Several friends have been along for the entire ride, like artist Taral Wayne, who had an illo in the first paper issue, and also is the creator of the banner art for this blog. Or Steve Davidson, mentioned in a news item on page 2. Not to mention the many who were on the mailing list from the beginning.
I also want to thank Linda Bushyager, editor of Karass, which preceded File 770 as fandom’s newzine of record, for passing the baton those many years ago.
And thanks to the generosity of everyone who has shared their stories, events and concerns in these pages over the years.
We’ll be celebrating this anniversary — and the 10th anniversary of this blog on January 15 — over the next 10 days with a series of special guest posts, too. Watch for the logo!
File 770 reaches two big milestones in January 2018, the 40th anniversary of the fanzine (January 6), and the 10th anniversary of this blog (January 15).
Would you like to get in on the celebration by writing a guest post, book review, silly lyric, or whatever else strikes your fancy? Contact me at [email protected]
While that mystery remains unsolved for now, Book Twitter’s sleuthing was not for nothing. By the end of the day, the New York Times had released a revised list that excluded Handbook for Mortals and returned The Hate U Give to its rightful place in the top spot.
On Monday, BBC News published an article whose headline asked: “Does the world need polymaths?” It examined why experts historically felt the need to excel in many disciplines, but now typically focus on only one. On Tuesday, as if the universe were playing some kind of cosmic joke, news broke that Bradley Walsh is set to be cast as the latest companion in the new series of Doctor Who. If there was ever a need for proof that the renaissance man is back, baby, then Bradley Walsh is that proof.
The Watford-born entertainer, 57, started out as a professional footballer, signing to Brentford in 1978 and playing for Barnet and Dunstable Town before ankle injuries put an end to all that. Walsh would later score a penalty for England in the Soccer Aid charity game at Old Trafford in 2010. Not satisfied with one sport, he is also adept at golf, with his team winning the second series of celebrity golf tournament All Star Cup on ITV in 2007.
But sport’s loss was television’s gain. After a stint as a Pontins’ bluecoat, Walsh hit the small screen, first as a presenter, a format that one might describe as his true calling, in which he continues to excel today as the host of ITV’s The Chase. Thankfully, his Doctor Who commitments won’t interfere, according to an anonymous friend who spoke to the Mirror to express relief. “He loves that show with a passion and so does the audience, so he’s delighted to have found a way to make it all work.”
Back in 2014, we caught up with some of Chicago’s most prominent afrofuturist artists and musicians like David Boykin, Nick Cave, and Cauleen Smith. But what about the city’s poets and writers? Through science fiction, fantasy, magical realism, and surrealism, these three women are keeping Chicago at the center of the afrofuturist conversation….
Eve Ewing
Growing up in Logan Square, Eve Ewing used to daydream about “shooting arrows, exploring dungeons, and solving mysteries” while riding her bike. She didn’t hear the word “afrofuturism” until her 20s, but as a child she watched Geordi La Forge on Star Trek and listened to George Clinton. Today, Ewing’s one of Chicago’s most visible cultural icons, from her reporting on Chicago Public Schools to her debut poetry collection, Electric Arches (Haymarket Books, Sept. 12), which looks at Chicago’s South and West Sides through an afrofuturist lens.
“The book is an attempt to use poetry to write a future, and to me that future has to be a free black future,” Ewing says. In Electric Arches, lunar aliens invade Chicago and paint everything black, a time machine allows a fifth-grader to speak with her ancestors, and South Side children escape the police on flying bicycles.
“Part of what makes afrofuturism interesting and distinct is that blackness in America demands an honest reckoning with a violent and traumatic past,” she says. “And here we are in Chicago, a city where black life has been crafted in the face of generations of inconceivable violence: gun violence, state violence, everything. I think we are tasked with thinking beyond this world, about how to live in spite of and beyond everything trying to kill us.”
(4) ELEMENTARY. Award-winning speculative poet Mary Soon Lee, writing in Science, composed a haiku for each element in the Period Table: “Elemental Haiku”.
The haiku encompass astronomy, biology, chemistry, history, physics, and a bit of whimsical flair.
At the link, scroll over an element on the table to read the haiku.
Carbon
Show-stealing diva,
throw yourself at anyone,
decked out in diamonds.
There were so many Worldcon newcomers this year that the committee ran out of FIRST WORLDCON ribbons for attendees to affix to their badges and had to print up new ones halfway through the con.
So there are people out there who want to be part of this special thing we have. How do we make them feel welcome?
One thing I made sure to do was approach every person I noticed wearing a FIRST WORLDCON ribbon and say … well … “Welcome!”
I told them I was glad they’d decided to join us, and asked the catalyst that caused them to come this particular year. I told them I hoped they were having a good time so far, and said that if they had any questions, I’d try to answer them. I shared an anecdote or two about why I fell in love with Worldcons so long ago.
And he has a great anecdote about this on his Facebook page, involving some 2017 first-timers, 1963 first-timers, and 1953 first timers all comparing notes in Helsinki.
(6) SUITABLY ILLUSTRATED. Hugo-nominated fanartist Vesa Lehtimäki has written a short W75 report:
(7) MEDICAL UPDATE. Chunga co-editor Randy Byers, one of the best guys in fandom, says in “Gimme a break” he has reached a point in his cancer therapy where he’s stopping chemo and medical treatment while he and his doctor assess how they want to proceed,
The initial offerings of the online compendium, which will be expanded as the GMS develops, range from a 15th-century song translated from Middle French that bemoans a lost love (“Two or three days ago / my sweet love went away / without saying anything to me. Alas, who will comfort me?”) to five selections from Hong Mai’s 12th-century Yijian Zhi (or, Record of the Listener, hereafter the Record), a sprawling 420-chapter chronicle that is an invaluable record of society, spirituality, and culture of the Southern Song Dynasty. The GMS is, as suggested by its title, a globally focused resource, with plans for medieval texts translated from Arabic, Chinese, Old Spanish, Latin, Middle High German, Old English, and Old French.
“[A] major aspect of our work to present a broad view of medieval culture is to actively recruit content from many different languages, especially those which have historically been inaccessible to contemporary readers,” Lyons-Penner explained. “It is very unusual for texts from so many different linguistic traditions to be read side by side, and we believe it makes for a much richer experience.”
Game of Thrones has sparked a battle at a Australian housing development where streets have been named after characters and locations from the high-rating television show.
The developer of Charlemont Rise at Geelong in Victoria said he had been forced to change the name of Lannaster Road because of the link to the incestuous Lannister siblings from Game of Thrones.
“The name was knocked back by the developers next door because of the relationship between the Lannister brother and sister on the show,” said the project manager, Gary Smith. “I even changed the spelling to make it not as obvious.”
Lannaster Road will henceforth be known as Precinct Road.
