25 Oh, Pixelline, Why Can’t You Be True?

Posted on April 2, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(1) LOST BONESTELL LITHOGRAPHS COMING ONLINE FREE. You’ll soon be able to view thirty-two recently discovered industrial illustrations from Chesley Bonestell’s early career. Starting this Thursday, April 3, Michael Swanwick and Marianne Porter will be posting one new illustration every workday on Swanwick’s blog at Flogging Babel.

Most of these images have not been seen for over a century.

Chesley Bonestell was the most significant and influential astronomical illustrator of the 20th century. But before his rise to fame he worked as an architectural illustrator. In 1918, he was commissioned by the Army Corps of Engineers to document the construction of a wartime munitions plant and hydroelectric dam in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Bonestell created 32 large-scale lithographs, showing the construction of the plant, including meticulous records of both industrial interiors, the dam and railroad being built, and the surrounding countryside. They were all signed in the stone.

The munitions factory was never a particularly successful enterprise; it came on line only a few weeks before World War One ended. But the hydroelectric dam was the first in the Tennessee Valley Authority, the massive project that made possible the economic and industrial development of the American South.

The thirty-two lithographs were stored in the Packwood House Museum in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, where only two were actually on display to the public. This set of prints are not numbered, and it is not clear if any other prints were made. The Museum was owned and operated by John Featherstone, and his wife, Edith Featherstone, an artist in her own right, and was intended to showcase her work, as well as central Pennsylvania arts and crafts. Eventually the museum was closed and its contents liquidated. The Bonestell lithographs seem to have been included in the collection because John Featherstone was the engineer in charge of the Muscle Shoals construction project.

The lithographs were purchased by Swanwick and Porter in an auction. When all of them have been posted online, a torrent will be created, making the complete collection available at full resolution.

Michael Swanwick is an award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer. His wife, Marianne Porter, is the editor and publisher of Dragonstairs Press. The first image to be posted is attached.

Swanwick explained on his blog today how the lithographs came into the couple’s possession: “Chesley Bonestell’s Lost Lithographs”.

“I don’t know what they are, but I hope you get them.”

That’s what the lady at the auction house said when Marianne Porter told her that all Marianne wanted were the Chesley Bonestell lithographs. There were 32 of them in the lot, and it was clear nobody at Pook & Pook knew what they were….

(2) KENNY GRAVILLIS Q&A. “Movie Poster Designer Kenny Gravillis Aims to Leave You Asking Questions” at PRINT Magazine.

…Is it common within the movie poster design industry to bid against other studios for projects?

Especially on really big films, there will be three to four different agencies. Just to give you an example, on Game of Thrones season two, there were like 11 agencies that worked on that. It’s super competitive. For independent films that don’t have that much money, they might only be able to hire one agency to work on it. But when you start getting into the Dunes of the world, then there are multiple agencies working on it. And they’re working on it until the end, by the way. You don’t even know if you’re gonna get the final post; it’s pretty wild….

…I also think successful movie posters can exist as standalone pieces in their own right, outside of their attachment to a movie. A graphic image or design that you might want on your wall or you find compelling simply because it looks good.

100%. The thing is, every filmmaker cares about their poster. There’s not one filmmaker that’s like, “Whatever…” Because it’s the face of the film. As great as trailers are, they’ll probably be forgotten. Nobody says, “I remember the trailer for Rosemary’s Baby or the trailer for Alien.” They’re like, “Oh, my God, the Alien poster!” …

…The other thing I’d like to say is that it never gets old. The other day, I went to see Captain America, and our poster was in the lobby. Seeing the stuff that I’ve worked on out in the world just never gets old. If it ever does, I think I’ll call it a day.

(3) CAN IT BE? “Trump Tariffs Hit Vox Day” says crusading journalist Camestros Felapton, who has found a way to leverage today’s headlines into a sff blog post. (By which I mean, dang, I wish I’d thought of it!)

…A country that surprised some in getting high tariffs was Switzerland at 31%. That’s higher than the UK (10%), EU (10%) and South Korea (25%). Sure would be a shame if some obnoxious hyper-nationalistic Trump support had invested a lot of money in printing and binding hardback books for Trump supporting fanboys in the US wouldn’t it?…

(4) A FIRST IN THE FIELD. A Deep Look by Dave Hook chronicles “’The Other Worlds’, Phil Stong editor, 1941 Wilfred Funk: The First Speculative Fiction Anthology”.

The Short: As discussed below, I believe The Other Worlds (aka The Other Worlds: 25 Modern Stories of Mystery and Imagination, 1942 editions), Phil Stong editor, 1941 Wilfred Funk, is the first speculative fiction anthology. I am glad I read it, but it’s a mixed bag and I would only recommend it to a big fan of horror, science fiction and fantasy from 1925 to 1940. It includes three essays by Stong in addition to 25 stories. My favorite story was the great “Alas, All Thinking!“, a novelette by Harry Bates (known best for “Farewell to the Master“, a novelette adapted for the movie “The Day The Earth Stood Still“), Astounding Stories, June 1935. I am not really a fan of horror, which influenced how I felt about The Other Worlds. My overall average rating is 3.45/5, or a rather anemic “Good”. It is in print, and available online…

(5) FUTURE TENSE. March 2025’s Future Tense Fiction story is “Coda,” by Arula Ratnakar—a story about computation, genetics, and cryptography.

The response essay, “Computing Consciousness”, is by computer scientist Christopher Moore, whose research actually inspired the story!

(6) TIME TO NOMINATE FOR THE CÓYOTL AWARDS. Members of the Furry Writers’ Guild are eligible to submit 2024 Cóyotl Awards nominations through April 5.

Nominations are open to all members of the Furry Writers’ Guild, though awards may be given to any work of anthropomorphic writing demonstrating excellence regardless of membership. Please see the award rules for what makes an eligible work. For a non-exhaustive list of what’s eligible, see the recommended reading list.

(7) DOUBLE-HEADER. In the first video below Erin Underwood interviews Martha Wells about her Murderbot series, with a couple of questions about the adaptation that is coming to Apple TV in May. The second video is a review of In The Lost Lands, which is an adaptation of GRRM’s short story.

Exclusive Interview with Martha Wells: Inside The Murderbot Diaries

Join me for this exclusive interview with Martha Wells, author of The Murderbot Diaries, as we explore one of science fiction’s most popular series — now being adapted into a new Apple TV series. What makes Murderbot so compelling, and how did Wells create such a nuanced, unforgettable character? Come watch on YouTube to find out!

In the Lost Lands, Movie Review – Worth the Watch?

Paul W.S. Anderson’s In the Lost Lands brings George R.R. Martin’s dark fantasy to life, but does its reliance on digital sets and AI-driven cinematography elevate or undermine the experience? With Milla Jovovich and Dave Bautista leading the charge, this film raises big questions about the future of sci-fi and fantasy filmmaking. Join me on YouTube where I break it down.

(8) ON TARGET. “’Woke’ criticism of Doctor Who proves show on right track, says its newest star” in the Guardian.

Criticisms that Doctor Who has become too “woke” prove the series is doing the right thing by being inclusive, its new star Varada Sethu has said.

Sethu plays the Doctor’s latest travelling companion, Belinda Chandra, in new episodes airing next month. With Ncuti Gatwa returning as the Doctor, the pairing marks the first time a Tardis team will comprise solely people of colour.

Speaking about the milestone, Sethu told the Radio Times: “Ncuti was like, ‘Look at us. We get to be in the Tardis. We’re going to piss off so many people.’…

And the BBC has a long profile with the actor: “Doctor Who: Varada Sethu wants to inspire young South Asian women”

When new Doctor Who companion Varada Sethu first told her family she wanted to be an actress, there wasn’t immediate support.

“They had difficulty coming to terms with it initially,” she tells BBC Asian Network News.

Varada, who will be playing Ncuti Gatwa’s sidekick, Belinda Chandra in the upcoming series, feels going into acting is “sadly still not encouraged in the South Asian community”.

“There’s an element of resistance we face,” the 32-year-old says.

But Varada wants to change all of that, and says inspiring young girls to follow their dreams is one of her big goals.

“I want to be the person that these girls can point out to and say: ‘She made it and she came from a community that looks like mine’.

“So I think I’ve gone about this with the energy of, I can’t fall flat on my face,” she says.

But the actress, who has had roles in Disney+ Star Wars series Andor, 2018 crime drama Hard Sun and Jurassic World Dominion, says change comes with challenges.

A report by the Creative Diversity Network found in 2022/23 the percentage of on-screen contributions by those who identify as South Asian or South Asian British was 4.9%.

That’s compared with the latest census data, analysed by the UK Government, that found around 8% of people from those backgrounds are in the working-age population.

“It’s a constant battle of failure isn’t an option,” says Varada.

“Because, you know, your uncle’s daughter who’s six, who might wanna go into acting when she’s a bit older, won’t be allowed to, if I become the cautionary tale.”…

(9) STRANGE NEW TREK. Gizmodo says “The First Trailer for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 Is a Wild Trip”.

The new trailer immediately goes meta, detailing at least more than a few adventures where Strange New Worlds will take the crew of the Enterprise beyond the typical spacebound adventures and into some very meta territory–from murder mystery holoprograms, to a kitschy spin on the original Trek‘s ’60s production aesthetics. And that’s even before you get to Carol Kane’s Commander Pelia hooking up the whole ship to old-timey analogue phones!…

(10) VAL KILMER (1959-2025). Actor Val Kilmer, whose iconic genre roles included Batman Forever and Real Genius, died April 1 at the age of 65. The Hollywood Reporter tribute notes he was most famous for playing Iceman in Top Gun and Doc Holliday in Tombstone. And it also recalled some of his other sff work —

…Marlon Brando’s insane assistant in John Frankenheimer’s The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996);

…He was married to British actress Joanne Whalley from 1988 until their divorce in 1996. They met while working together on Willow and wed months later.

…Kilmer starred as rockabilly teen idol Nick Rivers in the daffy spy spoof Top Secret! (1984) from Jim Abrahams and the Zucker brothers.

…Kilmer also provided the voice of K.I.T.T. in a new version of TV’s Knight Rider in 2008-09

(11) MEMORY LANE(S)

[First piece written by Paul Weimer. Second piece by Cat Eldridge.]

April 2, 1968 — 2001: A Space Odyssey

By Paul Weimer: Did the “Blue Danube Waltz” play through your head just now? Or perhaps “Also Sprach Zarathrustra”? Possibly both? Even though I am not a music guy, both of those music pieces come to mind when I think of 2001. The music is the first thing I think of when I think of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

You know the story. Monolith uplifts Ape with the power of ultraviolence. Humans find the Monolith on the Moon, a ship heads to Jupiter to investigate where the signal went. Hal goes mad and kills most of his crew. David Bowman has an apotheosis.

But 2001 is far more than the music and that plot. It’s visuals, really the first time I saw it, I felt that this could be what space would be like. Slow sedate visuals but one that felt accurate. (The jokes/conspiracy theories that the real moon landing was directed by Kubrick come from the visuals of 2001). Be it the apes scene, the casualness of the lounge in the space station, the investigation of the monolith, daily life on the Discovery, or the very very weird ending. I am still not quite sure I get it. But is it absolutely unforgettable? Yes.

And that’s the fun thing about the movie. It is slow, very slow. But it doesn’t drag. It’s sedately and sedate in places, and then violently and suddenly. The movie seems to just know when to interrupt the quiet stately pace with a sudden action or point of drama. In any event, the movie holds my attention throughout. Every time I’ve started watching it, I’ve kept it on. It is THE space movie for me.

And it became clear to me that when I saw Star Trek The Motion Picture, just how much they tried to borrow from 2001. Maybe too much, for their own good. They learned the need for stately pacing…but not so much when to break it up.

By Cat Eldridge: Fifty-six years ago, 2001: A Space Odyssey had its world premiere on this date at the Uptown Theater in Washington, D.C., it would be nearly a month and three weeks, the fifteenth of May to be precise, before the United Kingdom would see this film.

It was directed as you know by Stanley Kubrick from a screenplay by him and Arthur C. Clarke who wrote the novel.

It spawned a sequel about which the less said the better. (My opinion, the critics sort of like it. Huh.)

It would win a Hugo at St. Louiscon over what I will term an extraordinarily offbeat field of nominees that year — Yellow Submarine, Charly, Rosemary’s Baby and the penultimate episode of The Prisoner, “Fallout”.

It did amazingly well box office wise, returning one hundred fifty million against just ten million in production costs.

So, what did the critics think of it then? Some liked, some threw up their guts. Some thought that audience members that liked it were smoking something to keep themselves high. (That was in several reviews.) Ebert liked it a lot and said that it “succeeds magnificently on a cosmic scale.” Others were less kind with Pauline Kael who I admit is not one of my favorite critics saying that it was “a monumentally unimaginative movie.” Humph.

I was too young to see when I came out, but an arts cinema showed a few decades later which I saw it there, so I did see it on a reasonably large screen. It is extraordinarily amazing film. I don’t think the Suck Fairy would any problems with it even today

Audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes currently give it a most not unsurprising rating of ninety two percent.

(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

April 2, 1948 — Joan D. Vinge, 77.

By Paul Weimer: It is fitting that The Snow Queen has her birthday just as we are getting out of winter and into Spring, and the treacherous Winters of the planet Tiamat are reluctantly getting ready to hand over the control of the planet to the Summers for a time. The original Snow Queen novel and its sequels is where I began reading Vinge’s work. I picked it up for the same reason I picked up many books in the mid to late 90’s–it had been on an award ballot and I was filling in the gaps of my reading. (It won for Best Novel at the Hugos in 1981, and was a finalist for the Nebula the same year). I found the worldbuilding of the novel most satisfying, and the titular Snow Queen and her grand plot to try and control the planet for its entire cycle by means of her clone I found to be a crackerjack story.

Only after reading the story did I realize how much the story was influenced by both the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, and by Robert Graves (The White Goddess). A re-read when I decided to read the entire series showed me that as much as I thought it has been rich and interesting, on a re-read the book was *even better*. The Snow Queen is one of those novels that the more you know, the even cleverer and more intricately woven it appears to be.

My favorite of that entire series is the standalone Tangled Up in Blue, which is really a noir mystery novel that just so happens to take place on the mean streets of Carbuncle. It’s a genre mashup that works even better than I hoped, and it works really standalone, too. You don’t need to read The Snow Queen to dive into Tangled Up in Blue.

Besides the stories set on Tiamat, Vinge has written plenty of other stuff as well. Catspaw is a favorite of mine, although it is a case where I accidentally started with the second book in the series not even knowing there was a first book (Psion). Vinge feels, like Julian May, like one of the last SF authors to really use and deploy telepathy in a major mainstream SF novel straight up.

Finally, Vinge has also written a number of movie tie-in novelizations, including one (Cowboys and Aliens) that actually redeems that (IMO) very flawed movie.

(13) COMICS SECTION.

Cul de Sac is going to camp.
Dinosaur Comics discusses cryonics.
Loose Parts needs a lighter touch.
Myth Tickle flips a classic Peanuts strip.
Nancy hides a problem.

(14) DC COMICS HISTORY. BBC’s Witness History remembers “The wonder woman of DC Comics”.

In 1976, Jenette Kahn began one of the biggest roles in comic books – publisher of DC Comics, home to Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. She was only 28 and the first female boss.

(15) WRITING WHILE DISABLED. In the second audio episode of Writing While Disabled at Strange Horizons, hosts Kristy Anne Cox and Kate Johnston “welcome Farah Mendlesohn, acclaimed SFF scholar and conrunner, to talk all things hearing, dyslexia, and more ADHD adjustments, as well as what fandom could and should be doing better for accessibility at conventions, for both volunteers and attendees.”

There’s a transcript at the link, where you can also watch the full interview on video with close-caption subtitles.

(16) VIDEOS OF THE DAY. “Oh Jeez, Rick and Morty Will Return in May” reports Gizmodo.

April Fools’ Day is upon us, but this is no joke: Rick and Morty season eight hits Adult Swim May 25, with a first look to prove it. The news came as part of Adult Swim’s annual April 1 celebration, and also included a 22-minute special of favorite Rick and Morty moments re-interpreted in appropriately and unexpectedly freaky ways. Adult Swim described it as pulling from “absurd, live-action, theater-based genres,” and frankly you just need to watch it to believe it.

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

Pixel Scroll 3/30/25 Savage Pixellucidar

Posted on March 30, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(1) AURORA DEADLINE APPROACHES. Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association members have until April 5 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern to submit nominations for this year’s Aurora Awards.

You can find all eligible works via either via CSFFA’s public eligibility list page or from the nominating page when you log into your account. On the public page, most works have links so you can get more information about them.

(2) FREE READS AT ANALOG AND ASIMOV’S. Analog Science Fiction and Fact has revealed the 2024 Analytical Laboratory Finalists. The magazine has also made many of these stories available to read either in part or whole.

Likewise, the top choices for Asimov’s 39th Annual Readers’ Award Poll are online. There are links that will allow you to read all the finalists.

(3) BRUSHING UP ON BARSOOM. At The Art of Michael Whelan, the artist and Michael Everett look back at his work on “The Martian Tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs”.

I have had a special fondness for The Martian Tales by Edgar Rice Burroughs ever since I first read them in my early teens. That is also when I first did drawings based on them, and I even used some of my illustrations to help win acceptance to the Rocky Mountain School of Art at age fifteen.

Once I became a professional illustrator, the eleven-book series was among the assignments I hoped to do…someday.

Figuring that if the chance to do the covers ever came my way it would be after decades of work in the field, I was surprised and thrilled to have been offered them after only three years as a professional.

