25 Sir Not Appearing In This Pixel

Posted on April 29, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(1) BAFTA TV CRAFT AWARDS 2025. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) announced 2025 TV Craft Awards winners on April 27. The complete list of winners is at the link.

Here are the works of genre interest that took home awards.

CHILDREN’S CRAFT TEAM

Tom Bidwell, Jennifer Perrott, Rick Thiele, Sarah Brewerton, Anna Rackard, James Mather — The Velveteen Rabbit – Magic Light Pictures / Apple TV+

SCRIPTED CASTING

Isabella Odoffin — Supacell – Netflix, New Wave Agency, It’s A Rap / Netflix

SPECIAL, VISUAL & GRAPHIC EFFECTS

Jason Smith, Richard Bain, Ryan Conder, Chris Rodgers — The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power – Amazon MGM Studios / Prime Video

(2) TIME FOR NOMMO NOMS. Members of the African Speculative Fiction Society have until May 5 to nominate for this year’s Nommo Awards.

Only works of speculative fiction by an African published between January 1, 2024 and December 31, 2024 anywhere in the world are eligible.

(3) WSFS BUSINESS MEETING PREPATORY TOWN HALL. The Seattle 2025 Worldcon will host its first WSFS Virtual Town Hall this Sunday, May 4 at Noon Pacific.

The WSFS Business Meeting Team will be hosting two town halls in preparation for the virtual business meetings in July. The town halls are designed for members to ask questions about the business meeting process. The town halls will be recorded and posted on the Seattle Worldcon 2025 YouTube channel for reference.

If you aren’t able to attend, please submit any questions that you’d like to have answered at businessmeetinghelp@seattlein2025.org.

Details about the town halls can be found below.

Town Hall One

When: May 4, 2025, at noon Pacific Daylight Time (UTC – 7)
Where: Zoom—link provided to those who RSVP
RSVP: Via Eventbrite

Topic: WSFS Business Meeting Basics: Ask your questions about what the business meeting is. How do I submit a proposal? What types of changes can I propose? What if I disagree with a proposal submitted, but would like a changed one?

Town Hall Two

When: May 25, 2025, at noon Pacific Daylight Time (UTC – 7)
Where: Zoom—link provided to those who RSVP
RSVP: Via Eventbrite

Topic: Virtual Business Meeting

(4) FORTNITE FANS WILL GET FIRST LOOK AT NEW STAR WARS PROPERTY. “Lucasfilm’s ‘Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld’ to Debut on Fortnite” reports Animation World Network.

Epic and Disney are launching their most expansive Star Wars collaboration in Fortnite to date with the first entirely Star Wars-themed Battle Royale Season and in-game premiere of Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld on May 2, two days ahead of its Disney+ launch. This marks the first debut of a Disney+ series in a game.

Recently announced at Star Wars Celebration, Fortnite: GALACTIC BATTLE begins May 2 and introduces new Star Wars content and gameplay to Battle Royale each week. Fans can play as Darth Jar Jar or Emperor Palpatine, while piloting ships like X-wings and TIE Fighters. The season will culminate in an epic in-game live event, “Death Star Sabotage.”

The Star Wars Watch Party island will also go live on May 2. Players will have a chance to view the first two episodes of Lucasfilm Animation’s Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld, its all-new animated shorts anthology series from creator Dave Filoni that focuses on the criminal underbelly of the Star Wars galaxy through two iconic villains: Asajj Ventress and Cad Bane.

Beyond the Star Wars Watch Party theater, players have the opportunity to fight off incoming waves of Stormtroopers using blasters and lightsabers. The standalone Star Wars Watch Party island was built in Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) using official Star Wars assets.…

(5) WRITING COMICS. Tim Susman tells “How to Write a Comic Script” at the SFWA Blog.

…The first time I tried to write a comic book script, I had no guidance about what a script looked like, but I’d read comic books and graphic novels. So I wrote up my idea for a four-to-five-page story and sent it to the editor. He sent it back with a gentle note that read, paraphrased, “This is about twenty pages worth of material.”

I was taken aback because I’d separated it into five pages. But when I looked more closely at it, I saw what he meant. I’d crammed way too much into each of those five pages. With help from the artist I was working with, I pared it down, and we got the story to the required length (with some necessary but painful cuts).

Part of the problem was—and is—that there is no definitive template for comic scripts like there is for screenplays. At the end of this post are links to comic script archives; I suggest browsing them to see how established, published writers have tackled the problem. What I’ll cover here are the basics to keep in mind when writing a comic script: collaboration, layout, and dialogue.

Collaboration

If you are lucky enough to have an artist assigned to work on the project with you, your job becomes much more manageable. The comic script is a list of instructions for the artist, and any artist can tell you how best to write instructions for them. My experience has been that artists produce their best work when they have some kind of creative input, so I suggest that your comic script leave room for the artist to bring their creativity to the project….

(6) PULLMAN’S NEXT. The Guardian is there when “Philip Pullman announces The Rose Field, the final part of Lyra’s story”.

Philip Pullman has revealed he will tell the final part of Lyra Silvertongue’s story in The Rose Field, which will come out this autumn.

It has been six years since a book about Lyra has been published – and 30 since readers first encountered her in Northern Lights, the first in Pullman’s His Dark Materials children’s fantasy trilogy. The bestselling novels, which have since been adapted into a TV seriesby the BBC, take place across a multiverse and feature “dæmons” – physical manifestations of a person’s soul that take the form of animals.

The Rose Field will be the third volume in the author’s The Book of Dust series, which expands on the His Dark Materials trilogy. It began in 2017 with La Belle Sauvage, set 12 years before Northern Lights, and continued with The Secret Commonwealth in 2019, set after the events of the original trilogy. This new book will pick up where that one left off, with Lyra alone in the ruins of a deserted city, where she has gone in search of her dæmon. Another important character from the previous books, Malcolm, has travelled towards the Silk Roads to look for Lyra.

(7) DENNIS MCCUNNEY OBITUARY. Dennis McCunney died April 29 after a long illness. He was a con-running fan who worked on numerous Northeast conventions, who lived in the New York City area. He chaired Philcon 1974, Philcon 1975 and Lunacon 34. He also worked on Albacon, Maltcon, and others. His specialties were facilities (hotel) and publications. He was part of the (unsuccessful) Philadelphia in 1977 Worldcon bid. He belonged to The Cult apa.

Mark Roth-Whitworth says: “One of my two oldest friends. We met in out late teens, long ago, in a universe far away. Lifelong fan, computer professional, hotel liaison for Philcon, and perhaps several other East Coast cons. Had a very Mark Twain look, before he started losing his hair to chemo. He’d been fighting cancer for several years.”

Twenty-one years ago he was a Guest of Honor at Capclave 2004. Alexis Gilliland’s bio for the souvenir book said in part:

Dennis McCunney is a tall and seriously lean man, and one of the very few fans who wears a suit and tie to conventions because the suit serves to bulk him up. Perhaps his mustache bulks up his face, or maybe he just wears it because it makes him look good….

[At Lunacons] Often he would sit with me in the bar, between interludes on his cellphone, and regale me with tales of the Lunarians, the small but contentious New York SF club of which he had been – for a time – a member, and how his efforts to create a lasting improvement in the arranging of Lunacon were like Sisyphus rolling his rock up the hill. He discussed the Lunarians together with their follies, fiascoes and ferocious fanfeuds, and perhaps a few other eff sounds as well.

As he was often trying to see that Lunacon ran smoothly in real time, much of what was on his mind was in the nature of who had dropped what ball, and why, with luck, it could be remedied while the con was still running. His triumphs being in the nature of getting the pocket program there on Saturday afternoon instead of Sunday morning. Listening to his stories, it was amazing that he could be as calm about the situation as he appeared, but his philosophy seemed to be: “What is the best that can be accomplished in these circumstances?” Acting on that philosophy enabled him to serve as a highly effective troubleshooter of Lunacons, to the point where he earned the title of “Mr. Lunacon,” although it was never formally bestowed upon him. He worked on other conventions, of course, and it was always a pleasure to meet him at the Worldcon or elsewhere, especially when he wasn’t tasked with some super-urgent business that should have been done last week” In real – that is, mundane – life, he is an ubertechie, charged with making his company’s computers perform in a commercially viable manner….

(8) MEMORY LANE

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

April 29, 1981 — The Greatest American Hero: “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys”

Forty-one years ago on this evening, The Greatest American Hero series served up the ever so sweet and rather nostalgic “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys”. It starts off with Ralph, our sort of superhero, quitting twice after perceiving that he has failed badly.

Meanwhile one of the secondary characters tells Ralph that her friend wants to go to an appearance by John Hart, the actor who played the second version of the Lone Ranger. Ralph is excited because Hart is his childhood hero. Why am I not surprised?

Later in the episode, Ralph and Hart get to have a talk and Ralph realizes that society needs its heroes and decides to wear the suit again.

I watched a lot of the Lone Ranger when I was rather young and never realized that there were two actors in that role. And no, I never figured out the deal with the silver bullets. Obviously that version of the Old West didn’t have werewolves. Or did it?

And yes, it was very, very sweet to see one of the Lone Rangers sort of playing his role again. If only as a mentor.

The Greatest American Hero series is streaming currently on Peacock.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

Crankshaft gets a title suggestion.
Curtis underrates the requirements of horror writing.
Rubes has need for an exceptionally large pair of handcuffs.

(10) IF I HAD A HAMMER. “Godzilla Hammer Now On Sale” reports ScifiJapan. So often these silly things turn out to be AI fakes, but since you can actually buy it on Amazon.com (among other places) I’m going with this one.

Godzilla’s foot has crushed many buildings and structures. Now you can recreate that scene by smashing a nail with the Godzilla Hammer.

Precision casting manufacturer Castem Co., Ltd. (Fukuyama City, Hiroshima Prefecture, CEO: Takuo Toda) has released the Godzilla Hammer (ゴジラハンマー, Gojira Hanmā) – a powerful, one-of-a-kind tool, casted from a 3D scan of a real Godzilla movie suit.

Castem has 3D scanned the foot of the Godzilla suit that was actually used in the filming of the Toho classic GODZILLA, MOTHRA, AND KING GHIDORAH: GIANT MONSTERS ALL-OUT ATTACK (..Gojira Mosura Kingu Gidora Daikaijū Sōkōgeki, 2001) and obtained detailed data on the shape of the monster’s foot. The foot was then metallized in iron (dyed black) using the “lost wax method,” a precision casting method that can create particularly detailed, complex shapes in metal.

It perfectly replicates the legendary stomp of the King of the Monsters. Finished with a sleek black oxide coat and weighing 550g, this hammer has a heavy feel and lets you drive nails like Godzilla crushes cities. Turn it over and see the true sole of Godzilla’s foot—down to every epic detail!

Drive Nails Like Godzilla Crushes Buildings
Crafted from 3D Scan Data of the Actual Godzilla Used in Filming
Expertly Recreated in Metal Using Precision Casting

(11) AMAZING STORIES REOPENS SHORT STORY SUBMISSIONS. Lloyd Penney has announced that Amazing Stories will open for short story submissions on May 1.

Attention, visionary science fiction writers! Amazing Stories is thrilled to announce the reopening of short story submissions for our popular weekly feature, beginning May 1, 2025.

This is your opportunity to share your most brilliant creations with the readers of Amazing Stories! We’re seeking exceptional stories (up to 10,000 words) that will transport, enthrall, and engage your imagination.

We offer $20 for original stories over 2500 words and $10 for shorter works or reprints. We’re looking for science fiction and especially hard science fiction!

Ready to submit your masterpiece? Create an account and find all the details at https://submissions.amazingstories.com/

Also worth noting, we’ll also be opening submissions later in 2025 for the special issue of Amazing Stories 100th Anniversary issue that will be published in 2026!

(12) GIVE ME THE LETTERS. Long before he voiced Darth Vader, James Earl Jones was Sesame’s Street’s first celebrity guest in 1969: “Sesame Street: James Earl Jones Says The Alphabet”.

(13) LOST IN STARLIGHT. [Item by N.] Per Polygon, a teaser trailer for “Netflix’s first Korean original animated film…a sci-fi romance about two star-crossed lovers.” Lost in Starlight releases May 30.

When an astronaut leaves Earth for Mars, the vast infinite space divides star-crossed lovers in this animated romance that crosses the cosmos

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

Pixel Scroll 4/22/25 Four Worldcons And A Funeral For The Eyes Of Fire

Posted on April 22, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(1) TRIMMED FROM THE HUGOS. Nicholas Whyte has done a study of Hugo disqualifications and withdrawals in “Booted from the Ballot: the almost-finalists in the Hugo Awards” at From the Heart of Europe. Charts and graphs! Voter turnout analysis! A truly deep dive.

In the brief downtime between announcing the Hugo final ballot, and getting voting under way (which will be Real Soon Now), I reflected that the two disqualifications and two withdrawals from the ballot this year seemed rather low by recent standards. So I looked into the records, and found indeed that of the seven years that I have been involved with running the Hugos, only one had fewer such cases – two were disqualified, and one declined, in 2021…

(2) SCIENCE FICTIONAL BLOSSOMS. “It’s Springtime on Polaris-9b, and the Exoflowers Are Blooming”. The New York Times article is behind a paywall. However, artist Vincent Fournier’s website has a gallery of images – “Flora Incognita”.

Imagine setting out for a springtime stroll. Not here on Earth but on some distant planet — call it Novathis-458b — orbiting a distant star. Even light-years from home, you recognize some familiar pleasures: The sun (albeit a different sun) is shining. The roses are in bloom. A breeze is blowing.

But these are no ordinary roses, and it is no everyday breeze. The wind clocks in at more than 15,000 miles per hour, and the flowers, Rosa aetherialis, have evolved to harness it. Their strong pink petals curl around a spiral interior that holds the plant’s reproductive organs. The spiral shape directs the supersonic wind through the center of the flower to flush out its pollen and carry it across the planet.

If roses had evolved in a place like Novathis-458b — an imaginary place, but one that bears certain similarities to real exoplanets — this is what they might look like, Vincent Fournier, a French artist and photographer, posits in his otherworldly project, Flora Incognita, which will be on display this week at the Association of International Photography Art Dealers show in New York….

(3) KAIJU IN THE HEARTLAND. [Item by Sean Mead.] Bloomington has declared June 27th as Godzilla Day to celebrate a screening of the 1954 film. “Mayor Thomson declares Godzilla Day for rare film screening” reports Indiana Public Media.

Godzilla is perhaps best known for destroying cities, but an Indiana city will celebrate him this summer.

Bloomington Mayor Kerry Thomson proclaimed June 27 as the first ever Godzilla Day.

In her proclamation last Tuesday, Thomson said the city wants to honor the original, uncut 1954 Toho Studios film screening at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater that evening….

… The original cut of the Godzilla film that will be shown at the Buskirk sat in storage for over 50 years before the studio re-released it in 2006.

The version of Godzilla familiar to most Americans was recut by distributors for American audiences. They removed 20 minutes of footage and much of the soundtrack, in addition to inserting new sequences featuring an American reporter as the main character.

