(1) CSFDB recommendations for the first half of 2024. The Chinese Science Fiction Database (CSFDB) has released a list of recommended works published in China in the first half of 2024. (The announcement on Weibo includes comments from fans, authors, translators and publishers.)
In summary:
Seven pieces of short fiction were recommended; at first glance the only authors I recognize are 2024 Hugo finalists Han Song and Baoshu.
No Chinese novels were recommended.
Three translated novels were recommended: Greg Egan’s Permutation City; Alastair Reynolds’ Chasm City, and Empire V, a 2006 Russian novel by Viktor Pelevin. The latter I must confess I’d never heard of, but it turns out to have received an English translation in 2016, but which hasn’t been published in North America.
Six translated short stories were recommended: three from Japan, and one from each of South Korea, Russia and the USA, the latter being Fredric Brown’s Pi in the Sky from 1945.
Miscellaneous recommendations included biographies of Tolkien and Terry Pratchett, essays by Margaret Atwood, and artbooks by John Harris and Sparth.
(Disclaimer: I correspond with at least two members of the team that put this list together.)
(2) Editorial changes at Science Fiction World. On Monday August 19, the Weibo account of Science Fiction World announced three changes in its senior management. The announcement (especially after being put through machine translation) seems fairly PR-speakish, but as I understand it, the main change is that double Hugo finalist Yao Haijun is now ultimately responsible for all SFW editorial output. (I think previously he was in responsible for just the book publishing side, not the magazines.) La Zi/Raz/Latssep has now moved over to take charge of the marketing department.
(3) Chengdu SF Museum updates. A 15-minute video touring the Chengdu Science Fiction Museum, with narration being a mix of English and Hindi, was uploaded to YouTube a couple of weeks ago. It gives a good idea of the current content on display in the museum.
More recently, it was announced that this coming Tuesday, the museum will see the staging of a play based on the China Orbit (Spring) juvenile SF/alternate history story by academic and author Wu Yan. WeChat/Weixin posts by the museum here and here. Per the second link (via Google Translate with minor manual edits):
Looking back at the history of China’s manned space flight, the grand blueprint of the dream of manned space travel was drawn up as early as 1966. At that time, China ambitiously planned to launch the “Dawn” spacecraft between 1973 and 1975, but due to various reasons, the relevant project stagnated after 1971, and the focus of national scientific research shifted to the development of satellites.
The science fiction stage play “China Orbit” is based on the assumption that “China successfully prepared its own space program in 1972” and tells an alternative history story that is detailed, vivid and interesting. What would it be like if the “Shuguang-1” manned spacecraft project (code-named Project 714) that carried countless expectations at the time had been successfully realized, and China’s manned space program had succeeded thirty years ahead of schedule?
The piece implies that this is the first of four parts (named after the seasons) adapting the original work.
(4) New Hugo-X/Discover-X video released. 2024 Hugo Best Related Work finalist Hugo-X/Discover-X released a new video on the Chinese Bilibili service on Wednesday, their first for several months. At time of writing, the video has not yet been uploaded to their YouTube channel.
The video was shot in and around the Glasgow Worldcon, including some footage from the Tianwen promotional event previously covered on File 770 (although Tianwen itself is never actually mentioned). The video is in Chinese – which may be the reason it hasn’t yet been uploaded to YouTube – but there’s nothing especially noteworthy in the narration, unless you want to hear Chinese observations on the Scottish summer climate or British cuisine.
(From top to bottom) Translation: “15 degrees Celsius in the summer”; Translation: “To be honest, British food punishes every curious person”; “Fixing British food with a sachet of Sichuan condiment”(From top to bottom) Joe Yao, Tina Wong and (I think) Tan Yuxi at the Tianwen event; Joe Yao talking about Tianwen; Tina Wong talking about Tianwen
A reply to a user comment indicates that a second season of Hugo-X/Discover-X is about to start; presumably interviews were filmed at Glasgow, similar to how their previous videos were from the Chengdu Worldcon.
(1) SFRA 2025 CONFERENCE AND CFP. The Science Fiction Research Association has announced the theme and Call for Papers for the SFRA 2025 Conference. The event will be held July 30-August 3, 2025 at the University of Rochester in New York state, hosted by the Susan B. Anthony Institute: The program for Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies.
The theme will be: “’Trans People are (in) the Future’: Queer and Trans Futurity in Science Fiction”. Submission deadline November 15, 2024.
The tagline for this year’s conference is adapted from an art exhibit by Alisha Wormsley in which her art pieces assert that “there are black people in the future,” as a way to insist that unrelenting antiblackness will not steal the future from black people. Given the perpetual violence trans people are subject to, Wormsley’s insistence on black futurity resonates powerfully in trans contexts as well. Science fiction/Speculative Fiction writers, from Rivers Solomon to Kai Ashanti Wilson to Charlie Jane Anders, are all producing work that imagines trans and queer futurity in powerfully capacious ways, rejecting figurative and literal attempts at erasing trans and queer lives. This year’s conference focuses on issues related to trans and queer themes, though we encourage papers and panel proposals in all areas relevant to science fiction studies.
Full information about the topic is at the link.
(2) OMEGA SCI-FI PROJECT OFFERS WORKSHOPS. The Omega Sci-Fi Project invites L.A. high schools and students to participate in this season’s short science fiction story writing program, both through creative writing workshops and student story submissions.
To schedule a free science fiction creative writing and editing workshop follow this Calendly link: Select a Date & Time
Submissions for their 2024-2025 awards — The Tomorrow Prize and The Green Feather Award — will open on September 4 and run through February 14. Learn about the updated guidelines or submit an entry through their website.
The program’s culminating event is traditionally held at Vroman’s bookstore and where celebrity actors and authors reading selected student works.
… Perhaps in no acceptance speech was that more clear than in Emily Tesh’s, who won the Hugo Award for Best Novel for her science fiction book Some Desperate Glory. Tesh’s speech closed out the night, and after some initial joking about pranking the audience with Bilbo’s birthday speech from The Fellowship of the Rings and vanishing, she buckled down and went straight for the heartstrings. I’ve transposed a good deal of what Tesh had to say about Some Desperate Glory below, so that perhaps you might be as moved reading her words as I was hearing them:
“Here is my hope for this book… I hope this book disappears. I hope it joins the honorable, very honorable ranks of past Hugo winners, which spoke to a particular community at a particular time and not to all of history. And I hope for that disappearance because no one sets out to write a science fiction dystopia wanting to be proved right. And Some Desperate Glory is a book which was inspired by some of the worst of what is happening in the world today”….
Lionsgate is recalling its latest trailer for Francis Ford Coppola‘s epic “Megalopolis,” which featured a littany of fabricated quotes from famous film critics.
“Lionsgate is immediately recalling our trailer for ‘Megalopolis,’” a Lionsgate spokesperson said in a statement provided to Variety. “We offer our sincere apologies to the critics involved and to Francis Ford Coppola and American Zoetrope for this inexcusable error in our vetting process. We screwed up. We are sorry.”…
…In quotes attributed to their reviews of “The Godfather,” the trailer cites The New Yorker’s Pauline Kael as calling it “diminished by its artsiness,” and Village Voice’s Andrew Sarris as criticizing the “sloppy self-indulgent movie.” Other quotes from critics such as Roger Ebert, John Simon, Stanley Kauffmann, Vincent Canby and Rex Reed similarly flash across the screen, offering harsh critiques of Coppola’s work on masterpieces such as “Apocalypse Now.” The idea being these movies stood the test of times — their initial reactions, not so much. “Megalopolis,” which premiered at Cannes, was dismissed by many critics as indulgent and muddled. The new trailer aims to position Coppola’s latest film, as a work of art that will age well, much like its predecessors from the famed director….
One of the critics cited had this to say:
…Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman was incorrectly cited as calling the 1992 film “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” “a beautiful mess” and highlighting its “absurdity” when he reviewed the film for Entertainment Weekly, where he worked at the time of its release.
“Even if you’re one of those people who don’t like critics, we hardly deserve to have words put in our mouths. Then again, the trivial scandal of all this is that the whole ‘Megalopolis’ trailer is built on a false narrative,” Gleiberman said of the trailer’s falsified quotes. “Critics loved ‘The Godfather.’ And though ‘Apocalypse Now’ was divisive, it received a lot of crucial critical support. As far as me calling ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula’ ‘a beautiful mess,’ I only wish I’d said that! Regarding that film, it now sounds kind.”…
Do you want to read Marvel Comics, but don’t know where to start learning about the original comic versions of the characters and stories that have now become household names thanks to the MCU? The new book Marvel Comics for Dummies has you covered. And yes, that’s “Dummies” meant very affectionately, as is the signature of the Dummies series of books that have offered accessible primers for nearly every topic under the sun.
That now includes Marvel Comics, with the aforementioned Marvel Comics for Dummies book kicking off a series of Marvel related books in the Dummies line, with Captain America for Dummies soon to follow….
…The Marvel for Dummies line will include six titles, with future installments featuring explainers on the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, Spider-Man, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe (X-Men lore seems to have been too dense for even the experts to attempt to condense into one book).
(7) APEX NEWS. Apex Book Company today announced the acquisition of a new novella by Jason Sanford entitled “We Who Hunt Alexanders”.
In this fast-paced story, a neurodivergent monster named Amelia confronts both her mother’s expectations for her life and a gothic city where religious extremists threaten everyone who disagrees with them.
(8) WHILE ONE WAS BANNED, ANOTHER WAS CELEBRATED. Ersatz Culture made a wry comment on X.com:
And just in case anyone thinks I am unfairly picking on Joe Yao – well, the evidence shows that he and Dave McCarty were both heavily involved in the Hugo stats that were published. pic.twitter.com/uGtgb4nvW9
(9) M. J. ENGH (1933-2024). Author M. J. Engh, a SFWA Author Emeritus, died July 11. The SFWA Blog paid tribute: “In Memoriam: M. J. Engh”.
M. J. Engh (26 January 1933 – 11 July 2024), also writing as Jane Beauclerk and Mary Jane Engh, was a librarian, scholar, teacher, editor and writer. She wrote short fiction, non-fiction, and speculative novels, including 1976’s Arslan, later released as A Wind from Bukhara. Engh was honored by SFWA in 2009 with the title of Author Emeritus.
Engh wrote four speculative fiction books, from 1976’s Arslan to 1993’s Rainbow Man. Arslan achieved its success as a primarily underground work, one that dealt directly with the methods of dictators and warlords, including the use of morality and charisma. Engh believed sci-fi writers had a responsibility not to make violence and destruction less horrific, and used the reactions to her novel to note the disconnect of those same readers when dealing with equivalent real-world harm. She also wrote to all-ages audiences, in particular with her work The House in the Snow, illustrated by Leslie W. Bowman. She believed in speaking plainly to children, who she found able to deal with reality and better able to process new ideas than adults….
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
August 21, 1967 – Carrie-Anne Moss, 57. Tonight we are looking at Carrie-Anne Moss who most of you will first of think as Trinity in the Matrix franchise, but she has had a much longer genre and genre-adjacent career.
Let’s start with her first role with on Dark Justice, one of the series that made up Crime After Prime Time on CBS. Yes, that was how it was graphically presented in the promos which were brilliantly bright and noisy. The show was about a judge, well two judges in the end, that when a case against them became a vigilante at night.
She was Tara McDonald, an assistant to the first Judge, Judge Nicholas Marshall. He was played by Ramy Zada, a Spaniard, as the series was shot in Spain before the Olympics forced it to be moved to Los Angeles for its two final years.
Next up for her was Liz Teel in Matrix. No, not that Matrix. This one had Nick Mancuso as Steven Matrix, a hitman who is killed during a job and sent to a version of Purgatory called The City In-Between. She owned a gym with him, and she, no surprise, is interested in being lovers with him. Scriptwriters are so predictable.
Next up is, I think genre adjacent at least, which her role in the F/X: The Series based on the F/X film. She was Lucinda ”Luce” Scott, a struggling actress brought in by the crew to act as a body double or ringer whenever one was needed. The series came off as another version of Leverage.
We’ve now reached that Matrix where she played Trinity, a human freed by Morpheus, a crewmember of the Nebuchadnezzar, and later would be Neo’s lover. It would become a true franchise with four live films and an animated anthology with her in all of them.
What else was she involved in? Well, a role that upset the fanboys to no end was her role on Jessica Jones as Jeri Hogarth as in the Marvel Universe, gasp, that is a male role. She also played the character in the Daredevil, Defenders and Iron Fist series.