I was so enthusiastic about the project that after the first call from Judy-Lynn del Rey, I immediately got started rereading the books, making extensive notes, and compiling a supplementary catalog of every visual reference I could find. My aim was to do the most accurate depictions of Burroughs’ Barsoom yet realized….

(4) MONSTROUS NATIONALISM. Kate Maltby in The Observer uses the issue of a set of stamps celebrating Nessie and other British mythological creatures to argue for a form of patriotism rooted in local folklore: “Let Britain’s magical, mythical creatures inspire a patriotism untainted by politics”.

It is possible to celebrate aspects of Britain that everyone who lives here can share; that are not co-authored by our peers in Europe; that stimulate our senses with a materiality more enduring than the abstract precepts of a civics lecture. (And I’m not talking, like the wretched “Life in the UK” test, about fish and chips.) A new set of stamps for Royal Mail is not going to transform a nation’s self-image, but it should inspire us. What we have in common with each other, and with every other human being who has set foot on these islands, is no more and no less than our experience of place….

he eight-strong set of Royal Mail Myth and Legends stamps

(5) ENOUGH CAFFEINE TO WAKE UP THE DEAD. “’The Last of Us’ Launches Real Coffee Infused With Mushroom Fungi” reports Delish.

Pedro Pascal might be getting a new coffee order soon…one made with mushrooms. In a surprising but fitting collaboration, The Last of Us (yes, the hit HBO Max series based on the popular zombie video game) has partnered with Four Sigmatic, the leading brand in mushroom-based products, to create their very own cup of joe.

In case you missed it, The Last of Us follows a group of survivors navigating a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by a zombie outbreak, caused by the cordyceps fungus. And in a bit of clever irony, The Last of Us x Four Sigmatic coffee is made with none other than that same fungus.

While cordyceps may turn people into flesh-eating, undead creatures on the show, it doesn’t cause any of those symptoms in real life. In fact, the fungus is packed with tons of nutritional value. The coffee blend also includes lion’s mane, Vitamin B12, and coffee bean extract—ingredients designed to “increase mental focus and energy,” according to the product’s website….

… While I’m not exactly a fan of the undead, I can certainly appreciate this fun coffee and zombie moment. Though, no amount of cordyceps coffee beans will get me to face a horde of zombies anytime soon.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Four Sigmatic (@foursigmatic)

(6) NEW GERROLD NOVELLA. Starship Sloane has just published a new novella, The Man Without a Planet by David Gerrold, with cover art (titled Falling) by Bob Eggleton.

The Man Without a Planet is a science fiction reimagining of the classic tale, The Man Without a Country—Redmonde had found his niche in the glitterships of high society, reveling in the opulence and gamesmanship it afforded, until a sudden regime change leads to his permanent exile in the far reaches of space aboard starships building a network of portals through the cosmos. He will never be allowed to see his home world again and escape would seem to be an impossibility—but when the opportunity presents itself, Redmonde disappears into legend.

“In The Man Without a Planet, David Gerrold has given us an ambitious reinterpretation of a classic. In this engaging science fiction retelling of The Man Without a Country, we find the main character, Redmonde, negotiating the sharp edges of his quarantined banishment in deep space and the intersection of his personal belief system with the sledgehammer of an imposed political ideology.”
—Katerina Bruno, science fiction poet and 2022 SFPA Dwarf Stars Award finalist

(7) KEN BRUEN (1951-2025). Irish mystery author Ken Bruen died March 29 at the age of 74. Bruen was the recipient of many awards: the Shamus Award in 2007 (The Dramatist) and 2004 (The Guards), both for Best P.I. Hardcover; Macavity Award in 2005 (The Killing of the Tinkers) and 2010 (Tower, cowritten by Reed Farrel Coleman), both for Best Mystery Novel; Barry Award in 2007 (Priest) for Best British Crime Novel; the Grand Prix de Literature Policiere in 2007 (Priest) for Best International Crime Novel.He was also a finalist for the Edgar Award in 2004 (The Guards) and 2008 (Priest), both for Best Novel.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Item by Cat Eldridge.]

March 30, 1930 — John Astin, 95.

Ahhh, John Astin. I know him best as Gomez Addams in The Addams Family series, which was on the air shorter than I thought, lasting just two seasons and a little over sixty episodes. (I’m delighted to say that it streaming on Prime.) He played him again in Halloween with the New Addams Family (which I’ve not seen and is not streaming) and voiced him thirty years later in The Addams Family, a two-season animated series which is not streaming. I’ll admit I’m not interested in animated series based off live series. Any live series.

Oh, did you know he was in West Side Story? He played Glad Hand, well-meaning but ineffective social worker. No, you won’t find him in the credits as he wasn’t credited then but retroactively, he got credited for it which was good as he was a lead dancer. Brilliant film and I’ve no intention of watching the new version, ever. It’s streaming on Disney+.

I’d talk about him being in Teen Wolf Too but let’s take the advice of Rotten Tomatoes reviewers and steer way clear of it. Like in a part of the multiverse where the Pixels are contently napping by the Gay Deceiver. Same for the two Killer Tomatoes films. I see he’s in Gremlins 2: The New Batch as a janitor but I can’t say I remember him, nor much of that forgettable film.

So, series work… I was going to list all of his work but there’s way too much to do that, so I’ll be very selective. He’s The Riddler in two episodes of Batman and a most excellent Riddler he was. That series rather surprisingly is not streaming anywhere.

But that was nothing when compared to his role on The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. as Prof. Albert Wickwire. He’s a charming, if somewhat absent-minded inventor who assists Brisco with diving suits, motorcycles, and even grander creations such as rockets and airships. Dare I say that this was an element of steampunk in the series? It was a great role for him. This is another series I surprised to find isn’t streaming anywhere.

Finally, he has a recurring role as Mr. Radford (the real one) as opposed to Mr. Radford (the imposter) on Eerie, Indiana. A decidedly weird series that was unfortunately cancelled before it completed. It is streaming on Prime.

So, let’s wish him a Happy Ninety-Fifth Birthday!

John Astin (Gomez) and Carolyn Jones (Morticia)

(9) COMICS SECTION.

Brewster Rockit honors a chief.
Free Range posts a true warning.
Loose Parts enters a third runner in a fabled race.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal argues about who wrote Shakespeare.
The Argyle Sweater features rejected comics.
Tom Gauld on literary classics for Mother’s Day in the UK.

(10) LOOK AT THE REPRESSION INHERENT IN THE SCAM. “People Making AI Studio Ghibli Images Are Now Producing Fake Legal Letters to Go With Their Fake Art” says Gizmodo.

The trend of using Open AI’s ChatGPT to create AI images in the distinctive style of Studio Ghibli probably should have ceased the moment the official White House X account hopped aboard. But there’s a new wrinkle in the story today, as one of the trend’s proponents posted a cease and desist notice they claimed to have received from Studio Ghibli representatives—which fellow social media users immediately called out as being as fake as the “art” that inspired it.

Along with the (fake) letter, X user teej used the platform to defend what they’d done, writing in part: “AI creators deserve protection, not punishment. Expression is sacred. Imagination is not illegal. If I have to be a martyr to prove that, so be it.”

It’s hard not to chuckle at this response to, let’s see, typing a prompt into a program so that it can create an AI image blatantly ripping off hours of hard work and creativity from actual human artists, including the great Hayao Miyazaki and his Ghibli team….

(11) BAD FOR YOUR GIZZARD, TOO. “Astronauts can make it to Mars, but one critical organ will likely fail” insists Earth.com.

Space journeys that stretch far beyond home are on the horizon. Crews heading for Mars will face conditions quite different from those on Earth, and researchers have been working to figure out what might happen to the human body during these extended voyages.

Kidneys have been a big question mark. Recent work reveals that these important organs could face more trouble than previously assumed, including a higher risk of stones and lasting damage.

Several studies have hinted at health concerns for astronauts ever since humans first ventured outside Earth’s protective zone, but the new findings shed light on why such problems arise in the kidneys.

Dr. Keith Siew from the London Tubular Centre, based at the UCL Department of Renal Medicine, and his colleagues have pieced together a detailed picture of what happens when living beings – human and otherwise – experience space-like conditions for weeks to years….

…The latest study was conducted under a UCL-led initiative involving over 40 institutions on five continents.

The team considered data from 20 different research cohorts and samples linked to over 40 Low Earth orbit missions to the International Space Station, plus 11 simulations with mice and rats.

The work is described as the largest analysis of kidney health in spaceflight so far and includes the first health dataset for commercial astronauts.

It also involved seven simulations in which mice were exposed to radiation that mimicked up to 2.5 years of cosmic travel beyond Earth’s magnetic field.

Findings revealed that the structure and function of the kidneys are altered by spaceflight, with galactic radiation causing permanent damage that would jeopardize any long-distance mission…

(12) NINETY-NINE MILLION IN AMBER. “Wasp preserved in 99 million-year-old amber ‘beyond imagination’” – WLWT has the story.

A newly identified parasitic wasp that buzzed and flew among dinosaurs 99 million years ago evolved a bizarre mechanism to snare other creatures and force them to unwittingly shelter its young, according to new research.

Paleontologists studied 16 specimens of the tiny wasp preserved in amber dating back to the Cretaceous period that was previously unearthed in Myanmar. The previously unknown species, now named Sirenobethylus charybdis, had a Venus flytrap-like structure on its abdomen that could have allowed it to trap other insects, the researchers reported Thursday in the journal BMC Biology….

… However, the researchers reasoned that the wasp likely did not intend to kill with the bizarre grasping structure.

Instead, they theorized that the wasp injected eggs into the trapped body before releasing it, using the creature as an unwitting host for its eggs. Its larvae then started their lives as parasites in or on the host’s body and likely ended up eating the host entirely, Vilhelmsen said. The host was likely a flying insect of a similar size to the wasp, he added….

(13) THE ASSEMBLED MULTITUDE. Erin Underwood asks: “Avengers: Doomsday – Dream Team or Disaster?”

Avengers: Doomsday promises to unite the biggest names from Marvel’s multiverse, but is this epic crossover a dream come true or a chaotic mess waiting to happen? With an all-star cast and potential for multiversal mayhem, I break down the confirmed cast list, rumored plot points, and ask the ultimate question: Can Marvel balance spectacle with storytelling?

(14) VIDEO OF THE DAY. We announced the other day that Kermit the Frog will be UMD’s 2025 Commencement Speaker, but John King Tarpinian has discovered a cute video UMD made to promote the appearance.

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

Pixel Scroll 3/28/25 I Just Scrolled In From Pixel-Land, And Boy Are My Fans Tired

Posted on March 28, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(1) CONGRATULATIONS ON EPISODE 250! Scott Edelman invites listeners to rip into roti with writer Tim Paggi in the impressive milestone Episode 250 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.

My guest for the 250th episode of Eating the Fantastic is playwright, poet, and fiction writer Tim Paggi, whom I met at December’s Charm City Spec event where he read an excerpt from his recently published novella How to Kill Friends and Eviscerate People. His poetry chapbook “Workforced” won the 2015 Plork “Play/Work” Award for Creative Writing and Publication Arts. His next book, The Other Side of the Hallway, will be released later this year. He holds an MFA from the University of Baltimore. Additionally, for the past 15 years, he’s been giving ghost tours around the neighborhoods of Fells Point and Mt. Vernon.

We discussed the story behind his X-Files-inspired juvenilia, the reason he demanded a refund from Barnes & Noble for a volume of Emily Dickinson’s poetry, why a writing teacher (wrongfully) accused him of plagiarism, how the beginning of the pandemic was also the beginning of his fiction writing career, whether his recent Cthulhu references were intentional or unavoidable, why the Severance TV show has him feeling anxious (it’s probably not the reason you think), the C-word he avoids using in his fiction, whether facing down audiences on stage helped him deal with rejections on the page, the many reasons he loves cosmic horror, the drunkest group he ever led through Baltimore on a ghost tour, and much more.

(2) OPT-IN OR OPT-OUT OF SCRAPING? The UK’s Society of Authors received over 1,000 responses to their survey of members and authors on the Government’s proposal to change copyright law as part of its consultation on Copyright and AI, and “96% of authors surveyed believe an opt-out system would negatively impact the creative industries”. “SoA report into authors’ views on the AI and Copyright consultation”.

The survey focused on authors’ views on the key topics covered by the Government’s consultation on Copyright and AI, including: (i) a proposal to introduce a text and data mining (TDM) exception into copyright law, which would allow tech companies to use copyright-protected works without permission, unless the author had explicitly opted out; (ii) transparency, labelling and enforcement measures, and (iii) AI in education.

The government proposed that, rather than having the right to opt in to allowing your work to be exploited by machine learning (the current situation), you would be presumed to have agreed unless you actively opted out. On this question, 96% of respondents believed this would have a negative impact on the creative industries with 91% reporting that they have no experience with opting out; and 82% saying that opting out each of their individual copyright-protected works would negatively impact their business.

In the comments provided by authors:

An overwhelming majority expressed their strong opposition to an opt-out system, calling instead for the current opt-in system to be upheld. Many made the point that our industry has been relying on a permission-based system successfully for decades and it would be hugely unfair to change that for the benefit of one sector.
Many respondents helpfully elaborated on the various ways in which opting out simply does not work. For example, robot.txt can be circumvented or ignored, there is no way for authors to know when they need to opt out, and it is technically impossible to remove scraped material from a system, even if the option to opt-out is exercised.
Respondents repeatedly raised the same concerns about the damaging impact the government’s policy proposal would have on creators’ livelihoods in the long term, on industry diversity and representation, and the devaluation of the creative work.

58% of respondents were concerned that preventing their website being ‘crawled’ or ‘scraped’ for machine learning by opting out could negatively affect their discoverability online. There was particular concern here from illustrators who use their website and social media to showcase their work but now feel that the risks outweigh the benefits.

(3) ANIME GOES UNDER THE HAMMER. “Studio Ghibli and Anime Icons Power Heritage’s Record-Setting $1.49 Million Art of Anime: Vol. VI” reports Heritage Auctions.

Kiki’s Delivery Service Senior Witch and Cat Production Cel (Studio Ghibli, 1989).

Leading the charge was an electrifying lineup of Studio Ghibli masterpieces, headlined by a rare production cel of the elusive “Senior Witch” from Kiki’s Delivery Service, which cast a spell at $48,000 — one of the highest totals ever realized for the 1989 film. Another Kiki standout, a charming Key Master setup of the title character peering into a brick oven, fired up at $16,000. Beloved Ghibli titles like Castle in the Sky, Princess Mononoke, Porco Rosso and Grave of the Fireflies excelled over the course of the event, and not surprisingly, a significant production cel featuring the beloved Catbus from the final moments of My Neighbor Totoro trundled away for $13,000….

…Beyond Ghibli, the auction was packed with legendary titles that flexed their muscle across the bidding floor. Berserk claimed the highest price in the sale with a staggering $85,000 for a harmony cel setup created by master art director Shichiro Kobayashi. The cel, an atmospheric piece originally created for a home video release, stands as one of the most important Berserk artworks ever sold at auction — a fitting tribute to the late Kentaro Miura’s dark fantasy epic.

Akira, the cyberpunk juggernaut that helped bring anime into global consciousness, made a bold showing with two rare production backgrounds of Neo-Tokyo’s dystopian skyline, which sold for $11,000 and $8,500. Macross fans powered fierce bidding on original concept art, including Shoji Kawamori’s VF-1J Valkyrie ($18,000) and Haruhiko Mikimoto’s character concept of protagonist Hikaru Ichijyo ($11,000)….

(4) HOW THEY COMPLETED THE MISSION. The Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, NY will host an exhibit on stunt work in “MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE—Story and Spectacle” beginning April 18.

Variety has more details: “’Mission: Impossible’ Exhibition Coming to Museum of Moving Image”.

Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI) will launch a major initiative celebrating the “Mission: Impossible” franchise on April 18. The exhibition will spotlight star and producer Tom Cruise’s commitment to practical stunt work (think clinging to the face of the Burj Khalifa, as well as to the sides of various planes, trains and automobiles), and explore how the series combines technical ingenuity in service of storytelling, character development and performance. It opens ahead of the Memorial Day Weekend release of the eighth film in the series, “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.”

Sections of the exhibition, entitled “Mission: Impossible — Story and Spectacle,” will be devoted to each film in the series, with a focus on that film’s key stunt or action sequence, along with unique behind-the-scenes content that offers insight on how the death-defying stunts were prepared for and filmed, complemented by related production artifacts. Paramount Pictures produces the films.

(5) WATERSTONE’S PRIZE. [Item by Steven French.] A book inspired by a game the author’s family played during lockdown has won this year’s Waterstones children’s book prize reports the Guardian. “The Cafe at the Edge of the Woods wins Waterstones children’s book prize”

The Cafe at the Edge of the Woods by Mikey Please was announced as the winner of the £5,000 award, voted on by Waterstones booksellers, at a ceremony on Thursday evening.

The book tells the story of Rene, who opens a cafe beside an enchanted wood and prepares to serve the finest cuisine with the help of a waiter, Glumfoot, only to discover that the locals have a very odd palette, favouring disgusting foods.

“The story grew from a game my wife, son and I would play during lockdown”, said Please. His wife, Jess, would pretend to be a “pompous chef”, his son, Axel, would play the “downtrodden waiter”, while Please himself would act the part of a demanding customer.

“The dynamic of these three characters was so rich, the setting so loaded with potential, and the opportunity to showcase my long-practised and long-underappreciated art of rearranging food to look funny, made the story impossible to resist”, said Please.

