Tag Archives: Dumbo

Pixel Scroll 4/30/19 Pixel My Blue Suede Scrolls

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(1) WEIGHING IN ON THE TOLKIEN MOVIE. In the Catholic Herald, Fr. Michael Ward’s verdict is that “This Tolkien biopic is woefully unconvincing”.

…This handsome, earnest, yet overstuffed and poorly paced film deviates frequently from the historical record. Most seriously, it ignores Tolkien’s devout Christian faith: there is no indication that he served Mass daily as a boy or ever even entered a Catholic church. His punch-ups with Wiseman and drunken night-time profanities are, in comparison, unimportant inventions.

But departures from reality are inevitable in dramatisations, and enumerating them can quickly devolve into captiousness. What’s more relevant is whether the artistic licence results in a successful story. One expects a biopic to sit somewhat loose to the facts, yet one hopes it will also hold the attention and make one care about the characters, however far from real life they may diverge.

A helpful comparison is Richard Attenborough’s Shadowlands, the story of CS Lewis’s late marriage. It’s worthless as an account of actual events, but works brilliantly as a movie: engaging, well-structured, powerful and poignant.

Here, with Lewis’s friend Tolkien, it’s a different story. Incidents come thick and fast, but are strangely uninvolving….

Ward is the co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to CS Lewis.

(2) A MODEST PROPOSAL. Daniel Dern is making an offer –

Our dead tree edition of the Sunday New York Times this week (here in the year 2019 – April 28) included a special 12-page section, consisting of (a version of) Ted Chiang’s story, “Better Versions of You,” adapted from his story “Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom” from Chiang’s new (coming out May 7) collection Exhalation. Illustrations by Daehyun Kim/Moonassi.

According to social media, “The piece is PRINT ONLY.” (My brief searches don’t show otherwise; I’d been looking for it before I found this tweet.)

Once we’re done reading the story, I don’t feel the need to keep it. So I’m happy to pass it along to the first Filer who asks for it, via a comment to this post. (We’ll sort out snail addresses, etc. off-list. If need be, I’ll ask OGH to be the email-address intermediary.)

Beyond possibly the minor cost of mailing it, I’m not asking any $ for it.

OTOH, I’m happy if the recipient will in turn, once it’s arrived, make a modest (say, $10-$25) donation to some sf/fan related fund/fundraiser or other Good Cause (of their choice, e.g., the Gahan Wilson GoFundMe, or some WorldCon-related fundraiser — your choice, I don’t need to know what/who, how much, or whether). But this is an optional follow-through.

(I don’t see Chiang listed in the current ReaderCon Guests list, so you’d be on your own for trying to get it autographed.)

Let the clicking begin!

(3) BORDERLANDS CAFÉ CLOSES, BOOKSTORE STAYS OPEN. “After 10 years, Valencia Street’s Borderlands Cafe to shutter” reports Mission Local.

Owner Alan Beatts, also the owner of Borderlands Books — which will remain open on Valencia Street at least for the next year — said that the decision to shutter the cafe was, by and large, voluntary. He attributed the move to a confluence of factors, including staff retention, slumping sales, and his personal desire to focus on the bookstore….

(4) BLAME HIM FOR THANOS! Entertainment Weekly’s Christian Holub, in “Thanos Creator Jim Starlin Discusses His Avengers: Endgame Cameo And The Journey From Page To Screen”, has a profile of Jim Starlin, who created Thanos for Invincible Iron Man #55 in 1972, and says he enjoyed his cameo in the film and says the Thanos on screen is true to “the spirit of the character” he created.

“It’s more of a full circle than you realize,” Starlin says. “I got the assignment to draw Invincible Iron Man #55-56 because the regular penciller on it, George Tuska, had to go in for some elective surgery. So I did the first issue, which I plotted out with Mike Friedrich, and then the second one I worked with this writer Steve Gerber. We did a funny Iron Man issue, and Stan Lee hated it so much he fired both of us.”

(5) CAPTAIN AMERICA. “MIT students deck out dome with Captain America shield” – the Portland (ME) Press-Herald has the story.

MIT students over the weekend draped the university’s signature Great Dome with a giant cloth version of Captain America’s red, white and blue shield.

Their efforts drew a Twitter “Very cool!” from actor Chris Evans, the Massachusetts native who plays Captain America in “Avengers: Endgame.”

https://twitter.com/ChrisEvans/status/1122871898545762304

(6) HELP WANTED. Westercon bid chair Kevin Standlee posted the Tonopah [in 2021] Committee List. And they’re hoping to add more workers.

The Tonopah Westercon committee is a standing committee of San Francisco Science Fiction Conventions, Inc. answerable to the corporation’s Board of Directors. Our organizing committee consists of the following people, with others helping on an ad hoc basis.

Chair: Kevin Standlee (Co-chair, 2002 Worldcon, San José CA)
Assistant to Chair/Hospitality Lead : Lisa Hayes
Treasurer: Bruce Farr (Chair, Westercon 45 (1992), Phoenix AZ)
Facilities: Mike Willmoth (Chair, Westercon 62 (2009), Tempe AZ)
Website Planning: Cheryl Morgan
Travel Coordinator: Sandra Childress

Other Committee Members Without Portfolio:
David W. Clark (Chair, 1993 Worldcon, San Francisco CA)
Lisa Detusch Harrigan (Chair, Westercon 40 (1987), Oakland CA)
Kevin Roche (Co-Chair, Westercon 66 (2013), Sacramento CA and Chair, 2018 Worldcon, San José CA)
Andy Trembley (Co-Chair, Westercon 66 (2013), Sacramento CA)

(7) IT’S HISTORY. “And she’s not only merely dead, she’s really most sincerely dead.” At Gizmodo/io9, last Thursday’s Morning Spoilers column drops the news that “At Least One of the Game of Thrones Spinoff Series Is Truly Dead” and the creator is done, at least for now, at HBO. Tidbits for a dozen or so shows are shared in the column.

Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, Bryan Cogman confirmed that his time with the franchise is over for now—because the spinoff series he was attached to is officially scrubbed…