A series I didn’t know existed was Humans about AIs in human form. It was based on the Swedish Real Humans series. She was Athena Morrow, an AI researcher based in San Francisco who has been invited to reverse engineer the consciousness program.
Finally, well at least for me, she was Master Indara on The Acolyte. I am most decidedly not going to discuss anything about her story here. The series — which was cancelled after a short first season — sounds fascinating.
Today is the opening day of Gamescom, the Cologne expo that is now the biggest event in the video game calendar. This year, I am not among the 300,000-odd crowd descending on Germany, but I did watch the two-hour livestreamed opening-night broadcast yesterday – so you don’t have to. Here is all of the most interesting news, arranged by theme because I am deeply bored of writing straightforward lists of games and trailers.
News that will annoy Xbox fanboys the most There was a new trailer for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Bethesda and MachineGames’s new first-person adventure, in which longtime video game actor Troy Baker seems charmingly thrilled to be playing Indiana Jones. It’ll be out on Xbox and PC on 9 December – but it was also announced that it will be coming to PlayStation 5 in spring 2025. Earlier this year, Xbox boss Phil Spencer went to great lengths to reassure Xbox fans that Indiana Jones would not be a multiplatform game, so I’m interested to see how this goes down….
…One actor amongst them is so iconic that he replaced Johnny Depp in the Fantastic Beasts franchise during the infamous defamation trial. We are talking about Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen.
Known for portraying the role of a young Hannibal Lecter in the TV show Hannibal and Gellert Grindelwald in the Fantastic Beasts franchise, Mikkelsen is truly a fascinating villainous actor. As per a report, the actor was in talks with Marvel Studios for the role of Doctor Doom.
However, Marvel Studios allegedly decided to play it safe and hired (or rather re-hired) Downey Jr. for “New mask. Same task”. Sure enough, people were happy to see Downey Jr. return….
Kahhori, the new Marvel hero who debuted in the MCU’s What If…? animated streaming series as one of the first MCU characters with no direct ties to comics, is now coming to the core Marvel Universe in her own comic as part of the Marvel’s Voices line. And it seems that, in what may be a first, the version of Kahhori who will make her debut in comics later this year is not an alternate version of Kahhori created specifically for comics or a Variant of some kind – it’s apparently the exact same character from the MCU.
At least, that’s how Marvel’s official press release for the Kahhori: Reshaper of Worlds one-shot makes it sound. Here’s Marvel’s official description, which by all indications seems to say that Kahhori will be making the jump straight from the MCU to comics, while leaving just enough ambiguity to make the passage slightly less than definitive:
“The Mohawk warrior Kahhori fell into Sky World and into our hearts from her first appearance fighting invaders to her home. She’s already helped save all of reality from a demented Doctor Strange and secured peace in her own world… So what NOW? Award-winning storyteller Ryan Little launches Kahhori into the 616! Chasing a threat out of Sky World, she lands in the fiery streets of Hell’s Kitchen! But culture shock’s gonna be the least of her problems as her strange adversary tears through NYC. Featuring exciting guest stars and the comics debuts of some extraordinary creators, Marvel’s Voices brings you an extra-special anthology celebrating Indigenous heritage and one of the most exciting characters to emerge from the MCU!”
Almost 50 years after “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” debuted, Tim Curry is gearing up for another spooky role.
The veteran actor will return to the big screen as a character in the horror film “Stream,” which is opening Wednesday in select theaters. It will be his first feature film role since the 2010 comedy “Burke & Hare,” even though he has worked on many animated projects as a voice actor since then. He also appeared in the 2016 television film remake of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” on Fox.
Beyond his “Rocky Horror” role of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, Curry earned his genre bonafides with his performance as Pennywise in the TV miniseries “It,” as well as roles in films like “Legend,” “Clue” and “Scary Movie 2.”…
[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 Patrick Morris Miller.]
Although the article is somewhat misleading about where the event took place, the text of a WeChat message forwarded to me the previous day indicates it took place on Monday morning at the Radisson Red hotel near to the SEC venue, but outside the actual convention area. I believe this is the same location where Dave McCarty had a notable encounter with a hat-wearing lady. Given that Dave has been seen in photos in the company of some of the people mentioned in this piece, and was front and centre at the original Tianwen launch at the Chengdu Worldcon, that may not be a complete coincidence.
Here are some extracts (via Google Translate, with some clean-up editing) from the article. I’ve also included a couple of photos from an earlier Red Star News article from the 10th, which is more about the Glasgow Worldcon in general than Tianwen.
As one of the highlights of this year’s Worldcon, the first “Tianwen” Chinese Science Fiction Literature Competition Overseas Promotion Conference was held in Glasgow on the 12th. “Tianwen” is like a bright new star, not only illuminating the journey of Chinese science fiction literature to the world, but also attracting the enthusiastic attention of science fiction fans around the world.
This science fiction literary competition originates from Chengdu and is open to the world. It has nine permanent award categories with a total prize fund of over one million yuan [approximately $140k USD]…
Back in October 2023, the 81st Worldcon was successfully concluded at the Chengdu Science Fiction Museum. The afterglow of this science fiction feast is still there, and the “gravitational wave” effect is forming. The emergence of the “Tianwen” Chinese Science Fiction Literature Competition is one of the “results”…
Renowned science fiction writer [and 2024 Hugo finalist] Han Song once said in an interview with Red Star News that the special significance of the first “Tianwen” Chinese Science Fiction Literature Competition is that it is an award jointly initiated by the Chengdu Municipal Government and the China Writers Association.
On August 9, the “Tianwen Delegation” from Chengdu arrived in Glasgow. The 82nd World Science Fiction Convention had just opened…
The Tianwen Delegation, or perhaps a part thereof. They include Chengdu co-Hugo Administrator Joe Yao/Yao Chi (leftmost), 2023 and 2024 Hugo finalist Yang Feng (middle in light-brown coat), first editor of Science Fiction World Tan Kai (wearing baseball cap) and 2024 Hugo finalist He Xi (rightmost)
At the promotion meeting of the “Tianwen” Chinese Science Fiction Literature Competition on August 12th… Wang Yating [aka Tina Wang/Wong], a nominee for this year’s Hugo Award and the host of the science fiction video program “Hugo X Interview” [aka Discover X], shared her imagination of science fiction literature while reviewing the course and achievements of Chinese science fiction in the past decade with Chinese science fiction writers such as He Xi, Qi Yue [‘July’], and Gu Shi; former editor-in-chief of “Science Fiction World” Tan Kai; Eight Light Minutes Culture CEO Yang Feng, and other industry insiders…
The table at the promotion meeting. From left to right: Yang Feng, Tan Kai, He Xi, author Qi Yue (‘July’)
The “Tianwen” Chinese Science Fiction Literature Competition has nine permanent award categories with a total prize fund of over one million yuan. There are 6 literary categories:
Best science fiction novel,
Best science fiction novella,
Best science fiction short story,
Best science fiction film and television script
Best science fiction game script
Best science fiction comic work
and 3 institutional and individual categories:
Best science fiction literature institution
Best new science fiction writer
Best youth science fiction writer
[Note that on one of the pop up banners, the middle triad are instead described as “Industry awards”. Note also that the banners display the logo of the Chengdu Science Fiction Society (CSFC), the body that was responsible for organizing the Chengdu Worldcon.]
He Xi and Qi Yue in front of a Tianwen informational banner
…author Qi Yue [‘July’] said that “Tianwen” is a brand new voice for the science fiction community and a welcome thing for science fiction writers. In addition, film and television practitioners can also pay attention to works they are interested in through this award, “finding a clear thread for marketization and commercialization, so that this circle can form a positive cycle.”
For Chinese and foreign science fiction fans, the “Tianwen” Science Fiction Literature Competition is more like a bridge, allowing creators and fans from different countries and regions to share their works, views and creativity. Yang Feng, founder of Chengdu company Eight Light Minutes and editor-in-chief of the Chinese version of “Galaxy Edge”, believes that the overseas expansion of the “Tianwen” competition will help build a network of global science fiction communities. “Through online and offline exchange activities, it will promote international cooperation in SF creation and industry, enhance the international influence of Chinese SF and contribute important forces to the prosperity and development of global SF culture” [she said].
Neil Clarke, editor-in-chief of Clarkesworld, believes that promoting excellent science fiction works around the world is very valuable… [He said] “Science fiction always brings surprises to people. I saw the beginning of these surprises from “Tianwen”. I believe that more surprises will be discovered through “Tianwen” in the future.”
Neil Clarke being interviewed at Glasgow 2024.
Carolina Gómez Lagerlöf, chair of the European Science Fiction Association, hopes that more works from non-English speaking countries will become known to more people through Tianwen in the future… Representatives of the 2025 Seattle Worldcon said that Tianwen is a supplement to world SF literature [and she said that] “Through Tianwen, people in the worldwide community around the world can broaden their horizons and learn more about excellent non-English language SF works.”
Carolina Gómez Lagerlöf being interviewed by Joe Yao at Glasgow 2024.
It is worth mentioning that “Tianwen” will also be present at the Seattle Worldcon next year… At this 2024 Worldcon, the “Tianwen Delegation” also held a party, inviting writers, publishing organizations and senior SF fans to share the fun. The Chinese science fiction exhibits and the diverse “theme booths” became highlights of the event.
The “Tianwen Delegation” party mentioned in the final paragraph above appears to be the same thing as the “Chengdu Thank You Party”, seen on the banner behind Carolina Gómez Lagerlöf, and also promoted by Dave McCarty from his Facebook account. I can’t say I was checking that closely, but I don’t recall seeing any photos from that party whilst I was trawling Weibo and Xiaohongshu for posts of interest. I wonder if anyone reading this attended that party, or perhaps only a select elite were considered senior enough to hobnob with Dave and co?
For anyone wondering where the money for all of this is coming from, an earlier Red Star News article – which was briefly mentioned in a late July Scroll – stated that:
This dream-filled goal is inseparable from the joint efforts of various science fiction-related industries. Mu Tao, Chairman of Chengdu Media Group [the parent of Chengdu Business Daily] and Vice Chairman of the Competition Organizing Committee, signed relevant cooperation agreements on the “Tianwen” Science Fiction Literature Competition with Air China, Sichuan Energy Investment AsiaInfo, and Three-Body Universe at the press conference.
And as a reminder, that article also noted that the committee for the Tianwen award would include “relevant members of the World Science Fiction Association Mark Protection Committee”. At present it seems that we can only speculate on the identity of these MPC members (or possibly just member singular).
Note: for an alternative perspective on this news, SF Lightyear put out a Chinese-language Weibo post just as I was starting this write-up earlier today.
(1) CONFICTION FINAL FAREWELL PARTY. The 1990 Worldcon will host a bash at Glasgow 2024.
(2) TIANWEN RESURFACES. [Item by Ersatz Culture.] From the Red Star News on July 26: 面向全球发出邀请：首届“天问”华语科幻文学大赛在蓉举办新闻发布会. Google Translate: “Invitation to the world: The first ‘Tianwen’ Chinese Science Fiction Literature Competition held a press conference in Chengdu”. [Via SF Lightyear.]
Relevant bit via Google Translate, my emphasis:
The first “Tianwen” Chinese Science Fiction Literature Competition is chaired by Wang Meng, a famous contemporary Chinese writer, scholar, former Minister of Culture, and winner of the national honorary title of “People’s Artist”. At the same time, the competition has established a review committee with Alai, vice chairman of the China Writers Association, as chairman, Su Tong, member of the presidium of the China Writers Association, Liu Cixin, director of the Science Fiction Literature Committee of the China Writers Association, and relevant members of the World Science Fiction Association Brand Protection Committee as vice chairmen, who are fully responsible for the selection of entries.
I don’t know whether “relevant members” (plural) could just as easily be “relevant member” (singular), given Chinese (and Japanese) don’t generally make distinction.
A cellphone lies in a rustic Airbnb, smashed by an intruder. Then, when another is procured, a faulty connection interrupts a call to 911.
A navigation map on a smartphone glitches as a driver plunges deep into the woods.
Criminals on a kidnapping job are ordered to surrender their phones “to be completely certain that you can’t be tracked.”
An exasperated partyer in rural Ontario wonders aloud to a member in his group, “How long is it going to take for you to realize there’s no reception out here?”
These are some of the ways that recent horror movies have gotten around what is at this point an age-old problem: the cellphone. In working order, they can render predicaments more solvable and certain situations easier to escape — potentially. Before the late ’90s, there was little need to make such a show of connectivity failure. Lines would go down or get cut, sure, but isolation in the age before mass cellphone usage was easier to come by and therefore easier to believe onscreen. Back then, the tropes didn’t have to trope so hard.