Please is a writer, animator and illustrator whose works include the 2011 stop motion animated film The Eagleman Stag, which won a Bafta for best short animation. His debut novel, The Expanded Earth, will be published 3 April.

(6) BECOMING MEDIA SAVVY. Gideon P. Smith tells SFWA Blog readers about “Successfully Talking to the Press About Your Art: Plot It, Don’t Pants It!”

…Their questions will likely be very generic if they haven’t read your work, which results in uninteresting copy. There are two ways to combat this:

Create a playbook of answers to generic questions. These answers should be concise but add something unique about your work. You can predict generic questions by considering what anyone who hadn’t read something might ask. (e.g. “What is the book about?” “What was your inspiration?”) or by reviewing prior interviews.
However, the better way to help them create a strong story is to suggest questions. This may sound counterintuitive given they are the interviewer, but you are the expert—on yourself, your work, and your story. You know what makes your book unique, whether it’s an unusual magic system, scientific influence, or personal connection. Most journalists will appreciate your taking a proactive approach if you highlight what’s unique or provide interesting angles. It makes their job easier.

Your playbook should help readers quickly identify your book’s genre and subgenre, then draw them in with an intriguing hook. Make it personal—within your comfort zone—so readers connect with you and your work. Finally, ensure the interview ends with clear information on where to find you and your work (social media, website, book links)…

(7) MORE ON BBC RADIO 4. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] As it happened, got home and yesterday afternoon BBC Radio 4’s Feedback programme had an item on this. “Announcement of the end of an era on Radio 4.” Ex pat Brits were fairly pissed off, as were those in the Republic of Ireland who like to listen to the BBC. It looks like some final decisions have to be made.

Andrea Catherwood shares exclusive news of the end of a long-running Radio 4 programme. Frequent contributors and the programme’s commissioning editor give their thoughts on the well-known brand as it nears its final episode.

BBC Sounds is soon to become unavailable outside of the UK. Listeners from all over the world have been in touch to voice their disappointment about the changes, and we’ve heard in particular from people in the Republic of Ireland who tune into BBC Radio content from north of the border. Will the geo-blocking cause unintended political ramifications? Andrea discusses the issue with Shane Harrison, former BBC correspondent in Dublin.

(8) IT’S ALL ABOUT ME. McSweeney’s Internet Tendency teaches everyone how to be a staggering bore in “The Art of Asking a Question to a Literary Festival Panel”.

The key to asking a successful question at a literary festival panel is preparation. You’ll want to have every detail of the preface to your question prepared, such as your name, age, and entire medical history. Don’t worry about the actual question; you can make that up as you go along….

(9) TODAY’S DAY.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

March 28, 1912 — A. Bertram Chandler. (Died 1984.)

A. Bertram Chandler, my favorite Australian writer.

Did you ever hear of space opera? Of course you have. Well, the universe of Chandler’s character John Grimes is such. A very good place to start is the Baen Books omnibus of To The Galactic Rim which contains three novels and seven stories. If there’s a counterpart to him, it’d be I think Dominic Flandry who appeared in Anderson’s Technic History series. (My opinion, yours may differ.) Oh, and I’ve revisited both to see if the Suck Fairy had dropped by. She hadn’t. If fact she likes him a lot. Good girl.

Connected to the Grimes stories are the Rim World works of which The Deep Reaches of Space is the prime work. The main story is set in an earlier period of the same future timeline as Grimes, a period in which ships are the magnetic Gaussjammers, recalled with some nostalgia in Grimes’ time. They don’t say what happened to them.

But that’s hardly all that he wrote. I remember fondly The Alternate Martians, a novella that he did. A space expedition to Mars that find themselves in the worlds of H.G. Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Otis Adelbert Kline. Why he chose the latter I know not as I’d never heard of him. It’s a great story well told. And fun to boot. It was first published as an Ace Double, The Alternate Martians / Empress of Outer Space. Gateway has released it as a separate epub for a mere buck ninety nine at the usual suspects.

He wrote a reasonably large number of stand-alone-alones, so what did I like? For a bit of nicely done horror, you can’t beat The Star Beasts — yes, I know that there’s nothing terribly original there but it’s entertaining to read; Glory Planet has a watery Venus occupied by anti-machine theocracy opposed by a high-tech city-state fascinating; and finally I liked The Coils of Time in which a scientist has created a Time Machine but now needs a guinea pig, errr, a volunteer to go back through time and see what’s there — did it go as planned? Oh guess.

I see that he’s written but a handful of short stories, none of which I’ve read other than the ones in To The Galactic Rim. So who here has?

He’s won five Ditmars and The Giant Killer novel was nominated for a Retro Hugo.

All in all, I like him a lot.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

Carpe Diem tells what else the Martian Rover has learned.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal hears from a writer.

(12) A JARRING EXHIBIT. [Item by Steven French.] Well, I like science-fiction and I really like pickles, so maybe this is the art show for me! “Rafał Zajko: The Spin Off – fantastical sci-fi visions with a side order of pickles” in the Guardian.

There’s a lot of art about birth, death and rebirth, but not a lot of it uses pickles. Preserves, however, are all over Polish artist Rafał Zajko’s biggest solo show yet. Big jars of brine filled with salty cucumbers and little figurines in the shape of cryogenic preservation chambers. That combination of the fantastically sci-fi and the mundanely everyday is Zajko’s hallmark. The young London-based artist has spent the past few years showing ceramic and concrete sculptures filled with flights of cybernetic romanticism and nods to vaping, baking and pickling.

In The Spin Off, as this show at Focal Point Gallery in Southend is called, he has gone on a deep dive into a vast mess of ideas about longevity and rebirth. The centre of the space is dominated by an ovoid floor sculpture that gets moved and reshaped throughout the week. Laid across its surface, ceramic tiles are assembled to look like a map of planetary systems or control panels for alien spaceships, covered in incomprehensible knobs, buttons and displays. Circular sections of it can be lifted out and replaced with items from the cabinets on the wall: little concrete eggs, ceramic kaiser rolls, jars of pickles…

(13) LEAVIN’ ON A JET PLANE. Nature reports “75% of US scientists who answered Nature poll consider leaving”.

The massive changes in US research brought about by the new administration of President Donald Trump are causing many scientists in the country to rethink their lives and careers. More than 1,200 scientists who responded to a Nature poll — three-quarters of the total respondents — are considering leaving the United States following the disruptions prompted by Trump. Europe and Canada were among the top choices for relocation.

The trend was particularly pronounced among early-career researchers. Of the 690 postgraduate researchers who responded, 548 were considering leaving; 255 of 340 PhD students said the same.

Trump’s administration has slashed research funding and halted broad swathes of federally funded science, under a government-wide cost-cutting initiative led by billionaire Elon Musk. Tens of thousands of federal employees, including many scientists, have been fired and rehired following a court order, with threats of more mass firings to come. Immigration crackdowns and battles over academic freedom have left researchers reeling as uncertainty and disruption permeate all aspects of the US research enterprise.

Nature asked readers whether these changes were causing them to consider leaving the United States. Responses were solicited earlier this month on the journal’s website, on social media and in the Nature Briefing e-mail newsletter. Roughly 1,650 people completed the survey.

Many respondents were looking to move to countries where they already had collaborators, friends, family or familiarity with the language. “Anywhere that supports science,” wrote one respondent. Some who had moved to the United States for work planned to return to their country of origin…

(14) WILL SUCCESS SPOIL THEM? [Item by Steven French.] The Guardian’s Sarah Thwaites considers what success means for indie game developers: “These games were indie smash hits – but what happened next?”

It is now more or less impossible to put a precise figure on the number of video games released each year. According to data published by the digital store Steam, almost 19,000 titles were released in 2024 – and that’s just on one platform. Hundreds more arrived on consoles and smartphones. In some ways this is the positive sign of a vibrant industry, but how on earth does a new project get noticed? When Triple A titles with multimillion dollar marketing budgets are finding it hard to gain attention (disappointing sales have been reported for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, the Final Fantasy VII remakes and EA Sports FC), what chance is there for a small team to break out?

And yet it does happen. Last year’s surprise hit Balatro has shifted more than 5m copies. Complex medieval strategy title Manor Lords sold 1m copies during its launch weekend. But what awaits a small developer after they achieve success? And what does success even mean in a continuously evolving industry?

(15) ALTADENA FIRE CONSEQUENCES. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] This week’s Science journal cover story: “Toxic Legacy”:

The wildfire that swept through Altadena, California, in January burned houses and cars as well as vegetation, generating smoke that contained a complex mix of toxic chemicals. Weeks later, these chemicals still cling to the soil and remaining structures. Researchers are working intensively to understand the lingering hazards of such urban wildfires. See page 1343.

Also, “In The Ashes”:

Little is known about the long-term effects of wildfires that burn into urban areas, which are becoming more common. Wildfire torched more than 1000 structures near Boulder, Colorado, in 2021 and more than 2000 structures in the Hawaiian town of Lahaina in 2023, where 102 people died. In 2022, a committee formed by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found gaping holes in our understanding of what’s in the smoke and ash from wildland-urban fires, and what it could mean for people’s health.

(16) OPERATION SURPRISE PACKAGE. [Item by Steven French.] A new article in Astra Astronautica asks if there is a moral imperative to ‘seed’ the universe with life and answers in the negative: “One day we might seed the universe with life. But should we?” at Phys.org.

Suppose humanity was faced with an extinction-level event. Not just high odds, but certain-sure. A nearby supernova will explode and irradiate all life, a black hole will engulf the Earth, a Mars-sized interstellar asteroid with our name on it. A cataclysm that will end all life on Earth.

We could accept our fate and face our ultimate extinction together. We could gather the archives from libraries across the world and launch them into space in the hopes that another civilization will find them. Or we could build a fleet of arks containing life from Earth. Not people, but bacteria, fungi and other simple organisms. Seed the universe with our genetic heritage. Of all of these, the last option has the greatest chance of continuing our story. It’s an idea known as directed panspermia, and we will soon have the ability to undertake it. But should we?

The idea of directed panspermia has been discussed since at least the 1970s. Carl Sagan and others even entertained the possibility that life on Earth is the result of directed panspermia from another civilization. But a recent study in Acta Astronautica looks at the idea from an ethical and philosophical perspective, asking what the moral cost of such an endeavor is….

(17) MORE MARS MOLECULES. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] More news coverage on the Mars rover’s detection of long chain molecules in “Mars rover detects long-chain carbon molecules” in this week’s Science journal.

Meteorites carry cargoes of fatty acids that come not from life, but from chemical reactions in the early Solar System, and they could have easily doused the surface with fatty acids early in Martian history, says Eva Scheller, a planetary scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Or the acids could have evolved on Mars from the Kerogen-like particles that Curiosity detected—which might them-selves be abiotic in origin.

This is so, but here’s the deal, irrespective of whether or not these molecules have a biological origin the thing is that such putative biosignatures can survive for millions of years does suggest that the trace remains of any real life may still be detectable today….

(18) CHINA’S FUTURE SPACE MISSIONS. “As NASA faces cuts, China reveals ambitious plans for planetary exploration” – Ars Technica tells what they are.

China created a new entity called the “Deep Space Exploration Laboratory” three years ago to strengthen the country’s approach to exploring the Solar System. Located in eastern China, not far from Shanghai, the new laboratory represented a partnership between China’s national space agency and a local public college, the University of Science and Technology of China.

Not much is known outside of China about the laboratory, but it has recently revealed some very ambitious plans to explore the Solar System, including the outer planets. This week, as part of a presentation, Chinese officials shared some public dates about future missions.

Space journalist Andrew Jones, who tracks China’s space program, shared some images with a few details. Among the planned missions are:

2028: Tianwen-3 mission to collect samples of Martian soil and rocks and return them to Earth

2029: Tianwen-4 mission to explore Jupiter and its moon Callisto

2030: Development of a large, ground-based habitat to simulate long-duration human spaceflight

2033: Mission to Venus that will return samples of its atmosphere to Earth

2038: Establishment of an autonomous Mars research station to study in-situ resource utilization

2039: Mission to Triton, Neptune’s largest moon, with a subsurface explorer for its ocean…

(19) LETTING IT OUT OF THE BAG. “Black Bag Movie Review: Does This Sexy Spy Thriller Deliver?” asks Erin Underwood.

Black Bag pairs Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender in a sizzling, high-stakes spy thriller directed by Steven Soderbergh. This sleek, action-packed film explores trust, betrayal, and the price of loyalty. But does it deliver on the thrills? In this review, I break down the story, analyze standout performances, and reveal what makes Black Bag different from typical spy films.

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

Pixel Scroll 3/2/25 Who Knows What Pixels Scroll In The Hearts Of Men?

Posted on March 2, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(1) OFF LIMITS PRESS GOING O.B. EIC Waylon Jordan has announced Off Limits Press is shutting down.

Brian Keene said in his newsletter Letters From the Labyrinth 417:

Off Limits Press announced that they were closing, which is unfortunate. I never worked with them but I’m told by those who did that they were reliable and paid well and on time. The books they produced were beautiful, and they provided a good home for a number of great authors, including Samantha Kolesnik, Hailey Piper, Laurel Hightower, Tim McGregor, and J.A.W. McCarthy. As far as shutting down operations goes, from what I’ve heard, Waylon is doing everything correctly, and is a continued model of professionalism. Which sort of just magnifies what a bummer this is. When a publisher folds and lashes out at everyone is a series of spastic death throes like some brain-damaged howler monkey, you’re not sorry to see their back. When they fold like Off Limits is, with care and respct for their stable, and reverting rights, and removing titles from sale as their authors re-home them elsewhere, and continuing to pay royalties — well, that’s a publisher that you’re sorry to see go.

(2) DOCTOR WHO SEASON 2. The Doctor and the nurse, the universe isn’t ready! Doctor Who returns with Season 2 on April 12.

(3) THE ROT IS SETTING IN. Joblo.com has discovered “Hundreds of your Warner Bros DVDs probably don’t work anymore”. (The Steve Hoffman Music Forum has posted what is represented to be a list of DVDs with known defect troubles.)

A few months ago, I dug into an old Humphrey Bogart box set to watch a favorite of mine, Passage to Marseille. After about an hour, the disc simply stopped working. The same thing happened with another movie from the set, Across the Pacific. I actually thought my old Blu-ray player was to blame, and given that I was in need of an upgrade anyway, I bought a new UHD player and just forgot about it.

Flash forward to about a week ago, when I decided to throw on an old Errol Flynn movie called Desperate Journey. The same thing happened. This was more concerning to me, as, unlike the other movies I mentioned, this has never gotten an HD release and was unavailable digitally. I did a little research online, and to my horror, I landed on several home theater forum threads (and a couple of good videos) confirming this was no fluke.

It turns out that virtually every Warner Bros DVD disc manufactured between 2006 and 2008 has succumbed to the dreaded laser rot, where discs simply stop working due to a rotting of the layers. Once it happens, it can’t be undone. This was a frequent problem with laserdiscs back in the 80s and 90s, but it wasn’t a huge problem with DVDs. The issue comes down to the way the discs were authored….

… UPDATE: According to one of our readers, FilmFan-89, WB will replace some discs if you contact them directly, with a catch. They will only replace discs that are currently in print, and sadly, many of the defective titles are not. Reach out to them through the WB Store and keep us posted in the comment thread if they come through with replacements….

(4) TECH MUSEUM OPENS. [Item by Marc Criley.] SIGNALS, the Museum of Information Explosion, just opened its doors in Huntsville, Alabama.

Where the past whispers to the present, and the future echoes with innovation.

SIGNALS is a communication technology museum located in Huntsville, Alabama. It provides a hands-on, immersive experience where guests can explore, interact, and learn about communication technologies throughout history. Visitors will leave the museum with more appreciation for the business leaders and inventors alike that have paved the way for the digital technologies we rely on today.

One visitor remarked “Every engineer in town should go as well as people over 40.”

(5) HUGO ART. [Item by Steven French.] Some nice sketches here by the author of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Miserables: “Castles in the sky: the fantastical drawings of author Victor Hugo – in pictures” in the Guardian.

(6) ARE YOU READY TO WATCH MEDIA? Erin Underwood has produced a new pair of video discussion and reactions. The first is focussed on the Jurassic World: Rebirth movie trailers for the film that is coming out in July. Underwood also posted one about the new Murderbot adaptation coming to Apple TV+.

Jurassic World: Rebirth – Does This Franchise Still Have Bite?

With two new trailers for Jurassic World: Rebirth, it’s time to ask the big question: Do we really need another Jurassic Park movie? Every trailer has to prove its film is worth watching, but for a franchise that’s starting to feel a little … fossilized, the bar is even higher. I take an in-depth look at the trailers, the director, and the writer to see what this film brings to the table as well as what it needs to do to make it a ticket-worthy watch. Will it breathe new life into the series or just dig up the past?

Murderbot Adaptation: Apple TV’s Next Big Hit?

Murderbot is coming to Apple TV! Based on the award-winning series by Martha Wells and starring Alexander Skarsgård, this adaptation has the potential to be one of the biggest sci-fi hits of 2025. I don’t usually do reaction videos for announcements like this, but I couldn’t resist! Here’s what you need to know!

(7) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Space Cases (1996-1997)

Once upon a time in a school in outer space,
There was a class of misfit kids from all around the place.
They snuck aboard a mystery ship,
Which soon slipped through a spacial rip,
And now they’re stuck on a long strange trip.

— The Theme Song

Twenty-nine ago on Nickelodeon’s Saturday night block of shows known as SNICK, a Canadian created series called Space Cases aired for two seasons. I’ve never seen it but it sounds like a lot of not so serious fun.

