Tag Archives: Doonesbury

Pixel Scroll 7/21/24 Did I Ever Tell You About The Man Who Taught His Pixel To Scroll?

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(1) FRANKENSTEIN UNBOUND. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] We have had an SFnal real treat over here in Blighty with a fresh take on the Frankenstein mythos in the form of a three-part audio drama, and through the wonders of the world-wide interwebby thingy, you can enjoy it too.  Brian Aldiss constantly told us that the novel Frankenstein was the first true SF novel (with everything genre-related before that being ‘proto-SF’).  And now BBC Radio 4 have aired a three-part audio drama that is a post-modern and an ultra-SFnal revamp of the story.

It is set in the future here a researcher creates an artificial intelligence (AI) based on the Frankenstein author’s (Mary Shelley’s) mother, Mary Wollstonecraft. Mary Wollstonecraft was herself well known for her book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman hence the title of this audio play, A Vindication of Frankenstein’s Monster.

Starting with Mary Wollstonecraft’s ground-breaking feminist text, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), and moving into a radical re-imagining of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), through to the contemporary world of Artificial Intelligence, Linda Marshall Griffiths’ drama asks what would happen if a woman created a woman?

In the first episode of this three part drama, Lizzie walks through Mary Wollstonecraft’s world at the end of the 18th Century and she has questions.  Tracing Wollstonecraft’s extraordinary life, she is challenged by her bravery, her incredible mind and her capacity to fall in love with the wrong men. But this is not time-travel, Lizzie is creating a Virtual Reality world at the centre of which is Mary Wollstonecraft. But as the ‘AI’ Wollstonecraft comes to life, trapped in her virtual world, she begins to question exactly what has changed for women more than two hundred years after the publication of her manifesto – have women achieved equality and freedom? And Lizzie, pregnant and recently diagnosed with an aneurysm, must decide whether to allow her life to be constrained by her health, her lover Max, her impending motherhood or whether to complete her work, following Wollstonecraft’s journey to Norway…

You can download all three episodes:

(2) WHO TAKES. Charlie Jane Anders’ June newsletter Happy Dancing has “11 Hot Takes About Doctor Who”. Here’s the first one.

1) Doctor Who has wasted some great story seeds from “Genesis of the Daleks”

Steven Moffat has mined this 1975 classic for story ideas at least twice: in “The Magician’s Apprentice”/”The Witch’s Familiar” and more recently in “Boom.” But there’s still some great material that nobody has touched. In particular: the Doctor’s suggestion that “many future worlds could become allies” because of the threat of the Daleks, and that something good could come of the Daleks’ evil… this is something I’d love to see dramatized on screen. (When Terry Nation wrote this line, the memory of Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill joining forces against the Nazis was somewhat fresh, but of course that alliance didn’t exactly last.) Also, I’ve long been tantalized by the bit at the very beginning where a Time Lord warns the Doctor about a possible future where the Daleks have won — becoming the only surviving life form in the universe. It would be fascinating to visit that alternate future and perhaps see the Daleks trying to establish it as the main timeline.

(3) A PLUS FOR PHYSICAL BOOKS. “BookTok’s Latest Craze: Books With Sprayed Edges!” at Yahoo!

If you’ve stepped into a bookstore or scrolled Bookstagram and BookTok recently, you’ve likely noticed an increasing number of books with beautiful sprayed edges, or as book lovers call them, “spredges.” This is a design feature where the edges of the book pages are beautifully embellished with color or intricate designs. Sprayed edges might sound like a fun new bookish trend, but they’ve actually been around for centuries. Dating back to the 10th Century, books and sometimes Bibles often had detailed scenes painted on their edges. This practice was called fore-edge painting and now it’s having a renaissance! In recent years, books with sprayed edges have started adorning shelves everywhere, and their immense popularity is only growing. We talked to book pros about why readers are so drawn to this trend, what makes sprayed edges so special and more….

(4) SEE YOU IN THE FUNNY PAGES. The L.A. Breakfast club will host “Tales from the Comic Book Crackdown with Ben Dickow & Company” on August 14 from 7:00 AM – 9:00 AM. Tickets at the link.

