Teel James Glenn and James Patrick Kelly. Photo by Ellen Datlow.
By Mark L. Blackman: On the suddenly chilly autumn evening of Wednesday, November 13, the monthly Fantastic Fiction at KGB Readings Series presented two authors with James in their three-barreled names, James Patrick Kelly and Teel James Glenn,who read from newly published works.
Now in its second quarter-century, the Series, co-hosted by Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel, is held on the second Wednesday of each month at its longtime venue, the Soviet era-themed (so doubly aptly-named) Red Room of the second-floor KGB Bar in Manhattan’s East Village. Readings are free, but the hosts noodgeh the crowd to buy drinks, alcoholic or non-. To paraphrase, support the Bar and support the Series.
After the music was turned off by the bartender’s Apple watch, Datlow invited those not already on it to join the mailing list. The website lists past readers and upcoming readings:
December 11 – Sarah Pinsker and Yume Kitasei
January 8 – Ben Berman Ghan and Jacob Weisman
February 12 – Rebecca Fraimow and Clay McLeod Chapman
She then introduced the first reader of the evening.
James Patrick Kelly, the author of five-and-a-half novels (the half is a collaboration with John Kessel), including Planet of Whispers and Look into the Sun, has worked primarily in shorter forms, and has won the Hugo, Nebula and Locus Awards forhis short fiction. His column “On The Net” is a regular feature in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, and his new novella, Moon and Mars, from whose opening he read, will be appearing in the publication’s January/February issue. This was his eighth visit to Fantastic Fiction since 2000 (and, incidentally, my first in person since before the Pandemic).
Mariska, a woman living on the Moon, and her involuntary clone Niha are slated to be in the crew of a colony ship leaving the Solar System (both are Hibernators), but, in view of a recent disaster, there are rumors that, in whole or part, the crew will be replaced. Meanwhile Niha gets a haircut (because “on a starship hair matters”) and Mariska (older than her apparent age) lusts after a Marsboy.
After an intermission, co-host Kressel reiterated information about upcoming readers, added mention of their podcast (at present recordings of past events), and introduced the second reader of the evening.
Teel James Glenn – or “T.J.” – has, in forty-plus years of careers, worked as an actor, stuntman, fight choreographer, swordmaster, and haunted house barker, during which time, as he describes it, he has “killed hundreds and been killed more times on stage and screen,” before turning to committing murders instead in dozens of novels and short stories published in over two hundred magazines including Weird Tales, and Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine. His novel A Cowboy in Carpathia: A Bob Howard Adventure (yes, that Robert E. Howard) won best novel 2021 in the Pulp Factory Award. His website is TheUrbanSwashbuckler.com.
Without preamble, Glenn “leaped right into it,” reading Chapters 1 and 3 of Not Born of Woman. In 1939 New York, a Romani woman comes to private eye Adam Paradise, a 7’2” scarred not quite human, seeking to recover a family heirloom from a mobster, collateral for her luckless son’s gambling debt. As hints in the story unfold, it becomes clear that Paradise is nearly 200 years old and (it’s not a spoiler if it’s right there on the back cover) the being created by Dr. Frankenstein. He confronts the gangster and, we’re told, eventually the Nazi Bund. Glenn had copies of the book for sale, while Kelly called attention again to the next issue of Asimov’s.
Prior to the readings, Datlow, as usual, wove among the tables, taking pictures of the audience and the two readers. Her photos of the event may be seen on her Flickr page.
(2) KGB. Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel present James Patrick Kelly and James Teel Glenn on Wednesday, November 13, beginning at 7:00 p.m. Eastern. Location: KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street, New York, NY 10003 (Just off 2nd Ave, upstairs)
James Patrick Kelly
James Patrick Kelly has won the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards for his short fiction. He has also written five and half novels, a dozen or so plays and some embarrassing poetry. His column “On The Net” is a regular feature of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. He is an early adopter, a shade gardener, a cross-country skier, and an open water swimmer, so it helps that he lives on a lake in New Hampshire. KGB is one of his favorite places to read and this will be his eighth visit to Fantastic Fiction since 2000. His new novella, Moon and Mars, will be out from Asimov’s in the January/February issue.
Teel James Glenn
Teel James Glenn has killed hundreds and been killed more times–on stage and screen, for forty-plus years as a stuntman, swordmaster, storyteller, book illustrator, bodyguard, actor, and haunted house barker. He has dozens of novels and stories published in over two hundred magazines including Weird Tales, and Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine. His novel A Cowboy in Carpathia: A Bob Howard Adventure won best novel 2021 in the Pulp Factory Award. He can be found at in wild Weehawken NJ and at TheUrbanSwashbuckler.com.
(3) ANOTHER EKPEKI ISSUE RAISED. Dare Segun Falowo is a winner of the inaugural Emeka Walter Dinjos Memorial Award For Disability In Speculative Fiction, an award created by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki. Today Dare shared on Bluesky a bad experience with Africa Risen co-editor Ekpeki about Dare’s support for the idea that writers in anthologies should share credit for awards won by editors. Thread starts here.
And Bogi Takács emphatically supports the practice of writers in anthologies sharing credit with the editor(s) for the book’s awards:
…Between Falcone and Oz, this show is like watching two scuzzy raccoons fight over the last slice of rancid pizza in a back alley from the depths of DC hell. Neither is prepared to end up second best, and both have shown themselves capable of mass murder to avoid having to settle for it. It reminds me of that scene in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight in which Heath Ledger’s Joker snaps off a pool cue and invites two wannabe goons to fight to the death for the chance to be one of his henchmen.
One reason many fans might consider watching The Penguin is the expectation that Robert Pattinson’s Batman is likely to turn up at some point to show both who’s really in charge. In reality, both the showrunner, Lauren LeFranc, and Reeves have said that’s unlikely to happen any time soon, but the splendid thing about the show is that we barely miss the caped crusader. This is Gotham at street level, the city’s grimy underbelly exposed in all its filth and fury, while Batman’s place is above the city’s streets, looking down on the scum below like an avenging dark angel. Who knew that one of those unfortunate wretches scurrying about the gutter might just be capable of carrying an entire show on his doughy shoulders?
Sure, the ultimate expectation is that the Penguin will at some point climb his way up the greasy pole of power to become an A-list villain for Pattinson to take down in a future movie. But right now, watching Farrell shuffle through the shadows like a cross between Machiavelli and Harvey Weinstein after a fight with a dumpster, the whole thing is so engrossing that there’s absolutely no rush.’…
A trailer spotlighting Marvel’s upcoming Disney Plus releases has emerged online, with a 20-second teaser for Daredevil: Born Again included within it.
The teaser is sure to get fans excited for the revival show, which is set to arrive in March next year and will see Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock once again face off against Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin….
There’s been an interesting juxtaposition of recently published books that shed light on two of the most notorious events in Science Fiction history – “The Last Dangerous Visions” and “The Starlost”, both involving the venerated writer, Harlan Ellison….
… In his long introduction to the anthology, Straczynski recounted the saga of “The Last Dangerous Visions”, his close friendship with Ellison and the revelation that Ellison suffered from bipolar disorder and clinical depression which went untreated until close to Ellison’s death in 2018. His mental condition is cited as the reason he was not able to concentrate on big projects and gather the spiritual energy to finish the grand undertaking he had conceived….
(7) A ROBOT GROWS IN BROOKLYN. [Item by Andrew Porter.] According to John Boston:
Appeared on the local Nextdoor.com site, allegedly “the product of a welding training program and is based on a graphic novel hip hop character.” It resides in Borough Hall Park, and hard by the federal district court for the Eastern District of New York and the main Brooklyn Post Office.
From the pages of the first-ever hip hop comic book, written by Eric Orr in 1986, to the streets of the Boogie Down Bronx and finally to the streets of Paris, Rappin’ Max Robot is alive and standing 18 feet tall.
Andrew Porter adds:
I saw them installing it Monday, when I walked by having just gone to the Post Office (visible at right background). It’s about 20 feet high.
Made a comment to the workers, “You’re gonna have to oil up that robot!”
This is exactly where much of the Brooklyn Book Festival too place, on this plaza.
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Paul Weimer.]
Born October 30, 1977 — Malka Ann Older, 47.