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born April 30, 1926 — Cloris Leachman, 93. I’ve got grist in the genre in Young Frankenstein as Frau Blücher. (Strange film.) she does her obligatory mouse role when she voices Euterpe in The Mouse and His Child. Next up is being The Lord’s Secretary in The Muppet Movie. (Always a fun time.) Hmmm… she’s Millie Crown in Shadow Play, a horror film that I don’t plan on seeing. Not my cup of tea. Lots of voice work from there out and I will only note her as Mrs. Tensedge in The Iron Giant, a great film indeed. She in the live action and I assume disgusting Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse as Ms. Fielder. 
  • Born April 30, 1934 — Baird Searles. Best- known for his long running review columns in Asimov’s, Amazing Stories and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. For a time, he managed a genre bookstore in New York City’s Greenwich Village, the Science Fiction Shop, which is no longer in business. With Brian Thomsen, he edited Halflings, Hobbits, Warrows & Weefolk: A Collection of Tales of Heroes Short in Stature, and among other publication that he wrote was the Cliff Notes on Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. (Died 1993.)
  • Born April 30, 1938 — Larry Niven, 81. One of my favourites author to read, be Ringworld, The Mote in God’s Eye with Jerry Pournelle, or the the Rainbow Mars stories, there’s always good reading there. What’s your favourite Niven story? 
  • Born April 30, 1968 — Adam Stemple, 51. Son of Jane Yolen. One-time vocalist of Boiled in Lead. With Yolen, he’s written the Rock ‘n’ Roll Fairy Tales, Pay the Piper and Troll Bridge which are worth reading, plus the Seelie Wars trilogy which I’ve not read. He’s also written two Singer of Souls urban fantasies which I remember as engaging. 
  • Born April 30, 1973 — Naomi Novik, 46. She wrote the Temeraire series which runs nine novels so far. Her first book, His Majesty’s Dragon, won the Compton Crook Award for best first novel in the science fiction and fantasy category. She most deservedly won the Nebula Award for Best Novel for Uprooted which is a most excellent read. I’ve not yet her Spinning Silver, so opinions are welcome.
  • Born April 30, 1982 — Kirsten Dunst, 37. Her first genre role was as Claudio in Interview with the Vampire. Later genre roles include Judy Shepherd in Jumanji, voicing Christy Fimple in Small Soldiers, voicing Becky Thatcher in The Animated Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mary Jane Watson in Spider-Man franchise,  voicing Kaena in Kaena: The Prophecy, and showing up on Star Trek: The Next Generation as Hedrilin in the “Dark Page” episode. She would have been nine years old in that episode! 
  • Born April 30, 1985 — Gal Gadot, 34. Wonder Woman, of course, in the DC film universe. Other genre work, well, other than voicing Shank on Ralph Breaks the Internet, there really isn’t any. She did play Linnet Ridgeway Doyle in the Kenneth Branagh of Murder on the Orient Express which is quite lovely but hardly genre… 

(9) POOH INSPIRATION BURNS. CNN brings word that “Winnie the Pooh’s real-life Hundred Acre Wood hit by forest fire”. Authorities do not think it was deliberately set.

An overnight fire ripped through a forest in England that provided the setting for the Winnie the Pooh children’s stories.

The blaze at Ashdown Forest, in East Sussex, started at around 9.30 p.m. on Sunday and affected an area of more than 35 acres, according to the East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service.

Six fire crews were on the scene as flames fed on dry undergrowth in the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Winnie the Pooh author A.A. Milne, who lived in nearby Cotchford Farm, Hartfield, drew inspiration from Ashdown Forest to write the popular series of children’s books in the 1920s….

(10) PACHYDERM IN FLIGHT. “Dumbo: How we made the visual effects” – BBC has a video.

Moving Picture (MPC) company’s Richard Stammers, the Overall VFX Supervisor for the Walt Disney film Dumbo, tells BBC Click how the digital effects for the movie were put together.

(11) SPOILER ALERT. “Game of Thones: Secrets behind Winterfell battle episode” – the secrets apparently include “11 weeks of night shooting,” “Too cold to snow.”

It’s taken eight years, 70 episodes and thousands of deaths to get us to this moment.

The epic fight between the living and the dead in Game of Thrones was shown in the UK on Monday.

The episode, called The Long Night, lasted 82 minutes and took viewers on a rollercoaster journey featuring our favourite characters…

HBO, makers of the fantasy drama, have also released a behind-the-scenes video giving some of the secrets of how it all came together.

(12) RETRO REVIEWS. Steven J. Wright has completed his Retro Hugo Novel finalist reviews:

Retro Novel

(13) BEAUTIFUL BOOK. Look at the gorgeous endpapers in the Russian edition of Goss’ novel:

(14) CELEBRATING THE RONDO WINNERS. Steve Vertlieb sends his regards:

I want to take a moment this morning to wish hearty congratulations to all of this year’s most worthy Rondo Award winners. As always, the nominated films, television shows, writers, and artists were strong and worthy contenders, and each winner was deservedly voted the absolute best in his or her field of endeavor. In particular, however, I’d like to pay respect and homage to Veronica Carlson, Caroline Munro, and Martine Beswick whose long overdue recognition by The Rondo Hall of Fame was enthusiastically welcomed, and for my lifelong friend and brother, Wes Shank, whose loss late last Summer shattered us all, and whose entry last night into “The Monster Kid Hall of Fame” was a most fitting tribute to a beloved friend and fan. My personal remembrance of Wes was posted on File 770. Congratulations once again to all of this year’s most deserving Rondo Award winners. 

(15) WHERE NO CAT HAS GONE BEFORE. Well, cremated cat, says Space.com: “RIP Pikachu: Ashes of Beloved Cat Will Launch to Space in Cosmic Burial”.

A cat lover and space fan is about to make history by launching the remains of a cat named Pikachu into orbit around the Earth. 

“Pikachu will have a final send-off like no cat has ever had before,” Steve Munt, Pikachu’s owner, wrote on a GoFundMe page dedicated to raising funds for Pikachu’s space memorial. Thanks to a company called Celestis — which also offers memorial spaceflights for humans — the orange tabby’s cremated remains will hitch a ride to space as a small secondary payload on a satellite launch sometime in the next 18 months, Munt told Space.com. 

(16) MICE IN SPACE. These mice, however, made it to orbit while still alive. Ben Guarino in “Up in space, mice found a new way to play” in the Washington Post, says a paper in Scientific Reports discusses what happened to mice that spent a month in the International Space Station on the NASA Rodent Habitat.

After more than a week in space, young mice began to psrint and glide, as though they were zooming inside invisible hamster wheels.  The scientists called this circling behavior, which they hadn’t seen before, ‘racetracking.’  Within a few days, other mice joined the fray.  As a group, they ran laps around the habitats, reaching speeds of about a mile an hour.  It’s strange to watch.

(17) HEDGEHOGGING THE ROAD. Sonic The Hedgehog is fast enough to create a blue shift.

He’s a whole new speed of hero. Watch the new trailer for Sonic The Hedgehog, in theatres this November

[Thanks Cat Eldridge, John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, Chip Hitchcock, Mike Kennedy, Daniel Dern, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Hampus Eckerman and/or Daniel Dern. It’s complicated.]

Pixel Scroll 3/29/19 This Is File 770, You Can Scroll On The File And Call The Cat A Pixel

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(1) HIGH PRAISE AND SOME CASH. A student stage production of Alien has earned the highest seal of approval – and it’s more than just kind words: “Ridley Scott Praises Students for ‘Alien’ Stage Show, Offers Funds for Encore Performance”.

The North Bergen High School students who put on a stage production of Ridley Scott’s “Alien” have made a fan out of the director himself…

“My hat comes off to all of you for your creativity, imagination, and determination to produce such an ambitious show,” Scott writes in the letter. “Limitations often produce the best results because imagination and determination can surpass any shortfalls and determine the way forward – always.”