Ben Dickow’s new musical Tales From the Comic Book Crackdown brings to life the dramatic Senate hearings on Juvenile Delinquency of April 21, 1954, which were designed to bring down the comic book industry as a whole. These hearings resulted in years of censorship and repression of the comic book industry.

One man stood up for comics and free expression: 32-year-old Bill Gaines, the most successful comic book publisher of his day, was the sole witness to come forward and testify on behalf of comic books. Despite his best efforts, the authorities carried the day, and Bill almost lost everything.

Mr. Beaser: Is there any limit you can think of that you would not put in a magazine because you thought a child should not see or read about it?

​Mr. Gaines: My only limits are the bounds of good taste, what I consider good taste.

​Sen. Kefauver [alluding to the cover illustration for Crime SuspenStories #22]: This seems to be a man with a bloody ax holding a woman’s head up which has been severed from her body. Do you think that is in good taste?

​Mr. Gaines: Yes, sir, I do, for the cover of a horror comic….

You can listen to the music online: “Comic Book Crackdown”.

(5) THOUGHT EXPERIMENT. Sterling Ulrich asks “What if Faramir Joined the Fellowship in The Lord of the Rings?” at CBR.com.

One of the biggest additions to the extended edition of Peter Jackson‘s The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers film was a flashback to the moment before Boromir set out for Rivendell. Denethor learned about the upcoming Council of Elrond and wanted to send a representative to ensure that the One Ring was used for the benefit of Gondor. Faramir offered to travel to Rivendell, but Denethor had no faith in his younger son and dispatched Boromir instead….

…On the surface, it seems Faramir’s presence at Amon Hen would have been beneficial. However, the Fellowship’s failures at the Battle of Amon Hen in The Lord of the Rings had consequences that were instrumental to Sauron’s eventual defeat. Merry and Pippin only met the Ents because they ran into Fangorn Forest after escaping their Uruk-hai captors. Likewise, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli only met Éomer because they crossed paths with him while chasing after the Uruk-hai. Without these chance occurrences, Saruman would have had free rein over Rohan, leaving Gondor without help from its neighboring kingdom in the Siege of Minas Tirith….

(6) SUNDAY MORNING TRANSPORT. “Father Ash” by Rachel Hartman is July’s third free read from Sunday Morning Transport.

Remember, this month, we’re running an annual membership drive of epic proportions — so if you haven’t already, please consider signing up, and if you are signed up, please share this link with your friends.

(7) LYUBOMIR NIKOLOV–NARVI (1950-2024). [Item by Valentin D. Ivanov.] The Bulgarian speculative fiction community lost its doyenne Lyubomir Nikolov–Narvi (1950-2024) on Jul 20. He translated the famous trilogy of J. R. R. Tolkien into Bulgarian and gave the readers many pleasant hours. Nikolov translated from seven languages all together.

He was also an excellent writer on his own – The Tenth Righteous Man (1999) won the fandom award for the best Bulgarian book of the decade – that is, of the last decade of the twentieth century. This amazing novel describes a singularity of sorts – a sudden change in the physical constants gives every person immeasurable destructive power. Will the society survive this challenge?

Nikolov was active until recently – his latest novel appeared in 2022. Ne was known for introducing the game-books in Bulgarian – many kids have learned to read on them. He won an EuroCon (1987), a SotsCon (1989) and many other accolades.

Right now he is probably smoking a pipe in the writers section of Paradise, discussing the fate of Middle Earth with some other esteemed fellows.

More about him here (in Bulgarian, but Google is your friend).

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

July 21, 1948 – Garry Trudeau, 76.

By Paul Weimer: Trudeau as a cartoonist and as a creator has a number of wide ranging credits: Alpha House, where Republican Senators share a house, and hilarity ensues. Tanner, a satirical look at a fake presidential campaign. And many columns in many publications.

But you’re here, and I am here, for Doonesbury. 

Cartoonist Garry Trudeau, the fifth Rathbun Visiting Fellow, delivers “Harry’s Last Lecture on a Meaningful Life.” By Linda A. Cicero / Stanford University News Service.