By Paul Weimer: I remember when she burst onto the scene with Infomocracy. It was in wake of her talented brother Daniel Older’s own SF literary debut with Half-Resurrection Blues, and I do wonder if Infomocracy got play and visibility because Malka Older was his sister. As for me, I had not read Blues and picked up Infomocracy solely on the strength of its idea of a new, atomized, political system with strengths and advantages, but problems of its own. It depicts a vibrant, multicultural and inclusive future (with one SF “gimmie” to make it happen), and it knocked my socks off. When I told Malka that I truly didn’t know that she was Daniel’s brother, her reaction was a somewhat skeptical “Really?!”
But it’s true. I don’t know everything in SF.
I think her Mossa and Pleiti novels, starting with The Mimicking of Known Successes walk a fine line between being “cozy” and comfortable reads, and being furiously inventive medium-term science fiction. They are so well written, and so different in some fundamental ways than Infomocracy that it really shows her range and ability.
But my favorite Older work is her collaboration with Fran Wilde, Jacqueline Koyanagi, and Curtis C. Chen in Ninth Step Station. Ninth Step Station is a collaborative cyberpunk crime drama published by Serial Box and showcases the writers’ talents showing a divided and dangerous Tokyo in the near future. It combines the political power and intrigue from the Infomocracy novels with the (later) mystery and investigation of the Mossa and Pleiti novels and serves as a bridge between the two types of works.
When Danielle Keaton was seven, her homework was to open her eyes as wide as possible and stare. She had just secured a role in director John Carpenter’s Village of the Damned – a horror film about inhuman psychic children with violent tendencies – and had to perfect her creepy glare. “We had to practise not blinking for a very long time,” says the actor and coach, now 38 and based in LA. “We would have to look in a mirror and hold the stare without laughing.” On set, the children would have staring contests with Superman star Christopher Reeve…
(11) SFF ON LEARNEDLEAGUE: PORTALS AND NEXT YEAR’S ONE-DAY SPECIALS. [Item by David Goldfarb.] LearnedLeague just had a One-Day Special quiz entitled “Just Images Portals” — the “Just Images” part means that each question has a picture associated with it, which may be required to answer the question correctly. You can find the questions here, although unfortunately you need to be a LearnedLeague member in order to view the pictures.
I got 8 right out of 12, placing 211th out of 1,167 players.
Also next year’s One-Day Special schedule has now been set. Here are the ones that seem to be SFF-related. Notes in parentheses are from me:
Elemental Masters
Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist
Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quintet
What We Do in the Shadows
Victorian Fiction (not an SFF subject, but SFF-related because the quiz will be written by SF fan and anthologist Rich Horton – DG)
The Stormlight Archive
Goblins
Watchmen
Ghost
Dragon Age
Mass Effect
Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence
Learn Zoology with the Animorphs
Actors in Star Wars & Other SF/Fantasy IP
Personification of Death in Literature
Tolkien’s Other Work (after three quizzes on The Lord of the Rings and one on The Silmarillion, now we move on to the Other Work – DG)
The Last of Us
Famous Luxembourgers (not directly SFnal, but sure to have a question on Hugo Gernsback at least – DG)
Sapphic Fantasy
Batman ’66 (to be written by SF fan Tom Galloway – DG)
…This year, the King is celebrating Halloween with a group of people who have been creepy, kooky, mysterious, and spooky for more than 80 years. That’s right: Burger King has teamed up with the Addams Family for a special menu that will launch on Thursday, October 10, with four new Addams-inspired items.
Two of them are:
Wednesday’s Whopper
This sandwich takes all of the trappings of a classic flame-grilled Whopper, tops it with Swiss cheese, ketchup, lettuce, mayo, onions, pickles, and tomatoes — and serves it up on a purple bun. (The violet bun gets its signature shade from purple potatoes.)
Thing’s Rings
The Addams Family’s long-time companion, Thing, was just a disembodied hand — which means it is perfectly designed to grab a few crispy onion rings right out of the package. During the month of October, BK’s rings come in a special Addams-family-designed sleeve.
There’s also Gomez’s Churro Fries and Morticia’s Kooky Chocolate Shake.
(13) FOR NATIONAL CATS DAY. [Item by Daniel Dern.] Which was yesterday in the U.S. The latest issue of Marvel Meow, from Marvel’s Infinity line, many of which (including this issue) are digitally available free, and without needing a (free) Marvel.com account. “Marvel Meow Infinity Comic (2022) #19”.
MARVEL MEOW IS BACK! To kick off, the Spider-Men and Doc Ock take on their biggest battle yet–finding homes for stray cats!
(14) CHINESE ASTRONAUT SCULPTURE. Interesting photo from the Brooklyn Eagle.
A pair of bank robbers are welcomed as Halloween trick-or-treaters by Morticia and Gomez. The creepy atmosphere of the house, Morticia’s smoldering holiday punch, and Lurch’s ominous presence impel the crooks to abandon their plans to add Addams money and jewelry to their bank loot.
[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Randall M.]
(1) EATING THE FANTASTIC EPISODE 200! To celebrate reaching this milestone Scott Edelman invites listeners to join J. Michael Straczynski for breakfast on Episode 200 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.
J. Michael Straczynski
Wait, what? It’s Episode 200 of Eating the Fantastic? Really? That number shouldn’t seem so unbelievable, because Eating the Fantastic is, after all, my podcast, and I’ve been responsible for every episode, and yet … it still is. My guest for Episode 200 is J. Michael Straczynski, who took time out of his extremely busy schedule to chat and chew with me just as last month’s Nebula Awards weekend was kicking off.
Straczynski is perhaps best known as the creator of the television series Babylon 5, for which he wrote 92 of the 110 episodes. His roles in TV prior to that include acting as story editor on Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future, executive story editor on the new Twilight Zone, co-producer for Murder, She Wrote, and many others. And after Babylon 5 came its spinoff Crusade, as well as the series Jeremiah and Sense8. He also wrote Amazing Spider-Man from 2001 to 2007, plus extended runs on Thor and the Fantastic Four. In recent years, he’s published the autobiography Becoming Superman (2019), the novel Together We Will Go (2021), and Becoming a Writer, Staying a Writer (2021). He is also the executor for the estate of Harlan Ellison, someone whose name popped up frequently during our conversation.
We discussed his appearance on one of the greatest convention panels I’ve ever been privileged to witness, why Superman stood out above all the other superheroes of his youth, his epiphany which occurred the night before the premiere of Changling at the Cannes Film Festival, the low boredom threshold of Harlan Ellison, how Norman Corwin’s ability to overcome bitterness about the Blacklist helped him deal with his own demons, his realization there was something more important about writing than either plot or characters (and what that something is), the tendency of humans to sleepwalk through our lives and what can shake us free from that, the life-changing nature of the “shoelace moment,” why DC Comics would never have dared publish anything as political as Captain America #1, the reason you don’t ever have to worry about him eating off your plate, the early encouragement he received from Rod Serling, and so much more.
(3) GET READY FOR FATHER’S DAY. Steve Vertlieb ”My Father, Myself” points to “the very special tribute that I wrote for my beloved dad, Charles Vertlieb for Father’s Day a couple of years ago.”
Dad, I love you, and I miss you more and more with every passing day. I live in the sweet shadow of your goodness, and am but a tender reflection of your own humble purity. Wishing you a Happy Father’s Day in paradise.
(4) WRITE-A-THON TIME. Clarion West is taking registrations for the annual Write-a-Thon, which will run from June 25 to August 5. Donations are welcome — it’s their biggest fundraiser of the year.
The Write-a-thon is a time of year we set aside to focus on our wider writing community: participants set writing goals for themselves, create personal Write-a-thon pages, and write!
Achieve your writing goals
Meet other writers in our online affinity groups
Level up your writing with our weekly writing prompts
Join sprints and writing sessions online
Exclusive access to writing classes and webinars
No cost, no obligations
Anyone, at any level, can participate in the Write-a-thon, an opportunity to write alongside the Six-Week Workshop participants.
You can use the Write-a-thon to set personal goals in writing. You can cheer others on, meet fellow writers, and raise funds for Clarion West. The Write-a-thon brings together CW alumni, instructors, and new friends from around the world in one big happy puddle of writerly support.
(5) YOUNG PEOPLE READ OLD SFF. James Davis Nicoll unleashes the Young People Read Old SFF panel on a Hugo winner by James Patrick Kelly.
June 2023s’ Young People Read Old Hugo Finalists story is James Patrick Kelly’s “Rat,” first published in the June 1986 The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Kelly, who first debuted in the 1970s1, has an impressive body of work, always worth seeking out. His fiction has been nominated for a wide variety of awards. “Rat”, for example was both a Hugo2 and Nebula finalist3.
In the ancient and now utterly irrelevant struggle between the so-called Cyberpunks and the so-called Humanists, Kelly was often lumped in the Humanists. Simple categorization is often misleading; “Rat” fits nicely into the Cyberpunk genre. Let’s see what our Young People made of it…
(6) MEMORY LANE.
2021 – [Written by Cat Eldridge from a choice by Mike Glyer.]
Ryka Aoki is an amazing individual. She says on her on her most excellent blog that notes she’s a poet, composer, teacher, and novelist.
Genre wise, her works are not that many. One novel, Light from Uncommon Stars which is where our Beginning comes from, and short piece of fiction, “The Gift”.
She’s won an Otherwise Award which was in the category for gender-bending SF.
Light from Uncommon Stars was nominated at Chicon 8 for an Award and for a Mythopoetic and Ignyte Awards as well.
Here’s our Beginning…
Shhh …
Yes, it hurt. It was definitely not just a bruise. Yes, she was scared. Her throat was raw from screaming.
Cautiously, Katrina Nguyen felt under her bed.
Girl clothes. Boy clothes. Money. Birth certificate. Social security card. Toothbrush. Spare glasses. Backup battery. Makeup. Estradiol. Spironolactone.
Katrina had made an escape bag the first time her father threatened to kill her.
At first, the bag seemed an “in case of emergency,” a glass that one would never break.
But after tonight …
Why had she let it come to this? Why couldn’t she be what her parents wanted?
Part of her was in a panic. What have you done? Apologize. Knock on their door right now. Say it’s all your fault—say you’re sorry, say you’ll promise to change.
But another, stronger, part of Katrina was calm, even cold.
You have to escape. Tonight. Breathe, be quiet, and listen.
And so, Katrina listened … for footsteps, for breathing, for sleep. She listened, and listened. Through the dark, she heard her mother’s one last cough. Her father’s one last flush.
And then, finally, there was silence.
Katrina clutched her ribs, then propped herself up. The pain was sharp, but manageable. She was in her room, behind a locked door. All she needed to do was be quiet. And calm. She could do this.
She could do this.
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born June 16, 1896 — Murray Leinster. It is said that he wrote and published more than fifteen hundred short stories and articles, fourteen movie scripts, and hundreds of radio scripts and television plays. Among those was his 1945 Retro Hugo-winning novella “First Contact” which is one of the first (if not the first) instances of a universal translator in science fiction. So naturally his heirs sued Paramount Pictures over Star Trek: First Contact, claiming that it infringed their trademark in the term. However, the suit was dismissed. I’m guessing they filed just a bit late. (Died 1975.)
Born June 16, 1920 — T.E. Dikty. In 1947, Dikty joined Shasta Publishers as managing editor. With E. F. Bleiler he started the first Best of the Year SF anthologies, called The Best Science Fiction, that ran from 1949 until 1957. He was posthumously named to the First Fandom Hall of Fame in a ceremony at the 71st World Science Fiction Convention. (Died 1991.)
Born June 16, 1924 — Faith Domergue. Dr. Ruth Adams in the classic Fifties film This Island Earth. She has a number of later genre roles, Professor Lesley Joyce in It Came from Beneath the Sea, Jill Rabowski in Timeslip (aka The Atomic Man) and Dr. Marsha Evans in Voyage to a Prehistoric Planet. She amazingly did no genre television acting. (Died 1999.)
Born June 16, 1938 — Joyce Carol Oates, 85. No Hugos but she has garnered a World Fantasy Award in Short Fiction for “Fossil-Figures”, and has won more Stokers than I thought possible, the latest one for her most excellent collection of horror and dark fantasy stories, The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror. She has written pure SF in the form of Hazards of Time Travel which is quite good.
Born June 16, 1939 — David McDaniel. He wrote but one non-media tie-in novel, The Arsenal Out of Time, but most of his work was writing The Man from U.N.C.L.E. novels, six in total, with one, The Final Affair, which was supposed to wrap up the series but went unpublished due to declining sales but which circulated among fandom. He also wrote a Prisoner novel, Who is Number 2? Andhe wrote several filk songs, including “High Fly the Nazgul-O” and “The Mimeo Crank Chanty”. As a fan, he was quite active in LASFS, serving as its Director and Scribe, writing for various APAs (he aspired to be in all of them) and is remembered as a “Patron Saint” for his financial support of the club. (Died 1977.)
Born June 16, 1940 — Carole Ford, 83. She played the granddaughter and original companion of the First Doctor. She reprised the role for The Five Doctors, the Dimensions in Time charity special, and of course for The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot. Her first genre role was as Bettina in The Day of the Triffids, and she had an earlier role as an uncredited teen in the hall of mirrors in Horrors of the Black Museum.
Born June 16, 1972 — Andy Weir, 51. His debut novel, The Martian, was later adapted into a film of the same name directed by Ridley Scott. He received the Astounding Award for Best New Writer at MidAmeriCon II. His next two novels are Artemis and Project Hail Mary. Intriguingly, he’s written one piece of Sherlockian fan fiction, “James Moriarty, Consulting Criminal” which is only available as an Audible audiobook. Project Hail Mary was nominated for a Hugo Award at Chicon 8.
…The film distributor is planning a limited theatrical release for the movie at AMC Theatres before it releases digitally, beginning Friday, June 23. Wonderwell also stars Rita Ora, Nell Tiger Free, Sebastian Croft and Kiera Milward….
The movie follows a girl named Violet (Milward) who is brought to “a mysterious portal” near a medieval Italian village by Fisher’s character Hazel, who offers “a glimpse of what [Violet’s] future might hold” after Violet and her family travel to the village for her sister’s modeling opportunity, according to the outlet….
(10) WHAT ARE THE FAVORITE MOVIES OF THE DC EXTENDED UNIVERSE? With the premiere of The Flash this week JustWatch decided it is time for a definitive ranking of DC Extended Universe movies.
So far fans have had the opportunity to see 13 films, and the most favorite turned out to be The Suicide Squad accounting for 17.45% of the popularity. Thus, the standalone sequel became 3.5x more popular than Suicide Squad, which landed in 8th place. On the cinematic superhero podium, two remarkable entries also shone brightly: the empowering Wonder Woman and Zack Snyder’s Justice League.
(11) TAILS OF TERROR. “The Fish That Ate Our Ancestors” – Discover Magazine knows how to catch my attention. Here’s the opening of the article – more details at the link.
As life was first struggling to set foot on land in the Late Devonian Period, there was a predator waiting to snatch it back to the depths: the recently discovered Hyneria udlezinye, a toothy prehistoric fish estimated to have reached up to 9 feet long.
It represents the largest monster fish yet uncovered from this period and appears to have lurked in the brackish waters of the modern-day Waterloo Farm site in South Africa, in wait for its prey. An excavation exposed a wall of fossils there in 2016, during road construction, and led to this and a number of other discoveries, including the fossil of an early tetrapod, the massive fish’s likely prey. These early genetic forebears of modern human resembled large salamanders or small alligators and walked on four feet (thus tetrapod)…
So, what is this magic technique? Below we lay out the military method’s steps to a good night’s sleep. It’s deliberately designed to be easy and efficient, so anyone can start tonight.
Relax your face. Focus on your forehead, your eyes, your cheeks, your jaw, and so on. Feel the tension held in them and consciously push it away.
Drop your shoulders. Let your arms flop down and your shoulders relax. Imagine there is a soft, warm wind gently pushing your arms down.
Take a deep breath. Slowly inhale and let it out. As you do so, focus on how it relaxes your stomach. Don’t try to hold your stomach in; let it all out.
Relax your legs. The warm wind is back, and this time it’s gently easing your legs down. Let your legs sink into the bed or the floor. They are leaden, and the bed is soft.
Clear your mind. There are a few ways to do this. For instance, try to visualize some calming images, like lying by a flowing river or staring at the clouds. If that doesn’t work, try saying the words “don’t think” over and over for about 10 seconds. If you get distracted, don’t get angry; just pull your mind back to one of those two techniques….