Then came the cell, and movies like “House on Haunted Hill” (1999) and “Jeepers Creepers” (2001) featured characters realizing they were holding useless plastic flip-bricks as their situations grew hairy. (In the former, the possessed house kills the signal before any of its inhabitants; in the latter, young adult siblings bicker over a low battery notification after witnessing what turns out to be a winged demon.) With smartphones, there was even more to neutralize, like GPS maps and internet searches. Movies taking pains to explain away cellphones were so prevalent that by 2009, I could collect more than 40 clips for a supercut exploring this development in the previous decade or so….
At least you can watch the supercut free on YouTube:
Late last year, Liverpool University Press (LUP), a UK-based publisher, received a concerning e-mail. A prospective author had contacted the editors asking how much it would cost to publish an article in one of its journals, the InternationalDevelopmentPlanningReview (IDPR).
This raised suspicions among the editors, because the IDPR doesn’t charge any publication fees. The message also contained a link to the IDPR’s website — but the URL was incorrect. When the editors clicked it, they discovered a counterfeit website with the journal’s branding and an e-mail address that they’d never seen before. The journal had been hijacked.
Hijacked journals are a form of cybercrime in which a malicious third party creates a cloned website to impersonate a legitimate publication. The forgery replicates the original journal’s important details, from its title to its archive and international standard serial number, a code that identifies the publication. The purpose of a hijacking is to generate money quickly by charging illegitimate article-processing fees to unsuspecting researchers. Although the hijackers often publish papers that have been submitted to the fraudulent site, these works are not peer-reviewed nor considered legitimate.
A blogpost in April presented the challenges that LUP faced as a result of the hijacking, including the burden placed on its small editorial team. The intention, according to Clare Hooper, director of journals publishing at LUP, is to alert researchers to the “growing problem of copycat journal websites”….
These issues are as relevant now as they were years ago, if not more so. I hear all the time from writers who’ve been offered seriously problematic contracts and are using various rationalizations to convince themselves (sometimes at the publisher’s urging) that bad language or bad terms are not actually so bad, or are unlikely ever to apply. For example, I recently evaluated a contract with multiple questionable terms, including net profit royalties and a life-of-copyright grant without adequate provision for termination and rights reversion; the writer shared my concerns with the publisher, which responded with a long explanation for why none of it was actually a problem. The writer chose to sign the contract.
Here are my suggestions for changing some potentially damaging ways of thinking.
Don’t assume that every single word of your contract won’t apply to you at some point. You may think “Oh, that will never happen” (for instance, the publisher’s right to refuse to publish your manuscript if it thinks that changes in the market may reduce your sales, or its right to terminate the contract if it believes you’ve violated a non-disparagement clause). Or the publisher may tell you “We never actually do that” or, more cagily, “We’ve never actually done that” (for example, edit at will without consulting you, or impose the termination fee that’s the price of getting out of the contract early). But if your contract says it can happen, it may well happen…and if it does happen, can you live with it?That’s the question you need to ask yourself when evaluating a contract….
(6) FREE READ. To encourage subscriptions, Sunday Morning Transport has posted “Artists and Fools”.
For July’s fourth, free, story, Paolo Bacigalupi brings us a tale from the world of his new fantasy novel, Navola. We hope you enjoy meeting Pico the artist as much as we have!
(7) ROBERT BLOCH OFFICIAL WEBSITE UPDATE. Two essay contributions from Bloch historian/bibliographer, Randall D. Larson, have been added to the Robert Bloch Official Website’s “By Others” page.
Are you a full-fledged Gryffindor? Come stay in The Common Room, modeled after the Gryffindor common room at Hogwarts. The home comes with all the amenities one would need for an ideal getaway, including a kitchen, lofted bed, and Wi-Fi, but it also has the added perk of looking just like the movie set, with framed photos of Snape, a magic broom, and of course, plenty of Harry Potter DVDs for a night in. Book it now starting at $148/night.
(9) MEMORY LANE.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
1944 – The Canterville Ghost.
Eighty years ago, The Canterville Ghost premiered. It was somewhat loosely on the 1887 short story by Oscar Wilde of the same name as published in two parts in The Court and Society Review, a British literary magazine only published between 1885 and 1888. That wasn’t unusual as a lot of those literary and not so literary magazines failed after a few months, and not an insignificant number lasted just a single issue.
I should note before we go any further that I stopped counting when I found at least nine films had been made of this tale, and at least two series. I’ll only mention one of these, a film in the Nineties with a certain naturally-bald Starship Captain, yes Patrick Stewart, given long flowing hair and a beard as the ghost. So how could I resist showing you him in that role?
The first version is a film very much of its time. The plot had Charles Laughton as a ghost doomed to haunt an English castle, and Robert Young as his distant American relative called upon to perform an act of bravery to redeem him. No one would get hurt in the story, no surprise at all.
Yes, there is redhead here as well in the winsome form of the six-year-old Margaret O’Brien who was born Angela Maxine O’Brien. O’Brien is of half-Irish and half-Spanish ancestry. She was one of the most popular child stars in cinema history and would be honored with a Juvenile Academy Award as an outstanding child actress the year this film came out.
I was looking for a particularly cute photo of her with Simon and I think that I indeed found in it in this one of her sitting on the stairs with him off to the right also sitting. What do you think? Am I right?
Here she plays the Lady Jessica de Canterville, Robert Young is Cuffy Williams and Charles Laughton is the ghostly Sir Simon de Canterville.
The motion picture was shot at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios with outdoor shots filming done at Busch Gardens in Pasadena, California. Busch Gardens was the almost forty acres of gardens owned by Adolphus Busch. The Hollywood film industry would use the gardens in many films shot in the Thirties onward such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein and Gone With the Wind.
It was directed by Jules Dassin with additional directing by Norman Z. McLeod who went uncredited, The only film I know I’ve seen by Dassin is Night and the City, a stellar British noir work. Now the screenplay was by Edwin Blum who went on to script Stalag 17, an entirely grimmer affair. It was produced by Arthur Fields, just one of three films that he did.
No idea how it did as I can find no box office or production costs for it.
(11) DEADPOOL DIES? No sooner does his movie make a mint than Marvel Comics announces Deadpool’s daughter, Ellie, will take over as Deadpool following Wade’s death this October in Deadpool #7!
Deadpool is dead—long live Deadpool! It was previously revealed that Wade Wilson will meet his end at the hands of new super villain Death Grip this October in DEADPOOL #6. Following this shocking turn of events, his daughter, Ellie Camacho, will step up as the all-new Deadpool starting in November’s DEADPOOL #7! Just revealed at the Diamond Retailer Lunch at San Diego Comic-Con, Ellie’s new role is the latest twist in what’s been writer Cody Ziglar’s roller coaster of a run. To welcome the new Merc with a Mouth, Ziglar will be joined by guest artist Andrea Di Vito and co-writer Alexis Quasarano in her Marvel Comics debut.
Wade has fallen, and his daughter Ellie has taken up the mantle! Taskmaster continues her mercenary training, but what she really wants is vengeance. And to get that, she’ll need Princess’ help. For more information, visit Marvel.com.
DEADPOOL #7
Written by CODY ZIGLAR & ALEXIS QUASARANO. Art by ANDREA DI VITO.
Robert Downey Jr. is set to return to the film franchise as classic Fantastic Four villain Doctor Doom for the newly titled Avengers: Doomsday, due out in May 2026, and Avengers: Secret Wars, bowing in May 2027. Kevin Feige also officially confirmed the Russo bros. will direct these next two Avengers films.
Downey became one of the biggest movie stars in the world after launching the Marvel Cinematic Universe with 2008’s Iron Man. His work helped propel the MCU to become the highest grossing film franchise of all time — and he was handsomely rewarded, earning $50 million paydays in the process. Downey retired from the role of Tony Stark/Iron Man with 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, in which his character died saving the universe. It’s been a challenge for Marvel to find a protagonist to replace the large hole left by Downey, giving Saturday’s announcement all the more meaning.
“New mask, same task,” Downey told the audience from the stage.
Downey was revealed in an almost religious ceremony as about two dozen olive-robed men with metal, Doctor Doom-like masks walked on stage, joining Feige and the Russo Bros. “If we’re going to bring Victor Von Doom to the screen — he is one of the more complex characters in all of comics … this is potentially one of the more entertaining characters in all of fiction,” said Joe Russo. “If we’re going to do this … then we are going to need the greatest actor in the world.”…
A frightful phone call and a deadly threat lures Peacemaker’s wielder back to Purgatory in the full trailer for Wynonna Earp: Vengeance, the 90-minute reunion special coming “soon” to Tubi.
(15) HMS SURPRISE. While in town for Comic-Con, Naomi Novik visited the Maritime Museum of San Diego.
I have finally made it on to the HMS Surprise! ???? This replica of a Royal Navy tallship was used in Master & Commander, the film adaptation of Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey/Maturin series – one of the sparks behind Temeraire. ????Now at the @sdmaritimepic.twitter.com/lEKLR3fGBP
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, Ersatz Culture, SF Lightyear, Rich Lynch, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, 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 Daniel Dern.]
By Ersatz Culture: (Note: All the following text extracts are machine translations from Chinese, using a mixture of Google and DeepL tools. Some minor manual edits have been made, but there are minimal attempts to try to decipher the meaning of terms such as “online carrier”, “brand inheritance” or the “Through the Wormhole” plan.)
The local government of the area where the 2023 Chengdu Worldcon took place has published a 10-year plan, which — amongst other things — indicates an intention to bid to hold the Worldcon again, within the next five years.
Notice on the issuance of the “Action Plan for the Construction of Chengdu Science Fiction Center in Pidu District (2023-2033)”
To district-level departments, streets (towns), and industrial functional zones:
The “Pidu District Action Plan for Building the Chengdu Science Fiction Center (2023-2033)” has been reviewed and approved by the 29th District Governor’s Office Meeting and the 31st Executive Meeting of the 19th Pidu District, Chengdu City, and is hereby issued to you. Please comply with it and implement it.
Chengdu Pidu District People’s Government Office
The plan comprises 24 items, split into eight sections:
Overall requirements (items #1-3)
Overall positioning (items #4-6)
Implement the science fiction industry agglomeration project (items #7-9)
Implement the science fiction technology integration project (items #10-12)
Implement the science fiction branding project (items #13-15)
Implement the science fiction business prosperity project (items #16-18)
Implement the science fiction ecological construction project (items #19-21)
Safeguarding measures (items #22-24)
Much of the plan seems to be about science and technology, rather than science fiction, so those items will not be covered here. Furthermore, a lot of the text is also somewhat obtuse in terms of what exactly is being planned, which may or may not be down to the vagaries of machine translation.
However, there are some items which cover areas of direct relevance to File 770 readers and the wider fandom. These are extracted below, with my highlighting in bold of the most relevant bits.
4. Focus on IP creation and introduction. Establish a science fiction IP creation center, using the Worldcon Metaverse as the online carrier and the World Science Fiction Master Village as the offline support, to collect original science fiction works, carry out training in screenwriting, writing intelligent tools, technology-enabled creation, and worldview licensing co-creation, capital docking, brand promotion and other services, and strive to create or introduce more than 2 Hugo Award-nominated works and 100 science fiction-themed IPs within 3 years.
6. Promote IP development and transformation. Establish a science fiction IP operation and transformation center to integrate the power of science fiction creators, technology research and development institutions, and science fiction operation teams, connect with investors, developers, producers, channels and other professional institutions, and promote top domestic and foreign IPs such as the Hugo Awards and the Galaxy Awards. Transform into products or scenes such as film and television animation, cultural and creative products, live entertainment, etc. Strive to sign and establish more than 2 Hugo Award IP blockbuster film and television dramas within 5 years, and develop more than 10 science fiction demonstration products and application scenarios with national influence.
13. Extend the brand effect of the Worldcon. Implement the conference brand inheritance plan, strive for authorization from the World Science Fiction Society, and continue to carry out ten parallel venues of the Worldcon, the World Science Fiction Industry Development Promotion Forum, the Future Choice of the Worldcon [presumably referring to Site Selection?], the “Hugo X” [aka “Discover-X”] Science Fiction Carnival, and the Worldcon Organizers Conference [referring to SMOFcon?]. A large-scale derivative international brand activity strives to establish the Worldcon Brand Protection and Communication Center, and strives to apply for the Worldcon again within five years. Implement the conference heritage reuse plan, prepare to build the 81st Worldcon Memorial Hall, collect and preserve the convention’s Hugo Award-winning works, trophies, audio and video, artistic creation and other resources, and continue to develop a series of cultural and creative derivatives based on the cultural IP of the Worldcon and Xingyun Award.