Doonesbury had been a fixture of comic strips in newspapers for as long as I was reading physical newspapers, from the 70’s all the way to around 2000 when I moved to California and finally stopped reading physical newspapers on a regular basis. (I would soon just read Doonesbury online)  It felt scandalous, even transgressive for me to read and enjoy the comic, once I was old enough to figure out just what the comic was about, because its politics were very much to the left of the politics of my family.  I suppose if my parents had paid more attention, they might have decried the comic’s politics, but they didn’t pay attention, and so I could read it in peace. 

I was way too young for the Watergate series in Doonesbury, which of course was its first high water mark.  Where I remember Doonesbury hitting a height for me was in 1989 and Tiananmen Square. I remember conversations with my older brother, who was enthusiastic that “China is going to become a Democracy!” in exultation.  I was far more realistic, even pessimistic, and I have Doonesbury to thank for helping me get parallax, perspective and point of view on the events happening in Beijing that year. (And I remember that when the protests turned violent, the strip went into re-runs, and that really helped bring home to me how serious it all was).

Ever since, I’ve paid attention to when people complain or try to get strips of Doonesbury pulled or show anger against it. That’s when I know that such a venerable comic strip, from such a talented and abiding creator as Trudeau, has once again hit a sensitive mark. And his influence and inspiration to multiple generations of political cartoonists cannot be underestimated. 

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) CLOSER TO THE SKY. If you’re ever near Cusco, Peru, Atlas Obscura says you shouldn’t miss: “Area 21 Cusco – Cusco, Peru”.

AREA 51 MIGHT BE BARRICADED by barbed wire and military guards, but this open-air exhibit welcomes all intrepid travelers. Signs that say Abducción Gratis (“Abduction Free”) and the looming figure of a crashed UFO greet visitors, encouraging guests to meet ET’s distant relatives. Situated atop a hill on the outskirts of Cusco along a winding path, visitors can pose with an assortment of extraterrestrials of all shapes, sizes, and home planets.

However, this is more than a kitschy roadside attraction or opportunity for an Instagram photo-op. The interactive art compilation, crafted by Tupaq Kamariy Candia, perfectly melds Peruvian culture and science fiction, illuminating Peru’s rich history with the cosmos….

(11) I’M DREAMING OF A WHITE CHRISTMAS. Buffalo NASFiC guests of honor Kaja and Phil Foglio took a stroll outside the convention.

(12) REBEL MOON PODCAST PREQUEL. “Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon Announces Surprising Spinoff” at Comicbook.com.

Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon is getting a prequel. Netflix has announced The Seneschal, an upcoming narrative fiction podcast that will take audiences 500 years before the events of Rebel Moon to explore the origins of the robot knights, the Jimmys. The new podcast is set to debut with its first episode on July 29th with five additional episodes dropping weekly wherever you listen to podcasts.

“Now that you’ve met the Jimmys in the movie, I want to tell their story, their creation, and how they came to be,” Snyder said in a video teaser for the podcast. “I can’t wait for you to listen.”

The Seneschal will star Fallout‘s Ella Purnell as the voice of Raina, Naveen Andrews as Grigory, Alfred Enoch as Adwin, Peter Serafinowicz as Bartholomew, and Jason Isaacs as King Ulmer. You can check out the official description of The Seneschal below.

(13) ROSSEAU, LEWIS AND L’ENGLE. The Science Fiction Makers is free to view on YouTube.

The Science Fiction Makers: Rosseau, Lewis and L’Engle is a feature documentary that examines three integral writers who over the past century wrote within the Christian Science Fiction genre. Through interviews with scholars and current writers, reenactments, archival materials and excerpts from their works, we explore a genre that has been counterculture since its beginning. They were outsiders within the larger Sci-Fi genre and they would face harsh criticism, dismissal, and even hostility from all sides for putting their faith and imagination into their writing. In the end, Victor Rosseau, C. S. Lewis, and Madeleine L’Engle were pioneers of a sub-genre that would doggedly survive and continue to influence popular culture to this day.