Scott continues, “Self-sufficiency is what this country was largely based upon with its immigrant population coming in to a New World and working together. This is maybe the biggest lesson for all of you, and your future plans – stay with this determination, and this spirit in everything you do, and you will succeed – let nothing put you off – or set you back.”

The letter ends with Scott encouraging the students to put on a live production of his Oscar winner “Gladiator” next year. The director is currently working on a sequel to the blockbuster. Scott said he felt “very complimented” the students decided to use “Alien” as a source of inspiration. The filmmaker ended his note with good news: “Scott Free will advance some financial help to fund an encore performance of ‘Alien.’”

(2) CHICK-A-BOOM. In science news: they have fossils from very soon after Chicxulub hit. Like within a few hours afterward. Fish, dinosaurs, trees with amber, tektites. Science Daily has the story: “66-million-year-old deathbed linked to dinosaur-killing meteor”.

Paleontologists have found a fossil site in North Dakota that contains animals and plants killed and buried within an hour of the meteor impact that killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. This is the richest K-T boundary site ever found, incorporating insects, fish, mammals, dinosaurs and plants living at the end of the Cretaceous, mixed with tektites and rock created and scattered by the impact. The find shows that dinosaurs survived until the impact.

(3) UP AGAINST THE WALL. In anti-science news, Lonely Planet announced that “The Flat Earth Cruise wants to sail to the edge of the world in 2020”.

Despite real, scientific evidence to the contrary, the Flat Earth Society is continuing its quest to convince the world that spherical planets are a hoax and the earth is flat. In 2020, they’ll bring their message to the seas with a special cruise they promise will be “the biggest, boldest, best adventure yet.”

It may seem somewhat dangerous to embark on a cruise on a flat surface, given the danger of potentially falling off the edge. Fear not, however, as the flat earth theory proposes that we think of as Antarctica is actually a giant ice wall which “helps protect us from whatever lies beyond.”

(4) DIRECTOR CUT. NPR’s Chris Klimek says of Dumbo: “Elephants Never Forget, But Audiences Will”.

Dumbo, the first of three live-action(ish) remakes of beloved Disney cartoons due in the next four months (Aladdin is coming in May, The Lion King in June), coulda been a contender. Its director is Tim Burton, who began his career as an animator, and who has periodically returned to that medium for heartfelt, handmade pictures like Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie. More recently, Burton is the filmmaker most directly responsible for this cartoon-reclamation trend: His 2010 re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland took in more than a billion dollars around the world. Do you know anyone of any age who likes that film? Dumbo is better, but that’s a bar any able-bodied adult elephant could clear, no unusual talents necessary.

Once the most idiosyncratic of big-studio filmmakers, Burton has long since become a company man. This efficient, indistinct Dumbo could’ve been directed by any number of Chris Columbuses or Brad Peytons or Jon Favreaus (who made 2016’s The Jungle Book and that upcoming digitized Lion King) — able project managers all, and not a one of them possessed of the fevered imagination to pull off a Beetlejuice, never mind an Ed Wood. The docile Burton we have here is the one Warner Brothers’ wished they’d had on Batman Returns a generation ago, when parents and a certain billions-and-billions-served burger chain screamed about how the blockbuster sequel turned out awfully weird and kinky and violent, for a film they’d worked so hard to sell to children.

(5) SHIRAISHI OBIT. Voice actress Fuyumi Shiraishi passed away March 28 at the age of 82 reports Anime News Network.

She is arguably best known outside Japan for voicing Mirai in the first Mobile Suit Gundam anime series.

She won a Merit Award for lifetime achievement at the 9th Annual Seiy? Awards in 2015.

(6) RIMMER OBIT. Thunderbirds voice actor Shane Rimmer had died reports The Guardian.

Actor Shane Rimmer, who voiced the character of pilot Scott Tracy in Thunderbirds, has died. The official Gerry Anderson website carried the news, saying that the death of the 89 year old had been confirmed by his widow Sheila Rimmer. Rimmer died at home in the early hours of 29 March. No cause of death has been given.

… . The actor also contributed his voice to other Gerry Anderson projects including Joe 90 and Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, and appeared in person in the Anderson’s live action project UFO. Behind the scenes, Rimmer also wrote episodes of Captain Scarlet, Joe 90, The Secret Service and The Protectors.

As well as his work with Gerry and Sylvia Anderson he appeared in over 100 films including Dr Strangelove, Gandhi and Out of Africa. He played three different roles in three different James Bond movies, appearing in Diamonds Are Forever, You Only Live Twice, and The Spy Who Loved Me.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born March 29, 1923 — Geoffrey Ashe, 96. British historian and lecturer, Arthurian expert. His first book, King Arthur’s Avalon: The Story of Glastonbury, was published sixty years ago. He wrote one novel, The Finger and the Moon, set at Allhallows, a college near Glastonbury Tor. 
  • Born March 29, 1943 — Eric Idle, 76. Monty Python is genre, isn’t it? If not, I submit that The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Yellowbeard, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Quest for Camelot, Shrek the Third and Nearly Departed, an updated version of Topper, which he all hand in are.
  • Born March 29, 1947 — Patricia Anthony. Flanders is one damn scary novel. A ghost story set in WW I it spooked me for nights after I read it and I don’t spook easily. Highly recommended.  James Cameron purchased  the movie rights to  her Brother Termite novel and John Sayles wrote a script, but the movie has not been produced. (Died 2013.)
  • Born March 29, 1948 — Bud Cort, 71. First genre role was in  producer Roger Corman’s final film for AIP, Gas-s-s-s (also known as Gas! or It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It). Next was Brave New World which was followed by Invaders from Mars, a remake of the early Fifties film of that name. There was a pilot for a Bates Motel series (H’h?) but ignored the timeline from Psycho II and Psycho III. Last I’m going to note his voicing Toy Man in the Justice League and Superman animated series.
  • Born March 29, 1955 — Marina Sirtis, 64. Counselor Deanna Troi in the Trekverse. I admit I never did find her role all that interesting. As for her roles outside of Trek, let’s see what we’ve got. Her first genre film appearance, The Wicked Lady, a highwayman film being noted here only for Sirtis somehow getting whipped while topless by Faye Dunaway. Waxwork II: Lost in Time as Gloria is her true genre film role followed shortly by a one-off on the The Return of Sherlock Holmes series as Lucrezia. And then there’s her mid Nineties voice acting as Demona on Gargoyles, possibly her best role to date. Skipping some one-offs on various genre series, her most recent appearance was on Titans, the DC streaming service based series, as Marie Granger in the “Hank and Dawn” episode. 
  • Born March 29, 1957 — Elizabeth Hand, 62. Not even going to attempt to summarise her brilliant career. I will say that my fav works by her are Wylding Hall, Illyria and Mortal Love. 
  • Born March 29, 1968 — Lucy Lawless, 51. Xena in Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, cylon model Number Three D’Anna Biers on that Battlestar Galactica series. She also played Countess Palatine Ingrid von Marburg, the last of a line of Germanic witches on the Salem series. Her most recent genre role as Ruby Knowby, one of the Dark Ones, on the Ash vs Evil Dead series. Though not genre, she was Lucretia in  Spartacus: Blood and Sand, its prequel Spartacus: Gods of the Arena and its sequel Spartacus: Vengeance. 