It was created by author Peter David and actor Bill Mumy, and it starred Walter Emanuel Jones, Jewel Staite, Rebecca Herbst, Kristian Ayre, Rahi Azizi, Paige Christina, Anik Matern, Cary Lawrence and Paul Boretski.

Yes, it had fifteen-year-old Jewel Staite as one of its cast. She’s the ship’s engineer here. Was she cast on Firefly because of her role here? Well, this was a children’s show with the concept being similar to the current Star Trek: Prodigy. It told the story of a group of Star Academy students from different planets who sneaked aboard a mysterious space ship called The Christa. A ship they bonded literally with and ended across the galaxy in.

It was shot on the cheap in Quebec. Really on the cheap, so props from Are You Afraid of the Dark? and other Nickelodeon programs were used in the series. Game consoles and compact discs were used as props.

A number of well-known genre performers showed up here including Mark Hamill, Katey Sagal, George Takei and Michelle Trachtenberg.

It lasted for two seasons comprising of twenty-seven episodes, each bring fairly short at twenty-two minutes.

A quarter of century later, the official website is still up. See if you spot Staite in the cast photo.

I can’t say I’m surprised that it’s not streaming anywhere.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal separates location from the event.
Bizarro spots several guests during an event. Can you name them all?
Breaking Cat News has opinions on AI. No litter box was harmed in the making of this comic.
Carpe Diem makes a wish.
Close to Home witnesses a super vision test.
The Argyle Sweater deals with the problem of a soundalike name.

(9) TOX SCREEN. “Oscars Best Picture Marathon: Surviving 24 Hours Inside Movie Theater” — a couple has written up their experience for Variety.

Every film buff has their own Oscar tradition. But perhaps the most hardcore is the AMC Theatres Best Picture Showcase, a 24-hour movie marathon featuring the gamut of nominees. We’ve always wondered who in their right mind would choose to watch nine movies back-to-back (to-back-to-back-to-back). So, for the sake of journalism (and masochism), we decided to find out. We checked ourselves into the insane asylum of AMC Empire 25 in Times Square to spend our weekend in Auditorium 7 for the endurance test of a lifetime.

Here’s the rundown:

We will remain inside Times Square’s AMC Theatres for the entirety of the Best Picture Marathon, which begins Saturday at 12 p.m. and ends Sunday around 1 p.m. Nine of the 10 best picture nominees will screen consecutively (“Emilia Pérez,” excluded because it streamed on Netflix, will not be sorely missed), with 10-minute breaks scheduled between each film (plus one 45-minute dinner period). For those doing math, yes, this “24-Hour Marathon” is indeed 24 hours and 50 minutes. As an added challenge, we’re going to try to limit ourselves to only what is sold at AMC concessions….

(10) SEE THE ORIGINAL STAR WARS. “Star Wars Theatrical Cut Finally Available on Streaming (But for How Long?)” wonders Comicbook.com.

Star Wars is one of the most recognizable brands in the world, and there are legions of fans who have watched all of the movies many times over the years. That said, there is one version of the original Star Wars: A New Hope that has been much harder to watch, especially on streaming. That version is the original theatrical cut without a host of changes that were made after 1981, which is why it’s such a big deal that as of right now the film is available on streaming, provided you have Roku and can find the app called Cinema Box (via Men’s Journal). It’s disappeared a few times before, so there’s no telling how long it will stay there, so if you want to watch it you should probably seek it out sooner rather than later.

(11) BLUE GHOST. [Item by John A Arkansawyer.] Nice to have a non-oligarch space company to cheer for: “Firefly Aerospace Becomes First Commercial Company to Successfully Land on the Moon”.

Firefly Aerospace, the leader in end-to-end responsive space services, today announced its Blue Ghost lunar lander softly touched down on the Moon’s surface in an upright, stable configuration on the company’s first attempt. As part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 1, named Ghost Riders in the Sky, sets the tone for the future of exploration across cislunar space as the first commercial company in history to achieve a fully successful soft-landing on the Moon….

…Carrying 10 NASA instruments, Blue Ghost completed a precision landing in Mare Crisium at 2:34 a.m. CST on March 2 and touched down within its 100-meter landing target next to a volcanic feature called Mons Latreille. Blue Ghost’s shock absorbing legs stabilized the lander as it touched down and inertial readings confirmed the lander is upright in a stable configuration. Following touchdown, Firefly is successfully commanding and communicating with the lander from its Mission Operations Center in Cedar Park, Texas….

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

Pixel Scroll 2/9/25 The Universal Pixelgraph

Posted on February 9, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(1) SPACE UNICORNS SOUND OFF. You have until February 17 to make your voice heard in the Uncanny Magazine 2024 Favorite Fiction Reader Poll. Vote at the link. Each person gets a single entry of 3 stories (which can be edited later).

Here is the link to Uncanny Magazine’s 2024 eligible works – there’s still time to read up!

(2) SFF SHUT OUT OF DGA AWARDS. No works of genre interest won when the Directors Guild of America announced the 2025 DGA Awards at a ceremony on February 8. The complete list of 2025 DGA Awards winners and all related credits are at the link.

(3) SPECPO DEFINED. Pixie Bruner, SFPA’s 2025 Rhysling Awards chair, helps readers understand in “Speculative Poetry Defined”.

… We speculative poets know speculative poetry when we read it, but sometimes it’s not so easy to tell for some readers, and sometimes the line is fragile, even for us speculative poets, so I am going to give a few examples of situations and poems that are clearly speculative as guidelines….

… Let’s say a person wants to write a speculative poem about their broken heart. Your feelings are real and having your heart broken is a devastating experience.

However, if your heart has been pulled into cosmic taffy, boiled in acid in a dutch oven full of tears, shattered once it reaches the hard crack stage on a candy thermometer, and fed to the monsters that live under your bed after it has been ripped from your chest, pulped under foot, and destroyed- your tears became diamonds you pawned to a constantly changing man with a ragged trench coat with pockets full of wonders in an alleyway behind a coffeehouse that could only be found at 3:13pm every other Tuesday for a new heart of pure gold or some strange unbreakable alloy with strange properties that you merely insert into a fairy door in your chest- it is now a speculative poem about a broken heart….

(4) FURRIES SLURRED IN TABLOID. Dogpatch Press drew attention to a UK tabloid “hit piece” about a furry convention this weekend in Scotland — “Gathering featuring anthropomorphic erotica will be held in support of Scottish conservation group” at The Telegraph [Archive.Today link] – and says, “Furries are angry about being conflated with abusers, based on nothing but twisting the wording of a convention code of conduct about what they don’t support.” [Warning for slurs in the screencaps.]

Furries are angry about being conflated with abusers, based on nothing but twisting the wording of a convention code of conduct about what they don't support.
— Dogpatch Press (@dogpatch.press) 2025-02-06T22:57:56.077Z

It's complicated when surface level reaction is one thing, internal organizer level handling is another. There is the issue of limited power and liability about being able to control who interacts. And then there is the issue of cronyism/corruption which I have witnessed and experienced.
— Dogpatch Press (@dogpatch.press) 2025-02-06T22:57:56.078Z

I can't discuss active investigation but can help anyone who blows a whistle in public or private. There's multi layers where misinformed, hateful outsider attacks exist at the same time as significant internal issues that are not unique to a targeted community that hosts marginalized people.
— Dogpatch Press (@dogpatch.press) 2025-02-06T22:57:56.079Z

(5) IN CONTRAST. Alternatively, the BBC’s coverage about Scotiacon 2025 is positive: “’Being a furry is like wearing a superhero cape’”.

Fennick Firefox, a man dressed as a large furry orange fox with blue hair and a tail tipped by a flame, says that in his normal life he is very shy person.

But after he adopts his “fursona”, he is dancing in the street and sharing a long hug with his best friend Rock, who is dressed as a giant red and black German Shepherd.

“It’s like a superhero cape,” says Fennick.

“When I put my fox head on, the person is gone – he does not exist.”

Fennick says that being in costume allows him to escape his everyday struggles and “do nothing but be happy”.

That’s what has brought him to Scotland’s largest furry convention – Scotiacon….

(6) HOW FANTASTIC ARE THEY? Erin Underwood’s trailer review tells “How Marvel Finally Got Me Excited About Fantastic Four!”

Marvel’s latest ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ trailer has just dropped, and it’s turning heads! Join me as I dive into this retro-futuristic take on Marvel’s first family. Could this be the MCU’s boldest move yet or another blunder? Watch to find out and let me know what you think!

(7) REEVE REMEMBERED. “6 Former Superman Actors Pay Tribute to Late Legend Christopher Reeve at MegaCon: ‘It Was Always Gonna Be Like Chris’” from People.

Christopher Reeve just got a tribute that even the strongest kryptonite couldn’t take down.

During a panel at MegaCon Orlando in Florida on Saturday, Feb. 8, six actors who have portrayed Superman in the years since Reeve’s role as the Man of Steel in 1978’s Superman came together to discuss the DC hero’s legacy on and off the screen and to honor Reeve, who died in 2004.

Those in attendance included Tyler Hoechlin (Superman & Lois), Brandon Routh (Superman Returns), Dean Cain (Lois & Clark), Tim Daly (Superman: The Animated Series), George Newbern (Justice League animated series) and Tom Welling (Smallville).

During the discussion, Welling, 47, recalled working with Reeve on a season 2 episode of Smallville, an experience he said he “walked away from wanting to be a better person.” Reeve appeared in the WB series as scientist Virgil Swann, who played an important role in the storyline of Welling’s portrayal of Clark Kent.

“We got there and the plan was to shoot four hours and get his side of two scenes and then he would leave and I would do my side with someone else,” Welling recalled. “We did the first scene and they said, ‘OK, we’re gonna do the next scene.’ He goes, ‘What about Tom?’ “

As Welling recalled at MegaCon, Reeve had other plans — just as he had a quick sense of humor.

“He was like, ‘No I’m not leaving.’ And long story short, it got to the point about eight hours into the day and they turned around filming my scenes with him. And his nurse, power of attorney, was like, ‘If you don’t come with me in 15 minutes, I’m calling the police.’ He had to leave. He looked at me and goes, ‘They’re always telling me what to do.’ “

“You didn’t feel sorry for him at all,” Welling said elsewhere during his story about Reeve. “He was telling jokes the whole time. We had a riot, he was cracking up. … We just had really great banter. I had a lot of fun with him.”…

(8) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

February 9, 1966 — Lost In Space’s “War Of The Robots”

Fifty-nine years ago this evening, the thrilling sight of Lost In Space’s “War Of The Robots” first happened. In one corner of this fight, we have Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet. And in the other corner of the ring (metaphorically speaking), we have B-9 from Lost in Space.

Aired as the twentieth episode of the first season, the story is that while returning from a fishing trip, Will and B-9 find a deactivated Robotoid. Against the wishes of B-9, Will proceeds to repair and restore the Robotoid which apparently becomes a humble servant of the Robinson family. Sure.

The best part of this episode is the slow motion rock ‘em, sock ‘em battle between the robots. And yes it’s a very, very silly battle indeed as you can see from the image below. Robotic gunfighters, eh?

Lost in Space is available to stream on Hulu and Disney+.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

The Argyle Sweater bookstore has a new section.
Brewster Rockit provides a good sample.
Non Sequitur has heard a theory.
Pardon My Planet is slightly subtle.
Simone Lia needs a child’s help to understand.

(10) AI ART GOING UNDER THE HAMMER. But are they hitting it hard enough? Christie’s auction house thinks people should line up to bid on stuff created with AI tools, or might once they explain it to them in “What Is AI Art?”

Christie’s New York is proud to announce its inaugural AI art auction, Augmented Intelligence, the first ever artificial intelligence-dedicated sale at a major auction house. Running from 20 February to 5 March with a concurrent exhibition at Christie’s Rockefeller Center galleries, the online sale will include highly sought-after works by AI artists spanning the establishment and new guard, such as Refik Anadol, Claire Silver, Sasha Stiles, Pindar Van Arman, Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst, Harold Cohen and more. The sale also showcases a selection of artists from NVIDIA’s AI Art Gallery.

‘AI technology is undoubtedly the future, and its connection to creativity will become increasingly important,’ says Nicole Sales Giles, Christie’s Director of Digital Art.

So, what is AI art?

In simple terms, artificial intelligence art (AI art) is any form of art that has been created or enhanced with AI tools. Many artists use the term ‘collaboration’ when describing their process with AI….

(11) PEEK-A-BOO. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] I wonder what Stanislaw Lem would make of this? “Alien ocean could hide signs of life from spacecraft” – posted by University of Reading.

Searching for life in alien oceans may be more difficult than scientists previously thought, even when we can sample these extraterrestrial waters directly.

A new study focusing on Enceladus, a moon of Saturn that sprays its ocean water into space through cracks in its icy surface, shows that the physics of alien oceans could prevent evidence of deep-sea life from reaching places where we can detect it.

Published today (Thursday, 6 February 2025) in Communications Earth & Environment, the study shows how Enceladus’s ocean forms distinct layers that dramatically slow the movement of material from the ocean floor to the surface.

Chemical traces, microbes, and organic material – telltale signatures of life that scientists look for – could break down or transform as they travel through the ocean’s distinct layers. These biological signatures might become unrecognisable by the time they reach the surface where spacecraft can sample them, even if life thrives in the deep ocean below.

Flynn Ames, lead author at the University of Reading, said: “Imagine trying to detect life at the depths of Earth’s oceans by only sampling water from the surface. That’s the challenge we face with Enceladus, except we’re also dealing with an ocean whose physics we do not fully understand.

“We’ve found that Enceladus’ ocean should behave like oil and water in a jar, with layers that resist vertical mixing. These natural barriers could trap particles and chemical traces of life in the depths below for hundreds to hundreds of thousands of years. Previously, it was thought that these things could make their way efficiently to the ocean top within several months.

“As the search for life continues, future space missions will need to be extra careful when sampling Enceladus’s surface waters.” …

Primary research at Nature.

(12) THUNDERBOLTS*. Deadline introduces “Super Bowl Trailer: ‘Thunderbolts*’”.

In the Super Bowl trailer for Thunderbolts*, premiering May 2 in theaters, Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine warns the Avengers aren’t coming as she questions “who will keep the American people safe?”

Set to Starship’s ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’, the spot features Florence Pugh’s Yelena Bolova/Black Widow suffering from some serious imposter syndrome until her fellow Thunderbolts give her a pep talk.

“We can’t do this. No one here is a hero,” she says before David Harbour’s Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian tells her: “Yelena, when I look at you, I don’t see your mistakes. That’s why we need each other.”…

(13) DRAGON REBOOT. Deadline also covered “Super Bowl Trailer: ‘How To Train Your Dragon’”, for the live-action version coming to theaters including Imax screens on June 13.

Return with us now to the rugged isle of Berk, where Vikings and dragons have been bitter enemies for generations, Hiccup (Mason Thames) stands apart. The inventive yet overlooked son of Chief Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler, reprising his voice role from the animated franchise), he defies centuries of tradition when he befriends Toothless, a feared Night Fury dragon. Their unlikely bond reveals the true nature of dragons, challenging the very foundations of Viking society.

With the fierce and ambitious Astrid (Nico Parker) and the village’s quirky blacksmith Gobber (Nick Frost) by his side, Hiccup confronts a world torn by fear and misunderstanding. As an ancient threat emerges, endangering both Vikings and dragons, Hiccup’s friendship with Toothless becomes the key to forging a new future….

(14) THE FISH (OR WHATEVER THEY ARE) ARE BITING. “Super Bowl Trailer: ‘Jurassic World: Rebirth’” at Deadline.

This summer’s action-packed monster movie Jurassic World: Rebirth has released its first trailer and glimpse into the latest film in the franchise, starring Jonathan Bailey, Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali among others. Universal opens the film globally on July 2.

The fourth film in the Jurassic World series follows a team of scientists and others whose main objective is to acquire genetic samples from three of the largest dinosaurs in the sea, on land and in the air. Set five years after Jurassic World: Dominion (2022), the planet has become inhospitable for dinosaurs, so those that still exist have become isolated to environments in which their breeds once flourished. The three most colossal creatures in the different parts of the ecosystem could prove necessary for a life-saving drug for humans….

(15) IT’S IMPOSSIBLE. Next Deadline cues up “Super Bowl Trailer: ‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’”.

…Ethan Hunt, the spy at the center of the blockbuster action flick helmed by Christopher McQuarrie, returns to chase down villains, conduct submarine reconnaissance and hang beneath propeller planes in what is billed as the epic finale to a saga that first began nearly two decades prior.

In the sequel to 2023’s Dead Reckoning Part One, slated for release May 23, Cruise’s character embarks on a final mission that will reportedly close out the sprawling franchise….

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

Pixel Scroll 11/8/24 When In Need Of Scroll, Go Find The Pixels. They’ll Know Where It Is

Posted on November 8, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) IGNYTE AWARDS. Congratulations to the winners of the 2024 Ignyte Awards, which were announced today.

The Awards “seek to celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of the current and future landscape of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror by recognizing incredible feats in storytelling and outstanding efforts towards inclusivity within the genre.”

(2) AUGUST CLARKE Q&A. At Shelf Awareness, “Reading with… August Clarke”.

…On your nightstand now:

The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera and Loteby Shola von Reinhold, both fabulously gorgeous, knock-the-wind-out-of-you type books. I’m savoring them. Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White is next up.

Favorite book when you were a child:

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle for transgender reasons or The Queen of Attoliaby Megan Whalen Turner for mischief reasons. Huge influences on the way I think about fantasy writing; I would recommend reading them aloud….

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny or Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, both of which I entered expecting quick fun pulp and leaving fully awed and unbelievably moved and excited to talk about genre….

(3) SF 101. Hear from Phil Nichols and Colin Kuskie in episode 48 of the Science Fiction 101 podcast holding forth about the concept of the book: “Uniquely Portable Magic”.

It occurred to us that although we have discussed many specific books on the show, we’ve never devoted an episode to the idea of the book – those papery, texty things that Stephen King has described as “uniquely portable magic”.

So in this episode, we address the various ways in which books can be enjoyed and consumed, and discuss ten (or eleven) questions on the subject of books.

We also have a book-adjacent quiz, and our usual round up of recommendations of past, present and future SF.

(4) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to “Feast on fish and chips with Paul Cornell” in Episode 240 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.

This third episode I brought back features Paul Cornell, with whom I’ve been trying to break bread ever since the 2019 Dublin Worldcon. Paul started out writing Doctor Who fan fiction, which led to him writing canonical Doctor Who novels (where he created the companion Bernice Summerfield), audio plays, and comics. Plus he recently won the Terrance Dicks Award for lifetime achievement in Doctor Who writing from the Doctor Who Appreciation Society.

But aside from his achievements in the Doctor Who universe, he’s created so many other awesome experiences for us. He’s written episodes of Elementary, Primeval, Robin Hood, and many other TV series, including his own children’s show, Wavelength. He’s worked for every major comics company, including his creator-owned series I Walk With Monsters for The Vault, The Modern Frankenstein for Magma, Saucer Country for Vertigo, and This Damned Band for Dark Horse, plus runs on Young Avengers and Wolverine for Marvel, and Batman and Robin for DC,

He’s the writer of the Lychford rural fantasy novellas from Tor.com Publishing. His short fiction has been published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Interzone, The Daily Telegraph, The Times, and at Tor.com, plus he also written for George R.R. Martin’s Wild Cards short story anthologies. He’s won the BSFA Award for his short fiction, an Eagle Award for his comics, a Hugo Award for his SF Squeecast podcast, and shares in a Writer’s Guild Award for his Doctor Who work. He’s the co-host of Hammer House of Podcast.

We discussed where he stands on the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby debate, how his UK mind was blown the first time he saw a U.S. issue of The Avengers, why fannish history fascinates him, the reason he went the self-funding route for Who Killed Nessie (and what that did to his blood pressure), how some of his Doctor Who fan fiction eventually became canon, the reason he’s suspicious of nostalgia, how he knows when ideas pop into his head which of his many projects they’re right for, the legacy comics characters he’d love to write more of, what he learned from the great Terrance Dicks, how he manages to collaborate while remaining friends with his co-creators, his fascination with Charles Fort, why he announced there’d be no more Doctor Who in his future, and much more.

(5) ERIN UNDERWOOD PRESENTS. Erin Underwood’s two latest reviews on YouTube focus on Star Wars,

Music by John Williams, Review – Why is his music so iconic?

The biography that you didn’t know you needed is here, but is it what you wanted? John Williams’ career is immense and impressive, and this new documentary gets into who he is and his impact upon the music, film, and television industries. Featured guests also include Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Ron Howard, JJ Abrams, Kathleen Kennedy, and more. Check out my new review.

Star Wars 1977, Movie Review – Does the OG Stand Up or Fail Today?

Nearly 50 years after it was released, does the original Star Wars film still hold up today? The film has been digitally remaster, but is that enough to push it across the line? Check out my new review.

(6) A GOLDEN (BOOK) AGE. “Chris Ware on Richard Scarry and the Art of children’s literature” in The Yale Review.

…In my grandparents’ second-floor guest room, formerly my mother’s childhood room, one bookcase had a row of children’s books slumped to the side, offering a chronological core sample of my grandmother’s attempts to busy not only her own kids, but all the grandkids who’d stayed there before me. There were the original Oz books, a copy of Ferdinand the Bull, Monro Leaf’s inexplicably compelling yet mildly fascistic Manners Can Be Fun, some 1950s and 1960s Little Golden Books purchased at the Hinky Dinky supermarket down the street, and, among many others I’ve now long forgotten, the big blue, green, and red shiny square of Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever. The largish (even just plain large if you were smallish when holding it) book offered a visual index of the everyday puzzle pieces of life in humble, colored-in line drawings. Each page was a fresh, funny composition of some new angle on the world, making the book a sort of quotidian picture-map containing everything imaginable and unimaginable a kid might be curious about: where and how people lived, slept, ate, played, and worked.

The thing is, “people” weren’t anywhere to be seen in Best Word Book Ever. Instead, the whole world was populated by animals: rabbits, bears, pigs, cats, foxes, dogs, raccoons, lions, mice, and more. Somehow, though, that made the book’s view of life feel more real and more welcoming. A dollhouse-like cutaway view of a rabbit family in their house getting ready for their day didn’t seem to just picture the things themselves—they were the things themselves, exuding a grounded warmth that said, “Yes, everywhere we live in houses and cook together and get dressed, just like you.”…

…Golden Books employed displaced if not just plain refugee artists from Europe like Feodor Rojankovsky, Tibor Gergely, and Gustaf Tenggren. Working in a careful, deliberate, and illuminatory style, they carefully limned every hair of every dog—think The Poky Little Puppy—and set every page aglow with a strangely dark, yet warm light. On the page, their paintings were frequently vignetted in darkness, almost as if the artists still felt shadowed by the lingering specter of war. These books, dismissively looked down upon by librarians, were nonetheless immediately, snot-flyingly popular, with orders mounting into the millions of copies. Such publishing numbers were astonishing then (and are even more astonishing now, when 15,000 is considered a gee-whiz success)….

(7) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Appreciation: Elizabeth Bear’s Sub-Inspector Ferron Series

Sometimes it’s the offbeat stories that I really like from authors, the short works that aren’t expanded into full length stories. Such is the case with Elizabeth Bear’s Sub-Inspector Ferron series. Of course, everything she writes is a delight to read which is why I’m looking forward to the third White Space novel, The Folded Sky, out next year.

Bear’s Sub-Inspector Ferron series at the present consists alas of but two novellas, “In the House of Aryaman, a Lonely Signal Burns” and “A Blessing of Unicorns”. Will there be more? Oh, I hope so.

TASTY, SPICY ASIAN SPOILERS FOLLOW. THEY REALLY DO!

“In the House of Aryaman, a Lonely Signal Burns” is set a half a century from now. In the city of Bangalore, a scientist working on cutting-edge biotechnology has been discovered inside his own locked flat, his body converted into a neat block of organic material.

It’s up to Police Sub-Inspector Ferron to figure out the victim’s past and solve the crime, outwitting the best efforts of whoever is behind the death, her overbearing mother, and the complexities of dealing with the only witness – an ever so cute parrot-cat Chairman Miaow. (The latter, she says are, as I guessed, a cat with parrot colors and “a parrot-like level of intelligence and ability to mimic speech”. That cat will later be adopted by her. She already has a fox.

I’ll note that the stories aren’t freestanding, so the novella, “A Blessing of Unicorns” builds off the first novella, therefore must be experienced after the first is read or listened to.

Together they make up a fascinating look at the life and work of Ferron as a Police Sub-Inspector in a balkanised world where there are no national or regional police forces. No, it’s not some small libertarian wet dream here, but a real world with actual consequences to everything that happens.

WE HAVE CONSUMED THOSE TASTY MORSELS, SO YOU CAN COME BACK.

There is certainly more than enough story here for her to someday write a novel set in the universe. And I look forward to it.

When I asked her if there would be a novel in the series, she replied “there might be a novel someday but I really need to visit Bangalore myself to write that! I’ve been relying on friends who hail from there, or who have family there and have visited extensively, but it’s not the same as boots in the dirt experience!”

Fantastic stories told well by a master storyteller, what more do you want?

The Audible narrations are done most excellently by narrated Zehra Jane Naqvi. She’s an Australian expatriate in the United Kingdom of Anglo-Indian descent. She very much handles the Indian accents quite wonderfully here. She started her voice acting career in Big Finish Productions’ Doctor Who audio dramas with Sylvester McCoy and Peter Davison reprising the Seventh and Fifth Doctors.

The first one is available at the usual suspects, but the second remains at this time an Audible exclusive several years later. I just got a note from Elizabeth Bear that said that there will not be a print edition, she says, “Not unless something unforeseen happens”.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

Bliss may have found the Dark Side.
Breaking Cat News reports on the aftermath.
Eek! has a malfunction.
Andy Capp will not win at trivia tonight.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comments on the usual interpretation.

(9) GOOD GRIEF. Somebody warn Jiminy Cricket! “Pinocchio Slasher Casts Robert Englund and Richard Brake, First Look“ in Variety.

Freddy Krueger has joined the cast of the next IP-smashing slasher from the makers of microbudget hit “Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey.”

Well, almost. Robert Englund, who famously played the murderous horror icon across the “Nightmare on Elm Street” films, will star in “Pinocchio: Unstrung,” the latest standalone feature to join the so-called low-budget Twisted Childhood Universe. Richard Brake, a regular collaborator with Rob Zombie and whose horror credits also include the likes of “Barbarian” and “Mandy,” has also joined the film in the key role of Geppetto….

(10) READY FOR YOU. Francis Hamit’s novel Starmen is now available worldwide through Ingram Spark. The direct purchase link is here: STARMEN: A Novel by Francis Hamit.

(11) A COMPUTER IS BORN. BBC Sounds hosts Witness History’s episode “The invention of the ‘Baby’ computer”.

In June 1948, the ‘Baby’ was invented.

It was the first stored-program computer, meaning it was the first machine to work like the ones we have today. It was developed in England at the University of Manchester.

The computer was huge, it filled a room that was nearly six metres square. The team who made it are now recognised as the pioneers of modern computing.

Gill Kearsley has been looking through the archives to find out more about the ‘Baby’.

(12) GOING UP. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] The rise in global mean sea level – is one of the most unambiguous indicators of climate change. It also is something of a minor trope in SF: cf. Stephen Baxter’s ”Flood” (2008).

In the real world, over the past three decades, satellites have provided continuous, accurate measurements of sea level on near-global scales. Research has now shown that since satellites began observing sea surface heights in 1993 until the end of 2023, global mean sea level has risen by 111 mm. In addition, the rate of global mean sea level rise over those three decades has increased from ~2.1mm/year in 1993 to ~4.5mm/year in 2023.

To put this in perspective, this is what the UN’s Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change projects in its mid-level scenario in its 2021 Assessment Report.

In short, we are moving into the future science predicts… Hopefully not the one some SF presents.

The research is Hamlington, B. D., et al (2024) “The rate of global sea level rise doubled during the past three decades”..Communications Earth & Environment, vol. 5, 601.

(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Giant Freakin Robot says “Return Of The Jedi Almost Made Mon Calamari A Punchline”.

…For fans of this last Original Trilogy entry, there is always something new to discover, especially if you go to YouTube (the next best thing to the Jedi Archives) and look up the film’s deleted scenes. Case in point: the deleted footage has many lines from a Mon Calamari pilot (Ika Sulko) that would have made their entire species a joke, including uttering “fried Calamari tonight” as a battle cry.

What’s fascinating about these Return of the Jedi deleted scenes is that they are hilariously rough…more equivalent to behind-the-scenes footage than something you could just pop back into the movie via a fan edit. For example, in the clips, you can actually hear director Richard Marquand feeding silly lines to Tim Rose, who is both the voice and puppeteer of this Mon Calamari pilot. While “fried Calamari tonight” is definitely the silliest of the lines, there are others that threaten to turn these aliens into a punchline.

For example, another line you can hear in this deleted Return of the Jedi footage is “all this technology and no men’s room.” While we can only guess the motivation behind this silly line, it is likely a joking reference to fans always wondering where the bathroom is in their favorite sci-fi shows…

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

Pixel Scroll 8/12/24 I Came Upon A Scroll Of God, He Was Pixeling Down The Road

Posted on August 12, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) BEST NOVEL WINNER TESH INTERVIEWED. [Item by Nickpheas.] Front Row, the main BBC Radio 4 arts show includes an overview of the recent Hugo controversies and an interview with Emily Tesh following her Best Novel win: “BBC Radio 4 – Front Row, Emily Tesh and the Hugo Awards”.

This year’s WorldCon – the World Science Fiction Convention – took place in Glasgow and pop culture critic Gavia Baker-Whitelaw reports on the international gathering where the winners of the Hugo Awards 2024 were announced last night.

Emily Tesh on winning the Best Novel prize at this year’s Hugo Awards with her debut novel, Some Desperate Glory.

(2) SPREAD THE WORD. Maybe fans should have been told this was DNQ – then by now everybody would know it.

Is this yet another one of those honors that people aren’t going to know happened unless I brag like hell about it a thousand times?

OH WELL THEN. ????
— Nnedi Okorafor, PhD????? (@Nnedi) August 12, 2024

(3) BEAUTY SHOTS. Richard Man has received his 2023 Hugo Award trophy and has posted a gallery of beautiful photos of it on Facebook. They include close-ups of the based and its artistic panda sculpture. Here’s the first in the series.

(4) GLASGOW 2024 PHOTO TEAM. And you can see the Worldcon in all its glory in this gallery of “Worldcon Photos” at Flickr.

(5) LOST IN TRANSLATION. Glasgow 2024 apologized for problems at last night’s Hugo ceremony with onscreen cards in rendering Chinese names. One commenter thinks the apology underplays the extent of them.

The Hugo Awards ceremony didn't just have "mistakes in the Chinese captions." It literally turned characters in author Baoshu's and Han Song's names into square boxes with a X, and left out Gu Shi's name in Chinese altogether… It also failed to list Baoshu's translator Xueting. https://t.co/Q0ZJ0lLGQI pic.twitter.com/w1UnCELqDX
— Yilin @ WorldCon Glasgow (@yilinwriter) August 12, 2024

(6) WEE, SLEEKIT, COWRIN, TIM’ROUS BEASTIE. Cora Buhlert, who is headed home at this hour, shared a “Brief Worldcon Update – and a Fannish Poem”. The title of the poem is “The Phantom of the Armadillo”. You might be able to guess what it’s about from the first two lines. See the rest at the link.

There’s a spectre haunting Glasgow,
a spectre by the name of Dave…

(7) DARKLIT PRESS. Publishers Weekly has compiled the available information about the meltdown in “A Grim Fate Befalls Horror Publisher DarkLit Press”.

A metaphorical bloodbath has occurred at Canada-based independent horror publisher DarkLit Press, with authors clawing back rights, publicly splitting with the company, and claiming royalties have gone unpaid. A year ago, DarkLit was announcing new imprints and developing its audio offerings, but its website and social media accounts have gone black, and the company is not listed in the Canadian Business Registry….

(8) CAMERON Q&A. “James Cameron Interview: Avatar 3, Alien: Romulus, Terminator Zero” in The Hollywood Reporter.

There has been a lot of conversation in the last few years about UAPs [Unidentified Aerial Phenomena] along with USOs — Underwater Submerged Objects — which you brought to the pop culture forefront with The Abyss. You’ve spent so much time on and in the ocean. Have you ever seen anything that you cannot explain?

I’ve seen some geological formations that were intriguing that I really wanted to understand better that I don’t think have been well observed before. I’ve photographed new species — things that were not immediately identifiable. But I’ve never seen anything that couldn’t be explained in the sense of some extraterrestrial phenomenon. Now, “belief” is a principle that I don’t have. I don’t believe things. I admit the possibility of things because the universe is infinite and obviously much stranger than we think, and much more complex than we think — that’s what makes science so appealing. But I don’t make broad statements like, “Well, I believe there must be extraterrestrial life; the universe is so big.” Yeah, it’s really big — and getting here would be a really, really big problem if there is even life out there, and if that life is intelligent. How are they crossing light years of space? I studied physics before I became a lit major, and people have no concept of the magnitude of that problem from a physics standpoint. I have a pretty good grasp of where physics was in 1972 — which basically is laughable at this point — but I keep up.

(9) MY ALIBI. There we go – Xiran Jay Zhao and George R.R. Martin are each other’s alibis for not turning in their next book.

Sorry our sequels are so late, we're too busy partying pic.twitter.com/rWKSpJh7IC
— Xiran Jay Zhao ???? (@XiranJayZhao) August 12, 2024

(10) NOW WITH ADDED DRAGONS. Erin Underwood Presents brings viewers a“House of the Dragon, Season 2 Review – Here’s why it’s actually a good season”. (Did you have doubts?)

House of the Dragon, George RR Martin’s A Game of Throne’s prequel, enters its second season with the Targaryen’s internal succession war at its peak — and it’s tearing the Seven Kingdoms apart. Plus, there are so many DRAGONS. Check out my new review of season 2.

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Lis Carey.]

Born August 12, 1931 – William Goldman. (Died 2018.)

By Lis Carey: William Goldman was a novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. He won two Academy Awards in writing categories—Best Original Screenplay for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), and Best Adapted Screenplay for All the President’s Men (1976).

But the work for which we best know and love him is The Princess Bride, both novel and film.

William Goldman. Photo by Bernard Gotfryd

The Princess Bride is, As You Know, Bob, the film adaptation of William Goldman’s “good parts version” of S. Morgenstern’s long political satire, The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure, The “Good Parts” Version.

Except, of course, S. Morgenstern never existed, and Goldman only wrote the “good parts,” including “footnotes” referencing fictional bits of the politics, etc., of the kingdoms of Florin and Guilder, and the frame story of a grandfather reading the story to his grandson. The adaptation for the film was, fortunately, written by Goldman himself, and is remarkably true to the novel. A grandfather reads to his grandson the “good parts version” of Princess Buttercup; her true love Westley; Buttercup’s evil betrothed, Prince Humperdinck; and of course the giant Fezzik, Inigo Montoya, Vizzini the Sicilian, and assorted other people of questionable character.

Altogether, it’s a lovely package of wit, humor, fantasy, adventure and romance. With positive critical reception but only modestly successful at the box office, it has become a cult classic. Lines from the movie are happily quoted by fans who have seen it, and those who never have, because it’s just so darned quotable and engaging.

“Inconceivable!”

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

“Never get involved in a land war in Asia.” (Solid advice, that one.)

It’s a pure delight, and has a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. You can watch it on Disney+, if so inclined.

(12) COMICS SECTION.

F Minus points out why a planet has a bad reputation
Doug Eat Doug shows that horror readers start young
Strange Brew whispers a secret.
Wumo mixes realities.

(13) PAGING THROUGH THE SF HALL OF FAME. David Agranoff’s new Postcards from a Dying World podcast episode is about “SF Hall of Fame #7 The Weapons Shop by AE Van Vogt”.

In 1970 Avon Books published a landmark anthology “Science Fiction Hall of Fame” featuring 16 classic short stories that represent landmark tales of the genre. The stories were voted on by the members of the new (at the time in the late 60s) organization Science Fiction Writers of America. In this series, I will be joined by a panel of different guests to break down these stories and talk about the authors in the book.

In this episode, I am joined by two experts on Philip K Dick. Wait a second I thought this episode was about AE Van Vogt. It is.. but the Canadian Golden Age author was a massive influence on PKD, so I was interested in introducing two Dickheads to Van Vogt. So joining me is the Total Dickhead blogger – Professor David Gill and author/publisher/editor Keith Giles of Quior Books.

(14) COMIC-CON PROGRAM BOOK IS FREE DOWNLOAD. [Item by Bill.] The San Diego Comic-Con’s program book is released as a PDF. It contains much of SF interest. Find it here.

(15) DISNEY LEGENDS AT D23. The star-power was turned up bright this past weekend at the D23 Expo in Anaheim.

“Lindsay Lohan, Jodie Foster Honor Disney Legend Jamie Lee Curtis” in Variety.

Jamie Lee Curtis has always been legendary, but now it’s official: she was named a Disney Legend on Sunday during the D23 Expo.

Lindsay Lohan took the stage to queue up a montage of Curtis’ most memorable roles, telling the crowd, “I have been able to have the pleasure of working with Jamie Lee Curtis. And the magic of Jamie Lee Curtis is that she is timeless. Every character she plays is different, and she always brings something unique to the role. And I feel so blessed to have Jamie as a friend in my life, and I feel lucky to work with a woman that I admire so much.”

Jodie Foster surprised the crowd after Lohan’s introduction to further lionize Curtis, saying, “There are many things that my bestie Jamie and I have in common,” recalling their upbringing as young women in Hollywood.

“Here are many of the absolutely freaky things that you may not know about her: You probably don’t know she eats dinner at 3 or 4, and is asleep by 7:30. She gets up at 3 a.m., she saves the world and she online shops a little bit,” Foster continued.

“She is so thoughtful and so generous, such a supportive and kind cheerleader, that it just makes me want to punch her,” Foster said with a laugh. “Is that wrong?” Foster then presented Curtis with her own embroidered pair of Mickey Mouse ears….

“Harrison Ford Accepts Disney Legend Award in Touching Speech at D23” in Variety.

…After a montage of Harrison’s most iconic work, Ford took the stage to an enthusiastic standing ovation. Referencing one of his most iconic “Star Wars” moments, he told the crowd, “I love you, too” (a more direct version of Han Solo’s famous response, “I know.”)

He continued, “I love the life you’ve given me. I love the people that I’ve had the opportunity to work with. Nobody does anything in this business for long. We work in collaboration, no matter what who we are and what we’re doing.”

Ford called himself an “assistant storyteller,” adding, “The stories are for you, about you, about us,” Ford said as he choked back tears. “To be able to work in that area is a privilege.”….

“Angela Bassett, Kelly Ripa, James Cameron and More Honored as Disney Legends at D23” reports Variety.

Angela Bassett was recognized for three decades of work with Disney, including her role in Touchstone’s “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” narration of National Geographic’s The Flood and the Disney+ docuseries “The Imagineering Story,” and, most recently, her Oscar-nominated performance as Queen Ramonda in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”…

…“Titanic” director James Cameron was also among the honorees, recognized for his work on the “Avatar” film franchise, for which he’s currently in post-production for the third entry, with a planned fourth and fifth in pre-production. He’s also behind several documentaries made in partnership with National Geographic, including the Emmy-winning “Secrets of the Whales” and Emmy-nominated “Secrets of the Elephants.” He also executive produced the OceanXplorers series, due in fall 2024 from National Geographic….

…Ripa began her career as an actor on the soap opera “All My Children” and the sitcom “Hope & Faith.” She’s best known for her work on morning television as the co-host of ABC’s “Live,” which she’s appeared on since 2001….

…Bassett, Cameron and Ripa were joined by fellow Disney Legend honorees Jamie Lee Curtis, James L. Brooks, Harrison Ford, Frank Oz, John Williams, Miley Cyrus, costume designer Colleen Atwood, Disney Parks cast member Martha Blanding, the late Marvel comic artist Steve Ditko, animator Mark Henn, and imagineer Joe Rohde….

(16) FREAKIER FRIDAY. And once D23 is over, everybody goes back to work. “‘Freaky Friday 2’ Title Revealed as ‘Freakier Friday,’ Brings Back Lindsay Lohan’s Rock Band Pink Slip And Loads of Cameos” – Variety has the story.

…“It feels like no time has passed,” Curtis told the ecstatic crowd.

Lohan revealed the two had stayed in touch over the years and said, “We’re very close.” To which Curtis replied, “It feels like we’re picking up where we left off.”

And with that, the trailer for Nisha Ganatra’s “Freaky Friday 2,” starring Curtis and Lohan was revealed…

(17) PRIDE OF DISNEY. A trailer has dropped for Mufasa: The Lion King – in theaters December 20.

Exploring the unlikely rise of the beloved king of the Pride Lands, “Mufasa: The Lion King” enlists Rafiki to relay the legend of Mufasa to young lion cub Kiara, daughter of Simba and Nala, with Timon and Pumbaa lending their signature schtick. Told in flashbacks, the story introduces Mufasa as an orphaned cub, lost and alone until he meets a sympathetic lion named Taka—the heir to a royal bloodline. The chance meeting sets in motion an expansive journey of an extraordinary group of misfits searching for their destiny—their bonds will be tested as they work together to evade a threatening and deadly foe.

(18) IS CONSCIOUSNESS DOWN TO QUANTUM EFFECTS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Physicist Matt O’Dowd over at PBS Space Time takes a look at Nobel laureate Roger Penrose’s idea that the brain might enable consciousness through quantum effects: the brain might be a quantum computer, his rationalization being known as orchestrated objective reduction. Basically, we think – outside the box – like quantum and not analogue computers.

Now, the arguments against this are that physicists currently entangle atoms in vacuums at very, very cold temperatures: conversely, brains are warm and wet. (We biologists like things warm and wet.) Subsequently, in the mid-1990s, an anaesthetist, Stuart Hameroff, suggested microtubules found in brain cells might have the macromolecule, the tubulin protein, Penrose was looking for as many anaesthetics work by impairing microtubule function.

The latest news is that a paper has been published showing that molecules in microtubules exhibit superradience and superradience (as you all know well?) is a phenomena arising out of quantum entanglement.

Now, just because a molecule exhibits supperradience by itself is not proof that the molecule can behave in an entangled quantum way, however it is at the very least corroborating evidence and so we can file this in the ‘interesting’ drawer.

Also, don’t be quick to rule out the ‘warm and wet’ problem just because physicists find it difficult. In biology we think that photosynthesis (how plants harness sunlight’s energy) likely relies on quantum effects: it is possible that quantum coherence and electron tunneling are involved in photosynthesis. Quantum_biology is a thing.

Finally, let’s think of the SF implications of all of this. Given the number of microtubules in the brain and given the number of calculations quantum computers can do, then to get General Artificial Intelligence (that’s 2001 HAL level of A.I.) we would need a very, very large quantum computer and that seems a very long way off and is certainly not something we can do with conventional, analogue computers. If this is so, then it may mean our getting a powerful A.I. capable of conscious, independent thought is unlikely… This, some may say, could be good news. I keep on telling people that the machines are taking over. But nobody ever listens…

That’s everything in a nutshell. Matt O’Dowd explains it with a little more detail (and fortunately with no heavy mathematical equations). You can see the 19-minute video here.

Nobel laureate Roger Penrose is widely held to be one of the most brilliant living physicists for his wide-ranging work from black holes to cosmology. And then there’s his idea about how consciousness is caused by quantum processes. Most scientists have dismissed this as a cute eccentricity – a guy like Roger gets to have at least one crazy theory without being demoted from the supersmartypants club. The most common argument for this dismissal is that quantum effects can’t survive long enough in an environment as warm and chaotic as the brain. Well, a new study has revealed that Penrose’s prime candidate molecule for this quantum activity does indeed exhibit large scale quantum activity. So was Penrose right after all? Are you a quantum entity?

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

Pixel Scroll 7/15/24 Frankly My Dear, I Don’t Scroll A Pixel

Posted on July 15, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) GLASGOW 2024 UPDATE. Glasgow 2024 has sent draft program schedules to almost a thousand participants.

We need people to check their email, and their spam, and respond in planorama asap.
If you've any questions, please email programme@glasgow2024.org
(2/2)
— Glasgow 2024, A Worldcon For Our Futures (@Glasgowin2024) July 15, 2024

(2) AUDIBLE REVEALS NEW CALCULATION FOR ROYALTIES. “Audible’s New Royalty Model: More Opportunities for Authors and Publishers”.

…We are now rolling out a new royalty model that prioritizes equity, flexibility, and insight for creators—one that evolved out of ongoing conversations with authors and publishers, and that advances our creator-centric ethos. Under this model, creators are able to monetize more types of content, and listeners will get to discover more innovative storytelling.

Titles in all Audible’s membership offerings can now earn royalties: Audible’s new royalty model means new opportunities for small publishers and independent authors to earn across all membership listening activity. Now more titles—including those currently in Audible Plus, Audible’s all-you-can-listen offering—can generate royalty payments. Depending on the audiences that publishers and creators want to reach, there are new ways to monetize and promote content, which means more flexibility to reach listeners where they are….

How is the new royalty model calculated? Audible takes a member’s plan value (Plus or Premium Plus) and adds the value of any additional credits used, then divides that value among the titles the member listened to over the course of the month. That figure, multiplied by the contractual royalty rate, comprises a creator’s royalty payment….

Publishers Weekly’s coverage, “Audible Rolls Out New Royalty Plan”, observes that “the announcement comes after one of Audible’s most vocal critics, bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, reported in March that Audible officials had approached him to discuss ‘a new royalty structure they intend to offer to independent writers and smaller publishers,’ a plan that Sanderson said was ‘encouraging.’”

(3) BACIGALUPI Q&A. At Colorado Public Radio:“Exhausted by climate fiction, Colorado novelist Paolo Bacigalupi turns to fantasy”.

Sure he has won the biggest prizes in science fiction– the Nebula and the Hugo awards. But Paolo Bacigalupi found himself bereft of inspiration. Penning apocalyptic climate fiction, like 2016’s The Water Knife, had taken its toll….

…The Paonia-based author knew it was time for a change. Then the invitation came.

A wine-importer friend who knew Bacigalupi’s penchant for languages (he’d studied Chinese in college) invited him to Bologna for a crash course in Italian.

The answer was yes…..

…The real-life Bolognese setting inspired Bacigalupi’s new fantasy novel, “Navola.” It takes place in a city-state reminiscent of Florence or Venice during The Renaissance.

His protagonist, Davico di Regulai, is the son of an uber-wealthy merchant and banker. The boy has big shoes to fill, but very different feet, as it were. Armed with a preserved dragon eye that possesses magical powers, Davico struggles to be the man his father and community expect him to be….

Ryan Warner: How did you know it was time for something different?

Paolo Bacigalupi: Well, when you keep trying to write things and you keep failing to actually finish them, or even when you’re starting to try to write, it’s like sticking your finger in a light socket. It is sort of painful and damaging, you think ‘maybe I should do something different.’

Warner: And that’s how it started to feel in the climate change space?

Bacigalupi: Yeah. A lot of what I was doing, the news was bad, and then the stories that you’re trying to tell are extrapolations on the present day, and those are all terrifying. Then you find you’re in this space where your creative world and your regular life are all smashed together, and they’re all really negative and they’re all full of terrors, and it’s not a sustainable space to be. If you spend all of your imaginative time in anxiety, then yeah, it takes a toll and eventually you just break down entirely.

Warner: And if the writer isn’t enjoying it, how possibly could the reader?

Bacigalupi: Yeah. I think that a healthy writer finds pleasure in their work. I think there are unhealthy ways to go about doing good work, as well. The outcome can be good, but the damage internally is bad for the writer.

(4) KGB. Ellen Datlow has posted photos from the Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading on July 10.

A.T. Sayre read and Nat Cassidy read and played his guitar for a very enjoyable evening.

(5) ERIN UNDERWOOD PRESENTS. The latest Erin Underwood videos take up Star Wars fanhistory, and test the relevance of Battlestar Galactica’s 2004 remake.

Star Wars: The Impacts of How Lucasfilm Built its Fan Base

Star Wars fandom holds a unique place as possibly the first ever nurtured fanbase built by a film studio. To understand the evolution of Star Wars fandom, I decided to explore its roots by inviting Craig Miller, former publicity executive at Lucas Film, and Garen Daly, Director of the Boston SciFi Film Festival, to discuss the early days of Star Wars fandom and its lasting impact on the film industry. Watch the video podcast discussion on YouTube and share your thoughts in the comments.

Battlestar Galactica (2004) Series Review – Does this Iconic Sci-Fi Remake Hold Up Today?

It’s been 20 years since they remade the 1978 version of Battlestar Galactica, and remakes often struggle to be relevant over time. From the story to the characters and the technology, how does BSG hold up 2 decades later? Watch my review of the full series and let me know if you think Battlestar Galactica holds up as well today … or even better!

(6) NEW FILM PLAYS ON CONSPIRACY THEORIES. “Note To Hollywood: Nobody Faked The Moon Landing” complains Inverse.

It’s getting exhausting calling out Moon landing truthers. Especially when a high-profile rom-com starring Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johansson makes a mockery of one of the greatest human achievements in all of history. This weekend, the new film Fly Me to the Moon hits theaters, telling the story of a 1969 advertising executive (Johansson) who is determined to film a “backup” version of the Moon landing in a studio, in case the real one fails. Tatum plays an astronaut, and the two fall for each other, in a silly movie about how the nature of love is a lot like flying to the Moon, or pretending to, or something. All harmless fun, right?

Well, no. While Fly Me to the Moon isn’t presented as a dramatic film purporting to unveil long-lost truths about the space race, it is built upon a frustratingly pervasive conspiracy theory that the Apollo 11 moon landing never took place, or in this case, that NASA would try to use taxpayer dollars to create a hoax. But, the historical and scientific evidence that we did, in fact, land on the Moon is overwhelming. And, because this movie is dredging up all those conspiracy theories again, it’s worth restating why we know the 1969 Moon landing was very real….

… But outside of heroes like Buzz Aldrin, there is plenty of objective evidence that the Moon landing occurred. In light of the bogus concept behind Fly Me to the Moon, and to get a contemporary reminder of Moon landing evidence Inverse reached out to Dr. Brett Denevi, a planetary geologist at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, was a vice-chair of Lunar Exploration Analysis Group, is working on the Artemis program.

“There is a whole host of evidence to demonstrate the Moon landings occurred, including images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera,” Denevi told Inverse. As she points out this is a relatively contemporary camera, launched back in 2009. “The camera is used to scout new landing sites like we are doing for Artemis, so it was built to take incredibly detailed pictures.”….

(7) SONGS OF SFF. [Item by Rob Thornton.] This is six minutes of reverb-soaked electric guitar recorded in a bathroom and reminiscent of the banjo in the theme song from the BBC’s Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. All the song titles are from my fave SF/F novels (see “Terminus Est,” “Burning Bright” and “Green Rapture.”). Bonus points if you know my musical nym! “Now And Always” by R Carnassus at Bandcamp.

(8) SDCC PROGRAM DROPS. “San Diego Comic Con Schedule: Best Panels in Hall H and More”. Variety has highlights at the link. Or you can browse the complete Programming Schedule on the Comic-Con website.

San Diego Comic-Con has rolled out its schedule for the 2024 convention this week, which runs from July 25–28. For the first time since 2019, SDCC will unfold without a virtual event, pandemic protocols or labor strike cancelations, marking a return to normal of sorts for the largest annual fan gathering in North America.

Several major franchises will make an appearance at the event, including panels for Marvel Studios, “Star Trek,” “The Penguin,” “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” the “Walking Dead” franchise, “Transformers One,” “Alien: Romulus,” “The Boys” and “Doctor Who.” Here are the highlights, with descriptions from SDCC and/or the panel sponsors….

(9) MEDICAL AWARENESS IN CANADA. CBC News led its post about tick-spread illnesses with the story of MaryAnn Harris, wife of sff author Charles de Lint: “Tick-spread illnesses are on the rise in Canada. Are surveillance, awareness efforts keeping up?”