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Valentin D. Ivanov, 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 Patrick Morris Miller.]

Pixel Scroll 11/30/20 The Apotheosis Of Mayor Amalfi Considered As An Uphill Pixel Scroll

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(1) THE SQUEEZE IS ON. NPR’s Morning Edition explores why “Critics Oppose Penguin Random House Acquiring Simon & Schuster”.

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

It is the blockbuster that has the literary world talking – the potential merger of the huge Simon & Schuster with Penguin Random House, the largest publishing company in the country. But the Authors Guild, the world’s largest organization for writers, have released a statement opposing the deal. Laura Zats is a literary agent and the host of the podcast “Print Run,” and she joins us now to explain why the joining of these two companies might be a cause for concern….

ZATS: Well, I think the big thing to understand is that it’s not just that they’re going to have so much of a market share. But what happens when a single company has a market share is that there’s less competition for who can publish the books, which is really bad for agents – which is what I am – and really bad for writers.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: How so?

ZATS: There are a – as an agent, I submit to a lot of different imprints, a lot of different editors. And, currently, for example, when Penguin and Random House merged in 2013, you could go to auction with those. You could submit, and you could drive up advances, and you could get better terms and – for your writers.

(2) DREAMHAVEN UPDATE. Greg Ketter can still use help, as he noted in a message to a recent donor to the DreamHaven Restoration GoFundMe. (See the November 9 story “DreamHaven Books Owner and Employee Robbed, Beaten”.)

Thank you so much for thinking of us when there are so many people hurting these days.  It’s nice to know people are concerned for us.  It has been a rough year with the riot/break-in, Covid shutdowns, the assault and robbery, but, all-in-all, we’re in much better shape than most.  At least we’re still here.

The easiest ways to help are either ordering books from our website or there is a GoFundMe campaign under “DreamHaven Restoration”.  I actually thought it had ended but when we had the robbery a number of new donations showed up and made me cry all over again.  I’m not used to asking for or accepting help.  But I have learned to be terribly grateful for it once it’s offered.

(3) A HORROR MENTOR. A lot is explained in Odyssey Podcast #133 featuring JG Faherty.

A life-long resident of New York’s haunted Hudson Valley, JG is the author of seven novels, ten novellas, and more than seventy-five short stories, and he’s been a finalist for both the Bram Stoker Award (The Cure, Ghosts of Coronado Bay) and ITW Thriller Award (The Burning Time). He writes adult and YA horror, science fiction, dark fantasy, and paranormal romance, and his works range from quiet, dark suspense to over-the-top comic gruesomeness.

Since 2011, JG has been a Board Trustee for the Horror Writers Association (HWA) and a Mentor. He launched their Young Adult program, and also their Library & Literacy program, which he still runs. Recently, he co-founded the HWA’s Summer Scares reading initiative in conjunction with Becky Spratford and several library organization, and he teaches local teen writing programs at libraries. In 2019, he was recognized with the Mentor of the Year Award by the HWA.

As a child, his favorite playground was a seventeenth-century cemetery, which many people feel explains a lot.

(4) TWO COMPANIONS OUT. Io9 learned that “Doctor Who’s Tosin Cole and Bradley Walsh Are Leaving the Show”.

…Whittaker also confirmed the news, saying she was “devastated” to lose Cole and Walsh as costars: “On a personal note, absolutely devastated. Both of them had to carry me to my trailer. I haven’t cried like that for such a long time. Brad couldn’t cope with it at all. Tosin was like, ‘I really can’t cope with you getting this upset.’”

As of now, it’s unclear whether Doctor Who will return to its more traditional pattern of “one Doctor, one companion,” or if new cast members will be added to the series. But for now, it will be a sad but sweet goodbye to one of the show’s greatest father-son teams. Doctor Who’s “Revolution of the Daleks” arrives on January 1, 2021. In addition, the series is entering production for its 13th season, which is set to have eight episodes.

(5) TOP FIVE. Here are The Guardian’s “Best science fiction and fantasy books of 2020”. Some are definitely less jolly than others.