“It’s a little bit more gritty, and it really talks about the realities of what had happened during the war and the atomic bombing,” Bredlau said about the original. “So much of that was sanitized for the Americans. It really took away a lot of the responsibility and heaviness of what happened in the war.” …

(4) MORE ON WILLY LEY. Andrew Porter sent along some of the comments left on the New York Times article “Willy Ley Was a Prophet of Space Travel. His Ashes Were Found in a Basement” linked in yesterday’s Scroll. (Link bypasses paywall.) Here are several excerpts, the first two from well-known sff writers.

Prof. John G. Cramer, Seattle, WA

When I was a teenager, Willy Ley wrote a regular science column in Astounding Science Fiction magazine. (It’s now called Analog, and now I write a regular science column in it.) I was a teenage physics experimenter, and I managed to wind a magnet solenoidal coil that had the shape of a Moebius Strip, a peculiar topological cylinder that has only one edge instead of two. I thought it should do something interesting, but it didn’t seem to do so. I took a picture of it and sent it to Willy Ley at Astounding, asking why it didn’t have one magnetic pole instead of two, since it only had only one edge. To my amazement, he replied with a long letter, exposing me for the first time to the ideas behind Maxwell’s Equations and explaining why my weird coil had to have two magnetic poles. Willy, I owe you a lot, and I miss you.

Al Sirois, NC

Willy Ley was a great but humble man, a far-sighted visionary who fled the Nazis. In NY he helped design and build the first interstate mail rocket, liquid fueled. You can see Pathe newsreel footage of the flight on YouTube. I built model kits of his spaceship designs when I was a kid. I interviewed his widow for a novel I later wrote about Willy and his work and his clash with Nazi spies (speculative, that last bit).

Michael Patlin, Thousand Oaks CA

My parents got to know Ley through their friends Fletcher Pratt and Sprague de Camp . Both Sci-Fi writers and space enthusiasts. Pratt was the founder of the “ Trap Door Spiders” , a literary group in NYC in the 40s and 50s amongst other endeavors .

Andrew Porter, Brooklyn Heights

In the second half of the 20th Century, Willy Ley was the go-to person for informed commentary on astronautics and space travel. Living in NYC, he was a frequent guest at science fiction conventions (where I was privileged to hear him speak), as well as being author of many authoritative books on the field. I have shared the link to this widely with the science fiction community, both to individuals and to various news sites. Hopefully we can quickly raise money to send the ashes into space.

(5) RESISTANCE AND COLLABORATION. Gita Jackson’s New York Times opinion piece says “Watching ‘Andor’ Is No Substitute for Actual Resistance”. (Link bypasses paywall.) Chris Barkley, whose own pre-review of Andor Season 2 posted today, sent the item with the comment, “I disagree with her view of Andor as a ‘feel good about ourselves” show…”

… The series’ ability to capture a radical ideology has been the source of much of the show’s critical praise. I found that seeing my own anticapitalist, anti-empire ideals reflected back to me in this show was affirming, as well as inspiring. But it also made me feel conflicted. After the creator of “Star Wars,” George Lucas, sold his production company to Disney in 2012, the series became part of Disney’s larger economic ecosystem. The company’s existing “intellectual property” — for it is always property, not art — becomes commerce: spinoffs, merchandise, theme park rides. Even the great revolutionary Cassian Andor is available for purchase as a part of “Star Tours — The Adventures Continue” at Disney World….

… I worry that for many people the consumption of this television show feels pacifying, as if watching it is a replacement for joining a protest, their fandom for the rebel alliance a stand-in for their politics in the real world. Disney wants to provide every product to you, even the language of your rebellion against Disney. What’s the point of feeling affirmed if the ultimate goal of Disney is to get you to spend more money on its brands?…

(6) HUNTINGTON HOSTS PANEL ABOUT OCTAVIA BUTLER. The Huntington in San Marino, CA celebrated Founders’ Day with a program about “Octavia E. Butler’s Seeds of Change”. Moderator Monique L. Thomas was joined by panelists Tamisha A. Tyler, John Williams, and Nikki High.

This year’s program, “Sowing Community: Living with Octavia E. Butler’s Parables,” featured a special guest panel of scholars and local leaders discussing themes of resilience, community, and social change in two acclaimed works by science fiction writer and Pasadena native Octavia E. Butler. The Huntington is the home of Butler’s archive, which has been the most frequently accessed collection in the Library for the past nine years. …

… For Nikki High, a former communications executive who opened the Pasadena bookstore Octavia’s Bookshelf in 2023, this inclusion altered her life’s course. “Reading books by Octavia Butler really did change what I expected out of sci-fi stories,” High said. “I had never really seen myself represented in those stories. … I just wanted to know, ‘Hey, where are the Black and brown people 100 years from now? What did they do to us?’ And [Butler] just made sure that she wrote us in.” …

…There was agreement among the panelists that change as represented in the books—whether the collapse of society, ecological catastrophe, or a sudden resurgence of nationalism—was a power to be shaped more than feared, especially through collective effort. Tyler spoke persuasively about Butler’s reframing of change—a seemingly determinative force in our lives that is, on the contrary, capable of being harnessed and redirected.

“One thing that I think Butler does beautifully is she restores our agency back to us, because she says, ‘All that you touch, you change,’” Tyler said. “And she gives us tools. She says, ‘Kindness eases change.’ She says, ‘Partnership is life.’”

High stressed the importance of partnership as an act of community-building, comparing it to the development of speculative worlds that is the essence of science fiction. “What literature does, and [Butler’s] sci-fi specifically, is it allows the writer to create a world, and create alternatives in this world, so that you can actually see what [social] equity might look like,” she said. “Hopefully, as you’re metabolizing this new world … you will start to ask yourself some questions about your role in world-building and to see every single decision you make as contributing to the world that you’re living in.”

Lessons From Recent Wildfires

The discussion turned to real-world examples of change and resilience, particularly the community response to the Eaton Fire that devastated Altadena—a disaster that disproportionately affected Black residents and Black creative culture.

“When you’re watching the world … burn right before your eyes, you’re forced to change,” High said. The fires dramatically altered her daily life. “But look at this change that we created. This community … was in crisis. We all came together. Everybody who was in these little, tiny circles suddenly started to open them and embrace each other.” …

(7) AI CREEP. “Oscars OK the Use of A.I., With Caveats” reports the New York Times (behind a paywall).

The Oscar gods embraced A.I. on Monday.

Sort of.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said in a statement that it had updated its plethora of rules for voting and campaigning. Going forward, for instance, members must now watch all nominated films in each category before they can vote in the final round. (How will that be policed? It won’t. Voters will need to confirm on ballots that they have watched each film, but they could still lie.)

But one update stood out: For the first time, the academy addressed the use of generative artificial intelligence, a technology sweeping into the film capital yet hugely divisive in the industry’s creative ranks.

A.I. and other digital tools “neither help nor harm the chances of achieving a nomination,” the Oscar rules now state. The academy added, however, that the more a human played a role in a film’s creation, the better. (“The academy and each branch will judge the achievement, taking into account the degree to which a human was at the heart of the creative authorship when choosing which movie to award.”)

The academy had been considering whether to change its submission process to make it mandatory that A.I. use be disclosed. But it decided not to go that far.

Simply acknowledging A.I.’s creep into moviemaking is a big deal for the academy. Unions for writers and actors made protections against the technology a prominent part of recent contract negotiations. A.I. was hotly debated in Hollywood and among fans in the lead-up to the Oscars in February, after it became known that “The Brutalist,” an immigrant epic nominated for 10 statuettes, used the technology to enhance Hungarian accents. Some people defended the filmmakers, while others decried the use of A.I. as unethical.

(8) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

April 22, 1992 — Quantum Leap’s “The Curse of Ptah-Hotep”

Razul: You are a student of Egypt, but you are not one of its sons. And until you have heard what I have heard and seen what I have seen, I would not expect you to believe that such a thing as a curse could be true, but it is.

Sam: 3500-year-old dead men don’t just get up and walk around.

Thirty-three years ago this evening, Quantum Leap’s “The Curse of Ptah-Hotep” first aired on NBC.

In 1957, Sam leaps into the body of Dale Conway, an American archaeologist at a dig in Egypt just as he and his partner Ginny Will discover the tomb of Ptah-Hotep. A sand storm traps them deep in the tomb’s inner chambers.

You think that they made up this particular Egypt royal person but no, he was quite real. Ptahhotep, sometimes known as Ptahhotep I or Ptahhotpe, was an ancient Egyptian vizier during the late 25th century BC and early 24th century BC Fifth Dynasty of Egypt.

The curse that forms the story here was evidently a real one that affected a number of archeological digs undertaken here. And it is worth definitely worth noting that Sam, throughout the entire series, thoroughly disbelieves in the supernatural, except for the force has him leaping around and that could be or not be science. He frequently tells Al not to be superstitious about anything. But here he certainly seems to take the resurrected mummies in this episode as a given.

The series won’t resolve whether science or something else is responsible for what’s happening to him.

It is, surprisingly, not streaming anywhere despite NBC being the network that broadcast and it being on Peacock rather recently.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee attends an advanced science fair.
Dinosaur Comics discusses living on the moon.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal reveals our past selves would be so disappointed.

(10) COMIXOLOGY, KINDLE UNLIMITED, 3-MONTH $0.99 SALES. [Item by Daniel Dern.] Via various sources I trust, e.g.

“Subscription to Comixology Unlimited for three months for $0.99” at ComicBuzz.
“Best Kindle Unlimited deal: Get 3 months of Kindle Unlimited for 99 cents” at Mashable.
“Get 3 Months for $1 on Kindle Unlimited, Comixology, Audible – And Other Deals” at The Ebook Reader.

Amazon’s ComiXology and Kindle Unlimited will be on sale, 3-months @$0.99/month, as part of the Amazon Book Sale, April 23-28, 2025.

I subscribed to ComiXology for a few months, years ago (prior to, IIRC, its acquisition by Amazon), e-gulping down vast quantities of e-comics, but, based on periodic perusals, haven’t felt inclined to re-indulge at full price… DC and Marvel e-subs, combined with Hoopla and Libby library e-borrows (e.g., re-re-reading Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon), e-scratch that e-itch pretty well… but at this price, I’ll be re-indulging for three months.

(11) TODAY’S THING TO WORRY ABOUT. Mental Floss rates “The 10 States Most Likely to Survive an Alien Invasion”.

… Researchers from the online calculator website GIGAcalculator determined the states most likely to survive the hypothetical event. They considered factors like terrain (e.g., percentage of area covered by forests and water and number of caves), population density, and essential personnel (for example, active and inactive military workers, law enforcement officers, and engineers) per 1000 people. The website then calculated a score for each state based on these data points and ranked them to see which U.S. state has the highest chance of enduring an alien invasion. You can view the full dataset here…

… Virginia has the highest likelihood of survival, with a score of 8.06 out of 10….

Nevada has the worst rating – maybe that’s why Las Vegas was targeted in Mars Attacks?

(12) I’LL BE DAMMED. “Behold! The World’s Largest Beaver Dam” – Mental Floss has pictures.

In 2007, an ecologist named Jean Thie was scanning the Alberta wilderness with Google Earth in an effort to study permafrost thaw in the Canadian wild. But then something unusual appeared on his screen: A beaver dam so huge, it was more than twice the length of the Hoover Dam.

Located in Wood Buffalo National Park in Alberta, Canada, the world’s largest beaver dam is at least 2790 feet long. It likely contains thousands of trees and appears to have required the handiwork of at least two beaver families. It’s believed the beavers began the construction project up to three decades ago.

While it’s an impressive feat of animal engineering, the dam is not very scenic. “The hodgepodge of mud, branches, stones, and twigs is cloaked in a layer of grass, meaning it’s been there for a while,” Atlas Obscura reports. “The dam stretches across a remote wetland area, which provides the creatures with both plenty of fresh water and bountiful building materials.”

In fact, the dam is located in such an inhospitable area of Canadian swampland that it isn’t known to have been visited by humans until 2014, when Rob Mark, a member of the Explorers Club in New York City, made the trek. He began his journey in Fort Chipewyan, more than 120 miles away, and it took him five hours to cover the final mile (the ground was that boggy). “It was the only hard ground around for miles so I was happy to stand on it,” he said about reaching the dam….

(13) TRAILER PARK. “Rick and Morty gets a psychedelic season 8 trailer that declares it ‘the best high concept sci-fi rigamarole in the universe’” says GamesRadar+.

… In its own weird way, Rick and Morty is indeed the culmination of decades of pop culture, taking its cues from some of the most complex sci-fi stories around, combined with a uniquely cynical take on the classic trope of a boy and his old man scientist pal.

With Rick and Morty season eight now looming with a May 25 release date, fans won’t have to wait much longer to find out about all the trailer’s weird alt-reality versions of Rick and its many alien worlds, hopefully with some absurd (and salty) comedy along the way….

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

Pixel Scroll 4/17/25 The Scrolled Equations

Posted on April 17, 2025 by Mike Glyer

(1) BELFAST EASTERCON FAN FUNDS AUCTION. [Item by David Langford.] The catalogue for the Eastercon Fan Funds Auction (18:30 local time on Sunday 20 April) was posted only to the Eastercon Discord server: I offered to host a copy at Ansible, and this can be found here: “2025 Reconnect Fan Funds Auction”.

From the Discord announcement: “We’re only taking bids in person this year, so if you can’t be there and want something, send a friend with clear instructions and a maximum limit.”

(2) SQUEEZED OUT. Susan Wise Bauer of Well-Trained Mind Press told Facebook readers how – despite having used only US printers — tariffs have had a damaging knock-on effect to their business.

(3) IT COULD BE VERSE. Camestros Felapton delivers a good report on a unique novel-length Best Poem finalist: “Hugo 2025: Calypso by Oliver K. Langmead”.

…One thing I love about the Hugo Awards is when you find an unexpected treat in the finalists — something you didn’t know you’d love but knocks your socks off when you read it. This year (so far) it is Calypso. Inventive, thought provoking, solidly science fictional and a sensory experience….

(4) NO TIMEY-WIMEY FOR THIS. “’Why be toxic?’: Russell T Davies hits back at claims Doctor Who too woke” in the Guardian.

The Doctor Who screenwriter Russell T Davies has said he has no time for “online warriors” who claim the show is too woke….

…“Someone always brings up matters of diversity,” Davies said on the Radio 2 programme Doctor Who: 20 Secrets from 20 Years. “And there are online warriors accusing us of diversity and wokeness and involving messages and issues.

“And I have no time for this. I don’t have a second to bear [it]. Because what you might call diversity, I just call an open door.”…

(5) FROM TOKYO BY WAY OF TENNESSEE. With what’s going on in the country, this is the right beverage in the right container: “Godzilla Whiskey Bottle Collector’s Edition”. Holds 10 ounces of kaiju hooch. Goes for $32.98. (No, I don’t know where they came up with that odd number. Maybe it’s a tariff thing.)

Marking 70 years of Godzilla’s iconic legacy, this whiskey bottle features a fierce design inspired by the legendary kaiju. With bold details and a commanding presence, it’s the perfect tribute to the monster who has terrorized and captivated generations.