[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Kathy Sullivan, Scott Edelman, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]
The 44th Annual Jack Williamson Lectureship, hosted by Eastern New Mexico University, will be held online April 22-24, with guests of honor James Patrick Kelly and Rebecca Roanhorse, and emcee Connie Willis. There will be readings and panels, interspersed with film clips from past lectureships, and quizzes, SF bingo and other surprises. A full agenda will be shared soon.
Rebecca Roanhorse
James Patrick Kelly
James Patrick Kelly has won the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards. His most recent publications are the novella King Of The Dogs, Queen Of The Cats (2020) and the collection, The Promise of Space (2018). He writes a column on the internet for Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and recently retired from faculty of the Stonecoast Creative Writing MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine where he taught for 15 years.
Rebecca Roanhorse is a Nebula and Hugo Award-winner and the recipient of the 2018 Astounding (Campbell) Award for Best New Writer. Her novel Trail of Lightning won the Locus Award for Best First Novel and is a Nebula, Hugo and World Fantasy finalist. A sequel, Black Sun, came out in 2020. Her short fiction can be found in Apex Magazine, New Suns, The Mythic Dream, and various anthologies. She lives in Northern New Mexico.
The lectureship, named for the prolific sff author and academic, was established by the university when Dr. Jack Williamson retired from his position as professor of English at Eastern New Mexico University in 1977. Ever since then writers, editors, artists and other speakers have gathered at ENMU every spring to share ideas, insights and their work with students, readers, viewers, creators, collectors and fans.
[Editor’s note: be sure to read the comments on this post for more novellas and more Filer reviews.]
By JJ:
TL;DR: Here’s what I thought of the 2020 Novellas. What did you think?
I’m a huge reader of novels, but not that big on short fiction. But the last few years, I’ve done a personal project to read and review as many Novellas as I could (presuming that the story Synopsis had some appeal for me). I ended up reading:
31 of the novellas published in 2015,
35 of the novellas published in 2016,
50 of the novellas published in 2017,
38 of the novellas published in 2018,
57 of the 2019 novellas,
and this year I was waiting for access to a few novellas from my library, so I was reading others, and thus my final total crept up to 59!
I really felt as though this enabled me to do Hugo nominations for the Novella category in an informed way, and a lot of Filers got involved with their own comments. So I’m doing it again this year.
It is not at all uncommon for me to choose to read a book despite not feeling that the jacket copy makes the book sound as though it is something I would like – and to discover that I really like or love the work anyway. On the other hand, It is not at all uncommon for me to choose to read a book which sounds as though it will be up my alley and to discover that, actually, the book doesn’t really do much for me.
Thus, my opinions on the following novellas vary wildly: stories I thought I would love but didn’t, stories I didn’t expect to love but did, and stories which aligned with my expectations – whether high or low.
Bear in mind that while I enjoy both, I tend to prefer Science Fiction over Fantasy – and that while I enjoy suspense and thrillers, I have very little appreciation for Horror (and to be honest, I think Lovecraft is way overrated). What’s more, I apparently had a defective childhood, and I do not share a lot of peoples’ appreciation for fairytale retellings and portal fantasies. My personal assessments are therefore not intended to be the final word on these stories, but merely a jumping-off point for Filer discussion.
Novellas are listed in two sections below. The first section, those with cover art, are the ones I have read, and they include mini-reviews by me. These are in approximate order from most-favorite to least-favorite (but bear in mind that after around the first dozen listed, there was not a large degree of difference in preference among most of the remainder, with the exception of a handful at the bottom). The second section is those novellas I haven’t read, in alphabetical order by title.
I’ve included plot summaries, and where I could find them, links to either excerpts or the full stories which can be read online for free. Some short novels which fall between 40,000 and 48,000 words (within the Hugo Novella category tolerance) have been included, and in a couple of cases, novelettes which were long enough to be in the Hugo Novella tolerance were also included.
Please feel free to post comments about 2020 novellas which you’ve read, as well. And if I’ve missed your File 770 comment about a novella, or an excerpt for a novella, please point me to it!
If you see something that looks like gibberish, it is text that has been ROT-13’ed to avoid spoilers. (Please be sure to rot-13 any spoilers.)
James Patrick Kelly has won the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards. His most recent publication is the collection, The Promise of Space, published in 2018. He writes a column on the internet for Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and recently retired from faculty of the Stonecoast Creative Writing MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine where he taught for 15 years.
Rebecca Roanhorse is a Nebula and Hugo Award-winner and the recipient of the 2018 Astounding (Campbell) Award for Best New Writer. Her novel Trail of Lightning won the Locus Award for Best First Novel and is a Nebula, Hugo and World Fantasy finalist. Her short fiction can be found in Apex Magazine, New Suns, The Mythic Dream, and various anthologies. She lives in Northern New Mexico.
Rebecca Roanhorse
James Patrick Kelly
The lectureship, named for the prolific
sff author and academic, was established by the university when Dr. Jack
Williamson retired from his position as professor of English at Eastern New
Mexico University in 1977. Ever since then writers, editors, artists and other
speakers have gathered at ENMU every spring to share ideas, insights and their
work with students, readers, viewers, creators, collectors and fans.
The complete schedule
of events will be posted soon. All events are open to the public and
everything except the luncheon is free. The luncheon costs $10, payable at the
door, but reservations are required by April 2. Contact planning.analysis@enmu.edu for lunch reservations.
By Mark L. Blackman: On the evening of Wednesday, February 19, the monthly Fantastic
Fiction at KGB Readings Series hosted award-winning authors James Patrick Kelly
and P. Djèlí Clark at its longtime venue, the definitely Red Room at the 2nd
floor KGB Bar in Manhattan’s East Village.
The event opened with Series co-host Ellen Datlow (fighting
through a cold) welcoming the crowd and announcing upcoming readers:
March 18: Robert Levy, Daniel Braum
April 15: Michael Cisco, Clay MacLeod Chapman
May 20: Leanna Renee Hieber, Ilana C. Myers
June 17: N.K. Jemisin, Kenneth Schneyer
July 15: Mike Allen, Benjamin Rosenbaum
She concluded by introducing the evening’s first reader.
P.
(for Phenderson) Djèlí Clark (and yes, it’s a penname) is the author of the
fantasy novellas The Black God’s Drums and The
Haunting of Tram Car 015, and “The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro
Teeth of George Washington,” a short story that earned him both a Nebula and
Locus Award, and was a finalist for both the 2019
Hugo Award for Best Short Story and the 2019 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. As
it was Black History Month and just after Presidents’ Day (formerly
Washington’s Birthday), his opening offering was from that story, the first six
teeth.
Washington’s famous choppers were not wooden (and certainly not
carved from that legendary cherry tree), but were made from his own teeth that
had fallen out, animal teeth and slaves’ teeth purchased from slave-owners. (His
dentures, one might say, were the original George Washington bridge.) Clark,
an historian in the other part of his professional life, imagines a mouthful of
supernatural backstories for the titular dentation, of African warriors and
conjuremen (wisdom teeth?), a strange counterpoint to the barbaric practice.
He followed up by reading from an advance bound manuscript of his
forthcoming (in October or November) dark fantasy novella Ring Shout. In an alternate 1922 Macon, Georgia, a trio of black
women – a bootlegger with a magic sword, a sharpshooter World War vet, and a
“Harlem Hellfighter” – hunt Klansmen (“Ku Kluxers”). The original Klan’s sheets
were intended to make them seem ghostlike, adding to the terror they induced,
but here their hell-raising is given a literal twist, evil, malevolent sorcery.
(While Clark didn’t say, in his story, it seems that D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation cast an actual
spell drawing on the hatred and ugliness at America’s heart, leading to the
rise and rebirth of the Klan … much as, absent the sorcery, it did in ours.)
Advisory: there was much use of the n-word (small “n”) and “graphic language.”
After an intermission, Mercurio
David Rivera, filling in for co-host Matthew Kressel (who
was off on another island), introduced the second featured reader.
James Patrick Kelly has been honored with the Hugo Award for his novelettes “Think Like a Dinosaur” and
“1016 to 1,” and the Nebula Award for his novella Burn. His most recent books are the novella King of the
Dogs, Queen Of the Cats (which he described as a “romantic comedy” set on another planet
in the far future, where dogs and cats have been uplifted, mostly in a circus),
and a collection, The Promise of Space. (Like Clark, he too likes secret
history;with John Kessel, he
co-edited the anthology The Secret History of Science Fiction.)
Despite his description of it, he did not read from King of the Dogs, Queen
Of the Cats, but instead a story so new that his wife (who was
present) hadn’t read it, and that didn’t yet have a title (working titles
include “Showdown,” “5°C” and, maybe seriously not in contention, “OK, Boomer”).
Set in New Hampshire, it’s a future of cybernetic prosthesis and rejuvenation
drugs, where rangers hunt Boomers (the only generation, he said, everyone
agrees on hating – Kelly is one, as am I – but I thought it was Millennials
whom everyone agrees on hating), like Willow’s great-grandmother.
Datlow closed the evening with the traditional exhortation to
support the Bar by buying a drink. Prior to the readings, as usual, she snapped
photos of the readers and the audience. Her photos of the event may be seen on Flickr now, and later
at the Series website, http://www.kgbfantasticfiction.org/.
(1) KGB. Fantastic
Fiction at KGB reading series hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew
Kressel present James Patrick Kelly and P. Djéli Clark on Wednesday,
February 19, 2020, 7 p.m. at the KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street, 2nd Floor, New
York, NY.
James Patrick Kelly
James Patrick Kelly has won the Nebula, Hugo and Locus Awards; his fiction has been translated into eighteen languages. His most recent books are King Of The Dogs, Queen Of The Cats, a novella from Subterranean Press, and a collection, The Promise of Space from Prime Books.
Phenderson Djéli Clark
Phenderson Djéli Clark is the author of the fantasy novellas The Black God’s Drums and The Haunting of Tram Car 015. His writing has appeared in numerous Best of the Year anthologies and his short story “The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Negro Teeth of Washington” earned him both a Nebula and Locus award.
(2) SPEAKING OF DOGS AND CATS. James Patrick Kelly has made
available as a free download the audiobook version of King
of the Dogs, Queen of the Cats:
I don’t know about you but I’ve been waiting for a long time for this day. King of the Dogs, Queen of the Cats is now available in print and as an ebook from Subterranean Press and I certainly hope you’ll consider buying a copy there. But I’m trying an experiment with the audiobook version. If you’ve followed my career at all, you know that I might have recorded this myself, as I have for many of my other stories. But I’m particularly proud of this work and thought it deserved a truly outstanding performance. Which is why I turned to Stefan Rudnicki of Skyboat Media to record this short novel. Stefan has narrated more than three hundred audiobooks and has participated in over a thousand as a writer, producer, or director. For these efforts he has won a Grammy as well as many Earphone and Audie awards. In short, he’s one of the best.
I took the unusual step of paying to have my audiobook recorded by Stefan because this gives me the right to make it available to you for free. I mean, you could buy it on Audible for twelve bucks and change, but why would you? This is my gift to my readers. But I do have a favor to ask. If you like what you hear, please make copies. Share them with your friends and families. This publishing experiment will only succeed if my book reaches as many listeners as possible. So click on my circus announcement for your download.
(3)
PREVIEW EUROCON SITE. [Item by Cora Buhlert.] Here is a short video from the German language cultural TV
program “kulturzeit” about the Croatian city of Rijeka, which is the
2020 European Capital of Culture (along with Galway in Ireland) and also the
site of the 2020 EuroCon. So if some Filers are considering attending EuroCon,
here is a look at what they could see in Rijeka: “Kulturhauptstadt Rijeka”.
The video is in German (and Croatian), but you don’t really need
the text anyway.
…Separately, early Trek also featured androids that, while synthetic, were replicas of organic beings instead of their own selves. “I, Mudd” featured a few, notably Mudd’s recreation of his “beloved” wife Stella—but we also had the Exo III androids of “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” Even more advanced than the Mudd Androids or Rayna, they couldn’t just deal with emotions but developed their own android duplicator that could create a synthetic copy of an organic being, complete with their memories and personality.
Star Trek: The MotionPicture also gave us a grim form of android in V’Ger’s creation of the Illia Probe, a hybridization of one of its sensor probes with the unfortunate body of the Enterprise’s Lieutenant Illia, using her corpse essentially as a puppet. We also got the inverse of that idea in the Sargon-types of “Return to Tomorrow”—android “shells” designed by the disembodied being Sargon, intended to store the disassociated minds of the last survivors of his race.
In the weeks leading up to Mardi Gras on Feb. 25, the streets of New Orleans are filled with a series of extravagant parades organized by local krewes.
Saturday night’s parade was a glittering, glowing procession of Wookiees, Trekkies, and other self-proclaimed sci-fi geeks and super-nerds: the tenth annual parade of the Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus.
The krewe’s name is, as you might guess, an irreverent mashup of Chewbacca, the shaggy 8-foot Wookiee from Star Wars, and Bacchus, the Roman god of wine.
“That is a huge part of the krewe: mashups, puns and stacking together things that you love,” said one of the krewe’s captains, Brooke Ethridge, better known as Overlord Padme Almandine.
Richard Riggs, aka Overlord Strangelover, added: “The mission of the krewe is ‘Saving the galaxy one drunken nerd at a time.'”
…When the krewe was formed 10 years ago, it focused on classic sci-fi – Star Trek and Star Wars. But over the years, the boundaries loosened, in a big way.
“We say now, all nerddoms,” Ethridge explained. “So anything that you want to nerd about is welcome in the Chewbacchus parade.”
BLOCK: This parade marches with wildly elaborate, handmade contraptions propelled by bikes or shopping carts or whatever roles – no combustion engines, though, no people riding on top of floats. They’ve constructed an alien in a gigantic spaceship hovering over a scale model of New Orleans, an old favorite Bar 2-D-2 – there’s a keg inside – and the krewe’s idol, Chewbacchus, a six-armed Wookiee made of Styrofoam. As Overlord Strangelover shows me, Chewie is in full roar riding on top of the starship Millennium Falcon.
RIGGS: Chewbacchus is the sacred drunken Wookiee who we worship. Yes. He is our godhead.
(6) TODAY IN HISTORY.
February 3, 1961 — Twilight Zone‘s “A Penny For Your Thoughts” it was written by George Clayton Johnson who scripted the first broadcast episode of Star Trek called “The Man Trap”. He would script these additional Twilight Zone episodes: “Nothing in the Dark”, “Kick the Can” and “A Game of Pool”. It was directed by James Sheldon, with a rather large cast of Dick York, June Dayton, Dan Tobin, Hayden Rorke, Cyril Delevanti and James Nolan. The opening narration was “Mr. Hector B. Poole, resident of the Twilight Zone. Flip a coin and keep flipping it. What are the odds? Half the time it will come up heads, half the time tails. But in one freakish chance in a million, it’ll land on its edge. Mr. Hector B. Poole, a bright human coin – on his way to the bank.”
February 3, 1977 — Fantastic Journey premiered on NBC. Intended to run thirteen episodes, it was canceled after nine and a tenth was later shown. It was written by D. C. Fontana et al. while it was directed by Barry Crane and a lot of other folk as well. Its cast was Jared Martin, Ike Eisenmann, Carl Franklin. Katie Saylor and Roddy McDowall. Much of the canceled production team would end up working on the Logan’s Run series. You can see the “Vortex” episode here.
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born February 3, 1925 — John Fiedler. He’s solely here as he played the ever so bland bureaucrat who gets possessed by the spirit of Jack the Ripper on the Trek episode “Wolf in the Fold”. I’m less interested in him than who wrote that screenplay. It was written by Robert Bloch, a master of horror who would write two other Trek episodes, “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” and “Catspaw”. (Died 2005.)
Born February 3, 1933 — George Gipe. Screenwriter, The Man with Two Brains. He also wrote Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid but it’d be a stretch to consider that even genre adjacent. He wrote novelizations of Back to the Future, Explorers and Gremlins. And his Nearer to the Dust: Copyright and the Machine is interesting early (mid Sixties) look at the potential effects of computers on copyrights. (Died 1986.)
Born February 3, 1938 — Victor Buono. I remember him best in his recurring role of Count Manzeppi in The Wild Wild West. In his very short life, he showed up in a number of other genre roles as well including as a scientist bent on world domination in the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea in an episode titled “The Cyborg”, as Adiposo / Fat man in Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Colonel Hubris in The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Professor William McElroy / King Tut in Batman, Sir Cecil Seabrook in The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. and Mr. Schubert on Man from Atlantis. (Died 1982.)
Born February 3, 1954 — Shawna McCarthy, 66. Editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction from 1983 to 1985, and Realms of Fantasy from 1994 to 2011. Sheila Williams in her history of the former said “While remaining a welcoming home for new writers, Shawna’s Asimov’s acquired an edgier and more literary and experimental tone.”
Born February 3, 1963 — Alex Bledsoe, 57. I highly recommend his Tales of The Tufa which can sort of be described as Appalachian Fae though that’s stretching it. His Eddie LaCrosse novels remind of Cook’s Garrett PI series and that’s a high compliment as that’s one of my favorite fantasy PI series. Anyone read his Firefly Witch series?
Born February 3, 1970 — Warwick Davis, 50. Nearly fifty live and voice appearances since first appearing in the Return of the Jedi in in place of Kenny Baker who was going to be an Ewok before he fell ill. Did you know he’s in Labyrinth as a member of the Goblin Corps? I certainly didn’t. Or that he did a series of humorous horror films centered around him as a Leprechaun? They did well enough that there was six of them. Hell, he even shows up in Doctor Who during the time of the Eleventh Doctor.
Born February 3, 1979 — Ransom Riggs, 41. He’s best known for Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children which I’ll confess I know absolutely nothing about, so educate me. I know it was turned into a film by Tim Burton which could a Very Good Thing. His first book btw was The Sherlock Holmes Handbook: The Methods and Mysteries of the World’s Greatest Detective.
Born February 3, 1980 — Ben Turner, 40. Louis XV In the Tenth Doctor story, “The Girl in the Fireplace”. He’s also General Artaphernes in 300: The Rise of An Empire which is very loosely based on historical fact, and Achilles in The Iliad at Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh.
Hill’s been making the rounds lately to promote the new Locke & Key Netflix series and his Hill House line of horror comics for DC — check out SYFY WIRE’s interview with Hill about his new comic Plungeright here — and that included a recent stop at Brian Keene’s The Horror Show podcast. Near the end of the show, while talking about projects that might have been, Hill mentioned his deep love of Doctor Who and his fond memories of watching the David Tennant era of the legendary BBC series with his children. Then he revealed that he actually tried to pitch several story ideas to the show at one point, with a little help from one of Doctor Who‘s most famous contributors….
(9) WISHES. Frank Olynyk spotted this little note on a bottle of Acai water and, realizing it is probably of genre interest, sent photos. The complete label is shown in the second image.
Scots scientist Mary Somerville is being celebrated with a Google Doodle on its UK homepage.
The firm said it wanted to honour “one of the greatest intellectual writers of the 19th Century”.
The illustration of the Jedburgh-born mathematician and astronomer will appear on the page for 24 hours.
Google said her books were some of the most popular scientific publications of her time “opening the door for generations of female scientists”.
Somerville enjoyed similar recognition a few years ago when it was announced she would appear on the new Royal Bank of Scotland £10 note.
The company said it wanted to recognise her “immense contribution to science and her determination to succeed against all the odds”.
Who was Mary Somerville?
Mary Fairfax Somerville was a mathematician, geographer and astronomer, who was born in 1780 in Jedburgh but her childhood home was at Burntisland in Fife.
Her parents tried to stop her studying because they thought it would kill her. Her sister had died and they thought studying was to blame.
But Mary ploughed on and carried out detailed and highly-accurate studies of the solar system.
Vaan Island in India’s Gulf of Mannar has been rapidly disappearing into the Laccadive Sea. But a team of marine biologists is working to save it.
Hundreds of fishing boats bob on the bright blue waters surrounding Vaan Island, a tiny strip of land between India and Sri Lanka. The island marks the beginning of a fiercely protected fragile zone, the Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve. These waters are home to India’s most varied and biodiverse coastlines. Teeming with marine life, it is home to 23% of India’s 2,200 fin fish species, 106 species of crab and more than 400 species of molluscs, as well as the Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin, the finless porpoise and the humpback whale.
…The reason that small, ecologically rich islands like Vaan are vanishing is a combination of unsustainable fishing practices, rising sea levels due to climate change and historic coral mining, which has now been banned in the area. Artificial reefs were deployed to help buffer waves reaching the islands, and they were effective. But to give Vaan and its neighbours a longer-term future, the ecosystem as a whole needed replenishing.
Gilbert Mathews, a marine biologist at the Suganthi Devadason Marine Research Institute (SDMRI) in the nearby coastal town of Thuthukudi in southern India, turned to seagrass, a plain and innocuous-looking type of marine plant, as a way to save the island ecosystem. Often mistaken for seaweed, seagrasses are plants that grow underwater and have well-defined roots, stems and leaves. They produce flowers, fruits and seeds, and play a vital role in maintaining a marine ecosystem.
“Like corals, these tufts of grass provide a habitat to many splendorous sea-creatures, such as seahorses and lizard fish, which can be found in seagrass throughout the year,” says Mathews. Seagrass provides the right environment for young fish and invertebrates to conceal themselves, while absorbing dissolved carbon dioxide and creating an oxygen and nutrient-rich environment. With its ability to trap sediments, seagrass also acts as a natural filter, clearing the waters and slowing erosion.
Mathews first surveyed the seagrass around Vaan Island in 2008, diving into the shallow waters twice a month, for up to eight hours a day. With a sense of dismay, he saw many tufts of seagrass floating in the water around him. These islands were home to the most luxuriant seagrass meadows of the Indian sub-continent, but they were coming loose.
…Mercury will be visible in the evening, around 35 to 40 minutes after sunset.
You don’t need a telescope to spot it – you should be able to see it with your eyes.
Mercury will be visible very near to the horizon. To make sure you’re looking in the right direction, it’s recommended that you look for the planet Venus, shining very brightly nearby.
Once you’ve spotted that, look to the lower right and you’ll come to Mercury.
Richard Kiel, the towering actor who played James Bond’s nemesis Jaws, signed this bobblehead based on his Twilight Zone character Kanamit, the alien in “To Serve Man.”
(14) MULAN. Walt Disney Studios dropped the final trailer
for the live-action Mulan remake.
When the Emperor of China issues a decree that one man per family must serve in the Imperial Army to defend the country from Northern invaders, Hua Mulan, the eldest daughter of an honored warrior, steps in to take the place of her ailing father. Masquerading as a man, Hua Jun, she is tested every step of the way and must harness her inner-strength and embrace her true potential. It is an epic journey that will transform her into an honored warrior and earn her the respect of a grateful nation…and a proud father.
[Thanks to JJ, Cat Eldridge, Michael Toman, John King Tarpinian,
Andrew Porter, Chip Hitchcock, Mike Kennedy, and Martin Morse Wooster for some
of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel
Dern.]
(1) ENCHANTED PORCH. Comics writer Gail Simone found something unexpected with the rest of the deliveries on her porch. Hilarious thread – starts here.
So I reach down, and it's not a package.
It's a sword. A massive broadsword, in a leather sheath.
Deadpool is a natural performer, the superhero that’s as good at wisecracking as he is at battling villains. So it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that Deadpool actor Ryan Reynolds can not only act, he can sing like a rock star.
(3) DOESN’T GET BETTER THAN THIS. Ansible Links pointed to the amazing cover design for Oregan Publishing’s Kindle edition of Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth, released May 7.
…You get the picture: Should you harbor burning questions about infinitesimal details of Han Solo’s backstory that are entirely and hilariously immaterial to the Star Wars saga’s broader tale, or if you’re prepping for a Han Solo-themed pub quiz, know that fan service doesn’t get more serviceable than Solo: A Star Wars Story.
For everyone else: Donald Glover’s Lando is really, really smooth and funny!
Inasmuch as Solo is, expressly and unambiguously, an origin story, it contains numerous winks to the more well-versed members of the audience (as when a character demands of Han, “Do you know what it’s like to have a price on your head?” har har har). Actually, wink implies subtlety — which is not, for director Ron Howard and screenwriters Jonathan and Larry Kasdan, a going concern….
…There are, it is only fair to note, actual jokes in Deadpool 2 — sincere, crafted, legitimately funny gags that are clearly the product of human thought and loving effort. There’s … not a lot of those, but they’re there if you look, and should you happen across one, it will very likely delight you.
Because what’s taking up most of the room that would otherwise be occupied by jokes in Deadpool 2‘s screenplay are those many, many, many references.
It’s Family Guy: The Movie.
Or, technically I suppose, it’s Family Guy 2: Here Are Some More Mentions Of Other, Tangentially Related Things You Recognize And Like.
Many have welcomed the return of Reynolds’ wise-cracking vigilante and his X-Force team, but it wasn’t all five-star reviews.
Some felt that while the sequel stayed true to its predecessor’s style of quickfire edgy jokes and send-ups of the superhero genre, it was starting to feel a bit cynical….
(7) VORKOSIVERSE. The cover was just revealed at Lois McMaster Bujold’s Facebook page.
Saga Press’ editorial director Joe Monti tells The Verge that the project was something he wanted to do from “day one,” when he joined Simon & Schuster’s Saga Press in 2013. Last November the imprint released several collectededitions of the late author’s work under his supervision. (Library of America likewise released an omnibus edition of some of her work with The Hainish Novels & Stories, Volume One and Volume 2 last year, as well.) While they had long wanted to tackle a comprehensive volume of Le Guin’s Earthsea stories, something in the vein of the many omnibus editions of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Monti says that “Ursula was reticent” to the idea, having “been burned over the last several of decades” by creative partners that never listened or accepted her creative vision.
(9) TODAY IN HISTORY
May 15, 1968 – Witchfinder General with Vincent Price is released.
…Up next, there was much outrage about how I was a Sad Puppy. Correction, I was the original Sad Puppy, and I’m proud of that. Now, the way these people portray it, this was my evil scheme to rig the sainted Hugo awards, to get myself an award, and to also simultaneously keep women and minorities out of publishing. Which is ironic, since by “rig” they meant I got more fans to participate in the voting, I turned down my nomination, and since the other people I got nominated included a bunch of women and minorities (as well as authors of various sexual orientations and belief systems) I must really suck at this bigotry thing. But keep in mind, the people slandering me over Sad Puppies are the same folks who the year before hailed 14 white liberals and 1 Asian liberal winning as a huge victory for diversity.
In reality, it was my attempt to demonstrate that the Hugo awards were not in fact an award to represent all of fandom, but were actually extremely politically biased, and dominated by a few small insular cliques. They went out of their way to prove I was right….
(12) INDUSTRY INSIDERS. Posted on Reddit, this is reportedly the text of a message sent by John Ward, Executive Director of Origins Game Fair, to the Game Manufacturers Association:
(13) A PIUS FINN. Declan Finn recommended some ideas for harassing Ward in “Correia was Ringoed”.
…Though to be honest, I was sort of surprised this even worked once, on Ringo. He’s a bestselling author. He doesn’t need the PR by going to cons. He goes to have fun and hang out. Larry too is also at the level where con appearances can only help the con, not himself.
But hey, it makes the SJWs feel good. It makes them think that they’re getting something done. I suppose that pointing out to people that this will only force Larry to have more free time is a waste of time.
Now, I’m not going to suggest sending an email to GoDaddy about how the originsgamefair.com site is being used by John Ward to defame Larry Correia.
….Though you can email at abuse@godaddy.com, and send something like, oh, I don’t know….
(14) CRITICAL CORRESPONDENCE. Jason Cordova’s post “Origins” quoted the entirety of his letter to John Ward, which says in part:
…Mr. Correia had always shown grace, been polite, and worked with the concom of every convention he has attended. Those who seek to discredit and destroy him are abusing the rules of your convention in a manner which they were not meant for and raising enough of an outcry that your convention, undoubtedly, feels compelled to respond to. Unfortunately, instead of speaking with Mr. Correia, it appears that you have reacted in a manner which can only be described as “knee-jerk”. You have allowed concern trolls to dictate your guest list while alienating you from a fan base which both pays to see their favorite author and supports other commercial endeavors at conventions as well.
Conventions such as Origins are supposed to be for all fans. However, with outward appearance of appeasement to the vocal minority who seek to undermine all of Mr. Correia’s hard work as well as alienate his fan base from any future conventions you might host, it behooves me to suggest that you are hurting nobody but yourselves with this move….
This is almost unbelievable. SJWs are running completely amok.
[Screencap of John Ward’s FB announcement]
It just goes to show that they will come for you eventually, no matter how minor your offenses against the Narrative may be.
[Text of Larry Correia’s original response (without expanded text linked above)]
One gets the impression that Larry is simply too worn out with the Culture War to feel like fighting the SJWs anymore. And, let’s face it, like John Ringo, he is too independently successful for their antics to do him any real harm. For now, anyhow.
(16) INTERNET TOXICITY. James Patrick Kelly made these posts at the end of February. I spotted them while doing some Google searches today.
It was possible at the time to read this as a tongue-in-cheek PR stunt that failed, since despite Correia’s lobbying, Monster Hunter Legion did not make the Hugo ballot. However, the next year he returned with reinforcements, birthing the insurgency known as the Sad Puppies. (The self-deprecating name refers to this ASPCA commercial www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO9d2PpP7tQ. It’s meant to compare pulp writers who provide entertainment to the masses, but get no recognition, to abused pets.) Not only did Correia have a new novel to flog, but he also posted a slatewww.monsterhunternation.com/2014/03/25/my-hugo-slate of twelve works of fiction and non-fiction that he urged his Puppy minions to nominate. As an act of provocation, he included a novelette by one Vox Day, a pseudonym for a notorious internettrollwww.time.com/4457110/internet-trolls named Theodore Beale. As Correia blogged, “. . . one of my stated goals was to demonstrate that SJWs would have a massive freak out if somebody with the wrong politics got on. So on the slate it went. I nominated Vox Day because Satan didn’t have any eligible works that period.” What’s a SJW, you ask. Wikipedia explains http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice_warrior: “‘Social justice warrior” is a pejorative term for an individual promoting socially progressive views, including feminism, civil rights, multiculturalism, and identity politics.”
A follow-up installment, “Troll Bridge”, takes a broad look at internet culture:
In 2018, the challenge of internet governance looms large. Last year the Pew Research Center www.pewinternet.org issued a report called The Future of Free Speech, Trolls, Anonymity and Fake News Online www.pewinternet.org/2017/03/29/the-future-of-free-speech-trolls-anonymity-and-fake-news-online. The researchers asked 1,537 technology experts, scholars, corporate practitioners, and government leaders, “In the next decade, will public discourse online become more or less shaped by bad actors, harassment, trolls, and an overall tone of griping, distrust, and disgust?” Forty-two percent of the respondents said they expected no major change for better or worse in our current troubling online culture, while 39 percent thought that the next decade would see even more negative activity. Just 19 percent were hopeful that online interactions would be “less shaped” by harassment, trolling, and distrust.
These experts were invited to expand on their replies by considering how social media might evolve. Are there technologies on the horizon that might discourage trolling and encourage inclusive behaviors? How might these solutions impact free speech?
Their extended responses are well worth a look, although they fill some eighty pages in the PDF version, and, alas, reach no consensus. They fall into four broad themes.
(17) HOW’S YOUR SPANISH? Morgan Blackhand’s Spanish-language blog post “Polémica en la Origins Game Fair” is highly critical of Correia and complimentary towards Origins Game Fair’s decision to revoke his GoH invite.
(18) HOW’S YOUR ENGLISH? Meanwhile, Mad Genius Club’s Amanda S. Green defends and praises Larry Correia at length in “It is time to fight back” [Internet Archive.]
…Now, how many problems can you see with this statement by John Ward? I see a number. First, it is all about him. He didn’t know. He wasn’t aware. He felt it necessary re “recend” Larry’s invitation. No mention that he discussed it with the rest of those folks involved with the running of the con. No mention that he did due diligence ahead of time to see who his guest of honor was or what he did. Note also there is no mention of the fact Larry is an avid gamer. Nope, Ward was told Larry was a bad man and knee-jerked his reaction. Now he is running and hiding and refusing to answer simple questions like “exactly how are Larry’s views specifically unaligned with the philosophy” of the con?
I find it amazing Ward could issue this statement within an hour or so of first announcing Larry would be GoH and then the revocation of his invite and yet he couldn’t be bothered to answer the many questions about why?
Oh, there’s more.
Even as the con removed the thread on their Facebook page about Larry, they left this thread up. [Now removed] For those not wanting to go there, here’s the image you need to be aware of.
