Cathy and Arnie Fenner have announced that although Spectrum: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art #27 has just been released by Fleskes Publications and this is traditionally the time of year when the Call For Entries for Spectrum 28 would normally open for submissions, they are postponing the submission window until 2021.
They explained in a press release:
But as we all know, 2020 has not been a normal year for anyone…and we’re not out of it yet. As announced previously, after seven great years as editor and publisher John Fleskes decided to step away from Spectrum to pursue other projects and interests; as we began work on transitioning the competition and book back to our leadership, the pandemic simultaneously began to spread around the globe. Needless to say, since March of 2020 COVID-19 has taken a toll on everyone emotionally—particularly to those that have lost family or friends to the virus—thrown a monkey wrench into logistics and planning, shuttered businesses, cost millions of jobs, and had an enormously negative financial impact on the world. And that of course all translates to a negative impact on the publishing and entertainment industries, on the arts community, on the readers and fans—on literally everyone who make Spectrum possible. Factor in social, civil, and political upheavals and it’s safe to say that everybody has struggled or been hurt or in some way experienced unhappiness in 2020 and it would be tone-deaf for us to pretend otherwise.
With all that in mind, we believe the responsible thing for us to do is to delay opening Spectrum 28 for submissions until after the first of the year. A revised website is in the works as well as updates to the social media platforms. Though we know everyone has come to expect the Call For Entries to roll around at the same time each year like clockwork, we’ve actually been talking with our Advisory Board for some weeks about changing the dates (among other things) as a way to better serve the arts community going forward: there will be more announcements forthcoming, including our Call For Entries poster artist and jury.
…To paraphrase Mark Twain, any reports of Spectrum’s demise are greatly exaggerated. Watch for the announcement and we’ll hope to see everyone’s work when Spectrum 28 opens for entries. If you have any questions or concerns, ask us: we’re not going anywhere.
John Fleskes, the current Director of the Spectrum Fantastic Art competition and editor of the resulting book, has announced he will be stepping down from both positions following the publication of Spectrum #27 in October, 2020. Spectrum Fantastic Art founders Cathy Fenner and Arnie Fenner will return as Directors and editors beginning with the 28th annual competition in the Fall.
Spectrum: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art was founded by Cathy and Arnie Fenner in 1994 and is the renowned international symbol of excellence for the field of fantastic art. John Fleskes became Director/Editor/Publisher of the series in 2013.
“Spectrum is an extremely time-consuming, labor-intensive project” says Cathy Fenner, “and John has many books for his Flesk Publications line that he is very passionate about but has been unable to pursue because of the energy and focus Spectrum demands. He also has some deeply personal projects outside of publishing that he needs time and attention to bring to fruition—and there are only so many hours in the day. Arnie and I greatly appreciate all of the excellent work John and his staff have put into Spectrum, SFAL, and the fantastic art community for the past seven-plus years and sincerely wish him the best of luck with all of his future endeavors.”
“It has been an absolute joy to be a part of Spectrum,” shares John. “I still have the same enthusiasm and care for Spectrum and the art community that I have always had. Both Arnie and Cathy Fenner have been wonderful to work with as mentors and friends. I can’t thank them enough for their trust in me and for their support over the years. I consider myself very fortunate to have had this experience. Being able to work with so many creative and amazing people is something that I will forever be grateful for. I’ll continue to be very active in the art world as I focus on a new line of books that I am eager to publish and I’ll be setting the foundation for a new vision that is close to my heart.”
John’s last volume, Spectrum #27 (as well as all previous in-print volumes), will be available through Flesk Publications and to the book trade via distributor Publishers Group West as usual.
The addresses for the Spectrum website and social media pages will remain the same; Spectrum 28 will open for entries in October, 2020 and the book will be available in October, 2021. Further announcements regarding the new Spectrum advisory board, additions to the Spectrum staff, and jurors for #28 will be made at a future date.
… It’s five years later, and in my opinion, Kate’s done what she set out to do. She didn’t do it alone, of course. She had the help of a whole lot of amazing SFWA staff and volunteers, including the amazing Terra LeMay and Steven H Silver. Mary Robinette Kowal got turned loose on programming the last couple of years and has been doing a stellar job. And others have made their mark with additions, such as the Nebula Award Alternate Universe Acceptance speeches or the mentoring program led by Sarah Pinsker or (I’d like to think) two I’ve contributed: the volunteer appreciation breakfast as well as the spouses and partners reception that have been regular features (and I hope will continue to do so!) Or the Book Depot, because I don’t know of ANY other con that takes as much care to make sure that its authors — including the indies — can sign and sell their books there. And there’s a fancy Nebula website, which remains a work in progress as more and more gets added to it, preserving the history of the Awards.
We’ve only got a small fraction of the schedule so far, with plenty of new stuff getting added every day, but here’s some highlights…
On Thursday, SpaceIL’s lunar lander attempted to make a soft landing on the surface of the Moon, but it apparently crashed instead into the gray world. Although a postmortem analysis has not yet been completed, telemetry from the spacecraft indicated a failure of the spacecraft’s main engine about 10km above the Moon. Thereafter, it appears to have struck the Moon at a velocity of around 130 meters per second.
“We have had a failure in the spacecraft,” Opher Doron, general manager of the space division at Israel Aerospace Industries, which built the lander, said during the landing webcast. “We have unfortunately not managed to land successfully.” Israeli engineers vowed to try again.
The failure to land is perhaps understandable—it is extremely hard to land on the Moon, Mars, or any other object in the Solar System. In this case, the private effort to build the lunar lander worked on a shoestring budget of around $100 million to build their spacecraft, which had performed admirably right up until the last few minutes before its planned touchdown.
NASA’s trailblazing Twins Study moved into the final stages of integrated research with the release of a combined summary paper published in Science.
The landmark Twins Study brought ten research teams from around the country together to observe what physiological, molecular and cognitive changes could happen to a human from exposure to spaceflight hazards. This was accomplished by comparing retired astronaut Scott Kelly while he was in space, to his identical twin brother, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, who remained on Earth.
The PR’s summaries of the 10 research topics includes –
Gene Expression: Samples taken before, during and after Scott’s mission in space revealed some changes in gene expression. Mark also experienced normal-range changes in gene expression on Earth, but not the same changes as Scott. Changes Scott experienced may have been associated with his lengthy stay in space. Most of these changes (about 91.3%) reverted to baseline after he returned to Earth; however, a small subset persisted after six months. Some observed DNA damage is believed to be a result of radiation exposure. Gene expression data corroborated and supported other findings in the Twins Study, including the body’s response to DNA damage, telomere regulation, bone formation and immune system stress. These findings help demonstrate how a human body was able to adapt to the extreme environment of space and help researchers better understand how environmental stressors influence the activity of different genes, leading to a better understanding of physiological processes in space.
(4) BRACKETT BOOKS FALL THROUGH. The two Leigh Brackett titles announced by the Haffner Press in late 2015, The Book of Stark and Leigh Brackett Centennial have been cancelled. Stephen Haffner e-mailed an explanation to fans who preordered the books:
The fault for the cancellation of these two titles lies completely with Haffner Press and with me personally.
Rights to these titles were not evergreen and I failed to complete and publish these books within the contracted period. Believe me, I made every attempt to recover/resurrect these titles. At this point, the agent for the estate of Leigh Brackett is making other arrangements for the Stark books and Leigh Brackett. If this status changes, you’ll be one of the first to know.
Haffner is offering a complete refund, or application of the credit to another purchase.
(5) GUGGENHEIM FELLOWSHIPS. Authors Edward Carey, Michael Helm, Carmen
Maria Machado, and Luis Alberto Urrea are among the winners of the 2019 Guggenheim Fellowships reports Locus Online.
(6) NEWITZ TALK. The Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination has
posted video of Annalee Newitz speaking at UCSD on April 4 as part of the San Diego 2049 series .
Realistic worldbuilding requires that we get out of the dystopia/utopia binary and imagine futures that are a diverse mix of worlds. To imagine a plausible future world, we need to look critically at our own history, where progress is uneven and resistance is not futile. Annalee Newitz, journalist, co-founder of the website io9, and author of the acclaimed science fiction novel Autonomous, joined the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination and the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UC San Diego to share her insights into worldbuilding as part of the San Diego 2049 series of programs.
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born April 11, 1883 — Leonard Mudie. His very last screen role was as one of the survivors of the SS Columbia in Trek’s original pilot episode, “The Cage.” He also appeared as Professor Pearson opposite Boris Karloff in The Mummy released in 1932. He appeared in the 1938 Adventures of Robin Hood as the town crier and the mysterious man who gives Robin directions. (Died 1965.)
Born April 11, 1892 — William M. Timlin. Author of The Ship that Sailed to Mars, a remarkable work that has 48 pages of text and 48 color plates. It has become a classic of fantasy literature. You can view the book here. (Died 1943.)