Mordew
by Alex Pheby, Galley Beggar
The Gormenghastly city of Mordew is built on living mud – we discover it’s God’s body, not quite dead – that teems with grotesque and fantastical life. Pheby’s protagonist Nathan rises from the slums to meet a special destiny. It may sound like a cliched storyline, but the relentless inventiveness and verve of Pheby’s imagination make this book stand alone. Startling, baroque, sometimes revolting – but always amazing.

(6) THEY’RE DOOMED. Does James Davis Nicoll have more pitch ideas than Ryan George? I think so… “Four Stories That Subvert the Cosy Catastrophe Genre” at Tor.com.

Given our recent discussion of such tales, I should note that I quite dislike one particular subset of lifeboat stories: the ones in which a small group of plucky pioneers somehow escape the dying Earth and reach a new world they can call their own. But in the meantime, the unlucky masses who could not make their way onto the flotilla die with their homeworld.

Why this distaste? Well…

(7) MEDIA ANNIVERSARY.

  • 2000 — Twenty years ago, Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling would win the World Fantasy Award for their Silver Birch, Blood Moon anthology, the fifth in their Fairy Tale series. (Datlow would later garner a World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement.) If you’re familiar with the work they did with the Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror Anthology series, then you know what to expect here. It’s fine Autumnal reading from the likes of Neil Gaiman, Delia Sherman, Nola Hopkinson, Patricia McKillip and many, many more exemplary writers. Tom Canty provided the cover illustration here as he did for so many of their anthologies. All of the Fairy Tale series are now available from the usual digital suspects. (CE)

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]

