steve Green, Steven French, Orange Mike Lowrey, Joyce Scrivner, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cat Eldridge.]
Chengdu Worldcon co-Hugo Administrator Dave McCarty told Facebook readers on June 9 that “Voting should open at the end of June, ballot announcement will definitely happen before that.”
(1) CHENGDU WORLDCON VENUE CONSTRUCTION UPDATE. The Chengdu Worldcon committee is meeting in China and Vice Chair and Hugo co-Administrator Dave McCarty is there.
He has added a photo gallery to his Facebook page showing the progress in constructing what will be the main venue, called the Chengdu Science Fiction Museum in press reports.
McCarty says, “The current completion projection for the building, lake that surrounds it, and park that contains it is now August 30.”
(2) WISCON BOX SCORE. WisCon 46, held May 26-29 in Madison Wisconsin, was a hybrid convention, with some events being in-person and others being virtual. Attendance for the con was:
570 in-person for all or part of the weekend (the limit was 600);
154 online memberships.
(3) THE FIRST LOTR MOVIE NEVER MADE. Den of Geek mined the letters of Tolkien to rediscover “The 1950s Lord of the Rings Movie That J.R.R. Tolkien Absolutely Hated”. The proposal was agented by Forrest J Ackerman, known for many things good and bad, among them his long record of making cameo appearances in movies. It’s interesting to speculate where he might have shown up in a Fifties version of Lord of the Rings.
All of the English-language screen versions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings came out after J.R.R. Tolkien passed away in 1973, so we’ll sadly never know what he might have thought of them. But things were nearly quite different. In the late 1950s, Tolkien and his publishers seriously considered a proposal for an animated film, which even got to the script stage before the project was eventually scrapped.
In 1957, Tolkien was approached by an American film agent, Forrest J. Ackerman, about a proposed animated film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. Early on, Tolkien was really quite positive about the idea, in a pragmatic sort of way. At this stage, Tolkien was shown some drawings and color photographs to indicate the sort of look they were going for in the animation, and he read a “Story Line,” a synopsis of the film’s proposed plot….
By June 1958, however, Tolkien had finished going through [Morton Grady] Zimmerman’s treatment and was thoroughly unimpressed. He sent Ackerman a copy of the script complete with his own notes and comments. A lengthy series of extracts were published along with his letter to Ackerman in The Letters of JRR Tolkien. Here are a few highlights…
… Tolkien had historical issues with Zimmerman’s treatment of Rohan and the Rohirrim, too. He complains that “in such time” kings like Théoden did not have private bedrooms, presumably meaning in Northern Europe during the early medieval period, which is roughly the inspiration for Rohan. He also said they did not have glass windows that could be thrown open, something he felt strongly enough about to put two exclamation marks on, and added, “We might be in a hotel.”…
(4) PAUL ECKSTEIN (1963-2023). Paul Eckstein, co-creator and executive producer of the drama series Godfather of Harlem and an actor who appeared on Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and many other shows, died June 6 at the age of 59 reports Deadline.
…Before co-creating Godfather of Harlem, along with his writing partner Brancato, Eckstein led the writers room on the first year of the hit Netflix drama Narcos. Eckstein also wrote and produced the Disney/ABC biblical series Of Kings and Prophets on location in South Africa. His other writing credits include Street Time, Law & Order: Criminal Intent and The Dead Zone….
(5) JOSHUA QUAGMIRE (1952-2023). Cutey Bunnycreator Joshua Quagmire (Richard Lester) died in a Santa Monica, CA hospital around May 28 reports Taral Wayne. His sister posted this notice in social media:
(6) MEMORY LANE.
1991 – [Written by Cat Eldridge from a choice by Mike Glyer.]
I’m a big fan of Michael Swanwick having first encountered him when I read his Jack Faust novel and then the Iron Dragon’s Daughter trilogy. What I’ve read of The Periodic Table of Science Fiction flash fiction was quite enjoyable.
Our Beginning is that of Stations of the Tide which I really like. It was first published by William Morrow and Company thirty-two years ago in hardcover and paperback editions. The cover art is by Daniel Horne.
It would win a Nebula as well an SF Chronicle Award while being nominated for a Hugo at MagiCon. It was nominated for a John W. Campbell Memorial Award as well.
Here is this really great Beginning….
The Leviathan Said
The bureaucrat fell from the sky.