Born April 11, 1920 — Peter O’Donnell. A British writer of mysteries and of comic strips, best known as the creator of Modesty Blaise. He also did an adaptation for the Daily Express of the Dr. No novel. (Died 2010.)
Born April 11, 1953 — Byron Preiss. Writer, editor and publisher. He founded and served as president of Byron Preiss Visual Publications, and later of ibooks Inc. If I remember correctly, ibooks was the last publisher for Zelazny for most of his books. Any idea what happened to those rights after ibooks went into receivership? The only book I can find him writing is the children’s novel Dragonworld which is co-authored with Michael Reaves who was involved in including Gargoyles and Batman: The Animated Series. (Died 2005.)
Born April 11, 1957 — Marina Fitch, 62. She has published two novels, The Seventh Heart and The Border. Her short fiction has appeared in Pulphouse, MZB, F&SF, and Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, and the anthologies, Desire Burn and Peter S. Beagle’s Immortal Unicorn. She is currently at work on a novel and several new stories.
Born April 11, 1963 — Gregory Keyes, 56. Best known for The Age of Unreason tetralogy, a steampunk and magical affair featuring Benjamin Franklin and Isaac Newton. He also wrote The Psi Corps Trilogy and has done a lot of other media time-in fiction including Pacific Rim, Star Wars, Planet of The Apes, Independence Day and Pacific Rim.
Born April 11, 1974 — Tricia Helfer, 45. She is best known for playing the humanoid Cylon model Number Six in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica. In addition, she plays Charlotte Richards / Mom on Lucifer. And she voiced Boodikka in Green Lantern: First Flight.
Born April 11, 1981 — Matt Ryan, 38. John Constantine in NBC’s Constantine and The CW’s Arrowverse, as well as voicing the character in the Justice League Dark and the animated Constantine: City of Demons films as well. And he played Horatio in Hamlet in the Donmar production at the Wyndham’s Theatre.
(10) RETRO
HUGO FAN MATERIAL ONLINE. Joe Siclari of Fanac.org has assembled a resource for this year’s Retro Hugo
voters —
Dublin 2019 has announced the Finalists for this year’s Retro Hugo Awards to be given for works published in 1943. We’ve pulled together what we have on Fanac.org, along with a few zines from eFanzines and the University of Iowa, to give you a single place where you can find all the Finalist publications available online. Read before you vote! http://fanac.org/fanzines/Retro_Hugos.html
A comprehensive visual overview of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series—plus A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and Fire and Blood—through over 300 drawings and paintings by the award-winning illustrator Gary Gianni.
This new premium art book will be available for pre-order at www.fleskpublications.com on Thursday, April 18.
I’m very pleased to announce that Tor has acquired my recent space fantasy (maybe?), as part of a three book deal, and I’ll be working with Christopher Morgan there. While I’ve had a lot of short stories published traditionally, this is the first novel to go through that, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the process is like. What is the book about? Well, I’m actually not sure of the genre but have been describing it as a banter-driven space military fantasy in which a group of ex-military turned restauranteurs get an unexpected package, just as things start exploding. I’m 40k words into the sequel.
(13) AMAZON’S #1 AUTHOR. It took five days for Scalzi’s cats to turn him into a telethon host.
A yearlong investigation by government scientists has concluded that a major accident at a nuclear waste dump was caused by the wrong brand of cat litter.
The U.S. Department of Energy has released a 277-page report into an explosion that occurred on Feb. 14, 2014, at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. According to a summary of the report, the incident occurred when a single drum of nuclear waste, 68660, burst open.
The Washington County sheriff in Oregon says there was nothing unusual about the call. Sure, it was broad daylight — 1:48 p.m. local time exactly — but “crime can happen anytime.”
So the frantic call from a house guest about a burglar making loud rustling noises inside the house, specifically from within the locked bathroom, deserved an urgent response, Sgt. Danny DiPietro, a sheriff’s spokesman, tells NPR.
“The man had just gone for a walk with his nephew’s dog and when he came back, he could see shadows moving back and forth under the bathroom door,” DiPietro says.
Resources were immediately deployed: three seasoned deputies — one with at least 20 years on the force — a detective who happened to be in the area, and two canine officers from Beaverton Police Department, about 7 miles outside Portland.
There’s a new addition to the family tree: an extinct species of human that’s been found in the Philippines.
It’s known as Homo luzonensis, after the site of its discovery on the country’s largest island Luzon.
Its physical features are a mixture of those found in very ancient human ancestors and in more recent people.
That could mean primitive human relatives left Africa and made it all the way to South-East Asia, something not previously thought possible.
The find shows that human evolution in the region may have been a highly complicated affair, with three or more human species in the region at around the time our ancestors arrive.
(18) THE AI SHORTFALL. IEEE Spectrum’s article “How
IBM Watson Overpromised and Underdelivered on AI Health Care”illustrates the gap between reality and
the popular imagination regarding AI. Greg Hullender sent the link with a comment,
“I think the key point is in the last two paragraphs: Watson makes a great AI
librarian, but it really isn’t a doctor at all, and likely never will be. Also
worth noting is that the areas where they had the most success were the ones
that needed the least AI, e.g. Watson for Genomics, which benefited from not
needing natural language processing (NLP).”
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs uses Watson for Genomics reports in more than 70 hospitals nationwide, says Michael Kelley, the VA’s national program director for oncology. The VA first tried the system on lung cancer and now uses it for all solid tumors. “I do think it improves patient care,” Kelley says. When VA oncologists are deciding on a treatment plan, “it is a source of information they can bring to the discussion,” he says. But Kelley says he doesn’t think of Watson as a robot doctor. “I tend to think of it as a robot who is a master medical librarian.”
Most doctors would probably be delighted to have an AI librarian at their beck and call—and if that’s what IBM had originally promised them, they might not be so disappointed today. The Watson Health story is a cautionary tale of hubris and hype. Everyone likes ambition, everyone likes moon shots, but nobody wants to climb into a rocket that doesn’t work.
While sitting in the balcony of a movie theater waiting for Jordan Peele’s much-anticipated horror film Us, I began thinking about my personal relationship with the horror genre. “When I was pregnant with you I used to watch scary movies all the time,” my mom confessed years before as we left the Roosevelt Theatre in Harlem one afternoon after a screening of Night of the Living Dead. Although I was only seven and much too young to have seen that first zombie apocalypse, which gave me nightmares for a week, but afterwards I became a horror junkie. As much as I might’ve nervously jumped while watching The Blob, The Fly or Dracula, it was those stories that appealed to me.
…During the 1970s, with the exception of a few artists (Billy Graham, Keith Pollard, Ron Wilson and Trevor Von Eeden), there weren’t many African-American creators working in commercial comics, something I noticed when I attended my first comic convention that same year. However, while I didn’t see any scripters that “looked like me,” that wasn’t going to keep me from trying. Truthfully, I wasn’t trying to be the Rosa Parks of horror comic book writers, I just wanted to be down.
What terrifies children isn’t just the stuff designed to scare. In The Wizard of Oz, for example, you get the witch but also the comedy lion – and even though cackling evil is dispelled at the end, the incidentals offer nightmare fodder: the tree with a human face, the winged monkeys, even the horse of a different colour. As Tim Burton or Guillermo del Toro – both jumpy kids who have grown up to love monsters – have shown, the world of an imaginative child is full of wonders and terrors, and if you strip out the latter by insisting on a diet of just Peppa Pig you risk raising a generation unable to cope with the slightest trauma.
(21) ENDGAME PROMO. “You know your teams. You know your
missions.” Marvel Studios’ Avengers:
Endgame is in theaters April 26.
[Thanks to
Joe Siclari, Susan de Guardiola, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, JJ, Olav
Rokne, Michael Toman, Martin Morse Wooster, Cat Rambo, Chip Hitchcock, Stephenfrom
Ottawa, Arnie Fenner, Greg Hullender, Mike Kennedy, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew
Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing
editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
Judges Kei Acedera, Wesley Burt, Bobby Chiu, Edward
Kinsella III, and Colin and Kristine Poole debated the merits of hundreds of
pieces of art before finalizing this list on Saturday, February 9, 2019 at the
Flesk Publications offices in Santa Cruz, California.
Established in 1993 by Cathy and Arnie Fenner, the first Spectrum annual appeared in 1994 from Underwood Books;
for over a quarter of a century it has attracted participants from around the
world and has set the standards for excellence in fantasy and science fiction
art. John Fleskes became the Director and Publisher of Spectrum
in 2014 with volume 21.
The recipients will be announced at the Spectrum 26
Awards Ceremony that will be held at the historic Folly Theater in Kansas City,
MO on Saturday, March 30, 2019 . The 2019 Spectrum Grand Master Award honoree
will also be announced during the ceremony.