There have been no complaints about the other street names in the estate, more than a dozen of which were inspired by the show, Smith said. Among the names are Stannis, Winterfell, Greyjoy, Baelish and Tywin.
(10) THOMAS OBIT. Actor Jay Thomas (1948-2017) died August 24. His genre work included 20 episodes of Mork and Mindy, 6 episodes of Hercules, voicing an episode of Batman: The Animated Series, and The Santa Clause 2 and 3.
And he appeared on Letterman annually during the Christmas season to repeat his Clayton Moore story (quoted here from the Wikipedia):
As the story goes, after the appearance Thomas, who at the time sported what he referred to as a “white man’s Afro“, and his friend, who was wearing high heeled shoes, tight pants, and a tie-dyed shirt, went off to get “herbed up” (smoke marijuana) behind a dumpster, after the broadcast ended. When they returned to pack up their equipment, they discovered that Moore was still there, as the car that was supposed to drive him to the Red Carpet Inn on Morehead Street (some years he would say the Red Roof Inn) never arrived. Thomas offered Moore a ride in his old Volvo, and Moore accepted. As they were sitting in traffic, an impatient middle-aged man backed his Buick into the front end of Thomas’ car, broke a headlight, and drove away.
Thomas gave chase to the Buick through heavy traffic, finally caught up to the man, and confronted him about the damage. The indignant driver denied breaking the headlight, and Thomas threatened to call the police. The man said nobody would believe their story because Thomas and his friend looked like “two hippy freaks”. At that moment, Thomas said that Moore, who was still in costume as the Lone Ranger, got out of the car and said to the man, “They’ll believe me, citizen!”
(11) TODAY IN HISTORY
August 25, 1939 — The Wizard of Oz opens in theaters around the United States.
(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOYS & GIRLS
Born August 25, 1958 – Tim Burton
Born August 25 – Chris M. Barkley
Born August 25 – Marc Scott Zicree
Born August 25 – Maureen Starkey
(13) COMICS SECTION. JJ sends along the continuation to a comic linked yesterday – Classic Dilbert.
(14) IN YOUR DREAMS. Oor Wombat is off Toasting at Bubonicon this weekend. It seems to be sending ripples through the ether…
…"If you can hear me, don't say anything. You know when you get two Slinkies badly tangled and you can't extract them from each other?
In other news, amazing progress continues to take place on the build site. As more structural and garden work gets underway, it’s thrilling to think Pleasant Grove will soon be home to this incomparable park and we wanted to give you a glimpse at one of the more unique structures going in:
This is a model of the “Enchanted Tree” which will be found in our Fantasy Garden, one of the many explorable areas of Evermore. With magical spaces like these around every corner, Evermore will be a place ripe for adventure.
(16) FILE 770 ARCHIVE. Fanac.org is expanding its archive of scanned issues of classic File 770. Hey, some of this stuff is pretty funny, if I do say so myself….
I sat on the bed next to the pile of half frozen fish fingers I was packing into my Louis Vuitton clutch purse and looked up at the dim-witted fool who was under the misguided impression that this was his bedroom. I explained to him how, aside from the fact that Worldcon needs my presence, that I also fully expected to win a Hugo Award for Best Cat Who Edited Something. Oh, Camtrak Freightrain then goes into denial spouting off all sorts of nonsense: there’s no such award he says, the nominees have already been published he says, the award ceremony already happened and it was in the news and everything he says – like that proves anything these days with the lying media spinning all sorts of wild stories. I patiently explained to the poor, poor intellectually limited creature about the role of write-in candidates, jury nullification and how, if you write your name in capitals like this -TIMOTHY THE TALKING CAT – then you get to win all the lawsuits and not pay taxes. “You’d have to start earning some money to pay taxes,” mumbled Camphor Flushwipe sarcastically, knowing he was beaten by a higher intellect.
(19) YOUR ABOVE-AVERAGE DRAGON AWARD VOTER. Declan Finn explains who got his support in “My 2017 Dragon Award Vote”. It’s not exactly a deeply analytic post. Like, in the Best MilSF category he says —
My vote will go to Jon [Del Arroz]. I haven’t read any of the nominees this year, but for friendship’s sake, I’ll vote for Jon.
And in Best SF Miniatures/etc. –
Again, not my scene. [Rolls 6-sided die]. Um … Star Wars?
However, Finn does bring out that there is not a unity between the Castalia House-published nominees that Vox Day is backing and Jon Del Arroz’ “Happy Frogs” “Dragon Award Finalist Recommendations”. Still, the question remains how many works win that are not on one list or the other, since these are the people who talk more about the Dragon Awards than anyone else.
First of all, we at the Happy Frogs Board of Trustees want to give a hearty congratulations to all the Frogs who croaked their way into Dragon Nomination success. Such an achievement! Happy Frogs are winners….
And we are committed to winning. We at the Happy Frogs firmly believe that 2nd place is first loser. This is why we have to have a talk, fans and frogs alike.
There are some categories where it will be very tough to get further than a nomination because of some big names and anti-frog individuals with loud microphones. It is IMPERATIVE that we throw our collective weights beyond one voice per category to give us the best odds to surpass some of these giants. This is David vs. Goliath v. 2.0 and we have to make sure we go to battle ready.
Therefore, the Happy Frogs Board of Trustees have gotten together and unanimously decided to change our recommendations for this round of voting. This isn’t for lack of love of our prior nominees — we do love you! and we want all frogs and fans to buy and read their books. But these are the voices that have the best chance to win.
It’s not clear exactly who this man is, but he might as well be popping off a selfie or thumbing through his news feed. He seems to gaze into the handheld device in such a way that renders all-too-familiar today, as if he’s just read a bad tweet or recoiling from a Trump-related push notification from the Times. He would almost look unremarkable, if only he and the world around him existed at any point in the past decade.
But the multi-part, New Deal-era mural the man occupies, titled “Mr. Pynchon and the Settling of Springfield,” pre-dates the iPhone by seven decades….
The upcoming solar eclipse has already brought some wonderful things to South Carolina, including a huge boost in tourist spending and the promise of a chocolate-glazed Krispy Kreme doughnut. But there are potential dangers lurking as well—like Lizardmen.
The South Carolina Emergency Management Division, in a Tweet, has issued a tongue-in-cheek advisory on possible paranormal activity during the Aug 21 event, noting that “SCEMD does not know if Lizardmen become more active during a solar eclipse, but we advise that residents of Lee and Sumter counties should remain ever vigilant.”
— SC Emergency Management Division (@SCEMD) August 9, 2017
… Lizardmen are actually a thing in South Carolina. Well, not actually a thing (probably), but they’re the stuff of local legend. It’s basically the state’s version of Bigfoot, only with less hair and more scales. The last reported sighting was in 2015.
(22) LITERARY LANDMARK. Steve Barnes reminisces about Octavia Butler in “Keeping Octavia’s House a Home”. Click to see a photo of the place.