(8) COMICS SECTION.

  • Another Incidental Comic from Grant Snider:

(9) ON JEOPARDY! Andrew Porter has been patrolling the airwaves again: “Not a science fiction answer/question, but a good topic,” he says.

Answer: This 1883 classic ends with the words “A well-behaved little boy!”

All contestants got it wrong, with the questions, “Who is Little Lord Fauntleroy,” “What is The Velveteen Rabbit,” and “What is Peter Pan?”

The correct question: “Who is Pinocchio?”

(10) HELP WANTED. According to Jezebel, “Space Scientists Need Women Volunteers Who Will Stay in Bed Eating Pancakes for Two Months”.

Do you speak German and hate getting out of bed? That could be worth almost 19k to space scientists.

A study commissioned by NASA and the European Space Agency being conducted at the German Aerospace Center needs German-speaking, non-smoking women ages 22-55 to lie in bed for 60 days in order to help understand the impact of weightlessness on the body.

(11) NOT JUST CATS. It’s a veritable hitchhikers’ guide… “Dozens Of Nonnative Marine Species Have Invaded The Galapagos Islands”.

The Galapagos Islands are like a biological ark in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Giant tortoises live there, and swimming iguanas, and numerous species found nowhere else. It’s one of the world’s most protected places.

But scientists have discovered that dozens of exotic species have invaded the Galapagos — underwater.

Marine biologist James Carlton remembers when he first got to thinking that the famously wild Galapagos, a World Heritage, might not be as pristine as people thought. “On my first visit to the Galapagos,” he recalls, “I collected some samples from a boat bottom.” He found barnacles, sponges and other hitchhikers.

That was in 1987. Carlton didn’t know if the creatures he found were native or not. So about four years ago, he and a team of scientists decided to return and take a closer look.

“We didn’t know quite what to expect,” he says. They already knew there were lots of invasive species — species not native to the Galapagos — on land. But in the surrounding ocean, there were only five known species of invaders. Everything else, presumably, was native.

When Carlton’s team looked underwater, however, they found a horde of invaders. “Now we have 53, which is a rather stunning increase,” says marine biologist Gregory Ruiz, who was on the trip. “It’s about a tenfold increase.”

(12) AT LONG LAST. Try and look on the bright side —

[Thanks to P.J. Evans, JJ, rcade, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, Chip Hitchcock, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day BGrandrath.]

Pixel Scroll 3/4/19 It Was A Scroll Of Rare Device

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(1) SUPERPHILATELY. Royal Mail have a series of Marvel superhero stamps out later this month. Various first day covers, presentation packs, framed prints etc. are available now for pre-order:

Treat the Marvel super fan in your life to this superb Presentation Pack which includes all 15 of Royal Mail’s brand new Marvel stamps illustrated by Alan Davis; the ten First Class Super Hero stamps plus the comic strip miniature sheet, which carries an additional five stamps. Packed with bonus features including:

  • All ten original Super Hero pencil sketches by Alan Davis printed behind each stamp.
  •  An original specially commissioned fold-out illustration by Marvel comic book artist Neil Edwards, featuring each of the ten Super Heroes pitted against their nemeses.
  •  A set of stickers including sound effects, logos and comic book narratives to help you create your own Super Hero adventure.
  •  A separate protective carrier for the stamp miniature sheet featuring a striking image of Thanos.

(2) GAIMAN SERIES. American Gods Season 2 starts March 10. Starz has released several promos and a featurette. Neil Gaiman appears in the first one.

When Shadow Moon is released from prison, he meets the mysterious Mr. Wednesday and a storm begins to brew. Little does Shadow know, this storm will change the course of his entire life. Left adrift by the recent, tragic death of his wife, and suddenly hired as Mr. Wednesday’s bodyguard, Shadow finds himself in the center of a world that he struggles to understand. It’s a world where magic is real, where the Old Gods fear both irrelevance and the growing power of the New Gods, like Technology and Media. Mr. Wednesday seeks to build a coalition of Old Gods to defend their existence in this new America, and reclaim some of the influence that they’ve lost. As Shadow travels across the country with Mr. Wednesday, he struggles to accept this new reality, and his place in it.

(3) KGB. Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel present Carrie Laben and Molly Tanzer on Wednesday, March 20 at the KGB Bar starting at 7 p.m.

Carrie Laben

Carrie Laben is the author of A Hawk in the Woods, coming from Word Horde in March 2019. Her work has appeared in such venues as Apex, The Dark, Indiana Review, Okey-Panky, and Outlook Springs. In 2017 she won the Shirley Jackson Award in Short Fiction for her story “Postcards from Natalie” and Duke University’s Documentary Essay Prize for the essay “The Wrong Place”. In 2015 she was selected for the Anne LaBastille Memorial Writer’s Residency and in 2018 she was a MacDowell Fellow. She now resides in Queens.

Molly Tanzer

Molly Tanzer is the author of Creatures of Will and Temper, Creatures of Want and Ruin, and the forthcoming Creatures of Charm and Hunger. She is also the author of the weird western Vermilion, which was an io9 and NPR “Best Book” of 2015, and the British Fantasy Award-nominated collection A Pretty Mouth. She lives in Longmont, Colorado, with her cat Toad. 

The KGB Bar is at 85 East 4th Street (just off 2nd Ave, upstairs.) in New York.

(4) FANHISTORY. Rob Hansen has added a section on “REPETERCON – the 1964 Eastercon” to his British fanhistory site THEN. Includes vastly amusing conreport excerpts such as –

ARCHIE MERCER:

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line – in the opposite direction.

Therefore, when at half past four on the Thursday I quit work an hour early, saddled my trusty scooter Laideronette and set off for Peterborough – which lay towards the north-east – naturally I travelled south-west. Peterborough was pulling hard in the opposite direction, however, and Laideronette responded strongly to its attraction. First I found it hard to stay in top gear, then impossible. Before long I found it increasingly difficult to stay in third gear, then in second.

Abandoning all thoughts of circumnavigating the globe to approach Peterborough from the far side, I coaxed Laideronette into Bridgwater at not much more than walking pace and drew up thankfully outside the Walsh abode. There the Mercatorial effects were off-loaded and transferred to the mighty Walsh automobile, and soon in company with Tony, Simone and Sarah I was following half the milk tankers in the South of England on the road to London….

(5) CHATTACON. Enjoy Ethan Mills Chattacon 44 report at Examined Worlds.

…This year I again volunteered as a panelist, which is always fun.  I was on several panels with friends I met last year.  One of the panels, “What in Hell Do We Want from Horror?” was partly inspired by my horror and philosophy class from last semester….