Yuko Shimizu – Japanese Tales 1: The Invisible Man
Chase Stone – Dragon Lords: Bad Faith
Francis Vallejo – Charlie Florida
COMIC CATEGORY
Alex Alice – Castle in the Stars: Book 4, page 1
Thomas Campi – Joe Shuster: The Artist Behind Superman cover
Paul Davidson – Blue Vortex 1
Kang Minjung – Kang Hearts Out 1
Jeffrey Alan Love – The Thousand Demon Tree
CONCEPT ART CATEGORY
Te Hu – Golden Temple Through Time we Converge: End
Carlyn Lim – Dwarf
Danny Moll – The Banner Saga 3: Juno in the Black Sun
Abe Taraky – Submerged Statue of Tyr
Zhengyi Wang – Big Hunt
DIMENSIONAL CATEGORY
Matthew Corcoran – Vivicus
Paul Komoda – SwampThing
Patrick Masson – Reflection
Mark Newman – Gallevarbe
Dug Stanat – Justice
EDITORIAL CATEGORY
Chris Buzelli – Structure
Qiuxin Mao – The Remains
Victo Ngai – Human: Opener
Tim O’Brien – Stormy
Leonardo Santamaria – How to Collect Customer Feedback the Right Way
INSTITUTIONAL CATEGORY
Ed Binkley – Mantis
Bastien Lecouffe Deharme – Etrata
Jesper Ejsing – Slippery Bogle
Tyler Jacobson – Opt
John Jude Palencar – The Nights Watch
UNPUBLISHED CATEGORY
Julien Delval – The Stranger
Konstantin Marinov Kostadinov – A Walk in the Woods
Ronan LE FUR – Sent by the Gods
Eric Pfeiffer – Racing Season in Empire City
Annie Stegg Gerard – The Serpent
This year the ceremony and Spectrum Fantastic Art Live will be
held in collaboration with Planet
Comicon Kansas City (March 29-31), the Midwest’s largest pop-culture
convention.
(1) WORLD FANTASY CON PRELIMINARY PROGRAM. WFC 2018 takes place in Baltimore from November 1-4. Their draft program is now up — World Fantasy 2018 Preliminary Program Grid.
This is the Preliminary program schedule. These are the program items we’re planning on having. New things may emerge, and any of these may disappear in puff of logic, all without warning. The program will be updated as information changes, but please check for official notifications during the convention.
(2) LE GUIN’S EARTHSEA ON RADIO. From SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie we learn: “Beeb Beeb Ceeb Radio 4 Extra has just started season 2 of Le Guin’s The Wizard of Earthsea.”
On the island of Gont, Tenar saves a remarkable young girl from certain death. She also makes a dangerous enemy.
Ursula K Le Guin’s enduring fantasy saga – based on the novel Tehanu adapted by Judith Adams.
“And the lovely folk have re-posted the 1st season on here on BBC i-Player so you can catch up. But note: season 1 will only be up on iPlayer for another 3 weeks.”
To be able to create a gathering where the Spectrum community can get together and celebrate is not only meaningful, it helps to encourage others. All the award recipients had an emotional response and made sincere and expressive acceptance speeches. Everyone who attended left with a want to do more to create and inspire others to do the same. This is why Spectrum exists and why we find the awards ceremony to be so important to have and to share.
The world is running out of clean water, climate change continues to ravage the planet, and politics everywhere are a total nightmare: nearly every day of 2018 has carried the emotional weight of an entire year. It’s fitting, then, that this is also the year The Pokémon Company is announcing a partnership with the Tokyo Art Museum to produce special trading cards based on The Scream, the iconic expressionist painting by Edvard Munch.
According to the official release [Google Translate version], the promotional cards will be available starting October 27th to celebrate a special exhibition at the Tokyo Art Museum. Each card, which will retail for 450 yen, will feature a pocket monster with a scream attack that causes confusion (hence the crossover between the game and the painting). Cards will be available through official Pokémon centers in Japan when fans purchase booster packs, though there will also be other Munch / Pokémon-related merch up for sale, too.
In December 1495, Rome was devastated by four days of heavy flooding. After the deluge subsided, rumors began to swirl about a terrible monster that had washed up onto the banks of the Tiber. The creature was said to be a grotesque pastiche of human and animal body parts: it had, among other peculiarities, the head of a donkey, the breasts of a woman, the bearded visage of an old man on its behind, and a tail crowned with a roaring dragon’s head.
This was the era on the cusp of the Reformation, and many were convinced that the monster had been conjured as an ominous portent of papal corruption, with each of its hodge-podge body parts representing a different vice. (The creature’s “feminine” breasts and belly symbolized “the sensuality of the cardinals and ecclesiastical elites”; the old man on its hind parts marked a “dying regime.”) Printed images of the so-called “Papal Ass” were circulated widely in the years after the flood. Martin Luther, the father of Protestantism, even commented on the monster in his railings against the Catholic Church.
(7) SPACE VS. SCI-FI. In the Washington Post, Elahe Izadi tries to separate space movies from sci-fi flicks, with one difference being if space is “a pretty easy and chill place to hang out” then it’s sci-fi and not a space movie — “Sorry, your favorite ‘space’ movie is not actually a space movie”.
… But what, exactly, makes a movie a space movie? Is it merely the location? What if only a few scenes are in space? What about the involvement of aliens? Is it a space movie if the movie title has a space-y word, like “galaxy” or, say, “space”?
…These are the kinds of questions you have to grapple with before you even try to rank the best space movies. So, below is a system on how to tell whether your favorite movie is actually a space movie — including a handy, totally professional flowchart!
The best fantasy debut of 2018 has a problem. It was also the best fantasy debut of 2009. And 2007. And 1997, 1985, 1982, and 1968.
Authors change; the story stays the same. In the darkness a child is born. The child suffers, but he has mysterious power. Posthaste, destiny leads the child to the same place it herds all the courageous orphan-protagonists of speculative fiction: a storied and exclusive institution of magical learning, where he unnerves the faculty, demonstrates arrogance, and forms lasting friendships on his way to vanquishing evil.
…This year’s Potter, though it pulls from a number of related sources, is The Poppy War, the first of a planned trilogy set in the Empire of Nikan, an evocation of 20th-century China in everything from geography and mythology to military history. Written by the scarily proficient newcomer R.F. Kuang—she was 19 and a student at Georgetown University when she sold it—the book adds to a recent wave of East Asian fantasy with a sad, gifted orphan of its own.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and JJ.]
Born October 16, 1854 – Oscar Wilde, Writer, Journalist, Playwright, and Poet from Ireland whose only novel, the supernatural gothic horror work The Picture of Dorian Gray, has been translated into more than a dozen languages, made into countless radio plays, musicals, TV films and movies — the 1945 version of which was awarded a Retro Hugo — and had enduring influence on modern popular culture as an examination of morality. His long list of short fiction credits includes some fairy tales and genre stories, of which the best known is “The Canterville Ghost”, which has likewise undergone a copious number of translations and adaptations into various media.
Born October 16, 1874 – Lucien Rudaux, Astronomer, Artist, and Illustrator from France who in the 1920s and 30s created famous space-themed paintings featuring planets and moons rendered according to the state of astronomical knowledge at the time, as well the illustrated work Sur Les Autres Mondes (On Other Worlds). The Rudaux crater on Mars and the asteroid 3574 Rudaux are named for him, as is the Lucien Rudaux Memorial Award, given by the International Association of Astronomical Artists to creators of space-themed works (recipients have included Chesley Bonestell and Rick Sternbach).
Born October 16, 1925 – Angela Lansbury, 93, Actor from England who emigrated to the U.S. as a teenager. Though perhaps best known now for her long-running Miss Marple homage TV series Murder, She Wrote, her early career included movies of some import, and she received Oscar nominations for genre films The Manchurian Candidate and the Retro-Hugo-winning The Picture of Dorian Gray. Other genre roles include Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Nanny McPhee, and The Mirror Crack’d (for which she received a Saturn nomination), and she has lent her distinctive voice to a number of animated features including the Saturn-nominated adaptation of Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn, the Hugo-nominated Beauty and the Beast, Anastasia, Fantasia 2000, The Grinch, and Heidi 4 Paws, which is, interestingly, a retelling of the well-known Heidi where all of the roles are played by dogs.
Born October 16, 1926 – Ed Valigursky, Artist who created more than 200 pulp magazine and novel covers, mainly for Amazing Stories, Fantastic Adventures, and Ace Books, including Ace Doubles, along with dozens of interior illustrations. The more-than-50 covers he did in 1955 earned him a nomination for the Best Artist Hugo the following year. During the 1960s he contributed illustrations to classic trading cards sets, including the Topps titles Batman and Battle!. In the 1970s and 80s he created covers illustrating NASA’s space program for Popular Mechanics.