There are two writers I owe the most to, because of the personal connection: Larry Niven, my mentor, and Octavia Butler, my big sister. She inspired me to believe it was possible to survive in the field with integrity. Watching her over the years from a distance…and then living walking distance from her for about three years when I moved back into my mother’s house in “the old neighborhood”. Octavia lived on West Boulevard near Washington Boulevard between La Brea and Crenshaw, and because she didn’t drive, I often gave her lifts to autographings and bookstores, and had her over for dinner and conversation. I was in the old neighborhood yesterday, and drove past her house. I’m not 100% certain this was hers, because there is a lot of new building in the area, destroying some of the landmarks. It is POSSIBLE that there were two duplexes side by side, and this is just the one that survived. But…I’m pretty sure. Hers was the door on the Left, I believe.
(23) THE GREAT UNMADE. Grunge’s “Sci-fi shows that were too geeky to ever air” is one of these blasted posts that expects you to click through 20 screens, however, it is rather entertaining. On page 2 —
Paul Reubens, better known as Pee-Wee Herman, playing a wisecracking alien on an Area 51-like military base sounds like pretty much the perfect show. But NBC didn’t pick up this awesome pilot in 2007. The premise: for 40 years, a bunch of misfit, unwilling government employees and researchers have been trying to discover the secrets of the alien and his ship, who still hasn’t even given them his name, until Matthew Lillard (y’know, the guy who played Shaggy in two live-action Scooby-Doo movies) shows up, trying to make a difference. The Area 57 pilot has some pretty great moments, but we may never be truly ready to mix live-action sci-fi and comedy.
Tune in to the audio podcast above for an extensive discussion of “Borne’s” secrets and mysteries. We’re also joined via Skype by the author, who answers (almost) all our pressing questions about the world of “Borne.”
(25) LISTEN UP! Torchwood is back – in Big Finish audio dramas.
Torchwood: Aliens Among Us Trailer
Torchwood is back! The first four episodes of Series 5 are out now from Big Finish Productions, featuring Jack, Gwen and Rhys and four new characters co-created by Russell T Davies. Starring John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Rhys Williams and Tom Price.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Carl Slaughter, David Doering, Cat Eldridge, Andrew Porter, and JJ for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern, who is not to blame for a slight tweak by OGH.]
(1) AND THEY’RE OFF. Fictional horses, ranked by their chances. Emily Temple handicaps the field in “Who Will Win The Literary Kentucky Derby?” at LitHub. Finishing at the back of the field….
The Skin Horse, of The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams
“The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces.”
Adding the fact that toy horses are generally smaller than normal horses, not to mention fantasy horses, it seems unlikely that such a creature could beat any of the others listed here in a race. At least he’s wise, though. Not to mention Real. Imagine him, all Real and worn and loved, his little legs all seamy, limping across the finish line in the dimming afternoon, long after everyone else has gone home…no, you’re crying.
(2) STICKING TO IT. Canada will be issuing another new set of Star Trek stamps this year, featuring the five captains with their ships. Available from Canada post’s website here.
The five legendary leaders of Starfleet stand as the paragons of excellence: Kirk (William Shatner), Picard (Patrick Stewart), Sisko (Avery Brooks), Archer (Scott Bakula) and Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) are featured on this collectible pane of 5 stamps.
But a hero is nothing without an obstacle, a threat or an antagonist. No villain has tested our protagonists as much as their infamous counterparts: Khan, Locutus of Borg, Dukat, Dolim and the Borg Queen, who shadow the heroes on the stamps.
This pane pits each legendary hero against their nemesis on a stylized background containing their respective starships navigating the cold and dark expanse of Federation space. The wormhole from Deep Space Nine also makes a looming appearance.
The only thing more stunning than this mini-poster is a phaser.
(3) GEEK GENESIS. Patrick Read Johnson’s long-awaited Biopic about being the first Star Wars Geek! Opening 5-25-17 everywhere!!!
Frozen pizza: the forbidden food. Yet these instructions defeat me. Yes, I, a cat who can field strip an AR-15 in the dark and without the aid of opposable thumbs, am incapable of reading these tiny instructions or operating the big heaty kitchen box thingy.
Time to turn to wiser heads. Who better than the six nominated writers for the Hugo 2017 Best Writey Book Prize!
If it worked for Bret Harte, why not Timothy?
Box’s End: The Three Pizza Problem
Yun Tianming listened to the radio from his hospital bed. The United Nations had jointly formed a resolution to condemn the doctrine known as ‘not being arsed to cook anything nutritious’. With the Trisolans a hundred years away from Earth, humanity had, in despair, stopped making an effort to cook anything decent….
“Sharkcano.” It’s not the title of some campy summer blockbuster, but rather a real-world phenomenon that went viral in 2015, when scientists on a National Geographic expedition found sharks living inside one of the most active underwater volcanoes on Earth. Not surprisingly, the team was eager to go back and learn more, but how do you explore an environment that could easily kill you? You send in robots, of course.
Earlier today, the BBC announced a number of new shows, including a three-part series based on H.G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds. The show is scheduled to go into production next spring, and it appears that, unlike most modern adaptations, it will be set in the Victorian era.
The series will be written by screenwriter Peter Hartness, who adapted Susanna Clarke’s Victorian-era fantasy novel Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell for the network, as well as a handful of Doctor Who episodes.
During last year’s Capclave in Gaithersburg, Maryland, Brenda Clough tantalized me with tales of JDS Shanghai Famous Food, telling me they made some of the best soup dumplings in the D.C. area. So when it was time for her appearance on Eating the Fantastic, how could we go anywhere else?
Brenda has published short fiction in Analog, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, my own Science Fiction Age, and many others, and was nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for her novella “May Be Some Time.” She’s also written many novels across multiple series, and teaches writing workshops at the Writers Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
Brenda Clough
Scott also says the future holds good things in store: “Check out the five guests I managed to record with during StokerCon!”
If you’re hungry for more, come back in two weeks when my guest will be Cynthia Felice, who’ll be followed by five episodes recorded during the recent StokerCon: William F. Nolan, Elizabeth Hand, Dennis Etchison, Nancy Holder, and George R. R. Martin.
(8) FONDLY REMEMBERED. This video was presented at Costume-Con 35 to recognize members of the community lost in the previous year. Other memorial videos posted on the International Costumers Guild site in the past few months include tributes to the late Robin Schindler, Toni Lay, and Adrienne Martine-Barnes.
(9) HOWARD FRANK OBIT. SF Site News reports Howard Frank (1941-2017) died on May 1. Husband of Jane Frank, a Chicon 7 GoH in 2012, he co-authored two books with his wife based on their collection. He won First Fandom’s Sam Moskowitz Archive Award in 2013.
(10) TODAY’S DAYS
Revenge of the Fifth
Not had enough Star Wars on May the 4th? Thinking of stepping over to the Dark Side? Think you’d be a great Sith? Well keep swinging those light sabers, Revenge of the fifth is here to keep the force going with another Star Wars-themed observance!