Now, if you had seen this yesterday before Larry was uninvited, his name would have been included as one of the tagged authors. In fact, if you look at the book cover, you see him listed as the third author. So the con has no problem making money off of him. He’s just not good enough to attend their con. Needless to say, there are a number of folks asking how long before this image is changed as well, possibly with the con organizers blacking out Larry’s name or even asking for volunteers to help tear out the pages on which his story is printed. After all, we mustn’t risk letting his annoying and dangerous ideas out into the gaming public.
The usual purple-haired, hairy armpitted, androgynous, “mayonnaise is a gender,” social justice landwhales swung into action, whining about how upset they were that Larry was invited as Guest of Honor. They maligned him as a racist (he’s actually a person of color), misogynist (despite the fact that Larry spent years teaching self defense to women), they claimed he was a terrible, awful person who made them feel unsafe (even though Larry has attended numerous conventions, and by every account was charming, bright, funny, friendly, and polite), and they demanded that Origins rescind the invitation, because SAD PUPPIES!
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Rev. Bob, Mike Kennedy, Cat Eldridge, Chip Hitchcock, JJ, Martin Morse Wooster, Andrew Porter, and Carl Slaughter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Camestros Felapton.]
(1) CITIZEN ROBOTS. Politico covers the latest legal uproar about robots:
Autonomous robots with humanlike, all-encompassing capabilities might still be decades away, but lawmakers, legal experts and manufacturers are already locked in a high-stakes debate about their legal status: whether it’s these machines or human beings who should bear ultimate responsibility for their actions. Last year, Luxembourgish MEP Mady Delvaux kicked a hornets’ nest when the Legal Affairs Committee suggested that self-learning robots could be granted some form of “electronic personality,” so they can be held liable for damage they cause if they go rogue….
No thanks: The opposition has galvanized. In a letter to the European Commission, seen by POLITICO, 156 artificial intelligence experts hailing from 14 European countries, including computer scientists, law professors and CEOs, warn that granting robots legal personhood would be “inappropriate” from a “legal and ethical perspective.” And as each side turns up the volume on its advocacy and lobbying, one thing is clear: Money is pouring into the field of robotics, and the debate is only set to turn louder.
Think lawsuits involving humans are tricky? Try taking an intelligent robot to court.
While autonomous robots with humanlike, all-encompassing capabilities are still decades away, European lawmakers, legal experts and manufacturers are already locked in a high-stakes debate about their legal status: whether it’s these machines or human beings who should bear ultimate responsibility for their actions.
The battle goes back to a paragraph of text, buried deep in a European Parliament report from early 2017, which suggests that self-learning robots could be granted “electronic personalities.” Such a status could allow robots to be insured individually and be held liable for damages if they go rogue and start hurting people or damaging property.
Those pushing for such a legal change, including some manufacturers and their affiliates, say the proposal is common sense. Legal personhood would not make robots virtual people who can get married and benefit from human rights, they say; it would merely put them on par with corporations, which already have status as “legal persons,” and are treated as such by courts around the world.
This situation was anticipated decades ago by Alexis Gilliland’s character Corporate Skashkash in the Rosinante series.
As sure as the jacaranda trees bloom every spring in Southern California, the Newport Beach Film Festival launches a quirky, cinematic work of art to promote its weeklong event.
This year is no exception, with a beautiful and brutal 3-minute spot that looks like it could’ve been lifted directly from the mind of Ridley Scott. Instead, it’s the creation of director Jillian Martin, production company Untitled.tv and agency Garage Team Mazda in its first campaign for the festival.
“Quota: Who Made the Cut” centers on two beaten-down miners in space suits dangling by ropes from a massive, alien edifice, mining for crystal with hand drills and bad attitudes.
Are they the future’s exploited working class? Prisoners? They may be both. They’re certainly in competition with one another to find a mother lode of the precious substance and earn their way back home.
Their only respite from the bleak, oppressive scenario are VR memories from home now and again, which don’t so much provide the rest they need as remind them of the life they’re missing. Those vivid images they see in their fitful waking sleep—a lover with whip cream on a taut belly, for one—are both a tease and an incentive.
No wonder things get violent.
(3) SHIMMER PROGRAM. Steven H Silver’s SF Site News was first with the winners of the Shimmer Program’s stipends, Shi Ran (Sharon Shi) and Lin Jiayu (Mackenzie Lin), who each will get RMB 10,000 to attend and help staff Worldcon 76 in San Jose, California. Bios of the winners are available on Facebook at this link.
Mike Willmoth, Facilities DDH of Worldcon 76, and Yang Sumin, winner of Worldcon 75 Attending Funding & Media Event AH of Worldcon 75, worked as judges for the selection.
Kelly won the Hugo Award for his novelettes “Think Like a Dinosaur” and “1016 to 1.” His novella Burn won the Nebula Award as well as the Italia Award. His works have also been nominated for the Seiun Award, the Gaylactic Spectrum Award, the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. He is the author most published in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, with both fiction and a regular column appearing in the magazine.
The Federal Communications Commission recommended on Tuesday that emergency workers drop the phrase “This is not a drill” when conducting emergency alert exercises.
A final report on a false missile alert, which left Hawaii residents fearing for their lives for 38 minutes, offered analysis on what went awry within the state’s emergency management agency and guidance on how to avoid more false warnings.
(6) PACIFIC RIMSHOT. The wheels on the jaeger go round and round…. “The World of Pacific Rim Uprising, A 360 Experience.”
(7) FOR TEN YEARS WE’VE BEEN ON OUR OWN. Marvel Cinematic Universe pays tribute to fans:
Back in early February, fighting what he later called “a little bout of pneumonia,” 95-year-old Stan Lee had an argument with his 67-year-old daughter, J.C. This was hardly unusual, but it seems to have been a breaking point.
The comic book legend — whose creative tenure at the helm of Marvel Comics beginning in New York in the early 1960s spawned Spider-Man, Black Panther and the X-Men and laid the foundation for superhero dominance in Hollywood that continues with the April 27 release of Avengers: Infinity War — sat in the office of his attorney Tom Lallas and signed a blistering declaration.
The Feb. 13 document, obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, begins with some background, explaining that Lee and his late wife had arranged a trust for their daughter because she had trouble supporting herself and often overspent. “It is not uncommon for J.C. to charge, in any given month, $20,000 to $40,000 on credit cards, sometimes more,” the document states. It goes on to describe how, when he and his daughter disagree — “which is often” — she “typically yells and screams at me and cries hysterically if I do not capitulate.”
Lee explains that J.C. will, “from time to time,” demand changes to her trust, including the transfer of properties into her name. He has resisted such changes, he states, because they “would greatly increase the likelihood of her greatest fear: that after my death, she will become homeless and destitute.”
During Apollo 13, Commander Jim Lovell settled the age old question of whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich in a communication with CAPCOM Joe Kerwin. Lovell did, however, screw up the question of “mustard or catsup” on a hot dog.
Jim Lovell (Commander): Hello Houston, Apollo 13.
Joe Kerwin (CAPCOM & Lead [White Team] Flight Director): Houston. Go ahead.
Lovell: Just a passing comment Joe, we’re having lunch right now and I just made myself a hot dog sandwich with catsup. Very tasty and almost unheard of in the old days.
Kerwin: That’s correct 13. As I recall the flight plan, you’re supposed to put mustard on the hot dogs and not catsup but I guess we’ll overlook that.
Jack Swigert (Command Module Pilot): We blew it.
Lovell: Right.
Kerwin: How’s everything going?
Lovell: About pretty good. We have about 4 different methods of spreading catsup, right now.
…but according to the book Apollo 13, co-written by the astronaut himself, the crew actually got quite a kick out of the frozen hot dogs, bouncing them off the walls of the cockpit.
The article has much more info about space cuisine, with the perhaps sad note that hot dogs are no longer on the menu for the International Space Station.
Per the Verge, Soylent’s maker Rosa Foods announced on Wednesday that it is bringing the signature brand of packaged, flavored sludge—which takes its name from the disheartening 1973 dystopian film Soylent Green, where it’s eventually revealed the product’s key ingredient is uh, “long pig”—to 450 Walmart stores across the country. Soylent CEO Bryan Crowley added in a statement that the move is “a significant step in providing more ways for consumers to get access to our brand,” expanding beyond its current placement in 7-Eleven stores.
[Thanks to JJ, John King Tarpinian, Steven H Silver, Chip Hitchcock, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, Cat Eldridge, Nicholas Whyte, and Carl Slaughter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day JJ.]