(6) A SHORT HISTORY OF TIME ON SCREEN. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] There have been roughly a bajillion MCU movies over the past decade plus. Have you ever wondered which hero racked up the most cumulative screen time? Well, Hannah Collins at CBR.com did (“Marvel Cinematic Universe Heroes Ranked, According to Screen Time”). If you check out the story, be sure to click through to the second page or you’ll be left wondering why that guy made the top of the list and why that other guy was left off entirely…

Marvel Studios celebrated its ten-year milestone with a major character cull courtesy of the Snap-happy villain, Thanos, in 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War. With half of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s population erased, the trailers for the film’s sequel, Avengers: Endgame feature a depressingly empty world where our heroes are now few and far between.

[…] For the sake of brevity, we’ll only be including major heroes [in our screen time ranking]. By “major,” we mean heroic characters central to the MCU’s over-arching story who have starred in multiple films, so don’t expect to see the likes of Shuri, Wong, the Warriors Three, et al make the cut. With that caveat, let’s get on with the list, in ascending order.

(7) IT’S SHOWTIME. Scott Edelman made it to the Captain Marvel world premiere tonight in Hollywood.

(8) WHAT’S THAT WORD? SHAZAM! is in theaters April 5. (If only Gomer Pyle had lived long enough to see it.)

We all have a superhero inside us, it just takes a bit of magic to bring it out. In Billy Batson’s (Angel) case, by shouting out one word—SHAZAM!—this streetwise 14-year-old foster kid can turn into the adult Super Hero Shazam (Levi), courtesy of an ancient wizard. Still a kid at heart—inside a ripped, godlike body—Shazam revels in this adult version of himself by doing what any teen would do with superpowers: have fun with them! Can he fly? Does he have X-ray vision? Can he shoot lightning out of his hands? Can he skip his social studies test? Shazam sets out to test the limits of his abilities with the joyful recklessness of a child. But he’ll need to master these powers quickly in order to fight the deadly forces of evil controlled by Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Strong).

(9) PERRY OBIT. Actor Luke Perry (1966-2019) died March 4 of a massive stroke. SciFiHistory did a brief tribute — “Stardate 03.04.2019.A: In Memoriam – Luke Perry”:

I was a bit old to buy into the teen-set antics of Beverly Hills, 90210, perhaps his most notable claim to fame.  As I’ve made it my business of following talent closely associated with the genres of Fantasy and Science Fiction, I am aware of his greater contributions to Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1992), The Fifth Element (1995), and J. Michael Strazzynski’s Jeremiah. 

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born March 4, 1946 — Patricia Kennealy-Morrison, 73. Author of The Keltiad series. Blend traditional Celtic legends and mythology unto a technologically advanced civilisation and.. well, it was awful.  Her might have been marriage to Morrison is more interesting.
  • Born March 4, 1954 — Catherine Anne O’Hara, 65. First genre role role was in the most excellent Beetlejuice as artist Delia Deetz followed by being Texie Garcia in Dick Tracy, a film I’ll be damn if I know what I think about. She voices most excellently Sally / Shock bringing her fully to, errr, life in The Nightmare Before Christmas. I see she’s in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events as Justice Strauss. Lastly, and no this is by no means a complete listing of what she has done, she was on Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events as Dr. Georgina Orwell.
  • Born March 4, 1965 — Paul W.S. Anderson, 54. Genre director with a long record of films starting with Mortal Kombat. After that, he directed Event Horizon which developed a cult following on DVD, Soldier (fascinating tale, look it up), Resident Evil, Alien vs. Predator, Resident Evil: Afterlife, The Three Musketeers, Resident Evil: Retribution and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. Monster Hunter is forthcoming from him and despite the title is not from the Puppy author that you might expect it is. It stars his wife Milla Jovovich who he first directed in Resident Evil: Extinction. 
  • Born March 4, 1966 — Paul Malmont, 53. Author of the comic strips, The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril and Jack London in Paradise which blends pulp tropes and SF elements including using as protagonists Heinlein and Asimov. He wrote the first four issues of DC Comics’ Doc Savage series with artist Howard Porter.
  • Born March 4, 1973 — Len Wiseman, 46. Producer or Director on the Underworld franchise. Director of the Total Recall remake. Also involved in Stargate, Independence Day, Men in Black and Godzilla in the Property Department. Sleepy Hollow series creator and producer for much of it, wrote pilot as well. Producer for much of Lucifer as well and is the producer for the entire first series of Swamp Thing. Also produced The Gifted. 

(11) CAN’T GO ANY LOWER? YES HE CAN. The misguided attention-seeking missile that is Jon Del Arroz ran a blog post today with the headline “Women Lie About Rape” [Internet Archive link]. This is just offensive.

The #MeToo movement went completely out of control this last year and a half, destroying men’s lives, dragging them through mud, and more often than not, during incidents that are complete falsehoods like in the case of our supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh.

(12) FIRE TIME. Not cheery news for anyone who lives close to the mountains, which even surround many urban areas here: “Climate change: California wildfires ‘can now happen in any year'”.

Wet winters are no longer a guide to the severity of wildfires in California, a new study suggests.

Increased temperatures due to global warming and more effective efforts to contain fires means there’s now more dry wood to burn.

This means that large wildfires of the kind seen in 2018 can now happen in any year, regardless of how wet the previous winter was.

The researchers say huge blazes may be a sign of things to come.

(13) MISFORTUNE. “San Francisco cost of living: A cookie factory’s story” – the rising rents that affected Borderland Books impact all kinds of small businesses:

The last remaining fortune cookie factory in San Francisco is on the verge of closure, thanks to sky-high rents and new technology, but its owner says he will never give up the family business, writes Lucy Sherriff.Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory, in the city’s Chinatown, is the last factory of its kind in the area, after competitors were forced to close when overheads became too expensive.

The family-run factory opened its doors on Ross Alley in 1962, and uses the same recipe to this day, as well as retaining the traditional machinery used to make Chinese fortune cookies.

“Even I don’t know the recipe,” co-owner Kevin Chan, whose mother and uncle founded the store, told the BBC. “It’s my mum’s secret.”

Chan, who stays up until 3am at night writing the fortunes which are inserted into the cookies, says he’s proud the store remains open, but he’s facing an uncertain future.

“My rent is $6,000 a month. Three years ago, it was $1,400. But I’m not going to just walk away. I’m not going to give up. I will keep going for as long as I can.”

(14) ASSEMBLY REQUIRED. Ikea is offering a chocolate Easter bunny — in DIY flatpack, of course:

(15) IN THE ZONE. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Though mostly known as a comedic actor, another big name is taking a presumably dramatic turn in the Pratfall Zone, um, I mean in The Twilight Zone. Deadline has the story—‘‘The Twilight Zone’: Seth Rogen To Star In Episode Of CBS All Access Series“.

Seth Rogen is stepping into The Twilight Zone. The star of Knocked Up and Neighbors will star in an upcoming episode of the CBS All Access revival of the classic sci-fi/fantasy franchise that became famous for its twist endings, eerie characters and unsettling theme song.