International Space Day
On the first Friday of each May, space boffins and science fans alike celebrate space with a dedicated day of observance to everything in the great beyond. Because there’s so much out there in space, you can be sure that there’s always going to be enough to celebrate on this day as every year comes! The History of International Space Day International Space Day started out as plain and simple Space Day in 1997. The day was created to observe the many wonders of the unknown space that our planet floats in, and encourage children to have more of an interest in the scientific field. In 2001, Senator John Glenn, himself a former astronaut, changed the day to International Space Day to widen its scope of celebration across the world.
Cartoonist’s Day – May 5
The History of Cartoonist’s Day In 1895 a man named Richard F. Outcault introduced a small bald kid in a yellow nightshirt [The Yellow Kid] to the world in an incredibly popular publication in the big apple at the time, the New York World. While the paper itself was looked upon with a sort of disdain by ‘real’ journalists of the time, the yellow kid was embraced by people everywhere. Little did Richard know that when he first created this character, it would lead to a revolution in how stories were told and presented in sequential art pieces (That’s comics kids), but would in fact create a new standard piece of content for newspapers everywhere. Cartoonists’ day was created to celebrate this man and his accomplishments, and all the good he brought to the world as a result. Everything from our Sunday Comics to animation can be linked back to him and his creation. Just a simple bald kid in a yellow nightshirt.
(11) TODAY IN HISTORY
May 5, 1961 — From Cape Canaveral, Florida, Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. is launched into space aboard the Freedom 7 space capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to travel into space. The suborbital flight, which lasted 15 minutes and reached a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere, was a major triumph for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
(12) PUZZLE WRAPPED IN AN ENIGMA. Well, now that you mention it….
Still rejiggering scenes. Not sure why Watson keeps hanging around with jerk Holmes 😀 😀
— Aliette de Bodard (hiatus) (@aliettedb) May 5, 2017
(12.5) FARGO. That rocket-shaped award continues to be of interest to those unraveling the mysteries of Fargo. Warning: The Bustle’sepisode recap contains SPOILERS.
One of the weirder, seemingly superfluous details of Fargo Season 3 comes to the forefront in the spectacularly odd May 3 episode, which focuses on the backstory of Ennis Stussy, née Thaddeus Mobley, and his adventures in science-fiction writing. But is The Planet Wyh a real book? And what about the bizarre events that transpired around the book’s success?
The pulpy paperback is first discovered by Gloria Burgle after her stepfather is murdered, hidden in a box under the floorboards of his house. Viewers see the book again — along with a newspaper clipping about Mobley winning an award, and a trove of other books with bizarro titles like The Plague Monkeys, Space Elephants Never Forget, and Organ Fish Of Kleus-9 — in the second episode. And in “The Law Of Non-Contradiction,” Gloria travels to the City Of Angels to do some digging into her stepfather’s secret past.
It turns out that, in 1975, Mobley traveled to Los Angeles to accept the prestigious Singularity Award for Best Science-Fiction Novel at the Golden Planet Awards. A producer named Howard Zimmerman quickly approached the naïve author about turning the book into a movie; but as Mobley wrote check after check and no progress seemed to be forthcoming, it eventually became clear that the whole thing was a scam to fund the lavish lifestyles of Zimmerman and his actress girlfriend. Enraged, Mobley assaulted Zimmerman and practically left him a vegetable, fled California, and changed his name to Ennis Stussy — inspired by the brand name of his hotel room toilet.
(13) THE WEED OF CRIME. Lou Antonelli ends his feghoot “Calling Grendel Briarton” with a really awful, no good, very bad pun – I liked it.
One day, while I was a teenager in Massachusetts, a group of high school students volunteered to help with a beach clean-up. It was an uncommon spill, but not unheard of – illicit drugs had washed up on a beach in the Cape Code National Seashore…
(14) THE SOUND OF WIKI. I just discovered WikiWikiup, a YouTube channel dedicated to making Wikipedia available to people with limited vision. Is this voiced by a robot?
(15) WHAT’S THE NEWS ACROSS THE NATION? I also discovered this Puppyish satire about the fate of Castalia House’s The Corroding Empire, masquerading as a report on a daily sf news channel.
(16) OH, THE INHUMANITY! The first teaser trailer for Marvel’s Inhumans.
The annual, week-long Eta Aquarid meteor shower is predicted to reach its maximum on Saturday morning (May 6). The bright moon will be a few days past first quarter (a waxing gibbous, 81 percent illuminated), and it will set just prior to 4 a.m. local daylight time, leaving only about an hour of reasonably dark sky for early morning observations of this shower before the increasingly bright dawn twilight becomes too restrictive.
The world will likely not end because we aren’t returning our shopping carts — that would be an amazing butterfly effect — but it’s an example of a quality of life issue we can control. That guy who didn’t return his cart may not be a complete jerk. He may just be using the example set by others so he can get home a little more quickly. But if everyone does that, then we’re shifting the balance of what is acceptable, which may have greater ramifications to the social order. We have a greater influence over seemingly mundane situations than we realize.
Cat Eldridge sent the link with a comment, “My hypermarket, Hannaford’s, embeds a RFID in theirs that locks the front wheels if one of ether goes beyond the parking lot.”
(19) CUTENESS CONQUERS. The Life of Death on Vimeo is a video by Marsha Onderstijn about what happens when Death encounters an adorably cute animal!
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Scott Edelman, JJ, Cat Eldridge, Martin Morse Wooster, and bookworm1398 for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
I always enjoy the possibility that if I do something well enough that it might be competitive for a Hugo Award. And I have been very fortunate in that regard.
On the other hand, there have been times when I felt it was the right decision to step back for a year, which I did before in 1986 and 1996 for different reasons.
And when that happens, I think it is fair to let everyone know, and not put anyone in the position of leaving off their ballots something they would have wanted to vote for if they had known I wasn’t going to accept.
I know a few will be disappointed — File 770 is a community effort, and when it is nominated that is symbolic recognition of what everyone contributes, not just my own work. I apologize to anyone who feels let down, though I assure you I thought about the community here when making this complicated decision.
(1) HAPPY NINTH BIRTHDAY FILE 770! January 15, 2008 is when I wrote my first post for File 770. That’s the day it all began, although you can find posts here with earlier dates imported from an old Blogspot site I never did much with, or are copies of posts written for Victor Gonzalez’s Trufen.net.
AMC has ordered a new documentary series from James Cameron that will explore the evolution of sc-fi.
Tentatively titled James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction, the six-episode series will delve into sci-fi’s origins as a small genre with a cult following to the blockbuster pop-culture phenonmenon it is today. The show is slated to debut in 2018.