14. Enhance the city’s science fiction brand. Expand the brand influence of science fiction exhibitions, strive to host the Asia-Pacific Science Fiction Conference, host science fiction events such as the China (Chengdu) International Science Fiction Conference, and hold prestigious international and domestic science fiction awards such as the “Chinese Science Fiction Xingyun Award” and “Future Science Fiction Master Award”. Cultivate local science fiction exhibition brands, introduce well-known performing arts groups, science fiction enterprises, and professional institutions, focus on Tianfu culture, cutting-edge technology and other fields, plan and hold themed exhibitions such as the “Near Future” science and technology concept exhibition. It will also develop and build the “Science Fiction Time and Space – Ancient Shu” theme, stage plays, music festivals and other special performing arts brands, and strive to hold no less than 10 industry-influential science fiction exhibitions and performing arts activities every year .
17. Build an international community system. Lead the establishment of science fiction alliances in colleges and universities, guide and support the establishment of science fiction associations in colleges and universities in the region, and explore the working mechanism of establishing science fiction associations in colleges and universities to export talents to science fiction enterprises. Gather sci-fi practitioners, innovate consumption discounts, customized services and other models, create interactive scenes such as parent-child gatherings, themed salons, business negotiations etc, and create a club for sci-fi practitioners. Create colorful fan communities, continue to operate the online space of the Worldcon, implement the “Through the Wormhole” plan, build a regular online communication space between domestic fans and core members of the Worldcon, and senior foreign fans; accurately cultivate unique IP communities, implement the “Stars and Sea” plan, rely on the new media matrix and offline science fiction space, and carry out classic IP promotion activities with one theme per quarter.
I had a cursory look at the Weibo accounts of some of the people on the 2023 Chengdu Worldcon concom, and couldn’t find any posts or comments referencing this plan. It is certainly possible that there could have been posts around the time this plan was first announced in early April, but I’m a bit doubtful – this announcement only seemed to be picked up a couple of weeks later, in this SF Light Year Weibo post on the 24th. There will be events at the Chengdu SF Museum over the weekend of 18-19 May – including the Xingyun Award ceremony – so perhaps some further announcements will happen then?
[The complete Chinese language graphic follows the jump.]
(1) THE ROBOPOCALYPSE. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Who is the best time traveler? Well, of course the Doctor is, but then Brit Cit is the epicentre of SF. Nonetheless, across the Black Atlantic, in the home of the Mega Cities and the Cursed Earth, there are other time-travelling franchises…
“He was back….” BBC Radio 4 has just aired a programme dedicated to The Terminator a modern classic SF film that is this year 40 years old: ”I’ll Be Back: 40 Years of The Terminator”.
“It was the machines, Sarah…a new order of intelligence. Decided our fate in a microsecond: extermination.” So says Kyle Reese, time travelling freedom fighter in The Terminator. Released in the perfectly fitting year of 1984, The Terminator was a low budget, relentless slice of science fiction noir, drawing on years of pulp sf to conjure a future nightmare of humanity hunted to near extinction by the machines it created. In 2029, just 5 years away now, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s unstoppable cyborg killer is sent back to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor, the yet to be mother of humanities saviour to come. Fate, redemption & the destructive power of A.I. all made in the analogue age but still influencing the way many imagine our new age of Artificial Intelligence.
Professor Beth Singler re-visits the making of the film with producer Gale Anne Hurd and explores its lasting influence. Forty years on, and the circular self-contained time travel plot of The Terminator has been cracked wide open letting out alternative timelines and delayed apocalypses: more films, a television show, graphic novels, comics, video games, theme park rides and even memes have spread versions of the original robopocalypse. More than that, the first Terminator has given us a vocabulary and a vision for the dangers of Artificial Intelligence.
The following summary bullet points for the Science Fiction World list are a suitable teaser – producing a Chinese recommendation list that doesn’t include any Chinese works first published in the year of eligibility — other than the fanzine — strikes me as an unconventional choice…
Recommendations over 6 categories, with between 1 and 5 recommendations in each.
No Chinese fiction works first published in 2023 are included in the recommendations.
All the recommended novels are in English or Polish, and not yet announced for publication in China.
All of the novella and short story recommendations are older stories that were published in English translation in 2023 in a pair of venues.
Several of the categories that had recommendations last year – including Best Novelette – have no recommendations this year.
The editor recommendations are almost identical to last year – including the works listed.
(3) CLIPPING SERVICE. [Item by Daniel Dern.] I’m a NYTimes digital/paper subscriber, so I can do 10 “gift links”/month. I’ve been told (by somewhat reliable colleagues) that I can share to email lists, groups, etc, which I assume/believe includes F770-type thingies.
If I’m wrong, may the Pallid Ghost of the Gray Lady bite me on the nose (with mild apologies to Johnny Carson).
Note, these share links are only good for “30 days after [I’ve] shared it}…good enough for current readers, not so much for anyone dredging the past.
Sweden’s courts have been debating claims to a meteorite that fell north of Stockholm, including whether the right to move around in nature, including on private property, extends to claiming a meteorite….
In December 2023, BookmarkED—an app designed to “help” educators, librarians, and parents navigate book bans in school libraries—rebranded. Now OnShelf, the app has been making its way into schools in Texas. Freedom of Information Requests obtained new information about how the app is getting into districts in Texas and how the app alerts users to so-called “banned books” in the district. The app is a student data privacy nightmare, and it undermines the professional capabilities of trained teacher librarians in educational institutions.
What Is BookmarkED/OnShelf? A Little About The App’s History
Founded by Steve Wandler, who works in the education technology space, BookmarkED aims to “empower parents to personalize school libraries.” It aims to ensure that parents get to decide the “individual literary journey for their children, based on their personal values and interests,” while teachers and librarians can keep “confidently recommending and providing more personalized books to their students, knowing precisely the learning outcomes they will achieve.” The technology helps libraries “simply and efficiently navigate the ever-changing challenged books landscape.”
BookmarkED soft launched their product during a Texas State Senate Committee on Education meeting on March 30, 2023, two and a half months before Texas passed the READER Act. Wandler noted that the app was developed while working with a superintendent in the state. That superintendent, Jason Cochran, is one of the owners of the app, and as of writing, works as the superintendent of Krum Independent School District. Prior to Krum, Cochran was superintendent at Eastland Independent School District. …
Romantasy was added as a category in the Goodreads Choice Awards in 2023, a fact mentioned several times at the inaugural Romantasy Literary Genre Festival, held March 22–24 at the Otherworld Theater in Chicago. More than 100 people celebrating the relatively new but rapidly growing genre attended the festival, which included author signings and Q&As, live podcast recordings, a drag tournament called Drag’N Brunch, and daily showings of Twihard!, a musical parody of Twilight. Books were sold on site by local indie bookstore Women & Children First.
The festival kicked off on Friday with a cocktail hour, mixer, and the weekend’s first performance of Twihard! Saturday, the first full day of the festival, began with the recording of the Whoa!mance podcast, hosted by Isabeau Dasho and Morgan Lott, who moderated an author panel with authors Samara Breger, Tamara Jerée, Megan Mackie, and Melanie K. Moschella. During the 90-minute conversation, the authors discussed their creative processes, genre crossovers, worldbuilding, escapism, beloved tropes, queer monsters, and more….
“ What I didn’t think at the time, and wasn’t thinking about until later, was how, traditionally, the Black man is not the guy who lasts to the end. This was one of the first movies where the Black guy lasts to the final scene. I don’t think I’m the only brother who’s ever survived in a horror or sci-fi movie, but I’m certainly one of the few. It was great foresight on John’s part.
I hear lots of theories about the final sequence. We played it various ways; as if I was the Thing, as if it was MacReady, and as if it was neither of us. People wonder why there’s no breath coming out of my mouth in the cold after the station burns down, and say it had to be me. But I say that if I’m downstage of the fire you wouldn’t see steam coming from my mouth because there’s too much heat. That’s how I explain it, but it’s your movie, your experience. The Thing is whoever you think it is.”
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born March 26, 1931 – Leonard Nimoy. (Died 2015.) Pointy ears, green skin — it must be Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock. And what an amazing role it was. So what was Roddenberry’s initial conception of the character? Here it is:
The First Lieutenant. The Captain’s right-hand man, the working-level commander of all the ship’s functions – ranging from manning the bridge to supervising the lowliest scrub detail. His name is Mr. Spock. And the first view of him can be almost frightening – a face so heavy-lidded and satanic you might almost expect him to have a forked tail. Probably half Martian, has a slightly reddish complexion and semi-pointed ears. But strangely – Mr. Spock’s quiet temperament is in dramatic contrast to his satanic look. Of all the crew aboard, he is the nearest to Captain April’s equal, physically, emotionally, and as a commander of men. His primary weakness is an almost catlike curiosity over anything the slightest alien.
“The Cage” — Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Pike. Leonard Nimoy as Spock.
Although Memory Alpha says that Roddenberry settled on Nimoy from the beginning, other accounts say that Martin Landau was an earlier casting consideration for the character, and several sources say DeForest Kelley auditioned for the role as well. Actual history is often far messier than the official version is.
So we get to Nimoy. It’s hard now over a half century on to imagine anyone else in that role, isn’t it? Can you envision Martin Landau in the role, or DeForest Kelley? Especially the latter? I certainly can’t. For better or worse, well better, Nimoy made for me the perfect Spock.
Cool, elegant, ever so, dare I say it? almost on the edge of being sarcastic if Vulcans could indeed be that. Certainly more fascinating a character by far on the series than Kirk was by far. Yes, Kirk was cast in interesting stories such as “Shore Leave” but Spock was script in and out just more interesting to watch.
So my favorite Spock centered episodes? “Dagger of the Mind” in which marked the introduction of his mind-meld ability; “Amok Time” of course which also has the bonus of when “Live Long and Prosper” first showed up; “Journey to Babel” in we meet his parents, Sarek (Mark Leonard) and Amanda (Jane Wyatt); and “The Enterprise Incident “ for his not really amorous relationship with the unnamed Romulan Commander (yes she gets no name) and the rest of that splendid story.
Leonard Nimoy (Spock) at the Las Vegas Star Trek Convention 2011. Photo by Beth Madison.
I rewatched much of the series recently on Paramount+ as well as all of the other Trek series save the one season of the animated YA series whose name is completely escaping my name are here. (Never did figure out why they cancelled something so cheap to do when Strange New Worlds can cost them as much as ten million dollars an episode.) He’s still my favorite when I rewatched them. I so wanted a spin-off Spock centered series to have happened after Trek ended.
Usually I look at a performer’s entire genre career but I think I will look at just a single post-Trek undertaking, being Dr. William Bell in the stellar Fringe series. He decided to do the role after working with Abrams and Kurtzman on the rebooted Star Trek film and was offered with this series the chance to work with them again. He actually retired from acting before the series concluded but continued on here through its ending.
(8) COMICS SECTION.
Bizarro proves that ads are creeping in everywhere.
(9) EARTH ABIDES TO TV. [Item by Ersatz Culture.] TVLine reports that a six-episode limited series adaptation of George R. Stewart’s Earth Abides is about to go into production.
Alexander Ludwig is relocating from Starz to MGM+.
Fresh off the cancellation of Heels, Ludwig will headline the MGM+ limited series Earth Abides, based on the George R. Stewart novel of the same name.
Adapted by showrunner Todd Komarnicki (Sully) and described as “a wildly imaginative new take” on the sci-fi classic, Earth Abides centers on Ludwig’s Ish, “a brilliant but solitary young geologist living a semi-isolated life who awakens from a coma only to find that there is no one left alive but him…
Production on the six-episode series is set to begin in Vancouver on Monday, April 8. MGM+ is targeting a late 2024 release date.
The first season of the latest Walking Dead spinoff The Ones Who Live is concluding this weekend, but the latest profit participation lawsuit from zombie apocalypse creator Robert Kirkman, franchise executive producer Gale Anne Hurd and others is far from over.
With heavy emphasis on the $200 million settlement AMC suddenly made in 2021 to end ex-TWD showrunner Frank Darabont and CAA’s nearly 10-year long lawsuit over profits, U.S. District Judge Fernando Aenlle-Rocha yesterday denied the outlet’s move to have Kirkman, Hurd, David Alpert, Charles Eglee and Glen Mazzara’s mega-millions case dismissed.