Born October 16, 1927 – Claire Necker, Librarian and Writer. This might be going a little astray from genre birthdays, but I think not, given that most of us have SJW credentials. She wrote a number of feline-related academic works including The Natural History of Cats, Supernatural Cats: An Anthology — which includes stories by writers such as Fritz Lieber, C.L. Moore, Henry Kuttner, August Derleth, and H.P. Lovecraft — and Four Centuries of Cat Books; Cat’s Got Our Tongue is a collection of feline-centered proverbs.
Born October 16, 1940 – Barry Corbin, 78, Actor whose face will be familiar from his many character roles — frequently as gruff military officers or crusty eccentrics — including those in genre movies WarGames, My Science Project, Ghost Dad, Race to Space, Dawn of the Crescent Moon, Curdled, Critters 2, and Timequest, which appears to be an uncredited version of Greg Benford’s Timescape (which provided the name for the Pocket Books line of science fiction novels helmed by David G. Hartwell in the early 1980s). He narrated Moon Shot: The Inside Story of America’s Race to the Moon, based on the book by Mercury Seven astronaut Alan Shepard.
Born October 16, 1963 – Glenn Glazer, 55, Conrunner and Fan who has been on the concoms for many Worldcons and regional conventions, chaired a Smofcon and a Westercon, and was one of three vice-chairs for Sasquan, the 2015 Worldcon. He has been involved in a number of APAs, including SWAPA, Mutations, The Calling, LASFAPA, APA-69, and APA-FNORD.
Born October 16, 1966 – Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, 52, Actor, Writer, and Director. Aside from appearing in episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess, Star Trek: Voyager, and Quantum Leap, she’s credited with more than 500 voice acting roles in animated movies, TV series, and videogames, including The Avengers, Ghost in the Shell, X-Men, Steven Universe, and Bleach. She directed 18 episodes of the long-running anime Naruto, and has been Guest of Honor at Anime Expo.
Born October 16, 1971 – Lawrence Schimel, 47, Writer, Editor, Poet, and Translator. He is a founding member of The Publishing Triangle, an organization promoting fiction by LGBTQ authors and/or with LGBTQ themes, which inform many of his short fiction works. He has edited, mostly in collaboration with Martin H. Greenberg, at least 10 anthologies. His solo anthology, Things Invisible to See, and one of his short fiction collections were both recognized with Lambda Award nominations, and his speculative poetry has garnered a Rhysling Award nomination and a win.
For the first few minutes, the ride to space had been routine. NASA astronaut Nick Hague and his fellow crew mate, Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin, were pressed into their seats inside a Russian Soyuz capsule as the vehicle rapidly climbed through the atmosphere. Then then there was a jolt.
“The first thing I really noticed was being shaken fairly violently from side to side,” Hague said during a round of broadcast interviews [16 October 2018].
The vehicle carrying Hague and Ovchinin had just taken off from Kazakhstan at 4:40AM ET (2:40PM local time). Just two and a half minutes into flight, the vehicle began to break apart. It’s still unclear what triggered the failure, but Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos thinks that there was some unintended contact during stage separation. On the Soyuz, four boosters surrounding the center core of the rocket are meant to break away during flight, but it’s possible one of the four crashed into the middle of the vehicle.
For more than 50 years, Russia (and, previously, the Soviet Union) selected the majority of its cosmonauts from the ranks of Air Force pilots or engineering and scientific bureaus and agencies closely linked to the space program. There were exceptions, such as the four female parachutists (and one engineer) selected in 1962, but generally, this approach served the requirements of the Russian space effort.
This changed in 2012, when Roscosmos launched the first ever “open selection” for cosmonauts, to which any Russian citizen could apply, subject to having a higher education in certain specified fields, generally good health, and be under the age of 35.
As a result of this process, eight new cosmonaut candidates were presented to the media in August 2012. This group included candidates from a more diverse range of backgrounds, than the traditional careers mentioned above: mostly engineers, as well as two instructors from Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre and a solitary military pilot.
Bill Barry, NASA’s chief historian, said questions about the scene came up recently during an event for the movie at the Kennedy Space Center. The conclusion, he wrote in an email to The Washington Post: “The scene was created for the movie, and there is no specific evidence that Neil Armstrong left any ‘memorial items’ on the moon.”
MARTIN WAS RAISED in Bayonne, N.J., the son of a longshoreman and a factory worker. He has talked in the past about his childhood growing up in a federal housing project, gazing across the water at Staten Island, watching ships coming into port, imagining them traveling from distant lands he would never see.
He’s now based in Santa Fe, where he moved in 1979 from Dubuque, Iowa, where he was teaching journalism at Clarke College. After Tom Reamy, a friend of his and a fellow SFF author, died suddenly in 1977, at the age of 42, Martin was galvanized: “I thought, ‘Do I have all the time in the world? I want to write all these stories.’” He decided to quit teaching to write full time in New Mexico, spending the next decade and a half as a well-received, if not yet famous, fantasy author. He lives with Parris McBride, his second wife; the two of them are ardent supporters of the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary, a nonprofit organization that rescues and provides sanctuary to captive-bred wolves. When it’s time for him to focus on his books, Martin heads to what he calls his “hideaway” in an undisclosed location.
(15) GRRM SIDEBAR. In this side feature, the writer discloses where he gets his signature hats and the “Game of Thrones” character that reminds him the most of Trump. Watch the video or read the transcript — “George R. R. Martin Answers Times Staffers’ Burning Questions” at the New York Times.
We selected a handful of staffers’ queries for Martin to field on the set of his cover photo shoot, in Santa Fe, N.M., and filmed a number of his responses for the video above. Below are all of the questions that Martin answered — or, in some cases, tellingly declined to answer. Here’s what he had to say about his favorite books, where he gets his signature hats and the “Game of Thrones” character that reminds him the most of Trump.
Dowd: Who reminds you most of Trump? Dan Weiss [one of the “Game of Thrones” creators and writers] told me that the character that reminded him the most of Trump is Hodor because he endlessly repeats his own name.
Martin: Well, that’s amusing. But I think even during the campaign I said that Trump reminded me most of Joffrey. They have the same level of emotional maturity. And Joffrey likes to remind everyone that he’s king. And he thinks that gives him the ability to do anything. And we’re not an absolute monarchy, like Westeros is. We’re a constitutional republic. And yet, Trump doesn’t seem to know what that means. He thinks the presidency gives him the power to do anything. And so, yeah, Joffrey is Trump.
The new Joker movie, which stars Joaquin Phoenix in the lead role as Gotham’s Clown Prince of Crime, takes place before Batman ever existed. It’s a world where Bruce’s dad, Thomas Wayne, is still alive and running for mayor. So what’s the Batmobile doing on set?
That’s the question Batman fans are reckoning with after a video from the Joker’s New Jersey set revealed what looks a lot like the original Batmobile from the Adam West TV show.
So, sly TV reference aside, how does the Batmobile exist in a pre-Batman world? The Inverse article explores three possible—and very comic-book-esque—explanations.
But saber fighting is more than a Star Wars fantasy for those training here. It is a style of stage fencing, which has been considered an official sport in Russia since 2008. And here at the school, the novice Jedi say it is a real workout, particularly because the movie fight scenes they are emulating are very dynamic. “I came out of my first training session and my knees were shaking — I thought I was going to sit down now and never get up,” Daria says, thinking back to when she started in January. “But it gets easier with every session.” Now she says she loves the physical challenge. “And also — it’s Star Wars!”
The mosasaurs recently took a star turn in the Jurassic World movie, showing off the Hollywood version of their fearsome jaws.
Now an “ugly duckling” from 85 million years ago is shedding new light on the giant marine reptiles that lived at the time of Tyrannosaurus rex.
Scientists have long puzzled over how the diminutive fossil fitted into the family tree.
They now think it was still developing the distinctive long snout of its clan.
(19) THE DATING GAME. Was Pliny the Younger too old to remember the right date? “Pompeii: Vesuvius eruption may have been later than thought” – an on-site graffito challenges Nth-generation copies of Pliny’s letter, but matches findings of harvested plants in ashes.
Historians have long believed that Mount Vesuvius erupted on 24 August 79 AD, destroying the nearby Roman city of Pompeii.
But now, an inscription has been uncovered dated to mid-October – almost two months later.
Italy’s culture minister labelled it “an extraordinary discovery.”
(20) BITS IS BITS. When the BBC asks “Would you eat slaughter-free meat?” it means feather cells grown into chicken nuggets – a company says the product will be in restaurants “by the end of this year”
In 1931, Winston Churchill predicted that the human race would one day “escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium”.