In each hourlong episode, the Avatar director will introduce one of the “big questions” that humankind has contemplated throughout the ages, and reach back into sci-fi’s past to better understand how our favorite films, TV shows, books, and video games were born, and where the genre — and our species — might be going in the future. Cameron and his contemporaries, who have helped to fuel sci-fi’s spectacular growth over the last several decades, also debate the merit, meaning and impact of the films and novels that influenced them.
First, scribes Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick chatted with Collider, confirming that when Reynolds’ anti-hero returns, Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead, the two X-Men who joined him on his mission of revenge in last year’s $783 million-grossing hit, will be on screen again as well. The extent of their participation remains unknown (“They’ll make at least an appearance,” says Wernick), but clearly, the makers of the upcoming sequel — including new director David Leitch (John Wick) — are interested in maintaining some continuity between their new effort and its predecessor.
For further proof, Wernick then went on to tell Nerdist that Deadpool will also once again pal around with Karan Soni’s Dopinder, the cab driver who bonded with — and heeded the advice of — the Marvel assassin in the original film. As the writer said, “I would say that the relationship between Dopinder and Deadpool was the most fun for me. I love that relationship and I love that character. And he’ll be in the sequel.”
January 15, 1831 — Victor Hugo finishes writing Notre Dame de Paris, also known as The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY
Born January 15, 1935 — Robert Silverberg
(8) DIVERGENT AUTHOR. There is a profile of Veronica Roth by M.B. Roberts in the January 15 Parade Magazine, as part of a regular feature on how celebrities spend their Sundays. We learn that Roth wears pajamas most days unless she is going out to exercise, how her favorite breakfast is Kashi Oat Flakes and Blueberry Clusters,and even her favorite wine (Petilant-naturel). The profile is tied to the publication of the first book of Roth’s new series, Carve the Mark, and is unusual because it’s the first profile of a novelist in this feature, which usually interviews actors or musicians.
(9) INSIDE BASEBALL. I wrote to the person who sent me yesterday’s item about Jonathan McCalmont refusing award nominations —
I’ll use this, though it will violate the unspoken I’ll-ignore-you-if-you-ignore-me truce I have enjoyed since we moved past the whole platforming fascists thing.
McCalmont making this kind of announcement is news, after all.
McCalmont may or may not have been responding in this tweet.
The stories in each of these lists are grouped by a “recommendation score” from six prolific short-fiction reviewers, and each entry includes links to reviews.
(11) TINGLE TIME. This weekend at Arisia Pablo Vazquez and Mark Oshiro were part of a panel about Chuck Tingle. Vazquez invited the good doctor to send a statement for them to read.
i have sent important STATE OF THE BUCK ADDRESS i hope there are a lot of buds trotting togeather at this panel it will be a good way https://t.co/TzWIAXZYt7
The following is Dr. Chuck Tingle’s (World’s Greatest Author) State of the Buck Address, delivered by yours truly on his behalf at Arisia 2017. Enjoy the wisdom and thanks to the eternal Dr. Chuck Tingle, constantly helping us find ourselves as bucks. It is unedited, presented in its original true buckaroo purity.
here is important statement: hello this is DR CHUCK TINGLE writing to you from billings thanks to online bud name of pablo and online bud name of mark! tonight is a good way son jon and clowy are watching a BIG TIME MOVE in the living room name of MATTS DAMON TAKES LAS VEGAS it is very loud and handsome matt just punched a scoundrel. i have had three chocolate milks jon thinks i have had 1. so that is my night how is yours buckaroos? …
Prior to Death Race 2050, the Death Race franchise was revived as a 2008 feature by Paul W.S. Anderson followed by a series of direct-to-DVD spin-offs. What were your contributions to those versions?
My work as a producer on those was almost zero. They gave me the script to the first one, and the others, and asked for my notes on the first one, but other than that I had no actual function. But I know Paul Anderson and I know what he was doing [with Death Race]. He was going for a straight action picture, which was what the first draft of Death Race 2000 was as well. When I read it, I thought there was something missing, and that’s when I came up with the idea of the drivers’ killing of the pedestrians, as a way to integrate the public with the violent sport that they love. But you couldn’t take that too seriously, so that’s when I introduced the element of comedy. When I called Universal about [their plans for] Death Race, I told them that [satire] was really essential to the original idea. So they asked me if I would like to make one. I went back to the original idea and here we are.
The final movie features contact with an alien species (partially pictured above) that is awe inspiring and yet comforting, albeit in a strange, unsettling kind of way. They’re enormous, but they’re gentle. They’re clearly capable of great things, but they constantly act with restraint. Their very presence is a perfect balance between shock and curiosity. Had the aliens looked a little different, however, that balance may have been thrown off quite a bit. And now thanks to some early, unused concept art from Peter Konig, we can imagine what could have been, and appreciate what ended up happening all the more.
Perhaps the most impactful difference between Konig’s proposed designs and the final version is the presence of eyes. Director Denis Villenueve wisely opted to go for a design that didn’t have eyes as a focal point, which helps defuse a lot of potential baggage by blocking up those pesky windows to the soul.
(14) STILL SPEAKING OF ARRIVAL. In “Emergency Dialect” in Real Life Magazine, Paco Salas Perez explains why Arrival is based on a surprisingly deep understanding of linguistics.
Linguists and computer scientists use a rubric known as the Chomsky hierarchy, first put forward by Noam Chomsky in 1956, which seeks to describe the major classes of formal grammars — the rules that define the possible sentences of a language. There are four types, ranked by computational power, with Type 3 being the simplest and smallest family of grammars, and Type 0 the most powerful. Any programmer is aware that some higher-level languages are more powerful than lower-level ones, but that lower-level languages are often easier to use for certain dedicated tasks that require verbose solutions in more powerful languages. The same is true for communication systems produced by evolution. Gestural systems like those found among primates are simple and highly effective: they’re based on individual signals, each associated with broad meanings like “food” or “danger,” but with no regular relations between signs, which are instead produced in an unordered and unstructured, “stream of consciousness” manner, even by primates who have been taught to sign by humans. Human language, and only human language, exhibits properties from Types 1, 2, and 3.
Heptapod B doesn’t play by the rules we’re used to….
(15) THE B TEAM. Carl Slaughter confesses, “Spoof, parody, satire, I can never remember the difference. Anyway, if you want to watch a spoof-parody-satire series of ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’, try Interns of Field’ from Screen Junkies. If Shield is the B team to Avengers, Field is the B team to S.H.I.E.L.D. – ‘Interns, assemble!’” This video was first posted a year ago —
[Thanks to Carl Slaughter, Martin Morse Wooster, Harold Osler, Gregory N. Hullender, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day IanP.]
In very short order I am expected to send File 770’s entry for the Hugo Voter Packet.
It’s going to be a PDF, because you can’t just send them a page of links or something.
It will include File 770 #165.
I will add some posts. I could probably use advice on that — I doubt I will include any roundups, however, there are a lot of article-type posts to consider.