[.. ] No word yet on Rogen’s character nor any hints about the episode that he appears in. […]

Rogen joins a parade of notable names who will star in the high-profile revamp of Rod Serling’s classic television franchise, which aired from 1959-64 and ranked No. 3 on the WGA’s list of 101 Best Written Series. Jordan Peele will host the show while previously announced guest stars for the anthology series revival include Greg Kinnear, Kumail Nanjiani, John Cho,Ike Barinholtz, Taissa Farmiga, Ginnifer Goodwin, Luke Kirby, Sanaa Lathan, Adam Scott, Rhea Seehorn, Alison Tolman, Jacob Tremblay, Jessica Williams, DeWanda Wise, and Steven Yeun.

(16) THE FOOD WON’T BE COMICAL. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] The new capital of the UK will be London DC. OK, only the capital of certain upscale, geeky, and food obsessed parts of the UK (Bleeding Cool: “DC World, a New Immersive Restaurant to Open in London’s Fashionable Soho”).

Planning permission has been sought for a new restaurant in London’s Soho intended to reflect the DC Multiverse.

[…Soho] is now home to many famous restaurants, is where many chains began and is full of private members dining/drinking clubs […] And it is where the world has traditionally come, bringing their own cuisine with them, only to mash it up with others, fused into new forms.

The planning application states, in part:

The restaurant will be rooted within the DC Multiverse, taking visitors on a culinary adventure through the many fictional Universes famous for their superhero residents such as Batman, Superman and Wonderwoman [sic]. The style and design of the DC Multiverse is heavily influenced by the Art Deco period with the style prominent within its publications and film and television work. The restaurant will not be a ‘theme park’ with literal sets and costumes from the franchise, but it has the intention to invite guests to experience the DC Universe without breaking the fourth wall- the imaginary wall that separates the audience from the performance.

[…] The proposed design will accommodate a lounge Bar (Pennyworth’s) and a dining area with entertainment- reminiscent of the 1930s era (Iceberg Lounge). The North Nave – a fine dining experience (Dichotomy Fine Dining) and the South Nave (an Immersive Dining Experience) are proposed as separate, intimate dining experiences.

Other DC influences mentioned in the Bleeding Cool article include “the Wayne Manor pit seen in the Dark Knight movies, and The Arkham Asylum dining area.” Lovely, I just can’t wait to taste gruel à la Arkham Asylum.

(17) MUSIC TO HIS EARS. SYFY WIRE has some Dumbo news:

Dumbo’s trailers have featured “Baby Mine” — the Academy Award-nominated song written for the original — before. First it was Norwegian singer Aurora covering the song; now, Arcade Fire is trying their hand at the lullaby. The version debuted in a small clip from the upcoming film that Disney posted on its Twitter account.

[Thanks To JJ, Chip Hitchcock, Martin Morse Wooster, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, John King Tarpinian, Michael O’Donnell, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jayn.]

Pixel Scroll 11/15/18 Pixel Longstalking

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(1) STOP BREAKING THE RULES, DAMMIT. Thanks to Doctor Science, I discovered “Jonathan Franzen’s 10 Rules for Writing Novels” (at LitHub) and the mirth he’s inspired in many of our friends. (Links take you to the thread.)

https://twitter.com/ChuckWendig/status/1063111890463809541

https://twitter.com/charliejane/status/1063126212795453440

The first time I meet him, I’m in an almost-empty laundromat. It’s the height of the August heatwave. I’m folding my towels when he comes in. His hair is tousled. He wears a rumpled, button-up shirt with a ten-year-old blazer that was already ten years old when he bought it from a Salvation Army.

I know this, because he tells me it. I haven’t asked. He tells me he’ll forgive me for not having asked, this once….

https://twitter.com/gaileyfrey/status/1063186178965331968

And while we’re on the subject, writers can learn a lot from this – “Ask a Triceratops: Susan’s 10 Rules for Novelists” at Camestros Felapton. Here are the first two:

  1. Ensure your primary narrator is comfortable. Remember the novel is an aural medium and your narrator should have a comfy nest of uprooted plants to stand or lie down on.
  2. Pay attention to the little things: how did the t-rex get drunk? What kind of tree is she trying to climb?

(2) TRANSLATED LITERATURE. Europa SF brings word that the winner of The 2018 National Book Award for Translated Literature is of genre interest – the dystopian novel The Emissary by Yoko Tawada (Japan/Germany), Translated by Margaret Mitsutani. Europa SF has a long post about the award and the winning writer.

(3) WFC ACCOUNTABILITY. Silvia Moreno-Garcia takes the 2019 World Fantasy Convention committee to task:

So I’ve been wondering if I should say something here because I am busy and tired and I don’t need the attention, but I think I must: the WFC guest of honor lineup for 2019 is sad. The con takes place in Los Angeles but all the GOHs are white. The theme is Fantasy Noir.

Los Angeles has a huge Latinx population. But the one mention of diversity on the website right now is about “culinary diversity,” making me think POC are only good for making tacos.

On top of that there’s the odd choice of having Robert Silverberg, who was recently the cause of much Internet talk due to some of his comments related to Jemisin, as the toastmaster.

(4) FROM EXPERIENCE. Rachel Swirsky has written a “Q&A on Being a Jewish & Disabled Author”.

…I think my interest in Jewish science fiction stems from my interest in Jewishness itself, which is probably related to my self-identification as Jewish. I’m not sure why I have a strong identification with Judaism — I didn’t have to. As the granddaughter of a secular Jew who tried to cut all connections, I could have just put it aside; my brothers have. Our father is from WASPy blood with deep roots in American history–we’re descended from one of the people who signed the Declaration of Independence–and I could have chosen to identify with that to the exclusion of my Jewish ancestry.

What are you writing about now?

I’m writing a lot about disability. As a disabled person, there’s a lot of rich material to mine–and I still have a lot of unreconciled thoughts about disability, and things I’m figuring out. I think a lot of good writing is produced when the author is still on the edge of revelations, instead of settled.

(5) AMC OPTIONS SF. Good news for Annalee Newitz.

(6) WHO SWITCHES HOLIDAYS. It takes a Time Lord to fix a problem like this – or to cause it in the first place. BBC announces “Doctor Who to skip Christmas Day for first time in 13 years”.

The festive edition of Doctor Who will be shown on New Year’s Day on BBC One instead of Christmas Day for the first time since the drama’s return in 2005.

It will be the first Doctor Who episode to debut on 1 January since the second part of David Tennant’s series exit aired on the first day of 2010.

(7) HAVE AN APPLE? Mythic Delirium has revealed Ruth Sanderson’s cover for Snow White Learns Witchcraft by Theodora Goss.

In these eight stories and twenty-three poems, Goss retells and recasts fairy tales by Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, and Oscar Wilde. Sometimes harrowing, sometimes hilarious, always lyrical, the works gathered in Snow White Learns Witchcraft re-center and empower the women at the heart of these timeless narratives.