“It would be an illogical interpretation of the MFN (most favored nations) provisions and contrary to the reasonable expectations of the parties in entering into the agreements if the court were to allow Defendants, as a matter of law, to provide Darabont and CAA with increased contingent compensation and a greater share of future gross receipts for the series through a settlement agreement—at Plaintiffs’ expense—without providing Plaintiffs the same,” the California-based federal judge wrote in a 13-page ruling filed Monday (read the TWD EP case ruling here).
Having pulled the short stick in a previous suit against AMC, Kirkman, Hurd and fellow TWD EPs sued AMC for $200 million in a November 15, 2022 breach of contract action.
“Plaintiffs are entitled to the same treatment afforded to Darabont with respect to his MAGR interests, they are therefore entitled to have the same valuation applied to their MAGR interests, which, collectively, exceed Darabont’s and CAA’s,” the LA Superior Court filing declared with reference to modified adjusted gross receipts metric used to gauge profit participation payouts. “As a result, Plaintiffs are entitled to a payment well over $200 million from AMC, in an amount to be proved at trial.”…
Astronomers are calling for the urgent protection of sites on the moon that are rated the best spots in the solar system for advanced instruments designed to unveil the secrets of the universe.
The prime locations are free from ground vibration, shielded from Earth’s noisy broadcast signals or profoundly cold – making them uniquely well-suited for sensitive equipment that could make observations impossible from elsewhere.
But the pristine spots, known as sites of extraordinary scientific importance (Sesis), are in danger of being ruined by an imminent wave of missions such as lunar navigation and communications satellites, rovers and mining operations, with experts warning on Monday that safeguarding the precious sites was an “urgent matter”.
“This is the first time humanity has to decide how we will expand into the solar system,” said Dr Martin Elvis, an astronomer at the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts. “We’re in danger of losing one-of-a-kind opportunities to understand the universe.”…
[Thanks to Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Ersatz Culture, Daniel Dern, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Soon Lee.]
(1) FANGS FOR THE MEMORIES: NO MORE LEO AWARDS. The day after we reported the 2024 shortlist, Furry Book Review pulled the plug on the Leo Awards. Here’s why:
They’ll be missed – there wasn’t a cuter award in the field!
(2) RECOGNITION IN TEXAS. Congratulations to Michael Bracken on being inducted to the Texas Institute of Letters. The honor society was established in 1936 to celebrate Texas literature and recognize distinctive literary achievement. Bracken, who long ago published the fanzine Knights of the Paper Spaceship, has since forged a distinguished career as a crime fiction author. His stories have been finalists for the Anthony, Edgar, Derringer and Shamus Awards.
(3) KEEPING UP WITH SOCIAL MEDIA. In this highly amusing video Andrea Stewart says, “I swear I see the same six discussions going around online, in perpetuity.”
Any of these recommendations that tagged with * is either someone I’ve corresponded or worked with, or a project which I’ve worked on, or contributed to, and so I can’t claim that those are unbiased recommendations.
Links are generally to Chinese language pages/sites unless otherwise stated. An exception are Twitter links, which will generally be comprised of English language posts.
My Chinese language skills are way too poor to be able to read the majority of real-world content without either a lot of effort or (far more likely) resorting to machine translation. As such, any writing that is particularly clever in a literary way is likely to pass completely over my head; I’m evaluating stuff on a very basic level. (This is why the writing I cover here is more on the news/factual side than criticism/reviews.)
Further to the previous point, my dependence on machine translation means that my understanding of materials that I only possess in a physical form – i.e. all the non-fiction works I list – is at a very shallow and surface level; not much better than “I liked looking at all the pretty pictures”, to be brutally frank. As such, feel perfectly free to discount any of my observations on those grounds alone.
When sci-fi writer Melinda M Snodgrass sat down to write Star Trek episode The High Ground, she had little idea of the unexpected ripples of controversy it would still be making more than three decades later.
“We became aware of it later… and there isn’t much you can do about it,” she says, speaking to the BBC from her home in New Mexico. “Writing for television is like laying track for a train that’s about 300 feet behind you. You really don’t have time to stop.”
While the series has legions of followers steeped in its lore, that one particular episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation has lived long and prospered in infamy.
It comes down to a scene in which the android character Data, played by actor Brent Spiner, talks about the “Irish unification of 2024” as an example of violence successfully achieving a political aim.
Originally shown in the US in 1990, there was so much concern over the exchange that the episode was not broadcast on the BBC or Irish public broadcaster RTÉ…
(6) NEW EDGE SWORD & SORCERY BACKERKIT CROWDFUNDER FOR ISSUES 3&4. New Edge Sword & Sorceryis crowdfunding its next two issues via “New Edge Sword & Sorcery 2024” at BackerKit. They’ve achieved their basic goal, now Editor Oliver Brackenbury says, “All our stretch goals from now on are pay raises for our contributors!” The campaign ends March 16.
Backing this campaign is a way to be a part of genre history: JIREL OF JOIRY will be returning with her first new story in 85 years! Jirel was the first Sword & Sorcery heroine, created by legendary Weird Tales regular, C.L. Moore. Like Alice in Wonderland with a big f***ing sword, Jirel had compelling adventures in bizarre dream-logic realms, balancing a rich emotional life with terrifying struggles against dark forces! Predating Red Sonja, she & Moore were a direct influence on Robert E. Howard’s writing, as well as so many who came after.
Alas, Moore only wrote a handful of Jirel tales – which are still collected, published, and read to this day. So it’s a good thing that when backers of the campaign helped it hit 100% funding in just under three days, they helped make sure a new story will be published! Authorized by the estate of C.L. Moore, “Jirel and the Mirror of Truth” has been written by the magnificent MOLLY TANZER (editor of Swords v. Cthulhu, author of Creatures of Charm and Hunger, and so much more).
Seventeen other authors are spread across the two new issues this campaign is funding, including names like Harry Turtledove, Premee Mohamed, and Thomas Ha. Even Michael Moorcock returns with an obscure Elric reprint not included in the recent Saga collection!
(7) APPLY FOR DIANA JONES AWARD EMERGING DESIGNER PROGRAM. Submissions are open for the Diana Jones Award Emerging Designer Program through April 2. This program focuses on amplifying the voices of up-and-coming tabletop/hobby game designers with a focus on creators from marginalized communities. The complete guidelines are here. Submit using the form at the link.
The Emerging Designer Program provides both access and support to those designers that have historically been excluded from the larger industry conversations. While we recognize this program is only a first step in that process, our organization is committed to pushing forward, learning from mistakes, and improving the industry we love.
Designers who are selected as finalists receive a free badge and hotel room at Gen Con, up to $2,000 travel reimbursement for both domestic and international travel, a $75 per day food stipend, a $2,000 honorarium for presenting their work, and a prize package of game design resources. They’re also showcased as a Diana Jones Award Emerging Designer at Gen Con.
Eligible designers should have released their first professional or commercial publication (including free, self-published, PWYW, and PDF releases) no more than three years before the selection year. A designer selected for 2024’s Diana Jones Award Emerging Designer Program should not have first published before 2021, for example. We interpret “hobby game designer” broadly, to include both narrative and game mechanics design.
…On Friday, author/illustrator Philip Stead visited our school. He did three presentations, so that each one of our students and teachers could hang out with him.
His presentations were captivating. I was on the edge of my seat for 65 minutes.
Phil showed them his books, his process, his studio. He answered questions. He read them one of his books.
All the things we have come to expect from an author visit….
Like all page-to-screen adaptations, Dune: Part Two makes a few changes from the novel it’s based on. For director Denis Villeneuve, though, one change in particular was the most difficult to enact: the omission of Thufir Hawat.
“One of the most painful choices for me on this one was Thufir Hawat,” Villeneuve told Entertainment Weekly. “He’s a character I absolutely love, but I decided right at the beginning that I was making a Bene Gesserit adaptation. That meant that Mentats are not as present as they should be, but it’s the nature of the adaptation.”Thufir Hawat is a Mentat, AKA a human whose mind has been trained to have the same power as a supercomputer. Played by Stephen McKinley Henderson in Dune: Part One, he works for House Atreides and is a mentor for Paul (Timothée Chalamet), but was blackmailed into working for House Harkonnen after they orchestrated the murder of Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) – Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård) poisons him and will only administer doses of the antidote if he complies….
(10) OUR EYEWITNESS. Camestros Felapton popped out to the theater and came home to write “Review: Dune Part 2”. He sounds worried about revealing spoilers, so be warned. Now it’s not like you don’t know the story, however, you haven’t seen what they do in the film.
…Dune Part 2 is nearly three hours long and if anything, the script has simplified the plot of the second half of the novel. The net effect is a film that appears to rush by in a stream of compelling images to the extent that it feels like a much shorter film. The space created by the simpler plot and expansive running time is filled with dramatic sequences that relish in the setting and the events of the story. Above all, the film taps into the sense of weirdness and immersion into another imagined culture that makes the book so beloved.
One thing I particularly liked was the way Fremen society was expanded upon. The impression of a planet of millions of hidden peoples with a variety of experiences and attitudes but also with a common culture was deftly done. The sietch communities feel like real places built by a complex society that is doing more than just surviving in the harsh environment and amid brutal oppression….
The glow of a mobile phone, the rustling of sweet wrappers and someone asking if they can squeeze past you to nip to the loo are things that can really distract you from the plot while you’re in the cinema.
But bizarrely, it’s the popcorn buckets which are diverting the attention of film fans flocking to watch Dune: Part Two.
Then again, when you see them, you can understand why.
Rather than fighting to get a ticket in a packed out theatre, audiences are instead scrapping over the limited edition container which the classic movie snack comes in.
Focus has fallen on the unique popcorn buckets which have been released as part of the promo for Dune: Part Two, rather than what’s actually going on in the sequel.
(12) NECESSITY! Tiny Time Machine 3: Mother of Invention, the final book in John Stith’s “Tiny Time Machine” series, was released today by Amazing Selects™, an imprint of Amazing Stories.
In Tiny Time Machine 1, Meg and Josh discovered a time machine built into a cell phone and used it to avert a disastrous future. But along the way, Meg’s father, the inventor, was killed.
In Tiny Time Machine 2: Return of the Father, Meg and Josh brought a sarcastic AI, Valex, from the future to help them enhance the tiny time machine so it can open a portal to the past, and did their best to rescue Dad before his ex-partner could harm him.
Now, Meg and Josh are back in a third installment, Their mission: to venture even farther into the past so they can save Meg’s mother before she dies in the hospital mishap that originally triggered Dad’s efforts to build the tiny time machine. Along the way, they must fix the future again and survive a final confrontation with Dad’s ex partner.
(13) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born March 4, 1946 — Patricia Kennealy-Morrison. (Died 2021.) Patricia Kennealy-Morrison as she later called herself was hand-fasted to Jim Morrison in a Celtic ceremony in 1970. It would be by no means a traditional relationship and that’s putting it mildly.
So it shouldn’t surprise you that much of her writing would be Celtic-tinged. The Keltiad, a fantasy series, was set far, far away. I mean really far away, possibly in another galaxy. There are eight novels in the series and one collection of short stories. She intended more works but the publisher dropped it when sales fell off.
So how are they? Well, maybe I’m not the best judge of literary style as I thought the Potter books were badly written and these I think are equally badly written. Think clichéd SF blended ineptly with Celtic fantasy.
Now when she decides to write in a more a traditional fantasy vein she is quite fine, as in her Tales of Arthur trilogywhich is The Hawk’s Gray Feather, The Oak Above the Kings and The Hedge of Mist. It’s actually pretty good Arthurian fiction.
Now the last thing I want mention about her is not even genre adjacent. She did two mystery series, the best of which are The Rock & Roll Murders. All but one are set at music events such as Go Ask Malice: Murder at Woodstock and California Screamin’: Murder at Monterey Pop. The era is nicely done by her and the mysteries, well, less evocative than the people and the setting but that’s ok.
The other mystery series, the Rennie Stride Murders, involves and I quote online copy here, “She’s a newspaper reporter whose beat is rock, not a detective, and her best-friend sidekick is a blonde bisexual superstar chick singer.” It’s set in LA during the Sixties and is her deep dive in that music world according to the reviews I came across.
They have titles, and I’m not kidding, like Daydream Bereaver, Scareway to Heaven and Go Ask Malice. No idea how they are, this is the first time I’ve heard of them.
(14) COMICS SECTION.
Popeye– you’ll need to scroll down to read the March 3 strip, which is what we want to feature.
Peanutsfrom 1955 has more about satellites and other dangers.
Hi and Lois reveals a child’s-eye view of autographed books.