One morning in Sept. 2021, MaryAnn Harris felt strangely tired. She told her husband, Charles de Lint, that she needed to lie down. Then more worrisome symptoms began cropping up, from nausea to double vision.

The Ottawa couple rushed to a local emergency department.

At first, the cause of Harris’s ailment was a mystery. The ER team ran various tests, and after a few hours with no answers, they sent her husband home due to visitor restrictions put in place during the pandemic.

By the time de Lint came back the next day, his beloved partner of four decades was unresponsive and on life support in the intensive care unit.

“You don’t know what to think, what to feel,” de Lint recalled. “It was just utter panic.”

What followed was a three-year ordeal, as medical teams offered a battery of tests and treatments in hopes of bringing Harris back from the brink of death. She eventually regained consciousness, but by that point, inflammation in her brain stem had left her paralyzed. Harris never left the hospital and died in early June at the age of 71.

The cause of her devastating illness? A little-known virus that spreads through tick bites.

For years, medical experts have warned a rising number of Canadians are being exposed to ticks carrying an array of dangerous pathogens. Lyme disease is the most familiar — and by far the most common — but there’s growing concern about lesser-known threats as well, from various bacterial infections, to the rare Powassan virus that claimed Harris’s life earlier this year.

(10) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

1974 – Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia

Fifty years ago, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia was published. (No, not on this day. Just this year.)

Though it is often considered the fifth book of the Hainish Cycle, Le Guin in multiple interviews and her writings has stated that there is no particular cycle or order for what she called the Ekumen novels.

And yes, I can say having read it more than once and those readings being decades apart that the full title does really make sense. Later printings would just call it The Dispossessed. No idea why the change and if Le Guin said why.

It was by published by Harper & Row that year with a stunning wraparound cover by Fred Winkowski. I found only two first editions to be had online, the first $1200, the other substantially more, but that was signed.

Le Guin in the forward to Ursula K. Le Guin: The Hainish Novels & Stories, Volume One which includes The Dispossessed says “The Dispossessed started as a very bad short story, which I didn’t try to finish but couldn’t quite let go. There was a book in it, and I knew it, but the book had to wait for me to learn what I was writing about and how to write about it. I needed to understand my own passionate opposition to the war that we were, endlessly it seemed, waging in Vietnam, and endlessly protesting at home. If I had known then that my country would continue making aggressive wars for the rest of my life, I might have had less energy for protesting that one. But, knowing only that I didn’t want to study war no more, I studied peace. I started by reading a whole mess of utopias and learning something about pacifism and Gandhi and nonviolent resistance. This led me to the nonviolent anarchist writers such as Peter Kropotkin and Paul Goodman. With them I felt a great, immediate affinity. They made sense to me in the way Lao Tzu did. They enabled me to think about war, peace, politics, how we govern one another and ourselves, the value of failure, and the strength of what is weak. So, when I realized that nobody had yet written an anarchist utopia, I finally began to see what my book might be.”

So let’s now go on to note that I discovered that the novel has a story set before it, “The Day Before the Revolution” and the character in that story, revolutionary Laia Asieo Odo, is a major presence in The Dispossessed.

But that’s not really why I’m bring the story to your attention. The story is included in the Library of America’s Ursula K. Le Guin: The Hainish Novels & Stories which has a short essay on what she was feeling after writing the novel which you can read here “Story of the Week: The Day Before the Revolution”. And the story is here “The Day Before the Revolution”.

Now where was I? Ahh it’s 1974, the novel has come out. Among us, it was widely acclaimed, and the Ursula K. Le Guin Foundation definitely was appreciative of this as her website lists them this way:

Winner of the 1974 Nebula Award for Best Novel
Winner of the 1975 Hugo Award for Best Novel
Winner of the 1975 Locus Award for Best Novel
Winner of the 1975 Jupiter Award for Best Novel

And yes, each link takes you to the proper Award site. Stellar webmasters whoever they are. Now interestingly, the Foundation doesn’t include the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award. I wonder why. It was also nominated for a John W. Campbell Memorial Award but didn’t win.

As near as I can tell, it has never been out of print in the last fifty years with multiple hardcover, trade and paperback editions. ISFDB lists far too many editions to really make sense of its printing history, so I can’t say definitively.

What I didn’t see is it ever got the small press, lavish edition treatment, but then I’m having a hard time remembering if any of her works did. Come on Filers, help me out here.

In 2019, The Folio Society published a hardcover edition with illustrations by David Lupton and an introduction by Brian Attebery.

On November 17, Harper Perennial will publish a trade paper edition of the book with a new foreword by Karen Joy Fowler.

(11) SEND HIM BACK. “Mexico ‘cancels’ statue of Greek god Poseidon after dispute with local deity” says NBC News.

The gods must be angry — or just laughing at the hubris of humanity.

Authorities in Mexico have slapped a “closure” order on a 10-foot-tall (3-meter) aquatic statue of the Greek god of the sea Poseidon that was erected in May in the Gulf of Mexico just off the town of Progreso, Yucatan.

Mexico’s environmental protection agency said late Thursday that the statue, which appears to show an angry trident-wielding Poseidon “rising” from the sea a few meters from the beach, lacked permits. In the few months it has been up, tourists had gathered to take pictures of themselves with it as a striking background.

But it was symbolically “closed” Thursday — and could be removed altogether — after a group of activist lawyers filed a legal complaint saying the statue offended the beliefs of local Maya Indigenous groups who prefer their own local god of water, known as Chaac.

It’s always been dangerous for humans to get involved in battles between deities. But this one appears to be all about present-day humanity, combining “cancel culture,” social media storms, lawsuits and the one truly fearsome, overpowering force in today’s world: Instagram selfie-fueled tourism….

(12) RECAST BLACK PANTHER? Fandomwire says there’s a call to “’Remove Black Panther 2 from the timeline’: After Harrison Ford Replaces William Hurt as General Ross Fans Demand a New Black Panther in MCU”.

…And after witnessing Harrison Ford replace William Hurt as General Ross, the calls for recasting have amplified within the Marvel fandom, particularly in the instance of Black Panther. Portrayed by the iconic Chadwick Boseman, fans now want the MCU to remove the Oscar-winning Black Panther 2 from the official timeline to facilitate the character’s recasting….

…However, Ford’s casting has also triggered a wave of demand within the Marvel fandom: the demand for Black Panther recasting. Portrayed by the late Chadwick Boseman throughout the MCU until his tragic death, the actor’s portrayal has remained iconic and pretty much irreplaceable. Yet, many fans believe recasting him would not be a bad choice, but only add to the legacy of the character he so clearly loved and played.

The MCU has recast several characters throughout its run, with Bruce Banner and Rhodey being some notable examples. These recasting decisions have hardly received as much hate from fans, but instead have triggered the calls for a Black Panther replacement since Boseman’s untimely death in 2020….

(13) NOT SURE THESE ARE THE ROLLING ROADS WE’RE LOOKING FOR. [Item by Daniel Dern.] “FreightTech Friday: Japan’s proposed conveyor-belt highway” at FreightWaves.

In a recent meeting of Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, the group unveiled plans to combat its transportation and logistics sector labor shortages with construction of an automated conveyor-belt highway running over 310 miles across central Japan.

Known as the Autoflow-Road proposal, the ministry showcased its blueprint for building both aboveground and underground conveyor-belt roads running between Tokyo and Osaka 24 hours a day. According to the ministry, it could move the same amount of freight in a day as 25,000 drivers.

“Automated logistics roads are designed to get the most out of road space by utilizing hard shoulders, median strips and tunnels beneath the roadway. …Our study is examining the impact on road traffic, including on surrounding roads, and costs,” senior official to the ministry, Shuya Muramatsu, told reporters.

The proposal comes as an answer to Japan’s ongoing transportation and logistics labor crisis, as the country begins to cap trucking overtime hours this year.

(14) HOW CAN A FRANCHISE CALLED THE TERMINATOR NEVER END? “’Terminator Zero’ Teases Judgement Day in First Apocalyptic Trailer” at Yahoo!

The Terminator promised he’d be back – and he is. Netflix is teasing a tense apocalyptic return to this world with the first trailer for “Terminator Zero,” its upcoming animated series set in the “Terminator” universe that will premiere on Judgement Day, aka August 29.

This teaser debuts Eiko, voiced by “House of the Dragon” star Sonoya Mizuno, a resistance fighter who is sent back in time to stop Skynet’s impending attack on humanity. “You can’t see it yet, but you’ve been on a collision course your entire life. There’s no going back, not really. It will never, ever stop,” Eiko ominously says in the teaser.

As she gives her warning, the trailer jumps between creepy shots of terminators repairing themselves, explosions and gunfire. “There’s only one thing standing between you and him — me,” Eiko says in the teaser’s final tense moment….

(15) ANDOR RETURNS. Disney+ has dropped a trailer for Andor Season 2 (2025).

The wait is over! Dive into the highly anticipated first look at Andor Season 2 with this electrifying teaser trailer. Following the critically acclaimed first season, Cassian Andor’s (Diego Luna) journey continues as he navigates the treacherous world of the Rebellion. Set five years before the events of Rogue One and A New Hope, this season promises to delve deeper into the rise of the Rebellion against the oppressive Galactic Empire.

(16) THE END AND BEYOND. “’Stranger Things’ Season 5 First Look Revealed by Netflix” at The Hollywood Reporter.

…Maya Hawke recently told Podcrushed that the eight episodes in the final season of the sci-fi hit will feel like “eight movies,” and noted the episodes are “very long.”

“Our showrunners, Matt and Ross [Duffer], take a lot of responsibility,” she added. “They have an amazing team of writers, but they’re very involved. They write a lot and they are very intense and serious about the quality of the continued writing, and so it takes a long time to write each season, and a long time to shoot them.”…

…While season five is the show’s final season, there are additional Stranger Things projects in the works, including: Stranger Things: The First Shadow live on stage in London’s West End and an as-yet-untitled animated spinoff series….

[Thanks to Teddy Harvia, Kathy Sullivan, Mike Kennedy, Larry Powell, Rob Thornton, Daniel Dern, 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 Thomas the Red.]

Pixel Scroll 3/31/24 I Shall Name This Clever WordPlay After Myself, Said Tom Eponymously

Posted on March 31, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) WHY BARDON DECLINED A 2024 HUGO NOMINATION. Natasha Bardon has posted on Instagram her reasons for declining her Best Editor, Long Form Hugo nomination:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Natasha Bardon (@natashabardon)

Learn more about Bardon in this interview from 2020 – “An Interview With… Natasha Bardon” — and this news item from the Bookseller in 2022 – “Bardon promoted to publisher at HarperVoyager and Magpie Books”.

(2) WHAT’S ON THE BALLOT. Cora Buhlert analyzes all the categories in “Some Thoughts on the 2024 Hugo Finalists” which were announced at the UK Eastercon.

Here is Buhlert’s reaction to the voters’ picks for Best Related:

Best Related

I guess everybody knows my strong preference for well-researched non-fiction in this category by now, so I’m pleased that five of six finalists in this category are actually books.

The late Maureen Kincaid Speller was an always insightful critic, so I’m glad to see the collection A Traveller in Time: The Critical Practice of Maureen Kincaid Speller by Maureen Kincaid Speller, edited by Nina Allan, on the ballot.

Volumes 2 and 3 of Chinese Science Fiction: An Oral History, edited by Yang Feng, are the sequels to the first volume which was nominated in this category last year and most worthy they are, too.

All These Worlds: Reviews & Essays by Niall Harrison does exactly what it says on the tin. I haven’t this collection yet, but it’s exactly the sort of thing I like to see in this category.

A City on Mars by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith is an illustrated popular science book about how feasible it is to colonise Mars. I wasn’t familiar with this book at all, though again it absolutely fits into this category.

The Culture: The Drawings by Iain M. Banks is an art book collecting drawings that the late Iain M. Banks did of spacecraft, locations, etc… of his Culture series. Again, I had no idea that this book existed, but it’s most fitting finalist.

Finally, we have a podcast or rather videocast named Discover X nominated in this category. Discover X appears to be a collection of interviews with various SMOFs and SFF professionaly done by Tina Wong at last year’s Chengdu Worldcon.

Discover X was initially nominated in Best Fancast, but since it is a professional project, it was moved into Best Related. This isn’t the first time a professional podcast was nominated in Best Related. Writing Excuses was nominated in this category several times approx. 10 years ago. I’m not very happy with podcasts nominated in Best Related, but since there is no professional podcast (procast?) category, there really is no other place to put them. And podcasts are among the less edgy of the many edge finalists we’ve seen in this category in recent years.

There also was a withdrawl is this category, because Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood was nominated for a viral tweet promoting the Hugo-winning novella This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, which pushed the book up various bestseller lists due to Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood’s many Twitter followers. Now the Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood affair is a perfect example of how word of mouth works and can catapult a work into the stratosphere. Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood also appears to be a great person and it was very classy of them to decline a nomination. However, this nomination also illustrates why the Best Related Work needs to be reformed and the definition tightened. Because how on Earth can you compare a single tweet, even one which sold thousands of books, with a 400 page non-fiction book?

And even if we limited Best Related to non-fiction books and long essays, we’d still get a wide range of potential finalists as this year’s ballot shows….

(3) TAKEN FROM THE SHELF. Haven’t had enough Eastercon this weekend? Rob Hansen is prepared to immerse you in the 1956 edition — CYTRICON II – at his richly-detailed fanhistory site.

CYTRICON II, the 1956 UK national science fiction convention was held at The George Hotel in the town of Kettering over the Easter weekend, Friday 30th March – Monday 2nd April. Overflow hotel was The Royal, with The Swan Hotel hosting a further seven fans. Parties were held in both The George and The Royal. The con was organised by the London Circle.

Here’s a brief excerpt from a contemporaneous conreport.

ARCHIE MERCER:

At a quarter to four on Good Friday I staggered from the train at Kettering station, adjusted my two slung haversacks, took a tighter grip on my gramophone(in the right hand) and a parcel consisting mainly of records for same (in the left), and set my face firmly towards the George Hotel. About fifty yards ahead of me, Walt Willis stalked his proud and lordly way. About as far again behind me, I could discern the chatter of several more humans – if they too were fen, and if so who, I still don’t know. Besides I can’t say that it’s all that important.

Arriving at the George in good order, I was immediately caught up in a furious burst of misapprehensions by Joyce, the receptionist, who was practically insisting that I must have a car and wanted to know the number of it. I explained patiently that the nearest thing was the train I’d so carelessly abandoned down at the station and I hadn’t a clue as to its number. So she decided to humour me and let me in without it. I signed the book under Peter Reaney, moved within — and the Con was on….

(4) EX MACHINA REWATCH MOVIE REVIEW. [Item by Erin Underwood.] 2023 was AI’s breakthrough year, and as we move into 2024, I wanted to take a look back at one of the best AI films to see how it held up over the last decade. Check out my new rewatch review of Alex Garland’s groundbreaking AI film Ex Machina. Does the story and the technology hold up? Is it still the instant classic everyone thought it was back in 2014? “Ex Machina Movie Review – A groundbreaking AI film in 2014. What’s it like now?”

(5) BOOK PRESERVATION. Via WIRED: “This Woman Deconstructs 100-Year-Old Books To Restore Them”.

Author, educator and book restorer Sophia Bogle has nerves of steel: one slip of the hand and a century-old first edition book could be ruined. Come inside her workshop as she breaks down the amazing deconstruction, revitalization, and reassembly that goes into her history preserving speciality.

(6) READY FOR MY CLOSEUP. Forbes shares a look “Inside The Ambitious Plan To Broadcast The Entire Total Solar Eclipse”.

It’s nature’s most spectacular sight, but during North America’s total solar eclipse on April 8, the sun’s corona will only be visible for a few precious minutes from any one location.

However, totality itself will be viewed for a combined total of 100 minutes from a 115-mile path of totality stretching from Mexico to the Canada, via the U.S. So why not have cameras stationed all along the track and broadcast the entire thing as one continuous livestream?

That’s the thinking behind the Dynamic Eclipse Broadcast Initiative, a nationwide citizen science team armed with a $314,000 NASA grant, hoping to pioneer a unique new way to broadcast a total solar eclipse.

It’s as much about solar science as it is about broadcasting, however, with a new understanding of the solar corona the ultimate prize.

DEB is the brainchild of the team behind the successful Citizen CATE experiment from the 2017 total solar eclipse, the last to cross the U.S, which saw more than 60 identical telescopes equipped with digital cameras positioned from Oregon to South Carolina to image the solar corona.

The resulting images were then spliced together to reveal the plasma dynamics of the inner solar corona, which is 10,000 times hotter and dimmer than our star’s surface—and can only be studied in full during a total solar eclipse….

(7) VFX OSCAR WINNER TIM MCGOVERN DIES. Visual effects artist Tim McGovern died March 30 at the age of 68. He won an Oscar for his work on the 1990 film Total Recall. Deadline’s profile covers his other accomplishments.

…The Visual Effects Society recently recognized McGovern with the 2023 Founders Award for his contributions to the art, science, or business of visual effects and meritorious service to the Society.

McGovern was a founding member of Sony Pictures ImageWorks and ran it as the Senior VFX Supervisor as well as the SVP of Creative and Technical Affairs. After leaving Sony, McGovern continued as an independent VFX artist and filmmaker.

McGovern’s most recent film credits include Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023), Jungle Cruise (2021), Men in Black: International (2019), First Man (2019), Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), Dunkirk (2017), The Huntsman: Winter’s War (2016), and Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation (2015), among many others….

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born March 31, 1960 — Ian McDonald, 64. What works by Ian McDonald have I enjoyed so much that I’ve read them over and over, and then when they were available as audioworks listened to them several more times? That’s easy. The Desolation Road series, Desolation Road and Ares Express which I’m holding to be the best story ever set on Mars.

A town that develops around an oasis on a terraformed Mars with a cast of characters that are truly fascinating? What’s not to really like? Not to mention the Ares Express running across the desert. Damn I wanted to see that train!

(I do have a list of other works set on Mars I like — Kage Baker’s The Empress of Mars, Larry Niven’s Rainbow Mars, Arthur Clarke’s The Sands of Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy and Frederik Pohl’s Man Plus.)

Completely shifting his tone was King of Morning, Queen of Day. Multiple generations of Irish women might have the potential to bring the fey who are obviously quite dangerous into their world. That isn’t the best aspect of the novel — it’s the characters herein. He’s very skilled in his character crafting.

The Chaga saga set in Africa (Chaga and Kirinya) with its slow moving alien biological invasion is perfectly horrific; I’ve not yet read the short fiction set in the series.

I read both of the future India series, River of Gods and Cyberabad. I throughly enjoyed River of Gods but found Cyberabad less than interesting.

I tried the first of Everness series. No, not my cup of tea. Really not.

Which was not true of The Dervish House, my last choice. An alternative history of Istanbul set now, well it was twenty years in the future when it was written, though the changes there suggest a history that deviated a lot earlier. Loved the characters. Loved the technology he created. Loved the story. Brilliant all around.

(9) CREDIT GRAB? CBR.com explains why “Marvel’s New Addition to Wolverine’s List of Creators Draws Controversy”.

Marvel’s decision to add a new name among Wolverine’s creators in the upcoming film Deadpool & Wolverine has sparked controversy among fans and comic creators alike.

It has been revealed that Roy Thomas, former editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics, will be credited as one of the four creators of Wolverine. The other creators of the character include the late writer Len Wein, artist Herb Trimpe, and designer John Romita Sr. The news sparked a Facebook post from writer Bobbie Chase, who worked at Marvel in the 1980s and 1990s, asking others to discuss the true creators of the character as well as the implications for editors-in-chief to claim creation over other characters.

Chase also mentioned speaking to Wein’s widow about the changes, saying, “Recently my friend and Len Wein’s widow, Christine Valada, got a call from Marvel executive David Bogart, informing her that in the upcoming Wolverine & Deadpool movie, Roy Thomas will now be credited as the co-creator [of Wolverine], and David said it’s a done deal. […] Of course Christine is seriously concerned about Len’s legacy. Len was profoundly important to the comic book industry, and that legacy is being changed for the worse, six years after his death.”

Chase’s frustrations about this change stemmed from the fact that the other creators of Wolverine have all died, making it hard to dispute the authenticity of Thomas’ addition to the list….

(10) CLOWNS AND QUESTION MARKS. 13th Dimension called on fans to “Dig These 13 Great ‘Serious BATMAN’ Moments in BATMAN ’66”. Here’s one example:

The Joker Is Wild. Batman and Robin are nearly unmasked by the Joker after being momentarily grabbed by the villain’s henchmen. The heroes are engaging the villain while he hijacks a live TV performance of the opera Pagliacci – that is why Joker is wearing a white Pierrot clown costume. I think that this image is very much in the dramatic style and spirit of the amazing Norm Saunders paintings used for the 1966 Topps Batman trading card set, inspired by the series.

(11) TAKING IT OUT FOR A SPIN. Gizmodo says “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Incredible Musical Episode Is Getting the Vinyl It Deserves”. It comes out June 7.

Of all the highs Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ sophomore season pulled off—intense action, Vulcan drama, familiar faces, and plenty more—perhaps one of the most delightful of all was “Subspace Rhapsody,” its earnestly cheesy all-singing, all-dancing musical showstopper. And if you’ve had the soundtrack streaming non-stop since last year, we’ve got great news for you.

io9 can exclusively reveal that Lakeshore Records is going to release the complete 11-track score for the episode on a black vinyl record, with artwork inspired by the poster released for the episode at San Diego Comic-Con last year forming the cover….

(12) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Matt Mitchell says this is how it would sound “If Dune was Southern”. Y’all pay attention now.

(P.S. I’m told one of the references is to Tony Chachere’s spice.)

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

Pixel Scroll 2/27/24 It’s Scrolls And Pixels I Recall, I Really Don’t Know Files At All

Posted on February 27, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) BEN YALOW OFF LA IN 2026 BID. LA in 2026 Worldcon bid chair Joyce Lloyd told File 770 today, “I can confirm that Ben Yalow is no longer a member of the bid committee.”

Craig Miller, a director of the nonprofit, also said in a comment here that Yalow has resigned from SCIFI, Inc., the parent organization to the L.A. in 2026 Bid. And that Yalow is not going to be on the L.A. 2026 Worldcon Committee.

(2) SOUND OFF. Kristine Kathryn Rusch reacts to “Findaway And Corporate Rights Grabs” on Patreon.

…Does that mean that after next week, you will find my work on Findaway? Um, no. You will not. As a friend of mine said, they’ve shown their true colors. Musicians have had trouble with Spotify for years and these are Spotify-inspired changes.

Spotify bought Findaway in 2022, paying about $123 million dollars. At the time, Spotify CEO, Daniel Ek, told investors that he was “confident that audiobooks will deliver the kind of earnings that investors are looking for, with profit margins north of 40 percent.”

Over the past 18 months or so, Spotify has tinkered with Findaway in a variety of ways, mostly to do with the way that they’re paying content providers. Then this new TOS rights grab, which is not unexpected. In fact, it’s right on time….

(3) VERSUS INJUSTICE. Reckoning publisher Michael J. DeLuca reacts to the 2023 Hugo disaster, then goes beyond, in his post “On Ongoing Prejudice in the SFF Community and What Is to Be Done”. (Or go straight to DeLuca’s “original, uncut and expletive-laden version” here: “Do the Right Thing: A Hugo Rant” at The Mossy Skull.)

….We perceive the dangerous potential, as daily worse things seem to come out about the behavior of a Hugo admin committee responsible for hurting so many great authors and the entire fandom of China—not to mention individual humans in their immediate vicinity—of writing them off as irrevocably evil outliers and therefore not representative of problems in our field. We don’t want this latest crisis to overshadow the previous, ongoing crisis or the one before that. That the Hugo committee has provided a scapegoat to whom consequences can be applied cannot be allowed to obscure the fact that, for one glaring example, the insidious shutting-out of Palestinian voices is still going on. There are so many compounded crises, anyone can be forgiven for not addressing every one all the time loud enough so nobody else forgets. Individually, we must choose one injustice at a time to address, with our voices, our donations, our votes, because otherwise we’ll all implode from the pressure. But we can’t let the latest injustice blot out the rest.

How do individual people get to act this terribly? They get encouraged. If they’re entitled white men, that encouragement need amount to nothing more than looking the other way. How do individual people get encouraged to be better? By positive peer pressure. By example.

The antidote to bureaucratic power-clutching and uninterrogated fascist creep, like the problem, is manifold. We need juried awards with juries of accountable, well-intentioned people empaneled by accountable, well-intentioned people. The Ignyte awards are one such. So are the Shirleys. Support them, care about them, pay attention to who wins. Our fellow Detroit-based indie press Atthis Arts bent over backwards this past year rescuing an anthology of Ukrainian SFF, Embroidered Worlds, from the slag heap. Pay attention to what they’re doing. Lift them up. We need magazines like Strange Horizons (who published a Palestinian special issue in 2020), Fiyah, Clarkesworld (who have long been in the vanguard of championing translated work and translators), Omenana, and khōréō (their year 4 fundraiser ends 2/29). We need magazines whose editors and staff are actively listening to, seeking out, boosting, celebrating, paying—and translating, paying, and celebrating translators of—Chinese, Taiwanese, Palestinian, Yemeni, Ukrainian, Russian, Israeli, Indigenous, Aboriginal, Congolese, Nigerian, disabled, neurodivergent, queer, and trans voices. Do we in that litany miss anybody currently getting oppressed and shut out? Undoubtedly. This work is unending. We choose to keep at it.

The Hugo admins aren’t the only ones failing at this. The PEN Awards have recently been actively lifting up pro-genocide voices and suppressing Palestinian voices. A story we published, “All We Have Left Is Ourselves” by Oyedotun Damilola Muees, won a PEN Award for emerging writers in 2021. How can the administrators of an award designed specifically to remedy the way the publishing establishment has systematically ignored marginalized voices side with imperialism? There’s an open letter calling the PEN organization to task for this. Reckoning is among those who have signed it….

(4) ROMANTASY. Vox explores “How Sarah J. Maas became romantasy’s reigning queen”.

… Within the stories themselves, Maas’s worldbuilding is full of hat tips to her predecessors. In A Court of Thorn and Roses, the faerie land is called Prythian, a nod to Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain. In Prythian, faeries use a form of teleportation called “winnowing,” and their explanation of it will be familiar to anyone who loved Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. “Think of it as … two different points on a piece of cloth,” Maas writes (very much her ellipses). “Winnowing … it’s like folding that cloth so the two spots align.” If you’ve read the classics of YA fantasy before, you’ll recognize the sampling and remixing she is doing here.

Part of the pleasure of reading Maas is seeing these familiar YA fantasy references lie cheek by jowl with the tropes of romance novels. In A Court of Mist and Fury, the second volume of the series, two lovers who have not yet admitted their feelings for each other find themselves forced by cruel circumstance to fake date. Later, they end up at an inn with only one bed to spare, not once but twice. Across ACOTAR, Maas’s protagonist, Feyre, is torn between two boys. One is blond and sunny; one is dark-haired and brooding; both are impossibly beautiful, rich, and powerful; both begin as Feyre’s enemies….

(5) CHESTBURSTERS, MUPPETS, AND A BLACK HOLE, OH MY! Hugo Book Club Blog calls 1980 “The Ascendancy of Science Fiction Cinema (Hugo Cinema 1980)”.

In each year from 1970 to 1975, fewer than five of the top-30 movies (which could only be seen in cinemas at that time) could even remotely be considered genre works. By 1979, just two years after Star Wars, most of the top grossing movies were science fiction.

When the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation began in 1958, there had been concerns raised about whether or not there could be sufficient SFF movies worthy of consideration. Several times between 1958 and 1978, fans voted to present no award because they were dissatisfied with the cinematic fare on offer. That would never happen again.

After decades as a marginal cinematic genre, science fiction was in its ascendancy.

Most of the movies on the 1980 Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo have withstood the test of time: The Muppet Movie, Time After Time, Star Trek The Motion Picture, and Alien remain well-loved today. Only Disney’s The Black Hole stands out as being one we thought was unworthy of Hugo Awards consideration … and even it has some charm to it….

(6) GODZILLA MINUS ONE LIVE REVIEW. Artist Bob Eggleton and Erin Underwood will review Godzilla Minus One live on YouTube on February 29 at 1:30 p.m. Eastern. (YouTube link.)

Join a special live movie review on YouTube of Godzilla Minus One with award winning science fiction artist Bob Eggleton, whose past work on Godzilla imagery has earned him love from fans around the world. Godzilla Minus One is the newest Japanese remake of the iconic monster who has captured our hearts ever since its original release in 1954. The newest film in the Godzilla genre features post war Japan when the country is still trying to recover, and “a new crisis emerges in the form of a giant monster, baptized in the horrific power of the atomic bomb.”

Bob Eggleton: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bobeggleton; Bob Eggleton has won 9 Hugo Awards, and various other important awards for his art over the last 30 years of his career. He is a fan of Godzilla and worked as a creative consultant on the American remake. While in Japan he appeared as an extra in one of the more recent films. Bob has designed concepts for Star Trek, Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius (2001) and The Ant Bully (2006) as well as created art for various publishers, magazines, book covers and media projects. His passion is with classic masters of art such as JMW Turner, John Martin and the Romantic movement. Bob has always been fascinated with ‘scale’ as a philosophy in the painted image, whether it be the vastness of outer space, or the size of a kaiju, H P Lovecraft denizen, or a dragon viewed from a human perspective.

Erin Underwood: YouTube: www.youtube.com/@ErinUnderwood; Erin Underwood is a movie reviewer on YouTube. She’s also a science fiction and fantasy conrunner, fan, author, and editor who loves dissecting stories and talking about films, TV, and books. However, in the daylight hours, she designs and produces emerging technology conferences for MIT Technology Review, where she tells the story of how new technologies are being used and how they are likely to impact our world.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born February 27, 1940 — Howard Hesseman. (Died 2022.) So yes, I’m doing Howard Hesseman so I can mention how much I liked him as Dr. Johnny Fever on WKRP in Cincinnati. Hesseman prepared for the role by actually DJing at KMPX-FM in San Francisco for several months.

In interviews, the producers of the show said that persona was largely developed by him and the following opening words of him on the first show are all his doing.

All right, Cincinnati, it is time for this town to get down! You’ve got Johnny—Doctor Johnny Fever, and I am burnin’ up in here! Whoa! Whoo! We all in critical condition, babies, but you can tell me where it hurts, because I got the healing prescription here from the big ‘KRP musical medicine cabinet. Now I am talking about your 50,000 watt intensive care unit…

Now let’s talk about his genre roles.

He was Fred in Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo, a television horror film that has no rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but one person there says the only interesting thing was the real tarantulas.

No, Clue, one of my all-time favorite films cannot be stretched to be considered genre, but I’m including it here because he, though uncredited, had the juicy role of The Chief.

He was in the wonderful Flight of the Navigator as Dr. Louis Farsday, and then there’s the amusing thing Amazon Women on the Moon where he’s Rupert King in the “Titan Man” segment.

He was Dr. Berg in the excellent Martian Child which based the David Gerrold’s Hugo Award winning novelette, not the novel based off it.

Yes, he was in both Halloween II as Uncle Meat and Bigfoot as Mayor Tommy Gillis, neither career highlights by any measure.

I see he showed up on one of my favorite series, The Ray Bradbury Theatre, playing a character named Bayes: in “Downwind from Gettysburg”.

Around the that time, he went elsewhere to the new Outer Limits to be Dr. Emory Taylor in “Music of the Spheres”.

I’m off to watch the pilot now…

(8) COMICS SECTION.

Wallace the Brave cites another victim of unappreciated wordplay.

(9) NO SFF IN DICK TRACY RETURN. In “Dick Tracy Writers Tease the Legendary Detective’s Return” at CBR.com, Alex Segura and Michael Moreci celebrate Dick Tracy’s return. No fancy wrist-radio, though.

When does your series take place? What made you choose this era as a setting?

Moreci: We’re very specific in the time we’re setting this — our story takes place in 1947, so it’s just after World War II. Again, there’s a definite, clear reason for that, rooted in Tracy’s character and the mood we’re trying to set.

Segura: This is Dick Tracy: Year One, basically.

(10) CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME. In a manner of speaking… The Library Foundation of Los Angeles invites you to “The Stay Home and Read a Book Ball”, 36th edition, on Sunday, March 3 at 12:00 a.m. – “Wherever you are!”

While you’re celebrating, take a moment to support the Library Foundation of Los Angeles by donating what you would have spent on a night out.

Share photos of your literary festivities on our Facebook event page, Instagram, or Twitter and tell us what you’ll be reading. Tag us at @LibraryFoundLA and use hashtag #StayHomeandRead to let others know how you are celebrating!

(11) THE ROBOT YOU NEED? The “Lost In Space Electronic Lights & Sounds B9 Robot Golden Boy Edition” is offered by Diamond Select Toys on Amazon.

Eyes light up and sensors blink, Chest blinks when B-9 talks
Head bubble manually raises and lowers, Arms extend and collapse
Claws open and close
Wheels allow B-9 to roll
B-9 Says the following phrases, including dialogue from “Cave of the Wizards”: “Watch it, I do not like grubby finger stains on my new suit of gold.” “From now on I’d appreciate it if you’d call be Golden Boy” “In my opinion, it is not Professor Robinson who needs psychiatric treatment, it is his doctor.” “I forgot, you are brave, handsome Dr. Smith.” and more!

(12) SIDEWAYS ON LUNA. [Item by Steven French.] I wonder if one of the engineers went home before the launch thinking “I’m sure I’ve forgotten something”! “Odysseus craft’s moon mission to be cut short after sideways landing” in the Guardian.

….On Friday, Intuitive Machines had disclosed that the laser range finders – designed to feed altitude and forward-velocity readings to Odysseus’ autonomous navigation system – were inoperable because company engineers neglected to unlock the lasers’ safety switch before launch on 15 February. The safety lock, akin to a firearm’s safety switch, can only be disabled by hand….

(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Introduction from Deadline: “’The Watchers’ Trailer Sees Dakota Fanning Stalked Through Irish Forest”. Comes to theaters June 7.

Warner Bros on Tuesday unveiled the first trailer for The Watchers, the anticipated supernatural thriller marking the feature debut of writer-director Ishana Night Shyamalan, with Dakota Fanning (The Equalizer 3) in the lead.

Set up at New Line following a multi-studio bidding war, this film from the daughter of M. Night Shyamlan is based on the 2021 gothic horror novel by A.M. Shine. Pic tells the story of Mina (Fanning), a 28-year-old artist who gets stranded in an expansive, untouched forest in western Ireland. When Mina finds shelter, she unknowingly becomes trapped alongside three strangers that are watched and stalked by mysterious creatures each night….

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, N., Kathy Sullivan, Andrew (not Werdna), Olav Rokne, 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 Joe H.]

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