Eighty-seven years later, that day has come as we discovered at Just, a food company in San Francisco where we tasted chicken nuggets grown from the cells of a chicken feather.
The chicken – which tasted like chicken – was still alive, reportedly roaming on a farm not far from the laboratory.
(21) ROBOT FRIENDS. Dara Elasfar in the Washington Post notes how the Smithsonian now has four robots named Pepper as helpers at four of its museums, a gift from SoftBank Robotics of Japan. Kids like them; Asa Bernstein, 6, said “If I had a robot named Pepper, I would make it do my homework, and make sugar cookies with me!” Video — “Meet the Hirshhorn’s newest staffer, Pepper the robot”.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Arnold Fenner, Cat Eldridge, JJ, Chip Hitchcock, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, Carl Slaughter, Olav Rokne, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kip W.]
Allow us to raise a toast to your taste in housewares with these Star Trek The Next Generation Geeki Tikis. A set of six, these tiki mugs let you drink with Captain Picard, Geordi La Forge, Worf, a Cardassian, a Ferengi, and the Borg. Yes, all of the Borg since they’re a collective consciousness. Best not to play trivia against that one. These tiki mugs hold around 14 oz. each, and they’ll look great next to your Horga’hn fertility statue.
I recently assigned my juniors to independently read a book every nine weeks. We took part of a class period and visited the media center to ensure that every student had access to a variety of books. I was absolutely floored by the emptiness of the building. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised; the county that I work (and live) in is a poor rural county. The average wage in Hoke County is $18,421. Most households’ combined income is less than $50,000. Less than 15% of adult residents hold a degree beyond high school. I also discovered that the library has not had any money to purchase new books since 2009. 2009!
Books appropriate for high school students can be sent to the following address:
Hoke County High School
c/o Rebecca Sasala
505 Bethel Rd.
Raeford, NC 28376
More information at the linked post. There’s also a related Amazon wish list.
(3) HEINLEIN UNBOUND. Farah Mendlesohn, a historian, critic and fan who is a Hugo, BSFA, and BFA winner, and WFA, Mythopoeic, and Locus Award finalist for her scholarly non-fiction works on science fiction and fantasy, is crowdfunding the publication (by Unbound) of her critical study of the writings of a giant of the SF genre.
Dear Friends,
As you all know, I had to withdraw my book on Heinlein from the original publisher due to length. As I explored other options it became clear that no academic publisher could take it without substantial cuts, and no one who read it, could suggest any. So I am utterly delighted to be able to say that Unbound, a crowdsourcing press, have agreed to take the book.
Robert A. Heinlein began publishing in the 1940s at the dawn of the Golden Age of science fiction and carried on writing until his death in 1988. His short stories contributed immensely to the development of science fiction’s structure and rhetoric, while his novels (for both the juvenile and adult markets) demonstrated that you could write hard SF with strong political argument. His vision of the future was sometimes radical, sometimes crosswise, and towards the end in retrenchment. He continues to influence many writers whether in emulation or reaction. Recent controversies in science fiction have involved fighting over Heinlein’s reputation and arguing about what his legacy is and to whom he belongs…
The key thesis of the book is a challenge to the idea of Heinlein as a libertarian and resituating him as a classical Liberal in the terms he understood; a man who prized the individual highly but understood the individual as at their best when enmeshed in the complex structure of a nurturing society.
Support levels start at £12 for the e-book, and higher levels include hardback copies, critiques of supporters’ non-fiction, workshops, and afternoon tea plus a tour of the personal library of Mendlesohn and SF critic Edward James.
(4) THE STORIES YOU WANT. Like everyone, Liz Bourke has her own specific set of interests, however, most readers have privately asked themselves the question in the title of her latest column, “Sleeps With Monsters: Why Can’t More Books Pander To Me?” at Tor.com.
I’m a queer woman (bisexual, and to a degree genderqueer, if precision matters). Much of my reading experience, particularly with new-to-me authors, and even more so with male authors, involves bracing for things that are tiresome, wearying, and/or hurtful. Whether it’s active misogyny, background sexist assumptions, gratuitous sexual assault of women (which may or may not be used to motivate the character arc or development of male protagonists), Smurfettes, women without communities that include other women, transphobia, Buried Gays, or just the general sense that the world the author’s created has no room for people like me in it, there’s frequently a level of alienation that I need to overcome in order to be able to enjoy a new book—or film, or television show, or videogame, etc.—and constantly being braced for that alienation is exhausting.
And that’s even before we get to books that are outright badly done, alienating in ways that aren’t aimed at me (but fuck racism), or just aren’t to my tastes (a lot of comedy, most horror, certain themes that need to be really well done to work for me).
But I’m so used to experiencing this alienation, or to expecting it, that it’s a wrenching shock when I find books that just… welcome me in. That don’t place any barriers in my way. I don’t notice the amount of effort overcoming this alienation requires until I don’t have to make that effort—like not really knowing how much pain you were in until it stops.
(5) THE HOME STRETCH. Artist Gary Gianni’s Kickstarter to publish Hellboy: Into the Silent Sea, Gianni’s book with Mike Mignola, has gotten a great reception – in fact, they’ve just added their FOURTH stretch goal reward –
FOURTH STRETCH GOAL ANNOUNCED! Free all-new fully illustrated The Call of Cthulhu book by Gianni with 100 pencil drawings to all Kickstarter supporters who pledge $50 or more if we reach our Stretch Goal #4, 80K goal!
Gianni’s many credits include illustrating George R.R. Martin’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.
When that broke up and it was time to head home, several of the people I’d been hanging out with very kindly and English-ly refused to go on to their hotel before making sure I could find where I was staying, despite my insistence that this was unnecessary. The joke was on them, though, because I managed to have a fail-tastic adventure anyway. You see, I knew the address of where I was staying, and I had the keys for getting in. What I didn’t have was the apartment number. In a building with eight floors.
(7) MARKETING TECHNIQUE. RedWombat explains a new piece to her agent:
AGENT: …. ME: That was a terrible elevator pitch, wasn't it? AGENT: Just send it to me.
(8) HE LOOKS BEFORE HE LEAPS. Arnie Fenner interviewed John Fleskes at Muddy Colors earlier this week. How many bungee-jumping publishers do you know?
People don’t normally equate daredevils with art books: how does doing death-defying stunts segue into becoming a publisher?
Well, the risk of doing a stunt and that of running a business is very similar, really. So, people have the tendency to call us “extreme” or “daredevils” but in reality each stunt is very calculated and planned far in advance. It’s not like we would just hook up a random bungee cord to anything and just jump off. I worked for a pair of brilliant engineers who would include us in the planning stages and I really learned to appreciate the analytical process of working for those who set up highly complicated stunts where peoples lives were on the line. By the time the actual stunt would happen, sure, if you went off script you could die, but there really wasn’t anything to seriously worry about. Oh, man, jumping out of a hot air balloon at 500 feet and falling 300 feet, now that is a feeling of absolute freedom to fly like that!
But, my real point is that it is a calculated risk when doing a stunt. Days, or weeks, or months of planning can go into what we did. It’s exactly the same with Flesk. Everything that I do is a risk. Instead of risking my life, I’m risking all of my finances, my company, and my livelihood.
…The Call For Entries for Spectrum 25 will go out in a few weeks: can you share some of your perspective after having led the competition, judging, and annual for the past 4-going-on-5 years?
The greatest part of Spectrum, without a doubt, has been its community. It’s the people that make it worthwhile year after year. We’re all in it together, it’s here because of the generosity, the support and the downright goodwill of everyone involved. It’s so much bigger than me, it’s not about me whatsoever, but like I’ve mentioned before, it lets me play a role in doing for others. If I do things right, my name never comes to the front or is in the spotlight. I want it to be about the artists. That’s the part at the end of the day that satisfies me the most. That’s my drive. I prefer to work in the background as much as possible, only coming out when absolutely necessary and only when it is to serve others. This community, these artists, it’s one of the greatest things I’ve ever been a part of. That you and Cathy would tap me on the shoulder, that they would see something in me, I’m forever grateful. You’ve treated me like family. I’m truly blessed to know you both and be a part of Spectrum. You know, I’m still a bit shocked by where I am today? I never would have expected any of this.
(9) TODAY’S DAY
Talk Like A Pirate Day
(10) TODAY IN ALLEGED HISTORY
September 19, 1961 – Betty and Barney Hill were abducted for two hours by a UFO.
(11) TODAY IN REGULAR OLD HISTORY
September 19, 2000 – Michael Chabon’s Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, a novel about the glory years of the American comic book, was published. It won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY WIZARD
Born September 19, 1979 — Hermione Jean Granger
(13) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY CAPED CRUSADER
Born September 19, 1928 – Adam West
(14) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY U.N.C.L.E. AGENT
Born September 19, 1933 – David McCallum
(15) LIVING PROOF. Remember when the Worldcon’s new YA Award couldn’t be called the Tesseract out of courtesy to an existing Canadian anthology series? If you weren’t already acquainted with it, now’s your chance. Compostela (Tesseracts Twenty)edited by Spider Robinson and James Alan Gardner will be released in the U.S. on October 9. (It’s already available in Canada.)
Compostela (Tesseracts Twenty) is an anthology of hard and soft science fiction stories that best represent a futuristic view of the sciences and how humanity might be affected (for better or worse) by a reliance in all things technological.
The stories contained within the pages of Compostela are a reflection of the world we live in today; where science produces both wonders and horrors; and will leave us with a future that undoubtedly will contain both. Journeys to the stars may be exhilarating and mind-expanding, but they can also be dangerous or even tragic. SF has always reflected that wide range of possibilities.
Featuring works by these Canadian visionaries:
Alan Bao, John Bell, Chantal Boudreau, Leslie Brown, Tanya Bryan, J. R. Campbell, Eric Choi, David Clink, paulo da costa, Miki Dare, Robert Dawson, Linda DeMeulemeester, Steve Fahnestalk, Jacob Fletcher, Catherine Girczyc, R. Gregory, Mary-Jean Harris, Geoffrey Hart, Michaela Hiebert, Matthew Hughes, Guy Immega, Garnet Johnson-Koehn, Michael Johnstone, Cate McBride, Lisa Ann McLean, Rati Mehrotra, Derryl Murphy, Brent Nichols, Susan Pieters, Alexandra Renwick, Rhea Rose, Robert J. Sawyer, Thea van Diepen, Nancy SM Waldman.
Netflix is pulling out all the stops on social media in the weeks leading up to Season 2. Last month, the show’s official Twitter account began giving fans more of what they want by launching a weekly recap of each episode of the first season under the hashtag #StrangerThursdays, and tying each episode to a classic ’80s film.
Even more impressive, the art team at the show has paid homage to each film’s original poster art while placing the Stranger Things cast members in its universe. The tweets also include copy referencing the movies that inspired them.
(17) UHHH. A comic linked from File 770 prompted Steve J. Wright to refer to his Lego-playing days as “Grotesque Sexual Deviancy”.
At least, we thought we were just having fun. It turns out, though, that we were transgressing the boundaries of gender as laid down by God and marketing departments. We should never have engaged in the heinous perversion of unsegregated Lego. Our Lego should have been sorted into strong, potent, manly Lego (mine) and soft, gentle, feminine Lego (my sister’s), and the division should have been rigorously maintained. All these years I thought we were just playing with Lego, and instead we were promoting an insidious non-binary genderqueer agenda that subverts all the established notions of masculinity and femininity, that causes confusion and actual harm to children who are too young to handle the idea of boys playing with girls’ Lego, that will probably pollute our precious bodily fluids and hasten the downfall of Western civilization.
I thought we’d just got a sensible arrangement, so that if, say, my sister wanted to hold a state funeral for one of the Crater Critters, she could grab a bunch of black Legos and build a hearse without any arguments. Now I know that we were, in fact, undermining the very foundations of all that is good and decent and true.
Star Wars fans abroad were upset with the result of J.J. Abrams’ directing of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. Although not reflected in the box office sales, most fans agree that Abrams’ vision for Episode VII resulted in a rehash of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. There was virtually no creativity, and no risks taken. Such complacency cannot be the trajectory of this sequel trilogy. More specifically, the metric for success in a Star Wars movie cannot be box office sales. Lucasfilm and Disney *need* to listen to fan criticism. Star Wars fans deserve better. They demand better.
Almost 3,500 people have signed it so far.
(19) BONES. New books by the late Michael Crichton continue to appear. Fantasy Literature’s Ryan Skardal renders a verdict on one that came out this past May in “Dragon Teeth: Palaeontologist wars”
Johnson is stranded in Deadwood with his bones, which everyone assumes is a cover for gold. Some readers may be pleased to learn that the Bone Wars between Cope and Marsh are drawn from history. Robert Louis Stevenson and Wyatt Earp also appear.
I did not find very much information on how finished Dragon Teeth was before publication, but, unlike Micro, there is no mention of another author who finished this work. It’s tempting to point out that this novel about fossils seems more skeletal than most of Crichton’s novels. The characters are flat, their interactions seem rushed, and every chapter is very short. There are moments of historical detail that are a bit more developed, such as when devout Christians express doubt about fossils and whether a perfect god could create something flawed — let alone something so flawed that it might go extinct. Even these details, however, feel like sketches.
Columbus, OH based convention Anime Punch has been disbanded and will no longer hold any more events. The convention staff announced that they would be ceasing all future operations on in a statement on their official Facebook page on September 14…
The crime was prosecuted in Virginia, so probably was not committed at the convention.
(21) A SPECIALIZED NEED. Erika Satifka, in “Difference of Mind” at the SFWA Blog, points to a problem with most fictional treatments of mental illness.
According to the World Health Organization, one out of every four people will be affected by mental illness at some point in their lives. Considering this, it’s important that when characters with mental illness are featured in one’s writing, the subject is treated with sensitivity and accuracy. Novels that portray such disorders well can make a huge difference.
Em Kalberg, the protagonist of my debut novel Stay Crazy, has paranoid schizophrenia. As I researched the novel, I found that there were very few positive representations of people with schizophrenia, and not just in speculative fiction, but everywhere. The vast majority of the time, characters with psychotic disorders are monsters or killers….
Besides her own Stay Crazy, Satifka recommends fourteen other novels, novellas, and short story collections that prominently feature characters with mental illnesses or trauma.
Learning about Disneyland’s storied history is as fun as spending a day getting your thrills on at all of the attractions. From true tragic stories inspiring haunting legends to secrets and facts only the biggest park fans know, there’s always something else to discover about the Happiest Place on Earth – the legend of the Halloween Tree included.
Now, fans are probably familiar with the tree. The oak is located in front of the Golden Horseshoe Saloon in Frontierland. Every Halloween since 2007, the tree is decorated in a special way with jack-o’-lanterns hanging from its branches – but have you ever wondered why? The story goes that author Ray Bradbury, famous for Fahrenheit 451 and countless other fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and horror works, loved Halloween – and had a long history with Disney. Bradbury was a huge proponent of the Walt Disney Company and made his support for it clear throughout the years.
(23) SETTING THEM STRAIGHT. Camestros Felapton has been dismantling “Vlad James’” attack on the science in an Ursula Le Guin novel The Lathe of Heaven.
James wrote:
Unfortunately, she was less self-aware than [Harry Harrison], and injected phenomenally idiotic, pseudo-scientific explanations in her stories constantly.
Also:
She also claims that it would take the atmosphere “several hundred years to get rid of the CO2”. While I understand Le Guin found math difficult, if humans completely stopped producing CO2, it would take 9-12 days for the atmosphere to rid itself of the amount presently there. Or, if you believe global warm…err “climate change” hysterics, it will take…several years. A few hundred years is baseless ignorance.
The quote from Le Guin is genuine and from The Lathe of Heaven published in 1970. It is also scientifically correct (more or less) whereas the criticism is scientific nonsense – indeed it is error piled on error….
A thorough takedown follows.
(24) THE SMELL IS OUT THERE. This is pretty damn funny – Anime Conventions: An Honest Guide.
When Reid tweeted the Andy the Talking Hedgehog poster on Friday, the internet went nuts. That was partly because the poster featured a hedgehog, two cats, Dean Cain, Tara Reid’s Twitter profile pic manipulated to look slightly more wholesome and an unattributed quote calling it “a magical good time”. But it was also because the IMDb plot summary for the film read “Tara Reid brings her Oscar award-winning prowess to this documentary about a hedgehog that Dean Cain farted on giving it the ability to talk. It’s a fun-loving family movie that will for sure make you say “WOWZA. That’s a stinky fart!”’ That summary, incidentally, was attributed to Scott Baio.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Hampus Eckerman, JJ, Arnie Fenner, Martin Morse Wooster, Andrew Porter, Karl-Johan Norén, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
(1) SPECTRUM 24 CALL FOR ENTRIES. John Fleskes, Spectrum Director, has issued an invitation for professional and student artists, art directors, publishers and artists’ representatives to submit entries to the 24th Annual Spectrum International Competition for Fantastic Art.
All artworks in all media embracing the themes of science fiction, fantasy, horror and the surreal are eligible for this show. Fantastic art can be subtle or obvious, traditional or off-the-wall, painted, sculpted, done digitally or photographed: There is no unacceptable way to create art, and there are no set rules that say one piece qualifies while another does not. Imagination and skill are what matters. Work chosen by the jury will be printed in full color in the Spectrum annual, the peer-selected “best of the year” collection for the fantastic arts.
The Spectrum 24 jury is a five member panel of exceptional artists working in the industry today, Christian Alzmann, Laurie Lee Brom, Mark Newman, John Picacio and Victo Ngai.
“Spectrum represents such a rich visual history and standard of excellence for what we collectively dream in the fantastic art field,” states John Picacio. “I’ve always been grateful any time my work was selected for inclusion in the annual, and it’s a profound honor and responsibility to give back to the book this year as a juror.”
I’ll have more to report by the end of the month, when all the tests and biopsy results finally come in. But here’s what definite:
I do have a form of Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, although they still don’t know exactly what type. (That’s what’s taking so long for the biopsy to be finished.) Once they know what kind it is, they’ll start me on a chemotherapy program.
Sadly, my hopes in the hospital that since the surgery had gone so well maybe the cancer was completely gone turned out to be childish delusions. (Which I suspected myself, but…) Lymphoma is what they call a systemic cancer, which means that surgery by itself can’t do anything but arrest the malignancy for a while and provide the material needed for a thorough biopsy. But to really fight lymphoma, you need chemotherapy.
The good news is that lymphoma generally responds well to chemo, and it’s not uncommon for people to be cured of the disease altogether. We’ll see what happens in my case, but even in the worst case scenario it looks as if I’ll have quite a few years to fend the cancer off.
However, he says frankly that after chemo he may live for years to come —
if you look at it the right way. I’ll be 70 in a month. I don’t have to fight off lymphona indefinitely. I just have to fight it off long enough for something else to bump me off.
(4) EYES WIDE WHAT? Myke Cole’s next tweet will explain how his stories are like radio except with no sound.
Fans who found me via @HuntedCBS, I also write books! Like TV, but you look at paper & your brain makes pictures. https://t.co/Mjy97D94qI
(5) HOMAGE. The late Gordon Archer did a lot of commercial art for Weetabix cereal involving Doctor Who, Star Trek, Asterix and other pop culture subjects which his son now has on display on a website. [Corrected, because Archer is still with us, as his son states in a comment below.]
Winnie the Pooh creator’s letter reflects moral dilemma of pacifists faced with rise of Hitler in interwar period
…The Milne letter has been retrieved from its vast collection of documents and reflects the conflict felt by many pacifists who had experienced the horrors of the first world war and earnestly hoped “never again”.
“It encapsulates the moral dilemma that a lot of pacifists had in the interwar period,” said curator Matt Brosnan. “Milne opposed war but increasingly saw Hitler and the Nazis as an evil that had to be met by force.”
In his letter, Milne declared himself a “practical pacifist”, writing: “I believe that war is a lesser evil than Hitlerism, I believe that Hitlerism must be killed before war can be killed.”
(7) KOWAL INTERVIEW IN LOCUS. An excerpt of Locus’ interview with Mary Robinette Kowal has been posted at Locus Online.
The moment I knew I was setting something during the First World War, I knew that darkness was going to be part of it, and that I would have to work really hard to keep the darkness from completely overwhelming Ghost Talkers. When you do any reading at all about the First World War, it becomes very clear why it made such a huge, permanent mark on Europe – and the US less so, because we were not directly touched by it. It wasn’t even the death tolls, because in England a lot of men actually came home, but everyone came home wounded in some way, either physically or emotionally. I read interview after interview of survivors saying, ‘I went over the top of the trench, and everyone in my platoon died. I don’t know why I lived.’ I knew going in that dealing with someone who deals with ghosts as her job, during WWI, would mean a darker book than people are used to from me. On the other hand, the last book in the Glamourist series, I jokingly refer to as ‘Regency Grimdark.’
But here’s where those voices have a point: if you wait till after you’ve put out your call for submissions to run around trying to fill in diversity slots for your anthology — you know, the “one of each so long as there aren’t too many of them” approach — you will more likely than not end up with a dog’s breakfast of a volume in which it’s clear that you selected writers for their optics, not their writing. That’s tokenism, not sound editorial practice. The time to be trying to make your anthology a diverse one is before submissions come in, not during or after.
On the other hand, if you just put your call for fiction out there and cross your fingers, you’ll end up with mostly the usual suspects. It’s not enough to simply open the door. Why? Because after centuries of exclusion and telling us we’re not good enough, an unlocked door is doing jack shit to let us know that anything’s changed. Most of us will continue to duck around it and keep moving, thank you very much. We’ll go where we know there are more people like us, or where there are editors who get what we’re doing.
So make up your mind that you’re going to have to do a bit of work, some outreach. It’s fun work, and the results are rewarding….
(9) RARA AVIS. Definitely not on my bucket list.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only Hugo Award winner to have once shoplifted an L. Ron Hubbard book.
Christensen saw himself not as the “fantasy artist” label given him, but rather as an artist who paints the fantastic.
“I paint things that are not real,” he told the Deseret News in 2008. “But fantasy often ventures into the dark and scary stuff. I made a decision long ago that I would not go to dark places. There’s a lot of negativity in the world. I try not to be part of it.”
His honors and awards include being named a Utah Art Treasure as well as one of Utah’s Top 100 Artists by the Springville Museum of Art and receiving the Governor’s Award for Art from the Utah Arts Council. He had won all the professional art honors given by the World Science Fiction Convention as well as multiple Chesley Awards from the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy.
Christensen had served as president of the National Academy of Fantastic Art, and he co-chaired the Mormon Arts Foundation with his wife, Carole.
Dave Doering paid tribute: “I loved this man. For various years he was our Artist GoH at LTUE but also quite well known in all fantasy art circles.”
(11) TODAY IN HISTORY
January 9, 1493 — On this date, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, sailing near the Dominican Republic, sees three “mermaids”–in reality manatees–and describes them as “not half as beautiful as they are painted.”
(12) WORLDBUILDERS. At Tor.com, David Weber discusses five authors who he says are “great world-builders.” All five of the authors are women: Anne McCaffrey, Katherine Kurtz, Mercedes Lackey, Barbara Hambly, and Patricia McKillip:
“[McKillip] is, without a doubt, one of my two or three all-time favorite authors. When I first read The Riddle-Master of Hed in 1978, I immediately went out and found Heir of Sea and Fire and then waited impatiently for Harpist in the Wind. In many ways, the Riddle-Master’s world is less fully articulated than Pern or Gwynedd, but I think that’s because so much of the detail is cooking quietly away in the background behind the land rulers. There’s a sense of an entire consistent, coherent foundation and history/backstory behind all of it, but the struggles of Morgon, Raerdale, and Deth take front stage with an intensity that reaches out and grabs the reader by the shirt collar and shakes him or her to the bone. Patricia’s prose is absolutely gorgeous and evocative and her stories fully satisfy the deep love for the language my parents taught me as a very young reader. I literally don’t think it’s possible to over-recommend this series … and the rest of her stuff is pretty darn good, too.”
Saint Anthony of Padua’s the patron saint of Brazil, Portugal, pregnant women, and the elderly. He wears brown robes, and he usually holds baby Jesus and lilies. And – as one Brazilian woman discovered – a miniature figure of Santo Antônio also vaguely looks like Elrond, the elf lord of Rivendell from Lord of the Rings. Brazilian makeup artist Gabriela Brandao made the hilarious discovery last week and posted about it on Facebook for all to see. Brandao explained that her daughter’s great-grandmother prayed to the Elrond figurine daily, erroneously believing it was Santo Antônio.
(14) IMAGINARY HUGO RECOMMENDATIONS. There is no such work, except in your mind:
Please nominate @ChuckTingle Trolls the Puppies as Best Related Work (performance art) #hugoawards
(15) BRIANNA WU’S CAMPAIGN. She’s already gaining media attention in Boston.
Brianna Wu was at the center of “Gamer-Gate” and received some horrific threats over social media. But instead of keeping a low profile, she tells Jim why she’s now planning on running for Congress.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Steven H Silver, Andrew Porter, Rob Thornton, Arnie Fenner, and Dave Doering for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kip Williams.]
The Spectrum 23 Awards were presented May 7 at a gala celebration at the historic Society of Illustrators carriage house in New York City. Several hundred artists, patrons, and fans attended the ceremony, which also included an introduction by Spectrum Director John Fleskes and a memorial video commemorating creators that had passed away in the last year.
The awards were sculpted by Kristine Poole with appropriately gold or silver patinas by Colin Poole to illustrate the symbol of the artist’s Muse. The statues are 15″ tall and cast in bronze with either silver or gold accents. The Pooles also designed, sculpted, and presented the second Spectrum Rising Star Award to a young artist fresh in their career.
This year’s blue ribbon jury for Spectrum 23 consisted of Dave Palumbo, Cynthia Sheppard, Kirk Thatcher, Charlie Wen, and Terryl Whitlatch and determined Silver and Gold recipients in eight categories. The Spectrum Advisory Board also selected the 2016 Grand Master Honoree.
ADVERTISING
Nico Delort, The Blessing of Athena
Gold Award
Nico Delort, “The Blessing of Athena”
Silver Award
Joseph Qiu, “24 Hour Movie Marathon”
Other nominees:
Bartosz Kosowski, “Discworld”
Colin Poole, “Vishnu’s Third Avatar”
Andrew Thompson, “Glitch”
BOOK
Rovina Cai, “Tom, Thom”
Gold Award
Rovina Cai, “Tom, Thom”
Silver Award
Karla Ortiz, “Sorcerer of the Wildeeps”
Other nominees:
Chris Ayers, “Munchasaurus Rex”
Annie Stegg Gerard, “Renard and the Strawberries”
Donato Giancola, “Vesuvius”
COMIC
Daren Bader, Tribes of Kai
Gold Award
Daren Bader, “Tribes of Kai, page 41”
Silver Award
Nic Klein, “Drifter”
Other nominees:
Gael Bertrand, “Island #4 cover”
Tyler Crook, “Harrow County #1 cover”
Paolo Rivera, “Hellboy 1953”
CONCEPT ART
Vance Kovacs, King Louie’s Court
Gold Award
Vance Kovacs, “King Louie’s Court”
Silver Award
Te Hu, “Journey to West”
Other nominees:
Mirko Failoni, “The Mushroom Forest”
Seth Rutledge, “Window View”
Bayard Wu, “Dragon Island”
DIMENSIONAL
Forest Rogers, The Morrigan
Gold Award
Forest Rogers, “The Morrigan”
Silver Award
Thomas Kuebler, “Adelpha and Her Sister”
Other nominees:
Akihito, “Death Wings”
Patrick Masson, “The Blind Death”
Dug Stanat, “Meeting Master Jones”
EDITORIAL
Tran Nguyen, Traveling To a Distant Day
Gold Award
Tran Nguyen, “Traveling To a Distant Day”
Silver Award
Chris Seaman, “Family Portraithausen: A Tribute to Ray Harryhausen”
Five finalists for a Silver or a Gold award in each of the eight categories were selected by a jury of David Palumbo, Cynthia Sheppard, Kirk Thatcher, Charlie Wen and Terryl Whitlatch.
Spectrum: The Best In Contemporary Fantastic Art was founded in 1993 by Cathy Fenner and Arnie Fenner. Creators from around the globe participate in the competition each year. In 2014, John Fleskes became director of the competition and editor of the annual, and Flesk Publications the publisher of the book.
The winners will be announced during the Spectrum 23 Awards Ceremony that will be held at the Society of Illustrators in New York City on Saturday, May 7. The 2016 Spectrum Grand Master Award honoree will also be announced during the ceremony.
ADVERTISING CATEGORY
Nico Delort The Blessing of Athena
Bartosz Kosowski Discworld
Colin Poole Vishnu’s Third Avatar
Andrew Thompson Glitch
Joseph Qiu 24 Hour Movie Marathon
BOOK CATEGORY
Chris Ayers Munchasaurus Rex
Rovina Cai Tom, Thom
Donato Giancola Vesuvius
Karla Ortiz Sorcerer of the Wildeeps
Annie Stegg Gerard Renard and the Strawberries
COMIC CATEGORY
Daren Bader Tribes of Kai, page 41
Gael Bertrand Island #4 cover
Tyler Crook Harrow County #1 cover
Nic Klein Drifter
Paolo Rivera Hellboy 1953
CONCEPT ART CATEGORY
Mirko Failoni The Mushroom Forest
Te Hu Journey to West
Vance Kovacs King Louie’s Court
Seth Rutledge Window View
Dejian Wu Dragon Island
DIMENSIONAL CATEGORY
Akihito Death Wings
Thomas Kuebler Adelpha and Her Sister
Patrick Masson The Blind Death
Forest Rogers The Morrigan
Dug Stanat Meeting Master Jones
EDITORIAL CATEGORY
Donato Giancola Empathy
Tran Nguyen Traveling To a Distant Day
Greg Ruth Finnegan’s Field
Chris Seaman Family Portraithausen: A Tribute to Ray Harryhausen
Spectrum Fantastic Art Live, the artist-focused convention that has been held for the last four years in Kansas City, will be moving to San Francisco in 2016 Spectrum Director John Fleskes announced yesterday. In partnership with the Academy of Art University, the convention will continue growing the public’s awareness of fantasy-themed art while bringing creators from around the world to exhibit and sell their works to collectors and fans in a welcoming atmosphere. The event will be held at the academy’s Jerrold building facility on October 28-30, 2016.
Spectrum Fantastic Art Live (SFAL) is an extension of the Spectrum annual, the award-winning book devoted to the year’s best fantastic art.
Beyond the art exhibition, workshops, panels and demonstrations, the long-term plan is for SFAL to expand to serve also as a trade show and job fair. “Whether it’s for film and television, publishing, comics, gaming, advertising or the theater, Spectrum has always been the home for the best and brightest creators of every type of fantastic art,” notes Cathy Fenner. “The show, like the Spectrum annual, makes it easier for art directors to connect directly with both new and established talent. Similarly, gallery owners and patrons are able to meet and form relationships with artists they might not otherwise know about. ‘More eyes equals more opportunities’ has always been our mantra, and the move to California will help that continue.”
John Fleskes, publisher of Flesk Publications and director of Spectrum, assumed the responsibilities of director and editor in 2013 following the retirement of founders Cathy and Arnie Fenner. He has been meeting with Academy of Art University representatives since 2014 in preparation for the move.
Founded in 1929 in San Francisco, the Academy of Art University is one of the country’s most innovative and creative institutions for higher learning. With nearly 18,000 students, it is the largest privately owned art and design school in the United States.
The announcement has been made and we know that there are some that are disappointed that SFAL is moving to San Francisco in 2016 and others who are concerned about the switch to October for the show’s dates.
We don’t talk too much about all the behind-the-scenes stuff in organizing SFAL, but there were a lot of challenges and this year’s show was particularly difficult. It’s really a matter of available dates and venues and it has become increasingly hard in KC to get exhibit space at the same time a theater is available and there are enough hotel rooms for exhibitors and attendees. This year we were forced to change our exhibit space and our dates, which put us opposite the city’s long-running ConQuesT in the same hotel; they were gracious and we worked well together, but we felt like we were intruding on their territory, so to speak. Spring has always been surprisingly crowded for events downtown—we’ve never been able to rent the Music Hall, for example, for the awards ceremony because it’s booked solid with recitals and graduations in May—and with the pending construction of the Hyatt and the completion of the street cars, more and more conventions have been squeezing our dates. The addition of the KCComicon to the city in August along with the annual anime and horror cons—not to mention the World SF Convention in 2016—have made for a crowded genre landscape.
When we learned just before SFAL4 that the organizer of the local Planet Comicon had decided on the sly to move his 2016 show dates from March and secured our traditional dates for the convention center in May, the decision was sort of made for us. Competing for essentially much of the same audience in the same narrow time frame doesn’t make any sense: moving to March in THEIR original spot wasn’t an option for us because of a lack of hotel rooms (the Big 12 Basketball Tournement happens at that time; it didn’t affect the comicon because they draw very few overnight attendees whereas SFAL accounts for over 1000 hotel room nights). Moving to Fall in KC would have brought higher rental prices for a theater and fewer date options (the convention center is a busy place). Because of Planet Comicon’s tactic, the negative financial impact on the city, downtown hotels, restaurants, and businesses will be significant, but…that’s the way things are.
In light of the challenges we faced while organizing the 2015 show, John Fleskes had been exploring the possibility of moving SFAL to California and partnering with the Academy of Art University. Possible dates were explored throughout the lengthy discussions and though we realize that the October slot will conflict with other conventions, big and small, we also ultimately realize that there are conflicts with something somewhere virtually every week of the year. Spring wasn’t an option and October was the only time that worked with the University’s extremely busy schedule—so October it is.
We want to express our deepest gratitude to our KC committee who selflessly pulled together to make the first four SFALs possible: Carl V. Anderson, Amanda Banion, Arlo Burnett, James Fallone, Bunny Muchmore, Lazarus Potter, Jeff Smith, and Shena Wolf are eight big reasons why SFAL was such a positive experience for so many. We’d also like to thank our friends at Liberty Exhibition Services, the staffs at the Midland, Folly, and Alamo Theaters, our liaisons at the Marriott and The Aladdin Holiday Inn Hotel, and particularly John English and his instructors for their tireless support of the show and the hours spent instructing and encouraging young artists during the event. And, of course, we’d like to thank each of you who either exhibited at or attended the Kansas City shows.