The Far Side shows who else unexpectedly lives on the Yellow Brick Road.
Adapting Neil Gaiman’s Chivalry is a decades-long dream fulfilled. The story as text can be enjoyed on multiple levels, and so can the art. You look at the pages and see the pretty pictures, but the pictures also have meta-textual meaning. Knowing this secret language adds to the experience….
…For example, Ford Madox Brown’s Work, a painting which took some 13 years to complete, was first exhibited in 1865 with a catalogue explaining all its symbols and elements. There is nothing in that picture that doesn’t mean something.
I brought some of that visual meta-textual sensibility to Chivalry, (and I’ve written about the symbolism and meanings in the work in other essays.)
I also brought into the work direct Pre-Raphaelite art references….
So you’re fired up about Dune‘s recent big screen adaptations, and while you’re steel reeling from the shock and awe of Dune: Part Two, you’re wanting to dive into the world of Frank Herbert’s beloved science fiction novels. Congratulations! You’ve got an exciting literary journey ahead. And whether you’ve dabbled in Dune lore before or you’re completely new to the wild world of Arrakis, there’s something for everyone in this Titanic-sized series about power, violence, and fate….
(17) WHEN TO QUIT READING. PZ Myers knows there are a lot of books in the series, because he ends his review of Dune 2 at Pharyngula on FreeThoughtBlogs by reposting this infographic. (I don’t know its original source.) [Click for larger image.]
… There’s talk that there may be a third Dune yet to come, which worries me a bit. There are studio executives dreaming of a franchise now, I’m sure of it, but I have to warn them that that is a path destined to lead them into madness and chaos. The sequels are weird, man. Heed Chani and shun the way towards fanaticism and corporate jihad.
Ooh, just saw this summary of the Dune series. I agree with it. I should have stopped with Dune Messiah, years ago.
(18) GET READY FOR BAIRD’S LATEST. Keith Anthony Baird lives in Cumbria, United Kingdom, on the edge of the Lake District National Park. His SIN:THETICA will be released in May; pre-order now at the Amazon.ca: Kindle Store.
The Sino-Nippon war is over. It is 2113 and Japan is crushed under the might of Chinese-Allied Forces. A former Coalition Corps soldier, US Marine Balaam Hendrix is now a feared bounty hunter known as ‘The Reverend’. In the sprawl of NeuTokyo, on this lawless frontier, he must track down the rogue employee of a notorious crime lord. But, there’s a twist. His target has found protection inside a virtual reality construct and Hendrix must go cyber-side to corner his quarry. The glowing neon signs for SIN:THETICA are everywhere, and promise escape from a dystopian reality. But will it prove the means by which this hunter snares his prey, or will it be the trap he simply can’t survive?
Keith Anthony Baird began writing dark fiction in 2016 as a self-published author. After five years of releasing titles via Amazon and Audible he switched his focus to the traditional publishing route. His dark fantasy novella In the Grimdark Strands of the Spinneret was published via Brigids Gate Press (BGP) in 2022. Two further novellas are to be published in 2024 via BGP: SIN:THETICA (May) and a vampire saga in collaboration with fellow Brit author Beverley Lee, A Light of Little Radiance (November).
…As seen below, an unidentified individual at an AMC theater in Tulsa, Oklahoma decked themselves out in full-fledged Fremen garb and proceeded to ride a homemade sandworm through the lobby to the presumed delight of fellow Dune-goers.
[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Kathy Sullivan, Daniel Dern, Lise Andreasen, Andrew (not Werdna), Steven French, 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 Andrew (not Werdna).]
A private U.S. lunar lander tipped over at touchdown and ended up on its side near the moon’s south pole, hampering communications, company officials said Friday.
Intuitive Machines initially believed its six-footed lander, Odysseus, was upright after Thursday’s touchdown. But CEO Steve Altemus said Friday the craft “caught a foot in the surface,” falling onto its side and, quite possibly, leaning against a rock. He said it was coming in too fast and may have snapped a leg.
“So far, we have quite a bit of operational capability even though we’re tipped over,” he told reporters.
But some antennas were pointed toward the surface, limiting flight controllers’ ability to get data down, Altemus said. The antennas were stationed high on the 14-foot (4.3-meter) lander to facilitate communications at the hilly, cratered and shadowed south polar region….
With the moviegoing experience under threat from streaming services and ever-improving home entertainment options, a group with a passionate interest in its preservation — three dozen filmmakers who create their works for the big screen, to be enjoyed in the company of large audiences — has decided to do something about it.
The group of directors, led by Jason Reitman — whose films include “Juno,” “Up in the Air” and “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” — announced Wednesday that it had bought the Village Theater in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, which was put up for sale last summer to the concern of film buffs. The group, which also includes Christopher Nolan, Steven Spielberg, Lulu Wang and Alfonso Cuarón, among others, plans to restore the 93-year-old movie palace, which features one of the largest screens in Los Angeles.
“I think every director dreams of owning a movie theater,” Reitman said in an interview. “And in this case, I saw an opportunity to not only save one of the greatest movie palaces in the world, but also assembled some of my favorite directors to join in on the coolest AV club of all time.”
The announcement of the directors group buying the Village Theater, which has long been a favorite venue for premieres, follows on the heels of Quentin Tarantino’s recent purchase of the Vista Theater in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Los Feliz….
(3) TO MESSIAH OR NOT TO MESSIAH, THAT IS THE QUESTION. [By Mike Kennedy.] David Fear, writing for Rolling Stone, seems absolutely agog over Dune: Part Two. And eager for Part Three.
His review is chock full of spoilers if you don’t know the plot already (but I suspect most of you do). It’s easily arguable, though, that there are some spoilers for elements of the movie itself. So, read the review at your own risk. “‘Dune: Part Two’ Is Bigger, Bolder — and Yes, Even Better — Than Part One”. Here’s a non-spoilery excerpt:
… For some, these names may ring bells way, way back in your memory banks; mention that they’re characters played by Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Oscar Isaac, and a who’s-who of equally recognizable actors, and you’ll see the lights go on in their eyes. For others, the heroes and villains, mentors and monsters that populate Frank Herbert’s 1965 cult novel are old friends, their exploits etched into readers’ brains like gospel. One of the great things about Dune,Denis Villeneuve’s 2021 partial adaptation of that original book, was that you could take in its story and swoon over its imagery regardless of where you fell on the scale. It’s a classic hero’s-journey tale of — to paraphrase author/film professor Howard Suber — a kid rescued from his fate and put on the path toward his destiny. And it was the sort of faithful yet bold, properly bonkers realization of the novel for the screen that fans had been dying to see, the perfect melding of artist and material….
They suggest that perhaps some of the Chinese works that appeared in the “Validation” report for Best Series, but not in the nomination statistics, may not have been eligible according to the Best Series rules. This, of course, would not explain why those works disappeared between the “Validation” spreadsheet and the actual nomination statistics report.
Prograft’s article also links to (Chinese language) Weibo posts from early March 2023, which discuss why there had not been much by way of self-promotion by Chinese authors at that point in time. (The SF World list did not appear until April; another from 8 Light Minutes was published on March 27.)
… From time to time key Puppy figures would dally with the idea that the way the Hugo vote was administered was rigged against them, particularly when they lost, but the repeated substance of their complaint was that the MEMBERSHIP was rigged against them, i.e. it was cliques of voters and publisher buying memberships for the vast number of employees that they imagined publishers have.
So no, Larry didn’t “warn us” nor has the 2023 Hugo scandal validated the core of his complaints about the Hugo Awards.
(6) CLIFF NOTES. Noreascon II in 1980 was the first Worldcon required by the WSFS Constitution to report the Hugo voting statistics (though not the first to disclose some of them). Kevin Standlee, with the help of The Hugo Award Book Club, discovered File 770 issue 24 published partial 1980 Hugo Award final voting and nominating statistics. He’s uploaded a copy to the Hugo Awards website and added a link to the 1980 Hugo Awards page. This quote about the margin for error caught my eye:
Note on counting procedure. After initial validation of the ballots, the data were keypunched by a commercial firm, (Only in the Gandalf [Award] vote was every ballot proofread against the printout; but nearly all keypunching errors were flagged by the computer, and in any other category the residual errors should be less than about 5 cards.) The votes were then counted by computer, using a counting program written by Dave Anderson.
There were 1788 valid final ballots cast that year. The reason for proofing the Gandalf votes is that it was the only category which ran close enough for a potential five-vote error to change the winner. Ray Bradbury ended up outpolling Anne McCaffrey 747-746.
A certain weight of expectation accrues on writers of short fiction who haven’t produced a novel, as if the short story were merely the larval stage of longer work. No matter how celebrated the author and her stories, how garlanded with prizes and grants, the sense persists: She will eventually graduate from the short form to the long. After an adolescence spent munching milkweed in increments of 10,000 words or less, she will come to her senses and build the chrysalis required for a novel to emerge, winged and tender, from within.
Now Kelly Link — an editor and publisher, a recipient of a MacArthur “genius grant” and the author of five story collections, one of which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist — has produced a novel. Seven years in the making, “The Book of Love” — long, but never boring — enacts a transformation of a different kind: It is our world that must expand to accommodate it, we who must evolve our understanding of what a fantasy novel can be.
Reviewing “The Book of Love” feels like trying to describe a dream. It’s profoundly beautiful, provokes intense emotion, offers up what feel like rooted, incontrovertible truths — but as soon as one tries to repeat them, all that’s left are shapes and textures, the faint outlines of shifting terrain….
(9) RETURN TO NEW WORLDS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] SF² Concatenation has an advance post up ahead of next season’s edition. An October 1955 edition of New Worlds provides an excuse to explore that magazine’s history and some of the SF professionals of that era.
You never know what is around the corner. There I was, at my local SF group, quietly enjoying a pint, when a friend brings in a copy of New Worlds magazine, issue no. 40 dating from October 1955 and this opened a window into Britain’s SF scene of that time. Let me share…
(10) CHRISTOPHER NOLAN AND KIM STANLEY ROBINSON CONSIDERED.Imaginary Papers Issue 17 is out. The quarterly email newsletter from the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University covers science fiction worldbuilding, futures thinking, and the imagination.
In this issue, Erin K. Wagner writes about the interplay between art and science in Christopher Nolan’s films, especially Oppenheimer and Interstellar; Joe Tankersley celebrates the “subtle utopia” of Kim Stanley Robinson’s 1990 novel Pacific Edge; and we discuss the Necessary Tomorrows podcast, which pairs original science fiction stories with nonfiction analysis of sociotechnical issues.
Comic book creator Ramona Fradon has died at the age of 97. Her agent, Catskill Comics, posted the news earlier today. “It comes with great sadness to announce that Ramona Fradon has passed away just a few moments ago. Ramona was 97 and had a long career in the comic book industry, and was still drawing just a few days ago. She was a remarkable person in so many ways. I will miss all the great conversations and laughs we had. I am blessed that I was able to work with her on a professional level, but also able to call her my friend. If anyone wishes to send a card to the family, Please feel free to send them to Catskill Comics, and I’ll be happy to pass them along. You can send cards to Catskill Comics “Fradon Family”, Po Box 264, Glasco, NY 12432″
(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born February 24, 1957 — Edward James Olmos, 67. Where I first experienced the acting of Edward James Olmos was as Detective Gaff in Blade Runner, a role I see he reprised in Blade Runner 2049.
Edward James Olmos
No, I’ve not seen the latter film, nor do I have any intention in doing so as I consider Blade Runner one of the finest SF films ever done and nothing will sully that for me. We gave it a Hugo at ConStellation, so there later films!
It wasn’t his first genre film as that was the Japanese post-apocalyptic science fiction film Virus (1980), but his first important role came in Wolfen (1981), a fascinating horror film about, possibly, the idea that werewolves are real, or maybe not, in which he was Eddie Holt who claims to a shapeshifter.
He has an almost cameo appearance in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues as a musician at the barbecue.
It was supposed to have a theatrical release but that was not to be, so Ray Bradbury’s The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit was released directly to video. In it Olmas was Vámonos. I’ve not seen it. It sounds, well, intriguing. Who’s seen it?
Edward James Olmos in The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit
He’s in the debacle that was The Green Hornet in one of the primary roles as Mike Axford, the managing editor of The Daily Sentinel.
As you most likely know, he was William Adama on the rebooted Battestar Galactica. At seventy-three episodes, it didn’t even come close to his run on Miami Vice as Lt. Martin Castillo which was one hundred and six episodes. Now there was an interesting character!
Olmos as Adama in Battlestar Galactica
I’ll end this Birthday note by note noting he had a recurring role on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as Robert Gonzales.
