25 Always Check Where You’re Walking When Pixels Are Present

Posted on April 6, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(1) 2025 HUGO AWARD FINALISTS. The Seattle Worldcon 2025 Hugo Award Finalists were announced today.

Congratulations to all the finalists, especially the authors of two Best Related entries published by File 770, Chris Barkley and Jason Sanford for “The 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion” and Camestros Felapton and Heather Rose Jones for “Charting the Cliff: An Investigation Into the 2023 Hugo Nomination Statistics”.

(2) HUGO AWARD BASE DESIGNER. Seattle Worldcon 2025 has announced that the Hugo Awards Base will be designed by Joy Alyssa Day, a professional glass sculpture artist. Joy, with her partner BJ, have previously designed the Hugo Awards base for LonCon in 2014. Examples of Joy’s sculptures can be found at her website, GlassSculpture. Below are photos of the 2014 Hugo Award base, and their work on the Cosmos Award given by the Planetary Society.

(3) OCTOTHORPE. Episode 132 of the Octothorpe podcast, “Almost Everything Is Not Mac” is here early, because the hosts John Coxon, Alison Scott, and Liz Batty are discussing this year’s Hugo Awards finalists.

An uncorrected transcript is available here.

A black background. Text in purple reads “Octothorpe 132” while text MADE OF FIRE says “Scorching hot takes on the Hugo finalists”.

(4) WHY NOT SAY WHAT HAPPENED? Scott Edelman returns with episode 22 of his Why Not Say What Happened? Podcast, “The Conundrum of Condensing Marie Severin into 1,200 Words”. And here’s where it’s available on multiple platforms.

This time around, I grow anxious over a dream discovery of long-lost original comic book artwork, realize I was wrong about a certain Alan Moore/Frank Miller memory, contemplate the difficulty of condensing the life of Marie Severin into a mere 1,200 words, share the meager remains of what was once a massive comic book collection, remember there’s an issue of Fantastic Four I need to track down to solve an early fannish mystery, rededicate myself to Marie Kondo-ing my creative life, and more.

(5) FISHING FOR A SUPERSTAR. “Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies is manifesting DC star Viola Davis being the next iteration of the villainous Master, calling her ‘one of the greatest actors in the world’” at GamesRadar+.

Given that beloved sci-fi series Doctor Who has been on air for over 60 years now, countless actors have featured either in major roles or as guest stars.

From Simon Pegg playing a villainous editor in ‘The Long Game’ to Andrew Garfield facing off against aliens in ‘Daleks in Manhattan’, the seemingly endless list also includes Get Out star Daniel Kaluuya, Oscar winner Olivia Colman, and Black Panther’s very own Letitia Wright – to name but a few.The question is then – who would showrunner Russell T Davies love to have on the series in a guest role, who hasn’t been featured before? Putting that to the man himself in a recent interview ahead of Doctor Who season 2 hitting our screens, Davies is puzzled at first admitting to GamesRadar+ that “almost everyone has been in it”. And he’s right – hell, even pop star icon Kylie Minogue even showed up for the Titanic themed episode ‘Voyage of the Damned’….

…As Davies tells us: “I simply worship Viola Davis, one of the greatest actors in the world, we should be so lucky we should have that money. She just brings quality, depth, and surprise. Every time I see her she does something surprising, which is a very Doctor Who quality. She’d get it. I say this hoping that you print it, then her agent will read it and say ‘yes, you can have Viola for absolutely no money, she will come to Cardiff for free.'” Well – here’s hoping!

(6) BOOP-OOP-A-DOOP! “’Boop!’ Arrives on Broadway, With a Surprising 100-Year Back Story” reports the New York Times. Link bypasses paywall.

Betty Boop has arrived on Broadway, nearly a century after she first boop-oop-a-dooped her way onto the big screen. “Boop! The Musical,” like the “Barbie” and “Elf” films that preceded it, imagines a transformational encounter between an anthropomorphic character and the real world (well, a fictional world full of people)….

…Jasmine Amy Rogers, the actress starring as Betty Boop on Broadway, described her as “full of joy” and “unapologetically herself.” “She is sexy, but I don’t think it is merely sex that makes her sexy,” she continued. “I would say it’s the way she carries herself, and her confidence and her unabashed self.”…

Betty, created at the height of the Jazz Age, is obviously modeled on flappers, and her relationship to music history has been a subject of debate and litigation.

In 1932, a white singer named Helen Kane sued, alleging that the “baby vamp” style of the Betty Boop character, including the “boop-oop-a-doop” phrase, was an unlawful imitation of Kane. At a widely publicized trial in 1934, Fleischer countered by pointing out that a Black singer, Esther Lee Jones, who performed as Baby Esther, had used similar scat phrases before Kane. Kane lost….

…Rogers said she hopes that over time, women of different ethnicities will portray the character, but said she is proud to play her as a Black woman, with nods to Baby Esther and the scat technique of jazz singing. “Jazz lives so deep in the heart of Betty that I feel as if we can’t really have a full discussion about her without involving the African American race,” she said…

(7) GOOD DOG. Krypto takes us home: “Superman | Sneak Peek”.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

April 6, 1937 — Billy Dee Williams, 88.

Rather obviously, Billy Dee Williams’ best-known role is as — and no I did know this was his full name — Landonis Balthazar “Lando” Calrissian III. He was introduced in The Empire Strikes Back as a longtime friend of Han Solo and the administrator of the floating Cloud City on the gas planet Bespin.

(So have I mentioned, I’ve only watched the original trilogy, and this is my favorite film of that trilogy? If anyone cares to convince me I’ve missed something by not watching the later films, go ahead.)

He is Lando in the original trilogy, as well in as the sequel, The Rise of Skywalker, thirty-six years later. The Star Wars fandom site thinks this might be the longest interval between first playing a character and later playing the same character, being a thirty-six year gap.

He returned to the role within the continuity in the animated Star Wars Rebels series, voicing the role in “Idiot’s Array” and “The Siege of Lothal” episodes. Truly great series if you haven’t seen, and available of course on Disney+.

He voiced him in two audio dramas with one being the full cat adaption of Timothy Zahn’s Dark Empire.

Now this is where it gets silly, really silly. The most times he’s been involved with the character is in the Lego ‘verse. Between 2024 with The Lego Movie to Billy Dee Williams returned to the role in the Star Wars: Summer Vacation in 2022, he has voiced Lando in eight Lego films, mostly made as television specials.

Going from hero to villain, he was Harvey Dent in Batman, and yes in The Lego Batman Movie. Really they made it. I’d like to say I remember him here but than they would admitting this film made an impression on me which it decidedly didn’t. None of the Batman Films did in the Eighties.

He’s in Mission Impossible as Hank Benton, an enforcer for a monster, in “The Miracle” episode; he’s Ferguson in Epoch: Evolution, the sequel to Epoch, which looks like quite silly, and I’m using this term deliberately, sci-film, and finally he voiced himself on Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?, the thirteenth television series in the Scooby-Doo franchise.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

Brewster Rockit thinks he can explain an anomaly.
Half Full accommodates.
Mother Goose and Grimm tries a different beat.
The Argyle Sweater exposes the reason for multiple Alien sequels.
Tom Gauld reveals another little-known fact of nature.

(10) WHY ARE KIDS OBSESSED WITH THE TITANIC? “So You Think You Know a Lot About the Titanic …” in the New York Times (behind a paywall.)

Parents often look down at the whorl on the top of their children’s heads and wonder what, exactly, is going on inside. An industry of books, video games, films, merchandise and museums offers some insight: They’re probably thinking about the Titanic.

Last fall, Osiris, age 5, told his mother, Tara Smyth, that he wanted to eat the Titanic for dinner. So she prepared a platter of baked potatoes — each with four hot-dog funnels, or smokestacks — sitting on a sea of baked beans. (He found it delicious.) Since first hearing the story of the Titanic, Ozzy, as he’s known, has amassed a raft of factoids, a Titanic snow globe from the Titanic Belfast museum and many ship models at his home in Hastings, England.

About 5,500 miles away in Los Angeles, Mia and Laila, 15-year-old twins, devote hours every week to playing Escape Titanic on Roblox. They have been doing this for the last several years. Sometimes, they go down with the ship on purpose — “life is boring,” explained Mia, “and the appeal is that it’s kind of dramatic.”

Nearly 113 years after the doomed White Star Line steamship collided with an iceberg on April 14, 1912, and sank at around 2:20 a.m. the next day, it remains a source of fascination for many children. The children The New York Times spoke to did not flinch at the mortal fact at the heart of the story: That of the more than 2,200 passengers on the Titanic, more than twice as many passengers died as those who survived.

“I really like whenever it just cracked open in half and then sank and then just fell apart into the Atlantic Ocean,” said Matheson, 10, from Spring, Texas, who has loved the story since he read “I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, 1912” at age 5. After many frustrating bath time re-enactments involving flimsy ship models, Matheson and his father, Christopher Multop, designed a Tubtastic Titanic bath toy — of which they say they now sell about 200 a month (separate floating iceberg included)….

John Zaller, the executive producer of Exhibition Hub, the company that designed “Bodies: The Exhibition” and “Titanic: An Immersive Voyage,” a traveling exhibition with interactive elements, attested that Titanic kids often knew more than their tour guides. At the Titanic experience, children can sit in a lifeboat and watch a simulation of the ship sinking, see a life-size model of the boiler room be flooded with water, and follow along with the passengers on their boarding pass, ultimately finding out whether they survived the wreck.

“The biggest takeaway for kids is, ‘I lived!’ or ‘I died!’” Mr. Zaller said. “They understand the power of that.”…

(11) APRIL FOOLISHNESS. Except it happened in March: “An AI avatar tried to argue a case before a New York court. The judges weren’t having it” at Yahoo!

It took only seconds for the judges on a New York appeals court to realize that the man addressing them from a video screen — a person about to present an argument in a lawsuit — not only had no law degree, but didn’t exist at all.

The latest bizarre chapter in the awkward arrival of artificial intelligence in the legal world unfolded March 26 under the stained-glass dome of New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division’s First Judicial Department, where a panel of judges was set to hear from Jerome Dewald, a plaintiff in an employment dispute.

“The appellant has submitted a video for his argument,” said Justice Sallie Manzanet-Daniels. “Ok. We will hear that video now.”

On the video screen appeared a smiling, youthful-looking man with a sculpted hairdo, button-down shirt and sweater.

“May it please the court,” the man began. “I come here today a humble pro se before a panel of five distinguished justices.”

“Ok, hold on,” Manzanet-Daniels said. “Is that counsel for the case?”

“I generated that. That’s not a real person,” Dewald answered.

It was, in fact, an avatar generated by artificial intelligence. The judge was not pleased.

“It would have been nice to know that when you made your application. You did not tell me that sir,” Manzanet-Daniels said before yelling across the room for the video to be shut off….

… As for Dewald’s case, it was still pending before the appeals court as of Thursday.

(12) ONCE FICTION, NOW SCIENCE. [Item by Steven French.] The Guardian reports “Biologist whose innovation saved the life of British teenager wins $3m Breakthrough prize”. Harvard Professor, David Liu —

… was chosen for inventing two exceptionally precise gene editing tools, namely base editing and prime editing. Base editing was first used in a patient at Great Ormond Street in London, where it saved the life of a British teenager with leukaemia.

The young woman’s doctor apparently called the technique at the time, ‘science fiction’!

(13) ETERNAUT TRAILER. The Eternaut premieres on Netflix on April 30.

After a deadly snowfall kills millions, Juan Salvo and a group of survivors fight against a threat controlled by an invisible force. Based on the iconic graphic novel written by Héctor G. Oesterheld and illustrated by Francisco Solano López.

(14) WHY IS MARS RED? [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Well, we all know the answer – an on-going process of the radiolysis of water (here UV and high energy particles from Solar wind splitting water) produces oxygen radicals that oxidise iron to hematite (a form of iron(III) that on Earth often gives some sandstones their red colour…) Well, maybe not! New research now suggests otherwise. Data from three orbiters combined with a look at Earth minerals suggests that the Martian red minerals were formed over three billion years ago when Mars was decidedly wet. Had Mars been warmer, then these minerals would have gone. ; Mars’ red colour looks like being ferrihydrite (Fe₅O₈H nH2O) that forms under decidedly wet conditions. This is yet more evidence – if more is needed – that Mars was wet billions of years ago.

The primary research, by French, US and British based astrophysicists, is Valantinas, A. et al (2025) “Detection of ferrihydrite in Martian red dust records ancient cold and wet conditions on Mars”. Nature Communications, vol. 16, 1712. Meanwhile over at DrBecky there is a 12-minute video which you can see here: “New study explains why Mars is RED”. I keep on telling people that the machines are taking over but nobody ever listens to me… In fact they rule Mars!

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

Pixel Scroll 11/1/24 Do Not Count A Pixel Scrolled Until You’ve Seen The Jetpack. And Even Then You Can Make A Mistake

Posted on November 1, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) GREG HILDEBRANDT (1939-2024). Artist Greg Hildebrandt died October 31. Tolkien Collectors Guide paid tribute:

Greg’s wife Jean posted this to his social media today that he has passed after a short illness.

“The light has gone out in my life. At 12:36 pm this afternoon the love of my life, my best friend and soulmate passed away. Greg was 85 years young. He was the sweetest man I ever knew. We worked together for 45 years. We lived together for 33 of those years. We had a beautiful life we were blessed. Greg has been fighting for 5 months to regain his ability to breathe after a serious side effect of a heart medication. He fought very hard to win this battle but in the end he was just too weak. He passed away peacefully in my arms. He knew he was safe and he was loved and he will be missed terribly. I cannot imagine my life without him. He was my guy, yesterday, today, tomorrow and forever. You are my heart and it is broken!”

Greg and Tim Hildebrandt, known as the Brothers Hildebrandt (born January 23, 1939), were American twin brothers who worked collaboratively as fantasy and science fiction artists for many years, produced illustrations for comic books, movie posters, children’s books, posters, novels, calendars, advertisements, and trading cards. Tim Hildebrandt died on June 11, 2006.

Greg Hildebrandt received a Chesley Award for Artistic Achievement in 2010. Gizmodo’s tribute includes numerous examples of his artwork.

Greg Hildebrandt in 2009. Photo by Alan White.

(2) WORDS FROM NEW SFWA PRESIDENT. SFWA’s newly-elected President Kate Ristau today sent this message to members:

In June, writers, creators, and fans gathered in-person and online to countdown to the start of the Nebula Awards Ceremony. In Pasadena, we passed out glow sticks and monitored the YouTube chat. We were ready to celebrate the works and creators that lit up the year.

The moments before the SFWA logo hits the screen are full of anticipation. For the past four years, I have felt this joy as I served on the Nebula Awards Ceremony Team, honoring and celebrating the speculative fiction community. Now, I am stepping into a new leadership role to serve as your SFWA President.

But I know it’s not just me.

As an Executive Director of a 501(c)(3) arts nonprofit, I understand that this is a role of stewardship and care. I am serving the organization – helping us get on the right path. I would like to see us do that work together with character and integrity (to be the Samwise Gamgees and Ned Starks of the world…without losing our potatoes or our heads).

SFWA is in a time of transition, and faces many decisions as it rockets into the future. My intent is not to make these decisions for the organization – it is to help the organization make the best decisions. That takes community, collaboration, and a coalition of people willing to step up and make SFWA better.

That is how SFWA works. We celebrate, advocate, and support our genre community through the efforts of active and engaged volunteers, supporters, allies, staff, and friends.

We do that work together.

So, while I am excited about the opportunities I see to improve the trajectory of the organization – to lead strategically and encourage growth while being grounded in fundamentally sound organizational systems and principles – I am most excited about working with all of you.

As I step up into this position, and work toward better meeting the mission of SFWA, I look forward to collaboration, cooperation, and growth – with your help.

In the final moments of the 2024 Nebula Awards Ceremony, we raised our glowsticks and sparkled in the chat as Sarah Gailey encouraged us to carry our fires with us, “burning with passion and anger and rage and sorrow and love.” But they also reminded us that we carry those fires “in all our courage and all our principles.”

So as we light the way, as we carry candles for our genre and for our friends, we do so together.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to light the way with you.

(3) HEAR FEAR. To celebrate Halloween, Here & Now producer Kalyani Saxena spoke with three horror authors — Grady Hendrix, Alexis Henderson and Alix E. Harrow — at WBUR’s CitySpace. “Terrifying tales: How 3 horror writers think about the hidden power of scary stories”. Hear the 10-minute radio Q&A at the link.

(4) CONTRASTING DOCTOR WHO WITH UN PEACEKEEPING MISSIONS. “Fourth Annual Symposium on Pop Culture and International Law: Doctor Who and Humanitarian Interventions – How a Time Lord foreshadows the Responsibility to Protect” at OpinioJuris.

…Echoing this condemnation, the Doctor is once again put on trial for his intergalactic meddling, this time by the High Court of the Time Lords (1986). The viewer is presented with a litany of negative consequences that have resulted from the Doctor’s unsanctioned interventions. However, this time, the Doctor puts forward a strident defence of their actions, illustrating the changing norms around foreign intervention at the end of the Cold War. The Doctor condemns the Time Lords for their bureaucratic passivity in the face of atrocity crimes and proudly declares, “While you have been content merely to observe the evil in the galaxy, I have been fighting against it”. The High Court eventually accepts the Doctor’s argument that action must be taken ‘in the face of evil’, but still punishes them for breaking a seemingly inviolable law.

While the Doctor had embraced the need for intervention, the UN – like the Time Lords – was slow to follow….

(5) BA-BUMP! “What makes music scary? Your imagination plays a part” explains NPR.

Just two notes are all it takes for John Williams to build tension in his famous composition for the film “Jaws.”

“We don’t see the shark at the beginning, but we know there’s something there,” said Daniel Goldmark, head of popular music studies at Case Western Reserve University. “It all just comes down to this very, very tiny little paring of sounds that turns into something really, well, monstrous.”

Repetition is another musical technique that comes up often in soundtracks for scary movies. Other commonalities include minor keys and held-out dissonances, where the notes seem to disagree….

… Ferraguto said he particularly enjoys the use of instruments in the final movement of “Symphonie Fantastique” by Hector Berlioz, influenced by the story that goes with it.

“There’s an E-flat clarinet solo that sounds like a kind of cackling, insane witch. And beneath that are these bubbling bassoons that I kind of always imagine as a kind of a cauldron,” he said.

The opening theme of Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film “The Shining” also adapted a selection of “Symphonie Fantastique,” which plays as a car navigates to a remote hotel in the mountains…

(6) DEATHWORLD IS HERE. [Item by Steven French.] Author Andrew Michael Hurley ponders the diverse roles played by nature itself in dystopian fiction: “The new folk horror: nature is coming to kill you!” in the Guardian.

Concern about the depletion and loss of nature is nothing new. Anxieties about global ecological catastrophes have been present in dystopian fiction for at least the last century. Nordenholt’s Million, a 1923 novel by Alfred Walter Stewart (writing as JJ Connington) sees a pernicious bacterium, known as the Blight laying waste to the world’s soil. It’s a precursor to John Christopher’s The Death of Grass (1956) where the so-called Chung-Li virus decimates the wheat harvest in the far east before spreading across the entire Earth.

Worlds in other post-apocalyptic novels are scarred by pollution, acid rain, genetic mutation, overcrowding, fire and drought – and, perhaps unsurprisingly, the genre is deluged by catastrophic flooding. In JG Ballard’s work of 1962, The Drowned World, the ice caps have melted, and England has been transformed into a tropical quagmire. While Richard Cowper’s The Road to Corlay (1978) takes us to a Great Britain of the year 3000, where rising sea levels have split the country into the Seven Kingdoms, making the Mendips and the Quantocks islands. More recently, we might think of Megan Hunter’s The End We Start From and also Julia Armfield’s Private Rites, which reimagines King Lear in a half-submerged London.

(7) FROM THE BLACK LAGOON TO YOU. FigureFan Zero reviews “Universal Monsters: Ultimate Creature From The Black Lagoon by NECA”.

Over the last couple years, I’ve taken a look at quite a few of NECA’s Ultimate Universal Monsters, but oddly enough I have yet to touch on my favorite one of the bunch. Yup, it’s The Gillman, and he is not only one of my favorite creature designs of all time, but I absolutely love the movies. When I was about ten years old, they showed Revenge of the Creature in 3D on network television and it was a huge event in our house. We got the 3D glasses for the whole family, my Dad made Jiffypop and it was just a great time and a very fond memory….

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by JJ.]

Born November 1, 1923 — Gordon R. Dickson. (Died 2001.)

By JJ: Writer, Filker, and Fan. Gordon R. Dickson was truly one of the best writers of both science fiction and fantasy. It would require a skald to detail his stellar career in any detail.

His first published speculative fiction was the short story “Trespass!”, written with Poul Anderson, in the Spring 1950 issue of Fantastic Stories. Childe Cycle, featuring the Dorsai, is his best known series, and the Hoka are certainly his and Poul Anderson’s silliest creation.

I’m very fond of his Dragon Knight series, which I think reflects his interest in medieval history. His works received a multitude of award nominations, and he won Hugo, Nebula, and British Fantasy Awards.

In 1975, he was presented the Skylark Award for achievement in imaginative fiction. He was Guest of Honor at dozens of conventions, including the 1984 Worldcon, and he was named to the Science Fiction Hall of Fame and the Filk Hall of Fame.

The Dorsai Irregulars, an invitation-only fan volunteer security group named after his series, was formed at the 1974 Worldcon in response to the theft of some of Kelly Freas’ work the year before, and has provided security at conventions ever since.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

Crankshaft continues monster vs. pizza.
Dog Eats Doug understands the cats’ plan.

(10) WHEN READING THE BOOK IS NOT RECOMMENDED. Collider offers its list of “10 Worst Horror Movie Decisions, Ranked”.

In horror movies, characters often don’t always make the right decisions. It’s a common cliché that some of them would make completely baffling, even moronic, choices that either get them or other people killed. Anyone who has ever seen these films can at least relate to one time or another getting frustrated whenever they notice the characters are doing something that they should have completely done the opposite way.

Here’s one of their favorites.

3. Reading from the Book

‘The Evil Dead’ Franchise (1981-)

The Evil Dead films are the go-to for splatter horror entertainment. Featuring five near-perfect installments, including a beloved but short-lived TV series, this bloody good franchise often follows groups of people as they come across “The Necronomicon Ex-Mortis,” or The Book of the Dead. Bound in human flesh and inked with blood, it harbors a dark power that can summon demons and other nightmarish creatures to attack or possess whoever so unwisely reads out loud its incantations.

However, that’s precisely how all this trouble in the Evil Dead films starts. Whether it’s through sheer naivety or dumb curiosity, some characters completely ignore all warning signs to not utter words from the Necronomicon, but they do it anyway. Unfortunately, it leads to terrifying consequences as the book unleashes its frightening demons, known as the Deadites, to proceed to take over bodies and attack those around them. This happens a lot throughout the franchise, especially when the hero, Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell), has possession of it, as he always seems to mess things up and unleash hell once again.

(11) ROLLING, ROLLING, ROLLING. “The New Glenn rocket’s first stage is real, and it’s spectacular” at Ars Technica.

Blue Origin took another significant step toward the launch of its large New Glenn rocket on Tuesday night by rolling the first stage of the vehicle to a launch site at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Although the company’s rocket factory in Florida is only a few miles from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, because of the rocket and transporter’s size, the procession had to follow a more circuitous route. In a post on LinkedIn, Blue Origin’s chief executive, Dave Limp, said the route taken by the rocket to the pad is 23 miles long.

Limp also provided some details on GERT, the company’s nickname for the “Giant Enormous Rocket Truck” devised to transport the massive New Glenn first stage.

“Our transporter comprises two trailers connected by cradles and a strongback assembly designed in-house,” Limp said. “There are 22 axles and 176 tires on this transport vehicle. It’s towed by an Oshkosh M1070, a repurposed US Army tank transporter, with 505 horsepower and 1,825 pound-feet of torque.”

The transporter can only take certain roads due to its length, 310 feet (95 meters), and height with the rocket on board. The New Glenn booster has a diameter of 23 feet (7 meters), which is far too large to transport beneath conventional bridges….

(12) RAT PATROL. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Two new job categories may be opening: one for African giant pouched rats to sniff out wildlife contraband and another for their handlers. The 3-pound rodents are trained to pick up the scent of various wildlife items that are commonly smuggled (think ivory as a very recognizable example) and alert their handlers.

Willard would be so proud. Ben would just want the treat that comes along with a correct alert. “Giant three-pound rats trained to sniff out illegal poaching” – Popular Science has the story.

African giant pouched rats (Cricetomys gambianus) could be the next line of defense in the illegal wildlife trade. A team of researchers have trained these three-pound rats to pick up the scent of elephant ivory, rhino horn, pangolin scales, and a small tree called African blackwood. All of these animals and plants are listed as threatened or at a high risk of extinction and are illegally trafficked. The findings are detailed in a proof-of-principle study published October 30 in the journal Frontiers in Conservation Science…

(13) SQUID GAME RETURNS. AllYourScreens brings us “First Look: ‘Squid Game’ – Season Two (Video)”.

Season 2 raises the stakes, with Lee Jung-jae reprising his role as Seong Gi-hun, also known as Player 456. With a hardened demeanor and the scars of past games, Gi-hun is on a desperate mission to expose the deadly truth of the competition. Yet, his warnings go unheeded, and tensions rise as fellow players question his intentions. The teaser also shows the return of Lee Byung-hun as the mysterious Front Man, whose true motivations remain cloaked in secrecy, while Wi Ha-jun’s Hwang Jun-ho is back, driving the narrative forward as the relentless detective on a mission of his own.

(14) AI TEXT WATERMARK FOLLOW-UP. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Further to the reporting of the research paper on a method of watermarking AI-generated text, Nature has just published a more newsy article on the paper and its implications. “GOOGLE Unveils ‘Invisible Watermark’ for AI-Generated Text”.

(15) “TIME TO TAKE OUT THE TRASH”. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] This week over at Dr Becky there is a 12-minute video looking at whether there is alien technology around Proxima… “Debunking the ‘technosignature from Proxima Centauri’ rumours”.

Because this month saw yet another bullshit claim that an announcement of the discovery of intelligent alien life was imminent. And I got mad. Maybe it’s just because this is the tip of the iceberg of so many fake discovery claims that circle the internet, especially when it comes to JWST, which are just all absolute trash. And this week I have reached my limit and I’m going to take it all out on BLC1 – breakthrough listen candidate 1 – a radio signal detected back in 2020 which was already shown to be radio interference back in 2021, but that this month a documentary film maker claimed to have spoken to the folks at the Breakthrough Listen project who are hunting for signs of intelligent alien life in radio data, and claims that an announcement from Breakthrough and the University of Oxford about BLC1 are imminent. I’m a researcher at Oxford, and I can tell you now we all laughed. So in this video, we’re going to dive into everything we know about BLC1 to put these rumours to rest completely. First starting with: 1) BLC1’s detection back in 2020 and why it was initially thought to be a promising “technosignature” of intelligent alien life, 2) how BLC1 was ruled out as a real “technosignature”, and 3) how no recurring signal has been detected since.

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

Pixel Scroll 10/4/24 And When People Run In Pixels It’s A Very Very Mad Scroll

Posted on October 4, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) SFWA SECRETARY CANDIDATE WITHDRAWS. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association will open voting on October 9 for candidates to complete the terms of the president and secretary. SFWA today notified members the initial candidate for Secretary, Matthew Reardon aka JRH Lawless, has withdrawn from the race. There is a write-in for the position, Steven D. Brewer.

The office of President was vacated by the resignation of SFWA President Jeffe Kennedy on August 1. And when Interim President Chelsea Mueller resigned on August 15, Secretary Anthony W. Eichenlaub moved up to take her place.

Those chosen in the Special Election will serve the remainder of the current terms (until June 30, 2025).

(2) JUDY-LYNN DEL REY TRIBUTE ON PBS. The Renegades episode “Judy-Lynn del Rey: The Galaxy Gal” premiered October 1 on PBS and the 12-minute video can be viewed at the link. The episode features interviews with: Shelly Shapiro, an editor and Judy-Lynn del Rey’s former assistant; Stephen Donaldson; filmmaker and dwarfism historian Aubrey Smalls; Toni Weisskopf; Lois McMaster Bujold; and Dennis Wise, Professor at the University of Arizona and a Del Rey scholar.

About the Episode

Judy-Lynn del Rey (1943-1986) was a New York sci-fi and fantasy editor and a woman with dwarfism who revolutionized the world of sci-fi editing with books from luminaries such as Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and Philip K. Dick.

After studying literature at Hunter College, she began her career in 1965 at the digest-size magazine Galaxy Science Fiction as an Office Assistant, rising up the ranks as Associate Editor in just four years. Following her numerous science fiction bestsellers for Ballantine Books, she started her own imprint, Del Rey Books, and brought along her husband Lester del Rey to revitalize the Ballantine science fiction publishing program. Between 1977 and 1990, Del Rey Books was so dominant on the science fiction and fantasy market that they had 65 different titles reach a bestseller list. Del Rey brought us many of the classic sci-fi greats and was instrumental in obtaining the rights to publish novels based on George Lucas’s “Star Wars,” selling 4.5 million copies months before the first movie was even released. Del Rey Books continues to be a publishing leader in science fiction to this day.

Renegades: Judy-Lynn del Rey explores the life and legacy of Judy-Lynn del Rey and the overarching impact of science fiction on societal norms: its ability to shape collective imagination, foster empathy and understanding, and reconfigure cultural thinking towards disability. People with disabilities, as with most historically targeted communities, are often combating inaccurate, harmful narratives about themselves….

(3) WEIRD TAXONOMY. Clayton Purdom tells LA Review of Books readers that there is such a thing as “Weird Nonfiction”.

…I call it weird nonfiction: creative work that presents itself as journalism or nonfiction but introduces fictional elements with the intention of upsetting, disturbing, or confusing the audience. Works that are about the real world or some subject within it but also question their container or their ability to be about that thing—or which veer from the thing at hand toward the cosmic, horrifying, or absurd. Sometimes it is as if the element of unreality is chasing the author through the piece.

Early examples include the essays and essay-like fictions of Jorge Luis Borges, Orson Welles’s exasperated, exuberant F for Fake (1973), and of course Marker’s otherworldly documentaries….

There are 20 things the author “knows for sure” about “weird nonfiction”. Here’s number one.

…Let’s try something different. More breaks, more air. Here are some things I know for sure about weird nonfiction:

1. The earliest example is Orson Welles’s 1938 radio play “The War of the Worlds,” which famously inspired widespread real-world panic. When one broadcaster attempted to assure his listeners that there was no actual alien invasion, he was accused of being part of the conspiracy. Weird nonfiction is an infection….

(4) PRH PUSHING BACK AGAINST BOOK BANS. “Rosalie Stewart is the anti–book banning public policy manager at Penguin Random House” – Slate provides an introduction.

While it’s not unusual for other industries to dedicate staff to influencing or changing public policy, it’s virtually unheard of in the relatively sleepy world of book publishing. Rosalie Stewart, however, has just been hired as Penguin Random House’s senior public policy manager, a new position that will fight the recent explosion in book-banning campaigns at schools and public libraries. At present, for example, officials in Texas and Iowa have attempted to argue that the book collections held by schools and libraries constitute “government speech” and are therefore not protected by the First Amendment. This bid to redefine the nature of public libraries was rejected by the 8^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Iowa, but for Texas, the matter is being weighed by the notorious extremists on the “rogue” 5^th Circuit. I spoke with Stewart recently about the battle before her….

… There have been two book-banning reports recently from the ALA and PEN America. The first said that book challenges are slowing down, and the second said that banning attempts have ramped up. Could you explain why there would be that difference?

My colleagues—my former colleagues, I should say—at ALA are very good at what they do, and they’re very smart. As a professional association, they just have a different focus in terms of what they’re counting. They’re focused on a very specific definition of a “book ban.” They only count book removals. But we know that this censorship is playing itself out in different ways. Not only are books being challenged, removed, and then put back on the shelf, but there is soft censorship. There’s a chilling effect in terms of the books that people are buying and teaching. I think that PEN America’s definition is a little more expansive and draws on a wider variety of sources. Censorship is not going down. Book banning is not fading away. That’s not what we’re hearing from people out there. That’s a major challenge: How do we fight back against this on such a diffuse battlefield? It’s happening at the state legislatures; it’s happening at the school boards; and it’s happening at the agency level….

(4) PERHAPS YOU MIGHT TRY THE SOUP. [Item by James Bacon.] The first issue of a new zine emanating from the “North side inner-city gentrified Dublin catlands” entitled Perhaps you might try the Soup is now available to download at the link.

Sole creator Pesto Jaguar has brought together an eclectic selection building on artistic experiences through other media and outlets. It is a very unusual zine, although an off the wall approach is not new, yet at the moment this feels different, but a mix of artists expression, satire, photographic imagery, inspired by comic culture, unorthodox yet authentic in an effort to share a set of unusual images that appeal to Pesto Jaguar and random thoughts.

Pesto Jaguar can be found on Mastodon.

Details on Pesto are thin! It’s unclear if they are just a cat prancing on a keyboard filled with catnip or a cat person who digs Pasta, Electronic Music and Comics!

(6) THIS HAPPENS WHEN SURPLUSAGE HAS NOT BEEN ESCHEWED. Muse from the Orb kicks the pith out of “Late Stage RINGS OF POWER”.

…They say God stays in heaven because He fears what He’s created, and to that I say, cool. Two seasons of The Rings of Power have convinced me God should stay out of our business, actually; the people who write Rings of Power in a windowless conference room at Amazon can take it from here. As the inevitable corporate singularity spreads toward the horizon, and our human shells are hooked up to an endless feed of shows like this, I think that we could stand to marvel more at these vast images we have been given. My roommate asked, “Are the dwarves digging down to get to sunlight?” They were.

I’ve decided that we can’t judge Rings of Power on a human scale; perhaps not even on the scale of the aforementioned God. As a piece of art, it’s far too baffling. The deeper you stare, the more it starts to feel like some non-Euclidean artifact from a Lovecraft story staring back at you. What does this dialogue mean? Why did they switch to iambic pentameter for this speech? He’s just called “The Dark Wizard”? Last season, when Galadriel’s brother Finrod turned to her in the very first episode and said

“Do you know why a ship floats and a stone cannot? Because the stone sees only downward. The darkness of the water is vast and irresistible. The ship feels the darkness as well, striving moment by moment to master her and pull her under. But the ship has a secret. For unlike the stone, her gaze is not downward but up. Fixed upon the light that guides her, whispering of grander things than darkness ever knew”

my soul left my body and floated awhile against the border of some tessellated realm as far beyond our comprehension as computer circuits are to ants’. You know how inmates trapped in solitary confinement start to lose their notions of reality the longer they’re alone? Watching Rings of Power feels a bit like that. You’re witnessing a story that’s not actually series of human interactions but a single block of inorganic text, ventriloquized by humans who seem less real with every minute that passes. After binging a few episodes, one’s sense of place and time begins to slip….

(7) UNMENTIONABLE. The movie Coraline apparently made a lot of money this summer and will make some more on Halloween: “’Coraline’ Returns to Theaters for Halloween After Summer Rerelease”. You might not be surprised that the Variety article doesn’t contain Neil Gaiman’s name. For reasons.

… The beloved, stop-motion animated film from 2009 will return on Halloween for a limited-time engagement in newly remastered 3D and 2D formats.

If you feel like you just saw “Coraline” back in theaters, it’s not deja vu — you’re right. The film just had a successful summer rerelease for its 15th anniversary, where it made $53 million globally. Henry Selick’s film now stands at a lifetime haul of $185.7 million worldwide and is the highest-grossing stop-motion film in the U.S. It’s also the highest-grossing rerelease in the U.S. in the past 10 years and the highest-grossing of Fathom’s 20-year history. Attendees on Halloween will also get a sneak peek of Laika’s upcoming film “Wildwood.”…

(8) BARELY, I TELL YOU. “‘We were only slightly influenced by the Cantina music’: the underworld sounds of Star Wars Outlaws” – so they tell the Guardian.

Have you ever thought what walking into a sweaty, dusty club on one of Star Wars’ desert planets would sound like? About what plays on the radios in the casinos on those Las Vegas-like planets? What do the merchants and miscreants of Tatooine listen to when they’re not working the moisture farms or fending off Tusken Raiders? Pondering questions like that has been Cody Matthew Johnson’s life for the past few years. The composer and artist has flirted with video game music before, with credits on Devil May Cry, Resident Evil, Bayonetta, and the cult indie Kurosawa-inspired side-scroller, Trek to Yomi. But for Ubisoft’s Star Wars Outlaws, he was tasked with making music for its seedy criminal underbelly.

(9) MAKANA YAMAMOTO Q&A. In The Bookeller: “Author Interviews – Makana Yamamoto. ‘Writing about my identity is a political statement’”.

“It’s ‘Ocean’s Eight’, but everybody’s a lesbian and it’s in space,” says Makana Yamamoto over video call from their home in Boston, Massachusetts, of their début novel Hammajang Luck. “That’s the joke answer. If I had to condense it down, it would be a heist novel about family, about home, culture and coming back home.”…

…They continued: “I had a lot of fear about it. I really wanted to do right by my community.” Début author Yamamoto is māhū, a Hawaiian term for people who embody the female and male spirit. Even if the book did not begin as a “political statement” about the Hawaiian diaspora, for Yamamoto the very act of writing is charged. “My identity is politicised. Even if I don’t want to be politicised, it’s just the nature of existing in this world as someone who is non-binary, who is māhū, who is not white, who is a lesbian. Writing about my identity is a political statement even if I don’t want it to be.”…

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born October 4, 1923 – Charlton Heston. (Died 2008.) For the late 1960s and into the 1970’s, Charlton Heston was the face of SF cinema in a way that I think in terms of ubiquity across multiple movies and subgenres is matched only by Jeff Goldblum in this modern era. If there was a SFF movie to be made, Heston was likely to be in it. Planet of the Apes, and its sequel Beneath the Planet of the Apes. The Omega Man. The Three and Four Musketeers, as the gold standard Cardinal Richelieu. Earthquake. And of course, perhaps the most iconic of these, Soylent Green. An ending which spawned a thousand memes, his hardbitten cop in an overcrowded New York City is a strength of character and role that is overshadowed by the even better Edward G Robinson in his last performance.

And if you wanted to branch a bit out of genre, there are always his historicals – Ben Hur, El Cid, 55 Days at Peking, The Ten Commandments, Khartoum, and Julius Caesar. I may have been violently opposed to his politics, but the man’s ability and charisma on screen remains for me, unquestioned. Even in the absolutely terrible movie Solar Crisis, which no one should watch for fear of losing SAN points, he is watchable in it, whenever he is on the screen.

Note: I picked a photo of him in Tombstone, where admittedly he only appeared in a handful of scenes as the famed rancher Henry Hooker, but oh wasn’t he magnificent!

(11) COMICS SECTION.

Brewster Rockit displays a linguistically adaptable directory.
The Argyle Sweater may or may not have a brain on board.
Jerry King hears complaints about delivery times.
Macanudo says reading choices are important.
Book banning and Fahrenheit 451 figure in the two latest installments of Crankshaft: Crankshaft for 10/3/2024 and Crankshaft for 10/4/2024.

(12) WASCALLY WECRUIT. Heritage Auction’s October 18 – 22 The Art of Anime and Everything Cool…Volume V Signature® Auction, running October 18-22, includes such exotic treasures as Bugs Bunny’s WWII Marine Corps service record!

“Bugs Bunny RARE US Marine Corp Service-Record Book (Warner | Lot #17117” (Warner Brothers, 1942). In the ending for the 1943 cartoon Super-Rabbit, Bugs Bunny states he has some “important work to do” and marches off in a Marine uniform towards “Tokyo, Berlin, and Points East,” according to a sign he passes. With that in mind, here’s proof of his “enlistment” – an official Marine Corps Service-Record booklet numbered 000386 for “Bunny, Bugs” with the rank of Private, and below that, Sergeant. The booklet, specially prepared by the Leon Schlesinger Studio, is rubber-stamped “Sep 1 1942” and his date of birth is noted inside as April 1, 1938; the recruiting officer is Lt. Col. Newton B. Barkly from Dallas, Texas. Lt. Col. Barkely was a big cartoon fan and Bugs Bunny was his favorite; he personally contacted Schlesinger requesting art for his Marine unit, and this booklet is one of several things sent from Schlesinger’s studio. There’s a “photo” of Bugs holding a carrot on the inside front cover of this 4.125″ x 10″ tan-cover booklet. On the inside-back cover, the rabbit’s specialties are “Heckling and Wisecracking” while his favorite hobby is “heckling Elmer Fudd.” There are fingerprints but noted as “with gloves on.” Bugs really was officially inducted into the Corps as an official mascot, issued dogtags, and finally discharged at the end of World War II as a Master Sergeant. Wow! This museum-quality item has been kept with Lt. Col. Barkley’s family all this time and is fresh to the marketplace; there’s not another one in existence. Condition is Very Good with minor handling wear.

(13) NINTENDO MUSEUM. “Former Nintendo factory in Kyoto opens as nostalgia-fuelled gaming museum” and the Guardian peeks inside.

Traditionally, visitors to Kyoto in October come for momijigari, the turning of the autumn leaves in the city’s picturesque parks. This autumn, however, there is a new draw: a Nintendo museum.

The new attraction, which opens on Wednesday, is best described as a chapel of video game nostalgia. Upstairs, Nintendo’s many video game consoles, from 1983’s Famicom through 1996’s Nintendo 64 to 2017’s Switch, are displayed reverently alongside their most famous games. On the back wall, visitors can also peer at toys, playing cards and other artefacts from the Japanese company’s pre-video-game history, stretching back to its founding as a hanafuda playing card manufacturer in 1889. Downstairs, there are interactive exhibits with comically gigantic controllers and floor-projected playing cards….

… Situated on the site of the video game company’s old manufacturing plant in Uji, a 20-minute train ride south of central Kyoto, the museum is expected to welcome up to 2,000 people a day. Tickets – which are allocated via a lottery system and cost 3,300 yen (£17) for an adult – are sold out three months in advance. When it opened in 1969, Nintendo’s Uji Ogura plant manufactured the toys and playing cards that were Nintendo’s money-makers at the time. After the dawn of the video game age in the 1970s, it operated as a customer service centre for console repairs until 2016. The building is far from Kyoto’s other tourist attractions: the suburban town surrounding it has been renovating its train station, preparing for a flood of visitors in Mario hats….

… Visitors are given 10 virtual coins per visit, used to spend on the interactive exhibits. An adjacent hanafuda workshop guides guests through making their own Japanese playing cards, above a cafe that serves custom burgers. Given Nintendo’s notorious secrecy about its creative process – and corporate secrets – it is perhaps unsurprising that there is no insight into how any of the games or consoles on display were made, or who played a part in their development. Only a small display of factory prototype controllers give the briefest peek behind the curtain….

(14) BASS ACKWARDS? Futurism says a “Weird New Quantum Experiment Sounds Suspiciously Like Time Travel”.

…But quantum physicists, who pride themselves on staring into the abyss and gleaning its spooky secrets, have just discovered another baffling phenomenon to make your mind melt: “negative time.”

As detailed in a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed study covered by Scientific American, a team of researchers say they’ve observed photons exhibiting this bizarre temporal behavior as the result of what’s known as atomic excitation.

What essentially happened, as SciAm explains, is that when the photons were beamed into a cloud of atoms, they appeared to exit the medium before entering it. Trust us: we’re just as confused as you are.

“A negative time delay may seem paradoxical, but what it means is that if you built a ‘quantum’ clock to measure how much time atoms are spending in the excited state, the clock hand would, under certain circumstances, move backward rather than forward,” Josiah Sinclair from the University of Toronto, whose early experiments formed the foundation of the study, but wasn’t directly involved, told the magazine….

(15) LET’S TREAD BOLDLY. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Now, way back when (shhh 1970s) when I joined fandom there was a lot of sneering in some quarters of fandom at Trekkies and Trekkers, but I must admit to having something of a soft spot for Star Trek even if these days I find the sheer number of series a tad overwhelming. To me it is a bit of fun with occasionally some episodes having great concepts, and I was particularly delighted when the opening credits would occasionally feature a script writer who was also a novelist whose books I also enjoyed. As a scientist one has to suspend one’s disbelief and that can be more easily done if there is some brief technobabble that’s not too convoluted — I can be a forgiving soul. Of course, one can be critical. Becky Smethurst is an astrophysicist at Oxford University who has a weekly vlog, Dr. Becky. This week she looks at the science of Star Trek: The Next Generation…

In this episode of Astrophysicist reacts we’re watching Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 1 Episode 6 “Where No One Has Gone Before” to pick out the science from the fiction in this sci-fi show. We’re chatting about faster than light speed travel, warp drives, special relativity including time dilation, and the idea of negative energy.

(16) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “Not even Pitch Meeting can explain this movie,” says a commenter. Ryan George’s “Megalopolis Pitch Meeting”.

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

Pixel Scroll 7/9/24 We Also Walk Cats (But Not Through Walls)

Posted on July 9, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) FIRST LAWS OF ROBOTICS. South China Morning Post has a few details — “China’s Laws of Robotics: Shanghai publishes first humanoid robot guidelines”.

Shanghai has published China’s first governance guidelines for humanoid robots, calling for risk controls and international collaboration, as tech giants like Tesla showed off their own automatons at the country’s largest artificial intelligence (AI) conference.

Makers of humanoid robots should guarantee that their products “do not threaten human security” and “effectively safeguard human dignity”, according to a new set of guidelines published in Shanghai during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) on Saturday.

They should also take measures that include setting up risk warning procedures and emergency response systems, as well as give users training on the ethical and lawful use of these machines, according to the guidelines.

The document was penned by five Shanghai-based industry organisations including the Shanghai Law Society, Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Industry Association and the National and Local Humanoid Robot Innovation Centre.

…China has made it a goal to have mass production of humanoid robots by 2025 and wants global leadership in the sector by 2027, according to a plan published by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) in November last year.

By 2027, humanoid robots should become “an important new engine of economic growth” in China, the MIIT urged. Robots are expected to be popularised in industries including healthcare, home services, agriculture and logistics, according to the document….

(2) 3RD ANNUAL STURGEON SYMPOSIUM REGISTRATION. Registration is now open for the 3rd Annual Sturgeon Symposium, Oct 24-25, celebrating the groundbreaking work of author and critic Samuel R. Delany. The symposium will include a reading by the winner of the Sturgeon Award for best speculative fiction story published in 2023, scholarly panels, and appearances by Delany himself. Fee waiver available for students and others with financial need. Join us!

Register here: Sturgeon Symposium | Stars in Our Pockets: Celebrating Samuel R. Delany Tickets, Thu, Oct 24, 2024 at 9:00 AM | Eventbrite T-shirt, lunch, and Thursday reception are included with registration.

More information here, including updates to schedule:

(3) VIRTUAL STOKERCON PANEL REPORTS. Lee Murray has put together highly informative summaries of two panels convened during the Horror Writers Association’s 2024 Virtual StokerCon event.

“WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM GRIEF IN HORROR Panel Report, 2024 Virtual Stoker”

Trigger Warning: This article addresses issues of grief, loss, and mental health.

Moderated with compassion by Mo Moshaty, an author-producer with experience working closely with death doulas, the panel commenced with a round-robin of introductions, including the panellists’ relevant work, and also their particular interest in the topic of grief horror.

Panelists included Mark Mathews, Clay McLeod Chapman, Nat Cassidy, Katherine (Kat) Silva, Ally Malinenko, and Laura Keating.

From the opening comments, it was clear that this was going to be a confronting and also humbling session, with panelists sharing their own experiences of trauma and grief, with their specific experiences discussed in more detail over the course of the panel.

Moshaty kicked off the discussion by stating that grief, as a universal emotion, touches everyone in society, so it follows that we would want to represent grief in our horror literature. Mark Matthews and Nat Cassidy agreed that horror is a genre that is grounded in grief. Clay McLeod Chapman admitted to feeling inspired and intimidated to talk frankly about the topic, but also that he expected the discussion to be eye-opening and cathartic. He was especially interested in how we move through grief while also tackling it in our work….

“SELF-CARE FOR HORROR WRITERS, 2024 StokerCon Virtual Panel Report”.

Striking a sustainable work-life balance for the long-game in horror takes time and experience. Eric LaRocca, Christa Carmen, Ace Antonio-Hall (Nzondi), Pamela Jeffs, and EV Knight offer their insights in a panel moderated by L. E. Daniels on how to protect our bodies and minds as we navigate dark fiction.

Recently, I had the pleasure to attend the Self-Care for Horror Writers panel offered in the virtual space at StokerCon 2024. Given the close alignment of the topic to the work of the HWA Wellness Committee and our Mental Health Initiative, this panel was a must-view for me, and I wasn’t disappointed. Expertly moderated by Bram Stoker-nominee and Wellness Committee member L. E. Daniels, the discussion was wide-ranging and engaging, with speakers offering insightful gems and tried-and-true strategies for maintaining well-being. Key points are summarised in this report.

Daniels began by asking her panelists how they have developed a sustainable work-life balance for the long game that is writing, publishing, and writers’ events….

(4) SCOTS GOTHS. [Item by Steven French.] For those who might be in the Edinburgh area in September, here’s an interesting event at the National Library of Scotland – and it’s free! “Treasures: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, and the Scottish Gothic Tradition”, Thursday, September 5 at 17:30 at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh.

Hear from Dr. Emily Alder and Professor Daniel Cook, both leading experts in the field of Gothic literature, as they consider the ways in which Frankenstein and the Gothic permeate Scottish fiction to this day. Chaired by one of our foremost cultural commentators and interviewers, Dr. Alistair Braidwood.

With the recent success of the film adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s ‘Poor Things’, and the debt Gray’s novel owes to ‘Frankenstein’ and Gothic fiction, how might we consider the influence of Mary Shelley’s masterpiece on subsequent writers and their work? Where does James Hogg’s ‘Justified Sinner’, Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Jekyll and Hyde’, or more recent works by Muriel Spark, James Robertson, Alice Thompson, A. L. Kennedy, and Alasdair Gray fit into a Scottish Gothic tradition?

This event celebrates our new Treasures display, featuring items relating to Byron and Mary Shelley.

(5) RETRO PIXEL. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Regarding the July 5 Pixel Scroll’s “(9) SCIENCE EXHIBITION IN LONDON” by Steven French, who wrote, “If anyone happens to be in London over the weekend, there’s some neat stuff going on at the Royal Society…”

Actually, it lasted the previous four weekdays too. I usually go and was, indeed, there this year wearing my climate science hat.

Jonathan Cowie at the Royal Society exhibition

At the exhibition, I am pointing to a graph of past temperatures as revealed by a 900,000 year Antarctic ice core at a particular point called the Mid-Brunhes Event before which glacials were less cold with interglacials being more cold, and after this point where – like today – glacials are colder and interglacials warmer. ‘Why is this so?’ you may well ask. Alas, we don’t know, though theories abound.

Antarctic ice core drilling continues. We are currently looking at another location where the ice hopefully has a record going back over a million years: ideally to 1.5 million years so as to cover the Mid-Pleistocene Transition which saw a major change to glacial-interglacial cycles that was possibly due to the arrival of large, long-term ice over Antarctica and substantive northern hemisphere glacial ice sheets. (At least, that’s the working hypothesis I go with.)

This year, six of us went to the Royal Society’s Summer Exhibition, including another member of the SF² Concatenation team.

If you like science – and many science fiction fans do – then this annual event is worth checking out.

If you need post-exhibition sustenance, the near-by Golden Lion pub is sufficiently off the tourist track that while it is usually busy Mondays to Fridays up until 7.45 it then quietens down. It has hand-pump beers and reasonable hot pub food but note it closes early Mon-Thurs at 10pm. On the way there, you can see typical 19th century West-End London architecture. Some old buildings have been demolished, but the past decade or so has seen developers knock down buildings but keep the frontage walls: so the building looks the same from the outside but is completely modern inside.

The Royal Society (Britain’s Science Academy) is housed in Germany’s former London embassy up to World War II. Its (the Society’s) President’s office today has a marble swastika in the floor (under a carpet but conserved as the swastika apparently has a heritage preservation order on it).

Keep an eye out next year in early July for another Royal Society summer exhibition. Avoid the weekend day as that is very crowded (Dublin Worldcon levels of crowding) with parents bringing children.

(6) THE INSTALLMENT PLAN. Eugen Bacon offers an intriguing alternative at Reach Your Apex: “What if you wrote your novel story-by-story, using your strength as an author of short stories?” — “For Writers: Writing the Novel – For Short Story Authors”.

…Maybe you’ve even won or been a finalist in awards with your short story, you’ve been killing it in anthologies—as in editors have you on speed dial, critics raving about your short story (you kinda hog the lot, you’re getting a bit self-conscious about it—maybe not, it’s fucking awesome). And you have a short story collection or three… But your mate, your family, maybe a literary agent… has been on your case, as in: “So where’s that novel?”

And imposter syndrome is creeping in, and you feel you gotta write that effin novel.

Or maybe you’ve written a short story you like so much, you want it as a starting point for a novel. Perhaps more characters are popping up, too many to contain in a short story. Or maybe you want to stretch the story—by timeline or theme or view point. The start is the same, the closing is the same, but the inside of the story is becoming longer. It demands more history, more world-building, a deeper look. Now you really need that novel.

But short stories are your strength. You don’t want to get entangled in a tortured story or a runaway plot. What if the short story is just what it is—the point of it could be lost in expanding it. Who wants a bloody novel? You do. What if the short story has told itself out: do you really need that novel? Yes, bloody yes, every inch of you shouts.

But you do love the energy in a short story—yes, Carver: Get in, get out. Don’t linger.

So what if you could retain all that you love about the short story, and still write that novel? What if you could write about a moment in time, something experimental and decentralized, something flexible, economic, dynamic, mimetic, metaphoric, immediate, intense—and it’s still a novel?

This is how it happens: What if you wrote your novel story-by-story, using your strength as an author of short stories?…

(7) PIDGIN DROPPINGS. “Preliminary Notes on the Delvish Dialect” by Bruce Sterling at Medium.

…Also, the human owners/managers of Large Language Models have extensively toned-up and tuned-down these neural network/deep learners/foundation-platforms, so that these “writers” won’t stochastically-parrot the far-too-human, offensive, belligerent, and litigous material that abounds in their Common-Crawl databases.

The upshot of this effort is a new dialect. It’s a distinct subcultural jargon or cant, the world’s first patois of nonhuman origin. This distinctive human-LLM pidgin is a high-tech, high-volume, extensively distributed, conversational, widely spoken-and-read textual output that closely resembles natural human language. Although it appears as words, it never arises from “words” — instead, it arises from the statistical relationships between “tokens” as processed by pre-trained transformers employing a neural probabilistic language model.

And we’ll be reading a whole lot of it. The effort to spread this new, nonhuman dialect is a colossal technical endeavor that ranks with the likes of nuclear power and genetically modified food. So it’s not a matter of your individual choice, that you might choose to read it or not to read it; instead, much like background radioactivity and processed flour from GMO maize, it’s already everywhere.

Technically, this brave-new-world dialect is actually a wide number of different Language-Model idiolects, which arise from different databases and different LLM training methods. Machine-translation AIs speak a thousand human languages at once. Consumer-facing chatbots speak with courtly circumlocutions. LLMs exist that are specially trained for marketing, warfare, cooking, legal boilerplate, code generation, website design. And so on….

(8) HALF PAST HUMAN… [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] In recent years I have moved more from the current climate change issue into looking at the deep time evolution of the Earth system as well as that of life. (This is the ‘co-evolution of life and planet’ narrative in case any of you were wondering.) It is a big topic, but one of the things I have been looking at is not just where we have come from (and how) but where we are going. One instance (of a number) is that across deep-time both geology and biology have seen increasing ‘information’: each key step in deep-time evolution has seen increased information (in the geological record) and increased information processing (in the case of biology). However, we (modern humans) are now using technology, starting with using new alloys not found in nature to make ploughs which in turn helped us sustain a larger population and a non-agrarian population which could do things like science (as well as paint pretty pictures etc). And now our technology itself is processing more information. If DNA were represented as information (and we have already coded all the sonnets of Shakespeare as DNA) then the amount of computer information we hold globally now rivals (if not exceeds – my last data point for this was over half a decade ago) the DNA in life planet-wide….

The other thing that has happened across deep time is that we have seen earlier stages of life incorporated into more advanced stages: for example prokaryotes became incorporated into eukaryotes through endosymbiosis. Which begs the question of whether we will merge with information processing technology…

Here I venture possibly ‘yes’ but not necessarily (biomedical treatments aside) with a huge load of invasive technologies embedded in our bodies like the Star Trek’s Borg.

Instead, we will increasingly interact with technology, and we can all see how our society is (in one sense sadly) increasingly digital. We increasingly carry technology around with us (smartphones) and even wear it, for example, joggers these days can wear a watch that keeps track of their pulse.

Are we becoming more like cyborgs????

Well, you have had a taste of my musings (if you want more, you’ll have to ask for a talk at a con). But I’m a bio-/geoscientist. The SF view of cyborgs tends to be more engineering orientated. Witness the $6 million man… we can build him faster, better… Though none of the ladies thought to tell Steve Austin that faster is not always better. But if you do want a more engineering/physics approach to the cyborg trope then it’s Isaac Arthur to the rescue…

It was, this last weekend, sci-fi Sunday over at “Science Futures with Isaac Arthur” where he looked at “Cyborg Civilizations”. Is this where we are heading? Isaac thinks that cyborgs may be a way to colonise the galaxy…

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

July 9, 1944 – Glen Cook, 80.

By Paul Weimer: Glen Cook is a trailblazer whose fingerprints are all over modern fantasy in two separate subgenres.

Let’s put aside some of his interesting single novels such as Tower of Fear, which is an interesting standalone fantasy novel, and A Matter of Time, where he shows that he can do twisty time travel in a Cold War setting.

Glen Cook in 2011. Photo by Harmonia Amanda.

First up, Glen Cook doesn’t get enough love, I think, for his Garrett PI series. I’ve seen more prominent authors take up his mantle, but Garrett is the true heir to Lord Darcy (but in a secondary fantasy world) of a private investigator doing his job on the mean streets of TunFaire. The Titular Garrett is a character out of mystery fiction (and really the novels lean more heavily into mystery than the fantasy, for all being in a city of multiple species and magic). Garrett follows a lot of tropes that readers of, say, Raymond Chandler will see right away. Garrett isn’t overly ambitious, he just wants enough to get by day by day, but trouble keeps finding him (and yes, this is hardboiled detective fiction, so the trouble includes the cops (the watch), the mob (the outfit), femme fatales) and much more. I get the sense that Cook had a hell of a lot of run writing them (a dozen or so at this point). Great literature? No. Entertaining? If you are a fan of the Chandler school of writing and also like SFF, get thee to a bookseller. I’ve seen the fingerprints of Garett in other characters and authors, but few really capture the idea as well as Cook does.

But it is epic fantasy where Cook really sings and really has had his influence. Even beyond some of his other fantasy series, I am referring here to The Black Company. Grimdark before Grimdark was ever a thing, the story of a band of mercenaries who get caught up in wars to decide the fate of the world, grey protagonists in a world of black to white and all the shades, The Black Company is one of the ur-texts for writers like Abercrombie, Erikson, and their ilk. (I could see the fingerprints of The Black Company as inspiration for Adrian Tchaikovsky’s House of Open Wounds, for instance). The Black Company members are caught in intrigues between themselves and their superiors, desperately try to survive hopeless battles they are thrown in, and slowly start to learn about their own origins and history. The cast shifts and changes across the series (and sub series), but the core of the idea of an elite mercenary unit working mostly for rather disreputable and treacherous powers is one that holds up to this day. The Bridgeburners, Caul Reachey’s Men, and many others owe their existence to Croaker and his crew.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal predicts Dad’s complaint about the next generation.
Speed Bump displays an identity verification test.
Thatababy overhears the plan.
Bizarro recognizes a really scary pirate.
Shrimp and Grits need help to stay online.
The Other Coast finally gets the message.

(11) CAGE MATCH. Variety reports “Spider-Man Noir Series at Amazon, MGM+ Casts Brendan Gleeson”.

Brendan Gleeson has joined the cast of the upcoming Spider-Man Noir series at Amazon, Variety has learned from sources.

This marks one of Gleeson’s first announced project since his Academy Award and Golden Globe nominated turn in “The Banshees of Inisherin.” Gleeson will star in the series opposite previously announced series lead Nicolas Cage as well as the recently cast Lamorne Morris. The show, now titled “Spider-Noir,” was formally ordered to series in May with Cage in the lead role. As previously reported, the show will debut domestically on MGM+’s linear channel and then globally on Amazon Prime Video….

(12) OVERTIME. Futurism takes notes while “Former Astronaut Explains How the Astronauts Stranded in Space Might Be Feeling”.

NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are still stranded on the International Space Station after Boeing’s plagued Starliner spacecraft finally managed to drop them off last month.

Since then, technical issues affecting the spacecraft have delayed their return journey indefinitely, with multiple helium leaks kicking off an investigation.

Williams and Wilmore were originally meant to return on June 14 — over three weeks ago — and NASA has yet to announce when its latest attempt will be to bring them back down to Earth.

It raises an interesting question: how are Williams and Wilmore feeling about the delay? One former colleague says that the extended stay on board the orbital outpost could actually be a blessing rather than a curse.

“Well, my first reaction was it’s probably good news for the two Boeing astronauts,” retired Air Force colonel and NASA astronaut Terry Virts told NPR. “They’re, you know, they get a few bonus weeks in space. And you never know when your next space flight is going to happen, and so I’m sure the astronauts are happy to get some bonus time and space.”

Virts also argued that the rest of the station’s crew would be “happy” to get some “free labor.”…

… Virts also took the opportunity to send a message to Williams and Wilmore.

“I would just say enjoy it,” he told NPR. “And stay busy. You don’t want to, you know, just sit around. But I know these two, they’re not going to sit around. And I’m sure NASA will have plenty of work for them to do.”

(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Astrophysicist Dr Smethurst at Dr. Becky YouTube Channel takes a look at some of the science portrayed in the SF series Battlestar Galactica. 12-minute video below.

In this episode of Astrophysicist reacts we’re watching Battlestar Galactica season 1 episode 1 “33” to pick out the science from the fiction in this sci-fi show. We’re chatting about faster than light speed travel, special relativity including time dilation and length contraction, and Newton’s third law of motion.

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

Pixel Scroll 3/1/24 Does Your Pixel Scroll Lose Its Flavor On The Bedpost Overnight?

Posted on March 1, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) ‘MURDERBOT’S’ MENSAH CAST. “Noma Dumezweni Joins Alexander Skarsgård In Apple’s ‘Murderbot’” – Deadline has details.

Noma Dumezwani (The Little Mermaid) is set as a lead opposite Alexander Skarsgård, in Apple TV+’s sci-fi drama series Murderbot, from Chris and Paul Weitz (About a Boy) and Paramount Television Studios.

Based on Martha Wells’ bestselling Hugo- and Nebula Award-winning book series The Murderbot Diaries, Murderbot centers on a self-hacking security android who is horrified by human emotion yet drawn to its vulnerable “clients.” Murderbot must hide its free will and complete a dangerous assignment when all it really wants is to be left alone to watch futuristic soap operas and figure out its place in the universe.

Dumezwani will play Mensah….

(2) MEDICAL UPDATE. Today Nancy Collins told her GoFundMe donors the latest development (“What Doesn’t Kill Me Leaves Me With Medical Bills”).

Today I had my first outpatient follow-up at Georgia Cancer Specialists.
The hematologist I saw informed me that since my blood clot was “unprovoked”–ie I didn’t fall down, never smoked cigarettes, or utilize estrogen replacement therapy–I will probably have to remain on blood thinners for the rest of my life. They then proceeded to take 12 vials of blood and had me sign a waiver for genetic tests to check for cancer or other hereditary blood disorders (not impossible, as my grandmother was anemic). I go back in 3 weeks to find out what the testing says. I will also find out if my insurance agreed to pay for the genetic testing when I go back, which is $2400.

(3) IMPRESS NEIL GAIMAN AND THE OTHER JUDGES. Neil Gaiman will be one of the judges for The Folio Book Illustration Award, which will be taking entries through April 3 of artwork based on one of his short stories. Full guidelines at the link.

The Folio Book Illustration Award offers the opportunity for aspiring and established illustrators to provide one piece of artwork in response to Neil Gaiman’s short story ‘The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains’.

The judges – Folio Art Directors, Sheri Gee and Raquel Leis Allion, Folio Publishing Director, Tom Walker, FBIA 2023 winner, Cristina Bencina, and Neil Gaiman – will be looking for strong characterisation and atmosphere in the entries, along with a demonstrated ability to read and reflect the text. The final piece should illustrate a character-based scene from the story, not solely a portrait of a character.

To make the competition accessible to as many artists as possible, there is no entry fee. An initial longlist selection of 20 entries will be announced in June, with the judging panel announcing the winning artist and five runners-up in July.

The winner will receive a prize of £2,000 cash, plus £500 worth of Folio vouchers, and their artwork will appear in the upcoming Folio collection of Neil Gaiman’s short stories. Each of the five runners-up will receive £500 worth of Folio vouchers. The winning artist and runners-up will also receive a portfolio review by the Folio art directors….

(4) CON REPORT. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] SF² Concatenation has an advance-post now up ahead of its next seasonal edition with a review of Britain’s 2023 Fantasycon by Ian Hunter… See the full review at the link: “The 2023 Fantasycon”.

And here we are again, back in Birmingham, the home of many of my favourite Fantasycons from way back, and I do mean waaaay back, and from just two years ago when the city hosted Fantasycon 2021. Then, I certainly felt uneasy coming down from Scotland where facemasks were still being worn, down to Broad Street with all its hotels and pubs and clubs and lots of young people milling about who weren’t wearing face masks. No such worries this time, even the 2021 convention hotel changing names from the Jurys Inn to the Leonardo Royal Hotel couldn’t phase me….

(5) VINTAGE FILK SESSION. Fanac.org has posted video of a segment from a 1989 convention filksing: “Tropicon 8 (1989)–Part 3 of 3 — Filk with Julia Ecklar, Orion’s Belt & Linda Melnick”.

Title: Tropicon 8 (1989)-Part 3 of 3 – Filk with Julia Ecklar, Orion’s Belt and Linda Melnick
Description: Julia Ecklar was the special filk guest at Tropicon 8, held in Dania, Florida, in 1989. This recording captures the third part of an open filk at the convention, and includes 8 songs (of which Julia sings four, with one incomplete) and one poem. The performers on this recording in order of appearance: Julia Ecklar, Chuck Phillips, Dina Pearlman, Francine Mullen, Doug Wu, and Linda Melnick. The video includes much of the conversation between songs, the laughter and the occasional disagreement of a 1980s convention filk session. This video includes several songs by Orion’s Belt, which consisted of Dina Pearlman, Francine Mullen and Doug Wu.

Tropicon was a small convention, and you will see some of the author guests in the filk. That’s Tropicon 8 GoH Lynn Abbey sitting next to C.J. Cherryh for example, and Joe Green sitting back against the wall. Note that the last song is incomplete – the recording chops off in the middle. Many thanks to Eli Goldberg for sound editing on this recording and for the details in the song listing.

(6) GIVE A BONE A BAD NAME. “200 Years Of Naming Dinosaurs: Scientists Call for Better Rules” – Nature has the story. The people doing the study say about 3% of species names are colonialist, have other issues, or reflect that some paleontologists like to name their discoveries after themselves.

It’s been 200 years since researchers named the first dinosaur: Megalosaurus. In the centuries since, hundreds of other dinosaur species have been discovered and catalogued — their names inspired by everything from their physical characteristics to the scientists who first described them. Now, some researchers are calling for the introduction of a more robust system, which they say would ensure species names are more inclusive and representative of where and how fossils are discovered. Megalosaurus was named by William Buckland, a geologist who discovered the enormous reptile’s fossilized remains in a field in Stonesfield, UK, in 1824. Buckland chose the name Megalosaurus on account of the immense size of the bones he and others had excavated. “It was a sensation — the first gigantic extinct land reptile ever discovered,” says Paul Barrett, a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum in London. “Such an animal had never been conceived of before.” The word dinosaur — from the Greek meaning ‘fearfully great lizard’ — was introduced in 1841

Unlike in other scientific disciplines — such as chemistry, in which strict rules govern a molecule’s name — zoologists have relatively free rein over the naming of new species. Usually, the scientist or group that first publishes work about an organism gets to pick its name, with few restrictions. There is a set of guidelines for species naming overseen by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN). These include the requirements that the name is unique, that it is announced in a publication and that, for dinosaurs, it is linked to a single specimen….

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born March 1, 1950 — David Pringle, 73. Happy Birthday, David Pringle! He helped found the Interzone semiprozine, which he co-edited with a number of individuals through the beginning of this millennium.

Need I say that Interzone has been one of my favorite genre zines for a very long time and even though it’s now digital only remains so? I say that because some print subscribers have abandoned since it went all digital last year.

Intersection gave Pringle and Lee Montgomerie a Hugo for editing Interzone in 1995, and the SF Award Database credits him with an additional 19 Hugo nominations in connection with the magazine. And the 2005 Worldcon presented him with a Special Committee Award.

There’s six anthologies under the Interzone name out there as well. He’s also done a number of general anthologies, though the only one I remember reading is his Route 666 one which at this point in time I only remember because of the memorable title.

He is a noted scholar of J.G. Ballard having written books, monographs and newsletters on him.

Now we come to what I consider two of the most indispensable guides to genre fiction in existence — Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels and Modern Fantasy: The 100 Best Novels. Yes, you’ll argue with his choices, but that’s the fun of them, isn’t it?

They are definitely Meredith Moments at the usual suspects, a nice bonus I’d say.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

Thatababy gets into the adventure early.

(9) PUNCHING THE CLOCK. Colleen Doran answers the question “How Long Does it Take to Draw a Comic Book Page?” at Colleen Doran’s Funny Business.

… Items marked in red indicate the complete time cost of a single page from start to finish. Time costs are for penciled AND inked pages entire, not for just a page of pencils. So, the time cost for Wonder Woman page 5 is 7 hours 48 minutes pencils and inks completed.

On some of those pages you might be thinking, “Wow! Only 5 hours 9 minutes to draw an entire comic book page!”

However, keep in mind that this is self reporting. While my computer tracks whatever I do while I’m using a program, I have to enter all my offline work manually. I tend to under report. These are the hours I recorded. And that was a farily simple page.

If it had been a page of the Amazons going to war, you can double or triple that time cost.

Time cost would also not include writing the script, researching the material, or doing the thumbnails for each page….

(10) STEVE VERTLIEB INTERVIEWED ABOUT HIS LIFE AND CAREER BY “INTERFLEET BROADCASTING”. [Item by Steve Vertlieb.] Yesterday’s “Steve Vertlieb Interview” starts 45 minutes into the video.

“Join us for an interview with actor writer and Film Journalist Steve Vertlieb. He has spent most of his life around film makers!. John 1 hosts with the Tipsy Toaster since NY Pete is exploring and trying to find his way. Tiny Bean is also on Deck that is if those pesky internet people fix the lines after an Arcta class storm.”

I was both honored and humbled last evening to do a ninety minute interview with the folks at Interfleet Broadcasting that I hope you’ll find interesting. We discuss Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror Films and Literature, as well as Ray Harryhausen, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, and the history of Music for the Movies, and such composers as Bernard Herrmann, Miklos Rozsa, and John Williams.

I’d like to thank the hosts of the program for their most gracious kindness toward me. You’ll find the interview some forty five minutes into the broadcast.

(11) FLYING IN FORMATION? [Item by Daniel Dern.] “’Shocked and delighted’: Astronomers find six planets orbiting in resonance” reports Astronomy. (As opposed to, say, a Klemperer Rosette (Puppetteer’s ‘Fleet of Worlds), or LaGrange points (in numerous space operas, can’t think of one specifically) The discovery was published in Nature.

A newly discovered system of six planets circling a nearby Sun-like star may be the key to unlocking how planetary systems form. All between the size of Earth and Neptune, the worlds are orbiting in a so-called resonant chain — a configuration that it’s relatively rare to observe in nature, making the system a valuable find that offers a window into a uniquely “gentle” history….

(12) HE WAS WHACKED. Nature is where you’ll find out “The Life and Death of a Bog Man Revealed After 5,000 Years”. “Vittrup Man, who died in his thirties, was a Scandinavian wanderer who settled down between 3300 and 3100 BC.”

Before he was bludgeoned to death and left in a Danish bog, an ancient individual now known as Vittrup Man was an emblem of past and future ways of living.

He was born more than 5,000 years ago into a community of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers who probably lived in northern Scandinavia as their ancestors had for millennia. But Vittrup Man spent his adult life across the sea in Denmark among farming communities, whose ancestors came from the Middle East.

It’s impossible to know the lives that Vittrup Man touched during his lifetime, but it was his death that caught people’s imagination thousands of years later. His remains — ankle and shin bones, a jawbone and a skull fractured by at least eight heavy blows — were discovered in the early twentieth century in a peat bog near a town called Vittrup in northern Denmark, alongside a wooden club that was probably the murder weapon.

His “unusually violent” death distinguished Vittrup Man from other similarly aged remains found in bogs, says Karl-Göran Sjögren, an archaeologist at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, who co-led a team that charted Vittrup Man’s life in a study published last week.

(13) REACHES MOON ON ITS LAST LEGS. “U.S. spacecraft on the moon finally sends home the money shot” at Mashable. See the photo at the link.

A new snapshot from the first private moon landing shows the moment the spacecraft touched down in what looks like a foggy mist — with a broken leg.

The image depicts Intuitive Machines’ lander Odysseus with its engines still firing. On the left side, pictured above, landing gear pieces are visibly broken off from one of the robotic craft’s six struts, said the company’s CEO Steve Altemus….

(14) TIME TO CHECK OUT. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Dr Becky Smethurst of Oxford University this week’s looks at the latest pics from James Webb and contemplates a time when our sun dies… “JWST discovers exoplanets orbiting DEAD STARS”.

When stars like the Sun die do their planets survive? In 5 billion years the Sun will swell into a red giant star, swallowing up the Earth, and maybe even Mars. But what about Jupiter and the rest of the gas giant planets? This month new research has been published, claiming to have found two exoplanets in orbit around two dead white dwarf stars with JWST. These planets are similar in mass to Jupiter, and orbit their stars at a distance similar to Saturn and Neptune in the Solar System.

(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] I’m not sure why he decided we needed a Pitch Meeting for a 2016 film, but here it is. “Gods of Egypt Pitch Meeting”.

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

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Tag Archives: Dr. Becky Smethurst

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