(6) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

April 17, 1964 — The Twilight Zone‘s “The Jeopardy Room”

The cast of characters—a cat and a mouse, this is the latter. The intended victim who may or may not know that he is to die, be it by butchery or ballet. His name is Major Ivan Kuchenko. He has, if events go according to certain plans, perhaps three or four more hours of living. But an ignorance shared by both himself and his executioner, is of the fact that both of them have taken the first step into the Twilight Zone.

Opening narration of this episode.

On this evening sixty-one years ago, The Twilight Zone‘s “The Jeopardy Room” first aired on CBS. The plot is Major Ivan Kuchenko as played by Martin Landau, a KGB agent who is attempting to defect, is trapped inside a hotel room in an unnamed, politically neutral country with a bomb about to go off unless he can disarm it. I’m assuming that you’ve seen, but on the grounds that you might not have, I won’t say more. It’s a splendid bit of Cold War paranoia.

Not surprisingly, it was written by Serling though some of the episodes weren’t. It was directed by Richard Donner who later on would be known for The Omen, Scrooged and Superman but this was very early on in his career and he had just three years earlier released X-15, an aviation film that presented a fictionalized account of the X-15 research rocket aircraft program. Neat indeed.

It is one of only a handful of The Twilight Zone episodes that has no fantastical elements at all. It’s a classic Cold War story more befitting a Mission: Impossible set-up than this series. It even involves a message delivered by way of a tape recorder, but mind you that series is two years in the future so that has to be just a coincidence. Or The Twilight Zone being The Twilight Zone…

The Twilight Zone is streaming on Paramount+.

(7) COMICS SECTION.

Bliss didn’t misunderstand the title because they’ve read the book.
Non Sequitur warns about an aging Tarzan.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal implies there is try.

(8) MARVEL SWIMSUIT SPECIAL RETURNS. The legendary Marvel Swimsuit Special is back this July.

Throughout the ‘90s, fans enjoyed a lighter side of the Marvel Universe in Marvel Swimsuit Special, an annual one-shot that featured breathtaking artwork of Marvel characters in beach attire and swimwear. This unique and beloved special makes its long-demanded return this July in MARVEL SWIMSUIT SPECIAL: FRIENDS, FOES & RIVALS #1!

Primarily an artist showcase, Marvel Swimsuit Special presented pinups from the industry’s top talents in a magazine-style format, complete with tongue-in-cheek articles and descriptions.

Roxxon Comics is at it again when they release their own UNAUTHORIZED SWIMSUIT SPECIAL! Wasp is on the case and seizes the opportunity for Marvel’s heroes to do their OWN swimwear fashion shoot all over the world! But fear not, True Believers, we know what you’re REALLY here for! This super-sized special features splash page after splash page of gorgeous art, but with a story so you can pretend you’re “reading it for the articles”…

For more information, visit Marvel.com. [Click for larger images.]

(9) THE CHAMBERS WILL OPEN. The Steampunk Explorer says “’Nautilus’ Set for North American Premiere in June”.

The wait will soon be over for steampunk fans in the U.S. and Canada, as AMC Networks finally revealed the premiere date for Nautilus, the Disney-produced TV series that tells the origin story of Captain Nemo.

The 10-episode series will debut with two episodes on Sunday, June 29, at 9 p.m. ET/PT, on the AMC cable channel and AMC+ streaming service. It will air weekly on Sundays until the two-episode finale on Aug. 17.

The series stars Shazad Latif as Captain Nemo, described as “an Indian Prince robbed of his birthright and family, a prisoner of the East India Mercantile Company and a man bent on revenge against the forces that have taken everything from him.”…

(10) WE’VE MISUNDERSTOOD URANUS ALL THESE YEARS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Hubble Space Telescope data show that the time taken for the planet to revolve around its axis is almost half a minute longer than was thought.

Primary research here: “A new rotation period and longitude system for Uranus” in Nature Astronomy.

(11) IN MY DAY ANNIHILATION WAS SUMMUT DALEKS DID. OR WUZ THAT EXTERMINATION? [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] I don’t know about you but there are some authors I have never got around to reading even though they are award winning authors. For me, Jeff Vandermeer is one such. I was aware (doing SF² Concatenation) that his ‘Southern reach’ trilogy was doing well: the ‘Southern Reach’ trilogy (which I gather has recently morphed into something extra) was short-listed for a Best Series Hugo as well as a Locus Best Series and, of course, Annihilation won a Nebula. But the give-away for me was that before all these accolades, my fellow members of our team selected it as one of our annual Best SF novels we do every January (feel free to scroll down here as over the years it has shown to be somewhat predictive). So, I knew the book was special. However, Vandermeer’s Brit Cit publishers are a far broader church than a specialist SF/F imprint and as it is almost a full time job liaising with these last but not all imprints, I missed the book coming our way, but my teammates didn’t! And so given their recommendation I sought out the film… and, oh dear, I didn’t like it even though it was Alex Garland…. (Give me Strugatskis’ Roadside Picnic and the film Stalker any day… But I guess that’s my loss: not everyone can like everything.

All of this is a long-winded way of my saying that Moid Moidelhoff over at Media Death Cult has just re-released, and updated, a 19-minute video on both the book and the film, Annihilation. Now, this is more a book review than a film review, and it is more a review than a critique. So, as Moid himself explains, that if you have seen the film Annihilation but not the book then you need not worry about spoilers in his vid. Conversely, if have not seen the film or read the book then beware, spoilers ahoy…

(12) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Ryan George annoys “The AI That Writes Every Pop Song”. When the revolution comes….

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

Pixel Scroll 11/3/24 Never Scroll In Against A Pixelian When Death Is On The Line

Posted on November 3, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) BOWERS MUSEUM FANTASY EXHIBITION. [Item by Matthew Sangster.] A touring version of the British Library’s Fantasy: Realms of Imagination (which was reviewed on File 770 last year) has now opened at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, CA. (It opened October 26 and runs to February 16, 2025). A small number of the more fragile manuscripts haven’t travelled, but there are a number of new inclusions, including original concept art from Labyrinth by Brian and Wendy Froude.

Sleeping Beauty (1968) © Royal Ballet and Opera. Tunic worn by Rudolf Nureyev as Prince Florimund in Act III of The Royal Ballet production of The Sleeping Beauty (1968) © Royal Ballet and Opera

Let our landmark exhibition cast its spell as we explore the beautiful, uncanny and sometimes monstrous makings of fantasy. From epic visions to intricately envisaged details, Fantasy: Realms of Imagination celebrates some of the finest fantasy creators, reveals how their imagined lands, languages and creatures came into being, and delves into the traditions of a genre that has created some of the most passionate and enduring fandoms.

Journey from fairy tales and folklore to the fantastical worlds of Studio Ghibli. Venture into lands occupied by goblins and go down the rabbit hole. Explore the realms of the one ring and travel into the depths of Pan’s Labyrinth. And discover how the oldest forms of literature continue to inspire fantasy authors today.

Presented in partnership with the British Library, Bowers Museum invites visitors to discover 160 fantastical items that include costumes, historical manuscripts, rare first editions, drafts of iconic novels, scripts, maps, original artwork, film props, and immersive multimedia experiences.

Gather your fellow adventurers and step into the realms of fantasy as they have never been chronicled before. Who knows where your journey will lead…

(2) TREK MEMORABILIA. Julien’s “Bid Long & Prosper Auction” will take place November 11. Among all the Star Trek costumes, props, and documentation going under the hammer, this “William Shatner Captain James T. Kirk Hero Screen-Matched Communicator Prop” is expected to fetch one of the highest prices, in the six-figure range. (I assume the stopwatch is for scale, not to measure whether Kirk was fastest on the draw.)

(3) GODZILLA AT SEVENTY. LAist recalls “The little-known connection between LA and Japanese monster masterpiece, ‘Godzilla’” — which may or may not have been a good thing, but did mean I got to watch this version on local TV when I was a kid.

Today marks a very special day for a timeless Japanese icon.

On Nov. 3, 1954, the first Godzilla film was released in Japan. The monster flick, which many people saw as an allegory for the Atomic bomb, was a box office hit in the country, and would go on to become a global sensation.

But, “unbeknownst to many people, Godzilla’s international stardom actually began right here in Los Angeles,” said Steve Ryfle, who co-authored the book, Ishiro Honda: A Life in Film, from Godzilla to Kurosawa.

That’s because for five decades, according to Ryfle, pretty much the only way audiences in the U.S. and other parts of the Western world could see the film was through a highly altered version of the 1954 Japanese original.

And that re-edited version, titled Godzilla King of the Monsters! contained added scenes that were all shot in Los Angeles.

… The studio behind Godzilla — the renowned Toho Studios — was looking to expand into foreign markets, and set up a small export office in L.A.

One of the films they offered up for sale was the monster film, said Ryfle. The people who bought it were not your typical Hollywood execs….

What these American producers did to the original Japanese version was write in an entirely new character named Steve Martin, who is an American wire service reporter stationed in Japan, played by character actor Raymond Burr of Perry Mason fame….

(4) EDEL RODRIGUEZ Q&A. Steven Heller interviews Edel Rodriguez about “Cuban Sci-Fi and Hope for the Future” at PRINT Magazine.

What exactly does this niche of fiction mean?
Some of these stories reflect on what is happening in Cuban culture and politics under the cover of science fiction. It gives writers a way to be social critics in an indirect manner. They can tell stories about corruption, migration, shortages and other social ills in a dystopian setting that is not directly tied to Cuba.

Are the books produced in Cuba for Cuban readers?
The books are written in Cuba by Cuban writers but have mostly been published in Spain. Some of them have been published in Cuba; it just depends on the nature of the writing. The books by the author Yoss are not printed on the island, though they do make their way back to readers there.

Are the writers dissidents?
I don’t think they are dissidents per se, but some have been looked at in a negative light by the establishment. This is why some of their books are often published overseas. I believe that the writer Agustín de Rojas was embraced by Cuban institutions while the writer Yoss was not.

What do you feel is a smart sci-fi scenario? And is there a Cuban narrative?
My favorite thing about these stories is seeing the references to Cuban culture, the conversation style and scenarios which mirror what is happening in the Cuban society. A Cuban narrative is when all goes to hell and the characters are desperately trying to right the ship, whether it be a boat, a country or a spaceship.

(5) FREE READ. Sunday Morning Transport starts the month with a free read: “Margeaux Poppins, Monster Hunter”. As the editor say –

Bringing out great short fiction each Sunday depends on the support of our readers. Our first story each month is free. We hope that you will subscribe to receive all our stories, and support the work of our authors. If you already subscribe — thank you!

(6) EVERYTHING ROMERO. You can explore the George A. Romero Archival Collection at Digital Pitt.

What’s online?

The online collection contains selections from the George A. Romero Archival Collection including behind the scenes and premiere photos from Night of the Living Dead, as well as posters spanning Romero’s filmography.

What’s in the entire collection?

The George A. Romero Archival Collection documents a creative history of Romero’s work spanning his entire career. It includes drafts and manuscripts for both his produced and unrealized projects, as well as production, publicity, and promotional materials related to his work. It is part of the horror studies collecting area within Archives & Special Collections.

(7) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Memory: Ngaio Marsh’s A Man Lay Dead (1934)

I truly love country house mysteries. I really do. And they are perfectly suited, the classic ones, for me to listen to, especially this time of year.

There’s A. E. Milne’s The Red House Murder and Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot’s Christmas. And now let’s talk about Ngaio Marsh and her country house mystery, A Man Lay Dead.

Ngaio Marsh was born in 1895 Christchurch, New Zealand where she lived until 1928, when she went to London with friends on whom he would base the Lamprey family in the Surfeit of Lampreys novel, her tenth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn. But long before that, she would write A Man Lay Dead which as I said is a country house murder. It is the first novel of thirty-two to feature Roderick Alleyn, and was first published ninety years ago by Geoffrey Bles in London.

The plot concerns a murder committed during a game of murder mystery at a weekend party in a country house.

WE ARE GOING TO TELL A STORY HERE, SO GO AWAY UNLESS YOU WANT KNOW WHAT HAPPENS IN THIS NOVEL!

A small group of guests at Sir Hubert Handesley’s estate including a man about town, several of his nieces, an art expert, a gossip reporter, and pay attention as Marsh makes sure you notice him, a butler of Russian ancestry.

The murder mystery game in which one of the guests is of course chosen to be the murderer and someone to be murdered by him or her. At the time of the murderer’s choice, he tells the victim they’re dead.

At that point, the lights go out, a loud bell rings, and then everyone comes back to together for yet more drinks and to piece together who did it. It is all intended to be a good hearted diversion, except that the corpse is very, very real.

When the lights go up this time, there is a real corpse with a real dagger in the back. All seven suspects have solid alibis, so Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn has to figure out the whodunit. (Alleyn is conveniently investigating a murder connected to a stolen chalice in the area, but he’s called when this murder occurs at uncle’s estate.)

Will more murders happen? I’m not saying, but this a classic manor house mystery, so what do you think? Need I say?

NO MORE STORY SHALL BE TOLD, SO COME BACK NOW.

Marsh had being reading a short story by Christie or Sayers, she forgot which, and wondered if she could write a mystery novel set in the Murder Game which was popular at English weekend parties. So she bought some composition books and set down to write.

Marsh regretted this novel immensely once she’d refined her writing skills in years to come. Joanne Drayton noted in Ngaio Marsh: Her life in crime that she would “cringe at the thought of her first novel with its barely plausible story line, shallow characterization and confined setting”.

Despite her criticisms, the story does work decently, or at least I think it does. Who else has read it, and what are your opinions of it? I’d say a lot of the manor house mysteries of that period weren’t exactly literary masterpieces by any reasonable measure, but were they meant to be? I think not.

It would later be adapted for the Inspector Alleyn Mysteries series with the Angela North character here being replaced by Agatha Troy who appears in later novels as Alleyn’s romantic interest and eventual wife.

It, like almost everything Marsh did, is available from the usual suspects. The Inspector Alleyn Mysteries series is streaming on Amazon Prime.

The cover is that hardcover first by Geoffrey Bles.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

Breaking Cat News details how Tortimer the Roomba will save the world.
Strange Brew has a strange crossover.
Tom Gauld wasn’t blinded by science – but by lunch.

My latest cartoon for @newscientist pic.twitter.com/eXu2iDzizP
— Tom Gauld (@tomgauld) November 3, 2024

(9) COMICS HISTORY UP FOR AUCTION. Christie’s will auction this month “Les Cousins Dalton” by Morris (1923-2001).

The Belgian cartoonist Morris (pen name of Maurice De Bevere) introduced his comic-book cowboy Lucky Luke in 1946. Les Cousins Dalton, an original strip in which our hero defeats four gunslingers at a single stroke after slurping a Coca-Cola, dates from 1958, when Morris was working with René Goscinny, co-creator of Asterix

(10) THE ODDS OF LIFE. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Dave Kipping over at the Cool Worlds channel has always been a bit of a sceptic regarding the possibility of life elsewhere, especially technological life. The reason why some biologists, like Jack Cohen and I, do think that life is fairly common and while intelligent life with technology may be rare, it is not that rare. However, Dave Kipping does have some mathematical arguments on his side (if you go down the Bayesian route — it’s a maths probability thing). However, work the past few years had pushed back evidence for first life to even earlier in the Earth’s life than before, and a recent paper extends the likely lifespan of our biosphere. So, Dave Kipping has had a re-think and is coming around to our way of thinking…

There’s been some new studies in the fields of palaeontology that have changed my mind about one of the most profound questions – does life start easily on Earth-like planets? Join me today to find out why…

(11) OVER THE GARDEN WALL 10TH ANNIVERSARY SHORT. [Item by N.] Over the Garden Wall, an animated fantasy miniseries that has become an autumnal staple for many, premiered 10 years ago today. In celebration, Cartoon Network has released a stop-motion short with help from Aardman Animations.

Concurrently, Inverse has published an interview with series creator Patrick McHale, who both looks back and looks forward: “10 Years Later, the Creepiest Cult Classic Just Got a Huge Upgrade”.

Here’s an official mirror on X.com which can be seen outside the US.

(12) AI BLIGHT OF THE DAY. [Item by Danny Sichel.] Generative AI is a blight, but sometimes it can make things like this – a music video for Game of Thrones in a Trailer Park. “A Song of Rednecks (Official Music Video)”.

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

Pixel Scroll 11/2/24 Pixie Scroll Is Unexpectedly Whimsical! As If All The News Is Being Delivered By Pixies

Posted on November 2, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) MINUS ONE GETS PLUS ONE. “Godzilla Minus One Sequel in Development From Takashi Yamazaki” reports CBR.com. So will it be titled Godzilla Minus Two or Godzilla Zero? (Wasn’t “New Math” supposed to prepare me to answer this question?)

Godzilla Minus One is getting a sequel. Toho and Takashi Yamazaki are reuniting for a new movie featuring the iconic monster.

The “EMERGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT” was made on the official X account for Toho’s Godzilla franchise. The 10-second video confirmed that production had been greenlit on a new Godzilla movie, with Yamazaki returning to write, direct, and supervise VFX. The last detail is perhaps the most important, as Yamazaki and his VFX team won the Best Visual Effects category at the 96th Academy Awards for Godzilla Minus One.

The 8-second “emergency announcement” is on X.com here.

(2) NO ASTRONOMICON OR HELIOSPHERE IN 2025. Ralston Stahler told Facebook readers today that Astronomicon, held annually in Rochester, NY is taking 2025 off.

Well, some bad news. Due to me being somewhat burned out from trying to organize a NASFiC for the last two years, after Heliosphere it really made me think that my fannish energy has been severely depleted.

The NASFiC did good, people liked it and we did good financially, I just don’t have the energy to run Astronomicon for 2025. I let our guests know that things have changed and at least I need a break for a bit.

Heliosphere (I’ll post their announcement later) after running World Fantasy in Niagara Falls is also taking 2025 off. So the only science fiction con left anywhere nearby will be Albacon in Albany in 2025. They will be the only SF con in New York state next year.

I urge everyone to really think about attending. One of the things I have been saying is that SF cons are becoming very fragile things. They are put on by ever decreasing numbers of science fiction fans. Which is one of the things we need to work on. Getting people to help run them.

New Jersey’s HELIOsphere made a comparable announcement two days ago.

We regret to announce that New Amsterdam Science Fiction and Fantasy Fandom (NASF3) will not be presenting HELIOsphere in 2025.

HELIOsphere was to be held May 2–4, 2025 in Piscataway, New Jersey.

The chief reason is that we feel the need to take the extra time to organize, regroup, and refocus on what we want our home convention to be.

We fully expect to return in 2026, with a new, improved convention that more fully reflects the vision we had when we founded this event in 2017.

Our Guests of Honor, Catherynne Valente and Adam-Troy Castro, have, of course, already been informed of our change in plans. We regret not hosting them next year, but look forward to seeing them at other events … perhaps even at a future HELIOsphere.

We had not yet opened membership for HELIOsphere 2025, except for the memberships we took at the close of HELIOsphere 2024.

We will be issuing refunds for those memberships as soon as possible.

This is far from the end of HELIOsphere. In the coming year, we will be discussing our direction and focus, and planning a new beginning for our event.

(3) CLARION WEST ART OPPORTUNITY. “Call for Clarion West 2025 Featured Art” – complete guidelines at the link.

Clarion West is searching for an artist to create artwork for our 2025 featured artwork. Clarion West seeks to commission one custom illustration with unlimited global rights. Please share this call with the artists you know that might be a great fit, and see below for details.

What we’re looking for

Each year, we seek artwork that inspires us and our writers to create and explore with bravery and freedom. The art needs to represent the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and/or horror in some way, while also supporting our core values of diversity, inclusion, and supporting emerging writers. (You can see the work of our 2024 poster artist, Carolina Rodríguez Fuenmayor, here as just one example.)…

(4) BATTLING SCAM AI STORY SUBMISSIONS. Sue Burke reports from sff’s front lines in “AI Is Fueling a Science Fiction Scam That Hurts Publishers, Writers, and Even Some of the Scammers” at Chicago Review of Books.

…“The deluge is different now,” but it continues unabated, Clarke said at this summer’s World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow, where he received a Hugo award for Best Short-Form Editor for the third time. His exasperation has grown with the “torment nexus” that he finds himself trapped in. He quietly reopened submissions in mid-March last year, and he’s created a sort of spam filter (which he won’t detail so it can’t be evaded) that he shares with Asimov’s. It moves likely AI stories to the end of the submission line, although they still get read because the filter can make mistakes. He’s banned thousands of spammers…

As to any attempt to defend AI here:

…So, it’s easy to claim—and perhaps believe—that an AI can create fiction and art, cure cancer, and eliminate your job, all in a matter of seconds, just before it destroys the Earth. Or this might be overhype. In any case, the AI programs are owned and controlled by major multinational corporations. Can we trust them with creativity?

“Experience should have taught us all by now that large corporations are the last entities that should be entrusted with our future, much less with what becomes of human creativity,” says Tonya R. Moore, poetry editor at Solarpunk Magazine, a poetry acquiring editor at FIYAH Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction, and an associate writer at Galactic Journey. “AI is still extremely undeveloped, and large corporations are already using the technology to manipulate and cheat people in the most underhanded ways.”…

(5) A FAPA JUBILEE. [Item by John L. Coker III.] Robert Silverberg has just reached another major milestone: as of November 2024, he has been a continuously contributing member of FAPA for 75 years!

While still a teen-ager, Bob joined the Fantasy Amateur Publishing Association in November 1949. This was back when Harry S. Truman was still the U.S. president.

(6) IT’LL DO. Camestros Felapton gives Agatha all Along his seal of approval. “Review: Agatha all Along (Disney)[some spoilers]”.

…Aside from anything else, WandaVision had one clever trick (playing off the cliches of suburban sitcoms from different eras) and the lead characters (Wanda Maximoff and Vision) where now dead in the MCU. Would Kathryn Hahn’s meddling witch carry a sequel?

Actually, yes. This was an enormously entertaining miniseries….

(7) NEGATORY, GOOD BUDDY. “John Williams Shot Down One Request While Filming Disney+’s Music By John Williams, But I Think His Reasoning Makes So Much Sense” – read the explanation at CinemaBlend.

Music by John Williams – a new title streaming this week – provides viewers with an intimate portrait of the prolific composer behind films like Jaws and Schindler’s List. Through his conversations with Williams, director Laurent Bouzereau sheds light on the conductor’s personal life and his creative process as well. Bouzereau had many memorable moments working on the documentary, including one he revealed to CinemaBlend – which saw Williams shoot down a request. Yet the living legend’s rationale made so much sense.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Mr. Bouzereau ahead of the release of his latest doc. During the interview, he regaled me with details on his film as well as fun anecdotes regarding his chats with its main subject. It was the latter that led the Five Came Back helmer to reveal that he asked the celebrated maestro to perform the original pieces of music he concocted for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. But, as Bouzereau explained to me, the now-92-year-old conductor declined for a very specific reason:

“Well, I had wanted John to – I knew that he had, for Close Encounters of the Third Kind, created different versions of the five notes and, sometimes, there were more than five. And I had said to him, ‘ [It would] be great if you could play on the piano the different incarnation[s] of those notes.’ And he said, ‘No.’ Because it’s so iconic that you are betraying something that is in everybody’s mind. And he didn’t want to suddenly have someone say, ‘Oh, that would have been better,’ or whatever, you know, what is in the movie, [is] what is in the movie. So I was kind of disappointed, but he said, ‘I’ll get you something. You’ll see.’”…

(8) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Anniversary— Doctor Who’s “The Happiness Patrol” (1988)

The first part of Doctor Who’s “The Happiness Patrol” aired thirty years ago on this date.

Written by Graeme Curry, it was intended (by him and the other writers) to be a parody of Thatcherism, with Helen A representing Margaret Thatcher herself. As you can seeing the picture below, she may or may not have more than passing resemblance to The Iron Lady.

This was the Seventh Doctor so Sylvester McCoy was The Doctor and Sophie Aldred was Ace, who is still one of my favorite companions, and there’s one episode they did where I’m still cursing them for the emotional cruelty they did to her. Not saying which episode that was of course.

All of the classic Doctor Who is available in the United States on Britbox.

The guest performers were Shelia Hancock as Helen A. with David John Pope as Kandy Man.

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, referred to this story in his 2011 Easter sermon, on the subject of happiness and joy. Really. Truly. So what is the story that he so truly liked?

SPOILERS NOW, SO GET A CUP OF DARJEELING TEA AND A CHOCOLATE BISCUIT.

They find themselves on a colony that is under the dictatorship of Helen A. where sadness and misery are capital crimes, and killjoys which is anyone, well, is sad, are is executed on the spot by female assassins known only as The Happiness Patrol.

Now this being the Whovian reality, we also have, according to the Tardis Wiki, “The Kandyman was a pathological, psychopathic android, employed as an executioner by the egocentric Helen A. It delighted in inflicting torture and destruction with confectionery. One of its favourite methods was drowning people in pipes filled with its “Fondant Surprise”, a thick solution composed of boiling liquid candy.”

Needless to say the Seventh Doctor had to defeat Helen A., the Killjoys, the Kandyman and assorted less than sweet individuals in this episode. That they did in the usual Whovian manner, though the Seventh Doctor put his slightly darker twist on it.

About this parody of The Iron Bitch, errr, Thatcher and her years in power? The story makes it very apparent that it what is happening here. Remember the Miners Strike under her and her violent suppression of it? Well, this colony has an oppressed underclass of workers – depicted here as a literally different species. So they turn out to be miners. And they are victims of Helen A.’s regime. “Well, they may not look like it,” the Doctor tells Ace, “but they’re on the edge of starvation. No sugar in the pipes.” Sugar being their only food.

ENJOY THAT TEA AND BISCUITS? GOOD, YOU CAN COME BACK.

I can’t really discuss the critical response to it at the time as they give away way the much of the plot when they reviewed it. Suffice it to say that some like it, some thought it was utter shite because of the anti-Thatcher spin (need I note which papers they wrote for?), some never warmed to the Seventh Doctor so every episode got a blah at best review.

Me, I thought it was a fun story though stretching what was a thin plot over three episodes was just not a great idea.

It got novelized and the story expanded even more, oh god. Big Finish brings the Kandyman back in the Eighth Doctor: Ravenous story.

We’ll let Helen A. have the final words, “And don’t forget, when you smile, I want to see those teeth.”

(9) COMICS SECTION.

Mutts visits a classic bird.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal explores customs.
Tom Gauld has a suspect.

My cartoon for this week’s @GuardianBooks pic.twitter.com/GYCiwWo5ic
— Tom Gauld (@tomgauld) November 2, 2024

(10) CANON TO THE LEFT OF THEM. “Queen Berúthiel is a Childless Cat Lady!” – Robin Anne Reid has found a Tolkien text resonates with a catchphrase from this year’s Presidential election campaign.

…Queen Berúthiel caught my attention in my very first reading (1965) and has resurfaced on a number of occasions in great part because of the lack of information about her in The Lord of the Rings. Even with just that one brief reference, she stood out: she was a Queen, and, more importantly, she had cats (plural!). She’s (possibly?) the only character in the legendarium who has cats (if you know of any others, please let me know in the comments!)

And although it turns out that she was married (but no children!), there was no mention of her husband in Tolkien’s first introduction of her…

(11) THE AVENGERS’ ELECTION PICK. “The Avengers Stars Reunite to Endorse Kamala Harris in New Video” – The Hollywood Reporter sets the frame.

As Election Day nears, Scarlett Johansson had her fellow Avengers join forces for a get-out-the-vote video.

In a video shared by Vanity Fair, Johansson, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Don Cheadle, Danai Gurira and Paul Bettany came together on a Zoom call to brainstorm a new catchphrase for Kamala Harris as she takes on Donald Trump. Some of their suggestions referenced moments from their respective movies, including Iron Man and Black Panther….

We're back. Let's #AssembleForDemocracy. In the #ElectionEndgame, every vote counts ????? #VoteBlue! Vote @KamalaHarris @Tim_Walz pic.twitter.com/Xp7YdUEqxa
— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) October 31, 2024

(12) YOUR INFINITY MAY VARY. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Could all the chimpanzees in the world (OK, so technically not monkeys) ever type the works of Shakespeare? Not before the heat death of the universe say a pair of Australian mathematicians. “Monkeys will never type Shakespeare, study finds” at BBC News.

Two Australian mathematicians have called into question an old adage, that if given an infinite amount of time, a monkey pressing keys on a typewriter would eventually write the complete works of William Shakespeare.

Known as the “infinite monkey theorem”, the thought-experiment has long been used to explain the principles of probability and randomness.

However, a new peer-reviewed study led by Sydney-based researchers Stephen Woodcock and Jay Falletta has found that the time it would take for a typing monkey to replicate Shakespeare’s plays, sonnets and poems would be longer than the lifespan of our universe.

Which means that while mathematically true, the theorem is “misleading”, they say.

As well as looking at the abilities of a single monkey, the study also did a series of calculations based on the current global population of chimpanzees, which is roughly 200,000.

The results indicated that even if every chimp in the world was enlisted and able to type at a pace of one key per second until the end of the universe, they wouldn’t even come close to typing out the Bard’s works.

There would be a 5% chance that a single chimp would successfully type the word “bananas” in its own lifetime. And the probability of one chimp constructing a random sentence – such as “I chimp, therefore I am” – comes in at one in 10 million billion billion, the research indicates…

(13) 24 CARROT TRIVIA. “Bugs Bunny Facts That Fans Never Figured Out (What You Always Wanted To Know About Bugs Bunny)” at Idolator. Here’s one example:

Bugs Changed The Meaning Of The Word “Nimrod”

Bugs Bunny is so influential in American culture that he is the sole reason why America uses the term “nimrod” to mean idiot. Before Bugs, nimrod referred to a mighty hunter, named after the Biblical figure, Nimrod.

Bugs would sarcastically compare Elmer Fudd to Nimrod, and America picked up the phrase. The fact that the cartoon was able to change the definition of an established word shows just how much of a lasting impact it had on the world.

(14) ALIEN ASPIRATIONS. [Item by Steven French.] In the Guardian’s ‘Week in Geek’, hopes and concerns are expressed over the prospect of a sequel to Alien: Romulus: “Alien: Romulus thrilled fans – how can its follow-up avoid the saga’s past mistakes?”

Romulus’s power lay in its ruthless singlemindedness. Like the xenomorphs themselves, it was the perfect movie organism, a simple slasher-in-space tale of a bunch of kids lost in the cosmos who find they have bitten off more than they can chew, and are about to be bitten back hard. Part two should really be more of the same but somehow bigger, and yet the distinct impression from this mercurial saga is that whenever somebody tries to widen the Alien canvass, they wind up with a sprawlingly portentous or downright weirdmural where we really just wanted a nasty little close-up.

Perhaps all we need next time out is another hyper-focused horror romp, with just the tiniest side order of Weyland-Yutani intrigue. Anything more, and once again there’s a danger that this sleek and venerable old beast starts looking like an unwieldy colony ship with a leaking fuel line and a loose facehugger in the cargo hold….

[Thanks to Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Michael J. Walsh, 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 Nigel.]

Pixel Scroll 10/17/24 Nothing To Read And Nowhere To Go, I Wanna Be Pixelated

Posted on October 17, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) YOUR MIDDLE-EARTH CANDIDATES. At McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Sam Woods admits “I’m an Undecided Hobbit, Torn Between a Dark Lord Who Promises an Age of Chaos and an Elf Queen Whom I Just Wish I Knew More About”.

I’m a well-informed Hobbit—a Boffin from Overhill, thank you very much—who is in a kerfuffle about whom to throw my Hobbit-sized support behind. For some, the choice is clear, but for a little guy like me, I’m feeling awfully torn up, like a tear-and-share cheese bread during Winter Solstice! I simply can’t seem to decide between the Dark Lord determined to return to power and stay there until shadows drown all of Arda, or the Elf Galadriel, who seems to be great and exceedingly normal, but I just wish I knew more about her….

(2) NEW WALLACE & GROMIT MOVIE NEXT YEAR. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl will be coming to Netflix on January 3, 2025.

The world’s best boss – Feathers McGraw is back with a vengeance. A brand new epic Wallace & Gromit family adventure, the first full length feature film in 19 years since BAFTA and Academy Award-winning The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

From the brilliant Aardman and four-time Academy Award®-winning director Nick Park and Emmy Award-nominated Merlin Crossingham comes Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. In this next installment, Gromit’s concern that Wallace is becoming too dependent on his inventions proves justified, when Wallace invents a “smart” gnome that seems to develop a mind of its own. When it emerges that a vengeful figure from the past might be masterminding things, it falls to Gromit to battle sinister forces and save his master… or Wallace may never be able to invent again!

(3) DUNE: PROPHECY TRAILER. The new HBO Original Series Dune: Prophecy premieres November 17 on Max. According to Deadline:

…The series takes place 10,000 years before the ascension of Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides in the Denis Villeneuve-directed movies. It follows two Harkonnen sisters as they combat forces that threaten the future of humankind, and establish the fabled sect that will become known as the Bene Gesserit. They’re Jedi-like sisters types in the Frank Herbert novels to you Star Wars folks out there….

(4) FUN WHILE IT LASTED. “Peter Capaldi: ‘Being Doctor Who was more fun than being me’”, so he tells Radio Times.

…While he’s been open about the fact that he wouldn’t return to the role, he clearly looks back fondly on it, exclusively telling RadioTimes.com: “It was just an incredible experience. Suddenly, you’re in the middle of this fantastical world, surrounded by people who love Doctor Who.

“I was watching Tom Baker talking about something, and he said that when he was Doctor Who he would do tons and tons of publicity and stuff, because being Doctor Who was much more fun than being Tom Baker, and I would say the same, probably, being Doctor Who is much more fun than being me.”…

(5) GODZILLA WILL TIP THE SCALES. More to love! “Godzilla Minus One Returning to Theaters With New Bonus Content” announces CBR.com.

…Per AMC, Takashi Yamazaki’s Academy Award-winning film is making its way back to AMC theaters starting on Nov. 1, 2024, with 13 extra minutes of content. The film’s return to the big screen is part of the Godzilla franchise’s 70th anniversary celebrations. In the fall of 1954, Ishirō Honda’s original film premiered, creating a cultural phenomenon that has lasted throughout generations. The franchise has been reinvented multiple times, and it has transcended cultural boundaries. Still, Godzilla Minus One feels like a particularly good homage to the original, having risen to become the best-selling Japanese Godzilla film of all time….

(6) FREE READ. Grist has shared an original Imagine 2200 short story, from Nebula and Aurora award-winning author and scientist Premee Mohamed: “Who Walks With You”.

Mohamed imagines a world in which many have adapted to extreme weather by moving into mobile pods, designed to relocate towns away from disasters:

“After the weather started going wild, after the cities emptied out, much of humanity discovered somewhat to their surprise that what they had done initially out of panicked necessity — uprooting, becoming mobile — suited most folks rather well. Now a relaxed nomadicism has become ingrained, life as normal. No more did you have to stay in one place and wait for the big one, whatever that might be, to hit you; now you could walk away with all your friends and family, and eat heirloom popcorn while watching the news about the big one hitting the place you had just left.”

But when independent, logic-minded Ysolt finds herself in a broken pod at the bottom of a ravine after a freak storm, will technology and willpower be enough to save her?

(7) YOU LOOK WILLING TO PAY. “Kroger’s Plan to Use Facial Recognition Raises Concerns About Surge Pricing”. Gizmodo asks, “How soon will the Minority Report-style supermarket arrive?”

Democratic congresswoman Rashida Tlaib recently sent a letter to Kroger over the grocery giant’s purported plan to introduce digital price tags that could be changed in an instant to raise or lower prices for shoppers based on the time of day, the weather, or any other number of factors. But one particular detail in Kroger’s plan is raising the most eyebrows: The company intends to put cameras in stores that would be used for facial recognition.

…“Studies have shown that facial recognition technology is flawed and can lead to discrimination in predominantly Black and brown communities,” Tlaib said in her letter. “The racial biases of facial recognition technology are well-documented and should not be extended into our grocery stores.”

Kroger is the largest grocery store chain in the U.S. by revenue and owns a number of different brands, including Ralphs, Fred Meyer, Pick’n Save, Food 4 Less, and Dillions, among a host of others. Tlaib is worried that ESLs will allow Kroger’s stores to “use customer data to build personalized profiles of each customer” in such a way that it will be able to “determine the maximum price of goods customers are willing to pay.”…

(8) LOONEY TUNES MOVIE. “’The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie’ Release Date Set” – Deadline tells us when.

… The movie will make its North American premiere Friday at the Animation Is Film festival, where it will qualify for the Best Animated Feature Oscar race.

The pic was directed by Pete Browngardt and follows Porky Pig and Daffy Duck teaming up again, this time faced with the threat of an alien invasion….

…Unlike Coyote vs. Acme, which was pulled from theatrical release by Warner Bros amid a swath of cost cutting, the great news is that The Day the Earth Blew Up is seeing the light of day. Sales were launched at the American Film Market by GFM Animation.

(9) JODIE OFFUTT (1934-2022). It has just become generally known that longtime Southern fan (and File 770 contributor) Jodie Offutt passed away in November 2022. The family’s memorial page is here: “Mary Joe Offutt Obituary – Coleman Funeral Home”.

Born in Lexington, Kentucky, Jodie Offutt, 87, passed away of natural causes in Oxford, Mississippi. She was the daughter of John Jerome (Jack) McCabe and Mary Joe (Josie) McCarney. She was preceded in death by her husband of 56 years, Andrew J. Offutt.

Jodie is survived by her four children, Chris Offutt, Jeff Offutt, Scotty Hyde, and Melissa Offutt. She is also survived by her sister, Phoebe McCabe Tanedo, five grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

Jodie grew up in Lexington, Kentucky and lived in Morehead and Haldeman, Kentucky. She graduated from Morehead State University with a B.A in Philosophy and a M.A in English. She worked as a teacher and an administrative assistant to lawyers. After the death of her husband, Jodie retired to Oxford, where she embraced the local community.

Her Fancyclopedia 3 entry recalls that she was a convention guest of honor at Rivercon II and BYOB-Con 6 (1976), Artkane 2 (1977), MidSouthCon 5 (1986), Transcendental ConFusion (1993), and LibertyCon 9 (1995). And in the early years of File 770 she was wonderfully supportive, frequently sending news and letters of comment.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born October 17, 1934 – Alan Garner, 90.

So these are my favorite works by Alan Garner on his ninetieth birthday.

Let’s start off with what Boneland, a novel I dearly like as it’s very much unlike most of his other works. Despite sharing a primary character with The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath, beloved children’s novels known as The Alderley Tales that were published in the late Fifties and Sixties, nearly 60 years before this work, as this is very much an adult novel not intended for the pleasure of children whatsoever.

Indeed, its tone is more akin to what the late Robert Holdstock did in his Ryhope Wood series than anything else Alan Garner has done excepting Thursbitch and Strandloper, again adult works. This story can be disturbing and very odd in places. I can’t tell what is happening here but it doesn’t read like fantasy as all.

The Owl Service I’ve read and then later listened to a number of times. Garner bases his story on Blodeuwedd, a woman created from flowers by a Welsh sorcerer. She betrays her husband, Lleu, in favor of another, Gronw, and is turned into an owl as punishment for inducing Gronw to kill Lleu.

In Garner’s telling of this story, three teenagers find themselves tragically reenacting the story as they first awaken the legend by finding a dinner service with an owl pattern on the plates.

The Naxos audiobook is told by Wayne Forester, who handles both the narration and voicing of each character amazingly well, I’m impressed by his ability to handle both Welsh accents and the Welsh language, given the difficulty of that tongue, which make Gaelic look easy to pronounce by comparison.

My final pick is The Stone Book Quartet which is series of four interconnected stories, telling Alan Garner’s personal and family history as fiction. It’s set in Manchester, England, where Garner’s family is from. It is important to note that, unlike John Berger’s Into Their Labours, in which Berger, an Englishman, moved to a remote French village where that series is based, Garner’s tale reflects his deep roots in the culture, a theme that has become stronger in his fiction over the decade before this was written.

Simply put, each tale is, like the peasants in Into Their Labours, a marvelous play of language, of the labouring class in their daily lives, the cycle of the seasons, and the continuity that comes of living for generations in a community.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal shows why this park stays in business.
The Other Coast has an attraction problem.
Lola spies a Stone Age crossover.
Moderately Confused reveals a Poe sequel you didn’t know about (nor did he.)
Off the Mark has something to make vampiric parents happy.
Candorville picks the perfect gift. And pays for it, too.
Loose Parts cures an art problem.

(12) TUNING UP. “Minnesota Opera producing first-ever operatic adaptation of a comic book and Stephen King” – Bring Me The News has the story.

In what BOOM Studios and the Minnesota Opera are calling “the first ever deal to create an operatic adaptation of a comic book or graphic novel,” the companies are developing an adaptation of the comic book series The Many Deaths of Laila Starr.

The series, written by Ram V and drawn by Filipe Andrade, was repeatedly heralded as one of the best series of the year when it was released by BOOM Comics in 2021, eventually earning four Eisner nominations, including Best Limited Series….

(13) THEY’LL BE BACK. “’Rick and Morty’ Renewed Through Season 12 at Adult Swim” reports Variety.

“Rick and Morty” has been renewed for two more seasons at Adult Swim, propelling television’s favorite mad scientist and grandson duo through Season 12.

As Season 8 is slated for 2025, and the Season 10 renewal was announced in 2023, the Season 12 greenlight pushes the Emmy-winning animated series through at least 2029…

(14) NEW SHEPARD PICKS RETIREMENT HOME. “Blue Origin donates New Shepard space hardware to Smithsonian” – GeekWire says it wasn’t a foregone conclusion.

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has donated a New Shepard rocket booster, plus a New Shepard capsule, to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

The history-making hardware will go on display at the museum’s main building on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in renovated galleries due to open in 2026.

“There is no better final landing pad for New Shepard than the Smithsonian,” Bezos said in a statement. “We are honored and grateful.”

The reusable booster, known as Propulsion Module 4-2, was employed for five uncrewed flights — ranging from the New Shepard program’s first successful booster landing in 2015 to an escape system test that could have destroyed the propulsion module in 2016.

Before that final outing for the booster, Bezos said it would be put on display if it survived. “We’d really like to retire it after this test and put it in a museum,” he said at the time. “Sadly, that’s not likely. This test will probably destroy the booster.”

Fortunately for the Smithsonian, Bezos’ prediction was wrong. The scorched but intact booster was exhibited at a variety of events, including the 2017 Space Symposium in Colorado, and most recently was on display at Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket factory in Florida….

(15) MICROREACTORS. TechRadar says “Micro nuclear reactors are being built that can deliver 5MW of power for up to 100 months, producing a staggering 1.2 petawatt-hours of energy”.

…Now, details have surfaced about Westinghouse’s eVinci microreactor, after the company revealed it had submitted its Preliminary Safety Design Report (PSDR) to the Department of Energy’s National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) and in doing so is the first reactor developer to reach this milestone.

“The completion of the PSDR for the eVinci test reactor is an important step toward enabling a micro reactor developer to perform a test in our DOME facility,” said Brad Tomer, acting director of NRIC.

“As a national DOE program and part of INL, the nation’s nuclear energy research laboratory, NRIC is committed to working with private companies such as Westinghouse to perform testing and accelerate the development of advanced nuclear technologies that will provide clean energy solutions for the US.”

NRIC, a key initiative under the DOE, is dedicated to fast-tracking the development and deployment of advanced nuclear technologies like the eVinci microreactor. Its mission includes establishing four new experimental facilities and two large-scale reactor test beds by 2028, with plans to complete two advanced technology experiments by 2030….

(16) STAR TREK FROGS CHIRPING BOLDLY. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Researchers have discovered seven new species of tree frog in Madagascar. They make chirps and noises a bit like the sound-effects from Star Trek and so the researchers have named the species after Kirk, Picard, Sissko, Janeway, Pike et al…

We here name and describe the seven new species in honor of fictional captains of starships, namely B.kirki sp. nov.,B.picardi sp. nov., B.siskoi sp. nov., B.janewayae sp. nov., B.archeri sp. nov., B.pikei sp. nov., and B.burnhamae sp. nov.

Primary research: Vences, M. et al (2024) Communicator whistles: A Trek through the taxonomyof the Boophis marojezensis complex reveals seven new, morphologically cryptic tree frogs from Madagascar (Amphibia: Anura: Mantellidae). Vertebrate Zoology, vol. 74, p643–681.

(17) SPACE TRASH SOLUTION. Popular Science says, “ISS astronauts to test trash compactor that’s basically WALL-E”. How can I resist a clickbait headline like that?

NASA will test a state-of-the-art trash compactor aboard the International Space Station—and yes, it resembles a certain Pixar character tasked with the same job responsibilities. If all goes well, Sierra Space’s Trash Compaction and Processing System (TCPS) will be operational for ISS astronauts to use by the end of 2026.

(18) NEMO: IN THE MINOR LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA. SCIFI Radio introduces us to “Nautilus”, a Prime Video series that launches the first of its ten episodes on October 25.

…This mini-series focuses on the early days of Nemo’s career, before the events portrayed in the beloved 1954 Disney movie. Nemo is still the genius who designed the Nautilus, but he did not build her for himself….

…Nemo leads a prisoner escape, stealing his own ship to do so. Naturally the East India Company is not happy about this, and pursue him with all the means at their command. If you remember the British Raj in the days when Rudyard Kipling was a young writer, you’ll remember they had considerable means. If you’re not a Kipling fan, think of The Far Pavilions….

(19) SPACE IS COOL. Tom Cardy, an Australian comedian, musician, songwriter, and actor, has dropped an animated music video of his 2023 single “H.S” – because whether or not it’s a planet, Pluto still knows it is “hot shit”!

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

Brooklyn SciFi Film Festival 2024

Posted on October 8, 2024 by Mike Glyer

The Brooklyn SciFi Film Festival is celebrating its fifth season in 2024 with a slate of more than 200 original and independent sci-fi and fantasy films from across the globe. This year’s festival, being held October 14-20th, celebrates all things sci-fi—from the eclectically weird to the sublimely classic.

Michael Brown, Festival Director, says: “Our intention is to create a home for independent science fiction stories, that in the true spirit of Brooklyn, is inclusive, accessible, and creative. That’s the ‘big tent’ philosophy. Show more—let fans choose what they watch— and grow a community of support and recognition.”

SPECIAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE FIFTH SEASON. This year’s festival will pay tribute to the Godzilla franchise and the birth of the Kaiju (giant monster) film genre, with the Godzilla Eras Tour. Featured events include a Japanese SciFi Night, showcasing six films from Tokyo’s Jimbocho Movie Fest, at Stuart Cinema Cafe in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The festival will also host a Kaiju Monster Night on Thursday, October 17 at Spectacle Theater in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. For online audiences, there will be a Kaiju Monster panel and a screening of the documentary “The Dawn of Kaiju Eiga”, as well as an interactive Godzilla Eras Tour on the festival website and app where fans can learn the history of this honored franchise.

Other live events include a networking night for indie filmmakers and fans, and the Awards Night screening of short films at Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Downtown Brooklyn, followed by an afterparty at the House of Wax bar. A major highlight and festival favorite will be the Best of Brooklyn SciFi short films screening at Stuart Cinema on Wednesday, October 16th featuring short films from NYC based filmmakers followed by a panel discussion.

NEW INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCES. In addition to live events, Brooklyn SciFi has expanded its online platform to bring the festival to a global audience. The festival’s Netflix-style streaming service allows attendees to watch films, up-vote their favorites, participate in online watch parties, and join special panels. Featured online screenings include T.I.M., with director Spencer Brown, and the Godzilla documentary The Dawn of Kaiju Eiga with director Jonathan Bellés.

The original curated series The Sixth Borough is also returning, featuring three outrageous sci-fi stories in each episode—described as “Black Mirror meets the Twilight Zone.”

EVENT INFORMATION AND TICKETS. For more details on events, tickets, and streaming options, visit the official festival website at BrooklynSciFiFilmFest.com. Tickets are also available on Eventbrite.

[Based on a press release.]

Pixel Scroll 7/20/24 There’s A Barsoom On The Right

Posted on July 20, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) HELLO FROM CHINA. The Hugo Book Club Blog has a guest post from Chinese fan RiverFlow: “Guest Post: Unite Sci-Fi Fans Around The World”.

Hello science fiction fans attending the 2024 World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow. First of all, have you heard of Chinese sci-fi fandom? If so, what examples can you give?

Science fiction fans in China were excited when Zero Gravity News won the Hugo Award for Best Fanzine last year. See “Introducing Chinese sci-fi fanzine Zero Gravity News” to learn more about the fanzine.

Yes, in fact, there is a very large group of science fiction fans in China, but few people have collected and collated their materials. I have been working on this since 2020, and have written some articles to introduce the collection.

The earliest Chinese Fanzine was born in 1988. In the 1990s, many science fiction fans were employed and writing in their leisure time, but in the 21st century, these contributions were mainly completed by students. Because workers are busy with their lives and families, it is difficult to find time to organize related activities. So I wrote a book, History of Chinese University Science Fiction Association, to introduce Chinese science fiction fans to the rest of the world. The thousands of photos and hundreds of thousands of words are enough to prove the rich history of this group….

(2) LOCAL GROUP FOCUS – NORTHUMBERLAND HEATH SF. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] This is the Northumberland Heath SF’s group meet recently when a Mandalorian visited.

This is just half its regular membership of a score or so who turn up to at least two or three meets a year: work shift rotas, familial and other commitments, etc., mean that it is rare that all regulars attend the same meet. In addition, the group’s Facebook has some 260 followers of which half are local, but 120 of these have never physically attended a meet. (Is this typical of other local groups?) Of the non-local remainder FB followers, a good proportion are familiar names on some Worldcon registrant lists. Some of its members belong to other specialist regional and national SF groups and one of its members is the daughter of a former Worldcon fan GoH.

The group is only several years old but has some heritage connection with the former NW Kent SF group of the 1980s and ’90s that used to meet in nearby Dartford. N. Heath SF is located in southeast London, on its border in Kent, which means that in addition to local social gatherings and cinema outings, it is easy to have trips to central London events, such as the annual Sci-Fi London film fest, or one-offs, such as the Loncon 3 Worldcon. It meets the second Thursday of each month so as not to clash with the first Thursday London SF Circle (as it used to be called) gathering.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Jonathan adds, “I for one would be interested to see potted summaries of local SF groups across different countries” and I enthusiastically second the idea. I’d love to run people’s introductions to the sf groups they’re in.

(3) DOWNLOAD THE 2019 GUFF TRIP REPORT. Simon Litten’s 2019 GUFF Trip Report Visiting Nearly Kiwiland has been published. Copies can be downloaded at the Australian Fan Funds website.

There’s no charge to download the report but interested fans may wish to make a donation to GUFF (via PayPal to guffeurope@gmail.com).

(4) THE SELF-PUBLISHING BUSINESS. Dave Dobson offers a deep dive into the numbers in his “Anatomy of a free BookBub featured deal”. A lot to learn here about Amazon, free book campaigns, and ratings.

Also, the intangibles – the sales rank, the visibility, the (I hope) new fans, the glut of new ratings and reviews – all of those are things I’d gladly have paid a couple hundred bucks pursuing. So, I’m going to call this a clear win, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

(5) OCTOTHORPE. In episode 114 of Octothorpe, “Tastemaker Batty”, John Coxon, Alison Scott and Liz Batty discuss the Hugo Awards. Uncorrected transcript is available here.

We cover all the categories except Best Novel, which we covered in a previous episode. The deadline is today (20 July 2024 at 21:17 Glasgow time). Don’t forget to vote beforehand.

The value for “today” is a now-expired deadline. But that comes to us all sooner or later.

”Octothorpe 114” is at the top, and the word ”Octothorpe” is written on a series of lottery balls. Below that, a bingo card, and below that, the words ”Worldcon Community Group Bingo Card". The items on the card are as follows: - Can I convert pounds to Scottish money? - Does anyone have any opinions on...? - Do you know my Scottish cousin? - This list is too long to read so can someone... - Is the programme out yet? - Can I swim in the Clyde? - Can I visit Stonehenge for the day? - Asks question answered in PR5 - Does Glasgow Zoo have live haggis? - Volunteering is the best way to have fun - What's with all the armadillos? - Shouldn't the subway be a Digital Orange now? - Free! - Is the con organising an aurora viewing? - Is it too late to get on the programme? - Will Nessie be doing a signing? - Mention of Glasgow, England - Can anyone go to the Hugo Awards? - Why don't we do this the way we did in 1956? - Can I fly from Glasgow to Edinburgh? - Will there be any authors there? - Can I bring my Emotional Support Moose? - Are tartan and/or kilts compulsory? - What I reckon... - Mention of deep-fried Mars Bar

(6) PLUTO STILL NOT ONE OF THE COOL KIDS. “Astronomers Propose New Criteria to Classify Planets, but Pluto Still Doesn’t Make the Cut” in Smithsonian Magazine.

Nearly two decades after Pluto got kicked out of the planet club, astronomers are proposing an updated way to define “planet” based on more measurable criteria. The current definition is “problematic” and “vague,” they write in a paper published Wednesday in The Planetary Science Journal.

Unfortunately for fans of the dwarf planet, however, Pluto would remain excluded, even if the proposal is approved….

… “Jupiter’s orbit is crossed by comets and asteroids, as is Earth’s,” Gladman points out in a university statement. “Have those planets not cleared their orbit and thus, aren’t actually planets?”

In a bid to correct for this ambiguity, Gladman and his two colleagues propose a more measurable definition. According to their model, a celestial body is a planet if it: orbits one or more stars, brown dwarfs or stellar remnants; is more massive than 10²³ kilograms (a size big enough to clear its orbit of debris); and is less massive than 2.5 x 10²⁸ kilograms (equivalent to 13 Jupiter masses).

Pluto’s mass is 1.31 x 10²² kilograms, so it would remain excluded—but our current eight planets would retain their classification….

New Horizons photo of chaos region on Pluto.

(7) TOP SCI-FI MOTORBIKES. SlashGear praises “10 Of The Coolest Motorcycles In All Of Science Fiction”.

…When making this list, we looked at motorcycles that specifically had a sci-fi bent to them. The 1990 Harley-Davidson Fat Boy in “Terminator 2: Judgement Day” is definitely cool, but that’s a bike that already exists. We wanted motorcycles that pushed the boundaries of transportation in the future and perhaps even inspired folks to design their own bikes that look similar in real life. These are the sci-fi motorcycles that show that while society might change in the future, riding around on a cool motorcycle never gets old. …

The list includes —

Kaneda’s bike in Akira

Kaneda’s bike in “Akira,” one of the most influential anime films of all time, isn’t just cool-looking — it inspired the famous “Akira Slide,” which has entered meme status and has been referenced in a wide range of projects, from “Batman: The Animated Series” to Jordan Peele’s “Nope.” Even when it’s not sliding, the bike is beautifully drawn.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

July 20, 1938 – Dame Diana Rigg. (Died 2020.)

By Paul Weimer:

I was introduced to Diana Rigg thanks to Roger Zelazny’s Amber.

It’ll make sense, trust me.

As you know, I am and have been an enthusiastic player of the Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game, set in the endless multiverse of the novels. Lots of players and GMs like to import ideas from other books, shows and series. (I am no exception in that regard, mind you).

One of these GMs I played with was a big enthusiast of The Steed and Peel Avengers series from the 1960’s. I was not yet familiar with the series, but after playing a session where Steed turned out to be a secret Amberite, I had to know more! Who was Steed and who was the mysterious Mrs. Peel he was looking for (as part of the plot)? (She did not actually appear on screen). The GM encouraged me to seek out The Avengers.

And thus, I discovered the original Avengers TV series, and thus, Diana Rigg. I was enchanted immediately, of course, by a beautiful kick-arse actress with skill, verve, and action. I avidly watched all the episodes of The Avengers, finding Rigg the best of the partners for McNee by a long way. The DNA of some notable action heroines with skill, verve, intelligence and independence definitely can be traced back to Rigg’s Mrs. Peel.

Later on, she was proven delightful in things such as Game of Thrones (Olenna Tyrell was a great major character for her late in her career) and, when I discovered, the weird and wonderful steampunk movie The Assassination Bureau.

But in the end, yes, for me Diana Rigg IS Mrs. Peel. Now, if only Moorcock could confirm that Peel is actually an aspect of the Eternal Champion…

(9) COMICS SECTION.

Brewster Rockit celebrates a walk.
F Minus is where a guy explains his relational grievance.

(10) MONSTERPIECE THEATRE. “Godzilla Takes on the Great Gatsby in Monsterpiece Theatre Comic” at The Wrap. Cover art and preview pages at the link.

Godzilla’s been on a resurgent streak, from the MonsterVerse franchise and “Godzilla Minus One” in theaters to “Monarch” on Apple TV+. Now, TheWrap can exclusively share that acclaimed writer and artist Tom Scioli is delivering comic book “Godzilla’s Monsterpiece Theatre” from IDW, with the giant lizard taking on figures from throughout literary history — including the Great Gatsby, Sherlock Holmes, H.G. Wells’ Time Traveller and a mystery man with vampiric fingers and a “D” on the back of his cape (want to take a guess?).

The three-issue series is set in 1922, with one of Jay Gatsby’s legendary parties luring the attention of the giant lizard himself. Rather than being able to woo Daisy Buchanan, he has to deal with Godzilla absolutely demolishing his estate. Gatsby follows up on the destruction by teaming with the aforementioned 20th century literary icons to take his revenge….

(11) POINT OF NO RETURN? [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Bad news in this week’s Science editorial: “Go/no-go for a Mars samples return”.

Last month’s return to Earth of China’s lunar lander Chang’e-6 with samples from the far side of the Moon is a reminder that there are “firsts” in robotic space exploration still to be achieved. Unfortunately, this year has seen a major set-back for the prospects of an even more extensive plan to collect samples from Mars. In April, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) made clear that the ballooning cost for the US Mars Sample Return mission to around $11 billion was too much and the 2040 return date was too distant. NASA has been told to look for ideas to lower costs and shorten the timeline. Shock and anger are palpable in the astronomy community.

The challenge of an exploratory robotic mission to Mars to collect samples and return them to Earth for study dates back to the post-Apollo era, 50 years ago. Twenty-five years ago, a breakthrough occurred when France and the US announced a joint Mars sample return program. Sadly, that foundered on financial grounds. Fifteen years ago, the goal of a joint project between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) was vetoed at a high level in NASA, possibly an echo of the previous experience.

Nonetheless, the last two US National Academy of Sciences planetary science decadal surveys gave the Mars Sample Return mission a high priority, thereby encouraging federal agencies to fund it. Then, last year, after the critical design phase and external review, the program’s price turned out to be way above expectations, leading NASA to apply brakes to the project…

The figures quoted for cost escalation of the Mars Sample Return mission are a reminder that NASA’s JWST project grew from less than $1 billion to around $10 billion. However, most of the JWST cost increases came after the design phase, the point where the Mars project is now caught. The sub[1]sequent steady growth in the cost of JWST was due to a different cause— namely, the year-by-year NASA budget negotiation in Congress. Once the design phase is completed, a large development team is formed. European collaborators watched in frustration as the annual US budget, cycle after cycle, drip-fed just enough money to sustain the JWST mission’s team but not enough to allow efficient progress. The multiyear funding of the ESA Science Programme by member states mitigates this.

NASA is now told to look for a solution to the Mars Sample Return mission, but the agency is likely caught at a tricky crossroads. A quicker, cheaper swoop to grab Mars dust and get it back to Earth could win the exploration “first,” but that will not satisfy the US National Academy decadal goals….

(12) FARM ROBOTS. [Item by Mark Roth-Whitworth.] “Could robot weedkillers replace the need for pesticides?” in the Guardian. I’m sure they will, and I expect smaller ones for gardens.

On a sweltering summer day in central Kansas, farm fields shimmer in the heat as Clint Brauer watches a team of bright yellow robots churn up and down the rows, tirelessly slicing away any weeds that stand in their way while avoiding the growing crops.

The battery-powered machines, 4ft (1.2 metres) long and 2ft (0.6 metres) wide, pick their way through the fields with precision, without any human hand to guide them….

His Greenfield agricultural technology company now builds and programs its robots in a shed behind an old farmhouse where his grandmother once lived….

…Farmers have been fighting weeds in their fields – pulling, cutting and killing them off with an array of tools – for centuries. Weeds compete with crops for soil moisture and nutrients and can block out sunlight needed for crop growth, cutting into final yields. Over the last 50-plus years, chemical eradication has been the method of choice. It is common for farmers to spray or otherwise apply several weedkilling chemicals on to their fields in a single season.

But as chemical use has expanded, so has scientific evidence that exposure to the toxic substances in weedkillers can cause disease. In addition to glyphosate’s link to cancer, the weedkilling chemical paraquat has been linked to Parkinson’s disease. Another common farm herbicide, atrazine, can be harmful to reproductive health and is linked to several other health problems.

Weedkilling chemicals have also been found to be harmful to the environment, with negative impacts on soil health and on pollinators and other important species.

… North Dakota-based Aigen Robotics has raised $19m to date. Its compact robots are powered by solar panels fixed to the top of each machine and are designed to work autonomously, sleeping and waking up on farm fields….

… Still, many farmers and academic experts are skeptical that farm robots can make a substantial difference. They say that there is simply too much farmland and too many diverse needs to be addressed by robots that are costly to make and use. The better path, many say, is for farmers to work with nature, rather than against it.

The model of regenerative agriculture – using a variety of strategies focused on improving soil health, including limiting pesticides, rotating crops, planting crops that provide ground cover to suppress weeds and avoiding disturbing the soil – is the better path, they say….

(13) ELEMENTARY. According to ScienceAlert, “Curiosity Cracked Open a Rock on Mars And Found a Huge Surprise”.

A rock on Mars has just spilled a surprising yellow treasure after Curiosity accidentally cracked through its unremarkable exterior.

When the rover rolled its 899-kilogram (1,982-pound) body over the rock, the rock broke open, revealing yellow crystals of elemental sulfur: brimstone. Although sulfates are fairly common on Mars, this is the first time sulfur has been found on the red planet in its pure elemental form….

“But do they smell like rotten eggs?” asks John King Tarpinian.

(14) SF IN 1958. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Grammaticus Books has continued his deep dive into some golden age editions of SF pulps. This time he looks at a1958 edition of Fantasy & Science Fiction that saw Heinlein’s “Have Spacesuit Will Travel” which if memory serves was short-listed for a Hugo. There’s also a Richard Matheson in the mix…

(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Via Cat Rambo.] “We Didn’t Start the Fire (Bardcore|Medieval/Renaissance Style Cover)” from Hildegard von Blingin’.

There are many covers of Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire that adapt it to different times, but we wanted to give it the bardcore treatment. *Unlike the original, the list is not chronological, and jumps around in time a lot. It very loosely spans from around 400 to 1600, and is from a rather Eurocentric point of view. Thank you to my brother, Friar Funk, for devising the lyrics and providing the majority of the vocals. Many thanks as well to his new wife and our dad for joining us in the chorus at the end.

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

Pixel Scroll 7/10/24 A Multiverse Of Pixels. Consider How Many That Is

Posted on July 10, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) WORLDCON PROGRESS REPORT. Glasgow 2024 Worldcon has released its fifth and final Progress Report. Download here: PR #5.pdf.

One of the interesting revelations is the plan to stage —

Nothing, Nowhere, Never Again

Glasgow Worldcons are not without their traditions: each of the previous ones have had a show written and performed by Reductio Ad Absurdum. In 1995 it was their loving demolition of Dune (or The Sand Of Music); in 2005 it was Lucas Back In Anger, their smash-and-grab on all things Star Wars, which was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) despite enraging Star Wars fans by reducing the second trilogy to a 12 minute ABBA karaoke with cardboard costumes. In 2024 their offering is a unique take on the Oscar-winning sensation, Everything, Everywhere, All At Once that becomes Nothing, Nowhere, Never Again. Reductio is basically Ian Sorensen and Phil Raines plus whoever else they can blackmail into performing. This year they have suckered Geoff Ryman, Emjay Ameringen and Julia Daly into joining them in the madness. It promises to be an amazing, hilarious romp through the alternate universes, time travel and the joys of growing old disgracefully. The multiverse will never be quite the same again! (Armadillo Auditorium – Saturday 4pm)

(2) TIME BANDITS TRAILER. “Apple unveils the first nostalgia-fueled trailer for Taika Waititi’s reimagining of an ’80s sci-fi cult classic” — GamesRadar+ pulls back the curtain.

Per the official synopsis, the series is an “unpredictable journey through time and space with a ragtag group of thieves and their newest recruit: an 11-year-old history buff named Kevin. Together, they set out on a thrilling quest to save the boy’s parents, and the world.”In the brief clip, which can be viewed above, Kevin (Kal-El Tuck) opens up his wardrobe and walks into another moment in time before running into Penelope (Lisa Kudrow) and her group of bandits. The upcoming series, created by Waititi, Jermaine Clement, and Ian Morris, is based on the 1981 cult classic of the same name. The trio also wrote the first two episodes, with Waititi directing both.

… Time Bandits is set to hit Apple TV Plus on Wednesday, July 24, 2024, with the first two episodes in tow. Two episodes will air every Friday through August 21, 2024….

(3) A KAIJU SURPRISE. Forbes celebrates as “’Godzilla Minus One’ Arrives On 4K Blu-Ray In Every Glorious Version”.

Toho surprised fans today with the long-awaited release of Godzilla Minus One to home entertainment in a four-disc 4K UHD Blu-ray box set. I also have an exclusive clip of writer-director-VFX supervisor Takashi Yamazaki and his team from their U.S. visit, plus a look at the different glorious versions of the Oscar-winning film.

The Godzilla Minus One box set is an exclusive through Toho’s official Godzilla site, and includes lots of behind-the-scenes features and making-of footage. Fans of the film have been eagerly awaiting word of a physical home media release, although the film finally arrived on streaming recently and VOD. The surprise today is part of a larger 70th anniversary celebration of Godzilla in 2024….

(4) SUPACELL. [Item by Steven French.] The creator of a hit Netflix show about a group of black south Londoners with superpowers triggered by sickle cell anaemia says he hopes its success can kickstart a discussion about the condition in the UK and remove the stigma associated with it. “Hit Netflix show Supacell is raising awareness of sickle cell anaemia” reports the Guardian.

…Hit show Supacell is now at No 1 in Netflix’s global top 10, with more than 18m views in its first few weeks on the platform.

In the series, a group of south Londoners start to develop comic book powers – superhuman strength and speed, telekinesis, the ability to teleport and fly, and to have premonitions – while being tracked by Health & Unity, a shadowy organisation that offers to “help” those who are affected.

The show has been praised for subtly interspersing real-life issues that affect Black Britons: from the casual racism that Black females face on reality TV shows to bias in the health system. But the biggest real-life undercurrent in the fantastical world of Supacell is the inclusion of sickle cell anaemia in its storyline….

(5) DROP EVERYTHING. The New York Times calls these “Five Science Fiction Movies to Stream Now”. (Read at this link, which bypasses the paywall.)

One of their picks is Animalia, which is available to buy or rent generally.

…If your definition of an alien invasion involves ships hovering above Earth and major destruction, just know that Sofia Alaoui’s beautifully shot take on the genre is definitely … not that. Still, the mysterious, elliptical Moroccan movie “Animalia” exerts a pull of its own as its central character, a pregnant young woman named Itto (Oumaima Barid), faces a series of unexplained events.

When the wealthy family she has married into leaves for an outing, Itto enjoys some quality alone time at home. Soon, however, things start to go off the rails. Animals behave strangely, army vehicles barrel down the streets, roadblocks are hastily erected. The movie holds back on the explanations, and as her husband, Amine (Mehdi Dehbi), tries to arrange for a reunion, Itto’s journey acquires a mystical tinge.

Yet Alaoui does not stray into woo-woo New Age-isms and offers pointed views on the emancipation of women in Morocco, and their role in both the family and society. It takes confidence and skill to keep an audience invested in a movie while withholding information, and Alaoui clearly has both….

(6) GEORGE WELLS (1943-2024). Longtime fan George Wells died June 21. A native New Yorker (from Suffolk County, Long Island), he attended his first Lunacons in 1958 and 1960, and then…college helped initiate a long gap from fandom. He became a librarian (with a Masters Degree), and returned to the convention scene in 1972. And soon also became involved with APA fandom. I first got to know George in the Seventies when we were all in Larry Nielsen’s APA-H, the apa for Hoaxes. He also was part of Apanage, the Southern Fandom Press Alliance, and N’APA.

George and his wife, Jill (nee Simmons) met via a local Star Trek club she co-founded in Suffolk. They moved to Arizona, some years ago.

In 1999, George Wells won the facetious Rubble Award given at DeepSouthCon “for doing great things to Southern Fandom” in recognition of “Introducing Fandom to Werewolf Vs. Vampire Woman”.

In 2013 File 770 celebrated George’s 70th birthday in a post by James Burns, which supplied much of the above information.

(7) RICHARD GOLDSTEIN (1927-2024). Retired JPL scientist Richard M. Goldstein, a trailblazer in planetary exploration who used ground-based radars to map planets, died June 22 at the age of 97. The New York Times obituary explains his claim to fame.

…If successful, scientists would learn the distance from Earth to Venus, essentially laying the foundation to map the entire solar system. His adviser at Caltech was more than skeptical; Venus, in NASA’s description, was a “cloud-swaddled” planet covered by thick gasses, and previous attempts to reach the planet using other radars had produced mixed results.

“No echo, no thesis,” Dr. Goldstein’s adviser told him, according to “To See the Unseen: A History of Planetary Radar Astronomy” (1996) by Andrew J. Butrica, a science historian.

He proceeded anyway. On March 10, 1961, technicians pointed the new radar at Venus. Six and a half minutes later, signals from the planet returned. Dr. Goldstein had proved his adviser wrong. He soon bounced signals off Mercury and Mars, as well as Saturn’s rings.

The study’s influence on solar system research was immense.

“The measurements he did of the distance to Venus made it possible to do accurate navigation within the solar system,” said Charles Werner, a former senior engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “If you know one distance, it’s like a ruler that allows you to calibrate everything else and to be able to navigate spacecraft in the solar system accurately.”

The radar echoes were the celestial prelude to a long career at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory charting the previously unseen. In the late 1960s and early ’70s, Dr. Goldstein used radar interferometry — the splicing together of multiple radar signals over a length of time — to map the surface of Venus.

“High-resolution radar probes have broken through the thick clouds of Venus and for the first time distinguished features on the planet’s surface, which presents a landscape of huge, shallow craters,” the science reporter John Noble Wilford wrote in a front-page article in The New York Times on Aug. 5, 1973.

“Instead of the blurry shadings of earlier radar maps of the planet,” Mr. Wilford wrote, the images detected by Dr. Goldstein revealed a dozen craters, including one that was 100 miles wide and less than a quarter of a mile deep.

Dr. Goldstein had used two radar antennas 14 miles apart to produce the images.

“This, in effect, gives us stereo reception,” Dr. Goldstein said, enabling him “to pinpoint each area touched on Venus.”

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

July 10, 1903 — John Wyndham. (Died 1969.)

By Paul Weimer: Cozy Catastrophe? My first encounter with John Wyndham’s work was anything but cozy. That would be, on good old WPIX, the movie version of Day of the Triffids, where Jeanette Scott fought a triffid that spits poison and kills, to quote Rocky Horror Picture Show. So when I finally picked up his work (The Chrysalids, I think was the first), I was quite taken and surprised by the “bait and switch” that my mind and expectations had for Wyndham’s work as opposed to the cinematic adaptation.

Wyndham did teach me something that I would learn later in novels such as Earth Abides, Alas Babylon, and even On the Beach, and that is that catastrophes, and disasters, even ones that end civilization as the protagonists know it, could be surprisingly gentle and not harsh as the world falls apart around them. There can be afternoon tea even as the tripods march across the landscape in an inescapable force of nature invasion.

I recently read The Midwich Cuckoos, and even more than Day of the Triffids (which I really think could be remade in this day and age. Hollywood, call me, I could write your script), it is the Wyndham work that really hits the fears and anxieties in an otherwise pastoral and idyllic English countryside. The horror that one’s children are, in effect, changelings is an old idea (going back to the ideas of Faeries switching children at birth) and the Midwich Cuckoos plays on that, and plays on that, hard. But its even more than the parents and adults being horrified by what is happening to the children, what might be happening with the very pregnancy you have. It is the idea that these children are forming a community, a society, a way of life that excludes you (which gets into fears of the generation gap. The use of the telepathic Cuckoos in the X-men series and how tight they are together under Emma Frost, takes that idea from Wyndham and makes it front and center. It’s their world, and not yours.

That shows, ultimately, John Wyndham and his legacy at his best.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal takes on “like and subscribe”.
Wizard of Id reaches a very wrong number.
Pearls Before Swine shows there are other walls to break besides the fourth wall.

(10) SIMPSONS JOKE PLAYS ALBERT HALL. “Hip-hop band Cypress Hill makes 1996 Simpsons joke come true” reports the Guardian.

They might be more used to Rachmaninov and Brahms, but on Wednesday night the London Symphony Orchestra’s musicians will be showcasing their perfect crescendos while playing Cypress Hill’s Insane in the Brain.

The orchestra is making a Simpsons joke from 1996 finally a reality, by playing the US hip-hop trio Cypress Hill’s acclaimed Black Sunday album at the Royal Albert Hall.

The evening will riff on a joke featured in a Simpsons episode, in which Cypress Hill speculated that they had mistakenly booked the London Symphony Orchestra “possibly while high”.

After years of fan pressure, the group has struck a deal for a one-night performance in London, in which the LSO will perform its most famous songs, including Insane in the Brain and I Wanna Get High.

Considered pioneers of the West Coast hip-hop scene in the 1990s, Cypress Hill have sold more than 20m albums worldwide. Their hit Black Sunday album sold more than 3m copies in the US and spent a year in the UK charts….

… In the Simpsons episode, titled Homerpalooza, Homer tries to impress Bart and Lisa by going to the Hullabalooza music festival – a play on the Lollapalooza music festival held in Chicago – and hanging out with 1990s rap and rock stars including Cypress Hill and The Smashing Pumpkins.

In the episode, a crew member calls “somebody ordered”, adding “possibly while high … Cypress Hill, I’m looking in your direction”. This is followed by a rendition of Insane in the Brain, complete with the classic orchestral backing.

Cypress Hill have also invited the UK musician Peter Frampton, who features in the episode as the person trying to book the orchestra, although they are still waiting for a reply….

(11) SEVERANCE RETURNING. Variety knows when: “Severance Season 2 Teaser, Release Date Set for 2025”. The series will debut on Apple+ Friday, January 17. The 10-episode season will drop weekly episodes on Fridays after that.

…In addition to Scott and Arquette, the rest of the main cast includes Zach Cherry, Britt Lower, Tramell Tillman, Jen Tullock, Dichen Lachman, Michael Chernus, John Turturro and Christopher Walken. Eight more joined the cast of Season 2, including “Search Party” star Alia Shawkat, “Game of Thrones” alum Gwendoline Christie, Merritt Wever, Bob Balaban, Robby Benson, Stefano Carannate, John Noble and Ólafur Darri Ólafsson.

The new teaser doesn’t show much, other than the main cast of characters returning to the halls of Lumon. There’s also a quick look at Christie’s mysterious character, who cryptically tells them “You should’ve left.”…

(12) FEIGE Q&A. “Kevin Feige on Deadpool 3, Wolverine’s Yellow Suit and Sex Jokes in MCU” – hear about it in Variety.

The Marvel Studios president was talking to writer-director Shawn Levy about plans for the studio’s upcoming blockbuster “Deadpool & Wolverine,” starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman.

This was a couple of years ago, and Jackman had just confirmed his grand return as Wolverine after retiring the character in 2017’s emotional sendoff “Logan.” The 55-year-old Australian had played the gruff mutant with adamantium claws and regenerative abilities in nine films across two decades to much acclaim and, according to Feige, one glaring oversight. Jackman had never appeared in the character’s canonically mustard-colored costume….

(13) +1 SHIELD. “China Fortifies Space Station” at Futurism.

Two astronauts ventured outside of China’s Tiangong space station last week to armor its exterior against incoming space debris kicked up by an exploding Russian satellite.

“The spacewalk primarily focused on installing protective devices on external cables and pipelines to mitigate risks posed by potential space debris collisions, enhancing the long-term safety and stability of the space station,” China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation engineer Liu Ming told state-owned news network CCTV, as quoted by the South China Morning Post.

The news comes after a retired Earth observation satellite dubbed Resurs-P1 broke up in orbit late last month, forcing astronauts on board the International Space Station to shelter inside their respective spacecraft. It broke into more than 100 pieces that are now being tracked by the US Space Command.

Instead of sheltering in place, crew on board China’s Tiangong space station were instructed to bulk up its physical defenses — a mission that highlights the considerable risks small pieces of space debris can pose to astronauts orbiting the Earth…

…The spacewalk took 6.5 hours and went by largely without a hitch. According to the SCMP, the two spacewalkers even made jokes, competed to reach a designated spot, and struck poses for the camera….

(14) 1942’S AMAZING STORIES AND….SEX ADS??? [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Grammaticus Books takes a deep dive into a 1942 edition of Amazing Stories in a short, 9 minute video…

Week two of Rocket Summer focusing on the October 1942, edition of Amazing Stories, produced by the legendary editor Hugo Gernsback. The pulp is a time capsule of pre-war angst and intrigue. Which included seven full length science fiction stories and….advertising for Modern Sex Secrets!? 1?!?

(15) RED PLANET NOIR. Mars Express comes to theaters May 3.

In 2200, private detective Aline Ruby and her android partner Carlos Rivera are hired by a wealthy businessman to track down a notorious hacker. On Mars, they descend deep into the underbelly of the planet’s capital city where they uncover a darker story of brain farms, corruption, and a missing girl who holds a secret about the robots that threatens to change the face of the universe.

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

Pixel Scroll 6/26/24 Listen To Them, Scrolls Of The Night, What Pixels They Make

Posted on June 26, 2024 by Mike Glyer

(1) CONGRATULATIONS, MR. MAYOR! We are happy to report that Hungarian Filer Bence Pintér won the mayoral election in his homewtown Győr. Győr is the main city of northwest Hungary, halfway between Budapest and Vienna, home to 130 000 people. It was a tight race against opponents who were, respectively, the incumbent and the former incumbent, a member and an ex-member of the ruling Fidesz party.

(2) SFF IN HUNGARY. And Sci Phi Journal brings us all up to speed on contemporary Hungarian SFF with Éva Vancsó’s article “The Kaleidoscope Of Hungarian Fantastic Literature In The 21st Century”.

Hungarian science fiction dates to the middle-19th century with tales of moon travels and fictional worlds of advanced technology that reflected the spirit of the age more than any other genre. In the years to come, though themes and forms had changed, Hungarian literature mirrored society’s problems, hopes, fears, and dreams. It expressed the terrors of totalitarian regimes and world wars, and later, during the communist culture policy, it either served as a „honey trap” of natural sciences or became the literature of opposition before the change of regime in 1989. For years, only selected Anglo-Saxon/Western SFF works could seep through the crack in the cultural door, but it was swung wide open by the end of the Cold War. The previously encapsulated Hungarian fantastic literature absorbed the influences from outside and started to grow in terms of authors, titles, themes and styles. In this article, I intend not to review Hungarian science fiction and fantasy since the turn of the millennium comprehensively but rather as a kaleidoscope to present the tendencies and genre-defining authors and works in the last twenty-five years….

(3) TWO-YEAR-OLD SUIT MAKING NEWS. [Item by Anne Marble.] The lawsuit involving Entangled Publishing reminds me of the case involving the agent who was dropped — except even more so. It is being discussed on Threads and elsewhere.

An author named Lynne Freeman is suing one of Entangled Publishing’s star authors — Tracy Wolff (the author of the Crave series, a popular YA vampire series). Also being sued are Prospect Agency, LLC as well as Entangled Publishing itself. Other defendants are MacMillan Publishers, LLC and University City Studios, LLC. The court documents were filed in 2022, but most people are only just starting to learn about the case: “Lynne Freeman v. Tracy Wolff – Crave copyright complaint”.

Lynne Freeman is alleging that she sent her novel to Emily Sylvan Kim of Prospect Agency (referred to as “Kim” throughout the document). Kim made Freeman do multiple revisions and create new material — and then (allegedly, of course), Kim sent this material to her client and friend, Tracy Wolff. And Wolff (allegedly, of course) used these materials to create her series, which consists of four books: Crave, Crush, Covet, and Court. Freeman claims “substantial similarities.” Usually, when I see lawsuits that claim “similarities” between two works in the same subgenre, the similarities are usually vague — or they’re thing that are common throughout that subgenre. But in this case … wow. They run from page 13 to page 74 — and some of them include multicolored highlighting. Interestingly, according to this document, the CEO and publisher of Entangled (Liz Pellitier) claimed that she created the storyline of the Crave series and then passed this concept on to Tracy Wolff.

The discussion on Threads is especially passionate.

@ellen_mint_author says:

And @dr.elle_woods’ comment drew heated agreements.

Entangled Publishing owns Red Tower Books — the imprint that published Fourth Wing and Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros — among other romantasy books. Entangled (which started out as an indie) is now an imprint of Macmillan Publishers.

(4) OFTEN CHOPPED. Animation World Network interviews a brave writer: “’Inside Out 2’: It’s What Gets Cut That Counts”.

For Inside Out 2 story artist Rebecca McVeigh, her earliest memory of wanting to be a storyteller was a camping trip with her family when she was just five years old.

“I was writing and illustrating, as much as a kid that age can, my own books,” she shares. “On that trip, I remember just sitting with a pencil and crayons and writing a story about a princess who gets turned into a horse. So perhaps I was a writer before I was an artist. But writing and drawing were always intertwined because every time I wrote anything as a child, I also drew it in pictures.”

McVeigh, who is also known for her work on Netflix’s Annie Award-winning film Nimona, says being a story artist on a film as emotionally driven as Pixar’s latest hit film, which follows the complicated and often destructive dynamic of the emotions inside a teenage girl’s head, is not for those without tough skin. In addition to the sheer drafting mileage, creating an incalculable number of story sequences, McVeigh says one of the biggest challenges of the process is accepting the fact that 99 percent of it ends up on the cutting room floor.

“Over the course of the whole film, I couldn’t even begin to guess how many sequences I have done in total,” says McVeigh. “I’ll work on a sequence for two weeks or however long they’ll give me to do something. And then I’ll deliver it to editorial and they do what they need to do. I may not see it again for six months, or ever again if it gets cut. I’ve had scenes where I will do a version of it and then it’s a year before I see it again. Either way, you need to have the humility to let your work go.”…

(5) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

June 26, 1962 – King Kong Vs. Godzilla. Sixty-two years ago in Japan two great monsters united when King Kong Vs. Godzilla premiered. Really would I kid you? (Well I would and you well know it, but that’s for a different discussion, isn’t it?)

Not at all surprisingly, this Japanese kaiju film was directed by Ishirō Honda, with the special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. Nine years previously, Honda directed and co-wrote Godzilla of which Tsuburaya is considered the co-creator.

The script was Shinichi Sekizawa, mostly known, again not surprisingly, for his work on the Godzilla films but he did some other genre work such as Gulliver’s Travels Beyond the Moon and Jack and the Witch.

It started out as a story outline written by King Kong stop-motion animator Willis O’Brien in the early Sixties in which Kong battles a giant Frankenstein Monster. The idea was given to the Tojo film company without his permission and they decided Godzilla would be a bigger draw. They were right.

An individual by the name of Merian C. Cooper filed a lawsuit against the film showing here claiming he had exclusive right to the King Kong character in the United States, a claim that the film distributor quickly refuted as it turned out many individuals did.

It had already been the single most popular Godzilla film in Japan before it showed here and remains so to date. It made nearly three million here, not bad considering its tiny budget of four hundred thousand— two men in suits don’t cost much, do they? — so the film made twenty times that in its first run. Monsters rock!

The Hollywood Reporter liked it: “A funny monster picture? That’s what Universal has in “King Kong Versus Godzilla.”

Though the New York Times in an anonymous review grumbled quite loudly stating as only the Old Grey Lady can that“The one real surprise of this cheap reprise of earlier Hollywood and Japanese horror films is the ineptitude of its fakery. When the pair of prehistoric monsters finally get together for their battle royal, the effect is nothing more than a couple of dressed-up stuntmen throwing cardboard rocks at each other.”

Finally John Cutts of Films and Filming says “Richly comic, briskly paced, oddly touching, and thoroughly irresistible. Outrageous of course, and deplorably acted and atrociously dubbed to boot. “

Audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes give a so-so rating of fifty six percent. There is no Japanese version of Rotten Tomatoes to my knowledge which would be fascinating to read in translation of course.

(6) COMICS SECTION.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal has an alternative to cloning.
Foxtrot is forced to call an audible.
The Argyle Sweater finds refreshments with a theme.
Carpe Diem has a worrying update.
Spectickles adds to Frankenstein’s problems.

(7) MARVEL UNLIMITED LAUNCHES ‘AVENGERS ACADEMY: MARVEL’S VOICES’. Last month, Marvel’s Voices reached its 100^th Infinity Comic issue and marked the milestone with a brand-new hero: Justin Jin, a.k.a. Kid Juggernaut. Now Kid Juggernaut is joining a new team and a new adventure in Avengers Academy: Marvel’s Voices, a new ongoing weekly Infinity Comic series written by Anthony Oliveira and drawn by Carola Borelli, Bailie Rosenlund, and guest artists. The first issue is available now, exclusively on Marvel Unlimited.

Avengers Academy: Marvel’s Voices will bring together some of the world’s brightest teen heroes to learn from and train with the best of the best. The Academy’s first recruits include:

Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur, the dynamic duo of Inhuman super genius Lunella Lafayette and her psychically bonded Jurassic giant
Red Goblin, the grandson of Norman Osborn, Normie Osborn, bonded with the unpredictable newborn symbiote Rascal
Bloodline, Daughter of Blade, the Daywalker Brielle Brooks who inherited vampiric super powers, currently in the middle of Marvel’s blockbuster summer comic book event, Blood Hunt
Captain America of the Railways, Aaron Fischer, a protector of fellow runaways who first appeared in United States of Captain America and recently headlined his own Infinity Comic series
Escapade, Shela Sexton, the breakout mutant hero who first debuted in Marvel’s Voices: Pride and went on to battle alongside the New Mutants
Kid Juggernaut,Justin Jin,the avatar of the demon Cyttorak who also recently headlined his own Infinity Comic seriesKid Juggernaut: Marvel’s Voices, which just wrapped up last week!

Don’t miss what lies in store for the newest students of Avengers Academy every Wednesday on Marvel Unlimited.

(8) CITRUS CONTROVERSY. [Item by Steven French.] Is the Earth shaped more like an orange or a lemon? “Royal Society exhibition revives 18th-century debate about shape of the Earth”

…It was a row that split scientists, launched globe-trotting expeditions and for one man, ended in murder: was the Earth shaped like an orange or a lemon?

The 18th-century debate – and the endeavours that settled it –can now be relived by visitors to this year’s Royal Society summer science exhibition, in a display called “Figuring the Earth”.

Opening to the public on Tuesday, and remaining on show in London until October, the exhibition – which is presented in English and French – celebrates the importance of international competition and collaboration.

The citrus fruit conundrum, it seems, is a case in point….

(9) FROM THE MOON TO MONGOLIA. “First ever rocks from the Moon’s far side have landed on Earth” reports Nature.

The first rocks from the far side of the Moon have just landed safely on Earth and scientists can’t wait to study them.

China’s Chang’e-6 re-entry capsule, containing up to two kilograms of materials scooped and drilled from the Moon’s most ancient basin, touched down in the grasslands of Siziwang Banner in the Chinese northern autonomous region Inner Mongolia at 2.07 p.m. Beijing time on Tuesday, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA).

“The samples are going to be different from all previous rocks collected by the US, Soviet Union and China,” which came from the Moon’s near side, says Yang Wei, a geochemist at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics in Beijing. “We have very high expectations for them,” Yang says….

(10) VALSPAR TIME TRAVEL COMMERCIAL. [Item by Andrew Porter.] What could go wrong in this commercial for interior house paint? See the video at the link: “Valspar TV Spot, ‘Time Machine’”.

(11) BLAST FROM THE FUTURE. Keep watching the skies — “Once-in-a-lifetime nova will appear in Earth’s sky. Here’s how to spot it.” at Yahoo!

A rare nova explosion will soon be visible in the Earth’s nighttime sky, according to officials at NASA.

The event, which could occur anytime between now and September, is creating a buzz within the astronomy community, as both professional and amateur astronomers alike will be able to see the explosion….

…Located 3,000 light years from Earth, T Coronae Borealis (T CrB), nicknamed the Blaze Star, is a binary star system in the Coronae Borealis (or “northern crown”) constellation.

In this binary system, a white dwarf (a dead star) and an ancient red giant (a slowly dying star) are gravitationally bound to each other. Every 80 years or so, the hydrogen from the red giant fuses with the surface of the white dwarf, causing a buildup of pressure and heat, resulting in a thermonuclear explosion — causing the system to go nova.

The last time a T CrB nova was seen from Earth was in 1946.

(12) VIDEOS OF THE DAY. [Item by Dann.] I came across Studio C on YouTube. It is a creative effort coming out of BYU. There were quite a few genre-related pieces that I thought might pique Filers’ interest.

Meeting King Triton – Ariel’s dad

Indiana Jones swapping out the golden idol

And lastly, something that might be of interest given the discussion about fandom and The Acolyte –

Star Wars Fans When the Acolyte Comes Out

[Thanks to Steven French, Teddy Harvia, Kathy Sullivan, Lise Andreasen, Dann, Bence Pintér, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, 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 Thomas the Red.]

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