That summary post Filers Destroy Poetry will be included.
Where I particularly need help is deciding whether and how to represent the comments on the puppy controversies. Out of the literally thousands written here in 2015, there are no small number that could stand alone. Should I cherry pick a bunch, or not? If yes, your recommendations and the links will simplify the search.
Almost a decade after she first went online, she says she was working as a programmer for a computer game “and something about that whole process of building the structure of that game turned into a real kind of light-bulb moment for me as a writer.” At the time, her fan fiction at was inspired by swashbuckling adventure novels set in the Napoleonic era. But something started happening to her stories — they were getting longer and more complex.
“Then all of a sudden I sort of started to feel that I was constrained by the characters, as opposed to enjoying them,” she says. “And that remains for me to this day the line … where it’s like: OK, you’re not writing fan fiction anymore.”
She also had an idea she wanted to run with: “What could make the Napoleonic wars more exciting? Dragons!” And one dragon in particular: Temeraire. He’s central in her 9-book “Temeraire” series, which opens with the dragon becoming the responsibility of Will Laurence, a naval captain fighting for the British against Napoleon. Laurence is chivalrous with a keen sense of duty, but he embraces the 19th-century conventions that Novik paints in faithful detail — even some that are distasteful to 21st-century readers, like class hierarchies and the roles of women. Temeraire, on the other hand, is newly hatched; he provides a more critical, modern voice.
So many of you already know that in December AnimeCon.org CEO Ryan Kopf filed a lawsuit in the state of Iowa against me for articles I published here on Nerd & Tie about his organization. After I was served, I quickly went public — starting a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for my legal defense (because, y’know, lawyers are expensive).
Pher Sturz, who co-hosts the podcast with me (and came up with the name for it — which is where the name of this site comes from), was very vocal in his public support for me. Pher did this because he’s a good friend, and wasn’t really any more inflammatory (and in most cases significantly less so) than most other people sharing the link.
….To make this worse, Pher, frankly, doesn’t make a lot of money. And I know he won’t point this out himself, but he has a young daughter as well. Lawyers are really, really expensive and he needs to hire one fast. His original attempt to secure aid fell through, so now we’re reaching out to you — the Nerd & Tie readers.
Pher has launched a GoFundMe campaign (Titled ‘The Ryan Kopf is Suing Me Too! Fund‘) to try and get money together to hire someone, and I hope you’ll consider contributing. He’s asking for $3000 right now because (after fees) that’s effectively what he’ll need to get started.
Samhain Publishing has announced that they will be closing. According to Samhain, the main cause of their decision is changes with their terms with Amazon. They are planning a controlled shut down and will continue to pay royalties to their authors and will be returning rights on a schedule.
Being discouraged is part and parcel of a working writer’s life. Negative reviews, ditto. Some of us are naturally more thick-skinned about them than others, and most of us develop coping strategies over the years. This is where networking with other writers can be very helpful.
…. Reviews, ah reviews, and in this category I include feedback from critique groups and beta readers. So much has already been said about the power of a caustic review or harsh feedback of a work in progress that I won’t belabor the point here. Suffice it to say that the natural human desire for praise (for our creative “children”) leaves us vulnerable to interpreting criticism of the work with condemnation of ourselves. Or, having torn off our emotional armor to write from the heart, we’ve also ripped off any defenses against sarcasm, etc. I’m among those who, having received scathing feedback, went home, and cried. I never considered giving up (although on more than one occasion, I contemplated getting even and thankfully resisted the temptation). But some writers have.
Negative feedback, if consistent and prolonged, can have a devastating effect on a writer’s self-confidence and ability to work. Support and encouragement from our fellow writers can be our greatest asset in setting aside the nasty things people have written about our stories. A hiatus from reading reviews is highly recommended.
(5) THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES. Since Steve Davidson found a stash of mimeographed File 770’s on a freebie table at Boskone he’s been thinking how Ye Olden Times in fandom compare with Today. Steve distills those thoughts in “Ode to File 770 (and a note on our changing culture)”:
I then met Mike in person for the first (and last) time at Iguanacon in 1978. Where I had the disappointing task of having to inform him that the only part of Contact:SF (which by then had gone semi-pro) that I could show him was a tear sheet of the cover. (American Airlines lost every single copy I was shipping to the con, which ended up financially killing it.) Mike had offered to spread the news within the pages of his own (eventual Hugo Award winning) zine (after having a look of course) and I had been looking forward to a rapid climb within the world of fanzine fandom. A Hugo award was not that far away in my mind at the time. (Still isn’t, but I’ve got a warped sense of time.)
Gamut will be a website (and eBook) with a wide range of voices—genre-bending stories utilizing the best of genre and literary fiction….
So I’m open to:
Fantasy
Science fiction
Horror
Neo-noir, crime, mystery, thrillers
Magical realism
Transgressive
Southern gothic
Literary fiction
Weird / bizarro
Poetry
Anything done with innovation, heart and emotion—that’s what I want. Everything I enjoy reading and writing typically leans toward the dark side, but I have been known to embrace lighter work, and humor, now and then.
High Aztech takes place in 21st century Mexico, Tenochtitlán, the metropolis formerly known as Mexico City, is the most exciting place on Earth. Stainless steel pyramids pierce the smoggy sky. Human sacrifice is coming back into fashion, especially on the new Aztechan TV channels, and everyone wants an artificial heart. Xolotl Zapata, celebrated poet, skeptic and journalist, starts receiving death threats from a cult he’s lampooned in a comic book. But soon he will have much worse problems and be running for his life. The government, the Mafia, street gangs, cults, terrorists, even garbage collectors will be after him. Why? He has been infected with a technological development that will changing human life as we know it Zapata is carrying a virus that can download religious beliefs into the human brain – a highly contagious virus that is converting everyone he meets, and everyone they meet, to the Aztec religion. This is Witnessing with a PUNCH! Since he’s a virulent carrier he infects a large part of the city all by himself, and the masses, filled with visions and portents, await the End of the World.
Decide how it sounds to you – Hogan’s reading of the first chapter can be heard on this video:
Officials at Little Buffalo State Park in Pennsylvania decided that dozens of tiny gnome homes tucked in trees around the park were a nuisance. The gnome homes were too popular, so they were evicted.
….Steve Hoke, with permission from the park, crafted teeny-weeny doors on hollow logs and built pint-size cottages on mossy tree stumps to the delight of children in the area, not to mention the families who drove hours to see them. The idea was to get kids out of the house, away from the electronics and go for a walk, Mr. Hoke told the media. But with so many visitors, state officials declared the itsy-bitsy abodes a nuisance and ordered them banished. So earlier this week, Steve Hoke carted off his Lilliputian village in his garden wagon. The evictions have angered many, hundreds have signed petitions to bring back the magic, and it appears there has been a reprieve for the homeless elves. Two neighboring towns have offered to take in the gnomes and their homes.
Little Buffalo told Mr. Hoke he had until Monday to clear out the gnome houses. Four days ago, he went to the park with a wagon and collected the dwellings scattered along about two and a half miles of trails.
“It was very emotional,” he said.
As he was leaving, he encountered a man and his daughter. They told him the girl had just finished her final round of chemotherapy and that her father had asked her what she wanted to do.
She said she wanted to go see the gnome houses.
“If I wasn’t so cold and wet, I probably would have stood there and wept,” Mr. Hoke said.
“That’s the part that the people who made this decision don’t get to see,” he added. “It was a mystery for the kids. It was magical.”
(9) THE CUSTOMERS MUST BE CRAZY. Gods Of Egypt received the not-especially-coveted “I’ve seen worse” rating from this reviewer at Birth. Movies. Death.
The most surprising thing about Gods Of Egypt was that I didn’t outright hate it. I have already seen worsemovies this year, and I may yet see something even more abominable in the near future. The conceptual insanity of the movie could be the one selling point to it all, but the truth is unless you haven’t played a modern action-adventure game in the past ten years or so, this overbearing maelstrom of CGI bombast is rote and played out. I felt neither disdain nor schadenfreude during it, only boredom and a slight headache afterwards. I can’t even recommend “hate watching” this or checking it out for the morbid curiosity, since instead of being mesmerized by cinematic atrocity, you’ll be constantly reminded of fonder experiences you’ve had with other games and movies.
It is really a proud moment for the Indian movie audience, to know that even Baahubali was part of the nominations of these awards, that too in five categories – Best Fantasy Film, Best Supporting Actress (Tamannaah), Best Music (Keeravani), Best Production Design (Sabu Cyril) and Best Costume Design (Rama Rajamouli and Prashanthi Tipirineni).
India’s proudest epic and blockbuster, Baahubali-The beginning will compete with the popular Hollywood big films like Jurrasic World, Mad Max: Fury Road, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Hateful Eight and Avengers: Age of Ultron.
On the other side, Baahubali – The conclusion, is currently in the shooting stage and aiming the next Sankranthi release. After that, the makers are even planning for Baahubali 3, which does not include Prabhas, Satya Raj and most of the key cast of Baahubali 1 and 2 parts, as declared earlier.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Will R., Brian Z., and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day IanP.]
(1) PRELIMINARY PUPPIES. Vox Day issued his first “preliminary recommendations” today: “Rabid Puppies 2016: Best New Writer” (Preliminary, since he may change them based on feedback about eligibility, or for other reasons.)
To kick things off, we’ll begin with the Campbell Award: Best New Writer category:
Pierce Brown
Cheah Kai Wai
Sebastien de Castell
Marc Miller
Andy Weir
There was a noteworthy exchange in the comments.
[Phil Sandifer] Just for the record, Vox, the only reason Andy Weir wasn’t on the ballot last year was the Puppies. Without you, the Campbell nominees last year would have been Chu, Weir, Alyssa Wong, Carmen Maria Marchado, and Django Wexler.
[VD] Oh, Phil, you’re always so careless. That is not the only reason. It is a reason. Had you SJWs favored Weir over Chu, he would have also been on the ballot.
In any event, since you all are such champions of Weir, I’m glad we will all be able to join forces and get him nominated.
(2) GRRM REQUESTS. After announcing that the Locus Recommended Reading List is online, George R.R. Martin explicitly said –
Just for the record, before the issue is raised, let me state loudly and definitively that I do not want any of my work to be part of anyone’s slate, this year or any year. But I do feel, as I have said before, that a recommended reading list and a slate are two entirely different animals.
— an announcement whose timing may be more relevant today than it would have been yesterday.
(3) LOCUS SURVEY. You can now take the Locus Poll and Survey at Locus Online. Anyone can vote; Locus subscriber votes count double. Voting closes April 15.
Here is the online version of the 46th annual Locus Awards ballot, covering works that appeared in 2015.
In each category, you may vote for up to five works or nominees, ranking them 1 (first place) through 5 (fifth).
As always, we have seeded the ballot with options based on our 2015 Recommended Reading List [this link will open a new window], mainly because this greatly facilitates tallying of results. However, again as always, you are welcome to use the write-in boxes to vote for other titles and nominees in any category. If you do, please try to supply author, title, and place of publication, in a format like the options listed, where appropriate.
Do not vote for more than one item in a category at the same rank (e.g. two selections ranked 1st); if you do, we will disregard your votes in that category.
File 770 is seeded in the Best Magazine or Fanzine category and would cherish your fifth place votes. Or twenty-fifth, for that matter – the competition is formidable.
(5) STATISTICS. Brandon Kempner at Chaos Horizon began the month of February by “Checking Back in with the SFWA Recommended Reading List”. He prepared a change table and interpreted the rising fortunes of various novels, beginning with the greatest uptick —
What does this tell us? That Lawrence M. Schoen’s Barsk has emerged as a major Nebula contender, despite being lightly read (as of January 30th, this only has 93 ratings on Goodreads, 31 on Amazon, much much lower than other Nebula/Hugo contenders). That’s due in part to Schoen’s late publication date: the novel came out on December 29, 2015. That’s a tough time to come out, as you get lost in the post-Christmas malaise. A Nebula nomination would drive a lot of attention to this book. Schoen now seems like a very good bet for the Nebula, particularly when we factor in that he received Nebula nominations in the Best Novella category in 2013, 2014, and 2015. There’s clearly a subset of Nebula voters that really like Schoen’s work; a Best Novel nomination might be a spark that gets him more read by the rest of us.
I’ve lost track of how many submissions I made to Analog during the intervening years, first to Ben Bova, then Stan Schmidt (for more than three decades!), and now Trevor Quachri. Were there 25 short stories? Fifty? It’s probably been more than that, but I don’t know for sure. And it doesn’t really matter.
What matters is—in the face of rejection, I kept writing.
What matters is—in the face of rejection, I kept submitting.
What matters is—I never took it personally. I knew that I wasn’t the one being rejected—it was only the words on the page that weren’t the right match.
Will Eisner wasn’t just the godfather of comics, a creative force who changed the face of modern comics — he was also a staunch advocate for the freedom of expression. In celebration of Eisner’s indomitable talent and advocacy, CBLDF is delighted to offer up for auction books from Eisner’s own personal collection!
All books in this collection come from the late, great Will Eisner’s personal library. The books from this collection are bookplated with Eisner’s own personalized bookplate, featuring his most famous creation, The Spirit. Most of the books in this collection are signed and personalized to the master himself by creators whom Eisner inspired over his illustrious 70-year career
(8) FAN ART AT RSR. I see that with help from eFanzines’ Bill Burns, Rocket Stack Rank terrifically upgraded its “2016 Fan Artists” content. Gregory N. Hullender explains.