Reality Check demonstrates the danger of nitpicking.
(14) SHRINKAGES AND DISAPPEARANCES. [Item by Kathy Sullivan.] Paper newspapers have been dropping comic strips. But the latest cuts are those by women creators. The Daily Cartoonist explains why “The Real Gannett Conspiracy = Chauvinism”.
Further analysis suggests that may not be far from right….
(15) MARVEL MUST-HAVES. Announced at ComicsPRO the Comic Industry Conference, Marvel Comics’ MARVEL MUST-HAVES! These FREE issues collect multiple iconic issues that spotlight the Marvel characters and comic book series currently at the forefront of pop culture. These stories have been handpicked to get fans in-tune with current Marvel adventures, and act as perfect jumping on points for new readers too. That’s more than 80 pages of comic book adventures for free, available at comic shops next month. [Based on a press release.]
SPIDER-MAN/DEADPOOL #1 (2016)
It’s action, adventure and just a smattering of romance in this epic teaming up the Webbed Wonder and the Merc with a Mouth! Talk about a REAL dynamic duo! Brought to you by two Marvel superstars—Joe Kelly and Ed McGuinness—it’s a perfect tale for those looking forward to the Deadpool’s return to the big screen.
Dive into the full story in SPIDER-MAN/DEADPOOL MODERN ERA EPIC COLLECTION: ISN’T IT BROMANTIC? TPB (9781302951641)
IMMORTAL THOR #2 (2023)
An Elder God of the Utgard-Realm had marked Thor for destruction – and a city with him. Yet the only power that could prevail carried its own terrible price. This is the story of THE IMMORTAL THOR…and the hour of his greatest trial. Following his masterful work on Immortal Hulk, Al Ewing is breaking mythology yet again in this acclaimed new run of the God of Thunder. Featuring breathtaking artwork by superstar Martin Coccolo.
Dive into the full story in IMMORTAL THOR VOL. 1: ALL WEATHER TURNS TO STORM TPB (9781302954185)
MS. MARVEL: THE NEW MUTANT #1 (2023)
Resurrected back into this world of hate and fear, Kamala Khan has a secret mission to pull off for the X-Men, all the while struggling to acclimate to this new part of her identity! Co-written by the MCU’s own Kamala, Iman Vellani, and Sabir Pirzada of both Dark Web: Ms. Marvel and her Disney+ series! Don’t miss this exciting evolution for one of Marvel’s brightest young heroes!
Dive into the full story in MS. MARVEL: THE NEW MUTANT VOL. 1 TPB (9781302954901)
The Ministry of Time bears a striking resemblance in title and plot to El Ministerio del Tiempo
The BBC will be asked for “explanations” from the Spanish state broadcaster after allegations of plagiarism over a new British television series.
The commissioning of the BBC’s The Ministry of Time was announced this week, described as an “epic sci-fi, romance and thriller” that is “utterly unique”.
Based on an as yet unpublished debut novel by Kaliane Bradley, it is about a newly established government department, the Ministry of Time, which gathers “expats” from across history to experiment how viable time travel would actually be.
The striking resemblance, however, in title and plot to the Spanish series El Ministerio del Tiempo — The Ministry of Time — created by Javier and Pablo Olivares and broadcast by RTVE between 2015 and 2020, has prompted allegations of plagiarism.
The allegations have been made by Javier Olivares, who said that the BBC “had not changed a hair” of his creation, and also by scores of social media users….
New Florida rules would require social networks to prevent young people under 16 from signing up for accounts — and terminate accounts belonging to underage users.
…Florida’s Legislature has passed a sweeping social media bill that would make the state the first to effectively bar young people under 16 from holding accounts on platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
The measure — which Gov. Ron DeSantis said he would “be wrestling with” over the weekend and has not yet signed — could potentially upend the lives of millions of young people in Florida.
It would also probably face constitutional challenges. Federal courts have blocked less-restrictive youth social media laws enacted last year by Arkansas and Ohio. Judges in those cases said the new statutes most likely impinged on social media companies’ free speech rights to distribute information as well as young people’s rights to have access to it.
The new rules in Florida, passed on Thursday, would require social networks to both prevent people under 16 from signing up for accounts and terminate accounts that a platform knew or believed belonged to underage users. It would apply to apps and sites with certain features, most likely including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube.
Last year, Utah, Arkansas, Texas and Ohio enacted laws that would require social media platforms to get permission from a parent before giving an account to a minor under 18 or under 16.
Florida’s effort would go much further, amounting to a comprehensive ban for young people on some of the most popular social media apps. It would also bar the platforms from showing harmful material to minors, including “patently offensive” sexual conduct….
… Dunk and Egg keep journeying closer to their HBO debut.
On Friday, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav gave an update on the next Game of Thrones spinoff series: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight (a title that seems destined to be changed to something that doesn’t have “Knight” twice).
“[Creator and executive producer] George R.R. Martin is in preproduction for the new spinoff, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which will premiere in late 2025 on Max,” Zaslav said.
The show is expected to begin production sometime this year.
Given that House of the Dragon is launching its second season this summer, the Knight of the Seven Kingdoms date next year raises the possibility of HBO settling into a flow of having a Thrones drama each year (assuming both shows can turn around their next seasons within two years)….
(19) ACADEMIC REPORT ON THE LANGUAGE USED BY THE CHENGDU BUSINESS DAILY. [Item by Ersatz Culture.] As is hopefully well-known by now, the Chengdu Business Daily organization – also known as Chengdu Economic Daily, which I believe is their “official” English name – provided a number of staff for the Chengdu concom in senior roles, including a Co-Chair, an Honorary Co-Chair, and members of the Hugo team.
I don’t want to get into why what is nominally a newspaper was so involved in running a science fiction convention here, but earlier today I came across a piece of academic research from 2017 that investigated how their journalistic output was summarized on Chinese social media. Although the authors of this report appear to be Chinese nationals from a Chengdu university, the study is in English.
A couple of extracts give examples of how CBD news stories were covered on their social media accounts. (The text from the study is left unaltered, other than reformatting for readability, and the censoring of an English language swear word.)
In all these samples, there were 23 cases of non-standardization, accounting for 7.7% of the total samples, including 10 cases of using ambiguous words, 6 cases of insufficient sentence composition, 3 cases of vulgar words, 2 cases of exaggerated titles, 1 case of non-standardized proverbs, 1 case of ambiguity. Specific reports are listed below. Such as
“Ball-Hurting! #One Man Tied 7 Cars On His Testis# [sic] And Pulled Cars 8 Meters.” (“@Chengdu Economic Daily” April 1st)
“It Is Said That The Relevant Agencies Have Organized The Second Mental Identification Towards The Guilty Driver.” (@Chengdu Economic Daily” on March 1st)
“Two Small UAVs Were Artificially Installed Artillery That May Be Firecrackers And Attacked Each Other For Fun.” (“@Chengdu Economic Daily “February 1st).…
After combing the entire sample, this article also found that the use of spoken language is very common. “@Chengdu Economic Daily” accounted for 22.2% and “@Chengdu Evening Post” accounted for 30.00% (see Table 3). Such as:
“Easy To Learn: Home-Made Pickle-Fish Is Super Cool.”(@Chengdu Economic Daily January 1st)
“F*ck Off. Just Get Off. Why You Not Just Get Off.” (@Chengdu Economic Daily January 1st)
“Old Lady Started Stall Besides Street While City Inspectors Helped Her.” (@Chengdu Evening Post January 1st)
“A Lady Shouting At A Naughty Child Was Beat By His Parents.”(“@Chengdu Evening Post” March 1st)
The use of network buzzwords and verbal expressions, with the characteristics of freshness and populism, usually adopts irony, ridicule, exaggeration and populist expressions to report and comment on events or peoples, and the contents conveyed are thoughtful, active and critical.
Last month, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman finally admitted what researchers have been saying for years — that the artificial intelligence (AI) industry is heading for an energy crisis. It’s an unusual admission. At the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Altman warned that the next wave of generative AI systems will consume vastly more power than expected, and that energy systems will struggle to cope. “There’s no way to get there without a breakthrough,” he said.
I’m glad he said it. I’ve seen consistent downplaying and denial about the AI industry’s environmental costs since I started publishing about them in 2018. Altman’s admission has got researchers, regulators and industry titans talking about the environmental impact of generative AI.
So what energy breakthrough is Altman banking on? Not the design and deployment of more sustainable AI systems — but nuclear fusion. He has skin in that game, too: in 2021, Altman started investing in fusion company Helion Energy in Everett, Washington.
Most experts agree that nuclear fusion won’t contribute significantly to the crucial goal of decarbonizing by mid-century to combat the climate crisis. Helion’s most optimistic estimate is that by 2029 it will produce enough energy to power 40,000 average US households; one assessment suggests that ChatGPT, the chatbot created by OpenAI in San Francisco, California, is already consuming the energy of 33,000 homes. It’s estimated that a search driven by generative AI uses four to five times the energy of a conventional web search. Within years, large AI systems are likely to need as much energy as entire nations….
Divers have helped to reveal the remnants of a kilometre-long wall that are submerged in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Rerik, Germany. The rocks (pictured) date back to the Stone Age.
Director Wes Ball breathes new life into the global, epic franchise set several generations in the future following Caesar’s reign, in which apes are the dominant species living harmoniously and humans have been reduced to living in the shadows. As a new tyrannical ape leader builds his empire, one young ape undertakes a harrowing journey that will cause him to question all that he has known about the past and to make choices that will define a future for apes and humans alike.
[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Ersatz Culture, Martin Easterbrook, Kathy Sullivan, Joey Eschrich, 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 Kevin Harkness.]
However, there are a few additional comments I’d like to add, which I wouldn’t have expected Rcade or anyone else to know about, but which I feel are pretty relevant. I’ll tackle things in the order they appeared his piece, even if that’s possibly not the best logical structure for a standalone article.
These sponsorships will not be accounted for in the convention’s financial report, Chengdu Worldcon co-chair Ben Yalow revealed during a panel discussion in December at Smofcon, a conference for convention planners. “None of that appears on our financial report because we didn’t get any money out of the deal. The convention never saw that money. What the convention saw was Hugo finalists who would show up and their plane ticket was taken care of and their hotel room was taken care of. It means that our financial report is completely accurate and totally misleading.”
It is perhaps worth noting that a number of contracts covering aspects of the Worldcon do appear on various Chinese internet sites. I don’t have an exhaustive collection of these, and I believe that other people may have more complete records. For example, a contract with item number SCIT-GN-2023080147 is for the post Hugo ceremony party, and had a winning bid of 488,500 yuan, or around $68k USD. Another contract covering communications and the con websites may be of interest to Filers, as it explicitly mentions File 770 as one of a number of sites to monitor and respond to. The value of that contract is listed as 765,000 yuan, or around $107k USD.
Whether these contracts show up on any future financial report remains to be seen. [Click for larger image.]
The Smofcon discussion has drawn attention since Chris M. Barkley and Jason Sanford revealed last week that Chengdu Hugo Awards administrator Dave McCarty manipulated the nominations and final vote…
This is a minor and pedantic point, but it’s a bit of a touchy subject for me. As far as I’m aware, I was the first person to raise the Smofcon Chengdu panels on social media on January 28th, which was also run on that day’s Scroll. This was over two weeks before the Barkley/Sanford report was published, which makes no mention whatsoever of Smofcon or indeed Smofs. Of course, that report has massively escalated coverage of all the issues around Chengdu, but the subject of Smofcon in conjunction with that report was raised by other people.
Chengdu sponsors “were not particularly intrusive,” Yalow said, but the con could not change a sponsored panel’s scheduled time or panelists without consulting that sponsor.
I haven’t had time to dig out references to back this up, but I believe there were a high number of changes to scheduling of the non-sponsored, more fannish or literary panels. This caused stress to the people who were on those panels, causing scheduling conflicts with their other activities, etc. That’s probably not attributable to the sponsors, but it does feel like the fan and literary panels were treated as second-class citizens.