For an instant Miranda lay blue and white beneath him, the icecaps fat and ready to melt, and then he was down. He took a highspeed across the stony plains of the Piedmont to the heliostat terminus at Port Richmond, and caught the first flight out. The airship Leviathan lofted him across the fall line and over the forests and coral hills of the Tidewater. Specialized ecologies were astir there, preparing for the transforming magic of the jubilee tides. In ramshackle villages and hidden plantations people made their varied provisions for the evacuation.
The Leviathan’s lounge was deserted. Hands clasped behind him, the bureaucrat stared moodily out the stern windows. The Piedmont was dim and blue, a storm front on the horizon. He imagined the falls, where fish-hawks hovered on rising thermals and the river Noon cascaded down and lost its name. Below, the Tidewater swarmed with life, like blue-green mold growing magnified in a petri dish. The thought of all the mud and poverty down there depressed him. He yearned for the cool, sterile environments of deep space.
Bright specks of color floated on the brown water, coffles of houseboats being towed upriver as the haut-bourgeois prudently made for the Port Richmond incline while the rates were still low. He touched a window control and the jungle leaped up at him, misty trees resolving into individual leaves. The heliostat’s shadow rippled along the north bank of the river, skimming lightly over mud flats, swaying phragmites, and gnarled water oaks. Startled, a clutch of acorn-mimetic octopi dropped from a low branch, brown circles of water fleeing as they jetted into the silt.
“Smell that air,” Korda’s surrogate said.
The bureaucrat sniffed. He smelled the faint odor of soil from the baskets of hanging vines, and a sweet whiff of droppings from the wicker birdcages. “Could use a cleansing, I suppose.”
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born June 8, 1910 — John W. Campbell Jr., 1910 – 1971. As you well know, he was editor of Astounding Science Fiction (later to be called Analog Science Fiction and Fact) from late 1937 until his death and was part of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. His novella Who Goes There? was adapted as The Thing from Another World, The Thing and yes once again as The Thing. (Died 1971.)
Born June 8, 1915 — Frank Riley. He’s best known for They’d Rather Be Right (co-written with Mark Clifton) which won a Hugo Award for Best Novel at Clevention. Originally published in serialized form in Astounding unlike his eight short SF stories that were all published in If. His “The Executioner” was the cover story for the April 1956 issue of If. (Died 1996.)
Born June 8, 1917 — George D. Wallace. He’s here for playing Commando Cody in the early Fifties Radar Men from the Moon movie serial. He would later show up as the Bosun on Forbidden Planet, and had minor roles late in his career in Multiplicity, Bicentennial Man and Minority Report. He also played a Star Fleet Admiral in “The Man of the People” episode of The Next Generation. (Died 2005.)
Born June 8, 1928 — Kate Wilhelm. Author of the Hugo Award–winning Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang. She also won a Hugo Award for Best Related Book and a Locus Award for Best Nonfiction for Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop. SFWA renamed their Solstice Award the Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award. She established the Clarion Workshop with her husband Damon Knight and writer Robin Scott Wilson. (Died 2018.)
Born June 8, 1946 — Elizabeth A. Lynn, 77. She is well known for being one of the first sff writers to introduce gay and lesbian characters as part of her stories. So in honor of her, the widely known A Different Light chain of LGBT bookstores took its name from her novel of that name. Her best known work is The Chronicles of Tornor series.
Born June 8, 1947 — Sara Paretsky, 76. Best best known for her private detective novels focused on V.I. Warshawski, she has one genre novel in Ghost Country. It, too, involves V.I. Warshawski and may or may not involve things of supernatural nature.
Doctor Who fans have had their imaginations set alight by a shared Instagram post from Sacha Dhawan and Michelle Gomez, where the Master actors can be seen strutting down a flight of stairs together.
The reason for their meeting was not given, but fans were thrilled to see them together, with each known for their popular incarnations of the Doctor’s classic arch-nemesis….
Hayden Christensen and Diego Luna have never met, but as Christensen puts it, they’ve occupied the “same galaxy” for years. Christensen rocketed from teenage obscurity in Canada when George Lucas cast him as Anakin Skywalker for 2002’s “Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones” and 2005’s “Revenge of the Sith,” which chronicled the young Jedi’s transformation into the iconic villain Darth Vader. The Mexican-born Luna — who rose to prominence in Alfonso Cuarón’s 2001 coming-of-age masterpiece “Y tu mamá también” — joined “Star Wars” for 2016’s “Rogue One,” a prequel about the band of rebel spies, led by Luna’s Cassian Andor, that steal the plans for the Death Star….
CHRISTENSEN: I’d really love to hear about how you got into “Rogue One.” You were already a very established actor.
LUNA: It was the first time such secrecy happened around anything I was going to be part of. I was asked by my agent to meet someone for something that couldn’t be said on the phone. I went into a meeting in a restaurant that was completely empty. There was a guy sitting in the corner with a computer open, and this was Gareth [Edwards], the director. I sat down with him, and it was just us for four hours.
CHRISTENSEN: So you had no concept that it was “Star Wars” at all at this point?
LUNA: My agent said, “This might be ‘Star Wars.’” I guess she didn’t want me to get excited about anything. Gareth explained to me the whole film, and he said at the end, “I would really like you to play this role.” I said to him, “But I don’t see myself here. I love these films, but how do I fit here? No one has my accent. I’ve never thought this could be possible.” He basically said, “Since I saw ‘Y tu mamá también,’ I thought you could be great for a role like this. I want that kind of tone in the film. I want that realism, that feeling that it’s everyday life.” I never thought that a film like “Y tu mamá también” would get me the chance to be in the world of “Star Wars.”
CHRISTENSEN: That’s what I love about it. It’s a much darker and more grounded sort of take. I think it was very important for “Star Wars.” I love your performance. There’s so much subtlety to it and nuance to it, which you can’t always get in stories like these.
John Coxon is at a convention, Alison Scott is in a cottage, and Liz Batty is not at a festival. This time we have a bevy of letters of comment, discussions about Satellite 8 and the Hugo Awards, and also picks. One pick is for some obscure book you won’t have heard of.
(12) NATURE BARS THE DOOR TO AI. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Nature, the world’s leading multidisciplinary science journal (well perhaps rivaling Science but that’s the other side of the Pond and we all know what goes on there (in part thanks to File770)), is the latest to ban AI use in its content. “Why Nature will not allow the use of generative AI in images and video”.
Saying ‘no’ to this kind of visual content is a question of research integrity, consent, privacy and intellectual-property protection….
Apart from in articles that are specifically about AI, Nature will not be publishing any content in which photography, videos or illustrations have been created wholly or partly using generative AI, at least for the foreseeable future.
Artists, filmmakers, illustrators and photographers whom we commission and work with will be asked to confirm that none of the work they submit has been generated or augmented using generative AI
Why are we disallowing the use of generative AI in visual content? Ultimately, it is a question of integrity. The process of publishing — as far as both science and art are concerned — is underpinned by a shared commitment to integrity. That includes transparency. As researchers, editors and publishers, we all need to know the sources of data and images, so that these can be verified as accurate and true. Existing generative AI tools do not provide access to their sources so that such verification can happen.
Then there’s attribution: when existing work is used or cited, it must be attributed. This is a core principle of science and art, and generative AI tools do not conform to this expectation.
Consent and permission are also factors. These must be obtained if, for example, people are being identified or the intellectual property of artists and illustrators is involved. Again, common applications of generative AI fail these tests.
Generative AI systems are being trained on images for which no efforts have been made to identify the source. Copyright-protected works are routinely being used to train generative AI without appropriate permissions. In some cases, privacy is also being violated — for example, when generative AI systems create what look like photographs or videos of people without their consent. In addition to privacy concerns, the ease with which these ‘deepfakes’ can be created is accelerating the spread of false information
Appropriate caveats
For now, Nature is allowing the inclusion of text that has been produced with the assistance of generative AI, providing this is done with appropriate caveats (see go.nature.com/3cbrjbb). The use of such large language model (LLM) tools needs to be documented in a paper’s methods or acknowledgements section, and we expect authors to provide sources for all data, including those generatedwith the assistance of AI. Furthermore, no LLM tool will be accepted as an author on a research paper.
(13) DUELING PLATFORMS. With the upcoming Apple TV+ release of The Crowded Room, JustWatch has compiled its quality content ranking of the most popular streaming platforms.
The top position belongs to Apple TV+, with a 0.66 point lead over the global giant: Netflix, which is struggling in fifth place despite such hits as “Squid Game” and “Stranger Things”.
Apple TV+ attributes this advantage to a number of highly rated TV Shows such as Ted Lasso, which won 11 Primetime Emmys, and Severance with 2 Primetime Emmys under its belt. The film Coda won 3 Oscars, making Apple TV+ the first-ever streamer to win Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, Darrah Chavey, Lise Andreasen, Taral Wayne, Kathy Sullivan, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mike Kennedy, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cat Eldridge.]
Dave McCarty, Chengdu Worldcon Vice-Chair and co-department head for the Hugos, wrote on his Facebook page today that the 2023 Hugo nominations “should be ready before the end of February.”
So, an item that seems of some import to folks.
The Hugo administration team for Chengdu (of which I am the administrator) is still in the process of testing the nomination page for Chengdu. It will be at least a week or maybe 2 before we’re ready to open, but it should be ready before the end of February. We will not open until we are sure the page and database are ready. If we have to delay a bit more than this, we’ll let you know.
With our dates in October, nominations will stay open through the end of April, so the amount of time for nomination will hopefully be around the usual amount even if we’re starting a little later.
We’ll be closed in May to do our magical administration stuff and prepare the ballot announcement.
Voting on the ballot will happen in June through at least the end of August.
Emails with instructions for logging into the nominations page will be sent to everyone with WSFS rights to nominate shortly before nominations open up.
A paper ballot will be released shortly after nominations on the web open up.
So if this item is of “some import” to you, try not to shiver with antici– SAY IT –pation as you continue to monitor McCarty’s Facebook page.
Wind Farm Outside Lafayette, Indiana. Photos by Juli Marr
My partner Juli and I set out on a beautiful morning for Chicago. One of our favorite sights is the immense Meadow Lake Wind Farm (which generates 801.25 megawatts of electricity) consisting of 301 turbines, just northwest of Lafayette, Indiana. I have always been in awe of the size and scope of this modern marvel of engineering.
Photos by Juli Marr
We arrived at dusk and were treated to the enchanting vista of Chicago at night by the river…
SEPTEMBER 1ST
Blues Brothers Cap
Since I was going to be dwelling in the hometown of the Blues Brothers, I thought it would be appropriate to be attired properly.
Galaxy ‘s Edge Editor Lezli Robyn and myself by Juli Marr
One of the first people Juli and I met at Chicon 8 was Galaxy’s Edge Editor and Arc Manor Assistant Publisher Robyn Lezli, who was a large display of books and magazines with her benevolent (and generous) boss, Shahid Mahmud.
Journey Planet
On my way to the Press Office, Christopher Garcia threw a copy of Journey Planet (paperboy style) as we passed each other. Here is a photo of it in mid-flight…
Death Star Beach Ball
One of the first things I unpacked for the Press Office was this item. When the staff assembled that first morning, I told them in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS that if they stepped out of line, I would not hesitate to blow the Illuminated Death Star Beach Ball up! Needless to say, it remained deflated during the duration of the convention.
SEPTEMBER 2
Myself and Oghenechowe Donald Ekpeki, taken by Lezli Robyn
After several delays (and escapades) involving the United States Department of State and airline hijinks, Nigeria’s rising literary star (and double Hugo Finalist), Oghenechowe Donald Ekpeki finally arrived at Chicon 8. I greeted him at the Galaxy’s Edge table in the Dealer’s Room with two facemasks and an envelope with some valuable personal papers. Needless to say, everyone was overjoyed to see him…
Myself, Laura and Navia Moorman, photo by Juli Marr
Also on hand were my daughter, Laura, her husband Charlie (not pictured, unfortunately) and my granddaughter, Navia. They were here to witness my (possible) Hugo Award acceptance speech on Sunday. I may have felt the sting of disappointment by not winning but I was so incredibly happy they were all there.
Chicago By Day…
Dan Berger, Juli Marr and Sushee Blat pondering
So here are my Press Office mates, Dan Berger, Juli Marr and Sooshe Blat Harkins, pondering where we should go for dinner along the Chicago Riverwalk. Rest assured, we did eat that evening…
Chicago After Dark
Chicago After Dark…
SEPTEMBER 3RD
Day Three of Chicon 3, another beautiful morning.
The Chicon 8 Hugo Award
On my way to the Press office, I made some time Saturday morning to stop by the Exhibit Hall and check out this year’s Hugo Award trophy. This magnificent award was handcrafted by the renowned Chicago artist and business entrepreneur Brian Keith Ellison of BKE Designs.
Chicon 8 Panelists
Ah, FINALLY, a photo from a Chicon 8 panel. Here are the panelists of “Movie Year in Review: A Curated Look at Genre Films (2021–2022)” moderated by yours truly. From left to right are: Matthew S. Rotundo, Daryll Mansel, Joshua Bilmes and Deirdre Crimmins. We had fun. You should have been there.
Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki and Seanan Maguire
I was checking up on how Mr. Ekpeki was getting along in the Dealer’s Room when up ZOOMED fellow Hugo Award Finalist Seanan Maguire on her scooter. They both knew of a photo opportunity when they saw it…
Regency John Hertz
It’s Saturday Night so you know it’s time for another magnificent appearance by fandom’s favorite, and most regal, Masquerade Judge, John Hertz!
Masquerade Ensemble
And here is a wide shot of all the Chicon 8 Masquerade contestants. I apologize for it being out of focus; I BLAME the three apparitions lighting up in the middle of the photo. I don’t recall who they are but let’s face it, they lit up the joint that evening.
SEPTEMBER 4TH
Breakfast of Champions
It’s THE BIG DAY! And that calls for a BIG BREAKFAST, courtesy of the Chicon 8 Staff Lounge. I hadn’t had a bowl of Rice Chex in AGES. (As a kid, I used to inhale whole boxes in a single sitting. Ah, those were the days…). Anyway, kudos to everyone who helped kept us fed during the convention.
Lezli Robyn’s Birthday Gifts
Juli and I are very sneaky. We knew in advance that Sunday was Lezli Robyn’s birthday so we planned something a little special for her. The day before we left, we packed and wrapped her gift specially for her. We have both known for years that Lezli is a bit, uh, accident prone. After the fifth or sixth incident we started threatening to just roll her in bubble wrap, for her own safety and protection. Well at Chicon 8, we decided on this preemptive strike before disaster struck again. As you can see, a nice birthday card was placed on top of the package. And you can see Lezli’s reaction as she realized that bubble wrap was all that was left in the box. All for her. We were later informed by sources that she used the bubble wrap as a pillow (in an appropriate place, mind you) when she needed to nap. You’re welcome, Lezli, anytime.
Catherynne Valente
After delivering Ms. Robyn’s gift, I stole a few minutes from my Press Office duties to have a novel by Catherynne M. Valente signed. We met before when she had a signing at Joseph Beth Booksellers in Cincinnati where I worked for many years. She remembered me and enthusiastically remarked that she had a great time and would love to return for a visit someday. I told her I would pass the word along.
Hugo Award Day and Invitations
As the day wore on, the more nervous I became. Since there wasn’t much going on that afternoon, I turned my attention to writing a Hugo Award acceptance speech and a concession speech (which was published on File 770 that very evening). Everyone wished me luck but deep down, I knew that I was long shot to actually win. (And, as it turned out, I was right, finishing second in the nomination count and fifth overall in the vote standings.)
O. Donald Ekpeki and myself, photo by Juli Marr
At the Chicon 8 Hugo Award Reception, Mr. Ekpeki and I were recessed to the nines!
Hugo Award Fan Writer Finalists, photo by Juli Marr
Your 2022 Hugo Award Finalists in the Fan Writing Category; from left to right, Jason Sanford, myself, Paul Weimer and Bitter Karella.
The Hugo Ceremony Crowd
The Crowd gathers for the start of the Hugo Awards Ceremony.
My Date, My Love and My Partner, the lovely and vivacious Juli Marr.
My Fellow 2022 Hugo Award Finalist Steven H Silver and his partner, Elaine Silver.
Chuck Serface
My Fellow 2022 Hugo Award Finalist Chuck Serface.
Hugo Ceremony Hosts
Our 2022 Hugo Award Ceremony Hosts, Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders.
Olav Rokne and Myself at the After Party, photo by Juli Marr
Two Hugo Losers commiserating, Olav Rokne and myself (being subtly photobombed by Vincent Docherty) at the Chengdu Hugo Reception.
Laura Moorman and myself, photo by Juli Marr
My daughter Laura and I at the Glasgow Bid Party.
Laura Moorman with Denis Villeneuve and Eric Roth’s Hugo Award
My daughter Laura is seen here holding the 2022 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation – Long Form for Dune (Part 1). The award was offered for photos by Chicon 8 Advisor Dave McCarty, whom we thank profusely for the opportunity.
SEPTEMBER 5TH AND 6TH
John Hertz and Myself, photo by Juli Marr
And it’s all over but the shouting. Here John Hertz and I are watching the proceedings, counting down until the dead dog parties start…
Myself, Jonathan P. Brazee and Maurizio Manzieri, photo by Juli Marr
After Closing Ceremonies, Juli and I met author Col.Jonathan P. Brazee and Hugo Award Finalist (Best Professional Artist) Maurizio Manzieri outside the hotel on their way to an early dinner.
Berger, Berger and Blat-Harkins
As we wind down a day after Chicon 8 has officially ended, we shared a final meal with Dan Berger, Terry Berger and Sooshe Blat Harkins, who were a tremendous help in the Chicon 8 Press Office.
Your humble correspondents
A final portrait from Chicago of your humble correspondents, myself and Juli Marr. Until next time, Goodbye and Good Luck…