  • Born November 30, 1667 – Jonathan Swift.  Timeless for Gulliver’s Travels – because cutting the sharp nasty parts makes it seem a children’s book?  Because readers think it satirizes those stupid people over there?  Anyway, great.  Other work also worth reading.  (Died 1745) [JH]
  • Born November 30, 1893 – E. Everett Evans.  “Triple E” was so big-hearted and so actively that he was loved by fans and pros, large and small.  Four novels, two dozen shorter stories; The Planet Mappers won the annual Boys’ Clubs of America award for most enjoyable book.  Helped found the N3F (Nat’l Fantasy Fed’n), served a term as its President, founding editor of The Nat’l Fantasy Fan.  Co-edited Le Zombie with Tucker – what a combination.  Chaired the first Westercon.  The Big Heart (our highest service award) established at his death, for years bore his name.  (Died 1958) [JH]
  • Born November 30, 1906 — John Dickson Carr,. Author of the Gideon Fell detective stories, some of which were decidedly genre adjacent. The Burning Court with Fell is on this list as is his vampire mythos backstoried novels, Three Coffins and He Who Whispers. And I really should note his Sir Henry Merrivale character has at one genre outing in Reader is Warned. (Died 1977.) (CE) 
  • Born November 30, 1937 — Ridley Scott, 83. Alien: Covenant which did surprisingly well at the Box Office and has a sixty-five rating among audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes is his most recent genre work of note but he’s got a long and distinguished list that includes the most excellent Blade Runner, Alien, the 1984 Apple advert, Exodus: Gods and Kings , Legend,  Prometheus and yes, Robin Hood. I’ve watched Blade Runner sans the narration and I’ll say I still do prefer the original version. (CE)
  • Born November 30, 1944 – Susan Gubar, Ph.D., age 76.  Leading feminist interested in SF among much else.  Several important essays, some with Susan Gilbert; their Norton Anthology of Literature by Women put them among Ms. magazine’s Women of the Year.  Recently, see SG’s “C.L. Moore and the Conventions of Women’s SF”.  Sandrof Life Achievement Award.  [JH]
  • Born November 30, 1945 — Billy Drago. Best remember I think as the evil John Bly in The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.  He was certainly booked a lot in genre roles as he has appearances in Cyborg 2, Sci-Fighters,  Supernatural and X-Files. He also played the demon Barbas in the original Charmed series. And he was in Tremors 4: The Legend Begins, a film I’m sure no one was begging for. Finally, I note that he was in the Masters of Horror “Imprint” episode, which Showtime pulled due to “disturbing content” which you can read about here. (Died 2019.) (CE) 
  • Born November 30, 1947 — David Mamet, 73. Playwright with an interesting genre history. He wrote and produced Frog Prince based off that folktale, and later did a contemporary version of the Faust legend. Not to forget the comic weirdness of The Revenge of the Space Pandas, or Binky Rudich and the Two-Speed Clock. (CE) 
  • Born November 30, 1952 – Jill Eastlake, F.N., age 68.  She and her husband Donald E. Eastlake III are Founding Fellows of NESFA (New England SF Ass’n; service).  Co-chaired Boskone 11, chaired Boskone 15.  Guest of Honor at Rivercon IX.  Reliable, responsible at many tasks.  Her help with costuming earned her the Int’l Costumers Guild Life Achievement Award.  For one Worldcon she telephoned me about judging the Masquerade (our onstage competition); she was the Masq Director; I said “Sure, Jill.”  She said “I want you for one of my Workmanship Judges.”  I said “Jill, I’m not competent to do that.”  She said “Which one of us is running this Masquerade, you or me?”  I think that was the year I crawled underneath two monsters to see how their pipe-frames were fastened.  The other judges said I was okay.  [JH]
  • Born November 30, 1955 — Andy Robertson. A fan and editor who worked as an assistant editor on Interzone and contributed myriad reviews and interviews. He published some fiction and edited two anthologies based on the works of William Hope Hodgson’s Night Lands, Volume 1: Eternal Love, featuring tales set in Hodgson’s world, and William Hope Hodgson’s Night Lands Volume 2: Nightmares of the Fall. Alas they were never made into digital editions. (Died 2014.) (CE) 
  • Born November 30, 1955 —  Kevin Conroy, 65. Without doubt, best known for voicing Batman on Batman: The Animated Series which is my Batman. Justice League Action saw him reprise that role with the other characters often noting his stoic personality.  I’ve not seen it, but on Batwoman, he plays Bruce Wayne in the “Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Two” episode.  Bruce Timm likes his work in the Batman 75th Anniversary Short Batman: Strange Days which is interesting as he only says one word though he grunts nicely.  (CE)
  • Born November 30, 1957 – Martin Morse Wooster, age 63.  Articulate critic and commenter, often seen here and in Banana Wings, Fantasy Review, Interzone, Mimosa, NY Review of SF, Quantum, SF Book Review, SF Commentary, SF Review, Thrust.  Contributor to e.g. Magill’s Guide to SF.  Outside our field, see e.g. Angry Classrooms, Empty Minds.  [JH]
  • Born November 30, 1982 – Zach Fehst, age 38.  American Magic was a Library Journal Summer Best Book.  Outside our field, has traveled to three dozen countries, hosted Discovery Channel’s Ultimate Guide to the Awesome; plays electric mandolin, skis on snow and sand.  “Sometimes when I’m feeling hopeless I ask myself what someone with hope would do, and try to do that.”  [JH

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) DOONESBURY. In the Washington Post, Michael Cavna uses the occasion of Doonesbury’s 50th anniversary to interview Garry Trudeau about the ten greatest strips of the past 50 years. “As ‘Doonesbury’ turns 50, Garry Trudeau picks his 10 defining strips”. On the list is —

PALM BEACH CARD CONTROVERSY (June 21, 1985)

A Palm Beach, Fla., ordinance requires low-wage service employees to register with police and carry ID cards.

Trudeau: The legendary Mary McGrory told me that in all her years of writing columns, she wasn’t sure a single one of them had changed anything. That’s not a bar that cartoonists generally set for themselves, but in the case of my story arc about racist Palm Beach pass cards, the strip did have an impact. Exposure of the apartheid-like ordinance proved so embarrassing to Florida that the state legislature passed a law banning it. It was called the “Doonesbury Bill,” and the governor sent me the signing pen. Still, that’s the exception. Most of the time, expecting satire to make a difference is purely aspirational.

(11) FLAME ON. Hero Within offers a “Comic Con Scented Candle”. Don’t you think everybody on your gift list deserves one?

Are you missing the sights, sounds and experiences of comic cons? How about the smell? To reflect the worst year ever, the world’s worst product of 2020, the Comic Con Scented Candle. Our Hero Within scientist* secretly spent 2019 at conventions collecting the essence of fans and distilled this blend of body odor, old comic books and stale hot dogs into a horrible candle. While not for the faint of heart, it will remind you of being surrounded by a thousand sweaty fans. Makes for a perfect gift but a terrible candle. Order at your own risk.

(12) YOUR CULTURAL COMMENTATOR. [Item by Daniel Dern.] If Bertold Bretcht’s Threepenny Opera were in Klingon, we’d have the song:

“Mek’Leth The Knife”

(13) DOGGING IT. “In the Footprints of the Hound: Why The Hound of the Baskervilles Still Haunts” on CrimeReads, sf writer James Lovegrove, author of the Holmes pastiche The Beast Of The Stapletons explains why The Hound Of The Baskervilles remains one of the scariest novels ever written.

…Yet, as Sherlock Holmes’s closest brush with the supernatural, The Hound of the Baskervilles demonstrates that the Great Detective’s powers are equal to any task, even combating forces that are seemingly beyond our ken. The Hound itself is no common blackmailer or thief or assassin. It is a thing of nightmares, so frightening that the sight of it alone can induce a fatal heart attack in one victim and send another hurtling to his death off a rocky outcrop while fleeing it. It is designed to scare not just characters in the novel but readers too, and when Holmes and Watson at last overcome it, and the artifice behind it stands revealed, our fears are not entirely allayed. This is no Scooby-Doo unmasking moment, when we can laugh as we understand that there was nothing to be afraid of, that the horror was all in our minds. We can’t help but remember that the Hound was trained, and tricked out in phosphorescent paint, and kept half-starved by its owner, for no reason other than to terrify and pursue and kill. It is an embodiment of evil. It is Stapleton’s jealousy, resentment and cruelty made flesh, a canine avatar of avarice.

(14) READ THREE. Camestros Felapton makes me want to read this book! “Review: City of Brass by by S.A. Chakraborty”.

…I’m a bit late starting S.A. Chakraborty’s 2017 fantasy series or, on the otherhand, I’m just in time as the third part of what is now a trilogy was published this year. The novel follows Nahri from Cairo to the magical city of Daevabad where a second point-of-view character awaits, the djinn prince Ali. Pious and idealistic, Ali is second in line to the throne but is torn between his familial duty and his concern for the shafit under-class of the city — the half-human/half-djinn people who are treated unjustly by ruling families. Nor is this the only fracture point in the city…. 

(15) SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY. Archie McPhee calls your attention to the “Lucky Yodelling Christmas Pickle Ornament”, an insidious technology that even Philip K. Dick forgot to predict.

This Yodelling Pickle Ornament yodels when you walk past. That means it’s either a bright, cheerful reminder of pickles and Christmas or an alarm that lets you know when snoopers are investigating their presents. Either way, you need one!

(16) ANOTHER POINTY THING. Damn, they’re breaking out all over the place! “Utah monolith sighting followed in Romania by similar mystery metal object” – SYFY Wire has he latest.

Only days after the now-famous first metal monolith was discovered hiding out in the Utah desert, another gleaming slab has now been spotted lurking near an ancient archaeological site in Romania. Early reports don’t reveal much, but British tabloid Daily Mail led the charge today in revealing an early look at the newly-discovered 13-foot obelisk, which reportedly was found on Nov. 26 near an ancient Dacian fortress.

(17) VIDEO OF THE DAY. In “The New Mutants Pitch Meeting” on Screen Rant, Ryan George explains that The New Mutants is a film where one mutant’s chief personality trait is his love of doing dishes and the mutants are in a school “run by one woman with zero security guards.”

[Thanks to Elspeth Kovar, JJ, John Hertz, Mike Kennedy, Cat Eldridge, Andrew Porter, Martin Morse Wooster, Michael Toman,StephenfromOttawa, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day David Shallcross.]