I’m going to sidetrack here slightly, but can I remind people of an item I wrote up in the November 11th Pixel Scroll, regarding how the con’s commercial activities impacted the more fannish stuff? This was part of a long write-up of a long Chinese-language article from a mainstream magazine, presented here via machine translation with minor manual edits, and with my emphasis added:
Previous conventions would set up a memorial area, which is a place for middle-aged and elderly science fiction fans to reminisce and reminisce about the past. In 2017, the British science fiction writer Brian Aldiss [who had previously visited Chengdu, and has several works published in China] passed away. There was a small space at the World Science Fiction Convention that year, displaying his works, and photos from his life, as well as some of his treasure possessions, and a black and white TV playing back interviews with him. In 2023, Aldiss’ daughter Wendy had also come to Chengdu. She told our reporters that the Chengdu Worldcon was originally going to hold an exhibition for those photos, but it was not possible “because of a lack of space.” …
[Double Hugo finalist, CEO of the publisher 8 Light Minutes, and member of the Chengdu concom] Yang Feng originally planned to stage a commemorative exhibition at the convention, in honour of Mike Resnick, the former editor-in-chief of the American science fiction magazine “Galaxy’s Edge”. After Resnick’s death in 2020, his collection and books were put up for online auction, and 8 Light Minutes bought a large number of items. “Look, this is full of his things,” said Yang Feng, pointing to a glass cabinet. Initially, the organizers promised an exhibition area of 70 square meters. Worried about missing out, “thousands of yuan [was spent] on freight shipping” the collected items. However, the exhibition area ended up being occupied by several technology companies, and Yang Feng was only given a glass cabinet.
Whilst this was probably not directly related to any of the sponsors, I believe it does show how priorities can change for what is supposed to be a fan-run con when business interests are involved.
There was one part of Chengdu that disallowed sponsors. “One of our ‘do not break this rule ever under any circumstance’ was no sponsorship in respect to the Hugos,” Yalow said.
The moderator Coxen read the question aloud: “One of the objections to Raytheon as a sponsor for DC 3 was not just who they were but the perceived lack of transparency around it. How do you think we could reconcile that with the effective but relatively subtle sponsorship Chengdu had?”
To be clear: no-one on the panel ever mentioned Raytheon in the main discussion about sponsorships, although they did namecheck Google and Boeing. It was only when an audience member at the very end asked a question that the most controversial Worldcon sponsor ever was included in the discussion.
She [Tammi Coxen] responded jocularly. “Nobody knew who the sponsors were, at least from the West, so nobody asked you hard questions about them from the West!”
Yalow dodged the question. “That’s a political question that is in a sense above my pay grade,” he said.
The photos from that Brand Conference show Yalow, McCarty and Montgomery both in the audience and on stage. The China Telecom logo can be seen on a large video wall, in English, so all three of them would surely have seen it. [Click for larger images.]
Observation 1: Per the Diane Lacey emails, June 12th is one week after Dave McCarty said that he would be arriving in China i.e. it seems almost certain that in the same visit that included this brand conference, he was also working on interfering with the Hugo nominations.
Observation 2: Whilst I wouldn’t expect someone to pick up on this in the bustle of a flashy PR event, perhaps they would have been curious enough to have researched who exactly China Telecom were after the fact? That person would have quickly learned from Wikipedia that
“In January 2021, China Telecom was delisted from the NYSE in response to a US executive order.[27] The same year, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) revoked China Telecom’s operating license in the U.S. for national security reasons.[28] However, China Telecom (Americas) Corp plans to keep offering other services on United States soil.[29] In March 2022, the FCC designated China Telecom (Americas) Corp a national security threat.[30]“
As I am not a US citizen, what US agencies might think about China Telecom is fairly academic to me. Perhaps I’m being naive, but following the 2013 revelations from Edward Snowden, I’d be surprised if their relationship with China’s government is much different from US telcos and tech companies and the NSA/CIA/etc. However, given the history with the Raytheon sponsorship, maybe someone on the Chengdu concom might have wondered whether China Telecom might not be seen as a problematic sponsor? NB: As I understand it, China Telecom are one of the big three mobile phone networks in China, so I imagine for a Chinese Worldcon attendee, their sponsorship of the event would be no more controversial than, say, AT&T or T-Mobile sponsoring a Worldcon in the west.
The October 11th Pixel Scroll contained a further update about the sponsors. In it, I linked to a Chinese language WeChat/Weixin post from the con’s account, that listed all the actual sponsors, with brief descriptions of what business sector they operated in, thanks to help from a few different people online who researched them.
If after all that coverage “[n]obody knew who the sponsors were”, then I guess I was wasting my time doing the daily Chengdu write-ups.
One slightly curious thing is that Huawei is not listed as an official sponsor, but their branding did appear on at least one panel, at which (IIRC) one or two of their employees appeared. Additionally, per the Smofcon panel, they paid, or offered to pay, the expenses for at least one guest. Huawei might be considered another controversial sponsor, given the multiple entries in the relevant section of their Wikipedia page. However, despite them being namechecked at least twice, this did not provoke any reaction at Smofcon. (Disclosure: I’ve owned a couple of Huawei Android devices in the past, and both I thought were decent and offered good value-for-money for their price point. And again, they are a mainstream mass-market brand in China and many other countries, so their inclusion would not seem surprising to a Chinese attendee.)
Source: Zero Gravity Newspaper #14
I still intend to write-up the other Chengdu panel from Smofcon, which features three of the employees of Chengdu Business Daily from the Chengdu concom, plus Yalow, McCarty and Montgomery. There are elements of that video that I find much more upsetting than this “What did we learn from Chengdu?” panel. However, properly writing it up will involve a fair bit of re-reading of con reports and other research, in order to properly discuss some of that video’s content. I know that at least one Chinese member of the con has now purchased a Smofcon membership in order to watch that video, and perhaps they will also have comments to make on it.
By Ersatz Culture: The first two — out of a projected three — issues of the Hugo Award-winning Best Fanzine Zero Gravity SF covering the Chengdu Worldcon are now available for download.
A machine translation (with manual edits) of editor RiverFlow’s announcement follows, with the original Chinese text at the bottom of this post. A similar announcement can be found on Weibo. That Weibo post includes the instructions for downloading the two PDFs from Baidu, but I have also uploaded them to Google Drive as individual files, which may be easier for people outside of China to deal with; see further down this post for the links.
By RiverFlowand Ling Shizhen:
To our readers:
At present, the last six articles (53,000 characters plus 48 pictures) of issue #16 of Zero Gravity, the “2023 Chengdu World Science Fiction Convention Feature”, are still being edited and completed. However, in order to fit in with the festive atmosphere of this year’s Spring Festival, we edited the first two issues (#14 and #15) of this feature before midnight of the first day of the Chinese New Year, and made a small-scale dissemination in several QQ groups and WeChat groups in advance.
When the 16th issue is finished on the 15th or 16th of this month, we will unify the WeChat posts, and release the three issues for download on Baidu.com.
Thank you to all the authors who have submitted articles and authorized reprints; your words and photographs from a variety of perspectives have recreated a diverse range of memories and histories.
We would like to wish everyone a Happy Chinese New Year!
We wish you all the best of luck as you leave the old and welcome the new, and write your own new chapters in this Year of the Dragon, on top of the old footprints of the 2023 Chengdu World Science Fiction Convention!
The contents of the two issues are listed below. The author names and article titles are (mostly) machine translated, and are likely to have inaccuracies, although RiverFlow did double check the author names, so hopefully these are the preferred English renditions.
Where articles are translations from another language, I’ve added links to the English versions, where I could find them. Several of the con reports were previously linked – and in some cases excerpted – in prior Pixel Scroll Chengdu roundups.
1. RiverFlow – Editorial 3. Ling Shizhen – Editorial; An Explanation 6. Shuang Chimu – A Journey of Constant Surprises: Interviews from the Worldcon 10. Chen Xuchang – The World is So Big That Science Fiction Can Be Seen: Interviews from the 77th Worldcon 14. Shi Ran – Expand the Boundaries of Imagination: Interesting People Never Say Goodbye: Interviews from the 76th Worldcon 16. Lin Jiayu – If We Never Met: Interviews from the 76th Worldcon 18. [Hugo Finalist] Regina Kanyu Wang – “Smofcon”, a Secret Gathering of the “Masterminds” of Science Fiction Conventions 23. Mo Xiong – Random Thoughts on the 81st Worldcon 26. Dong Fangmu – Dong Fangmu‘s Chengdu Worldcon 30. Tian Tian – Attending the Worldcon in a Dual Capacity 43. San Ma – Under the Sea of Illusion There Are Cornerstones: A Look at the Worldcon 44. Kun Tu – My “Online Cloud Attendance”: Memories, Insights, Feelings 47. Xiao Xinghan – My Trip to the Worldcon 51. Hai Ya – My Hugo Award Acceptance Speech 52. Bu Ya – All We Need is a Reason To Be Together 55. Shi Min – Jinan Fantasy Fans Brave the Worldcon 56. Mo Cun – What I Talk About When I Talk About the Chengdu Worldcon 58. Youlika – Go Ahead, I’ll Listen: Talking About the Kind of Communication We Deserve From the Worldcon 63. Chi Dao – I Still Have Hope For the Sci-Fi Industry 65. Nicholas Whyte – Doctor Who in China: Chengdu Worldcon Memories [Original English language blog posts] 72. Dip Ghosh – It’s Not Fiction, It’s Real! The Chengdu Worldcon Experience [English language translation of the Bengali original] 74. Zhao Liang – Sci-Fi Destinations: Travelling to the 81st Worldcon 78. Sun Saibo – I Want to Follow the Stars 80. Fen Xing Cheng Zi – Worldcon Huawei Science Fiction Salon Essay 82. Wu Bing Keyue – Deep in the light is the way we went: Memories of the Chengdu Worldcon 86. DaDa Black Goose – Our Existence Itself Shines Brightly Enough: Memories and Experiences of the 81st Worldcon 93. [Hugo Finalist] Ren Qing – A Dream With No Standard Answer 95. Shen Yusi – One Man’s Science Fiction: An Insight into the Chengdu Worldcon 97. He Minghan – There’s Something to Fill Your Stomach Again: 2023 Worldcon in Chengdu 99. Roderick Leeuwenhart – 81st Worldcon Report [Original English language blog post] 101. Zhang Jinxuan – Dream of Sci-Fi Romance, Travelling Through the Infinite Stars 102. Chris M. Barkley – My Most Memorable Moment at the Chengdu Worldcon [Original English language post] 103. Cora Buhlert – An Open Letter to the 2023 Hugo Finalists, Whoever They May Be [Original English language post] 105. Cao Wenjun – Day and Night of Science Fiction People: Chengdu Worldcon 109. Zui Youjie – Where the Rain Doesn’t Stack Up 112. Zhong Heng Sihai – The Self-Cultivation of a Phantom Fan 113. Lan Mei – Sci-fi is Kinda Nice – A Volunteer’s Memory of the Chengdu Worldcon 119. HG – Live Long and Prosper 120. Li Chi – Science Fiction Convention Rules Weirdness 121. Zhen Guoqing – Loss and Uncertainty After Attending the Convention 122. Silampeta – Is China’s Science Fiction on the Road to Alienation Like the Second Dimension? Afterword to Chengdu Worldcon
1. RiverFlow – Editorial 3. Ling Shizhen – Editorial; An Explanation 6. RiverFlow – Science Fiction Fans Bonded by Care and Gathering: Travelogue of the 81st Worldcon 47. RiverFlow – Confessions After Winning the Hugo Award for Best Fanzine 51. Joseph Brandt – Chengdu Discovery Editorial, or Phantom Voyager Landing in Chengdu [Translated from an English language version which does not seem to be available online.] 59. Fu Shi – Hugo Awards Ceremony at the 81st Worldcon 60. Bai Ta – Some Thoughts on the Chengdu Worldcon and the Hugo Awards 61. Hong Peng – The World of Sci-Fi is Big Enough For You to Love: What a Sci-Fi Retailer Saw, Thought, and Felt at the Worldcon 75. [Hugo Finalist] Arthur Liu (aka HeavenDuke, Yang Feng) – Record of the Chengdu Worldcon 101. [Hugo Finalist] Arthur Liu (aka HeavenDuke, Yang Feng) – India’s Version of Jodorowsky’s Dune 103. SF Light Year – Sci-Fi Fans’ Darkest Hour at the Worldcon 108. Coco – The Journey of Dreams, Brightened by Love 109. Zhang Ran – Seriousness, Grandeur and Roughness 110. Hua Long – Meet Aldiss at the 81st Worldcon 111. Wu Paopian – Friends, I Hope We Meet Again 112. Xu Xiling – Me and RiverFlow 113. Han Song – Reflections on Seven Days at the 81st Worldcon 120. Lin Yun – Reflections on the 81st Worldcon’s Science Fiction Film and Television Forum
Plus three full-page cartoon artworks drawn at the con by Wu Miao and (many, many) photos and smaller pieces of artwork, handwritten messages, etc.
RiverFlow’s original Chinese language announcement:
