By Cat Eldridge: Yes, It’s the Birthday of J.R.R. Tolkien. So I asked a lot of folks that I knew what their favorite works by him were.
Obvious quick note — my choice is The Hobbit which I must’ve read or listened to at least a dozen times over the years. The BBC has a stellar audio version which I have listened to several times as well.
So now let’s see what my respondents had to say.
Peter Beagle says:
“You mean my favorite writing by Tolkien? Probably the story of Beren and Luthien, which I’ve always loved – or maybe the one now published as The Children of Hurin. One or the other.”
Cora Buhlertis one of the Filers who gave an answer:
“The first Tolkien I actually read was The Hobbit, in an East German edition with the illustrations from the Soviet edition. I got it as a present from my Great-Aunt Metel from East Germany, who often sent me books for Christmas and my birthday. It’s still somewhere in a box on my parents’ attic.
“I liked The Hobbit a lot, but I didn’t know there were more stories set in Middle Earth, until several years later, when I spotted The Lord of the Rings at a classmate’s place and borrowed it from him. As a teenager, I had a thing for mythology and read my way through the Nibelungenlied, the Odysseyand the Iliad, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, etc… Lord of the Rings fit right into that context and I enjoyed it even more than I had enjoyed The Hobbit.
“I didn’t read the essay “On Fairy Stories” until university, when I cited it in a paper I wrote for a class. Now I had been educated in an environment which considered the traditional Grimm’s fairy tales too brutal and unsuitable for children (luckily, my parents ignored that and told/read them to me anyway) and which viewed fantasy and science fiction or any kind of genre fiction as escapist trash and potentially harmful. I got regurgitated version of this from my teachers at school and in university I was exposed to the 1970s leftwing pop culture criticism where those ideas had originated. However, I didn’t believe that fairy tales were bad and that SFF was escapist trash, so I was thrilled to read “On Fairy Stories” and find that Tolkien, who surely was considered beyond reproach, agreeing with me.”
Lis Carey was our next Filer:
“I think I have to say that The Hobbit is my favorite Tolkien. I really do identify with Bilbo’s desire to stay home, and enjoy his cozy hobbit hole and its comforts, in his comfortable, familiar neighborhood. Yet, against his better judgment, he is lured into going on an adventure (always a bad idea, adventures) with the dwarves, and finds out just how resilient he is, his unexpected bravery, his ingenuity when faced with seemingly insurmountable challenges (“…he was chased by wolves, lost in the forest, escaped in a barrel from the elf-king’s hall…”) (yes, I love The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins, too.) He finds resources in himself that he never suspected–and at the end, he still goes home, to deal with his annoying relatives and enjoy his home. None of this “and now I will abandon everything I ever cared about, to be a completely different person in a different life.””
It’s been a long time for Ellen Datlowsince she read any Tolkien, so she says:
“I haven’t read him in so long I don’t remember – I loved all three of the LOTR trilogy and The Hobbit but don’t remember exactly why.” She added in a conversation recently that “I loved his world building from what I recall, but the movies-which I saw much more recently-have overshadowed the books for me. And the movies inspired a major crush on Viggo Mortensen. :-)”
Pamela Dean says she “unreservedly loves The Lord of the Rings, the translation of ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,’ and ‘On Fairy-Stories’.”
Once again, The Hobbit proves popular as Jasper Fforde says :
“It’s The Hobbit, because it’s the only one I’ve read – I liked it a great deal but was never really into spells, wizards and trolls, so never took it any further.”
Elizabeth Hand gave a lengthy reply:
“I’d probably have to say The Lord of the Rings, which I’ve read it countless times over the last forty years. It imprinted on me at such an early age — I had the good luck to read it as a kid in the 1960s, when it was still a cult novel, and you had a real sense that you were in some secret, marvelous group of insiders who had visited a place not everyone knew about. Maybe kids discovering it today still have that feeling, in spite of the success of the movies (which I love). I hope so. But I also find that, as I’ve gotten older, I’m far more drawn to reread other works, especially in The Complete History of Middle Earth and The Silmarillion (we have very long Tolkien shelves here).
I love the Beren & Luthien material, and also the various accounts of Turin, which recently were republished as The Children of Hurin. The dark tone of all of it, the tragic cast and also the recurring motifs involving elves and mortal lovers — great stuff. It doesn’t serve the function of comfort reading that LOTR does, and because I’m not so familiar with the stories I can still read them with something like my original sense of discovery.
The breadth and depth of Tolkien’s achievement really becomes apparent when one reads The Complete History — 13 volumes, including an Index. Every time I go back to them I think, I could be learning Greek, or Ancient Egyptian, something that has to do with the real world. But then, I’m continually so amazed by what this one man came up with, the intensity and single mindedness of his obsession. And I get sucked into it all over again.”
Gwyneth Jones says her favorite work is The Lord Of The Rings:
“Why — Because I read it when I was a child, in bed with bronchitis. My mother brought me the three big volumes, successively, from the library, I’d never met anything like it, and it was just wonderful entertainment for a sick child. I grew out of LOTR, but will never forget that thrill. More why: I’ve never felt the slightest temptation to open the massive prequels and spin-offs of Middle Earth fantasy, I just don’t have that gene, and I feel the Tolkien industry doesn’t need my money. And the other works are either too scholarly, or everything about them is represented in LOTR anyway. I admired ‘Tree and Leaf’ when I read it, long ago, but I’m not sure if I still would.”
Naomi Kritzer likes The Hobbit quite a bit:
“When I was thirteen, I somehow got into the habit of reading bedtime stories to my younger brother, who was seven. (I say “somehow” because my parents had previously been the ones to do this. How and why did I take over? I’m not sure. Possibly it was as simple as, “my parents went out one evening, leaving me to babysit, and that night I read my brother the first chapter of a novel, and the next night he wanted the second.”) We were living in a furnished rental house at the time (my parents were academics, and we were living in the UK that year), and one of the available books was The Hobbit. I read it to my brother. I hadn’t read it previously. I think there are a lot of people whose first exposure to Tolkien was being read to, but I’m not sure how many people my age got their first exposure by reading it to someone else. It’s a truly excellent way to be introduced to Tolkien.”
OR Melling says for her it’s The Lord of the Rings: ‘
“As a child, I loved reading fantasy – CS Lewis, E Nesbit, JM Barrie and so on – but when the librarian offered me The Hobbit and said “it’s about little men with hairy feet” I recall giving her one of those withering looks only children can give. Why on earth would I want to read a book about men with hairy feet? I did finally read The Hobbit when I was 12, after I had read The Lord of the Rings, and discovered that my initial suspicion was correct. I did not like the book at all, particularly its depiction of the elves. This was a great surprise, of course, considering that I had absolutely fallen in love with The Lord of the Rings. It is still one of my favourite books to this day. Aside from The Silmarillion – which I endured like all faithful fans – I have not read any other of Tolkien’s works.’”
James Davis Nicoll has a confession:
“I am very embarrassed to admit I’ve read only 2 JRRTs: LOTR and The Hobbit. LOTRs is far more ambitious and by any reasonable measure better but I enjoyed The Hobbit more. I remember as a teen being surprised that he didn’t end at what would have been the conventional ending, but rather continued on to show the aftermath of victory.”
Cat Rambo picked The Hobbit:
“I will always love The Hobbit, because it taught me what a pleasure reading could be. My babysitter Bernadette was reading it to me, a chapter or so every time she came, and I finally started sneaking chapters because I couldn’t stand not knowing what was happening next. There were other books I loved throughout my childhood, but The Hobbit will always hold center place in that court.”
Catherynne M. Valente picked The Silmarillion:
“I love The Lord of the Rings. I was once a hardcore Sindarin-speaking LoTR geek, in the days of my misbegotten youth. It is a vast and important book. But I have to say that I feel the book is incomplete without The Silmarillion, which provides a depth and mythology, an understanding of the forces at work, a breadth and beauty that LoTR does not have on its own. I am one of the few who loves The Silmarillion for itself, devoured it in one sitting, had no trouble with the archaic language. It should get more love than it does.”
Our final Filer is Paul Weimer who states:
“I am going to go with a sidewise choice. While LOTR and the Hobbit are some of my earliest and most beloved of all SFF that I have ever read, the piece by Tolkien that comes back to my mind again and again is the story of Beren and Luthien. We get the story in a number of ways and forms :the small fragments we see in Lord of the Rings (or the tiny bit in the movie), the longer tale told in the Silmarillion, and the alternate and evolving versions seen in the extended histories of Middle Earth and his letters, In the end this love story between man and elf, mortal and immortal, is in many ways the story of Tolkien, more than the story of a Hobbit, or of the One Ring. It is very telling that Tolkien and his wife’s gravestone name check themselves as Beren and Luthien. It moved me the first time I read the full story, and it moves me still.”
And Jane Yolen finishes the choices off by saying it’s The Hobbit for her:
“While it’s true that The Lord of the Rings is his masterwork and The Hobbit his first attempt at writing (and that, some say witheringly, for children) I have to admit I adore The Hobbit. It has adventure, wonderful characters, fine pacing and spacing, some really scary bits (my daughter ran screaming from the room when the trolls grabbed the ponies, and she refused to hear the rest of it.) And if I could ever write a chapter as good as the Riddles in the Dark chapter I would never have to write again.”
Disney, 20th Century, and Sony just did something that major studios haven’t done in two decades: Released a brand new film on VHS. Boutique physical media labels and collectors online have been selling new movies on VHS for a while, and occasionally a smaller indie studio like A24 will put a specific movie out on tape. When it comes to the big studios, though, there hasn’t been an official VHS release since A History of Violence back in 2006.
That changed this month with the home debut of Alien: Romulus. In honor of the success that Alien found on VHS back in the ’80s and ’90s, the team behind Romulus wanted to produce a nostalgic replica that movie fans could appreciate. So Disney (whose physical media now runs through Sony) put out a very limited release of Alien: Romulus on VHS. The preorders sold out quickly and now the only way to find an official copy is to look for resellers online, so you’ll likely pay a bit of a premium….
(2) THE IMMORTAL SHORTS OF SFF. New Scientist has posted a list of “The 26 best sci-fi short stories of all time – according to New Scientist writers”. Lots of legitimate picks here – classics by Bradbury, Clarke, Heinlein, Russ, plus more recent candidates for sf immortality by Jemisin, Roanhorse, Martha Wells. Here’s an example:
Fire Watch by Connie Willis (1982)
There is a popular what-if scenario of going back in time to assassinate Adolf Hitler before he can start the second world war. Connie Willis’s 1982 novelette Fire Watch takes a completely different tack by immediately plunging its time-travelling narrator into confusion as he appears in London during the Nazi German Luftwaffe’s bombing raids in 1940. The narrator is tasked with joining fellow volunteers in the seemingly Sisyphean task of putting out incendiary bombs on the roof of St Paul’s Cathedral that threaten to burn down the hallowed landmark, even as he struggles with his real assignment of trying to figure out why his history professors have chosen to send him back to that harrowing period without adequate education or preparation. As an added complication, the narrator begins to suspect a fellow fire watch member of subversive wartime activities while he himself struggles to blend in and avoid blowing his cover with the locals. As the narrative follows a series of dated diary entries from the increasingly paranoid and exhausted narrator, Willis’s story shines by treating time travel as a tool used judiciously by historians to bear witness and deepen their understanding of humanity, rather than depicting it as a superpower for manipulating the past or future. Jeremy Hsu
Nearly a decade ago, my now-husband first introduced me to the Star Trek franchise by way of the series Star Trek: Enterprise. “You’ll like this one,” he assured me, “it’s got a dog in it.”
Porthos, the dog belonging to Captain Jonathan Archer, portrayed by Scott Bakula, is one example of Star Trek’s odd pets. They’re cute and lovable, but there’s something just not quite right about them. It wasn’t until 2009’s Star Trek cinematic reboot when Scotty, played by actor Simon Pegg, says that he tested the particle beam on “Admiral Archer’s prized beagle” that I realized why. The dogs, cats, fish, Targs (Klingon boars), and other animals of Star Trek are portrayed as individual domestic pets of their owners when they are in fact maritime animals.
In 1898, the Southern Cross Expedition took around ninety dogs to Antarctica.1 The dogs were brought for their power, for their ability to carry people around camp in the most inhospitable conditions. As the first canines to set foot in the South Pole, though, these dogs were also agents of colonization – proven by a massacre of penguins that magnetic scientist William Colbeck described as “heartbreaking.”2 But this doesn’t feel like any of the pets I know of in the Star Trek universe. Despite being a Beagle, Porthos isn’t known for his hunting abilities. Captain Picard’s fish, Livingstone, certainly isn’t much of a threat. Grudge the cat from Star Trek: Discovery is, perhaps, the closest match, but still not an obvious representation of colonial domination.3
As I read more about the Southern Cross Expedition, I realized the dogs’ roles were much more complicated. During a particularly harrowing part of the expedition, some of the men were pushed to the limits of exploration. Left with limited options and dangerous conditions, the explorers measured their humanity by how each man treated the dogs. Physicist Louis Bernacchi wrote of his disdain for commanding officer and surveyor Carsten Borchgrevink’s “barbaric” treatment of the dogs after the especially tragic death of the dog Bismark. In his own writing, Borchgrevink described scientist Anton Fougner as “noble” for working to dig a grave in the frozen earth for his puppy.4 The role these dogs played during the most intensive part of the journey was to reflect the scientist explorer’s humanity back to them.
In this lens, the Trek pet who best symbolizes these dogs is Data’s cat, Spot. On a traditional maritime ship, Spot’s role as a cat would be pest control. He would spend his time hunting rats and cockroaches. He might even share this role with other animals like chickens or a small terrier. On the Enterprise, Spot’s role is to humanize Data, both to others on the ship and to Data himself. The odd thing about Spot, though, is that this is largely where his story line ends. At the risk of being too punny, we don’t ever “see Spot run” – down the corridor, to his friends, or into trouble. Unlike other maritime animals, Spot isn’t everyone’s cat – a mascot….
Earlier this year we invited scientists from across the world to send in their images in the categories of Astronomy, Behaviour, Earth Science and Climatology, Ecology and Environmental Science, and Microimaging. We are delighted to now present the winners and runners-up, including our overall winner from the Behaviour category Angela Albi for her image “The hunt from above”.
“We’re known as the bumper sticker couple now, I’m sure,” said Brian Gebhart, 32, who, with his fiancée, Alyssa Walker, 30, runs Frog Mustard, one of the most prolific creators of this genre of bumper stickers. They release a handful of new ones each week to their more than 35,000 Instagram followers, whom they call the Frog Army.
The couple started the company last winter, after Mr. Gebhart had a mountain biking accident and needed extra money to pay for a surgery. They came up with Frog Mustard — a moniker as nonsensical as many of their designs — by using a random name generator.
Their first designs included a sticker that read “E.T. for City Council” and another with a crying kitten and an appeal to fellow drivers: “Sorry for speeding! But my cat is at home alone!”
By the spring, after a series of viral TikTok posts, the business was growing ever faster. Soon, the couple was investing in an industrial vinyl printer and operating out of their basement home office in Kent, Wash. The business is now a full-time job for Mr. Gebhart, and Ms. Walker maintains a corporate tech job while producing many of the designs.
Frog Mustard now averages 1,200 orders a month with a stock of about 350 designs, they said.
In American culture, where cars are often seen as physical extensions of their owners’ personality, bumper stickers have long been a way to make a vehicle distinctly your own, reflecting your politics and interests. They used to represent earnestness and authenticity: This car really did climb Mount Washington; I do support this presidential candidate; my child actually is an honor student….
Sing to me, muse! Details of Christopher Nolan‘s star-studded next project at Universal have finally been revealed.
According to a new X post from Universal Pictures, the filmmaker’s next project “is a mythic action epic shot across the world using brand new IMAX film technology. The film brings Homer’s foundational saga to IMAX film screens for the first time and opens in theaters everywhere on July 17, 2026.”…
(7) A ROOM OF HIS OWN. George R.R. Martin was feted when he visited his childhood hometown of Bayonne, NJ: “A Day to Remember” at Not A Blog.
…Bayonne has changed some over the years…the city has lost all its movie houses, and Uncle Milty’s Amusement Park where I had my first job… but the projects are still there, and Brady’s Dock, and Mary Jane Donohoe School on 5th Street… the candy store on Kelly Parkway where I bought my comic books and Ace Doubles is still there, and so is the Fifth Street Deli-Ette… oh, and Hendrickson’s Corner, and Judicke’s sprinkle Donuts…
And the public library remains… changed some, yes… but better than ever.
I remember the library. I always will.
And it would seem that the library remembers me. They have just completed some renovations, and did me the honor of naming one of the new rooms after me: the George R.R. Martin Room for Popular Fiction. To mark the occasion, they declared October 15 to be George R.R. Martin.
That is… so cool, so… so… well, words fail me….
…The library also added a wonderful mosaic dragon to its decor.
(8) NICE HOLIDAY MILK STOUT AND NAUGHTY EGG NOG ALE. [Item by Denise Kitashima Dutton.] I love a good stout. Hell, I’ll even take a mediocre stout if I’m really desperate. Because there’s nothing like the full-bodied flavor of a dark beer. So when Flying Dog Brewery here in Maryland decided to repeat their “Naughty” and “Nice” brews this year, I was excited to learn that “Nice” would be a Holiday Milk Stout. When I found out that “Naughty” would be an Egg Nog Ale? I was a bit iffy. But I’ll cop to a particular bias here; as a Marylander, I like to play favorites with my breweries. Doesn’t mean I don’t have favorites elsewhere – hello there, Shiner and Three Floyds – but the brewers in my home state do get a special benefit of the doubt. So I decided to tuck into both.
First off, let’s go Naughty, shall we? Medium-tall head, nice and foamy, quick to dissipate. Beautifully clear and golden (a much lighter color than their press images), with an almost champagne-like carbonation effervescence. While the “yellow beer” is something that everyone can recognize, there’s a warmth to this golden color, and the long-lasting fizz makes me want to keep tipping it back, if only to get yet another look at those tiny bubbles.
Then there’s the aroma. A nose that sends out the spices, but not with a wallop; a scent that invites rather than demands. That comes with the tasting. There’s a strong allspice and nutmeg hit on first sip, and while the spices are definitely loud and proud, it didn’t shock me out of a second sip. Or a third. There’s no rum notes here, though the idea of a barrel-aged Egg Nog Naughty wouldn’t be amiss. It’s just spice, spice and a touch of fizz.
As with Shiner’s Texas Warmer, this is a beer that ain’t afraid to get right up in your face. And I respect that. While the heavy spice may put off some, if you’re having a cheese and charcuterie evening, a sugar cookie sampling, or just want a bit of holiday spice while watching A Christmas Carol for the umpteenth time, Naughty‘s got your back.
Then there’s Nice, which starts off with a light, quick to dissipate head. And is that a hint of cascading that I see? Absolutely. Who doesn’t love watching their beer move in the glass like that? The beer itself is an absolutely gorgeous, clear, deep chocolate brown color I could get lost in. And with a 7.2 ABV, that’s not necessarily a figurative statement.
Nice is almost creamy, as a milk stout should be. The chocolate is a strong nib flavor, with a hint of toasty/smokiness that balances out the sweetness. This is a rough-trade sweetness; think the umami of cocoa rather than the overkill of candy. The creaminess of the mouthfeel and the bitter tang of the chocolate combine nicely, giving Nice a wonderful drinkability.
Another sip, and I catch a hint of Nice‘s fizzy, almost sharp, carbonation. But it’s such a fine bubble that it’s buzzy rather than off-putting. There’s no effervescence here, but with such a deeply colored beer, it’d be almost impossible to see anyway. Plus, anything overly fizzy would get in the way of the robust flavors in this stout.
I’d recommend this for dessert binges, a hearty brunch with pancakes and maple sausage, or as a dessert in and of itself. I’d also love to be able to find a six-pack of this to take camping; I’m betting s’mores would be a wonderful go-with. Nice is exactly that; robust but not heavy, flavorful but not too “busy”, smooth but substantial.
And yeah, I decided to do a half-and-half. And let’s just say that while these two beers play well with my tastebuds separately? It’s like sucking back a mouthful of Christmas tree if you combine ’em. I just can’t hang with that much powerful flavor all at once.
Naughty Egg Nog Ale Style: American Strong Ale ABV/Alcohol By Volume: 8.4%
[Reprinted fromGreen Man Reviewbecause it’s too good not to share.Denise Kitashima Dutton has been a reviewer since 2003, and hopes to get the hang of things any moment now. She believes that bluegrass is nothell in music form, and that beer is better when it’s a nitro pour. You can find her at Atomic Fangirl, Movie-Blogger.com, or at that end seat at the bar, multi-tasking with her Kindle.]
(9) GWYNETH JONES SF WRITER ON CHESTNUTS. [Item by Gwyneth Jones.]
Gwyneth Jones
Chestnuts, I’m obsessed with chestnuts at Christmas.
The obsession dates back to childhood, when chestnuts roasted over the coals on a fire-shovel were a winter treat, back in the primitive and labour intensive days when my parents’ house was heated by an Aga (solid fuel range) in the kitchen, and coal/wood fires elsewhere. And marrons glacees were the ultimate in sophistication… until I finally tried them, and wondered what the fuss was about. (I’m sure they’re very nourishing, by the way.)
Now I live in Sussex, I expect to forage a kilo or so of sweet chestnuts in October or November. After that it’s hit or miss. One year I slung them in the freezer wet and still in the shell & they defrosted as mush. Another year I left them in a copper bowl in a corner they went mouldy & the bowl suffered too. The supermarket then provides, boring!
Still, enough times the chestnuts survive, and then it’s the awful day of reckoning. People will tell you (e.g. Elizabeth David, see below) that there is a knack to peeling chestnuts and once you know it you will never look back. They lie. Usually it’s pure masochism, burned fingertips, outbursts of rage.
Then you eat them with sprouts and crispy bacon or put them in the stuffing. But this is one of the best rewards for all the pain:
Chestnut and Chocolate Cake.
Shell and skin 1lb (450g) of chestnuts.
Cover them with milk (either skimmed milk or half and half milk & water), and simmer until very soft — about an hour. Drain off the liquid & sieve or mash the chestnuts to a smooth puree. Save the liquid, it’s a beautiful stock base.
Make a syrup with 3 oz (100g) sugar and 2-3 tablespoons of water. Add this to puree, with 2 oz (about 70g) softened butter. When you have these ingredients well mixed leave to stand. Brush a small loaf tin, or other half litre/1 pt rectangular mold, with sweet oil (almond oil or similar), and fill it with the soft “dough”. Set to chill in a refrigerator for 24hrs.
Next day, make a chocolate coating with around 100g dark chocolate, adding a couple of teaspoons of sugar to the melted chocolate, & let the paste cool slightly. Turn the chestnut cake out of the mold, use a smooth-edged knife dipped in water to coat it with chocolate. Leave to chill again before serving.
This recipe is from Elizabeth David, French Provincial Cooking. You will find the lies about chestnut peeling on p. 265, blotted with my tears.
[From the Archives of the Sleeping Hedgehog.]
(10) MEMORY LANE.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
December 23, 1960 — Twilight Zone’s “Night of The Meek”
On December 23, 1960, Twilight Zone’s “The Night of the Meek” first aired. It was one of the six episodes of the second season which was shot on videotape in a failed attempt to cut costs. Networks and their bean counters.
This was a Christmas-themed story with Art Carney as a Santa Claus fired on Christmas Eve who finds a mysterious bag that gives an apparently unlimited stream of gifts. But before we learn that we have this opening scene and narration:
“As snow begins to fall, a drunk Henry Corwin (Carney) wearing his Santa Claus suit, leans against a curbside lamppost. He is approached by two tenement children begging for toys, a Christmas dinner, and ‘a job for my daddy.’ As he begins to sob, the camera turns to Rod Serling standing on the sidewalk:
“This is Mr. Henry Corwin, normally unemployed, who once a year takes the lead role in the uniquely popular American institution, that of the department-store Santa Claus in a road-company version of ‘The Night Before Christmas’. But in just a moment Mr. Henry Corwin, ersatz Santa Claus, will enter a strange kind of North Pole which is one part the wondrous spirit of Christmas and one part the magic that can only be found… in the Twilight Zone.”
The script would be reused in the Eighties version of this series, and on the radio program as well.
Serling ended the original broadcast with the words, “And a Merry Christmas, to each and all”, but that phrase was deleted in the Eighties for reasons never made clear and would not be back until Netflix started streaming the series. The series runs on Paramount+ now in its original full, uncensored version. The line is still missing from all the DVD versions.
John Fielder who is Mister Dundee here would have a second Twilight Zone appearance in “Cavander is Coming” in which he has the lead as the Angel Harmon Cavender.
Oh, and let’s note that it’s a cat that mysteriously starts off this tale by knocking down a large burlap bag full of empty cans, which when Corwin trips over it, is then filled with gifts. See cats are magical!
Serling ends with this narration:
“A word to the wise to all the children of the Twentieth Century, whether their concern be pediatrics or geriatrics, whether they crawl on hands and knees and wear diapers or walk with a cane and comb their beards. There’s a wondrous magic to Christmas and there’s a special power reserved for little people. In short, there’s nothing mightier than the meek. And a Merry Christmas to each and all.”
One morning in early 1985, the comic strip creator Berkeley Breathed received a call from an unlikely fan: Ronald Reagan.
Breathed had started “Bloom County,” the wily tale of several eccentric middle-American animals — human and otherwise — five years earlier. Its cast included an emo penguin named Opus as well as Bill the Cat, a droopy-tongued, occasionally comatose former presidential candidate with a penchant for Tender Vittles and cocaine.
On its surface, “Bloom County” didn’t seem particularly Gipper-friendly. But a recent installment had featured a flattering image of the first lady, Nancy Reagan, and the president wanted to express his gratitude.
When Reagan finally reached Breathed at his home in Iowa City, the cartoonist had stepped out of the shower. “Mr. President,” Breathed told Reagan, “you should probably know I’m not wearing any pants right now.” Their chat went well, and not long afterward, Breathed found himself seated with Reagan at a state dinner, where the two discussed the president’s film career….
(13) WHEN THE MOON IS IN THE SEVENTH HOUSE. “Particle Could Be Portal to Fifth Dimension: What Is Dark Matter?” at Popular Mechanics. I had to run a link to a headline about the “Fifth Dimension”. I didn’t know any more about the subject once I finished the article, but it did leave me humming the “Wedding Bell Blues”.
Scientists say they can explain dark matter by positing a particle that links to a fifth dimension.
Our knowledge of the physical universe relies on the idea of dark matter, which takes up the vast majority of matter in the universe. Dark matter is a kind of pinch hitter that helps scientists explain how gravity works, because a lot of features would dissolve or fall apart without an “x factor” of dark matter. Even so, dark matter doesn’t disrupt the particles we do see and “feel,” meaning it must have other special properties as well….
…Could dimension-traveling fermions explain at least some of the dark matter scientists have so far not been able to observe? “We know that there is no viable [dark matter] candidate in the [standard model of physics],” the scientists say, “so already this fact asks for the presence of new physics.”…
Wishing you a holiday season full of light and laughter as we flip over into the new year!
[Thanks to Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mark Roth-Whitworth, John A Arkansawyer, 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 Jim Janney.]
In a letter you wrote that was attached by the publisher to advance copies of A Brightness Long Ago, you note that we are psychologically and neurologically programmed to internalize the memories from our teens until our mid-twenties more intensely than any other time of life, a fact that is an underpinning to this book. Do you care to expand on that thought? There’s a wry aspect to this, as my psychoanalyst brother (to whom this book is dedicated) mentioned this to me 15 or so years ago! When I started writing this novel, using as one of the point of view characters—a man looking back on events form his twenties that loom large for him—that conversation came back from my memory! I asked my brother and he sent some scholarship on the subject.
(2) WATCHMEN TEASER. Time
is running out – but for what?
Tick tock. Watchmen debuts this fall on HBO. From Damon Lindelof, Watchmen is a modern-day reimagining of Alan Moore’s groundbreaking graphic novel about masked vigilantes.
(3) NEW RUSS PROFILE. Gwyneth Jones, winner of two World Fantasy Awards, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the SFRA Pilgrim award for lifetime achievement in SF criticism, will have a new book out in July — Joanna Russ (University of Illinois Press).
Experimental, strange, and unabashedly feminist, Joanna Russ’s groundbreaking science fiction grew out of a belief that the genre was ideal for expressing radical thought. Her essays and criticism, meanwhile, helped shape the field and still exercise a powerful influence in both SF and feminist literary studies.
Award-winning author and critic Gwyneth Jones offers a new appraisal of Russ’s work and ideas. After years working in male-dominated SF, Russ emerged in the late 1960s with Alyx, the uber-capable can-do heroine at the heart of Picnic on Paradise and other popular stories and books. Soon, Russ’s fearless embrace of gender politics and life as an out lesbian made her a target for male outrage while feminist classics like The Female Man and The Two of Them took SF in innovative new directions. Jones also delves into Russ’s longtime work as a critic of figures as diverse as Lovecraft and Cather, her foundational place in feminist fandom, important essays like “Amor Vincit Foeminam,” and her career in academia.
What do you care about more than most people around you? In the context of speculative fiction, I think I’m atypically interested in the question of how do the characters in a story understand their universe. I’ve heard some people say that they don’t care about the plausibility of an invented world as long as the characters are believable. To me these aren’t easily separated. When reading a story I often find myself thinking, Why has no one in this world ever wondered such-and-such?Why has no one ever asked this question, or attempted this experiment?
If you’ve been on the internet for a while, you may have heard about SEO, or “Search Engine Optimization.” But do you know what SEO really is — and the effect it has on writing? While some SEO tips are good — like citing your sources with added external links! — others make writing stilted and awkward. (For example, have you noticed how many times “SEO” has appeared in this paragraph?)
We all want to be seen. One of the most important ways is via Google, is it worth it if it makes your writing stiff? And do you have any other options? Or are we all stuck on the same hamster wheel, using the same techniques to try to rise above the din?
(5b) TOP OF THE POLL. Congratulations to Michael A. Burstein, who has been re-elected to the Brookline (MA) Board of Library Trustees for a sixth term. He notes, “Although the race was uncontested, the unofficial results indicate that I came in first among the four of us running this year, for which I thank everyone who voted for me.”
(6) RUSCH
KICKSTARTER. Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s Kickstarter appeal for The
Diving Universe funded the first day, now they’re raising money to meet
the stretch goal. JJ got me reading these, so I had to chip in —
…Two years ago, I realized that before I could write the next book about Boss, though, I needed to figure out what happened in the past, long before any of my current characters were born.
So…I started what I thought was a short story. It became a 260,000 word adventure novel called The Renegat, because I can’t do world-building without telling a story.
…Everyone who backs this Kickstarter at the $5 and above will receive an ebook of The Renegat.
The Kickstarter also gave me an excuse to assemble two books of extras—unfinished side trails, some from The Renegat, and many from earlier books, along with some essays about the entire project.
Of course, backers at the higher levels will get the hardcovers of the series as we complete them. And there are some other fun things here as well. You can get some of the lectures I’ve done for WMG Publishing about writing, or you can join the monthly Ask Kris Anything sessions. Those are live webinars, and you can ask questions about Diving to your heart’s content.
If we make our $5,000 stretch goal, every backer will get a copy of the novella, “Escaping Amnthra,” which is a side story that couldn’t fit into the novel. (“Escape” stands alone as well.)
RWA Service Awards: Courtney Milan, Gina Fluharty, Barbara Wallace
RWA Vivian Stephens Industry Award: Mark Coker, Founder & CEO, Smashwords
RWA Cathie Linz Librarian of the Year: Stephen Ammidown, Manuscript & Outreach Archivist, Browne Popular Culture Library, Bowling Green State University
RWA Steffie Walker Bookseller of the Year: Michelle Mioff-Haring, Owner, Cupboard Maker Books
Hey – I actually used the pop culture library at
BGSU when I went there eons ago!
(8) ANCIENT CLONE.
The
Arthur C. Clarke Center for the Human Imagination hosts “Neanderthal Among Us?
Science Meets Fiction: A Discussion of the Motion Picture William” on May 13 at UCSD from 5:30-8:30 p.m. RSVP Required – full details here.
Join the UC San Diego Stem Cell Program, the Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny, OnePlace, and the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination for a free screening of the film William, which tells the story of what happens when two scientists clone a Neanderthal from ancient DNA and raise him in today’s world. Following the film, a panel will explore the scientific and ethical questions the film raises.
About the Film William
Star academics Doctors Julian Reed and Barbara Sullivan, fall in love with each other and with the idea of cloning a Neanderthal from ancient DNA. Against the express directive of University administrators they follow through on this audacious idea. The result is William: the first Neanderthal to walk the earth for some 35,000 years. William tries his best to fit into the world around him. But his distinctive physical features and his unique way of thinking–his “otherness”–set him apart and provoke fear. William’s story is powerful and unique, but his struggle to find love and assert his own identity in a hostile world is universal–and timeless.
(9) TWO SCOOPS OF ALASDAIR
STUART. Alasdair Stuart’s latest column for Fox Spirit, “Not The Fox News: Don’t Be Nelson”, talks
about how emotional engagement, especially when so many major story cycles are
starting to end, is both a good thing and to be encouraged.
About once a decade, everything lines up. A half dozen major cultural juggernauts all come into land at about the same time and some poor soul is paid to write the ‘GEEK CULTURE IS OVER. WE SHALL NEVER SEE ITS LIKE AGAIN’ piece. Hey if the check clears and the piece doesn’t hurt anyone, go with God. We’re in one of those times now. Game of Thrones has under half its super short final season to go. Avengers Endgame is all over theaters everywhere and the ninth core Star Wars movie has been confirmed as the end of the Skywalker saga. If this was a concert, we’d officially be into the ‘Freebird’, ‘Hotel California’, ‘Thrift Shop’, ‘Single Ladies’ phase of the night.
These are emotional times….
Stuart has also joined the Ditch Diggers team with a new monthly column. The first one takes a
look at the massive ructions in podcasting at the moment and the lessons
writers can take from that. “Welcome to the Montage, Now Stare at a Test Tube”.
…So let’s break this down. First off, Luminary is a new podcast streaming platform that launched a few months ago with a ton of exclusive titles and a ton of money, very little of which they seem to have spent on a public relations department. The idea is that they are ‘the Netflix of podcasts’, which presumably doesn’t mean:
‘We’re sustained by the physical library system that no one expected to live this long and it takes two years for us to get the new season of Brooklyn Nine-Nine’.
Instead, the idea is that Luminary will feature forty or so podcasts which are only available through it’s app, most of which are fronted by celebrities.
How you feel about this really depends on how you feel about ‘famous person has some thoughts’ style shows.
Cohen primarily worked in the field of reproductive biology….
As a science fiction fan, Cohen found himself advising many authors, including Anne McCaffrey, Larry Niven, David Gerrold, Jerry Pournelle, and Harry Harrison. He teamed with Ian Stewart and Terry Pratchett wrote four volumes in the Science of Discworld series, the first of which earned the three authors a Hugo Nomination for Best Related Book.
(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled
by Cat Eldridge.]
Born May 8, 1937 — Thomas Pynchon, 82. Ok I’m confused. I’ve not read him so I’m not at all sure which of his novels can be considered genre. Would y’all first enlighten to which are such, and second what I should now read. ISFDB certainly doesn’t help by listing pretty much everything of his as genre including Mason & Dixon which though post-modernist isn’t genre.
Born May 8, 1938 — Jean Giraud. Better to y’all as Moebius. He contributed storyboards and concept designs to myriad science fiction and fantasy films including Alien, The Fifth Element, The Abyss and the original Tron film. He also collaborated with avant-garde filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky for an unproduced adaptation of Dune. Oh, I would’ve loved to have seen that! And no, I’m not forgetting his work on both Heavy Metal and Marvel Comics, but I’ll let you detail those endeavours. (Died 2012.)
Born May 8, 1940 — Peter Benchley. He’s known for writing Jaws and he co-wrote the film script with Carl Gottlieb. His novel Beast is genre and was adapted into a film, as was White Shark, which has absolutely nothing to do with sharks. Another novel, The Island, was also turned into a film and it’s at least genre adjacent. (Died 2006.)
Born May 8, 1947 — Susan Casper. Editor and author, married to Gardner Dozois until her death. Her fiction is first collected in Slow Dancing through Time which includes one collaboration with Dozois and one with Jack M Dann. Rainbow: The Complete Short Fiction of Susan Casper which was edited just after her death by her husband is as its title states a complete collection of her short fiction. She was co-editor with him of the Ripper! and Jack the Ripper anthologies. (Died 2017.)
Born May 8, 1954 — Stephen Furst. The saddest part of doing these Birthdays is discovering how many folks have died that I reasonably expected were still living. He died of complications from diabetes at a far too young age. You know most likely Centauri diplomatic attaché Vir Cotto on Babylon 5, a decent being way over his head in a job he was ill prepared for. He also directed three low-budget movies for the Sci Fi Channel: Dragon Storm, Path of Destruction, and Basilisk: The Serpent King; he additionally co-starred in the last two films. And he produced Atomic Shark which aired during Sharknado Week on Syfy. (Died 2017)
Born May 8, 1963 — Michel Gondry, 56. French director, screenwriter, and producer of such genre as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (love that film), The Green Hornet (on the other hand, I deleted this from my .mov files after watching fifteen minutes of it) and The Science of Sleep (which I had not heard but sounds interesting.)
Born May 8, 1981 — Stephen Amell, 38. He’s known for portraying Oliver Queen / Green Arrow In Arrowverse. Ok I have a confession. I can either read or watch series like these. I did watch the first few seasons of the Arrow and Flash series. How the Hell does anybody keep up with these and set aside a reasonable amount of time to do any reading? Seriously the amount of genre on tv has exploded. I’m watching Star Trek, Young Justice and Doom Patrol which is quite enough, thank you.
(12) COMICS SECTION.
Brevity crams several horrendous puns into this one-frame, LOTR-inspired cartoon.
The cast of Avengers: Endgame have had to sit on a ton of spoilers for years, with much of the filming on the Marvel mega-blockbuster dating all the way back to 2017.
There are, of course, Avengers: Endgame spoilers ahead…
(14) ATWOOD. Tyler Cowen had Margaret Atwood on his Conversations With Tyler podcast: “Margaret
Atwood on Canada, Writing, and Invention”. Atwood discusses Hag-Seed,
her take on The Tempest, at the 10
minute mark. She explains why she started writing The Handmaid’s Tale in West Berlin in 1984, and her love of H.G.
Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau.
Audience questions coming in at the 55-minute mark about her Handmaid’s Tale sequel The Testaments, coming in September, why
she likes the YouTube video “At Last, They’ve Made A Handmaid’s Tale for men,” and how readers figured out Offred’s
last name.
…It’s well known that human beings are remarkably adept at visually recognizing faces, words, numbers, places, colors, and so forth thanks to a constellation of regions—small clusters of neurons about the size of a pea—in the temporal lobe, located just behind the ears. Those regions show up in the same place in most people, despite differences in age, sex, or race. There’s even a so-called “Jennifer Aniston neuron,” (aka the “grandmother cell“) discovered by a UCLA neuroscientist in 2005, whose primary purpose seems to be to recognize images of the famous actress. Similar neurons have also been found for other celebrities like Bill Clinton, Julia Roberts, Halle Berry, and Kobe Bryant.
“This is quite remarkable, and it’s still an open mystery in neuroscience why these regions appear exactly where they do in the brain,” said co-author Jesse Gomez, a postdoc at the University of California, Berkeley, who conducted the experiments while a grad student at Stanford University. One way to answer this question, and determine which of several competing theories is correct, is to study people who, as children, had a unique experience with a new type of visual stimulus. If those people were shown to have developed a new brain region dedicated to recognizing that new object class, that would offer useful insight into how the brain organizes itself.
The catch: it would take many hours of laboratory practice with any new visual stimulus for there to be any measurable effect. But “I realized that the 1990s had already done it for me,” said Gomez. “I grew up playing Pokémon. The game rewards kids for individuating between hundreds of similar-looking Pokémon.” The game is also played primarily during childhood, a “critical window” period where the brain is especially plastic and responsive to experience. He reasoned it might be possible that passionate Pokémon players like his childhood self would have developed a new brain region in response to that experience. So he applied for a seed grant to test that hypothesis.
…Bless its mega-crossover heart but Avengers: Infinity War is not a serious contender for the best science-fiction film of 2018. It is a notable bit of film making but it’s rather like what ends up on your plate when you* visit a really nice buffet — lots of tasty things but not a carefully constructed dining experience. I get why it’s here instead of Thor: Ragnarok but Thor 3 was a better contender as a sci-fi movie.
That leaves a face-off between Black Panther and Spider-Man. Both are visual treats. Spider-verse pulls off the remarkable feat of creating yet another reboot of Spider-Man as a film character in a way that makes me genuinely excited (doubly remarkable as the MCU version of Spidey was pretty good too)….
(17) HUGO
REVIEWS, Here are links to three more sets of 2019 Hugo nominee reviews.
Steve J.
Wright’s Best Novella Hugo Finalist reviews are online:
Many studies have found that women aren’t as willing as men to take risks. And so they may shy away from riskier investments or career choices, missing out on the rewards that can come from taking big chances.
The perennial question: Why? Is it nature or nurture?
…Elaine Liu, an economist at the University of Houston, …and co-author Sharon Xuejing Zuo at Fudan University in Shanghai found that young girls from the Mosuo community in China, one of the few societies in the world run by women, were bigger risk-takers than boys from the same community. But after the Mosuo girls spent years in schools with boys and girls who came from patriarchal communities, the trend reversed: Older Mosuo girls took fewer chances.
A missing piece of Stonehenge has been returned to the site 60 years after it was taken.
A metre-long core from inside the prehistoric stone was removed during archaeological excavations in 1958.
No-one knew where it was until Robert Phillips, 89, who was involved in those works, decided to return part of it.
English Heritage, which looks after Stonehenge, hopes the sample might now help establish where the stones originally came from.
In 1958 archaeologists raised an entire fallen trilithon – a set of three large stones consisting of two that would have stood upright, with the third placed horizontally across the top.
During the works, cracks were found in one of the vertical stones and in order to reinforce it, cores were drilled through the stone and metal rods inserted.
The repairs were masked by small plugs cut from sarsen fragments found during excavations.
Stools made from elephant feet have been presented to three African leaders by their host in Botswana during a meeting on the future of the mammals.
President Mokgweetsi Masisi handed over the gifts, covered in a blue patterned cloth, to his counterparts from Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The countries, along with South Africa, are calling for the ban on the sale of ivory to be lifted.
They argue that money from the trade can be used for conservation projects.
Elephant poaching is a big issue across Africa and some estimates say 30,000 are killed every year. There are thought to be 450,000 left.
(21) ROCK OF AGES. In Air & Space Magazine’s
article “Claimed Signs of Life in a Martian Meteorite” the tagline
seems an understatement — “Like other previous claims, this one may not hold
up.” Another scientist has claimed that a meteorite that originated on Mars
contains signs of life. You may recall such a claim previously made based on
analysis of ALH84001 (ALH stands for Allan Hills in Antarctica, where the rock
was found) with the announcement made in 1996. The evidence was
eventually judged inconclusive by most scientists.
Now a new paper by Ildikó Gyollai from the Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences in Budapest, Hungary, and colleagues, claims that there might be clues to Martian life in another Allan Hills meteorite, this time ALH77005. They base their conclusions on morphological and geochemical indicators—including the presence of organic material—which lead them to speculate on the past presence of iron bacteria in this Martian rock. […]
[Thanks to
Standback, JJ, Cat Eldridge, Michael Toman, Jim Meadows, John King Tarpinian,
Chip Hitchcock, Mike Kennedy, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of
these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributor of the day Kip
Williams.]
By Carl Slaughter: Proof of Concept by Gwyneth Jones was released by Tor on April 11.
On a desperately overcrowded future Earth, crippled by climate change, the most unlikely hope is better than none. Governments turn to Big Science to provide them with the dreams that will keep the masses compliant. The Needle is one such dream, an installation where the most abstruse theoretical science is being tested: science that might make human travel to a habitable exoplanet distantly feasible.
When the Needle’s director offers her underground compound as a training base, Kir is thrilled to be invited to join the team, even though she knows it’s only because her brain is host to a quantum artificial intelligence called Altair.
But Altair knows something he can’t tell.
Kir, like all humans, is programmed to ignore future dangers. Between the artificial blocks in his mind, and the blocks evolution has built into his host, how is he going to convince her the sky is falling?
Proof of Concept is a science fiction novella from Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author Gwyneth Jones.
Praise for Proof of Concept
“Proof of Concept is proof that Gwyneth Jones is an international treasure. If she writes it, you need to read it––that’s all you need to know.” ? Pat Cadigan, Hugo and Clarke Award-winning author of Synners.
“Proof of Concept is deeply unsettling and utterly transcendent.” ? Kathleen Ann Goonan, Campbell Award-winning author of the Nanotech trilogy
“Proof of Concept engages and excites, its puzzles unwrapping with deft speed. I liked it a lot. Prepare for concept acceleration!” ? Gregory Benford, Nebula Award-winning author of Timescape and the Galactic Centre series.
“Proof of Concept has almost everything: a truly fascinating setting in a deeper cave than any we have yet found, an interesting near future society, virtual sex, an AI, a likeable young heroine, a planet (Earth) that’s in dire trouble and Post Standard Model Physics that may (or may not) solve the planet’s problems. A dense, unsettling, compelling tale written in Gwyneth Jones’ usual fine style. I want to visit the cave, and I wouldn’t mind knowing more about the theoretical physics.” ? Eleanor Arnason
“A terrific, intricately wrought matryoshka doll of a story, crammed with weird science, steeped in the ambience of an authentically strange but thoroughly plausible future.” ? Paul McAuley
About the Author
GWYNETH JONES is a writer and critic of genre fiction. She’s won the Tiptree award, two World Fantasy awards, the Arthur C. Clarke award, the British Science Fiction Association short story award, the Dracula Society’s Children of the Night award, the Philip K. Dick award, and the S.F.R.A. Pilgrim award for lifetime achievement in sf criticism. She also writes for teenagers, usually as Ann Halam. She lives in Brighton, UK, with her husband and two cats called Ginger and Milo; curating assorted pondlife in season.