With the help of Bill Burns, we’ve updated the Best Fan Artist page at RSR to include cover art from eFanzines (plus a few that Bill scanned by hand). This doubled the number of artists and tripled the number of images, making it comparable to the Pro Artist page.
(9) INCONCEIVABLE. Japan’s huge convention Comic Market, aka Comiket, which draws half a million fans (in aggregate over three days) expects to be bumped from its facilities in 2020. What could bump an event that big? The Olympics. Anime News Network reports —
Tokyo Big Sight, the convention center where Comiket is usually held, announced earlier that it would not be able to hold the convention between April 2019 and October 2020. Event spaces have been closing throughout the Tokyo area for the past decade. Tokyo Big Sight has also announced that industry booths at this summer’s Comiket would close after two days (instead of the usual three) to accommodate construction work to expand the building for the upcoming Olympics.
(10) TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF THE CANON. We might call this a contrarian view.
Given all the weird shit she's done since HP7, I do not accept that JKR is qualified to determine canon anymore. https://t.co/f8qDZODEe3
— Escaped from Dumpster to Elsewhere (@bruhsam) February 1, 2016
(11) TODAY IN HISTORY
February 1, 2003 – Space shuttle Columbia broke apart during re-entry, killing all seven astronauts aboard.
(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY
February 1, 1954 – Bill Mumy, soon to be seen in Space Command.
(13) WOODEN STARSHIP. A Washington Post article about the renovation of the original Starship Enterprise model reveals it was mostly made from big pieces of wood. When ready, the Enterprise will be displayed in a slightly more prestigious spot .
Collum said the model had long hung in the gift shop of the Air and Space Museum on the Mall. Now it is headed for the renovated Milestones of Flight Hall there.
“The historical relevance of the TV show, and this model, has grown,” he said. “So it’s now being brought up into the limelight, and it’s going to be in the same gallery as the ‘Spirit of St. Louis’ [and] the Apollo 11 command module.”
(14) HOW GAMES INSPIRE ENGAGING FICTION. N. K. Jemisin in “Gaming as connection: Thank you, stranger” talks about the aspect of game play that challenges her as a writer. (Beware spoilers about the game Journey.)
I see a lot of discussion about whether games are art. For me, there’s no point in discussing the matter, because this isn’t the first time I’ve had such a powerful emotional experience while gaming. That’s why I’m still a gamer, and will probably keep playing ’til I die. This is what art does: it moves you. Maybe it makes you angry, okay. Maybe it makes you laugh. Not all of it is good, but so what? There’s a lot of incredibly shitty art everywhere in the world. But the good art? That’s the stuff that has power, because you give it power. The stuff that lingers with you, days or years later, and changes you in small unexpected ways. The stuff that keeps you thinking. Right now I’m trying to figure out how to recreate that game experience with my fiction.
There were more than 70 college SF clubs in China in year 2015. Compared to 120 clubs in 2012, the number was reduced. However, two independent fandoms, Future Affairs Administration in Beijing and SF AppleCore in Shanghai, were still very active.
SF AppleCore is the most important fandom in Eastern China. Last year, in addition to orchestrating the annual Shanghai Science Fiction and Fantasy Festival, SF AppleCore continued to operate on a regular base to bring about the public SF events such as AppleCore Party (speeches and gatherings of fans) and AppleCore Reading Group.
Future Affairs Administration was the backbone behind the 2016 Worldcon bid for Beijing. Although the bid was not successful, they organized the Chinese Nebula Award ceremony in 2014. Last year, this fandom was consolidated into a media platform for SF and technology related information, although the function for fan events still remained.
(16) WORLDS OF LE GUIN. The Kickstarter fundraising appeal for Arwen Curry’s documentary Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin has begun. So far, 514 backers have pledged $39,699 of the $80,000 goal. The SFWA Blog endorsed it today:
Viewers will accompany Le Guin on an intimate journey of self-discovery as she comes into her own as a major feminist author, inspiring generations of women and other marginalized writers along the way. To tell this story, the film reaches into the past as well as the future – to a childhood steeped in the myths and stories of disappeared Native peoples she heard as the daughter of prominent 19th century anthropologist Alfred Kroeber.
Le Guin’s story allows audiences to reflect on science fiction’s unique role in American culture, as a conduit for our utopian dreams, apocalyptic fears, and tempestuous romance with technology. Le Guin, by elevating science fiction from mind candy to serious speculation, has given permission to younger mainstream writers like Michael Chabon, Zadie Smith, and Jonathan Lethem to explore fantastic elements in their work.
The blooper reels for the Star Wars prequel films have been available for a while, but there’s a noticeable trend with all of them. Nearly every blooper — genuinely funny or otherwise — is filmed within a green screen backdrop.
[Thanks to Janice Gelb, JJ, Petrea Mitchell, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Gregory N. Hullender.]
By James H. Burns: I’ve thanked Mike privately, many times, for the opportunity to appear here in “the pages” of File 770.
One of the greatest gifts a writer can receive is simply the knowledge that there’s a home for his thoughts.
To be sure, what I like to call my “memory pieces”, began about seven years ago, when it finally dawned on me, after a slow realization, that there were some elements of our shared past that hadn’t particularly been denoted, anywhere.
I decided it was time to begin “recording” them, before the day may come — God forbid — when I no longer remembered quite as well.
A trap memory can also be a blessing!
Mike was kind enough to begin plugging some of these articles, and somewhere along the way, with this tacit encouragement of acceptance, I simply began sending some of these pieces to him.
But when a notion comes to me, what helps most seeing it through fruition is the knowledge that File 770 will give it a showcase.
(Among the most fun, in a way, have been the actor tributes, quick slices of their impact, I hope, presented here with a lovely array of photos that I work hard to assemble, and that Mike always does a fantastic job of presenting.)
(But then, it’s also been particularly joyous to have a place to forward what I hope are interesting tidbits of space and technology news, and even intriguing invitations…!)
I’ve been friends with editors before. But Mike is the first one who has given me the boon of a welcome forum!
Slowly, too, has been my finally starting to write about my own history, nearly forty years now as a writer, and sometimes actor, among other media professions, starting when I was thirteen, in our very mutual worlds of science fiction and fantasy…
Mike is also an excellent editor, pointing out the occasions when a piece may not necessarily have been what I intended.
I had heard of File 770, of course, ages before Mike and I ever “met” online. How could I not have? Mike has, of course, won several Hugos.
But Mike may be surprised to discover that I ordered an issue from him back in the late 1990s, when I began, slowly, reacquainting myself again with science fiction fandom.
I was impressed then, as I continue to be now, by the variety and range of what File 770 features.
(Although, I must admit, I will never get this “Sad Puppies” thing…) It should come as no surprise, of course, after all these years of such valued contributions to this field, the number of friends that Mike has gathered, in this vast audience.
Because one of the very best things about being involved here, is getting to “know” so many of the readership, as well.