They also made sure we didn’t miss this —

Just yesterday, Variety broke the news that the CW is developing The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter for television. We want to sincerely congratulation Dora and wish her luck that this project comes to full fruition. Needless to say, we’re thrilled to be releasing her next book into the publishing wilds.

(8) FANZINES OF 1943. Dublin 2019 has announced that they will present Retro Hugos for works published in 1943. In order to provide material for those that would like to nominate fan materials for the awards, Fanac.org has assembled the list of fanzines published in 1943, with links to those available on line. Several hundred fanzines are already available, and they plan to add more as they become available, so keep checking back — http://fanac.org/fanzines/Retro_Hugos1943.html

(9) VALE, STAN. Stan Lee’s Twitter account (“The Real Stan Lee”) tweeted out a final statement from Lee as a short video.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and JJ.]

  • Born November 15, 1877 – William Hope Hodgson, Writer from England whose best known character by far is Thomas Carnacki, featured in several of his most famous stories, and at least partly based upon Algernon Blackwood’s occult detective John Silence. Two of his later novels, The House on the Borderland and The Night Land would be lavishly praised by H.P. Lovecraft. It is said that his horror writing influenced many later writers such as China Miéville, Tim Lebbon, and Greg Bear, but I cannot find a definitive source for that claim. (Died 1918.)
  • Born November 15, 1929 – Ed Asner, 89, Actor and Producer whose genre work includes playing Santa Claus to Will Farrell’s Elf, and roles on episodes of TV shows spanning decades: The Outer Limits, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Invaders, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Tall Tales & Legends,The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., Mission: Impossible, The Wild Wild West, Hercules, The X-Files, The Dead Zone, Spider-Man, and the upcoming Dead to Me. He has lent his distinctive voice to the main character in the Oscar-winning and Hugo-nominated Pixar movie Up, as well as with a long list of other animated features, series, and videogames, most notably in Captain Planet and the Planeteers, Gargoyles, and as Jacob Marley in The Christmas Carol.
  • Born November 15, 1939 – Yaphet Kotto, 79, Actor, Writer, and Director who’s known mainly for playing gruff law enforcement officers, but whose short genre film resume nevertheless packs a punch. Assuming we count the Bond films as genre – and I do – his first genre performance was as Dr. Kananga aka Mr. Big in Live and Let Die, and roles in Dan O’Bannon’s Alien, Stephen King’s The Running Man, Robert A. Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters, and Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, as well as guest parts in Night Gallery and seaQuestDSV.
  • Born November 15, 1951 – Beverly D’Angelo, 67, Actor and Singer whose genre roles include appearing in The Sentinel, High Spirits, and episodes of TV series such as Tales from the Crypt and Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theatre and Tall Tales & Legends. She was also a primary cast member in The Man Who Fell to Earth, a 1987 pilot for a series that never got picked up for continuation, which was based on Walter Tevis’s 1963 novel and Nicolas Roeg’s 1976 film.
  • Born November 15, 1972 – Jonny Lee Miller, 46, Actor and Director from England who has been playing Sherlock Holmes in the Elementary series for the last seven years, but his first genre role was as a 9-year-old in an episode with Peter Davison, the Fifth Doctor Who. While he’s had a fairly steady stage, film, and TV career across the pond since then, it’s only in the last decade that he’s become well-known in the States – unless, like JJ, you remember that 23 years ago he appeared in a shoddy technothriller called Hackers, with another unknown young actor named Angelina Jolie (to whom he ended up married, until they separated 18 months later). Other genre appearances include a trio of vampire films, Dracula 2000, Dark Shadows, and Byzantium, the live-action Æon Flux movie, and the lead in the pseudo-fantasy TV series Eli Stone.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

(12) WHITE WOLF ANSWERS. In Item #2 of the Pixel Scroll for November 8, Joseph D. Carriker identified a big problem with the next Camarilla book for Vampire: the Masquerade 5th Edition. The next day, publisher White Wolf replied:

White Wolf Community – We realize the way we have portrayed various topics in the recent Camarilla and Anarch setting books can be viewed as crude and insensitive. We appreciate this feedback and we are actively examining our choices in these books. Earlier this year, we made a pledge to you to meet certain standards and be more direct with the community regarding the World of Darkness and our games. That’s a pledge we failed to uphold, and we are deeply sorry.

White Wolf is currently undergoing some significant transitions, up to and including a change in leadership. The team needs a short time to understand what this means, so we ask for your patience as we figure out our next steps.

We thank you for your support, and for calling us out when it’s needed. Your thoughts and opinions are essential to the improvement of White Wolf.

(13) NOVEMBER BOOKS. Raise Mt. Tsundoku high! Andrew Liptak recommends “11 new sci-fi and fantasy books to check out in late November” at The Verge.

I wonder if my daughter will want to read this one –

Firefly: Big Damn Hero by James Lovegrove and Nancy Holder

Earlier this year, Titan Books announced that it was releasing a trilogy of Firefly novels, expanding the world of Joss Whedon’s short-lived TV show. With Whedon on board as a consulting editor, the first novel follows the crew of the Serenity as they’re hired to transport a cargo of explosives to a buyer. Things go sideways the Alliance takes an interest in the cargo and as a band of rebel Browncoat veterans begin to cause trouble. In the midst of it all, Captain Malcolm Reynolds goes missing, and his first mate, Zoë, has to make a choice between finding him and saving her crew.

And for the rest of you, there’s –

How Long ‘Til Black Future Month? by N.K. Jemisin

N.K. Jemisin recently won her third consecutive Hugo Award for The Stone Sky, the concluding volume of her phenomenal Broken Earth trilogy. She has another book in the works right now, but her next will be her first collection of short fiction, How Long ‘Til Black Future Month? The book features 22 of her fantastic, shorter works. Kirkus Reviews gave the book a starred review and said that the stories “demonstrate both the growth and active flourishing of one of speculative fiction’s most thoughtful and exciting writers.”

(14) SECOND OPINION. Answering Collins Dictionary’s choice of “single-use” (Pixeled recently), “’Toxic’ Is Oxford Dictionaries’ Word of 2018”.

(15) WHERE HE’S LEAST EXPECTED. BBC tells how “Lost Disney ‘Oswald’ film found in Japan”.

An anime historian had the cartoon for 70 years before he realised it was one of seven lost films.

The two-minute short features Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a precursor to Mickey Mouse.

Yasushi Watanabe, 84, bought the film from a toy wholesaler in Osaka when he was a teenager, paying only ¥500 (£3.45 at current exchange rates).

Originally called Neck & Neck, the 16mm cartoon was tagged with the name Mickey Manga Spide (Mickey Cartoon Speedy), and remained in Mr Watanabe’s personal collection for 70 years.

(16) DUMBO. Here’s a recommendation for you – io9’s Beth Elderkin promises “The New Trailer for Disney’s Live-Action Dumbo Will Pretty Much Rip Your Heart to Shreds”. Not to mention, you’ll believe an elephant can fly…

(17) WORLDBUILDING. In this case, literally. Nature shares “A key piece in the exoplanet puzzle”.

The detection of a low-mass exoplanet on a relatively wide orbit has implications for models of planetary formation and evolution, and could open the door to a new era of exoplanet characterization.

The orbital distance of the reported planet is similar to that of Mercury from the Sun (Fig.). This places the planet close to the snow line of Barnard’s star — the region out from the star beyond which volatile elements can condense. The snow line is a key region of planetary systems. In particular, there are indications that the building blocks of planets are formed there.

(18) MORE ABOUT THAT EXOPLANET. Mike Kennedy notes, “The planet is, alas, probably outside the zone where liquid water could be expected to exist. Wikipedia has a partial list of stories taking place at or near Barnard’s Star. The earliest they note is Jack Williamson’s The Legion of Space.”

National Geographic notes:

[…] Barnard’s star is a small red dwarf that’s older than the sun and about a sixth its size. It’s invisible without a decent telescope—the close star wasn’t even discovered until 1916.

Still, Barnard’s Star has long been buttoned into the lore of science fiction, inspiring astronomers to propose the presence of orbiting worlds as far back as the 1960s, and prompting fiction authors to weave tales of adventure around the hidden pinprick of light.

[…] “We’re 99-percent sure this is a planetary signal—but 99 is not 100,” he says. “What if the Barnard Star planet is not really there? It will be shot many, many times and people will try to kill it, but that’s how science works.”

(19) ONE PAGE SF. Jonathan Cowie announces SF2 Concatenation just posted its penultimate Best of Nature  ‘Futures’ 1-page SF story of year.

(20) ORIGIN STORY. The Verge tells us that “YouTube’s tech-noir series Origin is Lost… in space (With a hefty dose of Alien and Dead Space on the side)”. The YouTube Originals show is on YouTube Premium, which is available in about 30 countries.

A man wakes up abruptly, gasping in shock. He’s alone in an unexpected place. Something has clearly gone wrong with the trip he was on, but he won’t know just how wrong until he finds his fellow passengers. They’ll have to work together to manage their basic needs and unravel the mystery of why they didn’t arrive safely at their destination. But can they trust each other, given their various unsavory backgrounds, which will largely be revealed by a series of flashbacks? On Lost, this man’s name is Jack Shephard. But in YouTube Premium’s new space series Origin, it’s Shun Kenzaki (Sen Mitsuji).

In Origin, the passengers wake up from stasis, en route to the distant planet Thea. They were supposed to reach the planet before being revived, but they’re still on board their transport ship, Origin. The Siren Corporation, which put them on the ship, offers its colonists a clean slate. Signing on for a colony means having all records of their history on Earth sealed — which gives the writers a perfect excuse to create crew members with particularly colorful pasts. “We’re five light-years from Earth. Who’s going to stop us?” one Siren spokesperson says in a promotional VR experience, channeling the sort of corporate hubris that always goes so well in science fiction stories.

 

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Mike Kennedy, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Martin Morse Wooster, Daniel Dern, Andrew Porter, Carl Slaughter, Rachel Swirsky, Mike Allen, and Chip Hitchcock for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

2017 Additions To National Film Registry

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Burt Lancaster, Gaby Hoffmann and Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams (1989).

“Is this Heaven?” Well, it is if you love Field of Dreams as much as I do. Or liked Christopher Reeve’s Superman, Disney’s Dumbo, or The Goonies. All are motion pictures on the list of 2017 additions to the National Film Registry announced today.

1. Ace in the Hole (1951)
2. Boulevard Nights (1979)
3. Die Hard (1988)
4. Dumbo (1941)
5. Field of Dreams (1989)
6. 4 Little Girls (1997)
7. Fuentes Family Home Movies Collection (1920s and ’30s)
8. Gentleman’s Agreement (1947)
9. The Goonies (1985)
10. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967)
11. He Who Gets Slapped (1924)
12. Interior New York Subway, 14th Street to 42nd Street (1905)
13. La Bamba (1987)
14. Lives of Performers (1972)
15. Memento (2000)
16. Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
17. The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918)
18. Spartacus (1960)
19. Superman (1978)
20. Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (1988)
21. Time and Dreams (1976)
22. Titanic (1997)
23. To Sleep With Anger (1990)
24. Wanda (1971)
25. With the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain (1937-38)

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden said–

The selection of a film to the National Film Registry recognizes its importance to American cinema and the nation’s cultural and historical heritage. Our love affair with motion pictures is a testament to their enduring power to enlighten, inspire and inform us as individuals and a nation as a whole.  Being tasked with selecting only 25 each year is daunting because there are so many great films deserving of this honor.

Here are the official descriptions of the items of genre interest:

Dumbo (1941)

Disney’s charming, trademark animation finds a perfect subject in this timeless tale of a little elephant with oversize ears who lacks a certain confidence until he learns — with the help of a friendly mouse — that his giant lobes enable him to fly. Disney’s fourth feature film gained immediate classic status thanks to its lovely drawing, original score (which would go on to win the Oscar that year) and enduring message of always believing in yourself.

Field of Dreams (1989)

Iowa farmer Kevin Costner one day hears a voice telling him to turn a small corner of his land into a baseball diamond: “If you build it, they will come.”  “They” are the 1919 Black Sox team led by the legendary Shoeless Joe Jackson. Although ostensibly about the great American pastime, baseball here serves as a metaphor for more profound issues. Leonard Maltin lauded “Field of Dreams” as “a story of redemption and faith, in the tradition of the best Hollywood fantasies with moments of pure magic.”

The Goonies (1985)  

The fingerprints of executive producer Steven Spielberg visibly mark every second of “The Goonies,” with the plot sporting a narrative structure and many themes characteristic of his work. Spielberg penned the original story, hand-selected director Richard Donner and hired Chris Columbus (who had written the 1983 “Gremlins”) to do the offbeat screenplay. With its keen focus on kids of agency and adventure, “The Goonies” protagonists are Tom Sawyeresque outsiders on a magical treasure hunt, and the story lands in the continuum between where “Our Gang” quests leave off and the darker spaces of Netflix’s recent “Stranger Things” pick up.

Superman (1978)

Director Richard Donner’s treatment of the famous superhero was not the first time the character had been on the big screen. Kirk Alyn played the role back in a 1948 serial and George Reeves appeared in both theatrical and TV versions in the 1950s. However, for many, Christopher Reeve remains the definitive Man of Steel. This film, an “origins” story, recounts Superman’s journey to Earth as a boy, his move from Smallville to Metropolis and his emergence as a true American hero. Beautiful in its sweep, score and special effects, which create a sense of awe and wonder, “Superman” — as the tag line reads — makes you “believe a man can fly.”

The Librarian made the annual registry selections after conferring with members of the National Film Preservation Board (NFPB) and a cadre of Library specialists, and considering the 5,200 titles nominated by the public.

The Library also announced that 64 motion pictures, previously named to the National Film Registry, are now freely available online here, among them the cartoon “Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor”.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the story.]